Tomato tomahto

Tomato tomahto

No matter how you pronounce it, tomatoes fresh from the garden are a delectable taste treat

During hot days, my cooking tolerance plummets. Last thing I want is anything warm — food, air, oven, stovetop flame. My appetite plummets too. A handful of small ripe tomatoes from my garden and a slice of buttered sourdough toast make the ideal hot weather walkabout lunch. My gardening situation is a little out of […] Read more

Load up on kale. Raw, stewed, steamed. Canadians don’t love it enough. It has anti-cancer agents and a half cup
of kale eaten daily might just be the cheapest health insurance going.

Lunar lore galore! Fun to read but how much is true?

And, load up on kale. It’s too little loved by Canadians

I started growing my Santa beard in April this year after a lengthy hiatus from facial hair. Now that I’ve stopped shaving, my barber has introduced me to beard oil and it’s looking pretty darned good. Come November and December, I’ll be the Singing Santa performing a lot of my own original seasonal songs, sporting […] Read more


Have you been diagnosed with osteoarthritis?

Have you been diagnosed with osteoarthritis?

Finding ways to keep moving can enhance mobility and help prevent symptoms from getting worse

Osteoarthritis, or OA, is a common diagnosis for degenerative changes in our joints, especially into the knees and hips. Arthritis of this kind is often found in people over the age of 30 regardless of genetics, lifestyle choices or medical histories and in most cases I consider it a “normal” part of an aging body. […] Read more

Use the power of a letter to get unstuck

Use the power of a letter to get unstuck

Young farmers can feel frustrated sometimes not knowing the certainty of their future — here’s how putting a pen to paper can help

Sometimes we have to go back to basics in order to keep healthy change happening on our farms. Some young farmers can feel stuck and overwhelmed with a large degree of anxiety from not knowing the certainty of the future — caught up in what William Bridges has termed “the neutral zone.” You want to […] Read more


Do you understand you have the power to put good feelings into the folks on your farm? When you are blind to the power you have to choose emotional health, you might be ignorant of how your lack of emotional agility is causing stress to others.

Your farm’s emotional tank needs checking

Follow these tips for a conflict-free harvest

As a farm partner, I absolutely love this time of year. Harvest is the reward we work hard towards all year long. However, it can also be a time of blow-ups, which many farm families find hard to manage. So, here’s a refresher on what you need to check besides greasing your combines. The culture […] Read more

Celebrating matters more as we age — I think it’s the law of diminishing returns that shows us so clearly as our years diminish, we are moved to make the most of every celebration- worthy event, which naturally includes the season’s firsts.

Celebrate the firsts of summer

First We Eat: New potatoes, apricots, cherries and peaches are just some of the ingredients that can really jazz up your summer cooking

Gardeners, cooks and farmers all know, respect and sometimes love the cycles that circulate throughout our lives. Those cycles — the annual return of summer, for instance — mean each year we experience a whole boatload of firsts all over again, and if we’re hip to the general wonderfulness of life, we’re open to celebrating […] Read more


Next time you’re struggling to fall asleep, try one of the breathing exercises below.

A good night’s sleep is important to quality of health

Fit to Farm: But if you struggle to get to sleep, these exercises will be worth a try

Do you struggle to fall asleep on a regular basis? Sleep, or rather, quality sleep is one of the most important factors to quality of health and quality of living. Regularly going with six or less hours of sleep per night has been proven to produce mental states similar to being intoxicated. The negative effects of […] Read more

The sweet story of ginger beef

The sweet story of ginger beef

First We Eat: Sticky, chewy, gingery, sweet and spicy — what’s not to love?

Ginger. It’s my favourite flavour, deliciously lemony, woody, earthy, with a backbite of spicy heat. I eat crystallized ginger every day. Plus it’s good for me — it soothes gastric upsets, lullabyes an overstuffed belly, calms nausea, eases arthritic inflammation, and perhaps offers antioxidant resistance to heart disease. When cooking, I put one or more […] Read more


Take a spring fling with asparagus

Take a spring fling with asparagus

The season is very short so make sure you enjoy some asparagus while it’s here

This year, May arrived suddenly, without fanfare, but with enough warmth for bare arms. Like many Prairie gardeners relieved to finally — and abruptly — exit winter, I spent the sunny first day of the month cleaning up my garden beds. To my delight, I found furled red knobs in the rhubarb patch, and sprigs […] Read more

Scholar L.L. Newman, who exhaustively researched the history of the Nanaimo bar, learned that the sweet was first mentioned in print in the 1947 Vancouver Sun...

Canadiana classics, Part 1: Nanaimo bars

First We Eat: This favourite has been around for years and was likely developed by a member of the Nanaimo Hospital Auxiliary

I lived in Vancouver in my 20s. Yaletown didn’t exist yet, other than as hulking rows of empty warehouses to be bicycled past quickly. Granville Island was an industrial wasteland, the Fairview Slopes didn’t exist, and False Creek was still a reclamation project. Elsewhere in town, the Ridge Theatre became known as the city’s repertory […] Read more