Slow Food Vancouver organized a great event with Farmfolk/Cityfolk at The Italian Cultural Centre on December 10th. in honour of Terra Madre Day. The event was the AGM for Slow Food Vancouver, but also a fundraiser with the goal of sending two local farmers to Terra Madre next year. Terra Madre is a major bi-annual conference held in Torino, Italy intended to foster discussion and introduce innovative concepts in the field of food, gastronomy, globalization and economics.

What was I doing there you ask? Well, I was presenting an hors d’oeuvre of smoked ham and blueberries courtesy of Gelderman Farms in a scone made from Red Fife Wheat. I had a chance to share the booth with Jerry and Audrey Gelderman and learn more about their operation. Needless to say, they were delightful and I have the highest respect for their commitment to sustainability.

Here’s Jerry with the “talking stick” telling the assembled foodists about his fabulous farm in Abbotsford.

I’ll be participating in Slow Food Vancouver’s Adopt-A-Farmer fundraiser to send local farmers to Terra Madre in October 2010. Slow Food Vancouver and Farmfolk/Cityfolk are hosting the event at the Italian Cultural Centre on December 10th at 6-9 pm. I’m paired up with Jerry Gelderman of Gelderman Farm. My plan is use Jerry’s ham and blueberries to create a delectable hors d’œuvre.

You can learn more about the slow food campaigns around food security, climate change, raw milk cheese, seeds, and wild salmon. Buy Red Fife wheat – and see it being milled on the spot by the Flour Peddler and the Heritage Grains Foundation – to raise funds to conserve this wheat and raise funds for Adopt-A-Farmer. Groups and academics involved in food security issues will be on-site providing education, awareness and insight!

Keeping abreast of food issues is challenging to say the least, so finding the September 21st. issue of The Nation was welcome relief. Here you’ll read Dan Barber’s take on Why Cooking Matters. Also, Alice Waters delves into school lunch programs in A Healthy Constitution.

Here is a brief excerpt from Alice’s article:

” We are learning that when schools serve healthier meals, they solve serious educational and health-related problems. But what’s missing from the national conversation about school lunch reform is the opportunity to use food to teach values that are central to democracy.”

Originally we pitched this Apple Pear Chutney idea to the Fruit Tree Project as a value added product that they could sell. The basic premise was to take the over abundance of summer fruit, “can it” as a tasty chutney and offer it for sale at some of the Christmas markets in Vancouver. We thought it would be an excellent fundraiser for the organization, and a perfect marketing tool for expanding the goals of the group as a whole.

While our plans for the chutney was fairly modest, we left things a bit late and ran out of time (and fruit) to bring said plan to fruition (insert bad pun here)

Fast Forward to this past Saturday.

The idea was too good to pass up so we pressed ahead and decided to make the Apple Pear Chutney for in-house purposes. A big part of our idea was to use local fruit so we headed back to Callister Park and managed to gather 60 pounds of apples, but this is where the local story ends as we had to venture further afield for the rest of our ingredients.

Here is the Recipe we used.

• 1 kg Apples, peeled, quartered, and cored
• 450g Pears, peeled, quartered, and cored
• 225g Onions, quartered
• 225g Seedless Raisins
• 450g Sultanas
• 4 Garlic Cloves, peeled
• 60g Root Ginger, fresh, peeled and chopped
• 1 Chilli, fresh, deseeded and chopped, or dried flakes
• 1 Lemon, quartered and pips removed
• 15g Mustard Seeds
• 600ml Malt Vinegar
• 450g Light Soft Brown Sugar
• 2 tsp Salt

Instructions
1. Put the apples, pears, onions, raisins, sultanas, garlic, ginger, chilli, and lemon in a food processor and process briefly to make a coarsely chopped mixture. Alternatively, chop by hand. Spoon into a preserving pan and add the remaining ingredients.


2. Heat to boiling point, stirring constantly, then leave to cook, uncovered, for 40 minutes, stirring occasionally to prevent sticking.


3. Preheat the oven to 180°C (350°F/Gas 4). While the chutney is cooking, heat the clean jars in the oven for 10 minutes.


4.Put the heated jars on a tray and divide the chutney between them. Screw the lids in place while hot, to seal, or leave the chutney to cool, then cover with wax discs and pot covers. Label and date the jars before storing. Once opened, store in the refrigerator and consume within 1 week.


Necessity is indeed the mother of invention. While it is almost unthinkable that we could ever grow enough food to feed ourselves in Vancouver, there are examples of cities like Havana doing just that. A longer growing season, and less competition for the land from developers gives Havana a distinct advantages over us, but there is still much we could do!

To the uninitiated, community gardens can easily go unnoticed. They’re usually tucked away and can easily pass for overgrown, disused lots. Well, actually many are in fact disused lots located on private property that is currently underutilized.

In most cases, loose agreements are formed between site owners and interested urban farmers to use the land for a predefined period of time. Gardens are usually tended by those living in the immediate neighbourhood, with individuals marking out plots of their own. Gardeners working the lot located at Victoria Dr. and 1st. Ave., regularly held dinners throughout the summer consisting of vegetables grown right there on the spot.

A quick look at the Social Planning page of the City of Vancouver website tells me there we’re approximately 52 community gardens operating this past growing season within Vancouver’s borders.

The success of community gardening in Vancouver cannot only be measured in the food that is produced, for it isn’t enough to sustain us. Instead, these gardens serve as community building exercises that educate, entertain and bring beauty into unloved spaces.

Blaine has been lending his support to the Fruit Tree Project in the last few weeks and is loving it. For those unaware, this volunteer organization works with fruit tree owners in the city of Vancouver to pick fruit that might otherwise be left to spoil. Like the best ideas, The Fruit Tree Project is beautiful in its simplicity and a “win win” on so many levels..

1. Tree owners (often seniors) have their fruit harvested and take what they can use.
2. What is left is distributed to shelters, daycares and other community groups.
3. Volunteers have the benefit of fresh air and exercise in a convivial atmosphere.

Lately we’ve been thinking about taking the good work of the Project one step further by creating a “value added” product that could be offered for sale. Any profit generated would help to fund operations or buy new picking equipment. We thought a fruit galette would be the perfect product because it can be made with just about any type of fruit, they look gorgeous, are easy to eat and taste fabulous!

We went ahead and developed our “prototype galette” over the Thanksgiving long weekend. We started by visiting Callister Park by the PNE to gather some apples.

View Larger Map

We literally caught the apples in this blue tarp “fireman style”.

The apples here are tart and delicious-fine on their own, but perfect for baking with.

This was the final result we achieved. All that was needed at this sate was a little vanilla ice cream to send it over the edge!

Our dream for the galette is that it form the basis for a truly sustainable fundraising initiative that would benefit the Fruit Tree Project into the future. We’re thinking Trout Lake Farmers Market might be the perfect venue for both selling the galettes, and creating awareness for the organization as a whole.

For anyone that knows me, knows that I’m a big supporter of all things local. I can often be found shopping in places like Jack and Jill on Granville or Walrus on Cambie. While I get immense pleasure in supporting small businesses and meeting their respective owners, I’m also aware that small businesses build vibrant communities.

According to Western Economic Diversification Canada there were approximately 379,700 small businesses operating in British Columbia in 2007.
 These operations accounted for 98 per cent of all businesses in the province. Micro-businesses, with fewer than five employees each, comprised 83 per cent of small businesses.

That pretty much says it all: our economy is rooted in small business, and they need to be supported because they are supporting us!

There is a grassroots organization in the states called the 3/50 Project whose basic premise is to get people spending $50.00 in 3 different local businesses each month. A fairly easy thing to do dontcha think?

Vancouver has an abundance of fruit bearing trees within its borders. Most trees are tucked away from view in backyards throughout the city, but a lot of perfectly edible and delicious fruit can be found in public parks or along busy thoroughfares. A great deal of this produce is left unharvested, and it’s a shame really when one stops to consider how valuable this fruit would be in the right hands.

There is a solution…

Vancouverites are probably unfamiliar with The Fruit Tree Project and the valuable volunteer work that they do. The organization is brilliant in its simplicity, which is essentially to harvest fruit that might otherwise be left to spoil. Tree owners sign over their trees to the group of volunteers to harvest, and in return, a portion of “the pick” is given to the homeowner, the remaining fruit is then donated to local food banks. Recently the The Fruit Tree Project has moved into other areas like canning workshops, and there is also talk of creating other value-added products for sale to help fund operations.

There is no shortage of volunteers willing to pick the fruit, the challenge has always been in letting tree owners know that the project exists. So spread the word!

Every year we participate in Feast of Fields (the annual fundraiser for Farmfolk/Cityfolk), and every year it seems to sneak up on us as if we were not paying attention. We knew we wanted to make a savoury cupcake, for this year’s event, but we hadn’t decided on the flavour profile until the very last moment.

Desperation breeds ingenuity, and in this case we created a pear and olive oil cupcake frosted with a blue cheese butter cream icing, toasted Agassiz hazelnuts, topped with a crisp sun-dried apple chip courtesy of Klipper’s Organics and a drizzle of balsamic glaze.

Very yummy indeed!