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food & poetry, but mostly the poetry of food

Food • Writing • Poetry

Latest notices from the Canadian Food Inspection website May 25, 2010 – June 18, 2010

• HEALTH HAZARD ALERT – Consumers Cautioned To Avoid Recalled Meat Products
• Consumer Advisory – United States’ “SpaghettiOs” With Meatballs Recall
• HEALTH HAZARD ALERT – Certain Green Cardamon May Contain Salmonella Bacteria
• Industry Bulletin – U.S. Removes Temporary Restrictions on B.C. Cattle and Bison
• Industry Bulletin – CFIA Stops Issuing Import Permits for Certain Plant Pests Being used as Feed, Bait or Pets
• EXPANDED HEALTH HAZARD ALERT – Ready-To-Eat Cooked Meats Produced by Establishment 294 May Contain Listeria monocytogenes
• HEALTH HAZARD ALERT – Certain LESTERS Brand Montréal Smoked Meat Pouches May Contain Listeria monocytogenes
• Prosecution Bulletin – LIF Foods Inc. Fined $50,000 and Placed on
• Probation for Two Years for Offences Under the Food and Drugs Act
• HEALTH HAZARD ALERT – READY-TO-EAT COOKED MEATS produced by establishment 294 may contain Listeria monocytogenes
• HEALTH HAZARD ALERT – Certain RICHLAND VALLEY and TAKE AWAY CAFÉ brand SANDWICHES may contain Listeria monocytogenes
• Foodborne Illness Outbreak Response Protocol (FIORP)
• Prosecution Bulletin – Oliver Cheung Hon Mok Ordered to House Arrest For Violating the Health of Animals, and Meat Inspection Acts
• Industry Bulletin – Brucellosis not confirmed in British Columbia
• News Release – CFIA Extends Compensation Application Period Related to Phytophthora ramorum
• Approved regulatory amendments that were recently enacted and published in the Canada Gazette, Part II
• Regulations Amending the Phytophthora Ramorum Compensation Regulations – Sudden Oak Death Extension
• News Release – CFIA Deploys Traps to Detect Emerald Ash Borer
• ALLERGY ALERT – Undeclared Milk in Certain 1.5 kg Boxes of Uncle Ben’s Bistro Express 6 Pack
• Industry Bulletin – New U.S. requirements for tomatoes shipped from Canada
• Update: Toronto Police Service issue public safety alert for food product tampering
• Toronto Police Service issue public safety alert for food product tampering
• News Release – Government of Canada Releases New Common Food Allergen Booklet
• HEALTH HAZARD ALERT – Voluntary Recall: President’s Choice® Baked By You™ Roasted Garlic Bread May Contain Metal Holding Pin
• News Release – Canada advances system for cattle traceability
• CORRECTED HEALTH HAZARD ALERT – Certain Fresh Express Brand Romaine-Based Salads May Contain Salmonella Bacteria
• Suspected Brucellosis Investigation in British Columbia
• HEALTH HAZARD ALERT – Certain Fresh Express Brand Romaine-Based Salads May Contain Salmonella Bacteria

The Canadian Organic Growers, with chapters across the country, has a lively membership on Vancouver Island, which includes summer farm tours in the area. Yesterday’s tour took us to Cobble Hill to see a lavender farm, and on to Cowichan Station to visit a CSA operation that offers grain and vegetables to subscribers.

We started at Damali Lavender Farm and B&B;,

where they grow lavender

and grapes (Castel) – which they had been selling to winemakers but are now turning to premium wine vinegar.

There’s a labyrinth there, used occasionally for workshops and special events

We had a good look at the lavender still,

which is used to extract essential oils. Not an inexpensive piece of equipment, they invested in it after making do with a smaller version their first couple of years, and it’s reduced the workload hugely; from 16 eight hour days to one. It’s portable (they have a trailer to allow them to move it) making it possible to lease it out to others who want to press essential oils from various sources such as fir.

After an aromatic turn round the gift shop – everything from essential oils and soaps to teas (chocolate mint and lavender being a popular one) and vinegars – we departed for our tour of Makaria Farm in Cowichan Station. It’s a 10-acre fruit and vegetable farm, famed for its peas and strawberries, and also for its innovative grain CSA which it started last year, born of Brock and Heather’s desire to learn about small-scale grain production. They’d come across a copy of Gene Logsdon’s 1977 classic Small Scale Grain Raising:An Organic Guide to Growing, Processing, and Using Nutritious Whole Grains for Home Gardeners and Local Farmers and were inspired to experiment with its concepts, while bringing in local experts like Tom Henry to offer on-the-spot guidance; by bringing in 55 other families they were able to share the knowledge, and workload, more widely. This year the grain CSA is more streamlined, with participants coming in to help with the harvest instead of maintaining their own plots.

This year’s plantings have been hugely damaged by pests above and below the soil. Wireworm has devasted the couple’s plantings,

as have ravens which have been descending in droves to pull seedlings out of the soil –

they suspect in search of wireworms. This has led to a heavy investment in modern scarecrows – motion-sensitive water pumps –

and experiments in stringing off portions of the fields in an effort to keep the birds off.

Here’s a field that they planted and worked and then forgot to turn the scarecrow back on for just one night: by the following morning this was the scene:

They have done some epic work in soil-blocking, using old bread crates to hold them,

and a fancy machine (designed to plant into plastic mulch, in fact) to plant them.

Their peas (climbers on one side of the net and bush on the other)

and strawberries are thriving.

The barley looks healthy

but the Red Fife wheat

has been stricken by rust.

But the beneficial insects seem happy and fruitful, at least.

Sooke’s Sunriver Allotment Garden opens properly with a garden dedication this weekend. I won’t be there for that but hope to have a look round soon.

There’s been a lot of buzz about Chinese organics, since this article about dodgy dealings on the inspection end hit the NYT headlines. More fuel for the locavores, and even more fuel for the urban farmers.

Good to know therefore that there’s clean and impartially inspected certified organic food on offer nowadays at Haliburton Farm‘s farm stand,

gearing up for full scale summer produce in the next few weeks, but open now with fresh greens, salad fixins and – gosh is it summer already? – strawberries

and (ahem) a little home baking.

Our work parties at the farm have moved to the plot formerly worked by the farm’s gardening and cooking school arm, Terralicious, which has sadly ceased to be since its owner is moving to California. There’s lots to weed

and lots to plant (beans, in yesterday’s case).

We had our own local urban farmers’ garden tour last weekend on a (so far) unusually warm and sunny day, and I found it reassuring to see that even though we’ve had such a chilly spring, there’s lots of life in them there gardens, and some tantalizing signs of summer ready to pick.

Here’s a tasty article that gleans from a number of literary classics while discussing a new book, The Love Verb, which includes recipes. Seems to me I’ve ready other novels with recipes but the idea’s never really grabbed me. Maybe it’s just that it sends me into too much confusion about which bookshelf to put it on…

Here’s a nice one: Sri-Lankan born food artist Vipula Athukorale who seriously plays with his food in Leicester.

And I’m looking forward to this weekend’s launch of Sunday Dinners, the “chapbook” of food poetry that Colleen Philippi and I have done with JackPine Press. It’s taking place at Open Space Gallery, 510 Fort Street, 2nd floor, Victoria, BC, Saturday June 19 at 7pm.

Foodies with a taste for creative nonfiction can submit something to the journal of the same name: Creative Nonfiction seeks true stories about food; September 3 deadline, $US20 reading fee.

TWUC‘s meetings ended on Sunday after a lot of discussion about copyright, and the promise to issue this press release, and create this Facebook group. The gist of the problem from the writers’ point of view is a change to copyright legislation in Bill C-32, and specifically changes to Section 29 which asserts that:

Fair dealing for the purpose of research, private study, education, parody or satire does not infringe copyright.

This aims to simplify matters for people who want to copy our work – but at the expense (literally) of those whose livelihood is to create it. The problem is that if the word “education” is added, the act then allows any instructor to copy any copyrighted work for free. The financial implications are huge for writers whose works are studied or used in schools, colleges, universities and training facilities large and small.

Currently there is a licensing arrangement (with Access Copyright) which puts a very modest fee in the pockets of publisher and author. For most Canadian writers, this amounts to a total copyright earning of around $500 a year once the pot has been divided. As about 80% of this is estimated to come from educational copying, one small change to this act means a whacking cut to a slender earning. And so the writers of Canada are calling for that change to be revoked and will pursue legal action if it is not.

So, meeting over, I spent a couple of days more in Ottawa. Saw the Hill

and the beautiful Parliament library, saved from fire in 1916 by a fastidious librarian who remembered to close the door when leaving;

and the cat sanctuary, where the cats come, so it seems, in all shapes and sizes;

and the Rideau locks;

and, in memory of Louise Bourgeois, the National Gallery’s spider (which has marble eggs, I now know).

And then dined at a very nice tapas-style restaurant, Play, where the portions are small and shareable and include Ricotta “gnudi” – described to us as a naked noodle, tasty on its tapenade pillow and wearing a fetching little hat of confit garlic;

and asparagus with prosciutto

which was good, but a shocking abuse of prosciutto – which should be served raw in slices thin enough to reveal a Parma sunset. A nice piece of bacon, designed to be chunked and fried, would have been a more rational choice here I think.

A couple of the less photogenic items – grilled romaine dribbled with melted Ermite and garnished with caramelized onion and chopped cashews, and the tempura pickled ginger with a tamarind dip – were excellent.

My final day included a tour of the Gatineau, with lunch in Wakefield, tea (and a tiny cake)

in Chelsea, a look at Meech Lake

and a last vista: the Ottawa Valley, seen from a viewpoint on the Eardley Escarpment.