VANCOUVER FRUIT TREE PROJECT SEASON WRAP UP PARTY

The Grandview Woodland Food Connection proudly supports the Vancouver Fruit Tree Project. As an advisory member to the VFTP I am trying to help this organization build its long-term organizational sustainability. In turn, their success can support my work in Grandview Woodlands since the Britannia child-care program is a VFTP recipient of fruit.

This volunteer based organization picks fruit from trees in people's backyards that the owners do not want and this fruit is then distributed to non-profit organizations in the community with food programs. It is a great idea.

This was the Project’s best season yet. They did 78 picks, totaling 7300 pounds of donated fruit. Due to the amount of fruit picked the organization has been able to expand the number of receiving organizations.

Here are a few ways that you can support the Vancouver Fruit Tree Project:

1.   Buy your coffee or tea through Blenz! VFTP is now part of the Blenz Cares program - for example, for every bag of coffee you buy online we get $7! Order by clicking on the Blenz Cares button on the VFTP website  - www.vancouverfruittree.com

2. Invest in a fabulous VFTP t-shirt or cloth shopping bag! We've got plain white t's with the green logo on the front, and we've got white t's with green piping on the neck & sleeves. The bags are a natural fibre-looking colour, also with the green logo. T-shirts are $10 and bags are $5. Email info@vancouverfruittree.com to order your's today!

3. Donations in lieu of winter holiday presents! Don't forget, you can avoid those cheezy, tacky gifts from Great Aunt Martha by having them go online & make a charitable donation to us through Canada Helps in your name instead. There's a link on our website on the "get involved" page.

4. Visit or sit a spell at our booth at the Britannia Christmas Craft Fair! This year it runs Nov. 20th to 22nd at Britannia Community Centre's Gyms A and B. We'll need volunteers to "person" the booth for 2, 3 or 4 hour slots during these times:

Friday, November 20th (3:00 pm–8:00 pm)

Saturday, November 21st (10:00 am–5:00 pm)

Sunday, November 22nd (10:00 am–5:00 pm)

Please call Erin at 604-872-5591 or email erin@vancouverfruittree.com if you've got some time to sit & help sell some dried fruit!

5. Get involved with our advisory group! We meet once a month to plan the next season & re-hash the last one to see where we can improve. We brainstorm on where to get money and ladders and stuff, we plan parties and we eat and laugh. Email  info@vancouverfruittree.com for more info.

BUILDING A COMMUNITY GARDEN DONNA SUMMER STYLE

1ST ANNUAL STONE SOUP FILM FESTIVAL

The first annual Stone Soup Film Festival is happening on October 17th and 18th in the Britannia High School Auditorium! Through the screening of several international, Canadian, American, and homegrown BC films, we hope to expose and educate as many people as possible on the politics of food from what's going on right here in Vancouver to Los Angeles to Jamaica.

For a film list and schedule visit http://stonesoupfilmfestival.blogspot.com/

Tickets are either by donation at the door per film slot or you can by a weekend festival pass for only $15. All proceeds go to community gardens. You can't argue with that price and that cause!  Festival passes are available at Britannia Community Info Centre and Health on the Drive (1458 Commercial Drive).

Bring your friends, family, sisters, brothers, co-workers, it really is going to be a wonderful weekend and we can't do it without you!

TOMATO CANNING

I really enjoyed running my first hot bath canning workshop today, producing 21 jars of organic Roma tomatoes. I think it all turned out well. I guess the proof will be in the taste. 

5 of us spent close to 5 hours. The thing with tomatoes is that you need to first blanch and peel them, then cook them for 5 more minutes in boiling water, then boil the jars in the hot bath for 40 minutes. It also takes a heck of a long time for the large pots of water to come to a boil, so the entire process was much longer than we had planned. 

For further details on tomato canning see Bernardin's recipe at  http://www.homecanning.com/can/AlRecipes.asp?R=194

Still, it was a great learning process for all of us and most of the techniques can be duplicated with fruits, which are not as involved or requiring as long to boil.

Thanks to Barb, Carol, Merilee, Shauna, and Haley Place for use of their kitchen.

THE NEW PANDORA PARK COMMUNITY GARDEN

The Vancouver Parks Board has just approved Vancouver’s newest community garden in Pandora Park located at Hastings and Nanaimo.

Initiated by the Grandview Woodland Food Connection and another individual in the neighbourhood back in February, the garden group has now grown to 57 interested gardeners. With the Park’s approval, the water system will be hooked up and turf removed very soon.

Pandora Park serves the Hastings Sunrise neighbourhood, which is home to a wide mix of income levels, ethnic backgrounds and types of housing.  On the west and north boundaries of the Park, there are many medium density apartment buildings serving low-income households, with no access to personal food production.

Project Interest and desire for garden plots has grown considerably in the six months since the first public outreach session was held. With the generally increasing interest in locally sourced food, the Pandora garden group realized that a community garden can provide not only a source of vegetables and fruit, but also educate the wider community about organics, food, and food security issues.

For anyone interested in getting involved in this community garden and living in the area of the Park feel free to contact the Grandview Woodland Food Connection.

MARKETCARGO

This summer, the AMS Bike Co-op has launched  Marketcargo, an exciting new produce delivery program available at selected Vancouver Farmers' Markets.  Employing a fleet of cargo bikes and student bike mechanics, Marketcargo aims to enable Vancouver residents to cycle or take other alternative forms of transportation to market by providing free home delivery of produce purchased at the market.  Marketcargo is pleased to offer this free service to anyone and everyone. Notably, this service is perfect for new cyclists, pedestrians, seniors, and individuals with access challenges who might otherwise purchase less at the farmer's market due to the difficulty of transporting their heavy groceries. Furthermore, as an incentive to cyclists, Marketcargo is offering free tuneups in their booth at the market, so drop by with your bike and say hello!

Presently, Marketcargo offers free delivery at the Kitsilano market on Sundays from 10am-2pm and the Main Street market on Wednesdays from 3-7pm. Our catchment area for delivery in Kits extends East from Alma and Dunbar to Granville, and South from the beaches to King Edward. Our Main Street delivery area goes East from Granville to Commercial, and North from 16th ave. to Powell St.  We'll also go as far as Seymour St. downtown. Google maps for these can be found at the following links: Kits and Main St.

For more info about Marketcargo, you can phone the AMS Bike Co-op at 604-822-BIKE, find them on Facebook, email Marketcargo Co-Director Martin Gunst at martingunst@gmail.com, or check out their blog: http://blogs.landfood.ubc.ca/marketcargo/

SPINE FISH SOUP

I just felt like a visit to the UBC Farm, a yearning to feel a little nature. Actually, my mother was in town visiting from Victoria and I though that it would be an enjoyable way to spend a Sat evening since she had never seen the Farm before.

So you drive down Westbrook Mall in UBC towards the farm and alongside the new million dollar condos that have replaced the forest. Large billboards advertising the new condos show pictures of a very attractive elderly couple in their late 60's riding, actually doubling each other, on their bicycles. I sure as hell hope that I look like that when I am that age....Anyways, a little further down the road you turn right onto the old gravel road that takes you into the farm.

Before I go on, it appears more certain that the UBC Farm will be saved, though final decisions have not been made. So yeahh for that!!!

For any of you who have not been to the Farm, it is really a beautiful place, an urban oasis that feels very rural. Visiting the farm evoked in me a powerful urge to immerse myself in nature, to soak up the greenness, the soil, the sounds of the birds...God I miss this....

I wanted to check out the new aboriginal smoke house that was recently built at the Farm. Smoke was coming from the smokehouse so I was excited to see that it was in use. The smokehouse is located in a beautiful little clearing surrounded by fir and poplar trees. As we approached I saw a couple of native guys that I had met at an Aboriginal Gardens meeting here in town. They were sitting around a large fire that they had made. Piles and piles of alder, maple and cedar logs were stacked all around the trees and the smokehouse. Sam came over to show us the smokehouse. It was good to see him again, his quiet, but very friendly personality. 

The smokehouse was full of fish, the second day of the smoking and the first time the smokehouse had been used. What good fortune to be visiting at this time, to be witnessing the first smoking at the new smokehouse. We were invited to stay for some fish soup and we eagerly joined the group, Sam, Clarence, Vern, Peggy and Cathy, the elders, and Mary Holmes the coordinator of the Aboriginal Gardens Project, and sat around the warm fire. It was good to see some friends again. We talked while we waited for the fish soup to finish cooking. We heard about Vern's idea to build an "arbor", a type of longhouse, at the site as a healing centre for young men and women. We shared stories about canning, and as always, I am blown away by the wonderful sense of humor among aboriginal peoples, despite all the years of the residential school holocaust.

So there we were, a couple of visitors, welcomed to join the camp for dinner. We ate tasty fish spine soup, basically the leftovers from the fish cuttings. There is always a little meat still along the spine and the bones. The soup also had salmon roe, potatoes and onions and tasted great. Of course there was fresh bannock and freshly made strawberry jam. What an amazing treat.

Somehow, I would really like to figure out a way to connect my food security work with what these folks are trying to do -  to stay connected to their food traditions, and to pass that knowledge on to the younger generations. It is worth asking what I can bring to this project of theirs. What do I have that I can share with them, and how can I support their work.  This is a start.

Ian

Michael Pollan - In Defense of Food

BUEN PROVECHO !

Buen Provecho! is an intergenerational project that brought together Latin American youth with Latin American elders who have shared their favorite recipes and personal stories to create a wonderful cookbook representing the diverse food traditions of Latin America.

We also photo documented this learning and cooking process and presented the best photos as part of a beautiful photo exhibit in the Britannia Art Gallery. Some of those photos are included below.

Buen Provecho! built important connections between the youth and the elders that support healthy eating among the youth, help to foster important relationships across generations, strengthen cultural pride and identity for the youth, and celebrate the very valuable food knowledge and skills that the Latin American elders bring to the table.  

All the youth involved in Buen Provecho! are new to Canada and face enormous pressures to fit in. With one foot in each culture, they may find themselves torn between their traditional culture and their peers. Buen Provecho! is helping to build youth pride in their culture.

Buen Provecho! is a collaboration between the Britannia Latin American Youth Project, The Multicultural Family Centre, and the Grandview Woodlands Food Connection. 

Stone Soup Festival