Local Delicious

Gardening season isn’t over! There’s still plenty you can plant now to ensure your garden produces year-round.

The Richmond Poverty Response Committee is offering information on how to extend the growing season (a.k.a. winter gardening). Learn how to select varieties of vegetables that will withstand the colder, wetter weather, and time their planting so they produce through the fall and winter.

Simple season extension techniques such as raised beds, row cover, cloches, and cold frames will be discussed and demonstrated. And, participants will go home with a few winter vegetable seedlings for their own gardens.

Saturday, July 25th
9am – 12 pm
Barn, Terra Nova Rural Park, 2631 Westminster Hwy
Cost: $30

For more information or to register for any of these classes, please contact Arzeena Hamir at foodsecurity@richmondprc.org or call (778) 297-2202

Are you planning to attend? Let us know how it goes — leave a comment…

The Richmond Food Security Society is offering gardeners a look into Beescaping, the sustainable art and science of integrating bees into the living landscape.

Bee conservation is widely recognized now as crucial to a sustainable future (hello, we need bees to pollinate!). This class is an introduction to beescaping, that looks at aspects of forage and nesting needed for both native bees and honeybees with an emphasis on bee health.

Creating a variety of nesting material for native bees, the basics of keeping honeybees in an urban setting, bee wrangling and other hands-on activities will be offered. This class is suitable for horticulturalists, landscape designers, farmers and home gardeners alike.

Saturday, July 18th
9am – 12 pm
Barn, Terra Nova Rural Park, 2631 Westminster Hwy
Cost: $30

For more information or to register for any of these classes, please contact Arzeena Hamir at foodsecurity@richmondprc.org or call (778) 297-2202

Are you planning to attend? Let us know how it goes — leave a comment…

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’m working my way through a package of New World Natural Foods organic, barley malt granola. It’s slow going.

I liked all of the things that the packaging had to say:

• Locally made here in BC
• Organic
• High fibre
• Low sodium
• No sugar added

What I can’t get past is the crunchy chew. I don’t mean the traditional crunchy granola texture that’s a result of a toasted, sugar coating. I mean a crunchy, the-oats-didn’t-quite-get-cooked-through texture. Like rice that’s taken off the stove too soon and is still crunchy inside.

Maybe that’s what they were going for, but I like even my healthy food not to wear out my jaw.

On the upside, New World is pretty conscientious about their product. They source locally as much as possible, pack in recyclable or biodegradable containers, add no processed sugar and very little salt.

And I recognize and can pronounce everything on the list of ingredients.

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

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!

I wrote last week about the Food Network Canada’s new series “The 100-Mile Challenge“, based on the local book and food blog “100-Mile Diet”. In a nutshell, participants from Mission, BC take on the sometimes overwhelming challenge of consuming only foods and beverages grown and produced within 100-miles.

In the first week, which takes a look at the lead up time and the first three days of the challenge, participants must go through their pantry and purge everything that does not meet the 100-mile requirement. How much do you think they had left in their fridges/pantries? Not much. One family had yogurt and another had only dairy and some honey. Things they thought would be a shoe-in, like cans of salmon, were more often than not produced in Toronto — far exceeding the 100-mile limit.

The show’s hosts, James MacKinnon and Alisa Smith, the authors of “The 100-Mile Diet”, later took the TV participants to a local farmers’ market to investigate what would and would not be acceptable during the challenge. Many of the participants could not identify some of the food — leeks were a mystery to some.

My biggest surprise while watching the first episode? How little the families prepared for their first day of the challenge. Many had not done any research into what they could eat. One family only ate yogurt and berries for breakfast when they were used to bacon and eggs. Let’s face it, bacon and eggs are local and they absolutely could have indulged had they thought ahead a little.

Missed the episode but want to catch up? Episode one is available for viewing on the web.

Are you interested in trying the 100-Mile Diet but could never give up olive oil (confession: my big two are olive oil and chocolate)? I came across this article in “edible Vancouver” a while back about a 10-mile diet: A 10-Mile Diet Becomes a 10-Mile Banquet. I thought it was a good approach to eating local food while still holding onto a very few “necessities”.

Did anyone else see the show this week? Thoughts?