Food Fight

So I've been on a bit of a local food kick lately.

I'm pretty sure it's because I'm an avid vegetable gardener, you know, the crazy kind that grows all her own seedlings from organic heirloom seeds, and starts mapping out her garden plan in Excel in January...but I don't get to have a garden this year. This is because we have rented out our house in NB so I won't have access to the 3 large beds that I have been preparing there for the last three years, nor do any of my relatives have room for me to garden at their houses. It kind of hurts me in my soul, when I think about all the time I used to spend out in the garden, watching my 'babies' grow, and feeling the satisfaction of harvesting in August those tomatoes that I grew from a seed in the middle of March, while it was still blizarding outside. I nearly died when all the seed catalogues started showing up mid February and I had to merely flip through them without making stars and notes in the margins of all the cool plants that I just HAD to grow this year...And I'm missing out on all of it. It really makes me sad.

Which is why I'm on this kick (I think). Since I can't grow my own this year, it makes me want to put on my food activist cap and run right out to the farmers market to buy all the lovely veggies that I would normally have grown myself. I want to support the other people who do what I love, and make the most of this opportunity to get involved in the food culture in my hometown. The trouble with that, is that it's still March, I'm still in university (in Sudbury, not Moncton), and the farmers market is not yet open here for the year. Boo!

So what's a gal to do?

Well, I've personally been reading local food cookbooks, frequenting the Slow Food Canada website, and researching local food movements in places like California, where they are a bit ahead of Canada's east coast in local food activism. (Shocking, I know!) Basically I'm psyching myself up for summer! Not a bad plan when you're knee deep in papers and exams, and trying to ignore the itch to get your fingers into the soil, right?

(Something tells me this 'no garden' thing is not going to last, but your guess is as good as mine as to how it's going to play out...I'll keep you posted...)

So to leave off, I thought I'd share a link for an interesting looking documentary that has been screened at the various film festivals this year, and been winning quite a few awards along the way. Titled 'Food Fight', it features many of the prominent food activists in the US, including Micheal Pollan, Alice Waters, Dan Barber and Wolfgang Puck, so their reputations definitely lend credibility to the film. I haven't presonally seen it, but after watching the preview on the website, I immediately ordered a copy, which should be waiting for me in a month when I get home. I'll give an update on the content once I've watched it, but it looks promising.