To Market, To Market

With all the local resources available on the Island, it's often difficult for students to take advantage of the farm fresh products for a variety of reasons. Time is never on a students side, and if you don't have a car it can be tricky getting to-and-from all of the different farm locations across the area using public transit. Thus, the market is a welcome solution to the I'm-a-student-and-I-don't-even-have-time-to-shower-let-alone-get-food problem (we've all been there).

Market Profile: Victoria Winter Farmers' Market

When: 

• Running from November 20th, 2010--March 19th 2011 (check for future dates here)
• Every 3rd Saturday of the month
• From 11:00AM-3:00PM

Where: 

• Market Square, Downtown Victoria
• Free admission

Who/What:

• Local food producers from around the Island area like Little Qualicum Cheeseworks, Cowichan Bay Seafood, Bread by Matt, Haliburton Farms, Forward Thinking Food, etc.
• Eggs, chicken, pork, seafood, cheese, sprouts, mushrooms, jams and other preserves, breads, honey, seasonal produce, etc.

Pictures:

Winter Farmer's Market, Awesome Local Cheese and VIVA Raw Food Potlucks

March 22, 2011
Made myself a big pot of vegetarian chili with roast root vegetables and lots of boiled beans. I haven't actually cooked for myself in awhile. I felt good. On Saturday, I went to the Victoria Winter Farmer's Market ( http://victoriapublicmarket.com/?p=445 ) which was lots of fun: local meat products and goat cheeses, preserves and marmalades, apple cider for a cause, a bake sale for Japan, wild harvested mushrooms, seedlings from local farms, winter vegetables and much more. I discovered much to my surprise that I actually quite like goat cheese, specifically every flavor of Chevre (soft, unripened) goat cheese made by Salt Spring Island Cheese.

Green Cuisine, Lotus Pond, Haliburton Community Organic Garden, Beekeeping, Local Food Guide

March 15, 2011
Okay, so I haven't written for awhile, but I learned more about my relationship to food this last week. I have honestly been eating very poorly, as I have a habit of having healthy food on-hand that is easy to prepare until I get too famished to care what I eat. Then I go in for cheap junk food.

But when I do plan what I eat, I can find some real gems. I did go to the Green Cuisine vegetarian restaurant downtown in Market Square ( http://www.greencuisine.com/contact ). Green Cuisine has a $15 cookbook for sale, which I am considering buying because it would be nice to get back into cooking for myself. They have awesome vegetarian, buffet style food that is pay by weight. The Lotus Pond restaurant also has vegetarian buffet lunches that are pay by weight ( http://lotuspond.webs.com/Index.htm ).
 
I went to what I thought was a Saturday (usually on Wednesdays) work party at Haliburton Community Organic Farm, but ended up instead in a beekeeping workshop ( http://haliburtonfarm.org/wp/ ). We as volunteers worked with one of the farmers and Gordon Hutchings (beekeeper) to set up a bee box (http://sites.google.com/site/hutchingsbeeservice/ ). We then were given a slide-show presentation about the hundreds of native bee species, how they are co-evolved to be the best pollinators for our area, and how we need shift focus away from the declining monoculture of invasive bees for pollinators and towards native bees are provided with food plants and suitable habitat. The bee workshop reminded us that most weeds are a stable and long-term source of food which helps the pollinators to survive in-between when our various crops are in flower, and so weeds should be left alone in fallow areas of your garden.