Vaudeville Returns

If you had been at our Roxy Theatre when it was still the Grand Opera House you might well have been there to see a Vaudeville show - a full bill of a dozen or so acts that could have included trained dogs, an opera singer, tap dancers and an Arctic explorer. A uniquely North American form of entertainment, vaudeville was created to capitalize on a growing middle class as potential audience, offering something for everyone, including women and children. In the elegant theatres in which vaudeville flourished, the rowdy behavior of patrons of earlier bawdier entertainment was discouraged by ushers with white gloves, passing out notices such as the following on silver trays “Gentlemen will kindly avoid the stamping of feet and pounding of canes on the floor, and greatly oblige the Management.” I know all of this because my assistant Kelda is fascinated by Vaudeville. Her big beautiful singing voice was made for those songs and those pre-amplification stages.

Kelda is originally from Calgary, with a stop at the University of Lethbridge to get a degree in vocal music. She came to Owen Sound a year ago after finishing an Otesha tour, cycling across the prairies with a group of like-minded young people, making community presentations about sustainability. While initially she might have answered the question “Why did you come to Owen Sound?” with “because it’s not Calgary”, I think she has made herself at home in our community.

Kelda sings in two local choirs, was part of Owen Sound’s second annual Buskerfest both as a committee member and a performer, and voted and worked as a poll clerk in our municipal election. She brought her experiences from Katimavik, Otesha, the Arusha Centre (look it up) and Community Foods to Owen Sound and has already grown basketsful of vegetables in a local community garden and is an active member of the Local Motive project. And she can pretty well run our store single-handed.

Now Kelda has a new project. It started with a door she bought from the Habitat for Humanity Re-Store that had a brass plaque - “Cozy Knook”. We may argue about the spelling or the merits of alliteration, but we agree about what will go on behind that door. Fully approved by our Public Health Unit, Kelda’s Kitchen will be a welcoming place for a community kitchen, for starters. Six or eight people - singles or couples, seniors or families – can get together to cook and share a meal, do the dishes together and take home a serving or two of leftovers for another day. Chef’s demonstrations and cooking classes can be held there – bread baking, perogie making, cake decorating, stock and soups, cooking for special diets. The kitchen will be outfitted with a pressure canner and freezers for preserving the harvest. Local farmers and growers can come in and talk about the food they grow and how best to store it, and local cooks and chefs can show us how to bring out its best taste. If people want to make food for fundraisers, or to test a little food business idea, the Kitchen will be a perfect place.

Kelda has already had interest from some folks at the Billy Bishop Museum for heritage cooking groups and Community Living for basic cooking classes. Not to mention the enthusiasm of the neighbours who keep asking when it is opening. She has been accumulating equipment from sinks and stoves to a pasta maker and dehydrator, and offers from Canadian Tire money to work bees. The folks from the Big Carrot in Toronto have such confidence in Kelda’s idea that they have given her a grant from their “Carrot Cache” – enough to pay for the permits and drawings and some of the labour.

So what does all this have to with Vaudeville? Because Saturday, November 13 some friends of Kelda’s Kitchen are putting on a Vaudeville show at St. George’s Parish Hall at 7:00 p.m. to help raise a little more money for the plumbing and wiring and drywalling that will make the Kitchen a reality. As befits the spirit of the Kitchen, the show is pay-what-you-can and the whole family can come and enjoy for a small donation. Wonderful talented members of our community are offering their time to sing, dance and play their music. Come expecting to be amazed and delighted. But remember, “Please don't talk during acts, as it annoys those about you, and prevents a perfect hearing of the entertainment. The Management^.”

Groceries and Vaudeville

We want to know your favourite foods at Around the Sound. Or have we yet to bring in your personal "best ever"? Fill in a ballot at the store with your favourite thing in the store AND the one great thing you would like us to find for you. Add your contact information and we'll put on the amount you spent that day and enter it in the draw. If your name is picked at the Vaudeville Show on November 13, you will win that much again in groceries ...FREE!

Oh, did I mention the Vaudeville Show? It's Saturday, November 13 at 7 p.m. at St. George's Hall - music, dance, magic and more for the whole family. Ragtime, mentalism, tango - you can only guess what's in store! Pay whatever you can - all proceeds will go to Kelda's Kozy Knook - the community kitchen being built at Around the Sound.

Around the Sound Local Food Market is open 10 until 7 Wednesday to Friday and Saturday 9 to 5 at 685 6th Street East at the 7th Avenue lights. Call us at 370-2333 or email at aroundsoundfood@gmail.com

Food is a community affair

When Around the Sound moved to its new location on 6th Street East at 7th Avenue in Owen Sound it was with a view to having a kitchen in the store for cooking classes, chef demonstrations, and a space where someone could test the market for Grandma's great recipe before investing in a processing space. We also wanted to have a place where we could have Community Kitchens where folks could cook a meal together and take home a serving for the freezer. Kelda's Kitchen gets closer to reality but we need a few things yet. We need a person with a BCIN (?) number to look over our drawings so the city can give us a building permit. We need some people handy with drywall and wood.
And we need people to come to Kelda's Vaudeville Show in mid-November to help us pay for the good people who will install our sinks, outlets and vents.
Give us a call if you want to be part of this great community food project.

In a jam...or a pickle

Everybody has a favourite part of a Fall Fair. For some it is the horse show, or tractor pull or the rides or the dance. For me it is the work that people do at home, working all year on a beautiful quilt or sweater. Watering and weeding to produce a beautiful squash or tomato. And getting out grandmother's recipe book, stained on the very best pages, to make the chili sauce or apple pie or strawberry jam.
Then going to the fair and looking at the competition, holding your breath to see if there is a ribbon on your jar.
As we drive to the Fair we see pumpkins and cornstalks in the field and tomatoes and squash for sale at the end of the laneway. Turkeys are enjoying their last few weeks before Thanksgiving, and you could eat far more than your apple a day to keep the doctor away. But come February, you will be happy that you made all that applesauce, pickled those beets, canned those tomatoes and froze the corn. It is a long winter, and good local food will come out of the pantry and the cold cellar and freezer. Put it away now while it is plentiful and you'll be smiling all winter.

Being Green Farm Comes to Town

Farmer Tarrah Young describes their Green Being Farm as "a little bit of heaven in Neustadt". Who knew? She and partner Nathan Carey chose their farmstead carefully, knowing they wanted to have a full range of pasture-fed animals and a big vegetable garden. The property had a swimming pool - the perfect spot for a huge cold storage for their winter vegetables. On Thursday, September 16 at 7 p.m., Tarrah will come to Around the Sound to show us pictures of the farm, talk about their happy chickens, and bring samples of the organic produce from their garden. She will tell us about Community Shared Agriculture, and you will have an opportunity to be part of the farm by signing up for a bi-weekly share of the stored harvest all winter, plus farm fresh eggs, meats and prepared foods made with Green Being ingredients. Everyone is welcome on the 16th - come along and join the fun.

How eggsasperating!

Kellogg’s has issued a nationwide voluntary recall of Froot Loops in the United States. Finally, I thought. The company has recognized the folly of its ways and refused to expose children to their atrocious spelling any longer. But no, the recall is because of an 'uncharacteristic off-flavor and smell coming from the liner of the packages'. Kellogg’s has not identified the substance that causes the smell but says it is commonly used in the waxy resins used to coat cheese and cucumbers. Why am I not reassured?
As long as you did not pick up your Froot Loops (or Apple Jacks, or Corn Pops) on a recent trip to the States, you need have no fear. None of the affected product appears on the Health Canada recall list. (Our national health watch dog does, however, want Canadians to be aware of the clear and present danger of counterfeit Viagra and “small pieces of metal” in certain chocolate chip cookies, so keep up your guard.)
The smelly substance in the foil cereal liners no doubt accounts for the “Better Before” dates of the recalled packages - March 26 through June 22, 2011. Do people really buy cereal seven to ten months in advance? Do they have cases of emergency Corn Pops in the basement to avoid temper tantrums at the breakfast table?
On a far more serious note, the number of eggs in the recent recall in the United States has now reached half a billion, and news reports say it may be the largest egg recall for salmonella in the past ten years. It “may” be?? The affected eggs could carry any of thirteen brand names, are suspected in illness in at least fourteen states, and might have been made into anything from meringue pie in a restaurant to the pudding in a senior’s home. But all the eggs came from two “farms”. Apparently the owner of the larger facility had paid $2 million in fines in 1997 for health and safety violations on his farm in Maine, where the national labour secretary called the conditions “simply atrocious”. He moved on to Iowa, where in 2000 he was designated the first ever “habitual violator” of environmental regulations. And they are still wondering how salmonella bacteria might have found its way into the eggs.
It would be nice to sit here in Grey-Bruce and feel smug that none of these salmonella- laced eggs were sold here. This time. But we are not immune. There are hundreds of dozens of American eggs being trucked into Owen Sound every week, and they are subject to no more scrutiny than the recalled eggs.

Summerfolk Food

A few years ago, the Summerfolk folks decided to showcase local food at the festival. Food vendors now use lots of local food in their offerings. The merchandise tent includes a new feature, In My Backyard, where festival goers can buy local food products for snacks, camping and souvenirs.

And this year, look for food demonstrations and samples at the Grey Bruce Agricultural and Culinary Association's booth on the west side of the food area all weekend.

Red Wigglers...the Cadillac of Worms!

Remember that jingle from WKRP in Cincinnati? Red wigglers are indeed a kind of worm - a very helpful kind. Worms eat half their body weight a day, and if you feed them your coffee grounds, fruit and veggie scraps and other kitchen waste, they will turn it into the most beautiful soil you have ever seen, ready immediately to put in your garden or houseplants.

Casey Lunman visited Around the Sound last week and shared his knowledge of vermicomposting with an enthusiastic audience. We saw the Wigglers themselves - natives of Florida, they are much slimmer than or familiar dew worms. Our worms make soil too of course, but the redworms stay closer to the surface, so they are most useful for indoor compost bins. Given that most of us keep our compost bin at a distance from the house, and that path is knee deep in snow several months of the year, the easy to make odourless worm bin you can keep in the basement, the garage or under the sink is a great way to go.

Casey will give his entertaining presentations to groups of all ages, and sells worms and bins to get you started.

Great weather...for weeds!

Weather is such a subjective thing. One's opinion of it depends so much on expectations, and plans. Kelda, my beautiful assistant from Calgary, cannot believe that Ontario is just as humid as she remembered it from childhood visits to her grandmother. She lies on the floor and says "I think even my eyeballs are hot". But she has planted a garden that is clearly loving the heat and the rain, and has the weeds to prove it.
Everyone with a veggie garden has been waging a continuing battle just to keep the weeds at bay. But the lettuce, beans, swiss chard and the ubiquitous zucchini are happy as veggies in mud.
The Ontario garlic, for which everyone has waited since the supply wained in early spring, has been very hard hit by the wet July. Some farmers have experienced almost total crop failure, even as the demand across the country has boomed. Those who have it will be able to sell it out of the region, so if you have an opportunity to lay in a store, find a cool, dry, dark spot away from any mould sources and hang it in a mesh bag to enjoy until next July.

"I don't eat white vegetables"

That's what my husband Ted used to say, until I caught him eating cauliflower at my sister's. With most vegetables, there are aficionados and detractors. Often the latter have had bad experiences as children - vegetables cooked to mush, or a sister who mentions the similarity between the half head of cauliflower and a cross-section of the human brain. The attempt to disguise one flavour with another is an unfortunate ploy of motherhood and marketing - such as the CheezWhiz commercial that recommends microwaving an entire jar of their product to pour over a single head of cauliflower.
In reality, most vegetables are best with little if any embellishment. Learn what the vegetable actually tastes like, then choose dips, recipes and accompaniments that really suit the flavour and bring out its best. I'm happy munching down on raw cauliflower, and it travels really well for snacking or picnics. Cooked, the best version is tossed with a little olive oil (and fresh garlic if you are so inclined) and roasted at 400 for 20 minutes or grilled in the barbecue.
When cauliflower is plentiful and BIG, blanch any leftovers for the freezer and in the winter you can have cauliflower soup in 20 minutes any time you like, with or without the cheese.

What is local?

I am writing this from the public library in Haliburton, on the last day of our holiday. We've tried to drop in at every food store we could, and any restaurant with a local specialty. You can see the bounty of the season - lots of blueberries, blackberries and raspberries - and proudly promoted local fish, maple syrup and greens. But the challenges of logistics are evident too. Lamb is from New Zealand, huge strawberries from Mexico, because it's easier to call the distributor and order everything at once than deal with the uncertainty of supply and delivery from local producers. From a farmer's perspective, the challenge is when restaurants want the lamb shanks, an inexpensive front fore-leg cut, two per animal, but does not want the leg, shoulder, ribs or stew from the rest of the lamb. Or when the store wants strawberries for the weekend, but the crop is all finished by the previous Wednesday.

My favourite activity on holiday is to find the local thrift store. It is an exercise in both treasure hunting and letting go. You may find something that is the perfect colour and just what you need, but it is clearly one or two sizes too small. You can't look on the next rack, you just have to let it go.

Local food is somewhat similar. Flipping through the cookbook and finding an eye-catching photo of an appetizing recipe and making a shopping list is one thing. Being willing to reconsider your menu when you discover that asparagus is already out of season and bookmarking the recipe for next year is quite another.

The local possibilities continue to grow, so consider it a treasure hunt to find the perfect recipe to highlight your latest discovery. Cookbook author Margaret Howard will be at Around the Sound on Thursday, July 29 from 4 to 7 to sample some of her own creations to inspire your imagination.

Does Popeye know this?

Thanks to Kristine of Persephone Market Garden for this scoop on spinach:
Spinach is a member of the Chenopodiacae family (try saying that fast three times!) Other members of the family include beets, Swiss chard and quinoa. Wild spinach is not known to exist, though it is thought to have been domesticated in what is now Iran. In the 12th century it was brought to Spain by the Moors and from there travelled to the rest of Europe. It took until the end of the Middle Ages for spinach to become a common feature of Central European gardens, but then its adaptability, high yields, good taste and rapid growth made it a popular crop.

It's Easy Being Green

Rain and sun ...and more rain. The spinach, lettuce, arugula, mustard greens, radishes, mint, garlic scapes are all growing like mad. If there were ever a time for a salad, this is it! And as those first strawberries come out they make a pretty contrast sliced on a salad.

Strawberries need sun to set the sugar, so give them a little more time to sweeten up. Try a box now and wait a bit to go out and pick your flats for freezing and jam. Remember to buy or cut some rhubarb too for that delicious strawberry-rhubarb combination in pies and jam. Rhubarb freezes so well for a year-round taste of spring. Check http://www.foodlinkgreybruce.com to find the right Pick your Own for you.

Watch for farm tours coming up in the area, and if you're dreaming of your own, contact Georgian College for a new workshop starting in the fall - Exploring Your New Farm Dream. www.georgianc.on.ca/campuses/owensound/

Where does your meat come from?

Once upon a time, a mere 15 years ago, we had 900 small bsinesses in Ontario that processed our meat and poultry. Today there are 130. Grey and Bruce have been more fortunate than most regions, but we too have fewer businesses that can provide safe, fresh meat raised by our neighbours.

The local farm organizations and the Malcolm Women's Institute are hosting a public forum on Wednesday, June 9 at 8 p.m. at the Elmwood Community Centre to provide information and conversation on the impact of government action on farming and access to local food in our area.

For more information call Around the Sound Local Food Market at 519-370-2333

Spring tonics

So Wikipedia tells me that although rhubarb is botanically classified as a vegetable, a New York court decided in 1947 it was to be called a fruit. So there!

One of the first delicious treats of spring, rhubarb is full of vitamin C and is a substitute for citrus when you want "tart". Trudy's Country Kitchen makes a great rhubarb punch concentrate from our local harvest. Cook up some rhubarb at home with sweetener to taste and a little water (not too much - rhubarb is juicy) and try it on your morning yogurt, granola, pancakes or French toast. Or on your ice cream after dinner!

Radishes are another early treat - full of folic acid, potassium and minerals, they're great for your digestion and your liver. Some people eat them like candy but shredded on a salad will give you a more subtle "bite".

Fresh greens are starting to appear in Grey County. Try spinach for your iron and spicy greens like arugula and mustard greens for your digestion and a warm weather wake up.

Grow your own

A farm in the midst of Owen Sound (well technically, Georgian Bluffs) is the beautiful setting for a community garden where you could be getting your hands dirty this summer. Nelson Monk, a gradate of OSCVI who is now studying tourism and hospitality at college, invites you to "grow your own culinary delights, feed a family, create a botanical retreat or contribute to our local food bank". Nelson is offering 6 metre by 20 metre (20 feet by 66 feet) plots in fertile, chemical-free soil for $35 for the growing season, and tools are also available for your use for a small fee.

Call Nelson at 519-376-9988 or email him at vistagard@bmts.com for more details.

Please pass the Bitter Gourd

The other day I was speaking with Kim Delaney of Hawthorn Farm Organic Seeds in Palmerston. I was picking up a beautiful display of herb, vegetable and flower seeds for the store and she was describing their sustainable farming practices with justifiable pride. Suddenly I realized that I had no idea where the seeds in the grocery store seed packets come from, so I asked and was surprised to learn that most large seed houses buy from a world-wide pool of seed. So while companies like Stokes and McKenzie have been around since the 1880's, they have long since ceased to be controlled in Canada, and their seed comes from places like Israel and the American mid-west. Also, many of its varieties are registered and cannot be propogated without credit to the owner. So much for saving your seed.
Why do we care about local, open-pollinated, seed in the public domain? Kim told me a story. All the seed for Delicata squash, a beautiful sweet little squash that has become very popular recently, was being "produced" for the world market on one farm in the US Mid-west. Unknown to the farmers, it was being cross-pollinated by the wind with a weed called Bitter Gourd. The squash resulting from the seed, even years later, could be gaggingly inedible. Only because a farmer had kept some pre-contamination seed in his freezer (possibly contrary to the legal stipulations of 'protected varieties' ) was this variety able to be brought back into production.

For all the history of humans cultivating plants, we have saved and shared seed. Be careful what you buy, read your packages carefully, try some heirloom varieties, and save the seed from your favourites for a seed-sharing party next year.

My Veggies are Your Veggies

Once upon a time, we had a magical garden. It was in the Children's Garden of the Royal Botanical Garden in Hamilton, and we grew beans and tomato, lettuce, peppers and cucumbers. More than we could eat. We cooked and froze and shared.

In Owen Sound the number of community gardens is growing. The CMHA garden helps to provide fresh produce for their brunch program. The United Way garden is shared with community members and the Metis centre. The M'Wikwedong garden features the "three sisters" of corn, squash and beans.

This year a new garden is beginning on farm land in the midst of Owen Sound. Already a family of brothers is talking about a plot of giant pumpkins!

To provide a full range of fresh local vegetables throughout the season, the best bet is to participate in a CSA - Community Shared Agriculture. Community members pay for a share of the produce of local farms picked up weekly. The variety changes according to the season, and the members share the risk with the farmer - if the weather ruins the peas, there are no peas.
But they share the bounty of a great season too - tomatoes galore!

Sparrowgrass

That's what my mother always called asparagus. It's not up yet (after all we do live in Grey County) but it's time to start book-marking recipes. Asparagus is a great spring tonic - full of minerals and vitamins, fibre and flavour.
Growing asparagus is only for those with well-drained soil, patience and the maturity to delay gratification. If that's not you, be grateful that such people exist and are planting more and more local asparagus.
Perhaps rhubarb is more suited to your temperament. For centuries this perennial vegetable (yes, it's actually a vegetable) from Siberia was used only medicinally (don't ask). Now we know better, and this no-care Ontario perennial even has its own annual party - the Rosy Rhubarb Festival in Shedden Ontario. If you want some in your own garden, ask around. Rhubarb spreads, and your friends may have some to divide and share.
Rhubarb is full of potassium, vitamin C and calcium, and after you've had your fill of pies and crisps, be sure you freeze and can rhubarb to enjoy healthy smoothies, punch and sauces all winter long.

Bzzzzzzzzzz

Bees are actually buzzing around some early wee flowers these days. The local beekeepers tell me the bees were hungry and happy to see the sun.

There have been continued challenges with bee colonies in Canada this year - more losses of bees with no clear cause. This is all the more reason to support your local small apiaries. They will be the ones building up the colonies and keeping bees healthy, and bees are responsible for the pollination of more than half our food supply.

Last spring was so cold the bees were looking in the pine trees early in the season. As honey flavours are affected by the bees' choice of food, it made for some very interesting honey which one local producer called "treeflower". Clover is the most common flower in the Canadian countryside, and lends its name to most of our honey. Bees have to visit two million of them to produce a pound of honey! As bees fly 2 or 3 miles in a nectar-gathering run, getting a specialty flavour means placing the bees in the middle of acres of one crop or wildflowers. Buckwheat is especially tricky - if bees can go to another plant they will because the flower is a little tricky to negotiate for the bee. The honey has a special taste, and although I'm not a buckwheat honey fan, I keep it in stock as best I can for those who are.

Everyone has their preferences in honey. Some insist on it raw - never been warmed for filtration. Some love it as a beautiful golden liquid, others like it creamed. All honey will crystallize over time, and if that's not the way you like it, just set the far in a pot of hot water and it will liquefy again.

The reduction in garden chemicals will increase the number of pollinators this year, including honey bees, and that will be great for our veggies. Before long we may see some of the healthy urban bee-keeping that's sprouting up in Vancouver and throughout the US.

Still 10 days away.....

The first day of spring, the vernal equinox... is still ten days away on the calendar. But when the sun is shining, the birds are singing and the snow is melting so some of last year's beds are exposed, you can forgive gardeners for feeling it's time to get in there and dig.

Resist the temptation! Digging cold, wet soil can damage the soil structure you've created with all the compost and other soil amendments you've added over the years. There are lots of other things to do before the digging season begins. If you are one of the many people who are going to plant some food this year, some of your plants can be given a headstart indoors. Tomatoes, sunflowers, squash, lettuce, and basil can all be started in the house from seed, along with some companion plants like marigolds and sweet peas that discourage pests and encourage pollinators.

Building raised beds, window boxes and planters are good projects for the garage or workshop this time of year. I'm going to try a stacking box for potatoes this year - (you add a layer of box or old tires and more soil as the plants grow and then deconstruct it to harvest the potatoes). You can also start working on scrounging the materials for upside-down tomato planters. They should produce some double-takes from people passing your garden.

It really is the time to check your hoses, sharpen your tools, and tidy the potting shed or garage. Boring, I know, but think how much better you'll feel when you don't have to spend a sunny day in the basement looking for your gardening gloves, or nursing your blisters if you never did find them.

And one more thing...if you don't have the space or the knees for gardening anymore, get involved with the community gardens planned for public spaces and schools all over the area for this spring. They can use your experience and you can have the delight of watching a neighbour experience the joy of a garden for the very first time..

Yes, we have no tomatoes...

A little sign on the till of a local fast food restaurant caught our attention. It seems that severe weather in Mexico and Florida means that "round tomatoes" will only be put on your burger if you specially request them. I had to read the sign twice because I was trying to imagine what other shape tomatoes came in, but also because the deeper implications were sinking in.

This is how dependent we've become on other countries to provide our food. And how dependent we've become on off-season food to provide our sustenance. You get tomatoes all year long, in even the cheapest stores and restaurants, for three reasons - oil is still relatively cheap, labour in the south is still cheap, and varieties of tomatoes have been developed for no other characteristic that they can be picked green and travel.

In Canada, the tomato season is July to frost. It can be extended, to some degree, with greenhouses where it's sunny but that can suck up an awful lot of energy. Remember August, when the cherry tomatoes tasted like candy? And September when the beefsteak tomatoes were so ripe you could order a BLT and be perfectly happy if they left off the B and the L? That's they way fresh tomatoes are supposed to taste, and it's a taste worth the wait. In the meantime, there are a million delicious things to do with the tomatoes you and your Ontario neighbours put in the freezer or jars when the fields and gardens were overflowing. It's the season for eating pizza and pasta and chili and homemade soup and stew and for starting the tomato plants that will supply the bounty to see you through next year.

What colour are eggs?

I asked this question of some grade one students visiting the store and hands shot in the air. "White" said a confident little boy. "Brown" said an equally assured girl. With a grin, I brought out my favourite show-and-tell - a carton of rainbow eggs, ranging from a creamy beige through a soft greeny-blue to a rich mottled mahogany. I love it when people of every age inevitably say "oooooh!"

People think I've coloured them, or that the hens have been fed some odd diet, but these eggs are simply the natural colour for the rare and heritage breeds of chickens raised by Claire Smith of Skeffling Farm in Clavering. A dentist by profession, Claire is realizing her dream of raising lavender and chickens like her auntie back home in England. Her birds include heritage Canadian chickens like those lovely shiny brown ones in every farm story of my childhood. She also raises beautiful rare breeds that she shares with others who are trying to keep agricultural diversity alive.

The white eggs so many of us were raised on are generally the product of white Leghorns - a breed commonly used in large commercial laying operations because they lay more eggs and are smaller so they eat less. Brown eggs often come from Rhode Island Reds.

And the blue-green eggs? Ameraucanas, of various colours themselves, lay these beautiful eggs.

Mardi Gras in Grey Bruce

"Fat Tuesday" or Mardi Gras or Shrove Tuesday ...whatever you call it, the day after Monday next week is Pancake Tuesday.

Traditionally the week before the beginning of Lent was spent repenting of one's sins and receiving absolution ...shriving ....and pancakes were the way of using up fat and sugar before the days of fasting ahead.

Here in Grey County we have all the perfect local ingredients for the most delicious pancake breakfast or supper. We grow wheat and oats and mill them here in the county. We grow oil seeds for the pan and raise dairy cows for the milk and butter. Hens lay fresh eggs every day all over the county! We raise hogs and have butchers and generations of recipes for the best sausages, ham and bacon.

And best of all - to top it all off - we have maple bushes. Enjoy that natural, sweet gold running down the side of the stack.

Support your local farmers. Enjoy yourself. No repentance necessary.

New Digs!

According to...whomever these things are according to....moving is one of the most stressful experiences in life after divorce and death of a loved one. I cannot deny that there was some stress involved in moving the store to a new location, but I can assure you that it was reduced immeasurably by the amazing group who came together to make it happen. People packed, painted, and primped; cleaned, carted and carpented. And then, they brought champagne and flowers! I ask you...do we have a great community or what?

In the spirit of working and celebrating together to get what we need, there's a gathering at the Downtown Bookstore on 2nd Ave this Sunday, January 31 from 2 - 4 to talk about local resilience. Everybody's welcome.

In the meantime, keep warm and stay well...I recommend chicken soup for both.

On the Move

At Around the Sound we now have seventy-nine local producers - cooks,farmers, gardeners, producers, bakers, and craftspeople. At least once a week someone comes in to my store with a new product...or anidea for a product.

We have samples out for customers every day, and sometimes they include new products that their creators are still market testing. The other day we had a confection with dark chocolate, sliced almonds, organic cranberries and ginger syrup. I hated to tell customers they couldn't buy a whole package!

I can hardly wait to open the new store next week, because at least half a dozen foods will be launched there in the next few months. And then I can hardly wait for the kitchen to be installed. I've already had a few people say they'd like to use the public health-approved kitchen to see if there's enough interest in their idea for a new product....before they quit their day jobs.

Cooking classes - giving and taking - have generated a lot of interest too. Sushi-making, curries, vegetarian and vegan cooking, special diets and bread baking are all on the list.

But first we'll have to finish the painting and moving ...then, let the fun begin!

The Ultimate Anti-Vampire Weapon

If the makers of Daybreakers and Twilight know something we don't, we better stock up on garlic.
Maybe it's the movies, or maybe it's the flu, but local garlic has become the second most popular product in the store.

For centuries medical practitioners across the world have used garlic to fight disease. In 1944 an Italian chemist discovered that allicin is the 'active ingredient' of garlic, giving it antibiotic and anti-viral properties and making it useful in lowering cholesterol and blood pressure. Local garlic farmers David and Lynn Freeman won the 2008 Premier's Award for Agri-food Innovation Excellence for developing a process for freeze-drying their medicinal grade garlic.

Speaking for myself, it's the delicious taste and versatility of garlic that makes it a staple in my pantry. I used to have a friend who didn't like garlic or onions, and I was always at a loss when he came for dinner. All my best meals start with sauteeing some garlic and then deciding what to add after the family has walked by saying "Mmm...dinner smells good."

Everybody eats

Everybody eats. So this blog should have something for everyone. It will be all about local food - growing it, moving it, choosing it, cooking it, storing it, sharing it and yes, eating it. We'll meet local farmers and talk about why and how they do what they do. We'll ask some questions - why Chinese garlic and New Zealand lamb when we produce so much of these things in Grey and Bruce? We'll get some seasonal wisdom - when to start the tomatoes indoors and what to do with all those extra zucchinis. And what is a Jerusalem artichoke anyway? We'll meet a fun dinner club that bases each monthly menu on a different letter of the alphabet. And we'll find out how the clients of a local agency are producing some fabulous healthy food for their neighbours.

There's just a taste. I'm looking forward to giving you the full buffet over the coming months.




Around the Sound is open Thursday and Friday 10 - 7 and Saturday 10 - 4

972 1st Avenue West, north of the library (Expanding to 685 6th Street East late January).

519-370-2333 www.aroundthesoundfood.com