Eating Niagara

The Spaghetti Incident Part II: Spaghetti squash pancakes

2012-01-28T15:51:00.000-05:00

Spaghetti squash pancake topped with sour cream (the goat version for me)
and Cabernet Franc ice syrup.

There's a reason it's called spaghetti squash.

The more time I spend with these oblong, yellow, pulpy beasts, the less convinced I am that their moniker came to be because of the stringy, spaghetti-like consistency of their innards. Nope, I'm convinced it's called spaghetti squash because really, it's not good for much else other than a pasta substitute.

Proof came this week when I tried another suggestion I received after tweeting for ideas of how to pare down the pile of local spaghetti squash that had grown in my garage.

First up was spaghetti squash ramen, a brilliant idea that resulted in a meal I will repeat.

The other was for spaghetti squash fritters or pancakes drizzled with ice syrup, compliments of the Niagara-on-the-Lake grape grower behind ice syrup, Steve Murdza. A savvy marketer, Murdza is constantly tweeting clever and eyebrow-raising ways to use his creation, which could give maple syrup a bit of a run for the title of ultimate Canadian elixir.

Ice syrup is made from frozen wine grapes, which, instead of being fermented and used for icewine, are bottled as a thicker, sweeter, non-alcoholic incarnation that, according to Murdza's tweets, can be used on anything, including breathing new life into a spaghetti squash. Ice syrup comes in two varieties, Vidal and Cabernet Franc, and he suggested I try the red Cab Franc version for my experiment.

So, for dinner one night this week, I set about steaming a large squash (do they come in any other size?).

Once that was done, I treated it like I would potatoes in the making of potato pancakes. I love potato pancakes. Sure, they're far from sexy but they're a comfort food for me and filling. Topped with apple sauce, I'm sold even more on the potato pancake's merits. But for this experiment, I went with sour cream and then topped that with the ice syrup.

To give my simple, super mild squash a bit more oomph, I added two flavours that make the perfect couple: apple and leek. Oh, and of course, salt and pepper.

I fried them up and dug in. And while it was a creative use of my squash, I wasn't as sold on this version as I was the ramen.

Spaghetti squash is brilliant at maintaining its firmness. It doesn't get mushy, which is why it's the perfect pasta replacement. It's always al dente.

But when I cut into my pancakes, that firmness required me to use a knife instead of a lone fork, which can easily hack into and pry apart a potato pancake. The knife was needed to cut through the long strings of squash that just wouldn't separate easily from the pancake to make the journey to my mouth.

Normally, I like my potato pancakes big. Maybe among potato pancake purists, this is wrong, but it's never been an issue for me. With spaghetti squash pancakes, the silver dollar size is essential. At that size, they came out crispy. No matter how long I kept the larger editions on the heat, they didn't crisp up. Not good in my world. (If only I had a cast iron pan or a deep fryer...)

Also, Murdza knows what he's talking about with his syrup suggestions. Never doubt when he tells you to try it with borscht or anything else unexpected because without the syrup, this recipe would fall flatter than, well, a pancake.

I tried my spaghetti squash pancakes with just the syrup and it tasted like a waste of perfectly good ice syrup. With just the sour cream alone, it was like going on a dinner date with someone who wouldn't talk about anything other than work. Boring.

But with the syrup and sour cream together, it was actually pretty decent, picking up the slack of the apple and leek, which were maybe too mild for even the meek spaghetti squash. This is definitely a recipe that calls for the same punchy garlic greens or green onions that have a special place reserved for them in my potato pancakes.

While the next spaghetti squash to cross my path will wind up as ramen, this wasn't a total write-off. It's definitely more of a side dish rather than a main and is a worthy change from the usual squash-as-pasta dish, if like me, you're swimming in spaghetti squash. Just don't forget the ice syrup and sour cream.

Spaghetti squash pancakes (serves 4)

1 large spaghetti squash
2 apples, shredded with skins on
2 medium leeks, chopped/a good bunch of garlic greens/6 green onions
1 egg
1 cup flour (I used Tom Neufeld's whole grain flour that he grinds at his Campden farm. It's wonderful and he sells it Saturdays at the St. Catharines Farmers Market)
salt and pepper to taste
A good glug of oil for frying (I used about 3 tbsp, divided between each batch)

Steam the spaghetti squash until tender and easily pierced with a fork. Let cool. Scoop out innards.

Shred apples in a food processor and chop leeks. Add egg, beaten, squash and flour. It's important that the squash has cooled so it doesn't cook the egg. Add salt and pepper and mix well.

Heat oil in frying pan. Use a cast iron one if you have it. Add a heaping tablespoonful of batter, flatten and fry until golden brown and crispy. Drain on a paper towel.

Serve topped with a dollop of sour cream and don't forget the drizzle of Cabernet Franc ice syrup.

Enjoy.

Mark your calendars, Seedy Saturday cometh

2012-01-22T14:42:00.000-05:00

Mary from the Cottage Gardener

By Linda Crago

It is that time again.

It's time to start considering what the garden "chez vous" will look like this glorious 2012. And of course we all know that the year to come will be the very best gardening year ever. All the vegetables and flowers we grow will look precisely like the ones in those glossy catalogues. Really!

Why not be optimistic? That's the beauty of gardening. It always could turn out that way! And if it doesn't, you still may have some vegetables to munch on and some stunning flowers to admire.

Seeds are a bit of a miracle. And if you like seeds and gardening and being with people who feel the same way, I hope you'll come out to Niagara Seedy Saturday on February 11, 10- 3 p.m. at Brock University, St Catharines. The event will be in the very beautiful Pond Inlet, which is within the Mackenzie Chown Complex.

There will be signs as you enter the university directing you to the event.

As it stands now, parking will cost $6, so pack your cars with family and friends, park off campus, take the transit or walk if you can. We are still working on reducing this amount and I'm hopeful we will.

There is, however, no admission fee. When you come in you will be given a pack of seeds, a warm welcome and an opportunity to browse, chat with some fine folks and listen to some very knowledgeable speakers. If you wish to leave a donation, it would be well received and will all be donated to Start Me Up Niagara to help them with their worthwhile efforts. Yes, 100 per cent.

We have many businesses and groups returning from previous years, but also some welcome new additions. Joining us this year are:

Steven Biggs Author "No Guff Gardening"
Acorus Restoration
The Cottage Gardener
Urban Harvest
Premier Horticulture (Myke Supplements)
Minor Brothers
Paul Federici (music!)
Ann Brown "The Plant Lady" (Sea Grass baskets)
Tree and Twig
Start Me Up Niagara (kids activity table)
Master Gardeners of Niagara
Seeds Of Diversity Canada
Sustain Ontario
The Garden of Eating — Niagara
Brock OPIRG

There are a few more businesses that I am waiting confirmation from as well, so we'll have a pretty full house.

I am delighted that Paul Federici will be providing entertainment between speakers and that "Fed Up" Brock will be dishing out a light vegan lunch and coffee free of charge. But please consider supporting them with a donation, which would be greatly appreciated.

If anybody is interested in doing a bit of baking, please let me know. We'll again have our goodie table so people can enjoy a sweet snack while wandering.

Seedy Saturday t-shirts.

Our speaker schedule is:

10:15 Welcome and introduction of Susan Venditti, exec director "Start Me Up Niagara"

11:00 Steven Biggs "Container Gardening"

12 noon Chef Mark Picone

1 pm Colette Murphy, Urban Harvest

2 pm TBA

Also this year we will have Niagara Seedy Saturday t-shirts for sale. All the profits from the sale of these shirts will go towards the establishment of community gardens at Brock through the OPIRG group which is assisting with the running of this event. A small but heartfelt thank you. Each shirt is $15 and I only have a limited number. If you would like to have me hold one for you, please let me know and which size you prefer...S, M or L (unisex sizing).

And most importantly, bring your seeds! The seed exchange is the heart of this event; it is about sharing open pollinated seeds. It doesn't matter if they are seeds you have saved yourself or extra seeds from some you have purchased. All are welcome!

If you feel you could lend a hand at the event, please get in touch. Sign up to help with next years event.

Very much looking forward to it and I hope to see you there!

Grovel, grovel

2012-01-21T12:51:00.002-05:00

I'm unconvinced about how much I like the colour yellow.

On a rain slicker, it's a beauty.

But as the colour of a button on this website with the word 'Donate' emblazoned on it, it makes me feel a little awkward. I hate asking for favours.

The donate button in the column on the right is because I am trying to raise money for The Garden of Eating — Niagara, the residential fruit picking program I started in 2009 to provide a source of fresh fruit to social organizations that would otherwise rarely see such donations. In that time and with the help of some kicking volunteers, we've diverted 3,600 pounds of tree fruit from compost bins, having that food go to people who can eat and enjoy it instead.

As the third full harvest season looms, I have some expenses coming my way as I work toward turning this from an after-work hobby to an organization with even greater impact. To do that, I need liability insurance and harvesting and canning supplies for my helpers, who have, for the most part, been supplying their own, generous bunch that they are. But mostly, my priority is getting that insurance for the coming year.

Until now, I have covered any expenses that have come up with my own funds but it's becoming increasingly difficult to do. That's why I've resorted to putting a donate button on this site and the GOEN's official website.

I'm in the process of incorporating the Garden of Eating — Niagara as a non-profit organization. That will make accessing grants easier, provided my applications get the stamp of approval. It should also enable the GOEN to apply for a group insurance rate, which would lessen costs.

There will be a board to oversee and help direct where the program goes. In time, applying for charitable status will be in the cards but for now, this is the most appropriate route to take.

That means that anyone who donates won't be able to get a tax receipt in return but you will have my gratitude and my word that anything donated will be used only for goods and services required to carry out this program. Two years ago, I raised $50 holding a raffle and only spent it this year on labels for pears that were jarred for Community Care of St. Catharines and Thorold. That wasn't because there were no other expenses for the program until now —I've purchased ladders and baskets in the meantime. I was just fiercely protective of how that money should be spent.

No one involved with the GOEN is or will be paid for their time. That is all volunteered so no money will be used as any kind of salary.

If you do decide to give, thank you so very much. If not, that's OK, too. This doesn't mean the program is in jeopardy. It just needs a little help.

A swapping affair

2012-01-16T19:29:00.001-05:00

At this time of year, I long for maple syrup season to begin.

It marks the first harvest of the year and, it seems, that not long after, fiddleheads, rhubarb and asparagus (aka spring) appear.

It means the end of winter food blahs, though I do alright in the cold season with local greens, squash, potatoes, garlic, carrots and beets. Still, there are only so many root vegetables a person can endure so thank goodness for the art of canning.

I don't do a ton of it, just enough to make the season without oodles of fresh, local produce just a little shorter. But it's also at about this time that I realize while I didn't make enough of one particular taste of seasons past, I made too much of another.

I've decided to something about that, though.

This past fall, while sitting in a food security meeting at work, I saw a logo for something called National Food Swap Day. It's on Feb. 24, 2012. It's happening in Australia where it's now summer and come February, they'll be swapping all the things I long for, such as fresh homegrown tomatoes, basil and chard.

Even though it's the dead of winter here, a food swap could still happen. Inspired by @wellpreserved, a couple that has held canning swaps in Toronto, I thought it would be fantastic to host one here in Niagara. So I am.

And I'm hopeful you'll be a part of it. Niagara in Jars is happening Sunday, Feb. 26 — a day I figured more people might have time to trade some home preserves than a Friday, which is the official food swap day. It's at Rise Above Bakery on St. Paul Street in St. Catharines, a fabulous space and an even better place to eat. The restaurant is closed on Sundays and owner Kyle Paton has agreed to let me host Niagara in Jars on his day off. He'll have a server present to offer up drinks and perhaps some of Rise Above's awesome vegan baked goods.

It's a great opportunity to meet with other home preservers, learn their tricks of the trade and swap that never ending supply of strawberry jam you're for something else. Like my green monster hot sauce that I feel like I'm swimming in.

Here's how it will work: participants will get a ticket for each item they bring to swap. That is currency to go shopping and pick up someone else's home creations. The items up for grabs don't have to come in a mason jar either. Maybe you dried some herbs for tea or a food rub. Perfectly tradable at Niagara in Jars. Dried fruit or veggies, homemade soap or candles, whatever — if you made or preserved it, I welcome it.

Just make sure it's labelled and any common allergens mentioned.

Don't have scores of stuff to swap? No worries. What few items you'd like to trade are more than enough. Don't have anything to swap at all? Come anyway and socialize or get inspired to get canning this year. There's also still time to make some last minute carrot marmalade.

Niagara in Jars is free and runs from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. I only have one favour to ask. If you plan to attend, please let me know here so I can have an idea of how many people to expect.

See you there!

The Spaghetti Incident: Spaghetti squash ramen

2012-01-10T20:51:00.001-05:00

Spaghetti squash ramen.

Spaghetti squash is the new zucchini.

I find myself in possession of a lot of it — mostly really big ones — and short on ideas of what to do with it.

Oh sure, I've read all the healthy spiels about how those among us wanting to reduce our carb intake and up our daily veggie count can use spaghetti squash instead of the usual durum wheat noodles when cooking up a meal of pasta.

Done it. It's alright. I'm usually hungry afterward and feeling a little unsatisfied. But healthy, to be sure.

Still, as my collection of these oblong, hefty yellow edibles grows thanks to a local farmer and my inability to say no, I haven't really been feeling the squash-as-pasta thing. And I've become increasingly convinced spaghetti squash is one-trick pony.

At the very least, it was the squash that drew the short straw, seemingly unable to do all that its cousins could, like make soup or be the basis for risotto, pancakes, muffins, breads or add some dimension to custard. Or just eat plain or stuffed.

Seriously, try googling spaghetti squash recipes and you get how-to's for what sounds eerily similar to plates of pasta.

It's all a variation on a theme and kind of uninspiring. So, I threw out the question to the Twitterverse: what do I do with these things other than make a sub-par version of spaghetti?

And tonight, inspired by the suggestion from chef and professor Deborah Reid (@dreid63), I found the answer: ramen.

I know. I"m still using my squash as a noodle substitute but it's nothing resembling marinara or aglio e olio and that makes me happy. Excited, even, to eat this stuff on what really should be a cold winter's night made for slurping soup but feels like March come early.

Reid's suggestion came with the caveat that she had never tried using spaghetti squash as ramen but I think she should. I think everyone should give it a whirl as a stand-in for those long, squiggly Asian noodles swimming in soy-infused broth.

It's delicious. The strands of squash reminded me of glass or kelp noodles. They were firm in texture, more crunchy than chewy, though I steamed the squash first before drenching it in broth.

With some shredded local cabbage and carrots, some sliced shiitake and green onion, you have the perfect anytime meal. It's also a super fast supper. Just find any ramen recipe on the web (I used this one as my inspiration, upping the soy and ginger content to taste then squeezing out some sriracha when serving it up) and you're set.

As for my feelings about spaghetti squash, that one-trick pony has ridden into the sunset. I realize now, it was a squash misunderstood.

It wasn't the simpleton. I was.

Red fife wheat pasta to the carb craving rescue

2012-01-08T21:17:00.003-05:00

Red fife wheat grain and pasta.

Carb cravings are a killer.

At this time of year, they're almost insatiable. Pasta, breads, a roti from the market chock full of potatoes and chickpeas.

I want them. I eat them. Then, depending on how much willpower I have in those moments of chowing down, I wind up in what feels like a carb-induced coma. Blissful. Sleepy. And maybe a little bloated.

When it comes to using pasta to satisfy my need for carbs, I buy it in the supermarket or a local Italian grocery where it's made fresh. I've never tried my hand at making pasta. Instead, it's on my list of things to do before I die. In my world, making pasta is daunting enough for me and my all-thumbs ways to have it join making a quilt and knitting a scarf on my bucket list check-off.

Problem is, finding local pasta is like searching for that proverbial needle in the haystack (albeit a locally grown, non-GMO one, I'm sure). It's out there but strangely enough, if you want it, you have to travel to markets in Toronto to find it. There, at the St. Lawrence Market and Wychwood Barns, you can buy plastic containers packed with red fife wheat noodles bearing the bright green Moyer Rowe Family Farms label.

Some of that red fife wheat, a heritage variety of grain born and bred by Peterborough farmer David Fife in 1842 and once on the brink of extinction, is grown right here in Niagara by Vineland farmer Paul Moyer and pasta business partner John Rowe. The duo also harvest some of the grain in Guelph.

Red fife wheat grains.

Red fife wheat is Canada's oldest wheat and it's currently enjoying a renaissance, thanks to an interpreter at a historic grist mill in BC, who wanted it to enjoy commercial success again. More than 100 years after it fell from favour for newer, pest resistant varieties, red fife is being recognized once more as the miller's and baker's dream it is.

Moyer is the ultimate entrepreneur and inventor, the wheels always turning to improve upon what he's already doing or dream up his next food product. I first met him about three years ago when I interviewed him about his spot on the CBC's Dragon's Den where he was one of the lucky few to get the support — and financial backing — of some of Canada's most successful and entertaining business minds for his candy apple business.

Ever since Moyer got into the pasta business two years ago with just three acres of wheat and a pasta machine in his garage, I've been curious to try his latest creation but hard-pressed to find it anywhere. Given the limited number of places it's available, I know why (and keep my fingers crossed I'll see this Niagara pasta here in Niagara).

Still, I finally got to try to some this week, satisfying a calling for carbs and a long-standing desire to fuel up on these ones in particular.

Did I mention I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I'll be able to one day find this pasta here? Local connection aside, it kicks butt.

Brown in colour — a deeper shade than the tawny whole wheat noodles churned out by the behemoth labels that line store shelves — it has a stronger flavour than regular white pasta. It doesn't taste much different than the store bought whole wheat varieties but it's more substantial. It has heft and body.

It's chewy with the flecks of wheat felt and tasted in every bite, but not unbearably gritty.

And unlike regular pasta, it doesn't get mushy. I cooked it al dente — though I think you'd have to cook it a really long time to get anything but — and topped it with Marinelli's arrabiatta sauce (made in Niagara Falls), thinking a sauce with bite would hold its own on pasta with a bit of bite, too. But the real test of my rigatoni's worthiness came the next day when I ate the leftovers for lunch.

Usually, my day-old pasta is soft, virtually disintegrating with every bite but my red fife wheat pasta tasted even better than it did fresh out of its boiling water bath. Perfect texture. Chewy but less gritty.

And most importantly, really tasty.

Carb craving curbed.

A (non) resolution made in the kitchen

2012-01-02T22:29:00.002-05:00

I see more of this in my future: home-cooking.

They're the domain of failure, a bastion of letdowns.

If 'Resolution' was a spot on the map, I'm convinced it would be the place self-esteem forgot.

Hey, I've fallen for what the changing of the calendar can make a person think they can do. I've set many a resolution and while I congratulate those with the discipline to turn those life goals into life habits successfully, I am not one of them.

Take the year I vowed to get to work on time. Did I mention that I might have been one of the reporters in my newsroom who inspired a mass email warning us that if we weren't at our desks by 9 a.m. every day, we may just get a letter in our file? The resolution to shave 15 minutes off my arrival time didn't work but the fear of a grumpy city editor sure did.

Punctuality is not in my genes. But then neither is the stick-to-it-iveness that new year's resolutions require. I'll admit, I can be flaky.

Last year's resolution to cook twice a month from a particular cookbook in my collection so that it wouldn't be a how-to unfulfilled started off well. But after five tries, the wheels fell off that, too. Tuesdays were to be the day devoted to such a task but then suddenly Tuesdays become the busiest night of my week to do anything but stick to my resolution. So did Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays for that matter. And weekends? Those days dedicated to sleeping in and roaming the countryside or lounging with my cats? Forget about it.

Plans change and over the holidays, I was reminded of that rather harshly with the caveat that there's very little — if anything at all — I can do to stop it.

So this year, I've decided 'Down with resolutions.' I'm all about setting goals that I will ease myself into rather than start and stop cold free-range, organic turkey. None of this going to the gym on New Year's Day only to have my membership collecting dust by week's end.

No, I know what I want to accomplish this year — I'm hopeful it'll be sooner rather than later — and so I'll set about to doing what I can when I can to achieve it.

My goals for 2012 are mostly financial — I've said I'm going to eliminate my credit card bills once and for all — but food will figure in my plans to achieve that.

I will be cooking at home more often.

That means fewer lunches from market vendors or my favourite falafel stop downtown. A larger number of summer weekend outings capped off by a meal in my backyard rather than on a restaurant patio. Bucking up and just finding something to eat at home no matter how much easier it would be to get take out. Not caving to the temptation of prix fixe menus that pop up at all those fantastic food establishments that I love to patronize.

It's not that I don't enjoy cooking and that's why I don't do it daily. Most days after work, I find it therapeutic to get lost in the smells, sounds and stirring of a pot in my kitchen as I make something that nourishes both my body and spirit. It's pure bliss for me to flip through the pages of a cookbook or find a new recipe online and think about what could be.

The sense of accomplishment when trying something new in the kitchen and hitting it out of the park, an achievement affirmed by the zealous gobbling of food by my husband, is first-rate.

I love to cook but I just need to do it more often and in larger amounts. That way, I'll have enough leftovers for both me and my husband to have for lunch the next day. Or the day after that. Or to eat when I get home from work and don't feel like cooking. Sorry market vendors and takeout peddlers.

I see in my future more Sundays in the kitchen preparing meals for the days ahead so that I can hit reheat on the microwave when I walk through the door after work on Monday instead of starting from scratch. I was so good at it in university — in university, for goodness' sake, when I had a more pressing social life or the demands of academic deadlines that were way scarier than anything I've encountered in my career filled with do-or-die timeliness.

If I was that organized and gung-ho once, I know I can be again.

That way, my goals — not resolutions — to eliminate debt and pad the savings account — will be within reach. Totally doable.

So here's to more home-cooked meals in 2012, salve for the soul and the wallet, because I'd rather eat them than my words.

Enjoying Niagara's Finest -- A Peachy Tale

2012-01-02T19:56:00.000-05:00

By Heather Rosen

I’m just wild about Niagara fruit; I even count bouncing cherries in my sleep instead of sheep. I spend weeks preparing myself for my annual trek to Niagara-on-the-Lake’s storied Peach Festival in August. I like to arrive around 9:30 in the morning, just as they’re setting up for the day’s festivities (and just in time to find free parking for the entire day!).

The tables that line Queen Street groan under the weight of peach preserves and other seasonal delicacies. I can almost hear my mother’s voice telling me not to eat so many sweets before lunch (and in my head I respond, telling her these treats ARE my lunch).

Well before noon, I somehow manage to tuck into peach muffins, peach ice cream, peach blossoms (pastries), cold peach soup, peach pie and, of course, at least one fresh peach. This means I usually have to adjust the position of the steering wheel in my car before I hit the QEW; no way am I going to be able to slide easily into the driver’s seat.

Another favourite stop is the Greaves Jam store; my favourite purchase is a few jars of the hard-to-come-by boysenberry jam. They simply don’t carry it in many places in Toronto. (I know of one in particular, but will not reveal it unless I’m being held at knifepoint.)

On the way back, I usually stop in at Inniskillin Winery to admire the lush vineyards and wander through the wine store, perhaps picking up some ice wine truffles to take home with me. I visit Kurtz Orchards (on Queen in Niagara-on-the-Lake and the Country Market on the way out of town), Van de Laar fruit stand for the freshest fruits, and Walker’s Country Market, all along the Niagara Parkway as I head back to Toronto.

There’s something about the Niagara terroir and fields and orchards that sets my pulse racing. The beauty of the land; the unique microclimate that is perfect for creating magnificent wines and luscious fruit; the fabulous view of the Niagara River from the Escarpment; the care that local food growers, vintners, bakers and other artisanal food producers/manufacturers take to make delicious products, so finely crafted, with a view to the old ways of doing things. Many of these individuals will take the time to talk to you about what they do. I feel, and have always felt, that the locavore and slow food movements are so important to our local economy – and our collective health.

I’m proud to support the farmers, growers, vintners, bakers, jam-makers and others in southern Ontario and Niagara. I believe it brings us closer to the land and its bounty, and to a better future for us all. (And it all tastes great, too!)

**I'm looking forward to returning to the Peach Festival in 2012... and will perhaps take in some of the exciting War of 1812/Bicentennial events.

Click here to learn more about Tis the Season to Share — Again

The final five: my favourite food moments of 2011

2011-12-30T21:06:00.000-05:00

And then there were five moments left to count down in my top 10 list of favourite food moments of 2011.

Here are the rest of the highlights from the year that was at the table, in the kitchen and in the garden.

The Kickstand Supper Club meets and eats in a lighting warehouse
in June.

5. My first supper club outing. It was finally in the cards for me to attend a Kickstand Supper Club dinner on the down-lo in June and I can't wait to do it again.

Not only did I eat a meal in an unexpected place — who knew a lighting warehouse could make a good dining room? — I had a fantastic time feasting on exceptional Asian fare with about 30 strangers who turned out to be fabulous dinner companions.

I'd never been part of a supper club before. In this case, I was summoned to the lighting warehouse behind the boxing club in St. Catharines by a cryptic email. I didn't know what I was going to eat or who was going to prepare the fare. I didn't even know who would be there to enjoy it with me.

After taking our assigned spots around a long rectangular table and next to people we didn't come with (no matter for me since I was alone), we dined at a leisurely pace, discussed food, wine, books, our hometowns, music, running marathons and everything else.

We became friends.

People connected over food and drink. Dinner was a social event rather than a perfunctory act.

Eating out was exciting again.

4. Creating Chive Walk with a crew of guerrilla gardeners. Half a dozen green thumbs gathered along the newly poured walkway to the Niagara-on-the-Lake Community Centre with garden gloves and spades in hand.

We set to work, inspired by one woman who wanted her town to be more like an English city that reinvented itself by turning playgrounds and cemeteries into farms, the train station into an herb depot, and became incredible and edible thanks to the creativity of its residents.

Guerrilla gardeners create Chive Walk in Niagara-on-the-Lake.

And in strips of dirt alongside the concrete stretch, we planted chives for our very own Chive Walk, a place where residents could snip the garlicky herbs or admire something quirky and beautiful instead of enduring the mundanity of more grass. It was one part beautification exercise and another part food security measure.

It was quite the sight when it was done but alas, chive walk succumbed to the whipper snipper of a summer student employed by the town. Although the spiky sprigs came back, they were soon shorn again before anyone could enjoy them.

No matter. I sense more guerrilla gardening in the future and greater success, too.

3. Gorging on white asparagus in Germany. My visits to Germany to see my relatives are always packed with loads of food memories. Good eating abounds in Deutschland but this past spring, I ate something that had never graced my fork before.

My aunt Sigrun's white asparagus with Hollandaise sauce.

White asparagus. Spears deprived of light. Albino asparagus deficient in chlorophyll. But they weren't lacking in sweet, mild flavour made even more perfect by my aunt's homemade Hollandaise.

White asparagus are hugely popular in Germany. There are even festivals devoted to this vegetable that trumpets the turning of spring into summer. My folks used to go ape when they'd see jars of them in the store here, much to my disgust (hey, I was a child and few veggies didn't gross me out). And now I understand why crowds gather in city centres and at dinner tables to celebrate "Spargel."

I can easily say that a simple supper of spears and sauce was one of the best meals I ate all year.

2. A pear-fectly good use for the unsung hero of fruit. I always feel a sense of satisfaction whenever I scale a ladder and scour fruit tree branches in search of ripe pickings for The Garden of Eating — Niagara. The program delivers the harvests to social organizations that don't see much in the way of fresh food donations through the year.

But this year marked a major coup for GOEN. Pears that would have otherwise gone to waste weren't just spared a trip to the compost heap. They were canned by hospitality students from the Niagara Catholic District School Board, thanks to teacher Mike Gretzinger offering their help.

That means fruit for those in need long after the leaves have fallen and pear season is but a distant memory. I am so grateful for their hard work and touched by their help, which ensures food donations during a time when the shelves are close to bare.

About 800 lbs of the bell-shaped fruit was preserved. That's more than 160 two-litre jars. Philanthropy is in the can.

Some of the jars of pears picked by The Garden of Eating — Niagara
and packed by Mike Gretzinger's students.

1. Christmas dinner. A do-over of Christmas would be great. A medical issue kept me housebound and meant the family Christmas in Waterloo wasn't going to include me or my husband Steve.

Despite how we were both feeling, a Tofurkey dinner with local baked grated beets, local mashed potatoes and local greens was served. But because I was far from on top of my game, the beets were overcooked and dry, the mashed potatoes were gummy and I got carried away with homemade horseradish I added. The mushroom gravy congealed and, well, it was far from a stellar dinner.

The food may just qualify as downright awful, in fact. But as the two of us sat down to eat, my sweet, obliging husband politely praising my efforts, all done in my housecoat and in pain, it turned out to be a pretty great meal after all.

Sure, food is the focal point at the table, especially during a festive fete. But a great meal is made by more than just the sum of its ingredients. It's as much, if not more, about the intent and the company as it is the actual fixings.

Happy eating in 2012.

The year that was (in food) so far

2011-12-29T22:40:00.001-05:00

Shutterstock image.

They're ubiquitous at this time of year. A guaranteed space filler at a time when the news cycle moves like sludge through a drainpipe.

Still, Top 10 lists, in all their clichéd glory, are kind of fun.

The more I read, the more I wax reflective on the 12 months that have been and the 365 days ahead. But this year, because of a recent event in my life, I'm even more pensive about what was and what will be.

As others sum up 2011 in a list of highlights (or low points), I've found it a welcome distraction to do the same, particularly when it comes to the year that was in food. So here comes Part One with the next instalment to follow soon. I share these with the hope that perhaps you've experienced — and enjoyed — similar moments or that in 2012, these will become fodder for you to try and recall as fondly as I do.

10. Hearing Joel Salatin speak. He's America's most famous farmer, catapulted to more than a cult following by penning his words of wisdom about farming in harmony with nature. Having journalist Michael Pollan also jot down a few salient Joel Salatin points in his diet-changing tome, The Omnivore's Dilemma, doesn't hurt either.

And in February, I got to hear the king of poignant farming soundbites proselytize — and preach to the converted — in Buffalo about the type of farming he does and the type of farming we as consumers should expect and demand be done.

Salatin unapologetically called the USDA the USDuh and made clever quips like "We treat our manure like waste and our soil like dirt."

But he also filled me with hope about just how good food and farming can be for us and the planet while serving up a side of reality about all that needs to change in our beleaguered industrial food system. If you get the chance to hear this man speak, you'll find yourself inspired to take part in a great food fight.

9. Eating on the wild side of Niagara. I do it every year, every time the grass green sprigs of wild carrot catch my eye or my yard fills up with mallow. For me, foraging is always a thrill.

There is so much wild food beneath our feet, written off as pesky weeds but packed with flavour and nutritional or medicinal benefits galore.

Rose hips found in the wilds of St. Catharines.

From the arduous task of drying rose hips for tea, hitting the pay dirt of goldenrod (hard not to considering it's everywhere) or finding my first ramp, for me, finding food in the wilds of Niagara is like winning the lottery.

If you've never done it, it's easy to get started. Just pluck those earliest of dandelions from your lawn and throw them in a salad. Just make sure nothing has been sprayed or dumped on the land first.

8. Demystifying Toronto's Chinatown with Shirley Lum. It was a grey November Sunday as my husband Steve and I stood beneath a colourful moose at the aptly named Lucky Moose Market in Chinatown, waiting for a walking tour of this storied neighbourhood to begin.

Shirley Lum is a food historian who I first encountered on CBC Radio talking about food traditions in the big city. Ever since learning about her foodie walking tours in the spring, I have tried to get to TO and into one of the many corners of the city through which she traipses with the curious in tow.

The Chinatown tour was a fascinating one, including lunch at Rol Sun, a popular dim sum spot on Spadina. We got there around 11:30 a.m., the place nearly empty. But within half an hour, our seats were coveted real estate as a line up started snaking its way through the door, the crowds already anxiously filling out their order sheets to expedite the eating when a vacancy at a table finally opened.

As I savoured pinched pockets packed with tofu and cloudear mushrooms, I watched as Steve gnawed his way through chicken feet, politely nodding in agreement with Lum that they really weren't all that bad.

Seeing photos of the Chinatown of old, once located in what is now the financial district before the community was forced to move north and west to make way for development, learning about family clubs, taking a tour of a grocery store and apothecary before sitting down to Hong Kong tea — think the strongest black tea you've ever had with condensed milk — rounded out a fabulous and tasty day.

If you want to see Toronto from a different perspective, take one of Lum's tours. You'll leave full of good food and knowledge.

7. Thursdays at the St. Catharines Farmers Market. They haven't been the same since but nearly every Thursday this past summer, I found myself standing at the window of a refurbished Purolator truck ordering my lunch.

Be it the green papaya salad, an heirloom tomato salad, vegetable curry or tom yum soup, a midday meal from El Gastronomo Vagabundo made my week meal-wise.

Chef Adam Hynam-Smith and his partner Tamara Jensen are nothing short of creative and exceptionally talented folk who always left me craving more. Unfortunately, rules being what they are in the city when it comes to food trucks, it's hard for this couple to pull up just anywhere to serve their fresh, globally inspired food that's garnering national and international press coverage.

Tamara Jensen and Adam Hynam-Smith of El Gastronomo Vagabundo.

Perhaps all isn't lost. We can let our councillors know that we value their entrepreneurial spirit and the choice of fresh meals on wheels instead of just hot dogs. Maybe then prohibitive food truck rules can change. But for now, if we want our El Gastro fix, we'll have to head to Hamilton, Toronto, Flat Rock Cellars in Jordan come summer or another private event they've been hired to feed.

6. Getting my hands on a jar of Bill Lenko's apricot jam. He was one of the first farmers in Niagara to take a chance on wine grapes and he became a legend for changing the face of agriculture here.

But Bill Lenko was more than just a pioneering grape grower. He was a true renaissance man who believed in treading lightly on the Beamsville farmland that sustained him. Lenko wasn't a fan of chemical intervention and he produced everything from meat and dairy to fruit and honey during his farming career. Anyone who visited the family farm, also known as Daniel Lenko Estate Winery, probably knew him as the guy trying to pawn off spoonfuls of his swoon-worthy apricot jam in between sips of his son Daniel's Viognier.

Bill was also a guy who was part of a generation that lived simply, made everything from scratch — his perogies made comfort food an art form — and made me feel awe at a rather remarkable human being who seemed unstoppable in his old age. Sadly, this good soul died in the summer but I feel grateful that I was able to sit down with him for a few hours and write about his life this past spring.

I'll post the rest of my list soon. In the meantime, what have been some of your favourite food moments of 2011?

A last minute gift list for anyone who eats

2011-12-20T21:24:00.000-05:00

T minus four days and I'm nowhere near done my Christmas shopping.

Maybe it's the lack of snow or the new format of my boss's radio station that now plays more Burton Cummings than Bing Crosby, but it's been tough getting motivated to hit the stores. The fact that this year I am stumped more than any other to come up with thoughtful, meaningful gifts for my family members isn't helping my cause.

It's only leading to aimless wandering, which is only leading me in the direction of frustration.

That has me thinking of last-minute gift ideas (food-related, of course) that, for me, would be more heartfelt than another button-down or shiny gadget.

For the procrastinators out there, this is for you as much as it's for me. Here are my gift ideas for the foodie (or any eater, really) in your life and it's easy to pack lots of Niagara into every package.

A gift basket of home preserves

If only I thought of this last year. I could have made stocking stuffers out of the dozen jars of strawberry jam I still had kicking around. But if you went on a preserving tangent this summer and have lots of local goodness to spare, throw it in a basket, wrap it in cello and put a bow on it.

Growing up, I didn't really appreciate homemade gifts. I wasn't sure if the giver was cheaping out or just didn't get my wish list filled with requests for the latest Wham tape or an ALF doll. These days, though, I appreciate the time and effort that goes into the DIY gift.

Going shopping in your own pantry now may save you a few bucks at this most expensive time of year but the value of such gifts is actually immeasurable. Good, homemade preserves. A far cry from the ill-fitting sweater that was made in China.

A gift certificate to dinner — at your place

Everyone loves a night out but if you think about it, inviting people over to a home-cooked meal is way better than a pass to even the finest restaurant.

My mom always laments the dinner invitations she doles out. 'Next time, we're going out," she'll say. But that's because of what she puts in to every meal. It's fine dining in a relaxing setting.

The time and effort that the giver has to put into every plate — not to mention the cost of ingredients — is nothing to scoff at. Make it meal made of mostly Niagara foods and wash it down with a bottle of local vino and who wouldn't feel grateful for such a gift?

A share in a CSA

A basket of greens from Tree and Twig Heirloom
Vegetable Farm.

This is the ultimate local food gift. But it's so much more than that. It's an investment in a local farmer and your health. A basket of fresh veggies sounds just as good for you as a membership to the local sweatbox, er, gym. And it's probably more appealing, too.

CSA or community supported agriculture means weekly baskets of produce for a certain period of time during the growing season. It's like a share in your local farm. You pay upfront and your investment is paid back in dividends of radishes, greens and root veggies.

There are several CSAs in Niagara and they start at about $320 for 16 weeks depending on the size of basket. Some run longer and offer different sizes of weekly offerings. Some farmers will let you pay in instalments, too, which may make this a more feasible option.

Farmers may not be signing up new members just yet, but drop them a line to let them know you want to be a part of it — or at least pay for someone else to join. It's the gift that will keep on giving long after Christmas is but a distant memory.

Here are a few places to start your search:
Tree and Twig Heirloom Vegetable Farm in Wellandport
Bartel Organics in Niagara-on-the-Lake
Creek Shore Farms in Jordan
Thiessen Farms in Jordan
Ridge Meadow Farm in Beamsville
Sexsmith Farm in Ridgeway

A wine club membership

Picking out the perfect bottle of wine for your favourite oenophile can be an exercise in stress (and possibly disappointment) so let someone else do it for you.

Most of the wineries in Niagara have wine clubs that offer bottles monthly or cases quarterly.

Some of the monthly clubs, which usually include shipments of two bottles at a time, can run about $50 for each instalment. That's about $600 annually. If you live with said oenophile, it's a good deal for you because there's a good chance he or she will share (or, at least, they should).

The packages often include a recipe or wines that may not be available to the public. If you're not sure what winery to choose, Vineland Estates has a great deal that includes partnerships with other Twenty Valley wineries so each shipment has a bottle from Vineland and a vintage from elsewhere. Wine club members also get a free flute of bubbly when dining at the winery restaurant among many other benefits.

Most wine clubs offer plenty of perks in addition to the tipple for members. With so many fantastic wineries out there, you shouldn't have any trouble finding this gift easily.

A cooking lesson

Figuring out how much butter to use during a cooking
class with Adam Hynam-Smith of Peapod Cuisine.

So maybe your loved one isn't quite the culinary wizard you'd like them to be. Or maybe the foodie in your family wants to sharpen his or her kitchen skills. A cooking class is a fun outing and usually involves eating the lesson afterward. Plus, it's a gift that lasts with all the new know-how to be learned.

Niagara College offers several themed classes on weekends or evenings. Check the course catalogue to see all that's on offer.

If you love Thai food and an Australian accent, Peapod Cuisine (the folks behind the El Gastronomo Vagabundo food truck) offers fun, educational and exceptionally tasty teaching moments.

The Good Earth is a most beautiful spot with no pretense. This winery and restaurant started as a cooking school and classes are still on offer by well-known local chefs and those from beyond Niagara's borders.

Always wanted to learn how to make a top-notch tamale? Eh Jose, that most gregarious of St. Catharines farmers market vendors, who serves up guacamole and quesadillas like it's nobody's business, will come to your home, show you the ropes and then let you devour them.

Happy last-minute shopping (and eating).

Getting saucy in Niagara

2011-12-18T18:00:00.001-05:00

Made in Niagara Falls, Marinelli's True Italian Pasta Sauce is lip-smacking good.

I have sauce envy.

Really, it's kind of irrational, considering what I'm jealous of is tomato sauce made by a pro who toils away at his creation in a small warehouse turned sauce-making centre in Niagara Falls.

Still, I turned green with envy when I tucked into a jar of Marinelli's red sauce this week because it tasted just the way I had always dreamed my own homemade tomato sauce would taste.

Fresh, sweet and packed with basil. Perfection, really, with simple ingredients speaking for themselves.

How did he do that? Adriano Marinelli is a tomato sauce genius, the lucky duck.

But it's also because he searched far and wide for consistently good ingredients, including an olive oil source in California.

Every summer, I attempt to outdo myself as I stir my pot of tomatoes turning to sauce but alas, I am more of a silly goose by the time the last glorious pop of my sealing Bernardin lids is heard. I use few ingredients. Fresh, too. Even local. But it's nothing to brag about. Or serve to people other than my husband, who, bless his heart, eats whatever I put in front of him, except tempeh.

I could chalk it up to my German background. Marinelli, an effusive entrepreneur who has been striving for the perfect premium sauce to be big brother to his mid-range line of sauces I find sporadically at Harvest Barn, is Italian. Sure, I might eke past him in a schnitzel showdown but in a pasta sauce smackdown, he'd rule.

Fettuccine dressed in Marinelli's vine tomato and fresh basil sauce.

My consolation, though, is that I have finally found a jarred tomato sauce that I love eating. Hands down, Marinelli's vine tomato and fresh basil creation is the best pasta topper I've ever had, doing justice to noodles everywhere. Better still, there are eight other flavours to try.

I've been wanting to taste this sauce for months, ever since Marinelli started hinting about its existence on Twitter earlier this year (amongst many poignant posts) and sending me links to snazzy promos that piqued my curiosity more.

The story is, Marinelli, who I interviewed recently for a freelance assignment, has been working for years on a high-end sauce that could get him supermarket space in the U.S. and finally be the saucy brass ring he and his wife Lisa have been reaching for since they turned their tomato pulverizing hobby into a bona fide business about 10 years ago.

No corners were cut in this creation from the Sustainable Forestry Initiative certified box adorned with an embossed Picasso-esque, saucy lipped face giving you the come hither to just about every certification you can imagine. It's vegan, kosher, gluten-free, non-GMO verified and contains extra virgin olive oil certified by the California Olive Oil Council — a world first for pasta sauce.

He tried for organic tomatoes but just couldn't find a consistent supply of the red orbs.

Better yet, the ingredient list reads the same as anyone's homemade version might. There are no unpronounceables, no sugar, even. Just good stuff in a jar protected from light damage by its paperboard wrapper.

When it hits store shelves in the coming weeks, it'll sell for about $9.99. For pasta sauce, that's nearing steep. But it's worth it. Your tortellini and taste buds will thank you if your own saucing endeavours leave something to be desired.

Best part of all is that every jar is fodder for another Niagara food success story.

'Tis the season to share — again

2011-12-13T20:28:00.002-05:00

It's time to get contest crazy. Share and make this plate runneth over with your food stories.

Yes, it's that time of year when I pull out the most clichéd of headlines/blog post titles and entice you to enter my year-end contest.

I did this last year, asking people to share their fondest food memory of 2010. The entries were posted and the winners were awarded a local food prize pack tailored to their likes.

I'm changing things up this year. Since the prizes come out of my pocket (read: there's no sponsorship here), this year, I will be giving away three $25 gift certificates based on the content in the submissions. They will be for places here in Niagara, though, and as such, this year's sharing festivities are decidedly more Niagaran in theme than last.

I've been writing on this blog for the past three years, sharing my local food discoveries, introducing you to some of the fabulous folk growing food and making it more accessible in this fine region, and opining about important food and farming issues (well, at least to me their important).

In short, I've been telling you about how I — and, in turn, how you — can eat Niagara's bounty.

So this year, I want to hear how you've eaten Niagara in 2011. Maybe you have a favourite Niagara vendor you visit each week at a market. Perhaps you're a habitual forager and know where to find the best morels in the region. Have you joined a CSA that's changed your mind about the importance of eating local produce? Or do you regularly use a unique-to-Niagara ingredient in your cooking? You're a wine drinker wowed by the nose, palette and people behind your favourite tipple that you drive to the winery for on regular basis? Perfect.

Tell me about it, how it's affected your perspective about local food and the people producing it, whether its changed your opinion of Niagara or given you food for thought in another way. Just tell me what eating Niagara has meant to you. You don't have to be a Niagara resident to participate because the greatness of the region is pretty ubiquitous and it's also a tourist mecca beckoning ag geeks, foodies and oenophiles from afar.

The top three entries as chosen by the super duper official judge (that'll be my husband again, but hey, he has some cred. He's the managing editor of a local daily and knows a thing or two about good story telling) will be awarded a prize and, of course, the glory.

All entries will be posted on EN so think words and visuals. You can write your entry, make it a photo essay or shoot some video to tell me how you're eating Niagara. Make it as spiffy as you want. Written submissions should be no more than 500 words and videos should be no longer than three minutes.

When you're done, send them to eatingniagara@gmail.com.

The entry deadline is Jan. 20, 2012 because I realize the holidays are a great black hole for time and you may not have a chance to share your story with everything happening between now and year's end.

Looking forward to hearing how you've dug in during the past year and gotten a taste for eating Niagara.

Read the entries:

Enjoying Niagara's Finest -- A Peachy Tale by Heather Rosen

This little piggy...

2011-12-11T17:24:00.001-05:00

Ashley Burke of Alverstoke Farm and her Berkshire pigs.

By Suzanne Taylor, ex-pat Niagaran, Eating Niagara’s northern correspondent and sassy foodie

So, let’s get the awkwardness out of the way up front.

I eat meat. I am a Meat Eater.

I seem to have a lot of vegetarian foodie friends, and it always makes it a bit difficult to talk about, but I love meat. I’m always excited when meat is cooked. I don’t really understand how anyone could give up bacon, and I believe this is why we were given teeth. I think we are carnivores and we need protein, personally.

I realize mine is not a popular or easy-to-defend stance, and so therefore, I’m careful about what meat I eat.

I haven’t purchased meat from a grocery store in years; nothing raised on a feedlot or fed corn, or given hormones or antibiotics has been cooked in my house for nearly a decade.

My meat costs more than the grocery store stuff but also tastes better, is slightly less guilt-inducing and I’m happy and willing to pay the price.

I was worried when we relocated from St. Catharines to Owen Sound about finding quality meat in this fashion but my worry was for naught.

If anything, there is more drug and hormone-free grass fed meat here than there is in Niagara and it can be had for less money, too.

I am quite pleased with what we’ve been able to find up here and we’ve eaten well, courtesy of Forsyth Farms, Twin Creeks Organics Farm and Taylor’s Country Meadow Meats, to name but a few. There is a LOT of agriculture up here.

Recently the Grey-Bruce Food Link, our local food co-op resource, tweeted that there was Berkshire pork available by the freezer order from a farm not too far from my house, just outside of Paisley, and I salivated.

If you are a Niagara meat eater and you haven’t had Berkshire pork yet, well, you should get yourself out to Lake Land Meats or Our Gate to Your Plate and get some, because there is nothing more delicious. Berkshire is often referred to as the Kobe of pork and I can assure you it entirely deserves this title.

The meat is dark and tender and sweet and juicy. There is very little mass lost in cooking and whenever I saw it on a menu in any of my favourite Niagara restaurants, such as Stone Road Grille, I would order it. To have a giant stash of Berkshire pork sounded like a little piece of heaven to me.

I discussed the matter with my husband, cleaned out my freezer and immediately called the farm for an order. I was fortunate to speak to Ashley Burke, the owner and farmer of Alverstoke Farm, and we discussed what a quarter of a pig would get me. We made arrangements for me to visit the farm in early December.

I was a little bit nervous about visiting a pig farm, despite having read Novella Carpenter’s excellent Farm City with her account of raising two pigs in downtown Oakland, California and being familiar with pig farming through that.

Although a carnivore, I had never met my meat, so to speak. Sure, I had driven by plenty of farms that were obviously producing beef or chicken or pork, but I had never gotten up close and personal to something that would later be on my plate and I wasn’t sure how I felt about that.

Berkshire piglets.

Still, I liked the way that Ashley raised her pigs; feeding them top quality grain, vegetables and apples, and refusing to dock tails, cut teeth or ring her boar’s nose, which are all common farming practices on commercial pig farms.

Ashley only has one littler of pigs a year, which makes for slower growth and less production but higher quality meat. And she refuses to sell single piglets, maintaining that pigs are social and need to be in a group.

I made my way out to the farm on a snowy December Friday (incidentally, there is no such thing as Google Map directions to a farm in northwestern Ontario, and I must thank the Grey Bruce Agriculture and Culinary Association for providing me with its excellent map with all the concessions and side roads appropriately detailed) with my cooler and prepared to meet my meat.

Ashley also raises chickens and lambs and she was quite excited to give me a farm tour. It was time to feed the sheep when I arrived and they were bleating loudly. We could hardly hear one another. Sheep are herd animals and were not interested in being petted by me, although I got one to pose for a picture.

Dobby, the most well-endowed boar Suzanne has ever seen.

I was then directed inside a heavily gated area to guard myself against the protective habits of Dobby, Ashley’s massive boar, who weighs in at approximately 750 pounds and is somewhat cranky when it comes to his sows.

Ashley brought the pigs in from the pasture to the hay-strewn barn.

Pigs are extremely playful, I discovered. As they all came in, they began scooping up mouthfuls of hay and throwing it about in the air, rolling and playing and chasing each other and acting like, well, a barnful of extremely large snorting puppies.

Dobby had obviously spent some time rolling in the mud outside and having a wonderful time of it because he was coated in muck. I patted each pig and one of the sows, Sky, spent quite a bit of time investigating my boots. I was thoroughly snorted.

What struck me was how happy the pigs seemed and how pigs that are raised naturally don’t have that whiff of swine I’ve heard about.

They all genuinely seemed to be having a wonderful time. It seemed like an excellent way to raise meat animals, even if it did make me feel slightly guilty watching them play. I admit I had a few qualms about the whole thing while the pigs sniffed my feet.

My guilt dissipated somewhat as I headed into the basement with Ashley to her freezer to pick up my order, which was truly an amazing bundle of pork.

A quarter of a pig is a lot of meat and I was overwhelmed with all the different wrapped packages of sausages, bacon, roasts, chops and ribs that I was going to take home. However, buying naturally raised, hormone and antibiotic-free meat directly from a farm is decidedly less expensive than picking up 55 pounds of meat from, say, Cumbrae Farms, and paying top dollar, yet you’re still getting top quality pork for your money.

If you are interested in ordering the Berkshire pork yourself, there is information at the Grey Bruce Food Link here on how to order. And do be sure to follow Ashley on Twitter to hear about her pig farming adventures. Ashley is new to Twitter and the local food community, and she’d love to hear from you. So please welcome her if you are a literate Twitterite (with a nod to Peggy Atwood, of course).

If you are in need of a recipe for some delicious Berkshire pork, try this wonderful sourgrass soup made with smoked pork chop and sauerkraut, courtesy of my favourite cooking blog, TheKitchn. I made this with the first of my Berkshire stash and it’s beyond delicious.

Quenching my thirst for wine knowledge with Natalie MacLean

2011-12-08T15:41:00.001-05:00

Canadian wine writer Natalie MacLean.

There are gods devoted to it and legions of aficionados made beatific by its powers.

But when it comes to wine, there are those who find it a daunting subject, fearful of committing some sort of tipple sacrilege and the judgment cast by oenophiles who may be witness to it.

It can seem pretentious and unapproachable even, an image not shattered by reviews filled with flowery adjectives that can read more as hyperbole than insightful.

Is the taste 'barnyard' really an attribute in wine? Leather? Tar? Did someone have to lick that old wing-back chair in the study or a road to know for sure that's what their taste buds were picking up?

Wine is a bit of a sore topic in my house. We are mostly beer people. But living in Niagara, it's tough not to be curious about what those countless vineyards blanketing our countryside are producing.

I'm eager to find out. My husband, on the other hand, is a reluctant student, often put off by the deification of some industry folk by local wine writers.

"They're making wine, not finding a cure for cancer," he'll grumble as I drag him to and fro.

Fortunately, there are people who are grounded and who make the world of wine welcoming, whether for a novice or know-it-all.

One master at demystifying what's in that Riedel glass is Canadian writer Natalie MacLean.

For years, her book Red, White and Drunk All Over has sat on my shelf at home.

'I should read it,' I thought, given my love of all things agriculture. But I couldn't bring myself to pick it up, committing to more than 300 pages of prose on a topic about which, I sometimes felt the same as my husband at times.

But with her impending visit to Niagara a couple of weeks ago and the $50 I committed to a ticket and tasting with a woman who has built quite a following, I figured I'd better get on it and know what I was getting into.

The Ottawa-based MacLean was making a stop in Grimsby at the Casablanca Winery Inn to promote her latest tipple tome, Unquenchable: A Tipsy Quest for the World's Best Bargain Wines.

Clearly, I had some catching up on my reading to do. And from page 1 of Red, White and Drunk All Over, I was glad I had finally started to do so.

MacLean has a light touch to her writing, lamenting, like me, the "purple prose" that often spills from the keyboard of other wine writers. It's the stuff loaded with those adjectives that leaves me not wanting to read reviews but rather, go it alone in finding a go-to vintage.

But MacLean, who is, at times, self-deprecating in her efforts to get the scoop on the world's best wines, describes her muse and tells the stories of the people behind it in a way that's as refreshing as a Pinot Gris on a summer's day. As a writer myself, I found reading her work — and eventually hearing her read her work — inspirational because she can make a topic as potentially bone-dry as Sauvignon blanc fascinating and approachable.

Unquenchable, from which she read during her visit, is no different than the relaxed approach she took to her first foray into wine lit as she chronicles some of the world's bottles — and their stories — that are the best value.

"Bargain is not cheap. That's not what I mean by bargain," MacLean told us. "It's the price-quality ratio."

And bargains can also be found at every price point, she added.

Perhaps no surprise to champions of local tipple, there's a chapter devoted to Niagara.

After reading to us about meeting behemoth brand builder Wolf Blass — Wolfie, she disarmingly refered to the Australian wine giant — MacLean delved into the words she crafted in honour of Niagara, weaving a tale of making pumpkin soup and maple-marinated quail with Martin Malivoire as audience members sipped on generous pours of some of his Beamsville winery's vintages.

Her writing is like a revelation of secrets from another world, told with a familiarity and ease that sounds as though she's known her subjects forever rather than having just met in some cases.

"I'm not interested in doing any sort of exposés," MacLean said. "I just want to have fun. I like when people loosen up and tell me things, the provocative... offer something that makes us think."

She chooses her subjects, in part, from suggestions made by subscribers to her wine newsletter and whittles the list to 40 or 50 wineries and winemakers per region. After a two-week visit to an area, researching, sipping and questioning, she pares down her selection of whom to write about to three.

Each tale incorporates entertaining action because "swirling as an action only goes so far."

But MacLean also poured on the pragmatic to balance out some really masterful storytelling that if you don't get lost in it, you certainly learn lots from it.

For the wine newbies, she broke down barriers that night to discovering wine and eliminating pressure to find the perfect vintage.

"Buy a mixed case of 12 (bottles), experiment and you'll find bargains," MacLean said. "Decide what your price range is, do you like reds, full-bodied — narrow it down a bit and then play 'if you like this then you'll like that.' "

While travelling, if wine figures into your plans, hit the wine regions less travelled to find bargains, she suggested.

You want a stockpile of adjectives to rival a wine reviewer's? Start smelling things — everything — from spices to, yes, that winged-back chair in the study.

And buy MacLean's books. Hers is the encouraging voice en route to feeling at ease in the world of wine, one that pairs well with any vintage.

A love that's easy to muster

2011-12-06T20:54:00.001-05:00

Mustard greens from Linda Crago.

It's rare for me to meet a vegetable I don't like.

(Be quiet celery and Brussels sprouts).

It's a food group that makes my mouth water with ease. My passion, though, is leafy greens, my love for which I have professed time and again in countless blog posts.

Kale is my comfort food. Stir-fried with some ginger, soy sauce and a splash of rice vinegar and I am in heaven.

Chard, you're not so bad yourself. Collards, you have my respect.

But there's another green, come this time of year, for which my appreciation runs as deep as the shade of black-green on a crinkly lacinato kale leaf.

In winter, my heart belongs to the mustard green, those snappy, peppery leaves, made bold rather than bitter by the cold and grown by the woman who has expanded my veggie horizons like no other, Linda Crago.

I remember the first time I tried mustards. I was taken in by their ruffled, purple-speckled appearance and taken aback by a fiery flavour I hadn't tasted before.

I asked Linda what she had put in my basket, that day late in her CSA season.

It must be mustards, she said. And so began an affair that warms my vegetarian heart through the cold months when fresh local greens are virtually non-existent.

I've never seen mustards in the grocery store, only heard via the Twitterverse that some farmers markets in Toronto may have the fringed, pungent leaves at this time of year. Few folks know what I'm talking about when I mention them, encouraging them to track them down and gorge on their goodness.

It makes me feel as though I'm part of a small but devoted following of these leaves: the cult of the mustard green. It's a group I wish could be more inclusive than exclusive because really, people who can't sink their teeth into mustards are missing out.

Aside from a kicking flavour, mustards are apparently good at lowering cholesterol. They boast cancer-fighting properties, much like my other beloved greens. Mustard leaves are also loaded with vitamins K, A, C and folate, for those keeping track of the recommended daily intake.

Darn near perfect food, if you ask me.

Admittedly, though, I don't know that I do these virtuous veggies much justice in the kitchen. Because of their anything-but-wimpy flavour, I'm often stumped by them. My guilty pleasure is to stack them high on my veggie version of a BLT with tempeh or when I'm being really bad, soy bacon. (Hey, I don't eat it often, but once in a while, there's little better when the craving strikes).

I'll chop some up to liven up salads of more muted greens.

But adding them to cooked dishes, well, I'm not so sure about. Mustard leaves aren't as hardy as kale, so don't need to be heated nearly as long. Go overboard on the cooking and that fresh green colour looks more like fatigued. And their bite becomes more bark when cooked, the leaves losing some of that powerful flavour.

Out of all my many cookbooks, brimming with thousands of recipes, I have found only two how-to's for mustard greens, confirming their perplexing powers among cooks everywhere and the limited knowledge of their very existence.

Still, one recipe I did find in that perennial culinary guide, The Joy of Cooking, has fast become a favourite.

Get thee to Linda's farm in Wellandport (or an Asian grocery store if you can't) for some mustards and then try this vegetarian version of the J of C's mustards and chickpeas with curry, with a few amendments from me.

It will result in a love that's easy to muster after just one bite.

Mustard greens with chickpeas and curry

2 tbsp olive oil
2 medium onions, chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1 large bunch mustard greens, washed, trimmed and chopped (about 3/4 of a pound)
1 tbsp mild curry powder (or 1/2 tbsp mild and 1/2 tbsp hot)
1/2 tsp ground ginger (or use 1 tsp fresh because it's better)
1/2 tsp ground coriander
1/4 tsp ground red pepper
1/4 cup vegetable stock
15-oz can chickpeas
14-oz can diced tomatoes with juice
Salt to taste

Heat oil in a skillet. Add onions, garlic and cumin, cooking over medium heat until onions are softened, about five minutes.

Add mustard greens and cook until wilted, about five minutes.

Stir in curry powder, ginger, coriander, red pepper and stock. Bring to a boil and reduce to simmer.

Add chickpeas and tomatoes. Cook until greens are tender about 10 minutes. Stir often.

Serve over a bed of naked oats, a fabulous, nutty-flavoured Canadian substitute for rice.

Serves two.

NiAGara Farm Heroes and Agvocates: Jens Gemmrich of Frogpond Farm winery

2011-11-30T17:40:00.000-05:00

Jens Gemmrich, proprietor of Frogpond Farm winery in Niagara-on-the-Lake.

If Jens Gemmrich could have one do-over, it would be his winery's namesake.

The pond behind Gemmrich's home and Frogpond Farm winery store is a beacon for jumpy amphibians, deer and all kinds of other wildlife.

But the watery hole that Gemmrich dug after purchasing his Niagara-on-the-Lake vineyard in 1996 is a magnet for something else.

Something that does this grape grower, winemaker and veritable jack of all trades no favours in his sometimes fickle line of work.

"In the winter, you have all this cold air sitting here. It creates a frost pocket," Gemmrich lamented. "Those years when it's cold, we get a lot of damage.

"It seemed like a good idea — like you can do a lot with heavy equipment — but at the end of the day, you don't improve anything."

The German-born Gemmrich, who once served as winemaker at Stonechurch Vineyards, isn't about to erect a towering wind machine or two to help his Riesling, Cabernet Franc, Merlot, Chardonnay and Vidal vines cope, either. At $30,000 a pop, it's an expense this craft winery operator, who does just about everything himself — he's even a cooper — can't justify for his 10-acre plot.

But then, Gemmrich eschews all the trappings of conventional viticulture. As the proprietor of Niagara's original certified organic winery, Gemmrich refuses to spray, over-mechanize or do anything against the forces of nature for the sake of his livelihood.

In those cold years when the pond wreaks its havoc, he cuts his losses. In 2003, that meant writing off his entire harvest.

"There was never any question," Gemmrich said about going organic. "Living here, you don't want to expose your children to (chemicals)."

Gemmrich comes from a farming family in southern Germany. They worked their vineyard there with chemicals, he said, and after reading all the warnings on the product labels, he became convinced there was a better way.

Being the first to do without those chemical helpers in Niagara, however, meant that it took some convincing for others to get on board with Gemmrich's early earth-conscious crops.

"The first crop I grew, there was no interest in bottling a separate organic wine," he said. "There was a lot of resistance."

Some of Frogpond Farm's vintages. Gemmrich also presses white and red
non-alcoholic organic grape juice.

Industry folk doubted Niagara's climate would be conducive to organic grape growing. The heat and humidity would leave the berries vulnerable to disease and needing to be doused with a chemical remedy.

Gemmrich never bought that story.

"There are challenges with everything. It's not harder than growing conventionally. You have problems and you have to come out with creative solutions for it," he said.

His most intensive work comes at the beginning of the growing season, as he sets up his vines to prevent issues from arising later in the crop cycle. He uses compost instead of artificial nitrogen as fertilizer to produce strong, healthy vines. He keeps the canopy of leaves open to keep moulds at bay and let in life-sustaining light and air.

"Some people catch every cold because they have a weak immune system so they buy every cold medicine but they still get sick," Gemmrich said. "If you have a problem with fungus, it's because the plant is weak so nature recycles it. We try to keep it strong so nature doesn't recycle it."

Others didn't buy in to Gemmrich's organic vision because they questioned the whole concept, even felt threatened by it because it could give his wines an edge, he recalled.

Jens Gemmrich in his vineyard.

"What are you afraid of? We're a 10-acre farm," he said. "We don't do this for marketing. We do it because we actually think it's the right way of doing things."

Ten years after after Gemmrich's first vintages were released in 2001, Niagara boasts biodynamic wineries — think of it as hyper-organic farming, combining agriculture and astronomy, in addition to working in harmony with the planet — and others proclaiming the use of organic methods in their tipple production.

Having been an Opa of the movement locally, Gemmrich is just happy to see such production methods finally taking root here.

"It makes me proud of myself sometimes," he said. "It's like you stepped on a stone, it became loose and it started rolling downhill and you had a movement happening."

Since flooding Frogpond — and Niagara — with organic vintages, Gemmrich said he gets customers on his doorstep who embrace organic as a lifestyle for themselves. Others just want good wine.

When it comes to producing that, Gemmrich is as steadfast about how to do it as he is when it comes to his growing methods.

"Wines have become boring," Gemmrich said, standing in his wine shop as his flock of Guinea hens scampered through the yard outside.

Some wine regions in the world try to make their vintages taste like others, despite different growing conditions and soil, he explained. They grow the same grapes the world over, ferment them with the same yeasts and do little different throughout the entire winemaking process.

"There's similarly grown Chardonnay in Australia, California, Canada. We use the same techniques, the same oak barrels and that doesn't make sense to me," Gemmrich said. "I think it's the wrong approach to winemaking. Why do we want to make it the same? We should be able to grow Riesling here and people should be able to recognize it as Ontario Riesling."

Growing organically, without artificial interference, helps produce wine true to its Ontario roots, he added. That's also why he limits his production to just a few varieties that do well in Niagara's climes.

"If we try to do French wine... we're always going to be 1,000 years behind," he said.

Given that Frogpond is Gemmrich's handiwork, from the farming to the winemaking, is there one hat he'd rather wear over another?

Gemmrich also raises chickens, Guinea hens and sheep on his farm for his
own consumption. No farm is complete without animals, he said.

Some days, he'd take simply being the winemaker. Others, well, it just depends on what task is demanding his attention, he said with a smile.

"I'd love to be a farmer right now because you are done for the year," he said, having just finished up several 100-hour work weeks that came with the grape harvest and pressing. "It's dark early and your day is done.

"But in the winery, there's a light you can turn on."

Wreath-making 101

2011-11-26T15:19:00.001-05:00

My wreath, made by moi.

Other people may have had a Burl Ives song in their head.

I had the Beastie Boys' She's Crafty on repeat in my mind's ear as I headed to the farm of Rose and Ken Bartel Saturday to get crafty — something I never do, at least with any success — and make my own Christmas wreath.

I was one of about a dozen people tapping into their inner Martha Stewart who gathered in the kitchen of the Bartels' Niagara-on-the-Lake farmhouse, filled with the smells of the forest, thanks to the bunches of evergreen clippings marking each of our spots around the dining room-turned-wreath-making table.

Those remnants of the outdoors would be the makings of those quintessential Christmas decorations that take up residency on doors and windows over the holiday.

The cedar, balsam fir, Douglas fir, sweet-smelling silver fir, boxwood and its hint of cat pee, rose hips, aspen and pine cones that would soon be my wreath all came from the Bartel's farm, just off Lakeshore Road, or the surrounding area.

As she inventoried our supplies, Rose, who has a horticulture background and grows veggies for a summer CSA basket program with her husband Ken, said any trip into the woods would give wannabe wreath makers what they need to make their own festive swag.

Step one was stuffing our flat, aromatic cedar clippings into the tightly wound grapevines that would be our base. The cedar, a smell that always takes me back to the log cabin cottage my family owned when I was a child and the thick, sappy stand of towering of the evergreens acting as a wind block, served as the skirt of the wreath.

The cedar skirt for my wreath.

I shoved the sprigs into the lower half of the grapevine base, following up with the prickly balsam fir. As per Rose's advice, we gave our pseudo-wreaths a good hard shake to see how securely we affixed the fixings. So far, mine could hold up to a good wind gust, should my Christmas creation and a vengeful Mother Nature ever meet.

What I had so far looked like a big floppy — and uncomfortable — crown of needles but it definitely had a wreath-like air to it.

Perhaps I had some natural, crafting ability after all, I mused as my wreath-mates politely praised my efforts.

My fingers were now sticky with sap as I started plugging in the Douglas fir, normally the species coveted for Christmas trees because their needles are soft, and like most firs, they don't drop them easily.

But it was adding the layer of silver fir that was my favourite part. With it's long, heavy, flat succulent needles, the room was filled with a beautiful citrus smell. I could have spent the rest of my time burying my face in my creation and inhaling deeply.

With my coiled grapevine now looking pretty packed, I started to add the less scent-sational boxwood, but with its tiny grass green leaves instead of needles, it made the wreath a little more visually interesting and added a change in texture. Or at least that's what Rose told us was her reason for including it in our foliage options.

The more stuff I added, though, the less convinced I became that I had truly channelled my inner craft goddess, which I was pretty sure didn't exist anyway when I arrived at the Bartels' door.

Still, I persevered because it would have been pretty boring to have thrown in my sap-stained towel. Next up, some prickly rose hips to add a festive splash of red, compliments of its tiny red berries and the nasty thorns that stabbed me and drew blood. Note to self: wear heavy-duty gloves next time.

Optional aspen was next and in a token act, I shoved three sticks of it strategically into my wreath. Everyone else was doing it so I figured maybe I should, too.

Me, hard at work, getting those fingers covered in sap.

But my wreath really went off the rails with the addition of the ribbon -- thanks to Rose and Ken for at least helping an all-thumbs student assemble her bows. But by this time, my wreath was looking less rustic and more Christmas kitsch while all around me, everyone else's looked like something you'd pay big bucks for at the neighbourhood trendy florist.

A few pine cones later and I called it quits. For the sake of having something I wouldn't want to donate to the birds in my backyard for a winter's nest or be the butt of holiday jokes at my house, I had to stop. That and my grapevine base couldn't handle anything more being jammed into it.

While I self-deprecatingly call it my Charlie Brown Christmas Wreath after the pathetic tree that everyone's favourite morose Peanut selected from all the other beauties on the tree lot, I have to say, I'm kind of proud of it, for a first time effort.

This despite being a little green with envy as I watched others parade their seeming perfect greenery past me on their way out the door.

Yes, the Christmas wreaths really are greener on the other side of the crafting table.

Good news, though. Rose is holding other DIY holiday decoration sessions before the big day, these ones for centrepieces. The two-hour sessions run Dec. 12 and Dec. 17 at 10 a.m. Cost is $25.

If you're interested, call her at 905-937-5252.

Canning for grades and the greater good

2011-11-24T20:30:00.001-05:00

Some of the jars of pears picked by the Garden of Eating — Niagara and canned by tourism and
hospitality specialist high skills major students from the Niagara Catholic District School Board.
The 160 jars will be donated to Community Care of St. Catharines and Thorold.

There's a good chance Mike Gretzinger's students will never look at a pear the same way again.

After spending a good part of their fall canning 800 pounds of them, there's an even better chance these tourism and hospitality specialist high skills major protegees have a serious hate-on for the humble fruit.

And I fear, it's all my fault, since the pears, and the life lesson in canning they provided, came compliments of The Garden of Eating — Niagara and a team of volunteers who spared these pears from going to waste in the orchard so they could be eaten by people who wanted and needed them.

"It was exhausting. It was just the same," lamented Lindsay Nardangeli , a Grade 12 Denis Morris Catholic High School student.

Their kitchen classroom routine with the bell-shaped fruit consisted of peeling, coring, cutting, poaching.

Repeat.

For weeks.

"It's really messy and sticky," added classmate Katelyn Trudel. "You'd only do it 15 minutes and it felt like three hours."

For much of the fall, the small class of senior students has toiled away in a kitchen at the Holiday Inn and Suites Parkway Convention Centre in St. Catharines, canning a ton of food.

Think 70 bushels of tomatoes, 15 bushels of peaches, 20 of beans, 10 of Roma beans and hundreds more pounds of beets, onions and hot peppers.

"I just say yes when a farmer asks if we want them," Gretzinger said.

In addition to teaching his students the art of preserving, Gretzinger is giving them a lesson in philanthropy, too.

Everything the class cans, including the pears for the Garden of Eating — Niagara, is donated to local food banks and other social organizations, including the Salvation Army.

That made the repetitive, labour intensive classes bearable for Denis Morris student Josh Wallace.

"Your conscience feels better," he said.

"You feel great because you're helping someone eat," interjected classmate Shallyne Coelho.

That's something they'll do again next month when the class tackles its next major culinary assignment: preparing a turkey dinner and all the fixings for 800 people at the Salvation Army's annual Christmas dinner on Dec. 14.

Still, despite being grateful there's nothing left to seal in jars this semester, the students did admit their foray into food preserving gave them new perspective on eating well. Some of them said they would even can again for pleasure instead of grades.

"It tastes cleaner, fresher," Wallace said.

The students aren't the only ones learning, either. A chef by trade, Gretzinger said he hadn't done much canning until moving to the head of the classroom six years ago. The experience has inspired even more lesson ideas for his students.

"The last few years, we've done more and more," he said. "Even myself, I'm learning more as we do it. Now I want to get out to a farm and work .. so they can see where (the food) comes from."

A Niagara ex-pat's local food plea

2011-11-21T20:23:00.001-05:00

By Suzanne Taylor, guest blogger, sassy foodie

Moving to a new place is never easy, of course. There are people that enjoy it, I know, but I am not one of those people. I moved across the street once and I didn’t even like that. I am a St. Catharines girl, born and bred, and if I had my way I’d still live in my childhood bungalow, really. I’ve moved a lot in my life for someone who doesn’t like moving, and the experience does not improve with time or practice.

Upon receiving the news in the spring of 2010 that we would be relocating from St. Catharines to Owen Sound, a place I had never been, I didn’t react with great joy. I knew very little about Owen Sound except that it was northern and cold and was rumoured to have terrible winters.

But, it was the food snob angle that was my biggest hang up about this move. My husband and I are enthusiastic wine and food people, and could often be found in a Niagara winery or restaurant, eating and/or drinking something wonderful. The amazing foodie culture is what we love most about Niagara, and we spent our time eating and drinking the bounty that is Niagara, and sourcing the best local ingredients.

I started to worry when we moved to Owen Sound and I realized that if you ask a local for a restaurant recommendation, he or she would immediately name one of several local Chinese buffet-style restaurants. Pardon me while I barf.

I worried further about finding good local produce and ingredients. After all, we were members of my beloved Linda Crago’s Tree and Twig Heirloom CSA and would feel the absence of her amazing vegetable bounty quite keenly. I was used to buying my organic, drug and hormone-free meats via Pilgrim’s in downtown St. Catharines, and I sure as heck was not returning to eating grocery store meat; I’d turn vegetarian first. Ick! We’d sure as heck miss the amazing St. Catharines and Welland farmers markets, too.

Thankfully, we’ve found most of what we needed to live up here. While we usually still have to leave town to eat out the way we like to (thank you Collingwood and Thornbury!), there are two CSAs producing quality local vegetables, there is a lovely little winery producing VQA wines called Coffin Ridge, a well-stocked farmer’s market on Saturdays, a wonderful butcher just outside of town that provides me with quality grass-fed, organic, hormone-free meat, and most blessed of all, there was Around the Sound.

Around the Sound was a local food market devoted to sourcing ingredients solely for the 100-mile diet. It was, in simple terms, foodie paradise. It had everything you could possibly want to eat sourced from local producers: fresh produce, a wide variety of meats, including game meats, freezer goodies, herbs, nuts, soaps, cosmetics, honey, canned foods, jellies, jams, breads, pastries, teas, popcorn, pickles, cheeses, eggs, tofu, olive oil, flour, milk — well, you get the general idea. You essentially didn’t need a grocery store when this store was around.

It even had a little community kitchen that had just opened in the back, offering cooking classes and a soon-to-be-ready cafe. In short, it was the coolest store you could possibly imagine in a little town where gourmet food wasn’t exactly the norm. And for a couple of local eaters like my husband and I, it was paradise.

Anne Finlay-Stewart, the owner, would even get in Niagara peaches in August for a little taste of home. We were devoted to Around the Sound and shopped there every week; if there was something you were looking for, Anne would find it for you. Every week, Anne would email what was new in Around the Sound and it was always some great, delicious dinner idea or treat.

Mmm, Niagara peaches.

Unfortunately, I opened my email at 5 a.m. on a cold April morning this year to learn that Around the Sound had been destroyed by fire the night before, thanks to careless smoking in the apartments above the store. (Smoking inspection can only be described as Rather Lax in Owen Sound; the apartment building we moved to was missing its No Smoking signs unless I phoned the region and voiced an urgent complaint).

Anne and her staff lost $24,000 of stock in this devastating fire and are still trying to sort out their insurance claim as of this writing. The building it was housed in is set to be torn down as it is beyond any kind of repair.

To date, Anne and company have not found a suitable new store location, as there is very little zoned for grocery in Owen Sound that is affordable and they haven’t got the cash to restart the business from scratch.

Anne estimates that she invested $50,000 in setting up and promoting the store, paying wages, advertising. That money is now essentially lost and she doesn’t have any willing investors helping her to get her business back on its feet.

In order to recreate Around the Sound, she would essentially have to work for free for a long time to recoup the lost money and nobody can really blame her for not wanting to do that. Right now the future of Around the Sound is very much a mystery, unless there are willing investors, which is hard to come by in a town without much industry and a lot of small businesses, who are interested in having the store return. The local government has not been very helpful in Around the Sound’s plight and are mysteriously silent on the subject when asked about it. I’ve tried.

Thankfully, there is a local movement afoot to help rebuild the store, under the direction of a local naturopathic doctor, Kathleen Finlay (no relation to Anne), to help Anne repay the store’s debts before setting about rebuilding. There is a contest to win a gift card for whoever finds the store’s new location. No easy feat — I’ve suggested three locations myself and none are suitable!

To date more than $7,000 has been raised, including an incredible $1,000-donation from the local farmers union.

So, my beloved Niagarans, whom I miss very keenly, I implore you. If you are interested in helping an amazing 100-mile Ontario food business devastated by fire return to work and in turn support 130 local producers, farmers, bakers, cooks and gardeners, you can make a donation to their cause by snail mail only. Cheques must be payable to Anne Finlay-Stewart and can be sent to 642 3rd Ave. East, Owen Sound, ON, N4K, 2K1.

I realize it’s a ways away from you all, but you are always welcome to visit me up here on the bay, and you’d be making a donation to a truly amazing store, and in turn, making a soul donation to a pair of relocated Niagara foodies who sorely miss their cool 100-mile food market and want it back something awful.

Click here to read Suzanne's other guest post Muhziks* make the people come together

Getting to know grape growers: Trevor Falk

2011-11-21T18:56:00.001-05:00

Trevor Falk, a Niagara-on-the-Lake grape grower with his son.

By Grape Growers of Ontario

“You might say that wine runs in my blood. In the 1930s, my grandfather was one of the first farmers to recognize the Niagara region’s grape-growing potential and in the 1970s, my parents became pioneers in the industry. Even as a boy, I looked forward to the day I’d take over the family operation, and I’ve already got plans for the fourth generation of Falks”.

Trevor Falk is an Ontario grape grower from Niagara-on-the-Lake, featured in the latest video from the Grape Growers of Ontario. The videos have followed the grape growing season from early spring in Prince Edward County with grower Debra Marshall, through berry formation at the Funk Farms, veraison with Kevin Watson, beginning of harvest with the Mitchell family and now take a look at harvest with Trevor Falk.

Get to know our Ontario grape growers and see what goes into growing the grapes that produce the Ontario wines you love on Facebook.

Click here to vist Getting to know grape growers: Gord Mitchell
Click here to vist Getting to know grape growers: Kevin Watson
Click here to visit Getting to know grape growers: The Funk Family

Rumours of the demise of supply management…greatly exaggerated?

2011-11-20T10:25:00.001-05:00

Shutterstock image

This post is from the Ontario Federation of Agriculture, written in response to recent news reports questioning the fate of supply management in Canada for dairy, eggs and poultry as Canada considers entering the Trans-Pacific Partnership to bolster trade relations. It's a good followup to a post I wrote early arguing why we need supply management in agriculture.

By Bette Jean Crews, federation president

Farmers across Canada were alarmed with the media reports of Prime Minister Harper’s recent decision to consider joining the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the potential cost to Canada’s agri-food industry.

In recent trade discussions at the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation Leaders Summit, Mr. Harper’s remarks were interpreted as a shift in his government’s economic and trade policies with the application to join the TPP. Media reports suggested the demise of Canada’s supply management system.

Trade Minister Ed Fast recently assured Parliament that the government won’t sacrifice farmers in the supply management sector to participate in the TPP trade talks. That restatement of the Conservative campaign promise provides reassurance but the agricultural community across our country remains vigilant, as we always are in trade negotiations.

The Ontario Federation of Agriculture (OFA), on behalf of our members, supports supply management as a viable and profitable farm system that provides consistently priced, high quality products to Canadian consumers like milk, cheese, chicken and eggs.

Both Minister Fast and Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz have said the Conservative government will stick to its 2011 campaign promise to protect the industry. Farmers are prepared, as always to work with them throughout the negotiations to ensure they can keep that promise.

Countries currently participating countries in the TPP – New Zealand, in particular – are expected to apply considerable pressure to eliminate supply management in order for Canada to expand trade opportunities with the Asia-Pacific markets. However, all countries entering such negotiations work to protect sensitive sectors of their economies.

As in the past eight trade deals Canada has been involved with, countries will engage in negotiations knowing each others’ gives and takes. Supply management in Canada is not a give. OFA will work with our partners across the Canadian Federation of Agriculture to ensure our industry is thoroughly engaged in the negotiating process and all partners in the value chain have the opportunity to speak on behalf of our industry.

Together, we will continue to watch this situation closely and address concerns as they arise.

Meanwhile, to paraphrase Mark Twain, the (media) rumours of the demise of supply management are greatly exaggerated.

More than a fleeting affair: my love letter to a bottle of Sauvignon blanc

2011-11-16T20:11:00.001-05:00

The Foreign Affair Winery's 2009 Sauvignon blanc.

I hate Sauvignon blanc.

Well, as rule, I do. I have a feeling this is an admission that will leave me blackballed or labelled some kind of heathen among the wine wizzes in the world or at least here in Niagara.

As a mostly beer girl and self-professed Riesling fanatic, it's not Sauv blanc's bone-dry, cheek-clenching acidic ways that put me off.

It's just that every time I have a glass I'm reminded of my cat Otis. He's a good cat, who occasionally does bad things. And, quite frankly, I don't want to be reminded of the big O's missteps outside his litter box when I'm quaffing vino.

Wine should be an escape, it's flavours, aromas and sensations as it moves from glass to tongue to gullet to belly and beyond, taking me elsewhere: a fresh cut lawn, a fruit orchard, a living room warmed by a fire. The last place I want to be transported to with every sip is back to the harsh reality that is Otis's litter box or occasionally my bath mat, depending on his mood. It's a smell that seems synonymous with this varietal with roots in France's Loire Valley and now the poster tipple of New Zealand.

Yes, there's Sauvignon blanc's vegetal characteristics worthy of being lauded but I'm usually too grossed out to really appreciate them or any other pleasantries it may boast.

Until now.

Last weekend, I lucked out and got on the guest list for The Foreign Affair Winery's release of its 2009 vintages.

Foreign Affair is tucked away behind the government buildings on the Vineland Research and Innovation Centre campus, a backdrop for some spectacular wedding photos and some of the most fascinating agriculture research in the world.

Foreign Affair is known for its Amarone-style wines, in which some of the grapes go through a partial drying process called appassimento. It concentrates the sugar and flavours in the berries and has its roots in Italy.

Last weekend, my husband and I made our rounds through this winery with a man cave feel — a classy man cave with a touch of whimsy, thanks to the faux moose head that greeted us at the door — and I had my curiosity, piqued long ago by stories I read about this place, sated.

And, after tasting five new releases, the handiwork of winemaker Ilya Senchuk complemented by morsels prepared by Chef Jan-Willem Stulp, it was the Sauvignon blanc I loved the most. Not the Riesling, though I did leave with a bottle of that, too. No, it was a bottle of my (usually) most hated varietal that I reached for first before heading to the cash register.

In my usual bumbling inarticulate way when talking about something I know so little about — c'mon, you hadn't figured out yet that I'm a little green when it comes to my whites and reds — I managed to spit out how much I liked the Sauvignon blanc to Senchuk.

"It's really good," I struggled to find the poetic adjectives that wine writers always have at the ready.

And finally, I just said what I meant and meant what I said. "Thank you for making a Sauvignon blanc that I can drink."

Turns out, Foreign Affair's edition, with a quarter of the grapes having gone through the appassimento drying process, has no reminders of Otis. It was its hints of vanilla and minerality that stood out. No cut grass, either. Just goodness, unlike any other Sauv blanc I've ever tasted.

That's exactly what Senchuk was trying achieve. He was trying to get away from that New Zealand style that seems so pervasive, even here in Niagara, he explained.

Works for me because for the first time ever, a bottle of Sauvignon blanc now has residency in my wine rack.

Don't get me wrong. I don't love Sauvignon blanc now. But it is safe to say, I love Foreign Affair's.

Why we need supply management

2011-11-15T18:56:00.001-05:00

Poultry is a supply-managed commodity in Canada.

It was a crack made often enough during interviews with some farmers that it almost became a cliche.

'Too bad beef/peaches/pork/(insert Niagara crop here) isn't a supply managed commodity.'

Sometimes it was said ruefully. Others merely joked as they lamented the awful year financially that was playing out for their crop when I'd do my annual checks on the season that was. Sometimes, those words were laced with downright envy of farmers who benefit from supply management.

Supply managed produce is different from most commodities, where price fluctuates from year to year or more frequently, depending upon what happens elsewhere in the world. If there's a bumper crop of wheat, say, in Russia, well, farmers here likely won't make as much money on their wheat, especially if it's a bountiful harvest, too, because there's more supply than demand.

If one nation experiences drought, then prices farmers elsewhere receive will go up as demand for that crop increases. Such is life on the world market.

Supply management means supply and demand being more in line with each other. Quotas are set, dictating the amount of a commodity that's marketed. What's demanded is what is produced and vice versa. It means stable pricing for the farmer, often set in advance of a particular crop year, taking into account input costs, so the farmer's finances aren't a big question mark. In short, it means more restful nights for those farmers who produce supply-managed commodities.

In Canada, that's poultry (the meat and the eggs), dairy and tobacco, though, to be honest, I'm not sure if the quota system for golden leaf has been dismantled entirely. I lost track after leaving Norfolk County seven years ago, though the domestic tobacco industry virtually went up in smoke soon after.

Supply management also means steep tariffs on imports, making it less lucrative for other nations producing the same commodities to try to break into the Canadian market.

Having reported on agriculture for 10 years now, I support supply management.

That's not to say it isn't a system without its problems.

For starters, quota is through-the-roof expensive, making farming of these commodities — and the security that producing within a supply-managed system brings — a pipe dream for many. Young dairy farmers, for example, need millions to buy in and their parents aren't willing to let the farm go for a song, even to their own children. It's cost prohibitive for the next generation of farmers to enter the field.

Shutterstock image of a turkey.

Supply management also limits choice for consumers. Enter the disclaimer: I don't eat meat and I don't consume cow dairy. I do buy eggs outside the quota system, from a farmer who has a couple dozen birds she treats like pets. But when the Turkey Farmers of Ontario moved to ban outdoor access to birds, effectively ending large-scale organic, free-range turkey production three years ago, I couldn't help but feel that decision was based on science that padded conventional producers' bottom line and not the sounder findings with regard for animal behaviour and welfare, or consumer preference.

The decision basically sent the message to consumers that they aren't smart enough to decide what they want or what's best for human or animal. Those who want organic turkey can still find it, but the search is much more difficult and the options few and far between. More times than not, it means settling for the questionable Butterball in the grocery store because there really is no choice. (Hey, there's always Tofurkey).

In the animal welfare department, there's room for improvement in supply-managed commodities.

But I also believe that, in a country without a national food security policy, supply management provides some level security, at least in its respective commodities. So it was with some serious trepidation that I absorbed the news this week that Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced Canada's formal interest in joining the Trans Pacific Partnership.

If Canada joins up, it could mean the end — or at the very least, some serious loosening of the rules — of supply management, which has long kept us from being part of this current quartet of trading partners.

That doesn't bode well for our food security. Right now, the dairy and poultry on our store shelves is produced in Canada to meet Canadian demand. When you pick up a jug of milk, you don't have to worry about it coming from China or even the U.S. That moo juice came from within your local milkshed, within roughly 100 kilometres of where you live.

Ditto for poultry and eggs — no imports at the butcher counter, though the cuts may be from farther afield than that glass of milk you drank today.

Scrap supply management, though, and those farmers will deal with the same uncertainty that beef, pork and grain growers deal with when it comes to the prices they're paid for their hard work. That means serious peaks but also despairingly deep valleys, depending on what goes on elsewhere. Talk to a pork farmer about the mass cull of swine just a few years ago to get that industry in line with demand after the bottom fell out and you won't hear any happy tales.

The loss of supply management will also mean more meat, eggs and dairy from places where farming rules and regulations — ultimately, food safety — isn't as strict as it is here. Yes, there are more food recalls now than ever before but when was the last time you returned a litre of milk because it was laced with high levels of lead or took back that dozen eggs or broiler you bought for dinner? In Canada, you'll be hard-pressed.

More simply put, do you want to drink milk from China? If I hadn't already stopped drinking the stuff because of an allergy, that would certainly make me lose my appetite for a tall, cold glass of it.

So yes, while joining the Trans Pacific Partnership might mean more job security for those toiling away in our factories producing widgets, what good is that if the safety of our food supply is put at risk? Sick factory workers are no more productive than unemployed ones.

At the moment, the Canadian Restaurant and Foodservices Association has launched a PR war against supply management. The argument for scrapping it: it will mean cheaper poultry and dairy for restaurateurs and, ultimately, consumers.

But at what cost will this cheaper food come if supply management is done away with? We're so used to paying less than what our food is worth that we are spoiled as a nation and clueless, to boot. We have no idea the true cost and value of our food.

If the prices paid for supply-managed commodities are more akin to fair prices, why are we so afraid of paying that? Why are we so afraid of farmers earning a fair wage?

Even if supply management was scrapped and CRFA members reaped the benefits of cheaper chicken, less expensive eggs and marked down milk, don't think for a second those savings will be passed on to you, the diner. It means more profits to line restaurateurs' pockets.

And again, I play the food security card. How do these dining establishment operators expect to have enough of those crucial ingredients for their eggs Benedict or rubber chicken dinners if one of our supplying countries ever shuts its doors to us to take care of its own people first?

Why should we support local restaurateurs if they don't want to support their local farmers? The CFRA needs to remember we're all in this economy together.

Though supply management is not without its faults, Canada needs to ensure that its farming future includes maintaining those quota systems we already have in place.

Otherwise, it will be more than the beleaguered beef farmer or fruit grower lamenting not having it. We as Canadians will all rue the day we let it be plowed under.

A food and wine love that runs ravine deep

2011-11-09T21:52:00.001-05:00

It's like delving into your favourite genre of novel.

You know what to expect: a story to engage and engross you. But just when you think you have the storyline figured out, there's a plot twist to throw you for a loop.

And so it is when sipping on a glass of Ravine Vineyard's Sand & Gravel Riesling (Riesling being my favourite kind of wine).

It's like picking up the latest chick lit release and the protagonist doesn't get the great guy or the fabulous job. Nope, she lives an average existence like the rest of us.

Totally unexpected. Just like this wine, which starts off sweet and easy like honey, then gives you lime and even a tiny hint of diesel as it goes down the gullet. Delicious and unpredictable, and, like a page turner, keeps you coming back.

But like this wine is akin to a really good book, Ravine, itself, is like the big, comfy chair you'd climb into to read it.

It is, without a doubt, one of my favourite places to eat and sip in Niagara.

Perfect is the best way I can describe this quaint, comfortable St. Davids winery where I can easily while away an evening over a bottle of wine or linger over a simple yet stunning meal (have the puttanesca mussels) and leave well-fed, drunk on the pure bliss of time spent surrounded by beauty and soothed by spectacular vino.

My husband and I have celebrated milestones here over dinner and a bottle for under $75 — experiences really that if it weren't for the bill telling us in black and white, we really couldn't put a price on.

My love for Ravine and all its rustic yet sophisticated glory was only reaffirmed recently at the winery's launch of its new and less expensive Sand & Gravel line of wines, the name a nod to Ravine Sand & Gravel, the quarry once run by earlier generations of the family tending the land here.

It boasted a spread of food, served buffet style, with no corners cut, wine that poured freely and generously, and a genuine hospitality that gave real warmth to a chilly night.

Though this shindig was in a tent set up for special events overlooking row upon row of vines, rather than the bistro where my Ravine moments are usually set, whatever the occasion, Ravine is always a place that leaves me marvelling at the flawless yet unpretentious way things are done here.

Grilling at Ravine on the bed of an old quarry truck.

From the old quarry truck, permanently parked, its bed turned into grill, the battered and banged up tables and desks-tuned eating surface surrounded by mismatched chairs to the packing shed re-incarnated as a bistro and the re-built Woodruff House that serves as the tasting room, everything gives the impression of having a story. And, in most cases it does. Usually a really interesting one, to boot.

Best part of all, none of it is forced. It just is what it is.

The Harber family, proprietors of this most endearing spot, have been connected to the land for five generations, since 1867 when David Jackson Lowrey moved to this pristine piece of land from Vanessa, near Delhi, and, two years later, planted one of the first commercial vineyards.

Scratch beneath the surface and there's a story that gets richer and more layered. More Niagara.

The farm's foundation is actually a channel of the Niagara River, where the thundering waters cut a swath more than 22,000 years ago, carrying and creating the elements that would make for spectacular soil, perfect for growing wine.

It's a fortuitous tale that even the most talented scribes could be challenged to pen, if left to draw it from their own imaginations.

A storied place that has secured a chapter in Niagara's food and wine tome.

And one that will be more than a footnote in my own.

A bottle of Sand & Gravel Redcoat-turned-centrepiece at the recent launch
of this new line of Ravine wines. The label is the door on the quarry truck
doubling as barbecue, pictured above.

A match made in a soup pot

2011-11-07T21:22:00.000-05:00

Tomatillos.

It conjures the same feelings as bumping into an ex-lover.

The one that got away.

The one, who, after enough time has passed and the not-so-good moments are forgotten, evokes only fond memories and nostalgia — 'If onlys' and 'What ifs.'

Maybe there's a chance.

So you put the past behind you and give it another shot. And then you remember why you ended it in the first place. That you were better off apart.

This pretty much sums up my relationship with the tomatillo.

Those husky fruits that aren't quite a tomato and definitely not a sweetie like a gooseberry or ground cherry tease me into thinking about what could be, then dash hopes, leaving me confused and disappointed. Fall after fall, this what we do, the tomatillo and I.

The first time we were introduced, thanks to a bunch showing up in my CSA basket several years ago, I didn't quite know what to make of them. It certainly wasn't love at first sight.

Once I was set straight on this staple of Mexican cuisine, I had happy visions of salsa verde in my mind's eye.

Just me, a bag of corn chips and bowl of chopped tomatillos, cilantro, onions and hot peppers. Really, could it be more perfect?

But despite my best efforts, things never really went smoothly. It was awkward, actually. The salsa would turn into gelatinous goo, congealing and never being the juicy, flavourful chip dip I could buy in the grocery store or eat at my local Mexican restaurant.

Disappointed, I'd move on. Winter would come and I'd be distracted by root vegetables. Come spring, I had asparagus to take my mind off my disappointment. When tomatoes began ripening, tomatillos seemed but distant memory.

But then come fall, there they'd be again, offering themselves up for another try. And try I would, only to have a similar experience.

More congealing. More salsa verde that just wasn't what I expected. More hopes shattered.

I began asking people for advice and getting furrowed brows in return. Not even a single platitude was thrown my way to give me hope. (This weekend, though, someone tipped me off to what might have been causing such strife: the tomatillo's naturally occurring, bountiful pectin).

It seemed obvious. Clearly, it was me and not the tomatillos.

Still, each fall, I'd strip them of their husks and scrub their green and purple-speckled skins squeaky clean, free of the sticky residue under their papery peels. I'd chop and blend and salsa-fy to no avail.

No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't just couldn't change the tomatillo and the resulting, goopy salsa verde.

It was getting too hard to carry on like this when I found another pound in my CSA basket a couple of weeks ago. This was no happy reunion. I feigned indifference at the sight of them and tucked them into the back of my fridge. I briefly thought about trying to rekindle things but there was no point.

The heartbreak of salsa verde, the 2011 edition, another failed attempt that I churned out just a few weeks earlier, was still too fresh. These latest tomatillos could rot, for all I cared.

And then, the tomatillo and I had a moment over lunch in a downtown St. Catharines cafe when I asked what the soup of the day was.

Tomatillo, I was told.

I was skeptical but curious. I'd never had tomatillo soup before. Never even heard of it. Maybe this was the way the tomatillo was meant to be — at least my tomatillos, anyway.

Of course, the soup was perfect. None of the performance issues tomatillos had with me seemed apparent in the spicy batch of pureed green gems. It had its tell-tale tangy taste with a kick but no congealing.

I was convinced it was time to try again and so that night, I came home to set about souping up those tomatillos I shoved to the back of my fridge. Good thing they store well in cool, dry conditions.

It was time to repair this relationship.

I went online in search of recipes and like a good therapist, they offered up challenges that would make or break me and the tomatillo once and for all.

The how-tos had meat or dairy in them, both no-nos for me. But I was confident that with the combining of some directions here and tweaking of others there, I could make tomatillo soup that was truly my own. That was perfect. That would bring out the best in me and my tomatillos.

It did, with its heat, tang and smokiness. It was a powerhouse in the flavour department even if the colour was more akin to a prop in The Exorcist, making it an unappealing food photo subject. Still, it didn't turn into gelatinous goo and I didn't even scrub their sticky green and purple skins very hard.

It just felt... easy. Finally.

Let's just say the tomatillo and I, well, we're on again. We're tight. And I don't foresee that changing anytime soon.

Spicy tomatillo soup

1 lb tomatillos, husked and roughly chopped
1 onion chopped
2 cloves of garlic, minced
2 chipotle peppers or jalapenos
4 cups of vegetable broth
A shot of hot pepper sauce, such as Tabasco,
Salt to taste
Drizzle with a chipotle-infused oil if using jalapenos
Cilantro

Combine tomatillos, onion, garlic and peppers in a saucepan over medium heat. Cook until juices are drawn out of tomatillos, about 15-20 minutes, and the mixture becomes saucy.

Add vegetable broth and bring to simmer for another 20 minutes. Remove from heat and puree.

To kick up the heat, add hot sauce to taste and/or drizzle with chipotle-infused oil to add a bit of smokiness if using jalapeno peppers instead of chipotle peppers.

Garnish with a pinch of chopped cilantro and serve.

La tea en rose

2011-11-04T20:16:00.001-04:00

My cup of wild rose hip tea.

My husband golfs.

I forage.

We decided that both activities would be our own — we wouldn't feel obliged to invite the other along, nor would we feel offended if we got snubbed so the other could spend time doing his or her respective pastimes — after I dragged Steve on a hunt for wild garlic in spring 2010.

The allure wasn't there for him as I wrested the tiny bulbs from the ground. While I felt what I imagine it might feel to win the lottery — OK, maybe not the grand prize but something — Steve was bored.

"You don't have to take me with you anymore," he politely told me when I finally stopped, seeing him languish while I loved every moment.

So, I'd venture out alone, slicing into the earth to uproot wild carrots and the like while he made every effort not to slice his ball on the golf course.

But admittedly, there are some places that concern for my safety has kept me from exploring and harvesting on my own. Hey, I was a reporter. I know where the hot spots in St. Catharines are and unfortunately, they're some of the most beautiful and loaded with wild foods.

This week, though, I could tame those fears, thanks to forging a foraging friendship on Twitter with @foodsnark, who lured me to locales I'd only written about in police pick-ups with a photo of branches tipped with bright red rose hips.

With baggies in hand — his, stoop and scoop satchels snatched on a recent trip to Germany — we headed into uncharted territory in search of a fruit that has been the apple of my eye since my trip to Deutschland in May. That's when my aunt Sigurn enlightened me to all the edible parts of her hansa rose bushes, including the hips.

My haul of rose hips.

We hunted for those berry-like seedpods loaded with future generations of flowers, tons of flavour and vitamin C levels that make an orange green with envy. (Rose hips are also touted for fighting infection in the kidneys, bladder and urinary tract and boast vitamins A, B, E and K).

Mine were destined to be seeded and dried for tea. Foodsnark's would be reincarnated into a Gewurztraminer-rose hip jelly. Jam and syrup are also options for these oblong lovelies that are more pulpy than juicy, more tangy than floral and dullards in the scent department, compared to the blooms that bore them.

Tonight, I enjoyed my first cup of rose hip tea. I made sure I breathed deeply, swished every sip in my mouth and gazed fondly into my cup at the floating fruit, now rehydrated and sweetened with honey.

I don't usually drink tea like fine wine but this stuff begs for it, if only because of the work involved. Rose hips are demanding divas.

Seeding rose hips is a labourious and delicate process.

They're small and packed with tiny seeds and hairs that have to be removed because they can cause stomach irritation. What's left is a mere shell of the bulbous fruit that beckoned me to wilderness unknown in the first place.

To say this was a tedious task makes it sound more exciting than it was. It was a long process, seemingly fruitless as it took more than mere moments to get just half a small cookie sheet filled with my now flattened, seeded flower pods.

After an hour in the toaster oven on 150C, I had what looked like scraps of sun-dried tomatoes but would be the makings of my next cup of tea. And the fun isn't over yet. I have more than half my hips to process. They're in the freezer for a day when motivation is running high.

But tonight I steeped the dried fruits of my labour (leaving them in my cup for maximum flavour), added honey and savoured the offspring of a flower that has as much substance as beauty. It was tangy and tart. Refreshing.

With each sip, the tedium of seeding seemed more worthwhile, fading to (almost) forgotten. Yes, I'm seeing that part of the experience with rose-coloured glasses.

That's what happens when you sip homemade, wild tea en rose.

NiAGara: Farm Heroes and Agvocates — Charles Rhora of Rhora's Nut Farm and Nursery

2011-10-31T23:04:00.000-04:00

Charles Rhora checks out one of his pine nut-producing conifers in his
Wainfleet nut orchard.

There's no hiding it.

Every Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) rep that steps foot on Charles Rhora's farm can see it.

Rhora's Wainfleet nut farm and nursery is organic and the forest of weeds shrouding his youngest seedlings and saplings destined to be planted in locales around the world are a dead giveaway.

"I had someone here from the CFIA and she looked around and said, 'Yup, you're organic,'" Rhora said with a laugh.

But Rhora's weedy ways are for more than convincing the food safety watchdogs that his work is above board.

Those towering goldenrod, lanky milkweeds and other herbaceous interlopers are Rhora's irrigation system, collecting the dew to trickle down and keep his seedlings' roots moist.

"The more the better," Rhora said about his weeds. "I'd rather have it looking a little messy than have it ruined for future generations. The neighbours grow corn and soy. All they do is spray."

Rhora has been farming 40 years, most of that time devoted to his unique crop that includes pine nuts, pecans, hickory nuts, hazelnuts, heartnuts, walnuts, persimmon, paw paws, Chinese dogwood and chestnuts.

Persimmons growing at Rhora's Nut Farm and Nursery.

Rare ornamentals, such as the Japanese empress oak, sweet gum and basswood, also have roots on his farm.

And 10,000 young incarnations of each of them — none of the grafted to boost their chances of survival — are nestled amongst thickets of plants most farmers would see as pests.

"I have a map to where everything is," he assured.

Rhora is one of a pair of nut farmers that Niagara can claim. His is a crop he got into thanks to one part pragmatism and one part curiosity.

His father, who also farmed, was keen to grow cereal crops but that didn't make sense to Rhora.

"To buy the equipment was expensive and I had to pay for people to harvest it," he said.

That didn't leave much in the way of profit, he noted.

So he came up with a nutty idea after doing some reading on nut production. Rhora gathered few samples from a local farmer and set about planting them to see what would happen.

Since then, his farm has produced dozens of varieties of tree nuts and nut trees that have been sold around the world — some growing as far away from his home in this quiet south Niagara hamlet as New Zealand.

His paw paws and persimmon are sold to local restaurants on the condition that after the fruit is eaten, the seeds are returned so Rhora can propagate future generations the unique fruit, one similar in texture and taste to a banana, the other like an apricot with a citrus kick.

A cone ready for harvest.

His specialty, though, is edible pine nuts, a niche market for foodies and locavores. The downside: it's not touted as a commercial crop, which has spiked a potentially huge market for this agricultural innovator to sell his seedlings to aspiring nut growers. Still, that doesn't stop Rhora from devoting a fair share of his 35 acres to 13 different varieties of pine nut-producing conifers.

He has no problem opining about the merits of his decision.

"We're importing $30 million-worth of pine nuts each year. Why not grow them here?" Rhora said, noting some of those bins at the bulk food store teeming with the tiny soft white nuts can be sitting around for months.

Rhora is in the midst of harvesting of his prized pine nut crop at the moment, some to be sold in their shells for eating, others to be used to seed future generations of saplings for sale.

"(Pine nuts) are fresher in the shell. The ones you buy in the store could be a year old. In the shell, they keep their juices and all the things that are good for your health," he noted.

Harvesting is a labourious task, coaxing between 60 and 100 nuts out of each cone that takes two years to develop and produce`fleshy bits.

By 15 years old, each pine tree produces about a bushel of cones.

It's worth it, though.

Chestnuts from Rhora's Nut Farm and Nursery.

"The more they develop, the more interest I develop in them," Rhora said.

"There's more nutrition in them and their better for your heart and health as well," he added. "Mind you, any nut is good for your overall heart health."

While he clearly welcomes weeds on his farm — Rhora has even applied for official organic certification for those who can't make the trip to Wainfleet to see the natural growth — his real enemies are those who love nuts as much as he does.

Squirrels.

Rabbits and their penchant for tree bark in winter are also a going concern.

But for every furry rodent and big-eared bark lover, Rhora has built-in pest control sweeping in from a nearby woodlot: hawks.

Still, for as much as Rhora can wax pragmatic about raising nut trees in harmony with nature, he can also wax philosophical.

This is more than just a job for him. Rhora is simply nuts about nuts. He hasn't met one he didn't like.

Sweet acorn hybrids from Rhora's Nut Farm and Nursery.

He can rhyme off the idiosyncrasies of each variety with ease.

His Korean pines: "In the springtime, they have a nice blue colour to them, like Colorado blue spruce. It's quite the sight to see."

Rhora's Jeffrey pines appeal to another sense.

"In the springtime, they produce a fragrance like you wouldn't believe. It's like perfume."

Still, it doesn't matter what kind of nut tree it is, Rhora can find the good in them all. So can the people who plant his seedlings in their own orchards or yards.

"I get lots of compliments on how the trees are doing. It's a good feeling," he said. "Plus, I like working with trees. It's therapeutic. The time flies. There's just the interest and it takes my mind off other things."

Summer sealed in time

2011-10-26T22:51:00.000-04:00

Some of my oven-dried tomatoes.

Looking out the window, it's easy to get nostalgic for summer.

That glorious sunny season has been over for slightly more than a month but today's grey skies and dreary drizzle make it feel like it has been gone forever.

There are still signs of summer thanks to a few stragglers — the hangers on, just like me — in my CSA baskets. I still get tomatoes, though these are distinctly fall fruit. They're tasty but fleshier, less juicy than their summer counterparts. They don't burst with the same liquidy bite or sweetness they do in August.

Still, I'll take them because they beat the cardboard-like orbs that will appear on grocery store shelves soon, signalling the start of my tomato fast until next year.

Good thing tomatoes are the one local food item I have consistently made a point of preserving year after year.

I like to think that what's stashed in my cupboard from my preserving efforts a few weeks ago is a tomato trifecta — summer captured and immortalized three ways in mason jars and freezer bags.

When I got my usual bushel of toms this year, I had high hopes of making sauce again. But once I got started, I remembered that no matter how much I love to eat the stuff come December, I really don't enjoy jarring it.

Peeling tomatoes sucks, quite frankly. It's messy and tedious and come sauce time, I lament my lack of a food mill and try to remember to ask for one come Christmas. This year, I've taken to writing that down as a note to self, since clearly, come December, when my canning experiences of August are but a distant memory, so, too, is my desire for a food mill.

A jar of my 2011 tomato sauce.

I managed to jar three litres of sauce before I decided it was time to regroup. I had to hurry, though, because the hordes of fruit flies that had taken to camping out in my kitchen catcher were migrating to my box of tomatoes, which were languishing with each passing day that I laboured to decide what to do.

The winning fates for my tomatoes turned out to be oven-dried editions and conserva. And the only reason I'm writing about this now — long after the opportunity to preserve these puppies has passed — is because I have reached for both versions frequently since their creation and have been grateful for their existence every time.

Every bean I've pickled, jam I've made, sauce I've served doesn't compare to these two additions to my preserving repertoire.

The conserva, a fancy name for tomato paste, came my way via a suggestion on Twitter and a link to a brilliant recipe. Just be sure to keep an eye on it while it's condensing in the oven if you decide to try this. Some of my conserva wound up a casualty of my distraction and got burned and caked onto the pan.

My conserva spread on pizza crust.

But what I could salvage is zippy and boasts such a fresh flavour that I fear the upcoming winter sans fresh tomatoes a little less.

The real coup for me is my oven-dried tomatoes because they are just so damn good. This is the easiest way to preserve them but it does require a lot of patience and even more self-control to keep from eating every single shrivelled tomato that emerges from the oven in one sitting. It also requires kicking the guilt reflex to the curb while scooping out the innards and dumping them, worrying that I'm wasting such precious bits. Next year's project will be finding a use for those.

Still, the result makes me forget all that. These tomatoes are like jerky for vegetarians. Chewy and satisfying. Salty and sweet. And oh, so tomatoey. They are like candy.

For every one I put on a pizza, I eat three more. They're addictive and more flavourful than any sun-dried version I've bought in the store.

They are summer sealed in time.

Oven-dried Tomatoes

The tomatoes that work best are the uniformly shaped fruit, not the bulbous, misshapen oddballs. Save those for salad or soup. Small to medium-sized toms work best for oven-drying.

Cut tomatoes in half lengthwise.

Scoop out the innards and lay on an oiled cookie sheet.

Sprinkle with salt (I used a coarse sea salt).

I kept mine in my oven at the lowest temperature setting — I think it was 150F — for between eight to 12 hours, removing the small ones after eight hours and leaving the larger ones to dehydrate longer.

Make lots because they'll disappear before you know it.

Break out the Black Sheep Riesling, it's time to say thanks

2011-10-23T21:27:00.002-04:00

Thanks to this sheep and his fellow flock mates for their inspiration.

Sheep can be incredible muses.

Take it from me. I know. They inspired me to write a blog post about a late summer visit to Featherstone Estate Winery. In turn, I was inspired to enter that post in the LCBO's Go Local Find Your Favourite blog challenge, an all-call to Ontario wine fans to find a new favourite local wine and write about it.

The contest was a nail biter, given the first part of it entailed getting everyone I know and then some to vote for my post. The top five vote getters were then judged and I'm honoured to say my Hired Hooves post was chosen as first runner up.

Best part is my prize.

It's a trip to Niagara. I am going to the Icewine Festival Gala in January and I get two nights accommodation in Niagara Falls and passes to visit local wineries where I can sample the goods for free during the festival dedicated to fermented frozen grape juice.

No complaints here. I love playing tourist in my own backyard so thank you to everyone who humoured me and voted.

Be sure to check out the other posts. The writers did a fantastic job and all deserve a glass raised in their honour.

Good Earth holds a rich soul
Bubbly is not just for special occasions
A goLocal wine meal
I love Ontario Wine Country

Getting to know grape growers: Gord Mitchell

2011-10-22T17:48:00.001-04:00

Grape grower Gord Mitchell from Harrow, Ontario.

By Grape Growers of Ontario

Grape harvest has begun. Meet grape grower Gord Mitchell and his daughter Tanya, from Harrow.

From spring to harvest, the Grape Growers of Ontario is producing a series of videos to take you into Ontario’s vineyards and meet our growers. In the newest video, we travel to the Lake Erie North Shore appellation where Gord and Hannah Mitchell have been growing grapes for 20 years. Sprucewood Shores Vineyards & Estate Winery is a family affair. Everyone has a role.

Get to know our Ontario grape growers and see what goes into growing the grapes that produce the Ontario wines you love on Facebook.

Hungry for street food change

2011-10-19T23:18:00.001-04:00

Tamara Jensen and Adam Hynam-Smith are El Gastronomo Vagabundo

Cue the world's smallest violin.

I don't know what I'm going to eat for lunch tomorrow.

Anyone who's organized might make something. The night's still young enough.

But you see, I live for Thursday lunches that aren't my creation.

Thursdays are one of three days a week that the St. Catharines Farmers Market runs and up until a couple of months ago, they were my favourite market day. The reason: A souped up Purolator truck splashed with pink and turquoise paint would park itself outside of Market Square and offer up the likes of green curry, tomato and watermelon salad, green papaya salad, iced teas brewed with sumac or fresh Niagara peaches — the makings of a lunch that was unlike anything I could find anywhere else.

I'm talking about the fresh and beautiful fare offered up by El Gastronomo Vagabundo. While there are other lunch choices I eat often at the market, this was their day as far as my midday meal choices were concerned.

I'd develop serious food crushes after just a glance at their ever-changing handwritten menus. I'd gush as I'd wait for my order or smile like a smitten kitten as my lunch was being made.

Like a possessive control freak, I'd tell the El Gastro gurus, Adam Hynam-Smith and Tamara Jensen, they can never leave Niagara. Ever.

One Thursday in August, though, this dynamic duo weren't in their usual parking spot. I couldn't help but notice their absence yet again a week later.

Adam working his magic in his kitchen on wheels.

The talented twosome were beckoned elsewhere — to places where the masses to feed were greater, to private events where their culinary skills were coveted. In short, they were in demand and business was booming.

I missed them dearly, though was thrilled for their success. They weren't Niagara's best kept secret for long and deep down, I feared they'd become someone else's good news food story soon enough.

People in Toronto drove here in the summer to eat the food they served during their weekend gigs at Flat Rock Cellars in Jordan.

They often hightailed it to high-profile events and pop-ups in the megacity where the hungry lined up for hours just to get a taste of what I could have every week simply by taking a few steps outside my office door at City Hall.

They were getting ink galore in big city dailies and on foodie websites. The glare of the sunlamp was being cast upon them by TV crews. And they deserved it for shaking up the white linen dining world with their compostable containers and exciting eats.

Like clockwork, I'd log on to Twitter each week to see what they had in store for the market crowd, only to envy the folks elsewhere at those other foodie events, where the El Gastro pair were working their magic those weeks in August and then September.

I tried to buck up and sound breezy in my tweets to them, asking if they were coming to the market that day. I already knew the answer but had to read it in 140 black and white characters tweeted to me directly.

They reassured me they'd be back after Thanksgiving. Things would slow down for them and they would pull into their usual parking spot again. And though I didn't want the summer to end, I think I willed it away as I longed for the first Thursday after turkey day when I could eat their food once more.

But alas, my wishing for fall just got me that much closer to winter and that much farther away from another El Gastro lunch.

The news was grim. They weren't coming back. They weren't able to plug in at the market — the building's breakers and their plugs were like oil on water — and so hot food made on site was an impossibility. Generators weren't allowed either.

Instead, they are working on getting a permit in Hamilton, where, unlike St. Catharines, they could pull up to a curb, rather than wait for an invitation to a private event or buy a market vendor's ticket, and be the street food peddlers they want to be.

In addition to the hurdles at the market, St. Catharines only sells a limited number of permits to food vendors and they're usually spoken for by those wielding wieners. Rules about how close to restaurants they can park — if invited onto private property — abound and no surprise, there are those who don't want them downtown for fear they'll take business away from the restaurants there.

I might be worried, too, given Hynam-Smith's ridiculous talent as a chef and Jensen's service with a genuine smile.

But as a diner, I just want to eat their food and it saddens me that two young, talented, entrepreneurial folk doing something that can only help put St. Catharines' dining scene on the map have to go elsewhere to make a living. Such a common theme here in Niagara, where we seem to suffer from a never-ending brain drain.

They came to Niagara from Ottawa because they loved the area and the bounty of produce Niagara proffered. They took a chance on us and we should be so lucky. These are the kind of people we need here. Creative. Energetic. Filled with bright ideas and passion for what they do.

The sort-of good news is a report is expected to come to council at some point with information about changing the city's street food permit rules. But it will be for information purposes and up to council to decide to go further and allow for a street food scene to flourish here.

Still, it's progress. But, if you're an El Gastro groupie like me, there's more that can be done to beckon them back.

As a city employee, I'm offering the same advice I'd offer to any resident who writes in to lament the lack of skate parks in Merritton or who wants a new playground in their neighbourhood greenspace.

Call your local councillor. Let them know. They are where the seeds of the change are planted and germinate.

So, please, help me eat Thursday lunches with the same zeal I used to. Heck, why save it for Thursday and just me. Help us all eat gourmet street food any day of the week, anywhere El Gastro pulls up. And keep this talented duo working in the community where they live by letting local elected officials know you want the street food rules to change.

That way, come lunch, we can put away the violin and instead cue the drum roll as we're handed a biodegradable bowl of whatever gourmet goodness El Gastro has on the menu.

A seedy ritual

2011-10-14T21:47:00.002-04:00

Roasted butternut squash seeds

It's better than handing out candy.

Way better than nearly cutting off my fingers as I hack into a pumpkin, on a mission to carve the coolest gourd around.

Roasting pumpkin seeds has always been the highlight of Halloween for me, going back to when I was a child and my mom would sift through orange goo in search of the slimy white bits to toast.

I don't think we had any idea how healthy the seeds actually were, only that they tasted good. They were a ritual, a reward for job well done scooping out the guts while we cheered on my dad as he made triangular cuts through our orb and year after year, gave my sister and me the prototypical jack-o-lantern.

Now that I'm all grown up and carving the pumpkin is my job, I still delight in picking out the seeds, sprinkling them with salt and putting them in the oven for 10 minutes to turn golden and delicious.

Truth is, it's the only reason I carve a pumpkin every year.

But last fall, while slicing into an acorn squash that I would gut and fill with quinoa stuffing, I got curious.

Its seeds looked pretty similar to my great pumpkins'. I wondered what would happen if I roasted them.

Surprise, surprise, I got a good pumpkin seed substitute — albeit a small batch — and a crunchy accoutrement to my meal.

I made a point of roasting the seeds of every squash I ate after that. The seeds have a similar nutrition profile to pumpkin seeds, dubbed a superfood with all their health benefits.

It was only as I cut open a butternut squash last night, my first squash of the season, that I was reminded I wouldn't have to wait another two weeks for my roasted seed fix.

Driven to distraction trying to get supper ready, I left my seeds in the oven a little too long, but they were still delicious and disappeared in minutes.

Try it. Use them anywhere you would pumpkin seeds. Salads, on top of risotto, sprinkled on soup, anywhere you need a crunch.

They're not just gourd, they're great.

Five things I learned from my garden

2011-10-13T21:18:00.001-04:00

Determinate tomatoes, such as urbikany and punta banda, grew well for me
in containers.

I finally did it.

I finally let go of the summer that was. Annuals have been yanked. Tomato plants promising no more fruit have been tossed. Pots have been dumped.

With the exception of some lettuce and the perennials, my garden is ready to take the winter off and get its beauty sleep before being reincarnated in 2012.

Truth is, I've been planning next year's edition of my tiny allotment since June. Just a few short weeks into the growing season, I already knew what I would do differently 12 months later. I can't help but think my visions of gardens future helped along the summer more quickly than I would have liked.

Still, I heeded what my half-a-postage-stamp plot taught me this year as I let it take its course in this, my third growing season as an official gardener. Much like the two years previous, there was lots to note.

5. Just when you think you know someone

Peas grew well for me last year. This year, not
so much.

Yup, it's true. Just when I thought I had my garden figured out, its idiosyncrasies memorized, its quirks chronicled, I realized I don't know it that well at all.

I mean, I know that certain parts of my dirt patch get a maximum six hours of sunlight each day, broken up by shady intervals as the sun makes its way across the sky, over the looming silver maple in my yard and casting its rays around the greenery in my garden, sending shadows every which way.

But I forget that where the sun hits — and for how long — changes as the growing season wanes. So what gets lots of sun early in the season gets scant rays later on.

I also seemed to have more of a drainage problem this year, a problem that has bubbled to the surface as my newly built condo complex and surrounding yard has settled and shifted into place.

Perennials that were paltry last year grew a lot more this year, throwing monkey wrenches (read: shade) into the growth patterns of surrounding fruiting annuals.

Sunny spots that were fertile ground for veggie plants last year proved less hospitable this year.

Dear garden, you are a tease. You toy with me, tempt me with your sunny bursts, then leave my plants languishing and my dreams of being a true greenthumb dashed.

I will build up my soil next year, allowing for better drainage and I have mapped the sunniest, shadiest and wettest spots. I'll read you like a book yet.

4. My garden's trusty sidekick isn't so trusty

That's right Mother Nature, I'm talking to you.

My first attempt at gardening happened in 2009. It was wet and cool most of the summer.

I planted five tomato plants, which, combined, provided me with one tomato. I wanted to throw in the trowel. But alas, 2010 came along.

It was, by all accounts, the perfect growing season. It was sunny, hot and had timely rains.

Why, I could garden after all. In fact, I think I got a little cocky when my Pinot Noir pepper plant proved to be a prolific producer and my pink Zapotec tomato sprouted ruffled orb after ruffled orb.

So, when the 2011 growing season rolled around, I was undaunted when the soggy spring brought back memories of 2009.

But then there was July, so hot and sunny. And deathly dry. Everything struggled.

My arugula turned to seed quickly once the rain stopped in the spring.
The flowers were a delicious peppery treat, though.

Three very different growing seasons in row happened, proving that maiden of meteorology is a fickle creature with a cruel sense of humour.

No two growing seasons were created equally and you never know what you're going to get.

So...

3. I'll stick with what I do know

My chard.

And what I do know is this: garlic, chard and endive grow well for me so I will continue to plant them. Chard, in particular, has weed-like tendencies in my dirt patch no matter what's in the forecast and that's fine by me because leafy greens make me swoon.

This was my second year growing garlic and I have the perfect spot for it — the sunniest in the garden, as a matter of fact. This year, I got large heads and dreamy scapes. By the time I pulled them in July, there was still enough time to plant endive/chicory in its place.

I got voluminous leafy heads of this mildly bitter green that made for salads and sadness when the last bunch was harvested.

It was my uncle in Germany, the former town gardener in Zweibrucken, who suggested I grow endive after I whipped out the German-English dictionary to help me meticulously describe the growing conditions of my yard and pick his brain for good crops.

The choices were scant. But I — ahem, he — clearly picked the winner.

My endive. Ain't she a beauty?

2. Containers don't always hold gardening success

I grow a lot in containers. They're great for reeling in my mint and have turned out to be perfect for potting my determinate tomatoes, urbikany and punta banda.

My tangle of rosemary. I love this herb. It smells gorgeous
and grows like a charm for me. And it's a perennial. Makes
job easy as a gardener.

Because of all the cool shade my silver maple throws, containers are ideal for following the sun. Still, some of the heat seekers didn't do well despite my conscientious tracking of every move of that great ball of fire in the sky.

Eggplants turned out to be a bust. I only got two fruits despite my meticulous watering and fertilizing of an otherwise leafy and lovely plant.

Beets promised gardening greatness in their early days, germinating more quickly in a pots than their in-ground counterparts. But they amounted to nothing, getting baked before ever really getting growing. Cat turds was how I described them when I unearthed their sad state.

So, basil, parsley, mint, rosemary and urbikany for me and my pots next year.

1. Never give up

I've had some dismal experiences in the garden (see reference to beets above). Still, every year when the seed catalogues begin arriving in the mail, my curiosity is piqued by pages of unusual and even common veggies that I would be most proud to produce.

My pepino, one of those unusual seeds I got suckered into buying.
Apparently, it will give me soapy tasting fruit in year two. Fingers crossed.

Truth is, the best thing about gardening is the anticipation of the harvest and whether I'll even get a harvest. Even though my shady yard makes most plants a little sluggish, I'm always thrilled by my puny tomatoes or the few sprigs of lettuce I get.

The failures — yes, beets, I mean you — well, I just make a mental note to plant something else in their place the next year.

Every year brings with it another season's promise. Only 220 more days until that promise begins once again to unfold.

Giving thanks for the small victories — and the big

2011-10-10T18:15:00.000-04:00

The pear harvest gets underway at
Cherry Lane orchard in Vineland.

It was the makings of a Steve Miller song.

Standing under the sagging branches of a kieffer pear tree in the Cherry Lane orchard in Vineland, my mind's ear couldn't help but hear the classic rocker croon 'Really love your peaches, wanna shake your tree.'

In this case, though, the song could have easily been sung about pears as volunteer Rowan Shirkie ingeniously shook the arthritic limbs of pear trees to quickly weed out all the ones ripe for the picking — without having to pick them.

With a plastic tarp laid on the ground below, all that needed to be done was a simple scoop and dump into a basket. Really, I don't know where I'd be without the resourceful crew of people who have helped with Garden of Eating — Niagara picks this year. Well, I could wager a guess: perhaps stuck up a pear tree somewhere still trying to fill a basket with fruit.

Our efforts today netted us nearly 700 pounds of pears that will be canned by Niagara Catholic District School Board students and delivered to Community Care.

By far, it was the largest harvest in the Garden of Eating's history. And the only reason we stopped was because our baskets and trunks were full. We barely made a dent in all the fruit that eventually will fall to the ground and rot.

Still, a big victory — huge, in fact — and one that comes compliments of Cherry Lane in Vineland, who donated the fruit.

But it's the small victories that have kept the Garden of Eating going for much of this year and for which, I'm equally as grateful.

Take the phone call that came Thursday night from a woman with five extra butternut squash from her garden. Too much squash, not enough people in her family to eat it. They are five of the most beautiful squash I've seen. Nearly flawless and almost all perfectly bell-shaped.

They will be delivered Tuesday to the Ozanam Centre in St. Catharines where the soup kitchen feeds as many as 70 to 100 people a day.

Butternut squash donated to the Garden of Eating — Niagara.

Next year, the woman who gave the squash plans to grow an extra row of vegetables for the Garden of Eating — Niagara to deliver to social agencies in need.

No, it won't come near a record harvest but this is still, by far, a huge gesture and one for which I am immeasurably grateful. The woman who made the offer is elderly, could easily decide to pare down her garden instead, work less and relax more, but no. She plans to break ground for people she doesn't know, only knows that she wants to help.

At a pear pick last Wednesday, I was also offered up some beautiful land in a sun-filled St. Catharines backyard. The people who live there are no longer able to tend to the gardens that have been carved out of the yard so the offer was made. "Do you know anyone who could use it?" the daughter of the homeowner asked.

I already have visions of what can grow there. So does one of the volunteers from the pick who lamented his shade-filled yard and saw the promise of the growing season ahead thanks to this offer of yard sharing.

And there's room for more. I see a jungle of tomato plants, hunched over with heavy bulbous fruit, perkier pepper plants proffering up their goodness and more. Maybe lettuce. Or squash. Beans. Chard. Let me know if you'd like to share in the plot for your own use or to donate the harvest.

The possibilities seem endless. Much like the stomachs in need of filling.

Small victories but they all add up.

And for that, I am thankful.

Farming to feed and take care of the planet

2011-10-08T01:30:00.000-04:00

Texas longhorns at YU Ranch in Norfolk County.

Sometimes I wish elastic-waist pants were the height of fashion.

Not only could I wear them and look like a hipster, I also wouldn’t have noticed my pants becoming tighter and tighter around my belly that was expanding with every bite I took at this year’s annual YU Ranch farm gate dinner.

Hosted on a late September Sunday by Norfolk County cattle farmer extraordinaire Bryan Gilvesy and his wife Cathy, the dinner — a feast, really, because there were six hors d’oeuvres and five glorious and gluttonous courses — was a chance to show off all the good that sustainable farming can do for us as eaters and for the planet. And I willingly ventured outside Niagara to a place I dub Niagara Minor to see Gilvesy’s farm in action.

The dinner featured his grass-fed Texas longhorn beef, known for being lean, in various forms: tartare, tongue Reubens, barbecued sirloin laid out beautifully on shallot puree, understated but decadent meatloaf, oxtail soup, goulash.

The list goes on thanks to the talent of Chef Tracy Winkworth, who, on this afternoon that meandered into evening, gave up her usual digs at her Belworth House restaurant in Waterford to cook for about 50 people in a barn equipped with stacks of hay bails and the token barn cat keeping an eye on the action.

I hear the meaty meal was delicious. Much as I think Gilvesy was keen to see if he could convert me — “I’ve had vegetarians who haven’t eaten meat in 15 years come to my farm and eat a burger,” he told me — he and Winkworth made sure no vegetarian was left behind.

Each of my meat-free servings was made with as much thought, care and creativity as my carnivorous dinner companions’ meal. Think pillowy ravioli stuffed with roasted red pepper and butternut squash, bean soup made from local legumes, greens accompanied by a pear poached in Burning Kiln’s Riesling, topped with raw milk Roquefort, parsnip and carrot chips and dressed in a honey-lime vinaigrette.

My main was a brilliant plate of grilled veggies that made my dining companions swoon. But the real stunner of the night was the “peaches and cream” dessert of sweet corn ice cream atop a Norfolk peach and crowned with caramel popcorn and a phyllo wrapped parsnip spear.

My sister, who was my dinner date, made up for my vegetarian ways and raved about Gilvesy’s beef and all its accoutrements, including some of the best local wines to wash it all down.

There were enough tipple to rival any fine dining establishment’s wine list. Between us and the two folks sitting across the long dinner table from us, we had six bottles — a mix of red and white Niagara and Lake Erie North Shore vintages.

Norfolk’s own Burning Kiln Winery, a nod to the golden leaf tobacco industry that built the area, was represented with its amarone-style wines, including its gorgeous peppery, warm Cab “Frank.”

Burning Kiln also represents the innovation and adaptability of Norfolk farmers. They are a resourceful, entrepreneurial bunch unlike any other, who have carved many new niches since the downturn of tobacco. A phoenix rising from the ashes. They are blessed with land and a micro-climate to suit virtually any crop, both of which could make Norfolk the envy of any farming community.

This meal and this day, though, were so much more than a gorge fest.

Gilvesy is an early adopter of ALUS, a catchy acronym for Alternative Land Use Services. The gist of the eco-friendly pilot program is to farm in harmony with nature, not against it. It encourages farmers to take marginal land out of production and let nature reclaim it. In return, farmers would be rewarded financially for their efforts in creating this natural wonderland.

To show how ALUS works on a tobacco farm-turned-cattle ranch, Gilvesy took us on a hike through some of the most pristine countryside imaginable.

First stop: a patch of native grasses and greenery growing in the shadow of an old stick kiln, a nod to Gilvesy's earlier days making a living off the land. As he pointed out the coneflower and Prairie grass, bees flew around him in search of their next point of pollen collection.

“It’s neat to put back the eco-system and farm off it,” Gilvesy said.

With that, he and his sheep dog Gunner led the pack of us food and farm curious into a Carolinian forest woodlot where we all got some insight into the help Gilvesy gets from Mother Nature when working his land.

Standing on a bridge above a cold water stream he has stocked with trout, a sage Gilvesy noted “Farms can serve the purpose to feed us and take care of the environment.”

He explained how his woods flower in both the spring and the fall, providing fodder for bees to buzz around and be the master pollinators they are. He invites them into his fields by creating habitat for them there in old tree stumps. They are as much a part of his workforce as any hired hand.

“Even though it doesn’t look like farm land, you can’t ignore the connections,” Gilvesy said, hoisting some wild ginger plucked from the forest floor. “If you leave with anything today, it’s that farming happens with this land and not because of it. This isn’t a subdivision.”

But we also left full of knowing what good food and wine, produced and prepared with care, really is.

I’m not exaggerating when I say this was the best meal I’ve ever eaten. Gilvesy and Winkworth were feeding people hungry for delicious, real food but also craving a story and experience on the side, both of which made everything taste all the better.

On the hike, we were introduced to some other innovators in their fields – well, Gilvesy’s fields on this day.

Lydia Tomek, winemaker at St. Catharines’ Hernder Estate Wines plied us her piece de resistance, a decade in the making for this 30-year-old vintner.

Inspired by Spain’s sherry, Tomek set about to make her own version of the fortified vino when she was a student at Brock’s Cool Climate Oenology and Viticulture Institute and keen to experiment during her job placement at Hernder.

For 10 years, Tomek ambitiously blended Riesling and Chardonnay, fortifying it with distilled Cab Franc in oak barrels that she moved around the winery, following the sun to create a solera system, a natural baking process that would activate the flor yeasts.

All that work and only recently did she discover “it tasted exactly as I wanted it to … with its own Niagara flare.”

The beautiful amber elixir called Caluroso was released this year – only 50 cases of it – and scored a bronze metal at the InterVin wine competition, where it edged out fortified wines from the country that inspired it and others that have centuries of fortified winemaking experience on their sides.

Caluroso isn’t just a catchy moniker . It encapsulates everything Tomek poured into her prize pet project. It means warmth and heart “which is what you feel when drinking it and the passion that went in to making this,” she explained.

Our appetites whetted, we were finally introduced to Winkworth, who met us in a nearby field of alfalfa and orchard grass. She pulled up in a pickup truck with its tailgate-turned kitchen. She turned out beef tartar in her makeshift food truck (I had some rich eggplant tartare, meaty in its own right) on wood planks, that, if left behind, would only be reclaimed by the earth.

Dressed in a t-shirt emblazoned with the word ‘Local,’ a fork and knife standing in for the L’s, Winkworth explained she doesn’t just serve local food. Her culinary creations are made with the “best-produced local food.”

“Our purpose in our kitchen is to source the best food from the best ranchers and farmers,” she said, standing over a bowl of Gilvesy’s raw sirloin for the tartare.

After that, she has the “easy job” of tweaking it. Whatever she calls it, my normally cooked-meat-preferring sister was dazzled after one bite.

We all were.

Our ever-shrinking pants could attest to it.

NiAGara Farm Heroes and Agvocates: Brock Puddicombe of Puddicombe Cider Company

2011-09-30T22:16:00.002-04:00

Brock Puddicombe, an eighth generation farmer and newly anointed cider maker,
is the mastermind behind Sir Isaac's Premium Pear Cider.

Brock Puddicombe has an easy fix for his pear cravings come this time of year.

The Winona fruit grower can reach for one straight off the tree when making the rounds through his sprawling orchard.

Even when pear season is but a distant memory, he'll still be able to satisfy his hankerings. All he'll have to do is open his fridge and reach for a tall cold one.

Puddicombe is busy bottling his favourite fruit as Sir Isaac's Premium Pear Cider, a liquid gold concoction of Bartlett and Bosc pears that has proven to be a silver lining to a tough blow to local fruit growers.

Turn the clock back three years and CanGro Foods Inc., the last fruit cannery in country, was slated to shutter, closing down a market for much of the Puddicombe family's pear crop.

That meant an awful lot of fruit fated for the fresh market or trees destined to be yanked from local orchards.

"We do try to do as much as we can through the fresh market but because of the amount out there, it's important to have every pear marketable," Puddicombe said.

But about 15 to 20 per cent of the crop of bell-shaped fruit isn't suitable for space on supermarket shelves, leaving tonnes without a home.

Until now.

"Instead of it going back into the ground or in the field and letting nature take its course, we press them and then put them back in the field (to compost)," Puddicombe said.

The result is a pleasant smelling cider that makes you want to drink it and won't give you a toothache or sugar headache when you do.

The idea to make pear cider had been fermenting since Puddicombe studied at the University of Guelph a few years ago. It came to him on nearly every walk to a party or stop in the LCBO where he would see British ciders on the shelves.

But the impetus to start making cider came two years ago in a post-CanGro world while taking a tour of the British Isles with his sister and winemaker Lindsay.

The duo hit up local cideries for insight and inspiration.

"It was just a matter of getting recipes, the taste profile and smells," he said.

They came home and began experimenting with different pears and yeasts, roping their staff into sampling the goods and being part of the Puddicombe research and development team.

The early samples, though, "were just like every other cider. Nothing stood out," Puddicombe recalled.

Then he narrowed down the pear profile to Bartlett and Bosc and focused on tweaking the yeast.

After three days of more samples and more math, he looked at the numbers of what would become Sir Isaac's — named for Canada's 1812 war hero, General Isaac Brock — and knew from the experience he had squeezed out of his short cidermaking career thus far that he had a winner.

"I didn't put my glass to my lips. I let others try it. I just went by the looks on their faces when they smelled it and tasted," he said.

Three months ago, Puddicombe introduced Sir Isaac to the masses and plans to press as many as 34,000 litres this year for his newly founded Puddicombe Cider Company.

By early September, he'd already sold 2,300 litres and was working on getting Sir Isaac's on shelves at the LCBO. Right now, it's only available at the family's farm, in their Puddicombe Estate Winery shop or by the bottle in a few local pubs — something that gives Puddicombe a real kick.

"When you see someone you don't know having a bottle of it, it kind of feels like victory," he said. "I don't have kids but if your kids were to succeed in something, I imagine this would be that feeling. Your hard work pays off."

Sir Isaac's six packs are stacked high at Puddicombe Estate Farm and Winery
but are selling quickly.

If you make the trip to Winona for a six pack or two, just don't mention that other fruit when sampling some.

"When someone tells me they smell apples, I almost get offended," Puddicombe admitted. "I don't want my product to smell like apples. I want it to smell like pears.

"It's crisp, it smells perfect and it's so easy going down. The palette is there. It's perfect in my opinion."

But the critic Puddicombe was most worried about convincing was his father, Murray.

The patriarch of this entrepreneurial farming family was a little reluctant to see his son pour his heart into the cider business if only because it isn't the usual drink of choice for Ontarians. Cider has only recently been gaining ground among the thirsty masses.

Puddicombe recalled that after a sixth night of pressing pears, a skeptical Murray asked him how much cider he planned to make.

Puddicombe told him 18,000 litres.

A glass of Sir Isaac's Premium Pear Cider.

"He said 'What?' But it was 'If you build it, they will come'," Puddicombe said.

Now Murray gives away more six packs than anyone else and is often overheard proudly telling people about his son's latest accomplishment.

"Between a father and son, you don't really say 'I love you.' You look for the signs," Puddicombe said. "He's your tough farmer."

With Sir Isaac's leaving the farm faster than an American surrender in the War of 1812, Puddicombe is starting to think about what other fruit he can convert to drinkable form.

Mostly, though, he's content to take stock of the fermented fruits of his labour.

"I want to crawl before I walk. I only want to do pears right now but there are so many peaches walking the streets looking for a home. The coolers are full," Puddicombe said. "I really wish I could run or sprint and do peaches but I really want to focus on Sir Isaac's. Not to mention the two years of research and development — I kind of want to enjoy this."

Lights, camera, street food

2011-09-28T19:51:00.000-04:00

Tamara Jensen and Adam Hynam-Smith put the finishing touches on phetchaburi fish cakes
being served from their food truck, El Gastronomo Vagabundo.

Bring an empty stomach and put it in park in Montebello Park on Oct. 3.

There, it will be filled with food by Niagara food truck — and change — drivers, El Gastronomo Vagabundo, who will be serving their gourmet street food goodies while being filmed by a crew from The Food Network's Eat St. all the while.

Chef Adam Hynam-Smith and partner Tamara Jensen are hoping to amass a crowd for the taping, but the people who gather won't just be extras in the popular TV show about documenting the best street food on offer.

They'll be helping to send a message to policy makers and street food detractors — believe it or not, there are people who don't want El Gastro pulling up to a curb in downtown St. Catharines — that people really are hungry for change when it comes to the rules that put bumps in the road at every turn for truck operators who want to serve fresh, gourmet food.

The more people who show up, the louder that message will be heard.

Lunch will be served between noon and 2:30 p.m.

Giving what the giving tree can

2011-09-26T21:50:00.002-04:00

Tonight's crew (from left): Cheryl-Lee Wyllie, Erin Wilson (standing),
Chelsey Kovacs-Sneath with our mascot Peary and Vivian Wyllie.

Sometimes, you just don't have it in you.

I returned to the giving tree tonight and couldn't help but think that's what this old kieffer pear tree was feeling.

Last year, the Garden of Eating — Niagara picked more 400 pounds of fruit from its tireless, heavy limbs and still didn't get it all.

This year, with the help of four volunteers and one four-legged mascot dubbed Peary, we picked the tree pretty clean, save for the upper branches.

Its limbs were scaled, batted at and scoured wherever our ladders would allow us to go.

What we got was about 150 pounds. But with a cool, wet spring putting bees off their pollinating duties, which they clearly kicked butt at last year, and a drought-stricken July, this was all the giving tree had in it to give this year.

Some of our haul.

Still, it's 150 more pounds of fruit than had we not had the opportunity to enjoy its bounty at all.

The fruit is destined for the kitchen of the culinary high skills major students from the Niagara Catholic District School Board. They will jar them for Community Care of St. Catharines and Thorold.

The next harvest happens Saturday on Scott Street in St. Catharines. If you can make it, drop me a line at eatingniagara@gmail.com.

A beet beatdown

2011-09-19T22:41:00.001-04:00

My beets before being dug up.

At 34 years old, I accept I can't be good at everything.

Despite my competitive spirit and being plied with plenty of platitudes about doing anything you set your mind to — blah, blah, blah.

I'm certainly no good at gracefully declining challenges issued by Linda Crago. Like planting beets on July 15 when the beets I planted on May 24 were struggling just to survive.

One skill I have mastered, though, is spelling; for example, loser: T-I-F-F-A-N-Y. Yup, sounds about right, at least when it comes to Linda's Late, Great Beet Planting Challenge that saw gardening keeners seed beets mere weeks from when other greenthumbs were getting ready to harvest their spring-planted earthy orbs.

I had my excuse at the ready for when I yanked what I hoped would be ruby red gems, though I feared — know, I knew — they would suffer a far less glamourous fate when I planted my beet seeds. I put mine into the ground a day later than others in the challenge, so if my beets came out pitiful, well, that would be why.

But what I unearthed tonight was beyond pitiful.

It was horrifically humiliating.

As in, I should never show my face at another garden club meeting again.

My beets amounted to nothing.

Nada.

Zilch.

Except what look like tiny, dried out cat turds with sickly leaves sprouting from them. I haven't pulled the ones suffocating under my thriving endive in my backyard, just my container beets-that-weren't-meant-to-be. I wanted to spare really embarrassing myself.

No, I didn't just clean a litter box with my bare hands. Those are beets.

To think, I even gave them an extra day to grow. Yes, I cheated. They were supposed to be pulled yesterday but I knew Linda was out of the country and wouldn't be keeping tabs.

In the end, I was beaten by beets.

The moral of this story: Cheaters never win.

And avoid planting beets ever, if I want to maintain some semblance of self-esteem as a gardener.

A really big favour

2011-09-16T20:51:00.002-04:00

I hate asking people for favours.

Really. I do.

This past week and a half, I've been turning to this site, Twitter and Facebook in search of mason jars unfulfilled for a canning project that will see pears that would otherwise go to waste go to people who can enjoy them.

It's felt a little strange. Awkward. Really, I don't usually do this. More often than not, I'm the one volunteering to carry out the favour, not asking for it.

But now, here I am with another request. I have entered one of my posts in the LCBO's Go Local Blog Challenge. It's a contest that's on right now in which people are encouraged to blog about a recent, memorable experience in Ontario wine country. Lucky for me, I had one penned about a Niagara winery, Featherstone Estate Winery, and its Meet the Sheep tour last month. Hey, I'm a sucker for a cloven hoof and a really good Riesling.

And so now, the grovelling. I was wondering if you would be so kind as to vote for my entry? I would be most appreciative. At the very least, check out all the good things people are saying about Ontario's wines. You may just discover something you'd never known about the fabulous vino being produced in our own backyards.

With gratitude,

Tiffany

Getting to know grape growers: Kevin Watson

2011-09-15T19:51:00.002-04:00

The following post was supplied by the Grape Growers of Ontario, which is doing a series of videos on the men and women growing the grapes that make Ontario's spectacular wines. To help share the stories, Eating Niagara is donating space on this website.

By Grape Growers of Ontario

What makes a good wine grape? How can you tell when a grape is ripe?
Ask Ontario grape grower Kevin Watson.

Kevin Watson is a second generation grape grower with 80 acres of vinifera grapes in
Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario. His dad planted his first vines in 1979. Today, Kevin and
his wife, Cathy, produce 13 varieties, from vines that include some of the province’s
earliest plantings of Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Gris and Cabernet Franc.

In this third video from the Grape Growers of Ontario, the grapes are just reaching
veraison (that means they are starting to mature and ripen), and Kevin shares his
passion for growing wine grapes.

Each grape grower in Ontario has a rich story to tell. We want to share the stories
with you about the farms, the families and the grapes. Meet the growers and see the
care that goes into growing the grapes that produce the Ontario wines you love at
facebook.com/grapegrowersofontario.

Click here to view Getting to know grape growers: The Funk Family

A pear-fect plea

2011-09-12T21:13:00.001-04:00

The branches are loaded.

Kieffer pears are weighing them down. But if you've ever bitten into a kieffer pear, you know they kind of taste like pear flavoured sand. They're downright gritty.

But what this fruit, which is about to start falling onto a city boulevard near you and begin to rot, can't do fresh, it more than makes up for when canned. Kieffer pears are beautiful preserved.

Last year, kieffer pears made up the bulk of the 1,400 pounds of fruit the Garden of Eating — Niagara harvested. Those were taken to soup kitchens and shelters where cooks could work their magic with them, turning them into crisp and using them to accompany pork.

This year, there will still be plenty of kieffers for local kitchens in need of fresh food but I've received an incredibly generous offer to have the culinary high skills specialist major students from the Niagara Catholic District School Board jar pears from Garden of Eating harvests to donate to the food bank.

Problem is, while I have hundreds of pounds of fruit just about ready to be picked, I don't have the mason jars.

So, this is where I start begging. If anyone has any old jars that they no longer use — I'm looking for anything that is 500 millilitres and up — let me know. I will gladly take them off your hands. They will be put to good use, which is providing people in need with healthy, delicious local fruit that they can eat long after pear season passes.

I've already had some kind folks offer up a couple dozen jars but more than that will be needed. I figure there are at least 700 pounds of pears in my future.

If you have a closet overflowing with mason jars unfulfilled, please drop me a line at eatingniagara@gmail.com. I will drive for jars, too. My tiny Toyota has a big trunk and can selflessly carry my frame and a heavy load if need be.

A spoonful of summer

2011-09-09T18:18:00.003-04:00

Fresh tomatoes about to be roasted.

They are the perfect couple.

Summer summed up in one bite.

Tomatoes and basil. Like peas in a pod.

Eating a garden fresh tomato epitomizes the season more than anything else. Even more than my first bite of a peach after a year's longing for the fruit synonymous with Niagara. I imagine tasting the sun's rays in each bite of red, yellor, orange, brown and green tomato — some sweet, some acidic, all of them juicy.

Basil is just like the cherry on top.

Easy. Summer. Food.

But this year, in addition to filling up on Caprese salad with buffalo mozzarella, I've taken to roasting my tomatoes whenever the occasion calls for it — or at least, whenever I can make the occasion call for it, which, lucky for me, is whenever I want. And that's been often.

Chopped, drizzled with olive oil, sprinkled with salt and into the over on 450F for 40 minutes, turning once and letting the skins brown. It's heaven and it's versatile, from tossing them with pasta topped with fresh basil to this simple tomato soup that induced lip-smacking and self-congratulatory back slapping for a job well done in the kitchen.

And all because I wanted to take the easy way out of dinner, as I'm often wont to do at this time of year.

Roasted tomatoes, out of the oven.

All it takes is one hour — though most of that time can be spent sipping wine and relaxing — and five ingredients before slurping spoonfuls of summer.

Roasted tomato soup
Serves 4-6

Two to three pounds of tomatoes, roughly chopped into no more than halves or quarters depending on size of fruit
2 tbsp olive oil
1-2 good pinches of salt
1 small onion
1 good bunch fresh basil
1 hot pepper (optional)
4-5 cloves of garlic smashed (optional)

Toss the tomatoes with olive oil and salt in glass roasting dish. Roast in oven at 450F for about 40 minutes or until tomatoes are browning, stirring halfway through roasting time. If you like, add a hot pepper and/or a few cloves of garlic.

In the meantime, cook a small onion until translucent. Add cooked tomatoes and basil leaves. Blend in with a hand-blender, let simmer for 15 minutes, salt to taste and serve. Garnish with a sprig of basil if you want to really impress.

The soup.

Tomatoes 101

2011-09-06T22:03:00.001-04:00

I never knew tomatoes until I got to know Linda Crago.

She's humble to a fault and so will probably chide me for what I'm about to write, following her latest edition of her Tree and Twig Tomato Bash, a celebration of all things tomato.

The event was bigger and better than last year. More chefs showing off their creative — and tasty — culinary prowess. A Mother Nature in a better mood. Larger crowds of curious food and gardening aficionados to sample 101 varieties of tomatoes. And one woman who brought everyone together.

I've told this story on this site before but it was six years ago when I made the decision to go vegetarian that a co-worker at the newspaper passed on Linda's email address to me.

Linda grows vegetables, has a CSA. Might be up my alley, my co-worker said.

My co-worker was right and I immediately hammered out an email practically begging to be part of the Tree and Twig CSA, proclaiming my love of Swiss chard and my disdain for celery.

I had no idea what I was getting into back then. I had only wanted to support a local farmer and get good food in the process. But I figured I'd get your garden variety of vegetables in my weekly basket.

Instead, I got Linda's garden variety veggies and that meant stuff I'd never heard of. Tomatoes in every shade of the rainbow. Cucumbers in odd shapes, sizes and hues. Chard galore but leafy greens I never knew existed. I thought kale only came curly until I got a basket with dino or lacinato kale, red kale and others I ate before learning their names. The point is, I've never eaten better and every year, Linda always exposes me to something new. Something good. Something that you'd be hard-pressed to find elsewhere.

Yes, there are other people growing heirlooms, but not like Linda.

Linda opened my eyes to all the good things that can really grow but, typically, aren't because people either don't know about them or have been living in a supermarket, five-types-of-tomato bubble. On Sunday, she expanded horizons once again, showing about 60 people the tomatoey goodness that exists in her small corner of Niagara, why she's passionate about growing upwards of 700 varieties of tomatoes — diversity is important and Linda's farm is like a living seed bank — and how good the eating can be when you have fresh, beautiful food and the creativity of some of the region's most talented chefs putting their spin on Linda's flagship crop.

Chef Mark Picone, flanked by chefs Scott Hunter of Commisso's Fresh Foods and Peter Blakeman of Niagara College, scooped up beautiful basil sorbet into a sumac cone with a tomato jelly cube inside.

Chefs Jay and Nicole Sawatsky of Mahtay Cafe in St. Catharines served up sweet tomato basil cheesecake to be washed down with a gorgeous tomato iced tea.

Chef Kevin Maniaci of Jordan's Inn on the Twenty dazzled with his panzanella piled on paper-thin eggplant parm slices.

Keefer Mansion chef Shawn Murphy plied us with his play on green tomato and corn salad.

Raw chef Marlie Centawer surprised with her tomato and basil served on zucchini crackers with an unbelievably creamy cashew cheese.

My contribution was a repeat performance of my tomato cake and the dashing of any romantic notions people had that it might be a secret family recipe or that I, in fact, may just be a baking guru. Alas, I have the Farmer's Almanac to thank for making me look good.

It was impressive display. And the good thing is, if you missed out, Tree and Twig Tomato Bashes are annual events. You can catch up on the nightshade soiree that was thanks to Susan from Niagara Watch, who captured to event and the woman behind it on film.

In the meantime, here's to the tomatoes of 2012.

The Sustainability Series: Farmland Protection

2011-09-05T17:27:00.000-04:00

For anyone wanting to fill up on talk of food security and farmland protection, ideas will be served up Wednesday at Market Square in St. Catharines.

Climate Action Niagara is hosting a speaker and film series about sustainability and kicking it off with a talk about food security, focusing on farmland protection and the greenbelt.

The event starts at 6:30 p.m. with music by Vox Violins and food from local restaurateurs before Shiloh Bouvette of Environmental Defence and Gracia Janes, a member of the Region's agricultural task force, take the podium at 7 p.m.

Here's a description of what both women bring to the food security table, from Climate Action Niagara's news release:

Shiloh Bouvette, Program Manager for Environmental Defence: The Ontario greenbelt has much to offer Ontarians, from the Niagara grape growing and tender fruit area to Holland Marsh, the Oak Ridges Moraine and more. Environmental Defence and the Ontario Greenbelt Alliance are bringing a virtual tour of the greenbelt to Niagara. Using a gigantic greenbelt map, we'll show you all of what there is to explore in the greenbelt.

Gracia Janes, OMC (Ontario Medal for Citizenship): Niagara’s own founding member of the Preservation of Agricultural Lands in 1976 and member of the Niagara Regional Agricultural Task Force. Her Ontario Medal for Citizenship is for her work protecting the very unique Niagara fruit lands with the late Dr. Robert Hoover and the late Mel Swart MPP. Gracia will speak to possible options for farmland perpetuity that also provides for farmers.

Here are some of the issues the duo will address when it comes to Niagara's farmland: How do we protect it? What does the Greenbelt achieve? What is the soil capacity? How much land is needed to keep us food secure? Which land should be protected?

There will be a discussion period so bring your questions, too. One worth asking might be why no farmers are on the panel.

NiAGara: Farm Heroes and Agvocates — Nico Verhoef and Marty Verhey of Perfect Patch Organic Growers

2011-08-30T23:38:00.000-04:00

Marty Verhey (left) and Nico Verhoef stand among the troughs of strawberries
growing at a Vineland farm.

For most people, strawberry season 2011 seems but a distant memory.

For Nico Verhoef and Marty Verhey, it's just getting started. The two young farming entrepreneurs' first crop of berries more synonymous with summer than September are nearly ready to be harvested.

But the duo will be reaping more than their first fruit crop. They'll be gaining some insight into a unique way to grow the heart-shaped fruit.

Verhoef and Verhey have been growing their first patch of 4,000 strawberry plants in raised troughs that stand about chest high — a method not entirely uncommon in Holland, where their idea to grow berries this way is rooted, but virtually unheard of here.

"With this system, we're hoping to get the best strawberry possible — to use Niagara's strengths, which is the climate, to make the best strawberry," Verhoef said.

Think fruit boasting the beauty of a California berry but with all the flavour and buttery texture that is a Niagara strawberry.

"If you can get an Ontario berry to market that looks like that but tastes better, it'll sell itself," Verhoef said.

Much like the idea of growing the berries in troughs did last year when Verhoef and Verhey, then business administration students at Brock University, used the innovation as the basis for an award-winning business plan.

At the behest of a professor, the two budding berry moguls entered their concept in the Nicol Entrepreneurial Award competition. Not only did they nab accolades at Brock, their concept was chosen as the winning one at the national level.

Growing berries in troughs boasts lower labour costs because the ripe berries hang over the edges of the narrow containers, making them easier and faster to pick than those in patches that require rifling through to find the fruit, Verhoef explained.

Berries growing in the troughs being tested by Nico Verhoef and Marty Verhey.

Because the troughs stand high off the ground, there's also less risk for disease damage and hungry insects making a meal of a grower's work. That makes these berries candidates for the organic title, something Verhoef and Verhey are hopeful to achieve, challenging as it may be with this finicky fruit.

"We hear strawberries are pretty much the most difficult crop to grow organically. They're susceptible to disease and they don't compete well with weeds," Verhoef explained. "Even though we have a system that's good for it, if we get a pest and we can't control it organically, we don't want it to wipe out an entire two-acre crop.

"The whole fact is, no one's done this before ... . Everything's unknown. Everything's been a test."

Still, their idea was further validated with a $10,000 Nitsolopoulos Entrepreneurship Award, intended to be seed money for businesses started by Brock students.

That gave Verhoef, who operates his own landscaping company in St. Catharines, and Verhey, who runs a tree nursery in Paris and works in his family's business in Ancaster, the validation that they may be on to something.

"That made us think twice about it," Verhoef said. "It's not like when we wrote our business plan, we wanted to be strawberry farmers. Others were seeing the promise so we thought we should give it a shot."

Marty Verhey (left) and Nico Verhoef check on their first
strawberry crop.

But the cherry on top may just have been when Niagara's biggest berry farmers — and among the largest in the province — saw the promise in the duo's strawberry cultivation innovation.

Dan Tigchelaar and his brother Jeff, who have mastered the art of growing berries using plastic mulch to extend the growing season, have provided room for the idea to grow on their Vineland farm. They're also mentoring the 23-year-old farming proteges, who don't come from farm families, yet whose fruit will be found in berry quarts with the Tigchelaars' crop that are coming soon to a supermarket near you.

"It's so great to draw from that knowledge base. We're business students, so we definitely don't know how to grow strawberries the way they do," Verhoef said.

As the two have watched a school assignment-turned-introduction to farming come to fruition over the last few weeks, they're catching on.

And they're enjoying it.

"It's super exciting," Verhoef said about the progress of their first crop. "It's rewarding growing something."

NiAGara: Farm Heroes and Agvocates profiles local farmers and local food advocates. Do you have a farm hero or agvocate that people should know about? Let us know by emailing eatingniagara@gmail.com.

It's a grape time of year

2011-08-25T22:49:00.002-04:00

A Garden of Eating - Niagara grape harvest.

I love grapes.

Love to eat them.

Tonight, I discovered I also love to harvest them.

A group of us urban fruit foragers converged on a Niagara Falls home with one very prolific vine, and snipped and nibbled our way through the easiest Garden of Eating harvest to date. And our first grape harvest, to boot.

No climbing towering and wobbly ladders. No bending into knee-cracking contortions. No stretching our arms farther than we thought possible to reach that one elusive piece of fruit.

Just snip, snip, snip, feet planted firmly on the ground, hands mostly at eye level. It was all so ergonomically correct.

The fruit was beautiful and the help was great company. Thank you @gretz1963 for joining us. I love meeting tweeps in real life.

This is a harvest that never would have happened if I didn't create a Facebook page for The Garden of Eating.(This is where I beg you to "like" us). I wasn't convinced it would do much good, but within hours of turning to Mark Zuckerberg for help spreading the word about The Garden of Eating this week, a homeowner, Jeanette, posted that she was happy to share her bounty.

And in the end, we harvested more than 100 pounds of fruit. About 80 pounds of that is destined for Project Share, the food bank in Niagara Falls.

A mother-daughter team joining the effort got a haul of at least 40 pounds that they're delivering to Community Care of St. Catharines and Thorold.

All in all, it was a grape — I mean, great — night.

Hired hooves

2011-08-23T23:37:00.000-04:00

No kidding, David Johnson has some real workhorses employed at his winery.

A whole flock of hired hands — er, hooves, to be exact.

The winemaker and proprietor at Featherstone Estate Winery has about 40 sheep working for him this summer, the fourth summer he has brought in four-legged labour to chew through a big job on Johnson's to-do list.

The sheep eat all the basal leaves off the grapevines in this vineyard on the crest of the Niagara Escarpment in Vineland.

I know much has been written about the Featherstone sheep over the years and other wineries have followed (wool) suit by employing their own flocks, but I couldn't resist the chance to get up close to these roaming ruminants when I found out Featherstone was offering "Meet the Sheep" tours. I'd never come toe to cloven hoof in my days as an ag reporter; this story going to our intrepid wine industry reporter, Monique, instead. And, I'll admit, I was jealous, though a bit squeamish when vegetarian me found out the fate of these fellas when their job was done.

"The lambs go to market, which does not mean they go shopping," Johnson told our group of wine lovers and sheep curious on Sunday.

Still, I was grateful for the introduction to these lovely lambs — and explanation — which is as follows in case you haven't herd. Ahem, heard.

Removing the low-hanging leaves on grapevines where the fruit hangs is critical. It allows "sunstrike on the grapes," boosting the berries' flavour, reducing humidity and in the process, eliminating the risk of crop-wrecking mildew.

"They graze as high as they can reach and strip everything off," Johnson said.

But to hire the usual farm labourers to do this backbreaking work was costing Johnson $400 an acre and there are 23 acres at Featherstone to cover.

He also had the option of using machines for the job, but with that comes the risk of compacting the soil. That keeps the roots of the vines from spreading, which ultimately affects the flavour of the fruit, Johnson explained.

Mechanization also isn't in keeping the winery's ecologically mindful philosophy. Featherstone doesn't use insecticides and you also won't hear a single bird banger — they make gunshot-like noises to keep birds at bay — during a visit. Instead, they use a Harris's hawk named Amadeus. The diminutive bird does a good job of scaring off grape-grabbing birds on his own, protecting the seven varieties grown at Featherstone.

Johnson got the idea to use Southdown lambs for leaf trimming while spending time in New Zealand in 2007.

"New Zealand is really on the cutting edge for the winemaking process," he explained. "They really live and die on the quality of their export wine so they do some very cool stuff."

They also have lots of sheep — about 15 for each of the 4 million Kiwis — so free four-legged labour is plentiful.

The lambs, which Featherstone gets from a sheep farmer in nearby St. Ann's, are born in March, putting them at about 22 inches high when they arrive in the vineyard in early July. That's roughly schnoz level with those grape-covering leaves that need to be removed.

Johnson started four years ago with five lambs in five rows of Riesling (the Featherstone edition of this wine is aptly named Black Sheep and it's beautiful, loaded with green apple notes, light and crisp). It took them all summer to munch their way through the work.

"And they did a great job," Johnson said.

So much so that he invited about 35 of their friends to return the next year to do the entire vineyard.

The end, sadly, is nigh for this year's flock. Their work at Featherstone is done for another year, a fact that made my bottom lip stick out and wish 40 sheep could fit into my tiny Toyota. Their fate is to wind up on a menu at local restaurants but only on one condition, Johnson noted.

"If the restaurant doesn't buy our wine, they don't get a lamb."

The Black Sheep Riesling also goes great with lentils.

Dispatches from the south: A pleasant surprise Chez Nous

2011-08-21T21:31:00.001-04:00

In the last few years, there have been many roadside stands springing up, rising in popularity along with the local food movement.

But when you stop to inquire about the source of their produce, it's often the case that the food that fills the stand has been brought in from wholesalers and not gown on site. I wondered if this was the case with a farm stand I'd passed while travelling through the village of Stevensville. I finally pulled off the road and into their driveway to check out what was on offer at Chez Nous Farms. It proved to be a welcome surprise.

The sign beckoning visitors to Chez Nous Farms.

Chez Nous Farms is a tidy, two-acre certified organic farm tucked behind the row of houses strung along Stevensville Road, on the south side of the village. Driving by, the only evidence of the farm that can be seen from the road is their large sign, listing produce and a small year-round farm stand.

I was lucky enough to meet owners Rick and Shirley Ladouceur the day that I stopped. Rick took the time to walk me through their fields and chicken coop. He spoke passionately about the organic growing methods they use and continue to refine. He spoke about the organically raised and butchered chickens they would soon have available. And he talked about what it has been like for them to start an organic farm on land compacted over the years in its previous role as a horse farm.

The Chez Nous gardens had mown white clover mulch, keeping down weeds between rows. The plants and produce look very healthy and the chickens are well-tended to.

It's been a difficult season for most farmers in Niagara this year with the wet spring and dry summer, but Rick and Shirley seem to have a good handle on things. I was surprised to learn that they had only been farming for two years. Rick gave up a career as a millwright, though Shirley still works as a child and youth worker with the French public school board.

I left with my purchase of kale and some cute peewee eggs from their new laying hens. I know I'll be back, especially this winter when they have fresh greens from their greenhouse for sale.

Check out the Chez Nous blog to learn more about Rick and Shirley and their farm. And to visit the stand, stop in at 2192 Stevensville Rd., Stevensville.

Brewing Niagara's best -- It's elementary for Ian Watson

2011-08-18T16:13:00.002-04:00

Ian Watson, Niagara's Best brewmaster.

It is a hellishly hot summer's day.

The kind that brings about a storm of messages from public health departments to steer clear of the heat and seek refuge in the air-conditioned indoors.

Ian Watson has heeded part of that advice. He's inside, tucked away on a busy Niagara Falls artery in a restaurant brewery that looks like a cross between a science lab and a messy garage. Hunched over a steel cauldron that, like a wizard working his magic, he's working to a boil, Watson stirs a giant paddle around in his brewing concoction. All the while, he's getting little reprieve from the heat, as steam starts to spill out of the kettle.

It sounds like fodder for a weather joke starring the devil himself, but really, this is heaven for a guy who started making beer in his basement in the 80s.

Watson is the brewmaster responsible for refilling the kegs of Niagara's Best Beer at The Syndicate Restaurant and Brewery and supplying Taps on Queen in Niagara Falls with the antidote to a Canadian's thirst on a hot day.

"I like brewing the most," the soft-spoken Watson said about his work. "Some of the jobs are more tedious; making sure each batch is the same as the previous one, that everything is going well and there's no infection."

On this day, Watson is showing his mastery of multi-tasking as he brews his 76th batch of Niagara's Best flagship Blonde, whipping up about 3,600 litres of the ale for brewski aficionados. He works at a good clip, moving between kegs in need of filling, a refrigeration room — and reprieve from the stifling heat — where his hops are stored and a steaming kettle in need of the occasional stir and temperature check. All the while, his brow barely glistens in the unforgiving heat.

"The smell of the malt after it's crushed and going into the mash tun, the wheat smells....," Watson waxed on about the joys of a job he has held since 2005. "When you put the hops in, which add the flavour -- each hop has its own character. There are probably 60 or 70 different kinds."

A kettle full of Niagara's Best Blonde in the early stages of brewing.

Watson sticks to about 10 tried and true hops to make the best Niagara's Best he can. In addition to serving Blonde, the Logger lager, a pale ale, porter and other specialty brews at The Syndicate and Taps, Watson said business is picking up as orders for his days' work pour in from other restaurants that want to have local craft brew on their own beer lists.

He's been brewing for two weeks straight "just trying to get the fridge full."

Watson works tirelessly, continually honing a hobby he got into 23 years ago, after watching a homebrew how-to hosted by beer god Charlie Papazian, into a paying job.

He got on with Niagara's Best after curiosity spurred him to ask if they needed any help. That turned into a gig bottling while learning the "bells and whistles" of the brewing equipment. He eventually got to try his hand at making beer for the label, which he has been doing ever since.

It's not the same story at home anymore, though. These, Watson opts to garden in his spare time instead of making beer for fun. But that's not because homebrewing seems elementary now. Watson said he's still learning the tricks of his trade, trying new recipes and even taking up the challenge of brewing beers requested by the members of The Syndicate's Growler Club, just to see if he can do it.

Take the Big E Choke Slam with its 100 international bitterness units, a beer that has reached the "theoretical limit of bitterness." Any more than 100 IBU and our tastebuds can't tell the difference.

Named after Eric, a bouncer at Tapps, who, legend has it, managed to sling two kegs and put a rowdy in a choke hold all at once, the Big E Choke slam is "almost like someone someone grabbing you by the neck and giving you a choke slam," Watson described.

Ian Watson measures hops for a batch of Niagara's Best Blonde.

Watson smiles proudly as he recalls his handiwork. Still, there is no bigger critic of his work than Watson himself.

"I always get people to try it because I think something might be wrong with it. I worry," Watson admitted.

Fortunately, he hasn't had feedback that has been tough to swallow.

"Beer's subjective. The porter, some say it tastes like cocoa, others like coffee. One guy said it tastes like fruit cake, which I can see. I like asking people what they can taste," he said.

And taste is what sets apart Watson's work from the mass-market suds that are more about a lifestyle than a sipper to savour.

Fortunately for Watson and his fellow micro brewers, more and more people are ordering pints of flavourful craft beer over the fermented grain juice being offered up by the big boys.

"It could be part of the local movement and people wanting local beer that's not pasteurized and has no chemicals but just pure natural ingredients," Watson said. "More people are getting into craft beer because they're more concerned about taste.

"That's the thing about craft beer — it has flavour, not like the macro breweries," he added. "What I do get sick of is the ads for the mega breweries because they don't talk about taste. They don't sell anything with taste. It's an alcohol delivery system."

Slowly she goes

2011-08-14T22:10:00.002-04:00

I can't help but smile at the picture above.

Beauty just has that effect on me. Those tomatoes came to the Garden of Eating — Niagara compliments of a senior in north St. Catharines who found herself flooded with fruit and visits from family at the same time, making it tough to preserve these puppies like she usually does.

The jewel-toned gems were delivered to the YWCA shelter, along with a few pounds of cucumbers. In all, it was a short load of 10 pounds of fresh food but it was appreciated hugely.

This season has been a slow one for the Garden of Eating. Mulberries, herbs and tomatoes only so far. Opportunities to pick out at the Vineland Research Station have eluded me so far because it's been a short crop year. A wet spring meant a rough go for bees trying to pollinate. So the peaches I had harvested at this time last year have been a no-show.

And I see all the pear trees I picked last year ripening, which means I will be busy soon but I'd love to be able to offer up some more diversity to local social organizations that otherwise deal in canned and frozen food.

Pears, as versatile as they are, are unfortunately not a fan favourite. I try to convert people every fall, though, and will continue on my pear crusade in a few weeks.

In the meantime, if you have a fruit tree ripe for the picking now, let me know. Will work for veggies, too.

In defence of food journalism

2011-08-11T19:08:00.002-04:00

Truth be told, I've been totally geeking out over the News of the World scandal.

The former full-time reporter in me is fascinated by this scandal of hacking into the phones of celebrities, murder and terrorist victims. It holds the same morbid curiosity as a car wreck at the side of the road, tempting rubberneckers.

I'd always known I'd chosen a cutthroat, competitive industry in which to embark on a career path but this has really captivated me. How far some people will go for a story...

I couldn't help but furrow my brow Monday as I scrolled through my Twitter feed to find a blog post on the Ontario Farm Animal Council website comparing the tactics of News of the World reporters with New York Times food journalist, Mark Bittman.

In the post, the blog writer questions Bittman's ethics for traipsing all over livestock farms in middle America without the farmer's permission in search of further confirmation of the atrocities of factory farming. The writer even equates Bittman's trespassing with the disturbing antics of the News of the World folks. After all, phone hacking is illegal and so is trespassing.

But there's a big difference between what Bittman did and the oh-so-questionable tactics of News of the World.

Tapping into a phone message that a heartbroken Paul McCartney leaves for his temperamental spouse hardly has news value. That is, knowing what's going on in Sir Paul's life has little impact on, well, just about anybody else's existence. Ditto for listening in on a smitten but still married Prince Charles leaving messages for his then-mistress Camilla.

And what good became of tapping into a murdered 13-year-old's phone, listening to anguished messages from family, befuddling her relatives by deleting those recordings and filling them with the false sense of hope their girl was still alive because her voice mailbox never filled up, no matter how often they called it?

Ultimately, none of what the News of the World did was in the public interest. But Mark Bittman peeking into the nation's barns — invited or not — is. He's starting conversations, possibly uncovering bad practices on factory farms; practices that might leave consumers to consider other choices with their almighty dollars. Choices better for their bodies, the planet and their value system.

I can be an optimist, though. Maybe Bittman will find something really positive happening in the nation's monolith barns, even though we know he supports factory farming's antithesis — what the farm animal council writer calls "boutique farming." It's a term that's so quaint, it's condescending to those people producing food on a small scale.

Either way, we all eat and so we all have a right to know what's going into what's going into our bodies instead of just taking the word of special interest groups like the farm animal council. So be it if Bittman has to find that out by walking onto somebody's property without permission.

But Bittman needs to learn how to take no for an answer, the farm animal council writer asserts. Really? That's the opposite of what I learned in journalism school and what some of the finest reporters, the ones who inspire change and whose work inspires me, rarely do. It's not a journalist's job to take no for an answer. What kind of public watchdogs would they be? What would have happened if Woodward and Bernstein settled for 'Sorry boys, nothing to see here'?

If nothing is happening in these barns that would go against the most base grain of human values, what's the harm of Bittman being a bit of a voyeur? Let his hunches about large-scale livestock production be proven otherwise, if there's really nothing wrong — morally, environmentally, economically or health-wise.

With the farm animal council's message track and Bittman's "boutique farming" bent, a wide spectrum of the realities of farming lies between. It's important for all of us to make educated choices about the food we eat, to know what our dollars are supporting and to be OK with that, regardless of which side of the debate we choose to plunk ourselves.

But to do that, we need journalists who don't take no for an answer. We need journalists like Mark Bittman.

El Gastronomo, gardens and giving

2011-08-04T12:29:00.003-04:00

The El Gastronomo Vagabundo gourmet food truck will be parking at Tree and Twig Farm
on Aug. 16 offering good food for a good cause.

Any chance you'll happen to be in Wellandport on Aug. 16?

I'm hoping you may find it worth the drive! It isn't every day, you see, that genuine gourmet dining drives into town and parks in my driveway. In fact, since The Small Town Diner closed up shop a good five years ago, good luck finding a dining spot anywhere in town.

I'm so happy that Adam and Tam of the brilliant peapod cuisine and their new adventure El Gastronomo Vagabundo will be hitting my driveway on the 16th, 5-8 p.m.

Bring chairs, beverages if you'd like (this isn't Flat Rock!) and I can show off my pig Joey and other important Tree and Twig representatives. Gardens, too, if you wish.

Erin Wilson

We're also doing a little fundraising to try to help out my friend (and Eating Niagara contributor) Erin Wilson, who is off to Iraq to participate in the One Shot Project, which offers vocational training in photography and multimedia, while teaching peacemaking values to Iraqi adolescents. I'll raffle off some veggie baskets and tomatoes, and we'll see if we can buy a few more cameras for the trip to Iraq. Hope you can make it!

Here's the story behind Erin's trip:

I'm doing some volunteer work for The ONE-SHOT Project. ONE-SHOT
holds photography workshops for kids on the margins in northern Iraq.
The kids will learn not only photography skills, peacemaking skills,
basic art concepts, but they'll also learn techniques to process their
stories. Eventually, there will be a full-on photography school
developed so that kids on the margins with interest and talent in
photography will be able to pursue their dreams. For many of these
kids, The ONE-SHOT Project is truly their 'one shot' at having this
opportunity.

The very first workshop kicks off at the beginning of September with
15-20 Kurdish orphans. We're trying to get enough point & shoot
cameras (and SD cards) for the entire class. If you've upgraded your
gear and have a working point & shoot camera that you're not using,
please consider donating it. It will be put it to great use and get to
go on an adventure!

If you've got a camera to donate, or would like to know more, please get in touch! If you would pass this along to someone who might
be able to help, that would be wonderful! And if you'd like to visit
The ONE-SHOT Project website, please go here:
http://www.theoneshotproject.com/.

-- Linda Crago

Tree and Twig Heirloom Tomato Bash 2011 is coming

2011-08-03T12:34:00.001-04:00

Photos from Tree and Twig Heirloom Tomato Bash 2010

The date is finally set!

When I initially set the date for my " Heirloom Tomato Bash" this year, I had chosen Aug. 21. If you have one of my calendars, you can now just go ahead and scratch that date. Put a big X right through it.

The season messed me up a little bit, the spring being wet and my clay being, well...clay. So the tomatoes went in a bit later.

And other commitments have come into play. I'm excited to be doing an event at The Good Earth on Aug. 28 and details about this major cool event will follow soon.

So the date is a little bit later than I originally planned.

I sure hope people can make it. My celebration of heirloom tomatoes, and all things heirloom, will be Sunday, Sept. 4 from 1-4 p.m.

By then I am hoping to have the garden weeded and know for sure there will be lots of great tomatoes to try. Lots.

We'll have a garden tour with the necessary sampling along the way, a tasting table set up so people can get a sense of some of the incredible heirloom tomatoes available (tip of the iceberg, my friends) and some fabulous tomato treats to sample. Last year we had "tomato shooters," created by the incomparable Chef Mark Picone, tomato ice cream, tomato cake, tomato muffins and salsa of course. And perfectly paired wine.

This year I am delighted that Mark will join us again and I have a few other special guests lined up as well as a few select vendors. My tomatoes and other produce will be available for purchase, as well as my remaining 2010 seed stock (cheap!), "No Guff Gardening" books and more. All will be announced soon.

Cost is a minimum $10 donation to help me cover my costs. This includes food, wine, fun, music and new tomato friends. Any money that is raised in excess will be donated to Seed Savers Exchange, as it was last year.

You will need to let me know if you plan on attending as I can only accommodate a smaller crowd.
Please phone 905-386-7388 or email treeandtwig@sympatico.ca to let me know you intentions.

I can't tell you how much I look forward to seeing people come out. As last year, we go rain or shine!

-- Linda Crago

Getting to know grape growers: The Funk Family of St. Catharines

2011-08-02T18:23:00.004-04:00

The Funk family, grape growers in St. Catharines.

By Grape Growers of Ontario

Great wine starts in the vineyard.

Doug Funk, his son Doug Jr., and his brother Randy tend the family vineyards in St. Catharines, Ontario.

Having grown up on a fruit farm, working in the vineyards with their grandfather and uncles, the Funk family knows that good wine starts with good quality grapes. The Grape Growers of Ontario invite you to meet our growers and watch the vineyards mature throughout the season. In our latest video, the Funks walk you through their Riesling vineyards when they are in mid bloom.

Each grape grower in Ontario has a rich story to tell. We want to share the stories with you about the farms, the families and the grapes.

Meet the growers and see the care that goes into growing the grapes that produce the Ontario wines you love Facebook.

Food Day in a flash

2011-07-31T21:39:00.000-04:00

They moved like thieves in the night.

Stealthily. Methodically.

Instead of taking anything away, though, the black pickup truck, loaded with kitchen staff from the Stone Road Grille in Niagara-on-the-Lake and parked under the town's clock tower, was bringing goodness to locals and tourists out on a late night stroll.

Its occupants spilled out onto Queen Street at 10:30 Saturday night and moved quickly, tacking Canadian flag banners — the maple leaf replaced by 'Food Day Canada' — to the sides of the old truck, placing a pig statue atop the cab and opening the tailgate to set to work in a truck bed-turned-mini kitchen.

And so began the Food Day Canada flash food mob — a pickup converted into charcuterie assembly line, using the tailgate as a cutting board, and a gazpacho dispensary, serving dixie cups filled with with the summery soup to passersby.

Beckoned by the ringing cowbell and the pig perched above it all, I dragged an exhausted husband out past his bedtime to the first event of its kind that I'd heard of in Niagara, all in recognition of a national day that celebrates food grown and produced in the True North, Strong and Free.

About 40 foodies and curious types gathered around as the goods were doled out for free. Servers even offered up the fare to people in passing cars, though to the loss of many of the four-wheeling folk, they turned it down.

"They must be American," I heard one of the soup servers say.

I sucked back two cups of the chunky gazpacho and relished in the spontaneity, generosity and creativity of the Stone Road Grille crew, with chef Ryan Crawford driving the effort.

And in a flash, they were gone, packing up after about half an hour, making like bandits and disappearing back into the night, leaving those of us in the mob full for the moment but still wanting more.

I hope they'll be back soon.

If you missed it, check out the video above, shot by Niagara Watch (on Twitter, it's @NiagaraWatch) who generously let me post it here because I was too busy eating and getting lost in the reverie brought on by good food and high spirits to shoot anything myself.

Stepping up Chive Walk

2011-07-27T23:28:00.001-04:00

Guerrilla gardeners gather to plant the rest of Chive Walk in Niagara-on-the-Lake Monday.

I braced myself for the worst when he sidled up to his fence to ask us what we were doing.

Bad things were bound to happen, I figured as I stood on the sidewalk leading up to the Niagara-on-the-Lake Community Centre last night. Persistent, pressing questions. Annoyance at our answers. Possibly even anger.

After all, we were engaging in guerrilla gardening in a strip of dirt abutting this man's yard, partaking in the unsanctioned planting of chives on town property. It was all in an effort to beautify Niagara-on-the-Lake and make it more edible. And by that, I mean growing food in public spaces that anyone can harvest.

Chive Walk

But how would a resident of the "prettiest town in Canada," with its stately homes and manicured lawns, feel about such civil disobedience, even if we thought it only contributed to Niagara-on-the-Lake's reputation for being so aesthetically pleasing.

I held my breath as someone in our small but mighty group of six guerrilla greenthumbs piped up with an answer.

"We're planting chives," she said.

"Oh. That'll smell great," the man replied, a smile spreading across his face.

"Chives — they go really well with potatoes," he added.

I took that as an endorsement of our efforts to plant hundreds of the perennial allium along the freshly paved walkway on Anderson Lane.

It was a project started earlier this month by town resident Melissa Hellwig. I tagged along to help and we got a fair stretch of the garlicky spikes planted. But we had a whole other side of the walk to line with the edible greenery.

Our earlier plantings didn't appear to be faring too well, what with no rain to help them along and what appeared to be a date with a weed whacker. They looked pathetic but also determined to withstand the whipper snipper, some green shoots still evident.

This time, though, we had four others join us in our efforts of getting the chives into the ground. They were tenacious, not wanting to leave until every last bit of dirt was home to some herbs, and they made Chive Walk official.

And soon, someone will be eating the fruits of our labour with potatoes.

I bet they'll be delicious.

Flavours of Biosphere gives taste of Niagara

2011-07-25T23:26:00.003-04:00

Line cook Chris Jang serves up Lake Erie Pickerel on barley risotto with heirloom
tomatoes at the Flavours of the Biosphere launch last week at Cirillo's Academy in Etobicoke.

Richard Murzin is hopeful the way to people's social conscience is through their stomachs.

To get through to the masses, Murzin and a crew of Niagara Escarpment Biosphere champions are serving up a series of online food and farming videos about the cornucopia that is the ecologically sensitive landform.

"The Niagara Escarpment and food are a natural connection," said Murzin, executive director of the Niagara Escarpment Biosphere Fund. "People are always talking about the Niagara Escarpment being about this natural environment and they forget that there is a huge human component as well and that human component is the farmlands and foodlands that support a huge portion of a huge population in Southern Ontario."

Raffaele Ventrone prepares Confit duck leg and roasted duck breast on savoury French
toast with blueberry duck giblet demi-glace.

Called Flavours of the Biosphere, the series of 26 webisodes was launched last week at Cirillo's Academy in Etobicoke. Each five-minute video features chef John Cirillo whipping up culinary delights with escarpment bounty with the help of TV personality Anthony Regan.

The point of the segments is to make people aware of the unique environment that is the escarpment while boosting tourism and support of local farmers.

Thirteen of the videos, each featuring Cirillo recreating "classic" dishes, such as coq au vin and potatoes a la boulangere, and interviews with a different farmer, winery owner or food producer, will be released throughout the summer with the remainder hitting the Internet in the fall.

Cirillo, former executive chef for Hilton Hotels in Canada, said the project exposed him to all that was available locally in the swath that stretches from New York through Ontario to Illinois.

He's hopeful it will do the same for others.

"For me, whatever I wanted (as Hilton executive chef), I bought. This really opened my eyes; them giving me the play by play of where the ingredients came from ... that really intrigued me," Cirillo said. "I hope people realize what they have in their own backyards — that when they go into the local supermarket, they will give it that chance and give it that chance first."

Of all of the produce he had to work with, Cirillo was particularly taken with Jordan-based Upper Canada Cheese Co.'s grill-friendly Guernsey Girl cheese.

"When I heard there's a cheese you could fry and serve like French toast, that really intrigued me," he said. "You always hear about the vegetables but there's some very special products."

Though the videos highlight features from throughout the escarpment in Ontario, "we scoured Niagara pretty good," said Teri Trent, biosphere fund communications director.

Confit duck leg and roasted duck breast on savoury French
toast with blueberry duck giblet demi-glace.

That includes filming at Ball's Falls Conservation Area in Vineland, stops at Niagara College and Upper Canada Cheese Co., and interviews with Henry of Pelham's Paul Speck, Flat Rock Cellars' Ed Madronich and cookbook author Lynn Ogryzlo.

It was an interview with Speck that proved most poignant for Trent, though.

"He says 'If you want to taste the escarpment, you have to taste this wine,' which is neat," Trent said. "If you want to taste that flavour, it can't be grown anywhere else. It has to be grown here."

Though she said she knows the webisodes will have automatic appeal with foodies, Trent is hopeful the initiative reaches more than those already buying into local food.

"You hope it converts some people but you can only try," she said.

The series was more than two years in the making and the plan is shoot more episodes. Still, no matter how long the series runs, the message will always be short and simple, Murzin said.

"The Niagara Escarpment has been here forever," he said. "Let's keep it forever."

Growing to a beet of my own

2011-07-19T20:51:00.001-04:00

To the unknowing eye, it's a blank patch of dirt bookended by tiny endive sprouts.

But below the surface lies the makings of gardening glory — fuel for my competitive spirit — wrapped up in a handful of beet seeds.

I planted beets early in the spring. Man, do I love their earthy flavour come fall. But it seems they've gone on strike, growing a few inches and now doing nothing.

So, to be honest, I wasn't biting when Linda initially announced her late-planting beet challenge. She promised gutsy gardeners some of her Detroit Red beet seed in return for setting them into the ground or pots — or any other dirt-filled vessel — on July 15 with the promise of pulling them 65 days later and writing to her about what they reaped.

Given how my early plantings were faring, I figured there was no point. But the longer I'm friends with Linda, the more I realize she's very convincing and I can't say no. Let's not forget, this is the woman who talked me into the 100-Mile Diet four years ago — a generator of good copy at the paper but an experiment that left me little more than a wiry waif, who, in desperation, fell off the locavore and vegetarian wagon (briefly) in an effort to put an end to my languishing and start to fill out my ill-fitting wardrobe.

Anyway, I'm not bitter. Just easily convinced by someone clearly so persuasive.

When I arrived at Linda's farm on Saturday to pick up some veggies, I found myself leaving with a baggie of beet seed, committed to the late-planting challenge.

My Detroit Red beet seeds. The makings of gardening glory or shame?

So, into the garden and a spare pot they went, my money on the pot for producing better beets quickly. And at least giving me some hope of feeling like I'm actually part of this late-planting challenge.

While Linda has stressed this isn't a competition, I can't help but feel some pressure. I don't want to be the person who, come September, has nothing to show for my efforts. Or worse yet, has the tiniest, saddest beets ever grown. So yeah, I'm looking over my shoulder at the other participants, who I might add, got their seeds in a day before this heel dragger and late comer to the game.

A pot awaiting the planting of beet seeds.

A late entry to the late-planting challenge was obviously not my plan but as I type, I realize now, it may help me save face should my seeds not morph into bona fide beets.

No sign of beets yet, but I've got a pretty good excuse should they never come to be. After all, everyone had a full 24-hour headstart. That's 1,440 minutes or at least a month in cat years.

Hmm...

Stay tuned.

Making Niagara-on-the-Lake more edible and incredible

2011-07-16T17:05:00.000-04:00

The beginning of Chive Walk in Niagara-on-the-Lake.

Chive Walk is real.

It's tough to tell from the photo but if you look closely, you can see the spiky sprigs of chives lining that gleaming swath of cement sidewalk. They're chives that were planted by me and Melissa Hellwig last night in the trail of sun-baked dirt lining the footpath that leads to the Niagara-on-the-Lake Community Centre.

We met after work to make Hellwig's vision of a more edible town a reality. She has already planted Jerusalem artichokes in a naturalization area near the centre and has visions for growing more good eats around town, which locals can harvest as they want and need.

Though I had to leave after an hour, my finger nails jammed with dirt and dreams of being a hand model dashed, Hellwig and I planted about 50 feet of the garlicky, grasslike herbs along one side of the walkway. When I left, she was determined to finish the stretch with her Jack Russell-Beagle named Hobart to keep her company and a wagon in tow that was full of chives waiting to be planted. That would have left about 75 feet of chives to grow into Chive Walk, which is what Hellwig has named her pet project.

There are plans to return to line the other side of the pavement soon. Guerrilla gardeners, stay tuned and keep those spades ready. We can use the help.

Meanwhile, fingers crossed for some rain and growth spurt.

The life of beans

2011-07-13T22:58:00.000-04:00

I get pretty excited at the sight of my garlic peaking through the earth for the first time in those early days of spring.

Seeing the first flowers on my tomato plants also leaves me feeling giddy about what's going to happen next — that the appearance of fruit is imminent.

But there hasn't been a veggie I've grown in my short gardening career that has intrigued me like my amethyst dwarf French beans.

This is my first year growing beans and I bought seeds for these beans because they were marketed as prime container candidates. Since my track record is proving to be one with more container gardening successes than regular, old, garden bed planting, I was sold.

Touted as being part of Thompson and Morgan's Urban Garden Collection, my beans have been the source of jokes for my ruralite pal and gardening inspiration Linda, who teases me that my city beans probably couldn't hack country life. Still, she's eager to plant a few of the seeds that resemble pinto beans and seeing what these professed urbanites can do.

I've also been watching their every growth spurt, marvelling at how, instead of emerging from the soil and growing up like every other veggie in my garden, they unfurl. They poke through the dirt hunched over and pull themselves up out of the ground like a yogi uncoiling after a deep downward dog.

Captivated by their growth, I've captured my plants with my camera over the course of their short life so far and compiled the above slide show of the life of beans. Not just any beans, mind you, but city slicking, container dwelling, urban garden growing beans.

Man, do they know how to make a girl feel like a green thumb.

NiAGara: Farm Heroes and Agvocates — Beth Smith of Ridge Meadow Farm

2011-07-11T22:54:00.001-04:00

Beth Smith of Ridge Meadow Farm in Beamsville feeds her chickens.

Beth Smith's Beamsville farm is a patchwork of plots filled with row upon row of vegetables.

But what's in between those vegetables is as much of a cash crop for the innovative Smith.

The farm she works with her husband Adrian is a smorgasbord of wild foods — asparagus, raspberries, carrot.

It's also proving prolific in one wild edible that Smith has been busy marketing as another of Niagara's culinary treasures: wild grape leaves. The broad green foliage on creeping vines cling to whatever will support them and Smith makes the most of their existence in the uncultivated areas of her otherwise pristine pastoral property.

A wild grapevine growing on Beth Smith's farm.

She harvests the grape leaves in June when they're young, capitalizing on their tenderness and their inherent lemony flavour.

Smith makes leaf chips — think kale chips but with young wild grape leaves instead — stuffed grape leaves and even sushi, substituting the nori with grape greenery. For the past three years she has also sold jars of her preserved leaves to locals looking for an exotic culinary experience with homegrown goods.

"I think, 'OK, they eat grape leaves in Greece. Why can't we eat them?' I haven't died, so what the hell?" the foraging Smith joked on a recent farm tour-turned-scavenger hunt for wild edibles.

Beth Smith's dolmades made with wild grape leaves.

Commonly used in Mediterranean foods — usually as a wrapping for rice or meat — the leaves can also be boiled and eaten as a cooked green.

They're loaded with vitamin A and K, vitamin C and other nutrients, such as riboflavin, niacin and folate. Smith has been marketing these attributes, along with the leaves' versatility, at local farmers markets where she also sells her vegetables and herbs.

But before anyone gets gung-ho on visiting a nearby vineyard in search of some of the grape greenery, Smith has a warning.

"You don't want to just go out into the vineyard and pick grape leaves. They're sprayed with sulfur and copper," she said. "Even if they're organic. There are just so many in the wild to go out and pick."

This fall, Smith hopes to harvest the bunches of berries, too, and use them to make juice.

Smith's interest in food — farmed and wild — was honed at a young age. She started collecting issues of Gourmet magazine at the age of 13. She also grew up on a dairy farm in Wainfleet but Smith wasn't beckoned to the land when it was time to embark on a career.

She and Adrian lived the corporate life. Smith worked in the hospitality industry and Adrian was a stockbroker but they eventually grew weary of the QEW shuffle and the demands of careers that they just didn't find all that fulfilling.

So they traded in their suits nine years ago for clothes that have never seen a dry cleaner and did away with loafers and heels for steel toes and Wellies.

One of the vegetable gardens at Ridge Meadow Farm in Beamsville.

I've got dirt in my soul," Smith said. "I really need to be outside with my hands in the dirt. I felt dead without it."

The couple have been growing their farm bit by bit, renting equipment before buying it, adding more and more plots to grow more and more vegetables for their CSA customers or to take to markets, including Niagara-on-the-Lake. They have thousands of heads of garlic in the making, potatoes, including sweet tubers, okra, fenugreek tomatoes and the other staples of the veggie crowd, such as beets, lettuce, carrots, broccoli and greens.

The Smiths' Leghorn rooster

The couple raise Shaver White and Rhode Island Red and White chickens, a brood watched over by a friendly Leghorn rooster. They grow heirloom vegetables, are trying to get an old pear orchard on their property producing prime fruit again, they save seed and cultivate everything in their fields and hoop house organically. Last year they added an organic vineyard to their count of crops. Smith hopes to eventually have pastured pigs, too.

"We've developed as we've been able to afford things," Smith said. "I didn't want to take out a loan. I'm not comfortable with debt."

This year, the Smiths will become certified organic — a major expense for small growers but one they feel further solidifies their values as farmers and land stewards.

"It is important. Certified organic definitely does mean something, especially with multi-nationals jumping on the bandwagon and using 'Organic' solely for their bottom line," Smith said. "To be truly certified organic means something. I decided to do that because people know for sure we're doing the right thing."

To learn more about Ridge Meadow Farm, visit the Smiths on Facebook or Twitter.

Where it begins

2011-07-07T22:27:00.001-04:00

My hands look like a cheap ballpoint pen exploded in them.

My skin is stained an inky purple-blue. But it's not from an accident at the office.

They're that colour from The Garden of Eating's first harvest of the year — mulberries. And so begins the second full season for residential fruit picking and sharing the harvest of those with too much with those in need.

A mulberry harvest kicked off last season for me, too. Tonight, thanks to the generosity of Erin King and her family again, I have seven pounds of the juicy berries to deliver to a local soup kitchen tomorrow.

The berries were waiting to be scooped up; piles of them laid on sheets the Kings had spread out to catch the delicate dears as they dropped. I scooped and graded with the help of the Kings' young daughter Sarah.

The mulberry harvest from the King family's yard.

And there's so many more where that came from. The tree, which is actually in the yard of the Kings' neighbour, must be at least 50 feet tall, its limbs spreading over four yards that get rained on with mulberries.

My ears would perk up with every dull thud as another berry was offered up to me.

It is a generous tree, prolific in its production of the purple fruit.

I will be back Monday for more, once my hands have returned to their scrubbed-skin pink state and are ready to get dirty again.

Dispatches from the South: Ridgeway Farmers Market

2011-07-04T21:28:00.002-04:00

Whenever I come across websites that list farmers markets in Niagara, there is always one market missing. While it's seasonal and smaller than many other regional markets, the Ridgeway Farmers Market is definitely worth a visit if you're in the area on a Saturday morning.

On my visit this past Saturday, there was a wide variety of food being offered by local farms within a few kilometres, regional farms and area restaurants. Produce, baked goods and sausages filled stall tables. A local greenhouse had bedding plants on offer. And a violinist played at the market entrance. On an earlier visit, there were a few stalls with crafters, but this time, the market had a real focus on food.

The market is situated downtown in a municipal parking lot at the junction of the main street (Ridge Road) and the well-used recreational trail. There were lots of people at the market this weekend but I'd hazard a guess that most of them arrived in cars and not via the trail because there weren't many parking spots left on the street.

To get the best selection and be sure that all vendors are still present, visit the market well before noon — it opens at 7 a.m. — despite the sign saying it runs until 1 p.m.

Dispatches from the South, written by Erin Wilson, features local food and agriculture stories from south Niagara.

Wanted: Guerrilla Gardeners

2011-07-02T11:40:00.002-04:00

Grab you garden spades.

Melissa Hellwig needs them. And you. Last month's NiAGara agvocate is going to make Chive Walk at the Niagara-on-the-Lake Community Centre happen and she could use some help.

She has plans to line the new sidewalk leading to the centre, just off Niagara Stone Road (across from the Old Winery restaurant), with spiky, garlicky chives that will be there for the offering for anyone who ever wants to eat or cook with them. It's the latest in her plan to have more food growing in public spaces in Niagara-on-the-Lake, similar to an initiative in Todmorden, England.

If you want to make Niagara-on-the-Lake incredible and edible, you can join the efforts on July 15 between 5 and 6 p.m. at the community centre. Bring your green thumbs!

NiAGara: Farm Heroes and Agvocates — Melissa Hellwig of NOTL's Sustainability Network

2011-06-27T23:15:00.001-04:00

Could this be Niagara-on-the-Lake's Chive Walk? Melissa Hellwig
sees potential in those strips of dirt lining the sidewalk near the town's
new community centre.

Chive Walk has a certain cachet for Melissa Hellwig.

When she hears those words, she envisions the freshly poured sidewalk leading to the Niagara-on-the-Lake community centre lined with the garlicky herb, ripe for the picking by anyone who wants a few sprigs.

"This is food we can grow with no effort," said Hellwig, president of the town's Sustainability Network, a non-profit community environmental advocacy group. "There should never be chives in grocery stores. Why not eliminate chives in grocery stores like plastic bags?"

It's not that Hellwig is anti-chive. Instead, she's pro-food security and keen on the idea of using as much public space as a municipality can muster to plant edibles rather than ornamental flowers.

Inspired by Incredible Edible Todmorden, a movement in an English town that has seen fire departments, police stations and schools plant fruit trees and install raised-bed gardens wherever they can make the space, Hellwig sees Niagara-on-the-Lake as fertile ground for a similar movement.

In Todmorden, schools have started gardens in neighbouring cemeteries, growing chard, lettuce and other greens on top of graves. Commuters hopping off the train can snip fresh herbs from pots on the platform to take home for supper. The hospital has apple trees blossoming in its yard, playing on the old adage about staving off white coats. The town has 500 edible gardens — and counting — in public spaces and everything is labelled with plant type and ideas for how to use the harvest.

The point is to increase the amount of food grown and eaten by Todmorden residents with the goal of becoming self-sufficient by 2018.

Melissa Hellwig

Back in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Hellwig has already done some guerrilla gardening to get her MSA — Municipally Supported Agriculture — started. Jerusalem artichokes, a native flower with knobby roots that make a perfect substitute for potatoes, are already sprouting along the perimeter of the community centre's property.

"All of us could find an empty flower pot somewhere; all of us could find a vacant piece of land and throw in some food and create food gardens," Hellwig said.

Chive Walk is next on her to-do list. So is turning the former lawn bowling green on Regent Street into a community garden. She has already submitted her proposal to the town, which, earlier this year, issued a request for expressions of interest in the property.

Citing statistics in her proposal, including the US Department of Agriculture figure that 15 per cent of the world's food is now grown in urban areas, Hellwig has her fingers crossed as she awaits council's decision on the fate of the lush lawn.

Niagara-on-the-Lake, she noted, is one of the few local municipalities that doesn't have a community garden and there's no reason it shouldn't.

"Everybody's assumption is we live in a food basket. I'd like to work out how many people live in Niagara and how many acres of arable land there are," Hellwig said. "What grows here and what do we get? Everybody assumes there's enough food here and why worry but what's the reality like?"

Hellwig figures another reason Niagara-on-the-Lake has been slow on the community garden uptake is because of the association of community gardens with a way to help alleviate poverty.

"That's why they're not floating in Niagara-on-the-Lake because nobody needs them," she said. "But for every pear we export (from Niagara) we import 60. We're essentially a food desert because we send all our food across or out of the country and then import it."

This isn't Hellwig's first pitch for a plot for people to use to grow their own food. The Sustainability Network's community garden team got $500 from Niagara Region in2009 to get one growing. But the group was turned down repeatedly because of concerns about liability, aesthetics and access to water.

Melissa Hellwig is proposing that the Town of Niagara-on-the-Lake
allow the former lawn bowling green be converted to a community garden.

Hellwig is certain those arguments won't be rooted in much at the former lawn bowling club. Still, she's only asking for a two-year pilot to start. If it works, she envisions the town taking it over, the garden run by a board and people eating grub they've grown.

"If it doesn't work, take it out. No one's hurt and you can put up condos," she said.

"In the meantime, I'll look for more places to grow stuff."

Anyone interested in participating in guerrilla gardening can contact Hellwig at mell.frank@sympatico.ca.

Ask what you can do for agriculture

2011-06-23T22:25:00.001-04:00

The federal building at the Vineland Research and Innovation Centre

It's a place that appeals to my inner science geek.

As much magic happens there as any orchard, vineyard and field in Niagara.

The Vineland Research and Innovation Centre is a place where some of the world's greatest agriculture science minds work at developing new varieties of fruit, vegetables and flowers.

These aren't GMOs or Frankenfood. Think plant breeding or growing trials for crops not typically farmed here, all in an effort to find the next plum, leafy green or poinsettia that consumers will want to buy and from which farmers will be able to make a sustainable and profitable living.

When I was reporter, I loved doing stories on the work at Vineland. That repressed part of me that longs to have been better at math and science than stringing a sentence together would get giddy at every opportunity to learn about what was happening in the laboratories and greenhouses on Vineland's picturesque campus. The work being done there truly is fascinating.

So when given the chance to contribute to that research, well, my inner science geek wondered if she should get her measurements taken for her very own lab coat.

Last fall, I jumped at the chance to fill out an application to be part of a consumer panel that would provide the real science minds with data to help farmers, wineries and processors be competitive.

I was so excited when my application was deemed worthy enough to be accepted and I was asked to give my perceptions of wine labels, tell my tastes about apples and icewine, and earlier this week, espouse or eschew the traits of dried fruit.

In all cases, the researchers have been mum on the details of their work, simply saying they want consumers' perceptions of the products with which they are working.

I'm happy to oblige and sit in a stark, white room in front of a computer and flip a light switch to be served more wine or fruit. And, with the click of a mouse, I get to give my thoughts and (she says hopefully) help advance agriculture by giving researchers some insight into what motivates me to make the food and wine purchases I do.

After all, it costs about $2 million for manufacturers to launch a new product. With that kind of money on the line, it's important to know if anyone is going to buy it and why they might be willing to dish out their dollars for it.

In return for the pleasure of giving my opinion, I get a small honorarium of $10.

Better still, I get to be part of what I feel is important work.

Still, why should my inner lab nerd have all the fun? The research centre is always on the lookout for volunteers to lend their time and taste buds to the cause of advancing agriculture.

If you want to help find the food of the future, here's your chance.

1,000 words

2011-06-20T21:46:00.001-04:00

I felt it when I pulled up to the Quiet Acres farm stand on Lakeshore Road in search of garlic scapes.

Anticipation.

I felt it again when I walked back to my car, three large bunches of scapes in hand, and I noticed the cherry orchard on the Quiet Acres property.

There, weighing down the branches of the tree's arthritic limbs were clumps of the bulbous fruit, much of it yellow with an orange blush or a green cheek depending on where it was in the ripening process.

I felt giddy with excitement.

Anticipation.

Cherry season is about three weeks away and I can't wait. I hit my favourite pick-your-own every chance I get — sunny Saturdays, hazy evenings after work. Whenever I can squeeze it in.

When I look at this photo, that's what I see: my anticipation for what's to come in this season of feasting.

Every picture is worth a 1,000 words. Those are my words, what are yours?