GUEST POST by Larkin Schmiedl
Mendel Rubinson farms near Savona, BC with his partner Paula Rubinson. Their farm is called Silver Springs Organic but used to be called Farmhouse Herbs. In this video Mendel shares a bit of his farming story, and his opinions about local, organic, and what he chooses when the two collide.
Here is my seafood feast of halibut and oysters both fried in pastured lard and topped with chopped pork belly from our pigs. The cilantro and celery salad is topped with homemade mustard seed dressing. If you are concerned about environmental contamination, having healthy gut flora is your first line of defense. The herb cilantro assists your body in removing heavy metals.
A month ago we had a busman’s holiday to Vancouver Island, BC. I wanted to take the opportunity to source some seafood from local suppliers. I found a number of sources I would like to share.
On our trip up island, Shaen and I stopped for breakfast at Mac’s Oysters in Fanny Bay, BC. We heated up our barbecue. We have found using a cast iron fry pan on the grill of the barbecue works well for frying eggs or oysters in Gort’s Gouda butter. (Yes, Gort’s Gouda is now making grassfed butter and we have it in stock.) We finished off the meal by lightly grilling some grassfed rib steaks from home. What a delicious breakfast. We bought 2L of Mac’s Oysters and feasted on oysters for days.
One of my daughters loves tuna but I am unhappy with the quality of the products I can get locally. As I was searching the internet I hit on Estevan Tuna which works out of Courtney, BC. They produce a whole line of canned Albacore Tuna which is processed in Nanaimo, BC at St Jean’s Cannery. St Jean’s Cannery has its own line of products too. What caught my eye about Estevan Tuna was they have canned tuna in certified organic extra virgin olive oil and sea salt. I talked to the fisherman about contamination and he told me that Albacore Tuna is considered safe at any quantity. He thought it was because Albacore Tuna are much smaller and harvested at a younger age.
St Jean's Cannery is one of the last remaining canneries that does custom canning and smoking for sport fishermen. They also have their own line of canned seafood. Canned sockeye salmon is one of my favorite emergency foods. They are having a case sale on sockeye salmon right now.
Estevan Tuna also sells frozen-at-sea Albacore Tuna steaks. Shaen is very picky about fish and freshness. The fisherman gave us some frozen fillets which we ate raw later. The fish was fabulous. Shaen was so excited that he is planning to get some dry ice next trip and bring back the frozen Albacore Tuna fillets.
Our last seafood feast came from Shaen’s mother. Sarah is a very frugal householder and loves seafood. She mantains a crab trap in Pedder Bay, BC. When she was checking her crab trap, a fisherman came in with a 150 pound halibut. Sarah asked if she could take the waste materials. The fisherman gave her the head, offal, and skeleton. It is very unfortunate that our society doesn’t value these “waste parts” of the fish. Only the fillet is considered marketable.
I was so glad my girls got to see Sarah salvage the fish. When Sarah got home, she cut out the meaty cheek from the Halibut and cleaned off the extra meat. She salvaged about 20 pounds of meat. Then she made fish broth with the bones and offal. She decided to bury the fish head under a young Monkey Puzzle tree that she needed to plant. When we returned from up island we had an additional feast of halibut and crab.
Highly nutritious food isn't cheap. Estavan Tuna in organic olive oil and sea salt is $4.75 per 170g can. Mac's Oysters are $12.00 per liter. Gort's grassfed butter is $6.00 per 250g container. It's sad that many people will pay $5.00 for a specialty coffee but $6.o0 for butter seems expensive.
Last winter we were looking for whole wild sockeye salmon. We found a Community Supported Fishery (CSF) working out of Vancouver, BC. Skipper Otto’s Community Supported Fishery is the only CSF in Canada. Due to restrictive processing regulations they can’t even vacuum pack the fish to make it last better. We got the frozen fish in the whole, but Shaen wasn’t happy with the freshness. In the future, we will make a special trip to the lower mainland and pick up the fresh whole fish. It makes me sad when food regulations become so onerous that people can’t even do basic processing to make the food last better.
If you are concerned about mercury but would like to increase your polyunsaturated fatty acids this chart may help. Source from Food and Agriculture Organization and World Health Organization on the Risks and Benefits of Fish Consumption.
I just received a letter from Genevieve Stroulger of Riverland Farms. Next week she will be slaughtering about 300 pastured chickens. I know many readers of eatkamloops.org have asked us for information about local pastured chicken. Below is part of her letter and contact information:
We are writing this letter to give you a bit of background about Riverland Farms, in hopes that you will purchase our chicken and allow us to be one of your food providers now and in the future. We are located on the banks of the South Thompson River, east of Rivershore Golf Course.
We are passionate about raising quality meat from chickens who are raised in the pasture. Our pens are portable so that we can move them often throughout the season to provide them with fresh grass and alfalfa. We believe a chicken should live the life of a chicken:?eating high quality locally raised grains, alfalfa, grass, and bugs, and waking up to the sun!? The quality of the meat produced is superior in texture and taste.
Our meat is processed at a local family owned processing plant in Pritchard, BC and is government inspected. This year the inspector was so impressed that she bought some of our chicken!?Some local restaurants are trying out our chicken on their menus as well! We would be happy to answer any questions you have.
We are running a special. If you purchase 20 chickens we will give you 10% off. Our price is $4.00 per pound.
Riverland Farm
Genevieve Stroulger
4336 Stevenson Rd, Kamloops, BC, V2H 1S8
C: 250.571.3486
E: stroulger.ga(a)gmail.com
25km
pastured chicken, pastured eggs
These raspberries were picked fresh from my garden. I froze over 150 pounds of raspberries that my family will enjoy all winter long.
With the beginning of summer, it’s hard to think about the cold snowy months ahead. This is the time of year to be thinking about storing food for the winter. If you spend some time now, you will save money and have higher quality food for the winter.
Try to source your storage foods from certified organic farms or farms that follow organic principles. I really like u-pick farms because the fruit is very fresh, and if I like the fruit, I can go back next year to the same place. This really reduces the time required to find new farms as the years go by.
If money is tight, ask neighbors that don’t spray their trees if they would allow you to pick the fruit for a portion of the harvest. Don’t be shy. I have knocked on doors of homes after seeing fruit falling into the alley and collected hundreds of pounds of free fruit.
I even collect the fruit that is too far gone for human consumption and feed the fruit to our chickens and hogs. Many people really appreciate someone else cleaning up the fruit trees and are very happy to share the bounty. Also, we have hogs and chickens on our leased land. If you have free waste fruit that you would like to recycle, our hogs will be very happy to oblige!
The first step is to identify your favorite fruits and know what is grown in your area. My favorite local fruits that I freeze are strawberries, cherries, raspberries, blueberries and tomatoes. I dry apricots, plums and apples. I will try canning peaches this year. Here are some u-pick sources I have used in the past.
The second step is to estimate out how much fruit your family will consume in a year. By doing this, you will make it to the next growing season without having to buy small, expensive packages from the grocery store. The numbers are usually quite large and over the years you will get a sense of your family’s personal consumption.
When I am harvesting for freezing, I use large freezer zip-lock bags. I fill the bags only half full for easier storage. With the fresh fruit, I lay the freezer bags in one layer until the fruit is frozen. This avoids crushing the fruit which can form a solid block which is difficult to use. Later I stack my freezer bags carefully to avoid wasting space.
For strawberries, I remove the tops in the field before bagging and freezing. For cherries I pit, bag and freeze. With raspberries, I place the fresh fruit on a glass tray in the freezer overnight and then bag the frozen fruit. Blueberries go straight into the bag and into the freezer. With tomatoes I freeze them whole without removing the skin. I sometimes remove the tomato core if it is large and fibrous.
You can freeze apricots, plums and apples. I prefer to dehydrate these fruits. If you have never dehydrated fruit before a good book is called Dry It, You’ll Like It! by Gen MacManiman. This book has everything you will need to know about drying anything and even has plans for building a dehydrator.
Here are two postings that may be helpful for someone who has never thought about winter storage before: Winter Storage I and Winter Storage II. These two postings will give some guidance about how to prepare for the winter.
