As you enjoy your long weekend hikes through the woods, and are tempted by the marvelous wild delicacies, please remember the following:
-When foraging plants, remember the general etiquette: know your plants, and know about their life cycle.  Never take more than the plant can quickly regenerate within a year.  Some of my personal recommendations include not taking more than one or two fiddles per well established fern. I never taking more than 1/4 of the mushrooms I find (even if it breaks my heart), and I leave some fruits (1/10) …

While enjoying the San Francisco Farmers’ Market in the Ferry Building this past fall, I happened upon a rare and exquisite shop, Culinaire. Specializing in culinary antiques that were designed for specific kitchen or table uses, the unique shop is filled with rare finds like the tools below.

Do you know what these delicate, silver-plated utensils were used for?
First Clue: They were not dessert servers. Although they may have been used at the dining room table, they were never associated with cakes, pies or other fine delicacies.
Second Clue: While they may …

Today, many restaurants showcase local, Canadian products.  While sourcing these  products is becoming more of a main stream industry with typical wholesale marketing, building direct marketing chains between food producers and restaurants or other retail markets is a real boon for both the agricultural industry and retailers.  Producers retain value on their product, while restauranteurs or retailers have the direct link, and the real story behind the product. All this helps meet increasing consumer demand for fresh, unique and local products.
 
In the spirit of building successful relationships between farmers and retailers, I’ve spoken with …

As a Home Economist and a Registered  Dietitian,  I am at times torn between loving food (and I mean ALL food – including the delicious crispy fat on a BBQ’d pork chop;  full fat Brie cheese with white crusty bread;  that yummy icing made out of sugar and lard on bakery cakes) and, well… being a Dietitian!
One  food that conflicts me is “seasoned” pork and chicken, which is not “seasoned” in the sense of having added spices or flavourings, as the name might suggest.  Instead, these products have been injected …

The shops are bursting with them.  Take a country drive, and you will see road side stand after road side stand.  Jack-o’-lantern pumpkins everywhere, and not a bite to eat.
Well, yes, you can eat them.  But why would you, when there are better choices for getting a really decent, and memorable eating pumpkin.
I was talking with Heather Lekx and Donald Bowyer, farmers at Ignatius Farm CSA in Guelph Ontario, and purveyors of pumpkins galore.  Their impression is that interest in pumpkins is split.  People either want a jack-o’-lantern, which usually …

One of the very first posts I wrote here was about Food Traditions. In it, I wrote about our family food tradition of Sunday Roast Beef dinner. When I first started work for the BIC, we went over to my mom’s house for that very thing, Sunday roast beef dinner. When we got there, I handed my mother the latest BIC Cook booklet – which happened to include a step-by-step guide for roasting the perfect roast of beef, based on brand new research BIC had just completed.
“Why …

When I’m traveling I pay more attention to things that would normally go unnoticed. Like this Starbucks’ bag from an afternoon snack I had in New York.
I’m not sure how natural a marshmallow square can be, but apparently mine  was made without artificial ingredients. With the promise of “more to come” I wonder if organic is next on this coffee giant’s agenda.
A couple of days later I ate at Pret a Manger, a fast food chain that started in London, UK and has expanded to the States. Their policy? To …

It is easy to fall into stereotypes.  It’s easy to think that Canada is so cold that we can’t grow exotic fruits and vegetables found in other countries. But as we highlighted recently, diversification into new crops, such as quinoa, is the new trend. All it takes is a few adventurous farmers to push the limits on what we can grow in Canada. Season extension, appropriate cultivar selection, and creative use of thermal resources has even allowed producers to grow tropical crops such as olives and lemons with great success.
The …

This is one of the best peach seasons I can remember. These Garnet Beauties were tender and bursting with juice. They tasted so much like a peach should I have eaten half my weight in them already. Or so it feels.
How passionate am I? We’ve been debating the pros and cons of buying a new freezer for two years and a single basket of peaches pushed us into the YES camp. I simply must save some of this for the dull, gray winter ahead.
Last year, Blazing Stars were my favourite. …

The CBC, CTV, and a variety of media outlets have recently highlighted a Food and Consumer Products of Canada and Canadian Medical Association Journal report on discretionary fortification, with the intent of streamlining regulation to allow the addition of vitamins and minerals to a wider variety of food products.  It sounds like this is a new thing, but Health Canada has been investigating the issue of discretionary fortification for more than a decade.  Even before the advent of calcium fortified orange juice, Health Canada has deliberated with how to regulate …