Which anniversary is pig ear again?

Last weekend was our fifth anniversary.  To celebrate we decided to take a little road trip to Stratford, Ontario for the Savour Stratford Perth County Culinary Festival. You know how I love a road trip!  Coming from the performing arts to be honest when I think of Stratford I immediately think of the Stratford Shakespeare Festival but in recent years their focus on celebrating local food production has come to rival the performances on the stage.  Stratford and area is home to some of our favourite producers and products, like Monforte Dairy and Perth County's famous hardneck Music Garlic.

So much food for thought

Tonight I had the rare opportunity to read a magazine from cover to cover. My computer was nowhere near me. It was just me on the couch with a glass of vino tinto, and the latest Briarpatch in my hands. This particular issue is dedicated to the topic of Decolonizing Food.

Roasted Stone fruit

There is a chill in the air this week reminding us that summer is over.  I really love fall, don't get me wrong.  The cool nights, the cozy sweaters, the coloured leaves and most of all the delicious apples and squashes and all the other fall produce.  But stone fruit, especially peaches, are my favourite fruit.  So before they are completely replaced in the markets by apples and pears I've been buying all I can carry.  

Cooking for Life

Just a quick little post to share a cool program I toured the other day at Covenant House here in Toronto. I've been spending more time exploring initiatives that engage youth in the production or preparation of good food. (Trying to marry my day job at Project Canoe with my passion for food policy and food security.)

Fig preserves redux

Remember last year when I wrote about making fig preserves two ways?  They were delicious, garnished many a cheese plate in the last year and made lovely hostess gifts during the holiday season.  In their tiny 125 ml jars they were the perfect size to just open and pop on the cheese platter as is.  Well I'm back at it.  I figure if George Lucas can go back and reedit the Star Wars trilogy every couple of years I'm allowed to go back and improve on my fig preserves (I fully realize nerds everywhere will debate if George Lucas' changes are really improvements but in the case of my preserves they are!)

Allergies and food restrictions come to dinner

Last tastes of summer

Labour Day has come and gone.  The CNE has sold their last corn dog and played Welcome to the Jungle on the Polar Express for the last time until 2012.  This week the temperature here in Toronto will dip and the kids will go back to school.  While some might be sad I am loving this.  I can ride my bike without looking like a sweaty mess on arrival and the markets are at their finest.  There are still floods of tomatoes, peaches and corn but the root vegetables and squash are starting to arrive too.  In my mind this is the finest eating season, very late summer and early fall.  

Purple People Eater

Last year I conquered the final frontier of preserving (well for me anyway) and made crabapple jelly.  I called that jelly my Everest and I hoarded the jars, only giving them away to the most special people (or people I wanted to impress).  This week when I was at our local farmers market at the Artscape Wychwood Barns I got some gorgeous Concord grapes from Bizjak Farms in Niagara.  

Embodying our values

I run a charity. It's a fabulous charity. It's radical in all the right ways, and has an amazing history of facilitating transformation in the lives of youth. However, due to budget constraints, we have to make on-going tough choices around food - we go local and/or organic where we can, but it's hard. In an attempt to further my own thinking on this issue, I'm going to name the key challenges we face in hopes that our readers will weigh in with some creative solutions. 

Garden before and afters

The CNE is on, the mall is teaming with kids back to school shopping and the garden is full of tomatoes.  I don't want to believe it but it seems summer is coming to an end.  We're lucky in Toronto and will likely get a few more humid sticky days right through September but really the season's days are numbered.