I’ve been having a blast writing about the Canadian local food movement for The Atlantic’s Food Channel. Topics covered so far include our country’s underground backyard chicken movement and Jonathan Forbes’ search for the matsutake mushroom in Northern Quebec. It’s great that people outside of this here country and taking an interest in what we’re doing!
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I’ve been trying to piece together the history of pesticide use in Canada for my book, Locavore. It’s just a small detail in the project, but I’m nevertheless intrigued to find out when exactly Canadian farmers started to use pesticides in large quantities. According to Harvey Levenstein, professor and author of books like Revolution at the Table whom
This past week, my family and I drove to Quebec and backalong the 401 Highway. Even though I’d just spent the last year researching the food system here and learning about all the ways food travels to our plates for my book, I was stunned to see just how many of the trucks on the
I’ve been running up and down the stairs a lot this afternoon–I’m making dulce de leche for the first time and am trying to watch the pot and the computer screen at the same time. This is not only pure, dulce de leche (milk, sugar, baking soda, recipe to follow) without the corn syrup that
My uncle and aunt who live in Ottawa are dedicated environmentalists. They’ve been thinking about local food and sustainability longer than most of us. Hugh, my uncle, writes for the community paper and I always enjoy reading his pieces urging people to reduce their demand on the earth’s resources. I appreciated his last article about
I woke up early this morning in Ottawa to head to the Queen Street CBC studio for an interview with Kathleen Petty on Ottawa Morning. I asked the cab driver how business was and he replied it was horrible. Driving a taxi, he said, is a terrible job. “My father, my grandfather, my great-grandfather, they
A bad case of hand, foot and mouth disease has made its way through our family and so I’ve been home with the kids a lot. We’ve been strolling around the neighbourhood in our convalescence and have had the chance to gawk at the incredible number of fruit trees. We’d come across sidewalks stained with
Last night my friend Zoe was visiting from NYC–the same night the local, sustainably grown peaches arrived that my sister and I planned to can. Instead of yacking around the kitchen table sipping mint tea, the three of us got to work. As soon as the kids were in bed, we put the pots of
I’m thrilled to report that the solar food dryer my dad built me last year for my birthday is on my roof and drying away. I’ve got a tray of organic strawberries shrivelling down into delicious dried pellets as I write. They’ve only been out there for two hours but the edges have already started
I met up with food writer Margaret Webb at the Riverdale Farmers’ Market last night and was thinking out loud about what I would make for dinner: “Oh I know. We’ll have the turkey and duck eggs,” I said. “Just an ordinary Tuesday night dinner at your house?” she mused. Not at all ordinary, that’s for sure.