It all started innocently enough, with a basket of quince, foraged from my dogsitter (in exchange for a share of the products) and a relatively free day. My ambitions were to make quince paste and quince jelly.

I peeled and trimmed the quince until I had 4 pounds of peels and trimmings, and 3 pounds of quince chunks. I put them in separate pots and started cooking.

After a short while, the discolouration disappears and the kitchen becomes fragrant with the incomparable scent of cooking quince. It’s a perfume you don’t forget.

When the quince chunks cooks down and become soft, in about 40 minutes, pass them through a sieve, add sugar, and cook – stirring all the while – for another hour or so until they deepenin colour and become thick. After a point, it gets so thick it starts spitting molten fruit/sugar, which adds a certain frisson to the enterprise. Add the juice of a lemon and spread on oiled parchment paper (actually a teflex sheet in this case) to dry for a couple of days. Once it’s firm enough you can turn it to get air on the other side.

Cube it and roll the cubes in sugar. You can store them for months and months in airtight containers in the fridge.

Meanwhile, the peels and trimmings are cooking and colouring as well. After a couple of hours, they’re darker and ready to strain – never pressing them lest you cloud the liquid – in jelly bags for around 4 hours.

Once the liquid has stopped dripping, return it to the pot with some lemon juice. The sugar, according to my recipe, is measured out (1 pound sugar per imperial pint) and warmed in the oven before adding to the liquid. You then boil it merrily, skimming the foam, until it’s dark and fragrant, and you get a good set. Then jar it up and process as you will.

Hey presto. How pretty!

LifeCycles in Victoria has been running the Fruit Tree Project for many years now. A kind of gleaning project, it offers a valuable service to fruit tree owners, volunteer pickers and community groups by bringing them together to arrange picks of urban fruit that would otherwise go to waste. In a town that is thick with aging fruit trees – many unpruned and diseased – this is a boon, for the group also offers advice to the tree owners on care and pruning.

Today’s pick brought in some volunteers from the Garth Homer Society, who picked for an hour and then the remaining pickers finished off the job. Two trees were moderately laden with apples and pears.

The trees hadn’t been particularly well managed so much of the fruit was very high, on unpruned branches, requiring the use of LifeCycles’ 12 foot orchard ladders and the extending arm of fruit baskets.

The day’s haul was pretty good: from the two trees, we got about 48kg of pears and 165 kg of apples. The owner got some, the pickers got some and the rest goes to LifeCycles, which distributes the fruit to community groups and local food processors.

It’s that time of year when it’s hard to find a day that doesn’t have some kind of festival or fair going on. I did what I could to attend a few of the local events.

At the Cowichan Fall Fair, there was a steady rain, but not enough to stop the tractor pull

or the tiny horses

Luckily there was enough to see under shelter, including Berkshire piglets

and lots of fancy vegetables,

including some that had been dressed up for the occasion:

Then it was time for the St Peter’s Church Family Fair, which included bubbles and bouncy castle

and books – Bungalo Boys and Pokeweed Press characters from Frank Edwards; and building materials for young carpenters.

Last weekend was Feast of Fields time. This year it happened in a field on Parry Bay sheep farm in Metchosin. After an ominous start to the day, featuring thunder and awesome downpours, the sun came out and shone on lots of good food. Which included… Locals (Courtenay) offering bison brisket for the carnivores, and a mixed bean curry for the veggie-minded:

Some chicken and mushroom nibbles from Avenue Bistro in Comox:

Chef Heidi Fink offered this Moroccan-flavoured treat:

The ever-popular Pizzeria Prima Strada was popular here too:

Wildfire Bakery commanded a lengthy queue:

Pink Bicycle had the ultimate local mutton burgers, made from Parry Bay Farm mutton:

Vancouver Island University’s culinary arts program offered some fine lavender shortbread and some even finer apple & caramelized onion pizza, baked in their wood-burning oven:

Madrona Farm offered a Japanese street food-styled patty, made of cabbage and other vegetables, with a blast of ginger to pep it up:

There were musicians variously situated:

Writer, farmer and editor Tom Henry demonstrates the workings of the Viking Grain Cleaner, which was bicycle powered (by passing children):

And there were lots of pastries around, including these open form apple tarts, vegan cupcakes and blackberry cream cups:

At the Slow Food booth, we offered tastings of local tomatoes (from my garden!) as well as vegetables – including yellow and purple carrots – which were as popular with the adults as they were for the very veg-savvy kids in attendance: