Tag: food

ALERT: Possible Seed Potato Shortage in Nova Scotia

by Diane, posted in garden

Last night, my sister contacted me about seed potatoes. She had put her order in at Veseys Seed on Prince Edward Island and received notice that seed potatoes were unavailable.

I checked Veseys’ website but did not find any notice about a disease outbreak. However, all varieties of potatoes are labelled as “Not Available for 2022” and “Out of Stock”.

I found several news articles about PEI potatoes unable to be shipped to the United States, but I am unsure if this is the reason they are not leaving the island for Canadian destinations. The article Canada Halts Exports of Prince Edward Island Potatoes on Modern Farmer states this,  “After cases of potato wart fungus were found on two PEI farms, Canada has put a stop to potato exports into the US.”

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Fruit Art in “A December Knight”

by Diane, posted in A December Knight

My mother always said, “Don’t play with your food.” I listened to her most of the time, but chose not to say the same thing to my kids. Perhaps because of this, they sometimes arranged their food in interesting patterns and made animals from them.

When I was a kid, no one created interesting figures from food, and they certainly didn’t create fantastic art with it. I remember first seeing fruits and vegetables transformed into art about 20 years ago.

When I thought of what Georgina in A December Knight wanted to do with her life, food art felt like the perfect profession for her. Transforming food into a work of art is not only cool, but I think as a teen in the late 1990s, I might have wanted to make a career out of it.

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Sugar in the Salt

by Diane, posted in News Flash

The other day, I was talking to a friend about food and health. Sugar came into the conversation, and I remembered a shocking fact.

“Did you know Windsor table salt has sugar in it?”

He gave me a confused look. “No.”

“Someone told me about it a few years ago. I didn’t believe them.”

Perhaps one reason I didn’t know this fact was because I had stopped using regular table salt a few years earlier. I had switched to sea salt for all my baking and cooking needs. Sceptical of the claim, the next time I visited the supermarket, I found a box of Windsor salt and looked at the ingredients. Well, I was shocked all over again.

My friend said he used this salt and would check the box when he got home. I think he was sceptical of my claim. I don’t blame him. It’s shocking. When you sprinkle salt on your food, you don’t think you’re also sprinkling sugar.

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Midgarden Garlic Update

by Diane, posted in garden

On November 4th, I planted my Midgarden garlic. I had prepared the bed a few weeks earlier by cleaning out the weeds and spreading two inches of compost over the top. No, I do not work it into the soil. I practise the no-dig method.

I estimated between 33 and 44 cloves from the 11 bulbs I had harvested in August (see the post: Garlic Update for 2021). However, I was shocked to have 71 cloves. That’s an average of 6.45 cloves per bulb. I knew the bulbs were big, but I had no idea I’d get more than four cloves from each.

Doing the math, this indicates I may get 458 cloves to plant in the fall of 2022.

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Reconnect with the Land and Local Farmers

by Diane, posted in garden

Heavily processed and unnatural food practices have been a normal part of the food system in North America for only about 60 years. Before that time, most foods were naturally organic and few people ate processed foods. Both my parents grew up in rural areas where everyone in the community got 90% of what they consumed from their backyard, the forest around them or the ocean. Flour, salt, sugar and a few other basic baking ingredients were the only food items they bought.

While governments, organisations and activist groups prattle on about environmental issues and claim the end of the world is nigh, they offer little in real solutions. They keep talking globally when the answer is locally. When I think of the popular slogan “Buy Local”, I don’t think about buying from a local store. I think of buying food and products grown and created near me, not a thousand miles away. I want apples grown within 100 miles of me, not 500.

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Sunroots: a sustainable source of food for homesteaders

by Diane, posted in garden, Natural Selection

In my gardening journey, I seek plants that grow well in my climate. If they are perennial – come back every year – it’s an added bonus. If I can eat it, it’s a staple.

Sunroot is both perennial and edible. They’ve been eaten by humans for centuries, yet I didn’t grow up eating them or growing them in the garden. I don’t know anyone who grew them. Once a staple in the homesteader garden, the sunroot has been replaced with more fashionable edible perennials such as rhubarb and asparagus.

When I tried to find a source for the tubers, I failed. My sister and her son joined the hunt. After two years, my nephew stumbled upon an old rural garden outlet that had sunroots growing in its field. They didn’t sell it but remembered it was growing there. They dug up a few tubers, and I was the lucky recipient of three small pieces.

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Calculating Long-term Food Storage

by Diane, posted in garden, Non-fiction

In the past several years, I’ve heard a lot about preppers, and I’ve watched many videos on how they prepare. One topic of discussion that comes up regularly is long-term food storage. This food is intended to sustain individuals in the household for x-amount of time. Some keep a month’s supply of food on hand while others keep a year or two stashed in their pantry.

What continues to amuse me is up until about sixty years ago, having a storage of food in the pantry was common practice. Perhaps people living in cities were less inclined to keep a month’s worth of food on hand, but those living in the country dedicated space, time, money and energy to having a well-stocked pantry for the brutal winter months.

In today’s climate, my family would have been considered preppers because our freezer was full of deer meat, rabbit meat, fish and various items bought from the grocery store. By the end of October, shelves in the cold room were stocked with preserves my mother had done down: chow, pickles, cranberry jam, blueberry jam and a host of other foods picked from the garden or gathered from the forest that surrounded our neighbourhood.

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Kitchens of Old Often Had Herbs Growing in the Window

by Diane, posted in Castle Keepers

Before supermarkets and corner stores provided the bulk of the food, humans grew their own in the backyard. Many also grew herbs to enhance the taste of their baked and cooked goods. Although times have changed, I keep several pots of herbs on the kitchen windowsill to use in soups, scrambled eggs and other dishes. It’s fast, convenient and inexpensive.

herbs

Given that the Castle Keepers series takes place in an archaic time, it’s no surprise potted herbs grace the windowsills of many homes, including that of Alaura of Niamh and Bronwyn Darrow.

When Liam Jenkins visits, he makes note of this.

Chapter 13, Scene 2

“Liam.” Alaura nodded her head towards the kitchen. “Let’s allow them to talk. I’ll get you a drink of water.”

He lifted Isla by the hips and squeezed past her to follow Alaura down the short hall. The compact, eat-in kitchen was perfect for a small family: two parents, two kids. It was similar to his dwelling when he was young. It even had a pot of herbs on the windowsill. He pushed the memories from his mind; he didn’t want to think about that time.

Alaura poured a glass of water from a pitcher kept near the back door and offered it to him.

“Thank you.” He took a sip and remembered the flavour of Maskil water. It tasted sweet compared to that in Wandsworth.

“It’s good to see you well.” She leant against the countertop, and her gaze swept around the kitchen.

“I was surprised when Isla told me you were livings here.” He took another drink. “I thought you’d have moved to Petra or another place.”

“I like Maskil.”

“And Bronwyn.”

“I can’t deny that.”

“I thought you were only friends, but Isla knew. She told me so, but I didn’t believe her. I mean, you pushed him into the lake.”

She laughed. “She’s perceptive, and that was an accident.”

“She is. It’s like she can read my mind.”

“She knows your history?”

He shrugged. “She knows me. She trusts me.”

“She still likes you?”

“I still like her.”

 

Onion Soup Recipe for The Trail

by Diane, posted in Recipe

I recall years ago many realists complaining about fantasy stories in which people travelling by horseback ate stews and soups made from scratch over the fire. While I somewhat agreed with them, I didn’t fully agree with them. You see, I make soup all the time and while I’m not riding all day and building a fire to cook it, I know how to make it, and I’m certain it’s possible to do while travelling. All that’s required is the right circumstances.

A pot of soup feeds many mouths, and it doesn’t cost very much. All the goods (except one, the meat) can be carried without refrigeration and can remain edible for many days. The meat, however, will only last a few hours in hot weather unless it was first frozen and packed to keep it cold. On the other hand, meat is easily kept frozen for long-term storage when travelling in cold weather. Regardless of the weather, meat, such as rabbit, partridge or other animal, can be caught and cooked when needed.

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Sharing the Evening Meal with Family and Friends

by Diane, posted in Essay

Family Christmas meal
The table with only the three youngest kids. That’s me with a fork in my mouth.

I come from a large family. Let me size it up for you. I’m kid number 10 of 11. My parents have 29 grandkids. While my mom’s family is small (she has only 4 siblings), my father’s family is immense. He has 16 siblings and almost all of them had at least 2 kids. To say I had many cousins doesn’t do it justice. We live in the same province as my dad’s family, so we visited each other often.

At my family’s peak, we had 12 people living in a small (think very small) home. Mom was an excellent cook, and everything was made from scratch. We were a boisterous bunch, and we weren’t forced to eat in silence. By the time I got into double digits, some of my older siblings were married and had kids of their own.

My siblings, their spouses and their kids came to my parents’ home for Christmas day. That meant the kitchen table was always full and we filled the living room and flowed into the hall and closets to find a place to eat when the eating time came.

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