farmers market fresh

I visited the Northey St Organic Market (a few weeks ago now) and came home with some goodies: chocolate mint, a fennel bulb, rhubarb, apples, beautiful bright zinnias (some raw milk and two big blocks of beeswax to make my own candles!). After a few days in water the mint had enough roots to plant out. I dried the rest to make some chocolate mint tea. Mmmm.

tea and treats

While Charles and Chris were visiting from Australia recently we enjoyed MANY cups of tea. These little sweet treats were a delighful accompaniment one evening made with local rhubarb, honey AND hazelnuts. Mmmm... they weren't too sweet like a lot of desserts are and the left overs made a perfect breakfast the next day for Joshua and I. Recipe from page 40 of the lovely (free) publication Edible magazine. So looking forward to greeting my beautiful mum and dad Jenny and Paul at the airport on Saturday morning. Many more cups of tea and games of cribbage ahead!

Forbidden fruit

One thing I miss about home is the citrus. We had an amazing lime tree in our back yard that seemed to produce enough limes for us to use them daily, year-round, in every way imaginiable, and still be giving them away each week as well. Here in Vancouver you can buy citrus of course, but it all comes up from California. A couple of things over the past year have taught me, and reinforced in me a passion for the importance of eating locally and seasonally and enjoying produce in it's time and place. That means no bananas, mango, pineapples, avocados or citrus for a time. But in return, I get to enjoy all of the beautiful local fruit and vegetables that wont grow in humid Brisbane - things like the summer berries galore. At the moment the winter market vegetables here mainly consist of beets and potatoes (and a few more things), but a few months of these staples is absolutely worth it for the excitement that spring and summer bring with their abundance.

Anyhow, this is all very important to me, but today I gave in. And bought these gorgeous looking things from California. A treat. A vitamin C boost for this grey day.

Harvest in the City

Thanksgiving weekend seemed the perfect time to share this harvest story. Back in April, as part of a Good Friday service we walked together around the local streets, stopping at various places to think and reflect on Jesus's journey to the cross and connections to suffering and hardship in our own neighbourhood. A part of this journey landed us in the community garden on the corner of a big intersection just across from our church (our new neighbourhood!). We were invited to throw wheat seeds into freshly ploughed soil. There is a lot of symbolism connected with seeds and the potential they hold, and faith. Seeds must be buried and lay still before they can bring new life... What a joy it was to walk past the garden recently (months later) and see the tall stalks of golden wheat. So when an invitation was put out to be a part of the harvest I was very keen to come along. Two of the photos show Ryan separating the wheat from the chaff as the grain heads are rubbed vigorously between palms and the chaff is blown away. The left behind grain makes a nice chewy gum - or can be ground into flour. Harvesting the wheat it was also necessary to try and separate weeds which had grown in among the wheat - including wild oats. So many lessons are best learnt through hands-on experience. This wheat is yet to be prepared into flour for use in communion bread throughout the year (what a beautiful concept!), but in the meantime the drying stalks hang in the windows of the church - a visible sign of resurrection.
Jesus replied, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds…” John 12: 23

It's strawberry season

Have not long ago arrived back from exploring the Rocky mountains with Lisa and Catherine so it's taking some time to trawl through the photos but do expect to see some very soon. In the meantime here are some strawberries I drew on our camping trip as we relaxed one afternoon in a little camp ground in Enderby not far outside Kelowna with a glass of crisp, local, pear cider to match. These are my first berries of the season, purchased from the Revelstoke farmers market on the way through. There have been berries in the shops for... well actually, non-stop since we arrived but they are all from South America and California. As this area is perfect for berry growing (IN THE PROPER SEASON) I have been trying to hold out. These strawberries were a true reward and I have been finding more in the shops ever since. Really looking forward to picking our very own blackberries which are growing down the side of the garage - we hear August is the month!

On the topic of eating locally I have found two books particularly useful. My darling mother gave me Animal, Vegetable, Miracle to read on the plane trip over here which was excellent and I have since read the 100 Mile Diet written by Vancouverites so particularly pertinent (though I must say not quite as thorough or enjoyable as the aforementioned in my humble opinion - it's all the rage here though).

Tomatoes

This is my kind of food:

from the farmers market

locally grown

free!

(and though I'm not certain, there is a good chance they are organic or at least as pesticide free as possible)

On Sat we helped our friends Soph and Ant out with their wood-fired pizza oven trailer at the Trout Lake Farmers Market. At the end of the day a guy came around on his bike pulling a trailer in which he was collecting compostable items - including a whole lot of perfectly good tomatoes and some apples which a vendor had donated. We got chatting and I couldn't help myself. He had tomatoes coming out his ears and wasn't interested in eating them but was happy for me to indulge my inner freegan*. Thankyou tomato farmer and compost man for this beautiful bounty. A few days on the windowsill and they will all be ripe and ready.

This has me excited about dumpster diving prospects again.

Some very good humour on the topic is this clip from Portlandia.

*Freeganism is an anti-consumerist lifestyle whereby people employ alternative living strategies based on limited participation in the conventional economy and minimal consumption of resources.

 Freegans "embrace community, generosity, social concern, freedom, cooperation, and sharing in opposition to a society based on materialism, moral apathy, competition, conformity, and greed." Freeganism involves choosing to salvage discarded, unspoiled food from supermarket dumpsters, known as 'dumpster diving'.

Thankyou Wikipedia for the above definitions.