Ted Hutten -- local farmer finds a niche

The 2009 Nova Scotia Food Summit just wrapped up: three days of meetings in the heart of the province's agricultural country.

In conjunction with the summit, mainland Nova Scotia's CBC Radio One morning program, Information Morning, ran a number of stories on local food and food security.

One of them was my 5-minute documentary on farmer Ted Hutten. He's been farming since age 18, and he and his wife (who, apparently, he has known since he was two!) bought the land they currently farm from his mother.

Hutten started off growing what he calls Dutch immigrant fare: green beans, potatoes, carrots. But he soon realized there was a niche to be filled in the exotic vegetable market. Now he grows all kinds of Asian greens and radishes, and he has a devoted following among customers with Middle Eastern and East Asian backgrounds.

I talked to Hutten and some of his customers at the Halifax Farmers' Market recently. (It meant getting there for 7 AM -- I should have been paid double). The documentary runs five minutes, and you can listen to it in mp3 format here.

Back to the Westcliffe Diner

I first wrote about the Westcliffe Diner in the early days of this blog. (I spelled it "Westcliff" at the time, because that's what it says on the sign, but owners Beverly Griswold and Tyler Slaunwhite assure me that it is actually Westcliffe, with an "e".)

I recently wrote about the diner again, this time in the pages of the Canadian edition of Reader's Digest (unfortunately the story is not online, so I can't point you to a link). It was an interesting piece to write. Tyler is not a publicity hound. He started off refusing to speak to me, and I think he got a bit annoyed when I persisted in asking him if he would consider allowing me to interview him.

But eventually, after several research trips (all of which included a burger or fish and chips of course -- I over-researched a bit), I pulled out my notebook and started asking questions. And Tyler and Bev started answering. They showed the same generosity with me as they do when they are cooking and serving up meals.

As one person I interviewed said, so many businesses now seem friendly -- but it's a kind of fake friendly. That's definitely not what the Westcliffe is like.

Eating the Wild

Local food is all the rage -- and what could be more local and organic than something growing wild in your backyard or nearby?

I recently appeared on Information Morning in Cape Breton and mainland Nova Scotia to talk about edible wild plants with hosts Steve Sutherland and Bob Murphy.

Click here to listen to my conversation with Bob (mp3), featuring clips from a trio of local edible plant experts: Marian Munro, curator of botany at the Museum of Natural History in Halifax, chef Michael Howell of Tempest restaurant, and herbalist and plant walk leader Savayda Jarone.

There were some great clips I wanted to use in the piece, but wound up cutting for space. My favourite was Marian Munro talking about making porridge from the root of the invasive Japanese Knotweed and using Chickweeds in salads: "I say, if you can't get rid of it, eat it."

The piece runs about 5 minutes.

Putting your money where your mouth is -- but not where your wheels are.

I was at a small-town farmer's market on a recent Saturday. It takes place in the local hockey rink, and features a mix of artisans with sea-glass jewellery, market gardeners with organic produce, fair trade coffee, and pleas for local causes. The crowd was mostly locals, with a sprinkling of tourists. Many of the tourists' cars sported Obama bumper stickers.

Near the entrance to the market, one bumper sticker caught my eye: "I buy local first."

The sticker was on a Japanese car.

Squeezing more money out of grocery shoppers

Two case studies.

1) Atlantic Superstore (and the rest of the Loblaws chain, presumably) introduces a new pasta. It sells for $0.99. The price, you know, is too good to be true. But instead of pitching it as an introductory price, after about a month they put the pasta on sale for $1.49, with signs that say "Save $0.40!"

So you're not paying 50% more than the original price, you are saving money off the soon-to-be 100% higher than original price. (OK, not quite 100%, but close.)

2) There's nothing new about the old trick of keeping the price the same but making the package smaller (that's why it's an old trick). But I love the liquid laundry soap scam. The package claims the contents will wash, say 36 loads. You pour the liquid into the cap provided to measure out the soap for your laundry. I suspect most people more or less fill the cap. But the one-load measure is a barely perceptible line about 1/3 of the way up the cap. In other words, if you're filling that cap, you're getting 12 loads, not 36. If you're half filling it, you're getting maybe 20. Nice.

To the hospital!

Hospital staff in Halifax are complaining about students from nearby Citadel High invading their cafeteria at lunch time.

School cafeteria food has a terrible reputation -- but who knew it was so bad that kids would rather sample the epicurean delights of a hospital instead?

Fast food photos

Even in my vegetarian days, those fast-food billboards of Big Macs and other, er, tasty treats occasionally looked appealing. I guess it had been so long since I'd eaten one that I'd forgotten how inevitably disappointing they are.

Here's a handy corrective: A page showing advertising photos versus real photos of a wide array of fast food delights. Yuck.

Bow-wow-wow

I was in St. John's for work this week, and stopped in at the Candy Bouquet. (Actually, stopping in at the Candy Bouquet was part of the job -- it's a long story.)

I can now report that if you are ever in St. John's and want candy, there is probably no person nicer than Jackie Rice of the Candy Bouquet to help you find what you want -- or what you didn't even know you wanted. And she manages to say "Have a sweet day" in a way that's genuinely sweet, and doesn't make you cringe.

Accommodation: the vegetarian threat

In the recent Quebec election campaign, one of the recurring themes was how much Quebec should accommodate its immigrants. Would Muslims and Jews ruin the great Quebec tradition of the cabane à sucre by asking sugar shack owners to bake beans without pork?

As a March 20, 2007 CP story by Les Perreaux put it:

The tabloid Journal de Montreal dedicated yesterday's front page to an expose of a pair of sugar shacks south of Montreal that took efforts to allow Muslims to enjoy the annual spring maple syrup tradition known as sugaring off.

The fatty feast of beans, pea soup, pancakes and massive doses of maple syrup usually includes pounds of pork, something forbidden from the diet of devout Muslims.

One sugar shack removed pork from some food to meet dietary requirements under Islam.

Another shack paused entertainment recently to allow about 20 Muslims to pray on the empty dance floor.

"Pea soup without ham," said one headline in Le Journal. "Our traditions must be respected," said another.

Well, never mind the Muslims. What about the vegetarians?

On more than one occasion we've been to André and Annette Godard's cabane à sucre. For years, they have regularly accommodated visits from groups of vegetarians, serving up baked beans with tofu, and, yes, pea soup without ham. The first time I visited the Godards was when Sara worked at a health food store, and the staff organized a trip there.

That first visit was nearly 20 years ago, and somehow Quebec culture has continued to thrive til now. And the Godards? They're not some kind of hippie idealists. Just solid, old-fashioned farmers. I heard Mr. Godard say that he wasn't doing organic farming because it's trendy. He was doing it because it's the way everyone used to farm and the way he grew up farming.

How to cook a rib-eye steak

Maybe I should have watched this first.

High Steaks Online

"High Steaks" -- my 12-minute radio documentary on what happens tome and my family when I start to contemplate having a steak after 20 years as a more-or-less vegetarian -- is now online here. Click the link to stream it, or right-click to save to your computer and listen later.

The photo is from Highview Farms -- the place where the first steak in the story came from.

Ex-vegetarians

One of the things I've learned from talking about my Outfront story on CBC Radio is just how many of the people I know are ex-vegetarians. They range from the relative who was a vegetarian in university "the way some people are bisexual when they're students," and the friend who was vegetarian for a year, "except for pizza slices when I was drunk," to people who were solidly committed to not eating meat for many years.

The other thing that amazes me is finding out how easy it was for some people to make the transition from one kind of diet to another. Meanwhile, I've fretted and dithered for ages. And if CBC hadn't accepted my proposal, I would probably be fretting and dithering still.

One thing I've never understood is the militant vegetarians and militant meat-eaters who you will, very boringly and predictably, find on any web forum in which the topic comes up.

Like this one, although it has more than the usual share of thoughtful posts.

I have to say, I find the militant meat eaters scarier. Take this guy, who signs himself "Carnivore."

Vegetarians, PETAssholes and Such-Like Filth Cannot be Reasoned With

Because their food preferences are a RELIGION with them, every bit as much as the fundies. And they want to FORCE their religion on the rest of us.

Some of us won't go quietly. They would be safer trying to take a steak away from a tiger than from me.

Tigers don't carry guns.