It's nearly that time again: time to gather your friends and family in the garden and host your own feast in your own waystarring as many Bowen- and B.C.-grown ingredients and libations as you can pull together.
Bowen beet salad with Fraser Valley corn, some crab your friend just caught drizzled in lemon-butter, washed down with an Okanagan Pinot Gris? Yes! The BowFEAST 2012 local eating celebration is the week of August 13 to 19, with a community farmers' market on Saturday, August 18, from 9 a.m. to noon on the library lawn.
Pick up some locally grown heirloom tomatoes, beets, potatoes, carrots, artichokes, vinegars, preserves and pies, lavender bouquets and pastries, at the farmers' market. The wine store will be offering special British Columbia vintage tastings and discounts.
The Ruddy Potato will spotlight homegrown food on its shelves. The point is: have fun, be thankful for what we have and savour our amazing bounty!
Yes, buying locally grown produce from family farms costs more than industrially grown food flown in from China or New Zealand. But it's worth it. Locavore and James Beard Award-winning star chef Dan Barber of New York's Blue Hill at Stone Barns restaurant (and ag centre) sounded off recently in The Wall Street Journal Magazine about the importance of supporting local growers:
"You can't treat farming like a car-manufacturing plant and expect that it will produce anything great to eat," he notes. "This isn't a trend, like tall food or truffle oil. Chefs are creating whole cuisines around eating local. Farmers are reshaping our landscape around it. Government and health officials are writing policies around it. Communities and cultures are being built around it. They're all connected. And that power is not to be underestimated."
BowFEAST is a project of the Bowen Agricultural Alliance Society (BAA), in partnership with Bowen Island Municipality, Bowen Island Community School and Bowen Island Community Recreation, made possible by a grant from the Municipality. BAA is a registered non-profit society supporting small-scale agriculture, promoting local eating and advancing food security on Bowen.
For info, see www.bowenagalliance.ca. If you want to sell at the farmers' market, contact Elle Glave: [email protected].
ELLE GLAVE, BowFEAST
