A bit of serendipity was involved with this one.

While on their way to interview Cam MacDonald in Mt. Pleasant, they passed a small corner store. Taking a peak inside they discovered a very unusual city corner store – packed with local products and oozing country charm.

It’s called the Home Grow-in Grocer, and it’s a place where trust trumps the credit card…

Runs 10:28

Podcast ISBN: 978-1-926758-01-5

photos and podcast © Robert Ouimet & Bigsnit Media 2009

The Home Grow-In Grocer is at 196 West 18th in Vancouver.
The owner Colleen refers to in the interview is Deb Reynolds.

It’s been great working with the gang at biovia this spring.

Today we (Bigsnit Media) launched their new website…

biovia is a Vancouver-based wholesale distributor specializing in local + organic produce including fruit, vegetables, herbs, micro and leafy field greens and eggs. We deliver to the foodservice industry throughout the Vancouver, sea to sky corridor and Whistler regions. We place the highest priority on purchasing locally.

The idea is for the biovia team to manage the site themselves, so the site is built using WordPress as the CMS, with Slide Show Pro handling the flash banners on the home page.

This is the first phase of an on-going online project with biovia and I’m looking forward to seeing how things unfold. They’re the nicest people.

With any luck they’ll let me ride in the truck one day.

cross posted at blog.bigsnit.com

Feast of Fields - a gourmet wandering picnic harvest festival – is FarmFolk/CityFolk’s annual fundraising event. With a wine glass and linen napkin in hand, you can taste the very best of BC from chefs, vintners, brewers, farmers, and food artisans from across the province. Connections are made between producers and chefs, food producers and consumers, and farm folks and city folks. These connections provide an increased awareness of and appreciation for local food and agriculture. Feast of Fields is a gastronomic journey towards a sustainable, local food system.

1. give with intention.
We challenge you to not just give for the sake of giving stuff, or because you are enticed by the merchandising or the brilliant price point in store windows. As Dora the Explorer says “stop and think”. Give to fewer people with more intention. Put more thought and energy into buying items and focus on giving quality.

2. spread the green around you.
Local, handmade, and artisan make timeless, unique gifts that keep the green in your community and strengthen the local economy. Or even better redistribute your wealth. Instead of traditional gift giving support a local non-profit that is making a difference in your local community. Tell your friends and family what you’ve done.

3. creative wrapping. don’t look for the silver lining.
Don’t kill the messenger. Use your vivid imagination and have fun with creating green wrapping – from the classic newspaper comics & magazine pages to silk scarves, cloth bags, storage containers, cereal boxes, kid’s painting, or even star shaped potato stamps pressed on post paper – really the sky is the limit. Start thinking about it now and set aside supplies (this will prevent you from resorting to the cheap, and not so cheerful solution). Use it as a good excuse to break out some cheer and have some quality bonding time.
At all costs avoid the silver lined gift paper – it can’t be recycled! If you must buy wrapping paper look for 100% post-consumer waste content that is processed chlorine-free.

4. give your time. being present is the best present.
Celebrate with the ones you love. Limit your party hoping, and plan to invest quantity of time with quality people. It seems simple, but as you get caught up in the craziness of the season it easy to over look, over book, feel frazzled, and not enjoy yourself.

5. celebrate what’s on the table.
Creative menu planning with food that shows taste and respect for your guest creates a memorable meal that is cause enough for good conversation. Focus on quality ingredients that are local, artisan, organic, fairly traded, homemade, and minimally processed. As for centerpieces, glass bowls full of cranberries, and citrus are festive and will live another day. Invest in beeswax (or soy) candles with all-cotton wicks, they burn cleaner and smell divine. And for the star of the show, we highly recommend Organa Farm birds raised with care in the Cascade Mountains by the Deschamp family. If you want to skip the dishes, use biodegradable cutlery, plates, and re-useable cloth napkins.

Green Gift resources worth checking out:

My favourite:
Dreaming of a Green Christmas

Others:
we’re dreaming of a green christmas
when visions of quince and hazelnuts dance in your head – Bill Jones
8 green ways to wrap gifts
20+ Ways to Give Without Giving “Stuff”

Giving

Treehugger 2008 Green gift guide

Sustainable Food Organization Membership:
Vancouver’s FarmFolk/CityFolk Society sells $30 memberships ($15 student/senior) that include a quarterly newsletter, voting rights so you can influence how the organization runs, discounts at events like the harvest celebration Feast of Fields, and access to a community of like-minded people who want to make the world better through food.

It is worth poking around the right hand side bar, and new information is continually added to the library.

…we encourage you to support the folks who grow your food – right here in British Columbia.

There are many ways to increase the amount of local food in our daily lives…and many benefits in doing so.

Visit the KNOWLEDGE PANTRY.