Maple & Salt

This evening I roasted almonds with maple, cayenne pepper, and salt. Heaven and our house now smells like pie and ice cream and all wonderful things. Next time I'll add vanilla. And a pinch more cayenne. Also, probably should have baked them on parchment paper, not directly on cookie sheet. Woops!

I'm still researching grants and monies available for urban garden teaching initiatives that one might like to strike-up for children. And thinking seriously about Square Foot Garden modulesfor this. Love this idea, 4x4x1 ft box divided into 16 sections big enough to grow a few seeds of different plants.

In researching other ideas for small teaching gardens, I remembered about vertical gardening initiatives. Of course I'd like to learn more about how this is being done in Canada mainly, but also in the rest of North America in various climates. I also stumbled on a great comprehensive blog based out of NYC called Inside Urban Green which had some great articles on all matters of urban gardening, including vertical gardens and similar yet different kinds of square foot gardens.

Also, a couple of days ago the City of Calgary announced a Major West Downtown Redevelopment Plan. Basically, this would be focused on the "west village" (located between 11th st SW, Crowchild trail, and the Bow River south to the CPR track). There is a pool of monies available called Community Revitalization Levy that the city will use to fund infrastructure improvements. The posting on the city site is boring. But, I learned from the sidebar that Calgary has 7,772 hectares of parkland.

If you want to know more about what's going on with Calgary development and research, the Plan It Calgary group has been dissecting potential and past land use, transportation, housing, etc. After all of their digging, a Municipal Development Plan was formed and presented to city council this past summer for review. The research and recommendations in the two documents they have drafted would, theoretically, ensure sustainable growth and development over the next 50-60 years. That's the optimistic stance. And it's interesting.

If you're even MORE curious about Calgary City Council and their goings on, attend a meeting!

Calendars of upcoming 2009/2010 meetings can be found here. The calendars are deeply coded, but still available. The most relevant would likely be the monthly Hearing on Public Matters, as well as the SPC on Land Use, Planning and Transportation which also happens almost every month.

To wrap it up, here's some lovely Sin Fang Bous who I just was lucky enough to see live last week at the Marquis Room. Blew. Me. Away.

Pessimism

First, the optimistic bits.

Saskatchewan has announced new policy for school nutrition.

Deputy Premier and Education Minister Ken Krawetz announced the launch of Nourishing Minds: Eat Well. Learn Well. Live Well., a nutrition guidelines policy, at the Yorkton Regional High School.

"The Government of Saskatchewan believes that the learning success, well-being and achievement of our young people are vital for securing the future of our province," Krawetz said. "Good nutrition is essential for the proper growth and development of our children and youth. Our schools serve as an important access point for nutrition education and healthy eating practices, healthy food policy and modelling of healthy lifestyles."

The Nourishing Minds resource aligns with the ministry's mandate of working with school boards to increase healthy food options in schools.

The Ministry of Education, in partnership with other government ministries and education partners, developed this resource document to support all Saskatchewan schools in implementing healthy food standards.

In Calgary, nutritional guidelines have been set and are on track to be fully implemented by 2011. Mainly, the goal is that by Jan 1, 2011 80% of foods in cafeterias will be nutrient dense, while maintaining 20% low nutrient dense foods.

Food Co-ops:

In NY the Park Slope Food Co-op has been going since the early 1970's. I was excited to think of this as a solution to fill the gap between the expensive Farmer's Market and Superstore/Safeway in Calgary. I'll be collecting info about this initiative that has been going on all over North America. To start with, here is one woman's daunting experience with the Co-Op.

On to the pessimism.

First of all, it is likely too late to start trying to make people really care about this stuff. Do you know how many food blogs there are? How many books? How many movies? It makes me want to barf. And here I am - blogging.

Thinking about the idea of a revamped "Local Food System Strategy" (LFSS)...makes me wary and pessimistic. I get fixated on barriers - like the climate of Calgary or the fact that so much of the population spends the majority of free time commuting over the vastness of the city everyday so have little time or patience for starting a garden or going out of their way to go anywhere else for groceries besides Safeway or Superstore. Myself included. Maybe people participate in a CSA, or use a service like SPUD to get their local, organic, seasonal food. Maybe they go to Community or Planet Organic or the Calgary Farmer's Market. The issue with all of these options comes back to accessability (financial, locations, products offered).

What does my ideal LFSS look like?

To me, think of more options. More grocery stores that offer more local & organic options at an affordable price, more urban garden spaces for community gardens. Perhaps even a space where if you are growing food, you can swap your excess with other growers who have items that you yourself don't grow. Or, if you live in an apartment/condo or just plain can't garden - you can pay a small membership fee and have the same access to these swaps. See - Food Co-op models.

Markets in the traditional sense achieve many of these idealistic notions but have been basically eliminated as giant chain grocers have gained dominance. Blah blah right?

For good reason. So, how do we re-balance out the situation again? How do we fill in the gap that exists between the expensive boutique Farmer's Market and cheap Superstore?

-lobby chains to carry more local foods. Even food companies on their own are starting to initiate this lobbying. See - Hellman's Eat Real Eat Local project. And their gardening projects.

-sanctioned community garden spaces

-food co-ops

-markets where any vendor of any size can have a table, and the standard is that that food be only from a certain distance away. In Alberta this could mean BC, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, and maybe North Dakota.

-free education for individuals about composting, gardening methods, trouble shooting for both of these activities, put on in local community centres.

In Calgary, these are solutions that are in full swing thanks to Clean Calgary and the Horticultural Society. And probably many other projects I've yet to hear about. Ah, there's my optimism coming back again :)