The Compost Diaries

Global Exchange is doing amazing work. I used their web site and various reports and resources a lot when I was working on the chocolate chapter in my latest book. Here’s something you can do for Valentine’s Day, that will not increase your calorie intake nor keep children enslaved. Feel free to copy and email the post as they suggest. If you do indulge on the 14th, make it fair trade chocolate.

Will you be my Fair Trade Valentine today?  Win prizes!

Participate in Global Exchange’s “National Valentine’s Day of Action”!

How? Please forward this email to ALL your contacts TODAY!

By doing so, you’ll be spreading the love to low-income farmers around the world who make cocoa for the chocolate you love, and helping to end poverty and abusive child labor in cocoa-farming communities.

AND you may win a prize drawing for $40 in fabulous Global Exchange Fair Trade gifts, including CHOCOLATE!

What is the National Valentine’s Day of Action? Global Exchange has developed a fabulous, free Fair Trade cocoa curriculum, including 9 ready-to-use lesson plans. Educators nationwide (including teachers, youth group leaders, Sunday/religious school teachers, etc, etc) are acting in solidarity to present our innovative, teaching standards-friendly cocoa curriculum, to educate students about Fair Trade on or before Valentine’s Day.

Why email ALL your contacts? Because your other friends, family and colleagues also know educators who may be interested.

Educators receiving this email: Will you join teachers nationwide and help reach our goal of educating at least 3,500 students this Valentine’s Day? Educators who teach the curriculum will be entered into a prize drawing for $75 in Fair Trade gifts from Global Exchange’s Fair Trade online store.

REGISTER TODAY!  The first five new participants in the National Valentine’s Day of Action to download the curriculum AND email us to register will receive Fair Trade cocoa beans to use with their lessons.

To participate as an educator, enable us to track whether we have reached our goal of 3,500 students, and get entered into the prize drawing, please take ALL THREE of these steps:

1. Download the curriculum at www.globalexchange.org/cocoa
2. No later than February 13, email fairtrade@globalexchange.org with “National Valentine’s Day of Action Participant” in the subject line and the following information in the body of the email:

Your name:

Your school:

City and state where your school is located:

Your mailing address:

Your phone number:

Number of children in your classroom:

Date you plan to teach the curriculum: E-mail or postmark your curriculum evaluation by February 21^st.

How to win if you refer an educator: When downloading the curriculum, educators enter the name of the individual who referred them to the curriculum.

While we encourage participation around the globe, please note that only individuals with US addresses are eligible for the prize drawing.

Want to increase your chances of winning?? Do these three things:

1. 1 minute: Forward this e-mail to everyone you know, especially educators! Hurry, they start planning their curriculum now!
2. 10 minutes: Make an announcement at your local PTA or teacher staff meeting.
3. 20 minutes: Go to www.globalexchange.org/cocoa/vdaycurricula.html and download the National Valentine’s Day flyer and pass it out at your local schools, put them in teacher’s mailboxes, etc.

However you choose to do it, just remember that YOU’RE making a DIFFERENCE. And that cocoa farming parents and their children will appreciate every effort you make to help better their lives.

PS:  Have you made your Fair Trade New Year’s Resolution yet?  It’s not too late!  Visit www.globalexchange.org/cocoa and follow the links to the New Year’s Resolution page.

Honeybees are dropping like flies. Around the world beekeepers are reporting massive die-offs of these essential pollinators. Colony collapse disorder (CCD) as it is called has been blamed on cell phones, genetics, mites, pathogens, gmos, nutrient-deficiency and pesticides. In British Columbia, bee experts say it is a parasitic mite that is attacking the bees, along with the chemical treadmill (including antibiotics) designed to treat the mites and subsequent diseases. Crops like blueberries can’t rely on the wind; they need the honeybees to help transport the heavy pollen grains. Farmers pay beekeepers to bring hives into their fields when they are in bloom, but beekeepers can no longer keep up on the demand because of the declining bee population. Losing honeybees directly affects our food supply.

Although it may be a combination of factors, many feel a family of pesticides is chiefly to blame. Neonicotinoids are neurotoxins that affect the central nervous system of insects. Bayer CropScience coats many of their corn and canola seeds in these pesticides to protect them from pests, who also become coated with the stuff. France banned the products in 1999 and in 2008 Germany, Slovenia and Italy suspended sales too. The Co-op, Britain’s largest supermarket with its own farm, banned eight pesticides in January last year. As with humans, the link between disease and pesticide may be indirect. In other words, they might affect your liver which can’t then properly filter the toxins. Some feel that the pesticides could cause a viral infection in the bees, weakening their natural defenses.

And of course the bees are also exposed to all the crop chemicals. A recent study out of Pennsylvania State University found pesticides in pollen, honey and the wax comb in hives. And still the worker bee deniers deny the link between disappearing bees and pesticides.

A crowd has gathered on Granville Street at Helmcken in front of a vacant store. There is a shopping cart there with large buckets in it. A serving cart holds paper cups, bowls and plastic spoons. There’s juice and water too. Boxes of buns and apples sit on the sidewalk. Once a month, the day before the welfare cheques are handed out, the hungry from all over Vancouver come to feast on a now famous stew lovingly made by the cooks at the Fairmont Waterfront Hotel.

There’s a story behind this stew of course. And it started eight years ago with a woman named Clemencia Gomez. Clemencia worked with Neighbourhood Helpers, a non-profit group that reaches out to seniors and others living in single room occupancy hotels (SRO’s) in the downtown core. Part of her job was to make sure people were eating well. She even started a little rooftop garden so residents could grow some of their own food. While working in the downtown area hotels like the Old Continental, the Vogue and the Gresham, she noticed that there were a lot of other hungry people in the area too.

“That was the biggest shock to me,” said this native of Columbia, “that people could be going hungry in a rich country like Canada.” She decided to do something about it.

She went to see the chef at the Fairmont Waterfront to see if she could get left over produce to put in a monthly soup. Daryl Nagato, the executive chef at the time, well known for his hotel rooftop garden said, “I can do more than that, I’ll make it for you.” And so began the monthly ritual that continues today. The giant pot of stew – much heartier than soup – is so large it is hooked up to its own heating system and has to be tipped into the waiting buckets with an electronic device. And the standard set by Nagato remains high.

“It doesn’t matter who my customer is,” says Zarko Torbica, the banquet sous chef and official “taster” at the Fairmont Waterfront, “if it doesn’t taste good, it doesn’t go out.”

“It tastes just like the stew my mother used to make,” says one happy recipient. “You don’t have to ask where’s the beef in this stew – there’s big chunks of meat in it,” says another. They go back for seconds and thirds. After all, they won’t taste this stew again for another month. Young, old, homeless or sheltered, the people gathered here once a month, rain or shine, have one thing in common – hunger.

Who knew that there were hunger problems outside of the downtown eastside? In fact the FORC Report, an assessment of Vancouver’s food system compiled by a group of researchers from the Centre for Sustainable Community Development at Simon Fraser University found that food “insecurity” or not having regular access to healthy, nutritious food is prevalent to varying degrees in neighbourhoods throughout Vancouver. Some barriers to access are income, housing costs, age, disability, ethnicity, grocery store locations, or lack of cooking facilities.

Most people are unaware of the SRO’s on the Granville Strip, including Rose Mancini who replaced Clemencia last November.

“I used to go to movies on Granville Street and I had no idea there were even single room occupancy hotels there,” says Rose.

Under Rose’s guidance, the garden program is expanding. Raised beds have been put in the parking lot behind the Old Continental. Residents grow tomatoes, lettuces, herbs and flowers for their own use.

“We have a big barbeque at the end of the summer,” says Rose. “The hotel managers are great. They put out a huge spread for the residents.” Only a few blocks away and yet worlds apart from the landlords we hear about on the downtown eastside.

Rose is concerned about providing healthy food to the hotel residents. In addition to weekly soups at the SRO’s, they host coffee hours to get to know the residents The food for these sessions comes from the food bank and is not always what she would call healthy: candy, cookies, donuts. But she’s working on that too. COBS Bread has been supplying scones for the coffee hours – and not left overs – they are fresh baked. Organics at Home on the North Shore also provides organic produce weekly.

“Food always brings people together,” says Rose. “That’s how we build relationships.”

Yes, feeding people does sound like the neighbourly thing to do.

Remember your neighbours in need as we move into the Olympics lock down period when it will be even more difficult for them to access fresh, healthy food. This article first appeared in Shared Vision magazine, April 2007.

I was having dinner with André. Andre LaRivière. Former CBC Radio producer. Chef and local food writer. Member of the Vancouver Food Policy Council. And now the executive director of Green Table Network, a non-profit that helps restaurants go green and then certifies them.

André is also father of Pascale, the four year old who gave us colour commentary throughout the meal. The delicate saffron rice was too yellow. The thick and satisfying corn and potato soup not yellow enough. The ratatouille, well that was just plain fun to say when you’re bilingue and you’ve just seen the animated film of the same name starring a French rat aspiring to be a chef.

In 1996, upon turning 40, André decided it was time for an adventure. He left CBC and enrolled at the French Culinary Institute in New York City. After graduating, his instructors encouraged him to go to the South of France to hone his skills. He landed a job at a quaint bistro just north of Cannes on the Côte d’Azur.

“We used to get movie stars coming in all the time,” he said. “Gina Davis, Uma Thurman, Quentin Tarantino.”

“Papa used to cook for dogs,” Pascale cut in, bursting the bubble.

André laughed. The rich and famous used to ask him to cook up “un plat pour FiFi, s’il vous plait.” So he often found himself frying up liver and other delicacies for les chiens.

After a year in France, he spent the next couple years in Toronto writing for various food industry magazines, building connections with chefs across the country. When he landed in Vancouver in 2000 he wrote about food issues for the Straight and City Food. He was covering the Bioneers Conference (a leading edge environmental forum) in San Francisco when he first encountered the idea of a green certification program for restaurants developed by Ritu Primlani of Thimmakka Resources for Environmental Education in Berkeley. On his return to Vancouver, he secured a license from Primlani and adapted the basics of Green Table Network from her program.

In the summer of 2006, André launched a pilot program with a dozen lower mainland restaurants including Raincity Grill, West and Vij’s. Each restaurant was assessed from top to bottom using a check list.

“We look at everything from the lights out front to the bins at the kitchen door,” says André.

After the assessment the team writes up a report that tells them how close the operation is to Green Table Network Certification – they must achieve a score of 25% in each of five categories to qualify; the areas are solid waste/recycling, energy and water conservation, pollution prevention and sustainable purchasing, which includes using local food. Then they come up with an implementation plan and help them achieve their goals.

“Within a week we had composting set up and we’d reduced our water use in the kitchen pit by three quarters,” said Suzanne Fielden of Rocky Mountain Flatbread Company. “What I like about Green Table is they put us in touch with the products and the experts we need to make it happen. And our customers love what we’re doing.”

“Margins are very tight in the food service industry,” says André. “We wanted to help businesses become greener and save money.” That appeals to Don Letendre, Executive Chef at Elixir in the Opus Hotel.

“It’s not about being more green than the guy down the street or just doing the right thing, it’s about measuring what you’re doing and seeing the cost savings as well.”

According to André, the pilot identified gaps in the supply chain and the food system. For example, larger scale restaurants can’t yet buy case lots of local organic food. And there are still some glitches with composting pick up services.

“We provide a service for corporate clients who are embracing green,” says André, “but we also want to help develop a more sustainable food system across the board. There is opportunity for us to help develop that system.”

In May 2007, Green Table Network was officially launched. They currently have over 40 members around the province including food caterers and a chain, the Cactus Club Cafés. There is a list on their web site.  Initial membership and assessment costs $595 – $300 a year after that which includes an annual reassessment. Green Table window stickers identify members.

So just how green was my dinner at André’s? Well, the produce was all bought at a local farmers’ market that morning. We sipped BC wine. We used cloth napkins. There was a composter in the back yard. Tomatoes, beans and basil were growing on the deck. And thanks to Pascale’s keen eye for colour during a trip to Ikea, we dined at a green patio table. Full marks.

This article first appeared in Shared Vision magazine in November 2007.

The Bike Tree grew out of an idea I had when I worked at the Vancouver Compost Demonstration Garden. We shared the building with an environmental group that felt we needed another bike rack. There was already one bike rack in one of only four parking spots and we didn’t want to take up another space. Not that I’m all about the car, I don’t even own one. But we did have people from all over the city attending wormshops and organic gardening courses and the parking around the building was for residents only. The environmental group wanted to put in a large, (hideous) covered bike rack in the lot. I think I might have said ever so sweetly, “Over my dead body.”

Initially, I proposed doing a kind of “bike mural” on the large, blank wall of the building leading up the driveway. The bikes could then be hung on the wall and become part of the mural. That way there would be no wasted space and the art would be functional. I envisioned bikes happily hanging within a colourful mural about growing food in the city perhaps with some living plants woven into the piece.

I received no support for that idea. They said there wasn’t enough clearance for cars and trucks and the bikes might be hit. But I felt sure there was plenty of room for two way traffic. I had the same experience when I came up with the idea to construct a garden gate made of recycled gardening tools that would lift straight up instead of slide up and in like a garage door. Five men told me it couldn’t be done, but finally my brother Todd figured out how to do it using a pulley system. He did a rough sketch with flowerpots suspended from chains. We found the right artist. Davide Pan, a local metal sculptor designed that gate using large boulders strapped in metal as the counterbalancers instead of flowerpots – for more uniform weight. He then designed a second smaller one, an echo of the first, for the other garden entrance.

After much discussion, I recommended a bike “tree” for a space out in front of the building in the waterwise garden. I initially called it the “Grow Natural” tree to promote our natural yard and garden care program. The bikes could be hung off and locked to the tree, and like the garden gate would again be functional art.

The bike tree never happened before I left the garden. But four years ago, on a whim, I decided to throw in a proposal to the City of Vancouver’s  public art program. Much to my surprise, I got the grant and thus began a very, very long ride.

Initially I pitched the project as akin to the BC Lion’s Society Whale Sculpture project where a bunch of artists are selected to paint a standard whale sculpture. The sculptures are displayed around the city and then auctioned off. The Lion’s Society has gone on to do bears and eagles and well some question whether or not a bear painted up as Darth Vader is really art. But that is not for me to say.

I didn’t necessarily want a uniform bike tree; I thought we could commission artists to design them for specific sites. A mural here, a clock tower there. Still this first one would be a prototype of sorts.

And so we began. My non-profit partner was Better Environmentally Sound Transportation (BEST). They linked me up with the cycling community and served as “bankers” for the project. Science World was delighted to have the first bike tree at their site. And a very desirable location it was: close to the 2010 Olympics Athletes’ Village, and at the confluence of three major cycle paths, including the city’s premiere Central Valley Greenway. The Science World folks became ardent supporters and tireless cheerleaders as the project dragged on.

Initially Davide signed on to be the artist. During that first year, we paid a visit to Kent Webster at Webster Solar Energy. We were thinking of having a solar or wind-powered bike levitation system (similar to the garden gate). So the bikes would be lifted up out of harm’s way and locked in some clever fashion. In our research, we had found an elaborate, expensive modular Bike Tree system from Switzerland. The high-security bike storage unit mechanically lifted bikes four metres off the sidewalk. Problem was it looked more like an ATM than a sculpture. In fact, the system used a smart card. We also talked about a recharging mechanism for electric bikes.

There were other cool “bike trees” too, some bike racks, some art.  (Just google bike tree and look at “image results”.) We weren’t short of ideas;  but our loftier goals were downsized considerably over time. Through all its evolutions, Kent stuck with the project, volunteering most of his time as our solar consultant.

After a year of working on the project, Davide was unable to continue due to other commitments. And so, I went in search of another artist. There were a few false starts and then one night I saw an artist on TV who looked promising. She was talking about a sculpture her company had done in front of Ocean Cement. It was all gadgety and fun and in the same spirit as the bike tree. I called, and Mike Vandermeer and Cheryl Hamilton from ie Creative Artworks became the new project artists. I felt very lucky to have them on board.

Mike and Cheryl have created sculptures throughout the province and across the country, including one in Kelowna to celebrate the opening of the new WRB Bennett Bridge; one in front of the new Richmond Speed Skating Oval; and one at the Richard and Annette Bloch Cancer Survivors Park in Ottawa. They are currently working on a commission in Dallas.

We had to design the piece to prevent people from climbing the trunk and there were many compromises along the way. But Mike and Cheryl came up with a great design and made  a model to help me sell it to the various partners. The stylized tree would stand about 15 feet high, with three small and three large hoops that formed a kind of canopy; a trunk that bikes could hang from; and at its 14 foot diameter base, a root system where up to 12 bikes could be parked in more traditional fashion.

Ok, so you’d think with the design in place we should have just been able to get that thing made and in the ground. But little did I know that I would have to jump through more than six hoops before this baby was installed.

The decision on the location took probably a year. It was complicated because of all the parties involved. Science World owned some of the land in the area. The City another piece. The Park Board another. It was a long and bumpy road, but the Park Board finally found us a nice spot on their land, in front of Science World. It would replace a street lamp at the end of an arc of large trees in planters, becoming one of the “trees” in effect.

There were many meetings, people coming and going throughout the project, some slowing it down, some helping to advance it. The City Public Art Program staff were consistently wonderful to work with, patient and supportive. Two avid cyclists and active members of the cycling community consulted on the project from the start. Bonnie Fenton, with the Vancouver Area Cycling Coalition (VACC) at the time (she has since moved to Germany!) and Richard Campbell (who was with BEST then, but has now moved on) made essential contributions. They helped us figure out tricky measurements and essential elements for a “best practices” bike rack.

One major glitch was when we discovered that the area in front of Science World was actually a deck, literally a “balcony” suspended over water (False Creek). The deck was built for Expo 86 and there didn’t seem to be many decipherable records left nor people who could tell you what the deck was made of, nor whether or not it was safe to anchor the bike tree to it. That probably cost us another year and we burned through one engineering firm there. The engineers were also challenged because they didn’t have experience with public art and so their version of the sculpture looked more like a tank.

In the meantime, I had noticed a solar street lamp when I was riding along the sea wall one day. The beautiful elegant lamp was located at Sunset Beach near the Vancouver Aquatic Centre. I did a little research and found out it was a pilot project with the City, BC Hydro and the British Columbia Institute of Technology. I got ahold of the City’s electrical engineer on the project and he became one of my guardian angels. Without his help, this project never would have been completed. He put me in touch with BC Hydro and they generously agreed to fund the solar component.

The solar complicated the piece beyond my wildest nightmares. Four solar panels would be set into the hoops. We would also tie into the city’s electrical grid as a back-up. Our grey, rainy climate is not optimum for solar systems. Motion activated solar lighting would provide an added security measure. All the electrical components would be housed in a battery box that sat in the crook of the tree. Sounds so simple. Another year.

Park Board engineers and electricians stepped in and went above and beyond the call of duty to get the bike tree wired up properly. They had to reroute, rewire and do a whole bunch of “re’s” to make the system work for us and to give them access to the electrical after it was installed.

In the early summer of 2009, Fast+Epp came on board as our new structural engineers. And they lived up to their names, very fast, very ept. We had construction drawings in no time. Both engineers looked about 14, but they were creative, flexible and knew their stuff. They had worked on several art projects before which really helped. The firm recently won an award for its work on the Richmond Oval.

In December, we brought in Sea-Jay Contracting to do the concrete pour. Chris Gurden and his crew did an amazing job drilling into frozen ground and finally getting the concrete poured in very cold weather. The pipes were now at the pipe bender. Once they were bent, Mike and Cheryl would do the welding, drilling and grinding in their studio. Then it would go out for sandblasting, galvanizing and painting – we had selected a deep rainforest green shade. We had a fabrication schedule, but it was merely a suggestion as it turned out.

The first install date was set for Dec 18th. We missed it. The second was Jan. 6^th. We missed it. No need to go into the reasons. And now we were fighting with the impending Winter Olympics. They were to begin Feb. 12^th, but there were more and more road closures; the street in front of Science World would be closed as of January 15th and as of Jan 20^th, Science World would be turned over to the Russians. The city of Sochi was the chosen site for the 2014 Olympics and they were using the building for their pavilion.

I prayed the third try would be the charm. On Thurs. Jan. 14^th, after nine hours in the pouring rain, the Solar Bike Tree was finally installed. Mike was in western Mexico drinking Margarita’s. Kent was in eastern Mexico drinking Margarita’s. But Cheryl was there with me, intermittently drinking hot tea. And Chris Gurden stepped in again, not only as the crane truck operator, but to help Cheryl with the installation.

Kent sent one of his solar installers to us on very short notice. Pete from PJS Electric was an electrician and a godsend. The job was a lot more complicated than he’d expected. He had to run out during the day to get various parts including smaller batteries. They wouldn’t fit in the battery box or “nest” after all, even though we thought we had the measurements down.  He had to hook up all the many wires to the batteries, charger, etc. in the nest and thread them through the pipes and into the ground. In the end, we bought the nest from Lee Valley Tools and modified it a bit. It was a copper hose storage pot with a lid that had a little bird on top. The weather resistant padlocks were also purchased there and the bike hooks. Unfortunately with the hooks we used you could only use  a cable lock to secure your bike to the trunk; but U-locks could still be used at the base.

Science World staff made several appearances, keeping our spirits up and most importantly making sure the electricity was turned off so we wouldn’t all get electrocuted in the rain. The Park Board electricians and the City electrical engineer checked in with us during the day. Richard Campbell dropped by, as did staff from VACC and BC Hydro.

There were many glitches during the day, but the team just met each one as they arose and came up with a solution. We were all tired, soaked and chilled to the bone. But just after 4pm, Chris lifted the top section of the tree onto the trunk. It was already dusk and the tree hung off the crane in a wall of mist. It looked eerily beautiful. The crew bolted it down.

I had ridden over in the rain that morning; I hung my bike from one of the three hooks on the trunk . The lights came on. “They work,” said a happy Pete. It was quite a moment.

When my BC Hydro partner came by that day, he asked if I could do up a brief final report. I said no problem, I would be doing one for the City anyways.

“Put in a little about the potential for more bike trees,” he said. I looked at him like he was out of his mind.

“I’m in my NEVER AGAIN phase,” I said.

There had been a few inquiries – from a community centre, an environmental group and the BC Auto Association, a nice fit for their new roadside bike service assist program. But so far, no one had shown me the money. And the money would have to be double what we did this one for; I was no longer a willing volunteer.

All I hope for now is that cyclists will use the bike tree. And maybe more kids will want to ride their bikes to Science World so they can park at the bike tree. And maybe more businesses will want bike racks in front of their offices.

After everyone left, I stood there in the rain and the dark, looking at the tree. I wasn’t sure how I felt. Although I had lived with the idea of that tree for many years, it looked strange and unfamiliar. A friend said to me the next day that it was a birthing and the gestation period is a very different time than when the baby emerges, a living, breathing creature.

I knew this project was not really about making environmental art or creating a unique bike rack that would promote alternative transportation. It was an endurance test to be sure, a very long lesson on patience and tolerance. Over and over again, I had to let go of my schedule to allow things to unfold in their own time. Instead of being ambitiously goal oriented, the bike tree project taught me to be more perseveringly path oriented.

Before he left, Pete, wise man and electrician said to me, “It was torrential and you still rode your bike here. You stood in the rain all day. And you finished well.”

Finishing well was important to me. But I confess that my bike and I rode home in a cab that day.

Due to the Olympics, the official launch will be delayed until May 2010. We plan to have an event on May 31st in Creekside Park to kick off Bike Month with displays and programming from some of our partners. It is also the start of a month long event called Velolove modeled after Portland’s Pedalpalooza. There will likely be an unveiling of a plaque that acknowledges the team. We have invited our Mayor Gregor Robertson, a bike enthusiast, to do the honours.

My mother’s mother, my grandmother was born in Russia, in a predominantly German town called Strasbourg on the Black Sea. I grew up eating wonderful Russian food. Bidishki were always my favourite: squares of dough wrapped around ground hamburger, liver and onions and then deep-fried. They are sold like hotdogs on street corners there I understand. There were cabbage rolls and head cheese (no wonder I’m a vegetarian!) and home-made sausages smoked right in their back yard. But today, I remember her for her soup and noodles.

I went to Grama’s house often for lunch, my elementary school was just up the street and there would always be a steaming bowl of her signature soup ready for me. It was a transparent red broth, thin but with rich flavour. In the stock, she put a soup bone with a bit of meat and marrow, an entire stalk of dill, bay leaf, and whole vegetables, tomatoes, carrots, potatoes, often picked from her own garden. When the broth was done, she removed the veggies and ate them. She might add a bit of barley, but there was usually nothing else in the soup. She always served French bread with it. No one, not me, not my mom nor any of her sisters, all great cooks (them not me), have been able to recreate that soup.

Sometimes, as a treat, Grama would add her homemade noodles. An egg, four tablespoons of flour, a dash of salt and enough water so you could pour the mixture into the soup, stir, and long thin noodles would magically form. Neither my mother nor I could ever master that trick, instead we plop the noodles in by the spoonful and make globbles, more like dumplings. I have since made them with unbleached or whole wheat flour and they are still delish.

I look back at the old recipe card and see Grama’s Noodles at the top and then in brackets old country, which is what she called her homeland. But there was a variation on the noodles, another recipe on the card, called Ribla. For this one you use more flour (1 1/2 cups), a teaspoon of baking powder and the same of salt. You moisten it with water, enough to hold together I imagine, although the recipe doesn’t say. My mother’s no help because it seems I copied the recipe off of hers. We’re both a little surprised that there are no eggs.

So mix everything up, form the noodles into cylinders or blobs, whatever you like. Then, get this (your cholesterol will climb just reading this), you put lard (I’m sure oil would be fine) and water into a pan and bring it to a boil. Then you slice onions, plunk them and the noodles into the pan, cover and fry for about 20 minutes. Keep turning the noodles and onions so they don’t burn. The Ribla get all crispy and brown. When you smell the onions, it’s done. You can eat them as is or plop them into soup as well. Mom says her fave was potatoe ribla soup.

Today we might question the healthiness of some of the items on Grama’s menu. But she had seven kids and had to be creative about stretching the food budget. It’s not that I want to make Ribla (although I am certainly tempted at this moment). It’s just the memory of my Grama. The good smells coming from her kitchen. Just being there with her. If I wasn’t feeling well, she would get me all tucked in with a blanket, cozy on the couch. I would watch soap operas all afternoon and she would keep the nourishment coming. How lucky I was to have a grandmother like her. Now I watch my mother doing the same grandmotherly things with my nephew, her grandson. And I see how he laps it up and loves being in that warm, safe place of grandmotherdom. How lucky he is.

And so a little poem, in honour of my Grama, who passed away many years ago, but who I remember with much love and gratitude on this day, her birthday.

Ribla

Big fat blobs

Noodles in a pan

Crusty, brown sides

Burnt onion bits

Plopped hot into soup

The broth thin but fat

With the flavours of Grama

Lesley Morris and her husband Skip Pendleton moved from the Fraser Valley to their 11-acre farm in Cawston in the spring of 2002. They had not planned on being farmers, although Skip came from prairie farm stock.

“It just kind of evolved,” said Lesley, a former nurse.

“What is it with you nurses becoming farmers?” I said. “The last farmer I interviewed was a nurse too.”

“Well, I guess it’s still about nurturing,” she said. “Growing food that is healthy for both people and the land.”

They always had a garden though. And the garden Lesley put in at their new home, just kind of grew into the farm business they run today, called Penmore Farm. Five of the acres are in hay, two are leased out to a neighbour for squash and fall rye and the remainder are home to 30 fruit and nut trees and a range of ground crops: potatoes, garlic, corn, tomatoes, peppers and melons.

“We didn’t know anything when we started” says Lesley. The weeds were different. The soil was different. The insects were different. The weather was different.”

The workload is an on-going struggle. The couple does all the work themselves. Learning how to irrigate with a pump and well system in this semi-desert region was one of the biggest challenges. Skip built a pump house that feeds eight lines. There’s a well close to the house for domestic use and another for the rental house. They inherited the renter (also a gardener!) from the previous owners.

They never used chemicals. “Why would I spray?” asks Lesley. “Ignorance is bliss I guess.” Once they realized that GF-120 would control the very pesky cherry fruit fly, they decided they could go all the way. They certified with SOOPA.

Penmor sells primarily at the Penticton Farmers Market. Although this year, the melon and pepper crop were so good that they also sold through Parson’s Fruit Stand in Keremeos.

“The one with the old cars in the field and on their sign,” says Lesley.

The car connection is important because Skip collects old cars, including a 1946 Mercury Coup. When they were scouting the area looking for acreage, they stopped at a place in Cawston that sold old cars and parts. It was the owner who told them about the farm for sale across the way.

It wasn’t just about the old cars though. For Lesley it was Ginty’s Pond, the wetland and bird sanctuary that backs onto their property.

“There are carp in there. And the osprey come to fish for them. There are turtles and salamanders too.” She tells me she can stick a canoe in the pond when the water is high and float all the way to the irrigation culvert. The culvert drains into the Similkameen River.

They sell some potatoes at the farmgate and provide a couple of local restaurants with spuds: Norland, Warbas and Sieglinde. Twin Lakes Golf Course takes all three varieties. But the Crowsnest Nest Vineyards serves authentic German food. They prefer the Sieglinde, with its yellow flesh for their potatoe salad. Both spots also stock Lesley’s Stonehouse products: salsa, pasta sauce and an “HP” style hot sauce made from Italian prune plums. She also dehydrates her own garlic, then grinds it into powder. The line grew out of her garden and kitchen experiments and at the urging of deliciously satisfied friends and neighbours.

Why the Stonehouse label? Because there is in fact a very old stonehouse on the farm. One with historical significance. Turns out the farm was owned by Francis Xavier Richter, a pioneer settler, miner and rancher. He is also known as one of the founders of BC’s fruit industry. The Richter name is everywhere in the Similkameen Valley. Cyclists in Iron Man Canada know the Richter Pass well,  a dauntingly steep 11 km climb.

They use the stonehouse for storing their produce now. In the 1800’s, it was used as a creamery and doubled as a jail. Richter was a magistrate too. When Skip replaced the old broken window, he added some bars as a nod to the past. And that’s not the only reminder of days gone by.

“Every time you work the soil, horseshoes and other metal objects come to the surface,” says Leslie.

No doubt the next generation of farmers will be digging up car parts.

This article first appeared in BC Organic Grower, Winter 2010.

Arthur Wesley “Wes” Barrett

Gardener, teacher, friend, salt of the earth. Born June 12, 1937 Trail, BC. Died suddenly January 14, 2007 in Florida. Aged 69.

Anyone who has read my first book will know Wes, the former head gardener at City Farmer. He is one of the main “characters”. Wes died three years ago today. His wife Barb asked me to speak at his memorial – the most beautiful celebration of life I have ever attended. After hearing what people had to say about Wes, the pastor said that he was struck by how consistent he had been in all areas of his life. That is true. And that consistency is something to which I aspire. I post my words from the memorial now in honour of the third anniversary of his passing and with much love flowing to his family. I still miss him so much.

I worked with Wes Barrett for 10 years at the Vancouver Compost Demonstration Garden. He taught me pretty well everything I know about composting and gardening. Although as one friend pointed out, my gardening skills are nothing to boast about. Wes taught many city farmers who came through the garden over the decade he was there. He was in fact a French teacher by trade, but his brand of teaching transcended the classroom. He had infinite patience, an easy manner and was very quick to laugh. When Wes laughed, his whole body would laugh and he would often slap his knee. We came to rate jokes and tales around the garden by whether or not they were “knee slappers”.

Wes was a wonderful gardener – a consummate food gardener. He could show you how to harvest amaranth seeds or how to get more flavour from a tomato plant by tucking a little comfrey into the planting hole. He loved a garden that you could touch and feel – a garden that brushed up against you when you walked through it. Every visitor was welcomed and no one was ever treated like an interruption. Wes took his time.

Fortunately, he was able to help those of us who were always in a hurry to slow down and smell the lavender. In the mornings, he’d insist we walk through the garden together. On those walks I learned to notice things, like when the raspberry leaves were off in colour or when a clematis needed pruning or if some good neighbour had dropped off a load of smelly compost. Smelly compost didn’t bother Wes. He routinely and cheerfully composted rotten, oozing food waste that would make any other mortal heave their granola.

And speaking of bad smells. Wes tended to well, pass wind frequently. He was known to toot his way around the garden and sometimes a conversation with a visitor could be unexpectedly punctuated. So when Wes retired we had Davide Pan, an artist friend of ours, create a little metal sculpture likeness that proclaimed him as our “Gardener Emeritoots”.

The most famous Wes story happened when David Tarrant of the Canadian Gardener television show came to the garden to film a segment on composting. As they peered into one of the wood and wire compost bins, David said to Wes, “So I notice that you have carpet on top of your compost here. Is that to keep in heat and moisture?”

Ingenuously Wes replied, “Oh yes, I always cover my piles.”

The entire crew collapsed in hysterics, but David, ever the pro, never even cracked a smile. So Wes became the gardener who always covered his piles. One year for Christmas we gave him a pair of jeans with a small patch of the now famous green shag carpet sewn onto the bum.

Wes’ family was part of the garden family too. His wife Barb was always ready to lend a hand – whether it was to help with a garden extravaganza or build a rock wall. His daughters were there too, Cathy worked with us for a time and Debbie and Jen often popped by for a visit.

Wes helped to set a lovely rhythm to our life at the garden. We did crosswords on rainy spring afternoons. Harvested lush greens and bright squash late summer. Raked leaves in the fall. Made festive hanging baskets at Christmas. Wes was such an integral part of my garden life that when he decided to retire, I really wondered if I could stay on without him. He was the garden for me in so many ways. For all of us. So one of our garden staff made a Wes scarecrow that presided over the garden for many years after he retired.

Wes knew how to take his time all right – in fact so much time that it seemed he was always on holidays. When he retired we wrote on his cake, Happy Holidays, Wes! And so it’s really no surprise that he would slip away while on holidays.

At the memorial, Wes’ ashes were held in a beautiful cedar box that he had carved. I couldn’t help wondering if the box had been lined with green shag carpet. Now that would have been a knee slapper. Happy Holidays, Kiddo!

The first time I met Assefa Kebede I was with a group of friends from northern California who were in Vancouver visiting their parents. They went to the Nyala Ethiopian Restaurant every time they were in town; it was in my neighbourhood and I’d never been. Ten of us arrived at the restaurant door on a summery Saturday afternoon in the early 1990’s. A beautiful black man with a shining round face and stunning white smile was just locking up.

He opened the door and we said, “Oh, are you closing?”

He looked at us and said in a lilting African accent, “Well, I was just about to head off to Seattle to see a soccer game, but…” he paused, “I would rather cook for you.”

And cook he did. It was a feast. We were there for several hours savouring it all, including his famous coffee ceremony. And that was my first encounter with Assefa, a warm, generous, smart, community-minded Ethiopian Canadian who also happens to be a great cook!

I remember thinking back then that “Ethiopian restaurant” was a bit of an oxymoron. The terrible drought and resulting famine in the 1980’s with the pictures of emaciated children were still burning in my mind. (In fact, there has been chronic famine there since the 1970’s and it continues today.) Ethiopia did not seem like a land of plenty nor a place of delicious recipes. I was wrong. I got hooked on Ethiopian food and became a frequent visitor to the restaurant, introducing many friends and family to it.

For those of you who have never had the pleasure of eating Ethiopian food, let me introduce you. First of all the food arrives on a large platter, on it sits a very large round crepe-looking thing, called Injera, bread made from their staple grain called teff. It is spongy and tastes a bit like our sour dough. On top of the Injera sits your meal, in little dollops. At the Nyala, there’s always a little potatoe salad and pickled beets to complement your main courses and a basket of Injera.

Assefa used to scold me for ordering the same things every time, but I loved two of the dishes so much that I couldn’t help myself. Gomen Watt was chopped greens, spinach mostly, cooked in vegetable oil with onions and green peppers. The Yeshimbera Asa was chick pea flour cakes stewed in traditional, spicy hot berbere sauce flavoured with onions, garlic and ginger root. You are meant to tear off pieces of bread to scoop up the food. Eventually you eat the entire “plate” which by the end of the meal has the juices of the entrees soaked into it. A warning, the Injera kind of blows up inside you, so try to curb your enthusiasm for it. I have never managed to do so and always leave there full beyond belief.

I once had lunch at Assefa’s home after a tour of his garden. Both his front and back yard are in full production. He grows apple, pear, plum, and fig trees. He has grapes and currants, blueberries and a herb garden. And as if that weren’t enough to tend, he also grew herbs out the back of the restaurant. He experimented with growing teff at his property in the valley too, which was not overly successful he tells me. Too wet here.

The restaurant had grown out of his passion for growing food. Assefa studied Agricultural Sciences at UBC and was cooking for family and friends then. In 1986 he had a booth at the Folk Festival and opened a restaurant a few years later.

For lunch that day, he cooked up a banquet of Ethiopian dishes complete with Injera. But then there was a whole other Morroccan stream: tabouleh, homous, pita bread. I was stuffed and he kept saying, “Eat, eat.”

“You’re just like my Grama,” I said laughing, trying to fit a little more in.

“Cheesecake for dessert,” he said. Feeding people was part of who he was.

Feeding people is part of who Ethiopians are. I once took a friend to the Nyala. She looks like a bit of a helpless waif, even though she isn’t. She frequently evokes a mothering response in people. When the waitress (Assefa’s wife I believe) found out it was her first time there, she tore off a piece of Injera from our meal and was about to feed her like a little bird. When she saw our shocked faces, her hand froze in the air, half way to my friend’s now open mouth.

At one time, Assefa was selling an Ethiopian cookbook out of the restaurant. He had helped a friend with funding for it. My brother also loved the cooking there and bought the book. But when he went out shopping for the spices he would need, he discovered the recipes called for village size quantities. Assefa blends all of his own spices himself to make the unique berber sauce.

Over the years, Assefa and I struck up a friendship. He was always quick to donate a gift certificate when I needed prizes for one of my various ventures. He was also a regular at Seedy Saturday events, providing delicious food. His interest in seed saving went back to a visit by a fellow Ethiopian, Ato Hailu Getu who was with the Seeds of Survival (SOS) program, launched in Ethiopia in 1989 by the Unitarian Service Committee of Canada (USCC). The program brought together scientists from the Ethiopian Gene Bank working to improve local strains and farmers with traditional knowledge. Assefa also graciously accepted to be one of the chefs when we had our celebrity chef cob oven cooking event at the compost garden where I worked at the time.

I met Assefa for coffee recently. He had moved his restaurant to a new location on Main Street, driven out by the high rents in our neighbourhood. The tough economic times weren’t helping either. And it seems all these years later there is still a stigma to “Ethiopian”. A newspaper poll quoted a woman saying that she didn’t like “Ethiopian” food for many of the reasons I was first resistant. Assefa now calls his place Nyala African Cuisine to avoid any lingering doubts. His web site says “We serve a diverse variety of food from many parts of Africa including Ethiopia, Morocco and South Africa using fresh ingredients found locally in Vancouver.”

The Nyala has been feeding Vancouver for the past twenty years. If you haven’t been yet, I urge you to try it. You won’t be sorry. Assefa’s a potter too and you will see his traditional “tagines” (casserole dishes) and other pieces on display. Yes they’re for sale. Oh, he’s also a beekeeper and he sells the darling little pots of honey too – honey and pots both lovingly made by him. Best of all, you will have the chance to meet and be fed by my friend Assefa.

Excerpt from, Something’s Rotten in Compost City, A Plot to Take Over the Food You Eat, by Spring Gillard.

I have been harping on my brother, an Okanagan developer, for a couple decades now about building green. I am sure it has very little to do with my harping, but in his latest development, Sedona Heights, several of the “southwest-style” homes, including his, will have geothermal heating. He is weighing the pros and cons of solar street lamps and there is the potential for rainwater collection in on-site cisterns. And although he is still pining for palm trees, he has finally agreed to a more native landscape in keeping with the semi-desert region. A Western Mountain Ash will stand in for the palm.

Sedona Heights is on a hillside in Summerland overlooking Okanagan Lake and a stone’s throw from a couple of renowned vineyards. For those who don’t know, the Okanagan Valley is the Napa of BC. The small but vibrant community is tucked in between Penticton and Kelowna. It is the perfect blend of rural and urban. You definitely feel like you’re in the country when you’re at home, in the midst of rambling orchards and lush vineyards, but you are 10 minutes from the cute little Tudor town with assorted shops, delis, restaurants, artist studios and galleries. Summerland Sweets is there, they make those delicious syrups and have their own orchard and factory. And the Summerland Research Station, aside from doing agricultural research has a beautiful xeriscaped ornamental garden.

There are several schools including Glenfir, a private school, right nearby, an excellent community centre with fitness area and pool. Oh and plenty of golf courses. I’m not a golfer. I think because I was forced into it as a kid. I carted around my little pink golf bag for years.

Penticton has even more amenities. And Kelowna, well, it’s a bit of a strip mall, I call it Little Richmond, but it has everything you could ever want or need, including all the big box boys. Both towns also have airports.

The Okanagan is famous for its skiing, downhill and cross country: Crystal Mountain, Apex, Big White, Silver Star. In the summer, it’s a boater’s paradise – you’re five minutes from boat launches and beaches. My favourite, activity is floating down the river channel in an inner tube, a big ol’ bus picks you up at the end of the line and takes you back to the starting point. I love to do this especially when the athletes are sweating it out during the Penticton Ironman in August.

Now let’s talk food. There are farmers’ markets galore including my personal favourite in Penticton. There’s now a Feast of Fields celebration held at the Valentine Farm in Summerland! And there are some superb restaurants to eat at – including many on vineyards. My favourite restaurant is the Gasthaus in Peachland with its beautiful lakeside patio and authentic German fare. I get the sauerkraut spaetzel every time. The pear and gorgonzola salad at the Hooded Merganser lakeside in Penticton is well worth a try. And there’s the Cabana Grille in Kelowna with chef Ned Bell who is known for his creative use of local. For coffee lovers, there’s a Caffé Artigiano in Westbank.

I am not a big fan of gated communities and have said more than once that I would never live in one. At one point I was calling Sedona Heights the family compound, because my brother lived there. My dad had a house there (which he has since sold). And my other brother and his wife were thinking about building a house there. But I spent a lot of time in the Okanagan in the past year, and had a fresh look at my childhood home. I have to say I love the feel of this place. I like the slower rhythm of life there. And the real estate is still very affordable. Check it out if you’re in the neighbourhood.

After years of preaching, I have learned that people come around in their own time and in their own way. As I often find myself eating my own words, chances are I’ll be living in the family compound soon. Beautiful work Todd, on the development and on my conversion. Oh and Happy Birthday!