Now I like one kind of beer. Not maple porter, not raspberry porter, not honey porter, not pumpkin porter. Just pure, unadulterated porter, preferably with a chocolate and/or coffee finish.

So imagine, in that narrowly defined palate, my delight in finding the most delicious, untainted-by-fruit London Porter by Paddock Wood Brewing Co., a discovery made on a trip back east. And imagine my even greater delight to discover London Porter is made locally there, in my home province of Saskatchewan.

Unfortunately my delight turned to utter devastation with the realization, upon my return home, that I couldn’t find London Porter here. And, due to antiquated prohibition laws, I can’t even have any shipped to me, because this would require transporting alcohol across provincial borders which is still (are you kidding me?!) illegal.

But alas, my spirits soared once again when a stranger noticed me unhappily perusing the local liquour store shelves and recommended trying a newly opened, independent shop, Legacy Liquour Store. I proceeded forthwith to said store and not only promptly fell upon a six pack of Paddock Wood’s London Porter, I also received a mini lesson on the history of porter from the very knowledgeable general manager. It stands to reason that when I did finally find a beer I liked, it is one that was historically available exclusively to the gentry, due to the labour-intense complexity of its manufacture. That sounds about right.

I still don’t drink a lot of beer, but I do enjoy savouring the occasional, civilized tipple. Sadly, I do not live in the vicinity of Legacy Liquour Store, so I shall have to continue my hunt for a supplier closer to where I live. In the meantime, it’s comforting to know I have a source to fall back on.

Then there are the benefits of adding organic to the mix, in which case you’re also choosing products that haven’t flushed chemicals into the soil and groundwater. Oh, and the health benefits of not ingesting chemical residue. All good.

Next, naturally, comes the dilemma over cleaning products. I mean, if you’re eating organic so you don’t flush or ingest chemicals, does it really make sense to be using harsh corrosives — and breathing in their vapours — when you clean the house? (Caution: If you keep up this line of thinking you may accidentally become a placard-carrying tree hugger.)

It’s Fun AND Good for the Environment

If you are frighteningly near the brink of becoming someone you never thought you’d be, just because you decided it might be fun to grow some veggies in the backyard and learn where your food actually comes from — for instance — I have good news for you. And that good news comes in the form of vodka.

Just when you thought you’d end up with no interesting vices at all, it has come to light that vodka makes a fabulous, multipurpose cleaning product! In addition to the benefits to the environment, just think how popular chores like laundry and cleaning the silver will become when you can take the occasional swig of your household cleaner between scrubbing. Just add tonic and a sliver of lime.

Unusual Uses for Vodka

“From cleaning jewelry to fighting stubborn stains, vodka has many handy uses — other than pepping up your Bloody Mary! We’ve rounded up some unusual ways to put your bottom-shelf vodka to good use all around your house.

Whether on the rocks, straight up or mixed in with your favorite cocktail, vodka has a reputation for being the life of the party. But make no mistake, this versatile spirit is more than just a one-trick pony. Thanks to its basic mixture of pure alcohol and water, vodka can be used as a strong household cleaner, pesticide and so much more. Bonus: it’s a non-toxic alternative to many traditional products and chemicals.”  Full article…

I’m not so sure your liver will agree 100% with the non-toxic claim, and it does give one pause to know vodka kills plants and bugs. However, it is worthwhile to note that after a few swigs, you won’t care!

My confession: I’ve resorted to buying pre-made, bottled sauces and some pre-packed dishes. This approach does require careful reading of the ingredients label to screen out unnecessary sugar, salt and chemicals, which significantly limits one’s options. Fortunately with pre-fab Indian the contents are most often real food, rather than chemical facsimiles thereof.

It’s definitely easy. Still, using bottled sauces can get pretty expensive. And I don’t have as much control as I’d like about the type and quality of cooking fat and other ingredients used, either.

Solution!

I was at the EAT! Fraser Valley show last weekend and came across the perfect answer to my quest for fast, easy, and healthy Indian food at home: Ace Curries To Go. Let me just say, the smell from the booth is what drew me in; the taste of chickpea curry (a.k.a. channa masala) is what sold me.

Based in North Vancouver, BC, Ace Curries to Go is making curry super easy for the gourmet-challenged among us, myself included. In fact, I suspect they may have made this product just for me:

• They work their magic with a variety of curry spice mixes including, prawn vindalo, chicken korma, and aloo ghobi (potato & cauliflower)
• Each bottle includes a shopping list of basics you’ll need to complete the meal. You can add/experiment as you like
• Ready to heat sauces in a bottle are also available if you’re in a rush, and
• If you truly don’t have time to shop or think, you can pick up a curry kit that includes everything you need

There is no MSG, salt or preservatives — just a whole lot of spices in just the right proportions.

I intend to take their advice tonight and “Be the chef that you can be! COOK WITHOUT FEAR MY FELLOW CURRY CONNOISSEURS!!” That and a bottle of spices are all the encouragement I need to get started.

I don’t like many trail mix blends on the market because they are often too sweet for my taste. Over the years I’ve gradually cut down on white sugar and processed foods — most of which contain sugar of one kind or another — and find that many non-dessert foods are simply too sweet for my taste. (A decadent dessert, on the other hand, can be as sweet as it likes. That is after all its raison d’etre.)

I grabbed the Skeet & Ike’s Organic Fruit and Nut Mix to leave in the car. I sometimes forget to eat and find myself suddenly ravenous and unable to concentrate from lack of food. I’ve been caught often enough with nothing remotely healthy available that I now keep a package of mixed nuts in the trunk for just such moments.

I had occasion to crack open the package the other day and must say I was very pleasantly surprised. Delighted even. Not only was it not overly sweet, it was a delicious sweet and savoury mix, something I’ve not experienced in a trail mix before. I love it!

It’s also guilt-free. The ingredients are all organic and sugar is listed only as a sub-ingredient (in the cranberries and crystallized ginger). The bonus: no filler peanuts in the blend. Plus, best of all, it’s locally made.

Garlic rust fungus, close up

In further pest and pestilence news from the community garden, my garlic has developed a nasty rust fungus problem.  And mine is by  no means the only affected plot, thanks to a miserably cold and wet April and May. And June.

Thank heavens for our garden Education Committee of One who knew what it was and tenaciously spent time researching how to deal with it.

Notes-to-self if you are encountering this issue:

• The fungus can spread to leeks and onions also, but not other types of plants
• Caused by excess rain and lack of light and/or soil inadequacies
• Possible solutions: Create sprays with either baking soda, milk, neem oil (huh?) or chamomile tea (see recipes below)
• Cut off the leaves then dispose of them (NOT in your compost bin, people!) to ensure the fungus does not spread. Word on the street is, the stalk continues to photosynthesis even if you remove the leaves
• Disinfect your clippers, etc. also to ensure the fungus does not spread from plant to plant (this is serious, folks!)
• The good news is garlic rust does not appear to affect the garlic bulb — I pulled one to test and it looks just fine

Infected garlic, sans leaves

Organic, Rust Fungus Spray Recipes

1. 1 gallon water, 1Tbsp baking soda, 2.5 Tbsp vegetable oil
2. 1Tbsp milk per gallon water
3. 1 tsp neem oil, 1Litre water or chamomile tea

These teas may be more preventative than cures; spray on infected leaves in morning for several days in a row (especially if rain is washing off leaves – the oil helps spray stick to leaf).

I have cut off all the leaves and am trying the baking soda recipe. I have no great hope of eradicating the rust, but I do hope to minimize any further infestation on both mine and my neighbours’ plants.

More on Garlic

If you want additional general info about garlic such as how and when to harvest and cure it, check out the Garlic Farm website, which I found in my garlic research travels.

They are located in British Columbia (middle of the province at the US border in a town appropriately named Midway), and sell organic garlic seed in Canada and the US. They start taking orders July 2nd on a first come, first serve basis for delivery in September. Get your order in now!

And I love that I always find interesting, local, and healthy food there. Most recently it was a cashew and date snack bar. That’s all it had in it. Nothing else. Especially no added sugar. Yum.

I love that I can buy lots of whole foods in bulk. One of the many fringe benefits of eating local is a focus on eating more healthfully. The bulk products may not all be local, but food that is unprocessed is a healthy option to have and that works for me.

Hemp Seed Hearts

And I found a new supplier of hemp hearts, Canada Hemp Foods, based in Gibsons, BC and sourced from Manitoba. As a Prairie girl at heart, I’m happy to be supporting my country’s farmers. Frankly, that’s damn cool.

In addition to Squirrelly, there are 8 other flavours. Hardy Hearty Harvest is my favourite…I think. It’s hard to choose.

A BC home grown success story, Silver Hills keeps ingredients simple and literally easy-to-read. Their sprouted grain innovation, which uses various grain sprouts in place of flour, gives gluten sensitive souls some it’s-hard-as-a-puck options. Wait, I think I hear dancing in the street.

I was very pleased to discover that with the new look their bags are now biodegradable. I have a little experiment going in my community garden compost pile, to see if I can prove it.

That’s ideal, but not always possible. For me that means I’m looking for reduced (or reduced-impact) packaging when no-packaging options aren’t an option. Confused?

Freden Fine Foods

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned having discovered that the meat I’d purchased to make my Liz’s World Famous Pizza came on a non-recyclable tray. (From the label I had surmised that the product would have a Canadian processing plant, and therefore be more locally produced than a product from the US — Johnsonville is a US company. Having looked at the website, I’m not so sure.)

Anyway, I asked Johnsonville about the non-recyclable trays they use, but never got a response. I’m not really surprised. So I did what I said I’d do and bought truly local, this time from Freden Fine Foods. Turns out Freden wholesales to my local grocery store and the store uses recyclable trays for their meat.

It’s not no packaging, but it is reduced-impact packaging. Sweet.

When I made it this past summer with my 17 year old niece, Falisha, she was skeptical, but after the fact she conceded that I had a point. (That’s as much credit as you’re going to get from a super cool teen on her way to graduating high school.) This despite that fact that she doesn’t like zucchini or sweet peppers. Kudos to her, she was “willing to try anything once” and ended up liking the veggies in their lightly cooked state. The fact that it was also actually healthy, slipped right by her.

My pizza is a favourite when I have guests coming for dinner. The whatever-I-have-in-the-fridge-and-garden recipe allows me to prep a variety of ingredients and let each guest make-your-own to suit individual tastes, including vegetarian.

Liz’s World Famous, No Guilt Pizza

So, here is my recipe for über delicious, world famous, healthy pizza. The beauty is, in summer even more of the ingredients can be local, straight from the garden:

• Lebanese flat bread — local producer Kandoo Bakery (looks like the restaurant gets rave reviews too)
• Pesto base — my favourite is Golda’s Cilantro Pesto but you can mix it up for variety
• Spicy Italian sausage, removed from casing, browned — local producer Freden Fine Foods, made fresh daily
• Zucchini, shredded, sliced, diced or however you like it
• Sweet peppers, any/every colour, diced small
• Tomatoes, cherry, grape or other — when I can get them fresh from the garden
• Fresh herbs — available from the balcony garden, I pick an assortment and mix/match
• Shredded Parmesan cheese, to taste — I don’t like a lot of dairy, but if I have it I want the good stuff
• Crumbled feta cheese, to taste — ditto above, a sprinkling is perfect to add a bit of zip

The instructions are pretty complicated, so pay attention here:

1. Cut a slab of flat bread
2. Slather on some base
3. Layer on an assortment of ingredients, to taste
4. Heat in the oven at 350 till the cheese melts, about 10-15 minutes

Here are some additional tips:

• All veggies can be optional; mix, match and add depending on what’s readily available. But just so you know, it won’t officially be Liz’s World Famous Pizza if you mess with the above.
• The flat bread comes in a big long flat and freezes extremely well. I cut it into sections before I freeze it, then pull out just what I need. It thaws lightening fast.
• Ground beef, chicken, or turkey work as well. Ditto the rule about messing with the recipe, noted above.
• I prefer pesto, but I guess a traditionalist could use tomato paste. Do I need to repeat the Messing with Recipe rule?

Mmmm, aren’t you hungry just thinking about it?! Oh, and if you don’t tell the kids it’s healthy they’ll love it.