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Making the best of a tough tomato harvest
Farm Life, FarmLife

Making the best of a tough tomato harvest

First We Eat: This summer was disastrous for growing tomatoes as well as many other crops

By
War contributes to the transportation and appropriation of goods around the globe. For instance, tomatoes were among the plants and animals that ended up in Europe in the unequal exchange of goods, disease, slavery, land theft, and genocide between New World and Old, beginning in 1492 and culminating in1650, called the Columbian Exchange. This event […] Read more
Just a few of the tomatoes picked from my garden.
Farm Life, FarmLife

Making the best of a tough tomato harvest

First We Eat: This summer was disastrous for growing tomatoes as well as many other crops

By
War contributes to the transportation and appropriation of goods around the globe. For instance, tomatoes were among the plants and animals that ended up in Europe in the unequal exchange of goods, disease, slavery, land theft, and genocide between New World and Old, beginning in 1492 and culminating in1650, called the Columbian Exchange. This event […] Read more
Meal ideas for a hot summer
Farm Life, FarmLife

Meal ideas for a hot summer

First We Eat: Get your meal preparation done before the day heats up and think ‘cold suppers’

By
Like many rural residents, Dave and I live surrounded by trees and shrubs: the double windbreak planted by my grandfather in the 1940s — caraganas, Manitoba maple, and linden — with ornamental crabapples, lilacs, blue spruce, white paper birch, fruit trees, highbush cranberry, columnar aspens. I love our trees. In the tough climate we live […] Read more
When summer heats up what better way to cool down than eating ice cream
Farm Life, FarmLife

When summer heats up what better way to cool down than eating ice cream

First We Eat: Why not make your own? It’s really not that difficult and the varieties are endless

By
I love ice cream. I am not alone. In my immediate family, Dave and Mom perk up like hungry pups whenever we stop at our favourite ice-cream joint. A 2019 survey reveals that 25 per cent of Canadians eat ice cream two or three times a month, making us solid contributors to its global consumption, […] Read more
My husband Dave has lost count of the number of ways we eat chicken, but his favourite is still fried chicken, which I make once or twice a year.
Farm Life, FarmLife

A chicken in every pot

First We Eat: Every summer I pick up our year’s supply of butchered chickens from our local farmer

By
I buy my chickens from a local farmer. She sells me eggs too — blue, brown and white ovals so beautiful they can’t help but taste better than commercial eggs. Each winter, my farmer sends me a note when she is ready to order her chicks, and I guess how many birds I think we […] Read more
I for one am thoroughly sick of screens, and those viewing snacks have caught up with me. The recipe below for these whole wheat crackers may be just the thing you’re looking for.
Farm Life, FarmLife

Pass the crackers please

First We Eat: Many of us may be snacking too much as we watch too much TV. Try this healthier choice instead

By
Don’t you wish you could have your buddies over? Miss those chances to get together and just hang out? Me too. I miss parties. I miss hanging out. I miss visits. I miss shared meals. Who knows when we’ll be able to celebrate like that again as we move into our second year of COVID lockdown.  […] Read more
Mocha Chocolate Pudding.
Farm Life, FarmLife

Try making this timeless, classic dessert

First We Eat: What could be better than a creamy, homemade chocolate pudding?

By
After Dad died last year, Mom started giving things away. It was as if his absence triggered her awareness of her own mortality and her dwindling need for stuff. She gave pots and pans to my eldest son, vases to my cousin, Dad’s unopened bottles of Scotch to her cousin, tools to my brothers, wineglasses […] Read more
Making corned beef is a weeklong process with the bulk of time spent brining.
Farm Life, FarmLife

Kindness and corned beef

First We Eat: When neighbours shared a butchered steer I wanted to share back as thanks for their generosity

By
My neighbour Sharon gave me half a beef brisket last week. She and her husband had taken a steer to the small local abattoir for slaughter, and were generous in sharing after the animal had been butchered. I decided that whatever I made, they’d receive some back for their kindness. Brisket, as you know, is […] Read more
I can’t resist eating pasta whenever I immerse myself in “The Godfather,” and carbonara is one of my favourites.
Farm Life, FarmLife

Food and ‘family’

First We Eat: Just like in one of my favourite movies — food plays an important role

By
Like most of us, Dave and I have been binge watching movies. High among my all-time favourites is “The Godfather” I, II and III. I particularly admire the attention that director Francis Ford Coppola pays to food, making it integral to many pivotal “family” scenes. We enter the tragedy at Connie Corleone’s wedding, rich with […] Read more
On days like that, the big kitchen is not warm unless I keep the fire bustling in the wood stove and have pots on all four burners of the gas stove, located at opposing ends of the kitchen.
Farm Life, FarmLife

Hot soup for a cold day

First We Eat: Try variations of this basic recipe to help get through the frigid weather

By
Before the polar vortex returned and the morning thermometer read -40 C, I spent some time splitting birch for the wood stove in the kitchen. We live in a house that’s over 100 years old, and my mom thinks that it was originally assembled from two grain bins bolted together; three steps lead down from […] Read more

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