Local Delicious

One of the biggest challenges to eating more locally is sourcing the food. I’m not a rabid locavore — I love a good latte and savour chocolate on a regular basis, and those habits are not likely to change anytime soon.

I do, however, want the option to eat food from sources closer than farther.

I want to be able to choose the nearer farmer, which might mean a neighbouring province over another continent, rather than limiting my food choices to a strictly limited radius. (Given the state of our food systems, a 100 mile diet a great goal to aim toward, but not attainable at the moment.)

I was very interested to learn of NOW BC from a fellow community gardener. NOW BC is an organic, member-owned food co-operative whose mission is “to build a sustainable local food system by connecting local farms and processors with consumers and building community around sustainable food choices.”

In search of other than the usual fruit and vegetables, browsing the NOW BC product catalogue I find unbleached flour from Chilliwack, lentils from Saskatchewan (and you thought they only produced wheat), hazelnuts from BC, and whole wheat macaroni from Alberta.

You can make a purchase without a membership, food is organic wherever possible, and your purchase is delivered to a depot in your neighbourhood for pick up, keeping costs more reasonable and sustainable. Think of it as an expanded farmers market — those SK lentils might not make it to the Kits Farmers Market on Sunday, but you’ll still be supporting farmers and strengthening our ability to trace where our food has come from.

Now wouldn’t it be even more cool if the bakery at the weekly market made their bread with flour from Chilliwack?

Have a couple of hours this Saturday and want to get down and dirty? How about volunteering to help maintain gardens for the Edible Garden Project.

The mission of the project is to create a network of communities where locally grown food is collected and distributed to organizations that provide food to low income families and individuals. The Edible Garden Project connects homeowners with gardens who want to donate a portion of their harvest, people who have under or unused garden space and would like to cultivate this land for growing food, and volunteers who want to contribute to the growing, sharing, and learning around locally produced food.

Saturday, June 27
10:00 am to Noon
North Shore (Vancouver, BC)
For location details, contact: coordinator@ediblegardenproject.com

Meet up with other gardeners, get great garden advice, and help the community.

Hmmm, sounds like a difficult challenge — eat delicious, fresh blueberries straight from a local farmer and benefit your favourite charity at the very same time.

Twin Berry Farms’ Goodberry Program donates up to $2.00 per 5 lb. flat purchased to Twin Berry’s charity of choice, Canuck Place Children’s Hospice, or your favourite charity.

Here’s how it works: you sign up your company, promote the Goodberry Program, interested parties place their order, and the blueberries are delivered straight to your office farm-direct. It takes out the middleman and the turnaround time meaning you support a local farmer and a charity, while getting fresh, fresh berries at their prime.

That sounds like a recipe for success to me.

I stumbled across Golda’s Fine Foods all natural Cilantro Pesto a few months ago at Famous Foods, an independently owned grocery store in Vancouver where I buy rice milk and a wide variety of other healthy, unique, and delicious groceries.

I’m a fiend for cilantro, but it’s one of those herbs that evokes a strong reaction from everyone — they either love it or hate it. Not sure what to expect, I took it home and used it as the base for one of my über delicious, healthy pizzas (Lebanese flat bread, paste/pesto, browned ground Italian sausage, shredded zucchini, diced sweet peppers, other finely chopped veggies, a dusting of parmesan, a dusting of feta, warmed in the oven till the cheese melts).

Delicious! Not only did I use it as the pizza base, I drizzled it all over the topping once the pizza came out of the oven. It is now a regular grocery list item and I simply cannot get enough!

Don’t kid yourself, this is not low fat, but it IS made from all natural ingredients and Golda’s is a local success story, based in Mill Bay, British Columbia. Find a store that carries it near you.

Oh, and if the ones you love hate cilantro, tell them it’s coriander pesto. You won’t be lying and they just might thank you.

Have you tried this product? Add your feedback, post a comment…

I guess if you’re in the business of shoveling cow poo all day, you develop a sense of humour. At least, that’s what I’ve gathered from the products available for purchase at local gardening shops.

The first one I came across in my travels is Moo Poo™. I spotted this bag on a shopping trip in search of inoculant for my peas and beans, and snapped a quick pic. I did some online research and the only HillView Moo Poo company I could find was out of the States. Does it seem weird to you that we’d ship cow poo over the border from Ohio when we have a dairy farms a-plenty in the Fraser Valley?

A quick search of the internet turned up another good one, Cow Wow by Miracle Moo. Their consumer-friendly site boasts a “Poo-lution meter” calculating the amount of manure eliminated from our environment. (Not sure what that means, but it sounds like a good thing!) Click on any of the menu buttons, for a laugh.

And last but not least, there’s a Surrey company, Way to Grow, selling sterilized steer manure. I’m not sure where the scantily clad dame in a nurse’s outfit comes in, or how it relates to selling manure. Truly, it has me puzzled. But it is eye-catching and memorable, which is more than can be said for a lot of products I encounter. Despite the very dated endorsement by none other than Bill VanderZalm, at least it’s local.

Interested in exploring local food producers at their own locations? Yes, but where to begin, you might be thinking.

Why not start with a Circle Farm Tour? What is that? A Circle Farm Tour is basically a road map that directs you to a variety of specialty farm-gate vendors, open air markets, charming eateries, heritage sites, fairs, and other special events. In the Greater Vancouver area, there’s a brochure and map for each participating community – six in total.

Simply go to the Circle Farm Tour website, download the tour, choose your destinations and go! Abbotsford, Agassiz-Harrison Mills, Chilliwack, Langley, Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows, Mission all participate and all offer unique destinations for every member of the family.

Abbotsford offers such destinations as:

• Birchwood Dairy offering gourmet ice cream, gelato, frozen yogurt, milk products & Feta cheese
• Fraser Valley Trout Hatchery offers self-guided and guided tours, educational programming, birthday parties, fishing instruction & summer camps
• Campbell’s Gold Honey Farm & Meadery offers a variety of flavoured & natural honeys, as well as beeswax candles, tasty honey comb, soothing ointments & salves, honey soaps, and hand creams

A little closer to Vancouver, Langley offers great locations such as:

• Vista D-Oro, a culinary agri-tourism operation featuring culinary herbs, heirloom tomatoes & orchard fruits grown on the farm, as well as fresh pastries, preserves, local cheeses, hard to source ingredients, kitchen tools & more
• The Fort Wine Co. offers an old fashioned saloon bar to sample a delicious selection of multi award-winning table & dessert fruit wines. Tours are also offered of the state-of-the-art winemaking facilities
• JD Farms features specialty turkeys that are certified free of antibiotics & animal by-products. Visit the farmgate store to sample fresh & smoked sausages & ready-to-eat meals or order a turkey for your next special event.

So, what are you waiting for? Download your adventure today, pack up friends or the family, and enjoy!