Iambic Cafe | food & poetry, but mostly the poetry of food

Hope to Hinton

Jun 11

Day 2 dawned wetly and foggily, much like ourselves.

We crossed the Coquihalla in good time, surprised for no good reason to see lots of snow at the summit,

and then swanned down the other side, past some of my favourite landscape, around Merritt

and on to and past Kamloops, noting pine beetle damage

and on and on up the Yellowhead, through Jasper

and finally to Hinton where the L&W; Family Restaurant served us some pretty good greek salad, spanakopita and navy bean soup.

The sun has set

on bunnies large and small and so we hit the hay for another day.

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A while back, Ruth happened to mention she was looking for another driver to help her move her stuff across this chain of Tim Horton’s we call Canada. And so I stepped forward as co-pilot, co-driver, menu scrutineer and chief gastro-whinger.

Before leaving I enjoyed a pleasant Victoria Saturday with Judy and Peg, drooling over the baked goods at Moss Street Market

and then being treated to a quartet of Ferris‘ finest rockefeller oysters…

Have left Anton, who has been doing a good impersonation of a living vacuum cleaner at mealtimes, to convalesce from his (successful) eye op in Sidney.

It’s all started well. Ruth left the lot this morning with the U-Haul van; my mission was to drive her car to her house; only her car refused to start for me (I think it was suffering some separation and relocation anxiety and plain just didn’t like me, as it later started willingly for Ruth). Not a problem though; the car needed to be hitched to the van once it was packed anyway, so I was able to just leave it in the lot and wander around while Ruth’s burly men packed her earthlies into a compact space. Which they did with alarming speed!

Then, ready to head off, there were some more fraught moments in the lot while the cheerful attendant could not find a database listing for the car model we wanted to hitch to the van (which would have meant we would have had to haul a longer, heavier car trailer instead of a dolly). But the heroic general manager finally sussed it out and gave us the all clear, and off we lumbered to the ferry, which we made in plenty of time.

We managed to get to Hope, where the mountains are wreathed in fog, so it was lucky we meant to stop here. After some veggie burger and spinach salad

a good ol’ meat loaf dinner

and a shared piece of lemon meringue

from the Home Restaurant’s justly famous pie case, we had a stroll round the local supermarket where they had proudly flagged Local Products (the cashier explained this meant products that had been packed in Burnaby, rather than in China or Mexico or someplace – hence you could buy “Local” almonds, dates, raisins and escargot seasoning!), and soon we will tumble into dreams, resting up for tomorrow’s haul through the mountains.

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GM food labelling – the debate

Jun 9

At last, I thought, some coverage of the bill c-517 debate on national radio! But no, I later realised I was tuned to Village 900 which was broadcasting a May 22 episode of an excellent program from Kootenay Co-op Radio called Deconstructing Dinner.

It was fascinating to hear the politicians who voted down the bill try to explain why they had done so. Listen for yourself; despite numerous polls which show Canadians want to know what they’re eating, too many politicians doggedly maintain they think it would be harmful to Canadians to be able to distinguish between GM and non GM foods.

You can read the debates in the Hansard: April 3 and May 5. See for yourself who said what, and who said nothing. Pretty interesting reading. As was the email I received from my MP who assures me he believes “in using a precautionary principle with regards to genetic engineering”. Apparently this precaution does not extend to labelling those precaution-worthy food items, since he voted against the bill.

Anyone in the neighbourhood wanting to talk more about this issue should come to the Slow Food Vancouver Island discussion on July 9.

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Clam spotting

Jun 5

A pleasant afternoon in Maple Bay today.

Had an enlightening walk on the beach at low tide revisiting some of the bivalves of my youth, and a newcomer.

When I were a lass, the Manila clam (Venerupis philippinarum) was everywhere we poked our shovels; I remember chasing their spouts to gather a bucketful. They are colourful, with gradations of colour on the outside of their shells, and a line of purple on the inside. Gloriously tender when fresh, but not really that native: accidental immigrants from Japan in the 1930s who hitched a ride into our waters on oyster seed.

The unimaginatively named and rather pale cousin to the Manila, the good and hefty Native clam (aka Littleneck or Steamer or Protothaca staminea) has a healthy presence in ‘my’ bay.

Another you don’t see much is the Cockle, Clinocardium nuttallii.

Butter clams – surprisingly large, their size reflected in their Latin name: Saxidomus giganteus – tend to live deeper than Native and Manilas.

A newcomer from Japan, another freeloader (arriving in BC in the 1980s, in the ballast water of ships), the Mahogany (aka Purple Varnish or Nuttallia obscurata) is more fragile and therefore takes a beating in winter storms. The purple of the inner shell is more prominent the more freshly departed the clam. Lots of shells on the beach.

And then there were the starfish,

the sunfish,

and the flowers.

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More bees

Jun 3

Nancy sent me this excellent article about the danger bees are in in this world of industrial farming, dependent on pesticides and monocultures. Several of the points were already made in Michael Pollan’s December article in the New York Times, and it was discussed in some detail on 60 Minutes last October as well, but I liked the links on this one, like the “10 things you can do to help honeybees” piece. I also came across this excellent site which has some interesting photos of varroa mites and what they can do to a hive.

Our bee-keeping class met one last time at the farm of our instructors. It was a good chance for the novice bee-keepers to ask some questions, and we got to see and do a number of things before sitting down to tea and cookies.

There was another lesson in marking queens. This picture shows why marking a queen is a good idea; this is a close-up of one side of a frame. Imagine hunting through both sides of 18-20 frames to find your queen. She can prove elusive, particularly if she is busy laying when you look, so she might be waist-deep in a cell and not all that conspicuous. Here you can probably spot her: she is in the centre of the picture with a longer darker abdomen than the others. It takes some practice to find her, particularly when drones are around as they are darker and longer, but have blunt back ends. This queen is surrounded by workers who are shorter and resemble her less.

Pick up your bee (these are drones, used for practice, and sent back to a life of humiliation and teasing by the other bees)…

Transfer it to your other hand, holding its legs, and mark with a marker (different colours for different years: yellow queens, here, are ones that were born last year; this year we’re using red).