CSA and the Agriculture Support Collective: Remembering the Times

October 28th was our last Plan B CSA box delivery date. Actually, Oct 14th was the official end date for the summer share, but because it came on so suddenly and unexpectedly, I ordered one fall share to soften the blow.

The program went smashingly. Many people were interested in participating, but for 5 of us, our curiosity and appetite took us further, and we formed an Agricultural Support collective and signed up for CSA summer share program. It took a few weeks to figure out the delivery system, having some complications due to the fact that we live in an apartment building that does not have a live person on-site to receive shipments. But with some cooperation and coordination, we all made it work. In the end, we received a summertime's worth of fresh, local, organic fruits and vegetables; the ingredients for an endless number of great meals and memories.

My final CSA box contained tomatoes, red onions, broccoli, boston lettuce, arugula, shiitake mushrooms, apples, shanghai bok choy, leeks and butternut squash.

This transformed into:

Kimchi noodle soup with steamed bok choy
Arugula, tomato and shiitake mushrooms with pasta
Boston lettuce and avocado salad with lime dressing
Tomato and cheese sandwiches
Broccoli, leek and smoked cheddar cheese penne casserole
Vegan, gluten-free apple pancakes
Leek and butternut squash soup (photographed with freshly crocheted red baby booties, *ahemshamelessselfpromotion*)

Thank you, Plan B and Agricultural Support Collective, for making this happen!

Pots, Jars and Bottles

Last Friday, my partner and I decided to take a day trip to Prince Edward County, and see what “Ontario’s new wine region” and “one of Canada’s top escape destinations” was all about.

We ended up visiting about 8 wineries in “The County”, and taking home 18 bottles. Honestly, the wines were hit-and-miss… most were just okay, and surprisingly expensive (average mid-$20 per bottle). The best wine, by far, was the 2008 Unfiltered County Chardonnay from Norman Hardie. It was described as having an unmistakable note of “gun smoke”... how could I resist? It was bold, intensely flavoured and a real pleasure to drink.

Almost all of the wines sold by the wineries we visited were VQA-certified. Some of these VQA wines contained grapes from Niagara, some contained grapes from the County but not grown by the winery itself, and the rest contained grapes grown by the winery right in the County. Aside from being a badge of distinction, being VQA certified also allows the wine to be sold directly to restaurants (versus having to go through the LCBO).

We also visited the Highline Mushroom Farm. But don’t be fooled, as we were, by the name: this farm is actually an industrial complex, employing hundreds of people and shipping mushrooms to all over Canada.

As we rolled up with great reservation into the parking lot, we could smell what only can be described as rotten cabbages and compost. The farm’s “sales office” was a small corridor, where an elderly lady wearing a hair net pointed us to the stand-up fridge where the small selection of mushrooms-for-sale were kept. We bagged about a pound of portobello and shiitake, costing us only $6.

After stopping in Wellington for lunch, we popped our heads into the museum. They had a small exhibit on canning, to reflect the County's long history of industrial canning. I thought these directions for How To Can Chickens was particularly neat:

We also spent some time in the local library. I found this old gem, The Laura Secord Canadian Cook Book, which dates back to 1979:

Near the back pages of the book were recommended set dinners, one for each Canadian province. The Ontario Dinner included "Scalloped Turnip and Apples" and "York County Corn Bread"... neat-o. I also found a recipe for Toronto Pie, which is "a delicate, hot-milk sponge cake split and filled with raspberry jam".

Overall, it was a lovely day in Prince Edward County. If you’re looking for a wine-touring day trip from Toronto, I might encourage you to consider the more established Niagara region, but the County surely offers a refreshing change of scenery.

Mushroom Cultivation Workshop

Last posting on mushrooms for a while, I promise.

Last weekend, I took a trip to Everdale Farms to attend a Mushroom Cultivation Workshop, taught by Bruno and Paula from Fun Guy Farm. It was a full day of learning about mushrooms: different types, how they grow, and how to cultivate your own on a small or large scale.

Some basic info we learned:

• Fungi are decomposers
  
• Mushrooms are the reproduction system of the fungi organism
  
• There are many types of fungi, including molds
  
• Different fungi / mushroom varieties have very different needs - e.g. growing medium, light, humidity
• Maintaining a sterile environment is very important, to prevent other fungi from colonizing the medium
  
• Cultivating mushrooms is COMPLETELY DIFFERENT than growing plants!
  

In the end, we each took home a log which we "injected" with shiitake sawdust mycocelium. This log needs to be kept moist through the summer (so that the shiitake mycocelium can grow and inhabit the entire log), and undergo a period of dormancy during the winter. Hopefully if all goes well, next spring the log will be sprouting shiitakes.













Photo (L): Sawdust mycocelium, still in plastic cell sheets.
Photo (R): A log waiting to be drilled with holes.













Photo (L): Logs plugged with mycocelium and a thin layer of styrofoam (to prevent drying), and stacked.
Photo (R): A shiitake mushroom poking out of a one-year old log.