Food Stories 🍰

There were plenty of notable things about my paternal Grandmother, including that she played field hockey and went on a canoe trip for her honeymoon. However, many anecdotes about her were connected to food. Once I heard her described as really knowing how to scrape every last bit of batter from a bowl. It seemed a funny thing to praise about an interesting and intelligent woman, but then my Grandmother raised five sons and two daughters mainly during the depression, and there were usually extra people at her table. She worried about money more than my Grandfather, but she always fed people generously. She had a recipe called All you Want Cake, and she also instituted Pie Day, a once a year free-for-all when each of her seven children got a whole pie of their own. This is one of the reasons why pie holds a large and special spot in my heart.

Now my food anecdotes and associations are constantly enriched by market connections. I was thinking about Mimi and Nacho‘s generosity as I sliced Reyes Farms fruit for the pie shown above, and musing over Carole‘s plans to grow her own wheat as I rolled out the pastry, made with MotherDough‘s glorious fresh flour.

We are so fortunate to know who grows and makes our food, a kind of connection that has become all too rare. Will you share your food stories with us? We’d love to hear from you!

This week, we have a whole bunch of vendors back, and a new one to introduce:

Welcome to Christine from the Canadian Organic Seed Company, based in Kawartha Lakes. She has several varieties of heirloom potatoes for delicious winter eating, and is testing the waters with kits for growing in small spaces and seeds for sprouting. Christine is a Master Gardener, and will bring more items to the market as the growing season approaches, complementing the selection from our dearly loved Urban Harvest.

We are thrilled to have Cheyenne of Sundance Harvest back this week with fresh greens and herbs.

It’s time to stock up on nuts, dried fruits and oils. Vasile from GreenFlorin is returning, with an ever-present gentle smile behind his mask. Here is a photo of him with one of his major fans taken a year ago, before we stopped seeing half of people’s faces.

We have worked out a better system to get Monforte Dairy‘s excellent cheeses to the market. Thank you Ming and Rafael! Vendor teamwork is the name of the game in this terrific community! Hooray for Halloumi!  Bring some Tomme to me! (Sorry, I said a better system but I didn’t promise better cheese jokes.)

Essa Seedlings and Sprouts is back with the simplest of superfoods: healthy fresh sprouts!

MotherDough and Sosnicki‘s are coming too, so we have a pretty full house.

Hope you will enjoy thinking about your favourite food memories and associations this week!

Anne & the Market Crew