Canadian girl out and aboot

Last week, I did a little trip out to Sylvan Star Cheese Sylvan Star Cheese . I'd heard a lot about this cheese, which is made in a small town just outside Red Deer. The man who makes the cheese is an immigrant from the Netherlands. He was a cheesemaker for 30 years before moving to Canada and then opened up shop when he moved with his family. The cheese has been so successful that John and his family were able to create a new cheese making place, complete with a great farm store and an educational room. The milk for the cheese is supplied by the farm's 140 Holsteins. I was not able to visit the farm, for food safety reasons. Generally, if a food manufacturer lets you go inside their plant, they won't let you go on the farm, in order to cut down on the possibility that you could contaminate their food.

The educational room is quite cool. John and his family are making a video about cheese making, so people who go to tours at the farm will be able to learn more about cheese without going into the actual facility. There is also a window in the educational room which will allow people to look directly onto the floor to watch people making cheese.

The cheese is made once or twice a week. Milk is brought up from the farm and then heat treated, not pasteurized. Live cultures are added and then the curds are pressed into molds. Eventually, the mixtures are dipped into brine (salt water) and then allowed to cure. The curing process takes A LONG time. Sylvan Star is known for their Grizzly gouda, which is aged up to a year. Old Grizzly is several years old. The cheeses cure on shelves. They are rotated daily and coated with a breathable wax, which must be applied every day. It's very labour intensive and takes a long time.

Before visiting Sylvan Star, I didn't know that lactose can be destroyed in cheese making. When cheese takes this long to make, the lactose goes away, which means that people who are lactose intolerant can eat this cheese.

Sylvan Star is known for their gouda, but they also make Gruyere and Edam. The Edam is cave aged. Everything must be completely controlled- temperature, humidity, light, etc. It's a very precise process.

Sylvan Star has won numerous awards for their cheese. They make about 20 kinds of cheese including a smoked gouda and various spiced goudas. I got some of the Grizzly and the smoked gouda to take home, and both of them were exquisite.

This Saturday, I went to the Edmonton Permaculture convergence, which was hosted at a local community hall. The day was supposed to give participants a taste of permaculture and only cost $35. I've heard of permaculture due to some of my food security courses and wanted to learn more.

Here's a brief definition Permaculture is an approach to designing human settlements and agricultural systems that mimic the relationships found in natural ecologies. It was developed by Australians Bill Mollison and David Holmgren and their associates during the 1970s in a series of publications.
The intent is that, by rapidly training individuals in a core set of design principles, those individuals can design their own environments and build increasingly self-sufficient human settlements — ones that reduce society's reliance on industrial systems of production and distribution that Mollison identified as fundamentally and systematically destroying Earth's ecosystems.

I am mainly interested in the food security components of the concept. I was expecting about 30 people to be in attendance, but I walked into a room of about 120 people! I ended up sitting at a table with the keynote speaker, who is known as The Urban Farmer . He conducts workshops on how to grow food in your backyard, and also hosts tours to Cuba to learn more about organic agriculture or permaculture in the country. I found out that there is funding available to handle the costs of one of these tours! I also talked to a landscape naturalizer, a dance artist who was creating a memorial garden, and lots of other interesting people. The sheer number of people was simply overwhelming, as I wasn't prepared for it, so I spent a lot of time listening to the other people around me.

There were sessions on backyard chickens, keeping and maintaining bees, food projects and gardening in schools, picking fruit trees for urban backyards and creating eco-sustainable communities. All in all, it was a very informative day.

I should also mention that there was a potluck and everyone had to bring a food item, clearly labelled with ingredients. As a nut allergic person, I can't say how much I appreciated this! I'm going to ask for this at any event that I organize. Anyway, the food was phenomenal. I had some cold soba sesame noodles and spent part of yesterday looking for the recipe so I can duplicate it at home.

I haven't updated because I have either (a) had company or (b) been company. A came into town for work earlier than planned, so he was able to attend a Pecha Kucha night with me. Pecha Kucha is a Japanese word meaning "chit chat" and it's a global movement that allows for informative presentations of about 6 minutes each. These presentations bring young global creatives together. Mari was doing a presentation on Winterlight at this one, so we went to sit in the balcony to watch and offer moral support. This Pecha Kucha was a little uneven, but still rather interesting. A lot of bloggers said that it was the weakest Pecha Kucha that Edmonton has ever had, but I still thought it was pretty interesting and I'd go to another one.

Other highlights of our time in Edmonton- taking A to Barb and Ernie's, where they make pancakes the size of dinner plates and bake the bacon in them. (Good if you're into that sort of thing)

We then drove to Calgary. Around Red Deer, we heard a radio ad for I need a wife , a personal assistant service for people living in the Red Deer region. This is one of the most sexist, stereotypical ads that I have ever heard in my life and I was dumbfounded. We checked out the website and found out it is legit!!!

A few other random highlights- I drove in Calgary! I was nervous driving into town, but this is partly because my memories of Calgary were shaped by my childhood. I went to Calgary a lot as a kid, and the highway always seemed really fast and intense. So I was a bit nervous, but since I've been driving around Edmonton for a year and a half by myself, it wasn't that scary, especially since I had a good navigator. The day after that, we even drove to the Calgary Farmers' market, which reminded me of a cross between Granville island and the Old Strathcona market in Edmonton.

So I spent New Year's at my friend Mari's. We had grand plans to get to several parties but we never got there in time. Mari had received a creme brulee set from her bf's mom, so she ended up making us creme brulee. It was my first time having creme brulee. I'm not sure how that happened. The creme brulee set even came with a little blow torch so Mari's bf torched the creme brulee, while her roommate Stephanie stood by with the fire extinguisher. For those of you playing along at home, all these events actually went down at Todd Babiak's since Mari and Stephanie are housesitting for him while he is in France. In hopes of embarrassing him, I scoured Todd's bookcases looking for shameful items, but he doesn't seem to have any. He must hide them.

During this time, I tried bourbon, discovered that I don't like it and drank some Vampire wine instead. I'd seen the Vampire wine in the offsale here and was eager to try it. It's actually not bad. However, I don't think I could actually take it anywhere, as then I'd be the crazy goth girl who showed up with the vampire wine.

At midnight, I kissed Henry, Mari's Boston terrier. Then Mari and her bf went to the Artery to meet up with more peeps, and I went home to sleep.

The next day, I did a lot of nothing and watched a lot of Glee on DVD. Love! On Saturday, I did a bunch of errands then went down to the Black dog bar to see a free set done by a guy I know named Doug Hoyer . I met Doug at a bbq at my friend's and we always chat when we run into each other. His music is pretty cool; he's got great lyrics and wonderful melodies and some really catchy songs. I actually think his music could become quite popular if it fell into the right hands. Anyway, I met up with a few more people and then Doug and I chatted in between sets and at one point, he gave me a copy of a chapbook written by a few local poets/musicians.

On Jan 3rd, I went for my first ski this year, and skied around Hawrelak park. My goal is to ski all 9 of Edmonton's parks this year. I'm up to 3 so far. Then I had a slack afternoon and went for supper with [Bad username or site: @ livejournal.com], who has just moved to Alberta.

My week is going to pick up in a big way by tomorrow. Today is just another working from home day, but tomorrow I head out to a meeting of the Wild Rose Agricultural Producers (NOT TO BE CONFUSED WITH THE Wild Rose Alliance political party of conservatives, shudder.). The Wild Rose Agricultural Producers are a group of Alberta farmers who get together to discuss provincial issues affecting farmers. It should be a good meeting, and it's at the Fantasyland hotel in the West Edmonton Mall. I've been to a few conferences there; they have a good conference rate and decent food.

Then I'm going to the opening of the Winterlight festival . I've got a few friends involved with the festival and Mari is the festival blogger and social media coordinator. So that should be cool.

A really cool woman that I know just sent me this email for her new online book club-
( Read more... )

Please feel free to join the group and introduce yourself. And please feel free to pass this along to anyone who may be interested.

Today I drove two hours to the north east area of the province. I had never been up to that area, and it was a lovely day. It was about 27 C and sunny and the leaves were starting to turn red, yellow and orange.

I drove up to visit the En Sante Winery . I had talked to the Chrapko family a few times and just managed to get out to their place today. The Chrapkos have been long time organic farmers. In fact, they started farming organically back in the 1970s and were awarded a provincial award for Farm Family of the year back in 1993. Sadly, Victor Chrapko, the patriarch, was killed back in 2008. He was delivering a load of organic hay to someone in central Alberta and his truck was hit by another truck.
Victor's death represented a huge loss to the organic community in Alberta. There has been talk of nominating him for the Agricultural Hall of Fame.

Since I had never written about him before, I really wanted to make sure that my story encompassed some details about his life and legacy. Apparently, the family started growing fruit trees back in the 1990s. They had excess fruit and wanted to use it for wine and started experimenting with recipes. However, there was no legislation for people to have wineries in Alberta, so Vic started with the government to bring about the legislation to make that happen. By 2006, he and his family were selling wine.

The Chrapkos were the first to have an orchard in north eastern Alberta and they tested and grew many varieties and tried a lot of new apple varieties. (I liked this part) They also worked with the horticulture department at the University of Saskatchewan to test new fruit varieties to see what grew well on the prairies.

They now have 8 varieties of wine. including an organic apple wine called Adam's Apple that I just love. I've also tried the Calypso rhubarb wine (tasty) and Raspberry delight. I haven't tried the saskatoon or the cranberry wine, and didn't like the alfalfa wine which is called "Green Envy."


Anyway, it's a great story and I had a nice time talking with Vic's daughter, Xina. However, she did get a bit teary talking about her dad, so I said to her, "Don't worry, this is heavy stuff."

Her dad really made an impact in the organic and food and wine industries in Alberta and was also really active in his community. He campaigned against the development of a hazardous waste facility in his area, arguing that the hazardous waste could potentially seep into the prime agricultural land and water in his area. It turns out he was right. That same facility in now in another location, which is experiencing significant environmental damage.


After we talked, we walked around and Xina showed me how to pick an apple correctly. I didn't know there was a proper way to do it. You turn the bottom part of the blossom (bottom part of the apple) towards the sky and bend it off.

I learn something new every day ;)

Was great, but damn exhausting. I spent one day driving out to High Prairie, to visit an apiary. Rachel and I were surrounded by bees as I conducted the interview. She married into the family and has decided to expand and change the family business by creating honey related body care products for sale. I have some of her lavender honey balm and it's really great. It's in a solid stick so I can easily spread it on my skin.

The following day, I took off for Peace River. On the way to Peace River, I stopped in at a farm to do a story about leaf cutter bees. These bees are necessary for alfalfa pollination. The bees basically make little nests out of leaves and lay their larvae in there as part of their life cycle. Then they fly about and pollinate the alfalfa and lay more larvae. They are smaller than honey bees and don't produce any honey. It was pretty interesting. Then I had to stay in Peace River for several hours before I had my second interview of the day. This interview was with a young couple who have decided to convert their farm into a tree farm. They plant trees as people buy carbon offsets. They've done the work and have a great business plan and a lot of connections to promote their business. It's a neat succession plan.

Since I had to interview them in the evening, this meant that I got back to GP very late at night. Fortunately, my interview was cancelled, so I had a day off and watched Harry Potter 6 and wrote some stories for work.

I then got to eat at the new Chinese food place in GP. They had real Chinese food. Let me repeat- REAL CHINESE FOOD. And dim sum! It was amazing! I would have cried with joy if it had opened while I was living there.

I spent the last three days staying with family friends, which meant I got to cuddle their Yorkshire terrier and spend a lot of time catching up. Laura, the female half of the couple, is a professional artist and she teaches at the college in GP. She is doing a very cool art project about bringing green back to the parking lot. She has created greenhouses in four cars which are placed on a lot in GP. The cars are filled with dirt and native species of plants. It's really quite amazing, and people's reactions to the cars was fun to watch.

On Thursday, I drove back to Edmonton. I was happy to arrive home, but had a ton of work to catch up on when I got back. I'm still shovelling myself out from the pile of work and chores.

My friend posted this link a while ago and I'm sharing it here because it has already made me exceedingly happy.

Mark Bittman's 101 summer salads

Enjoy.

This weekend, I attended two movies that I've really wanted to see.

Food Inc finally came to Edmonton, and my friend Mari and I went the opening night. I really hope that a lot of people get to see this movie. The information is well presented, and succint and it really gets to the heart of the issues in a quick, easy to understand way. Some scenes were rather appalling and I found myself wondering if similar issues happen in Canada. There are some farming practices that were shown in the film that simply don't happen in Canada. Trust me, I know from experience. For example, you can't use growth hormones in dairy or turkey in this country. But there were others that I was a little murky on and I really wished that I could see it with someone who knows even more than I do, so that I could a true picture of some of the issues in Canada. However, I hope lots and lots of people see this film as it's powerful and good. It made me even more excited about what I'm doing with my job, and what I'm studying. I'm really excited and happy to be doing what I'm doing.


Last night, I went to see Handmade nation . I was quite excited to see this as I knew that [Bad username or site: @ livejournal.com] was in the film. This film has only shown in three locations in Canada. A group called "Make it productions" has bought the Canadian rights and has shown it in Vancouver and Edmonton, with plans to show it in Calgary. Apparently the tickets to the Vancouver event were $25- Edmontonians got a deal as our tickets were $12. There were a lot of people who turned up to see the movie, which was pretty impressive as there was a severe thunderstorm watch and a storm that happened during the movie. I was quite impressed with the film, and thought it did a good job of explaining the craft movement and showcasing what some various people were doing. However, we were plagued by technical difficulties as the sound cut in and out, and the video stopped twice, which was quite annoying. I went by myself since the friend that I was going to go with ended up going camping with her husband. This actually turned out to be a bit of a blessing, since I got a chance to catch up with a journalist/writer that I know, who happened to be in attendance with her husband.

After watching these two films one night after the other, I couldn't help but think about some of the similarities between small specialty farmers and the DIY crafty movement. Both groups want to go against mainstream offerings, create things and offer alternatives. They want something with a personal stamp on it, something that they've grown/created themselves. They're going against the grain. Pretty interesting stuff.

After being socially isolated for a while due to excessive work/school/writing, I decided that I needed to get out of the house. Thursday night I went to one of my favourite Edmonton venues, to attend the launch of Frontenac House 2009 Quartet series. There were more than 100 people in attendance, which was phenomenal. I got to hang out with my publishers and a bunch of poets and had a blast talking to people. Afterward, my publishers and two of this year's poets and I went out for some drinks and appies and I got a chance to hang out and visit which was ever so lovely.

Friday I decided that I WAS NOT GOING TO WORK, so I went to see Adventureland. I liked the movie and thought it was pretty good, but I hated the theatre that I went to see it at. I've never been to the South Edmonton Common theatre before, and probably won't go again for a long time. GOing there is a bit like trying to see a movie in a mall. Yuck.

Adventureland is pretty cute and believable. You'll relate to it if you've ever had a job that really sucked, but where you got to meet a lot of cool people. Plus everyone acting in the film is excellent; Kristen Stewart, Jesse Eisenberg, Ryan Reynolds, Martin Starr and Bill Hader. It's set in 1987 so there's some great fashion and music and Yo La Tengo does the soundtrack. Nice.

That night, Mari and I had plans to go to a local church Perogy supper featuring homemade perogies. It was pretty damn awesome. We ate lots of homemade perogies, talked to some seniors, and perused the garage sale. After this, we went for tea and then went to her place to cuddle with her dogs and watch "Son of Rambow." Now that my socializing is done for a while, I'm ready to go back to work.

Oh, and another item of note; I bought lipstick for the first time in about 12 years. I needed some for stage make up for my dance recital. I had to get the sales girl to help me find a good brand and colour. [Bad username or site: @ livejournal.com], you'll be happy to know that the colour is "Vintage Red."