{"id":1010,"date":"2012-07-25T16:40:57","date_gmt":"2012-07-25T23:40:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.dongenova.com\/?p=1010"},"modified":"2012-08-06T12:21:13","modified_gmt":"2012-08-06T19:21:13","slug":"food-matters-nanoose-edibles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.dongenova.com\/site\/food-matters-nanoose-edibles\/","title":{"rendered":"Food Matters – Nanoose Edibles"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"It takes a lot of dedication<\/strong><\/em> and devotion to be a farmer, and of course lots of hard work. For the past 24 years the farmers at Nanoose Edibles near Nanoose Bay have been tilling the soil and providing organic fruits and vegetables not only to consumers but a wide range of restaurants as well. I was there recently for a visit and told Jo-Ann Roberts about my visit this afternoon on CBC Victoria’s All Points West program.<\/p>\n

Barbara Ebell is one of the owners<\/strong><\/em> of Nanoose Edibles, along with her husband Lorne, and they\u2019ve been farming this bucolic patch of land for over two decades now. I met Barbara at the Tofino Food and Wine Festival in June and was so fascinated by what she told \"\"me about the farm I put her on my \u2018must-visit\u2019 list for this summer, and Barbara was happy to show me around. We started at the gazebo on the edge of the farm, where there are a couple of offices for the business end of things but the view from the patio shows you the farm stretching out with both fruit and vegetable fields and the irrigation pond and a nice Canadian flag waving in the wind.<\/p>\n

\"\"The garden was in transition<\/strong><\/em> when I was there, moving from just salad greens and collard greens to lots of broccoli and kale and chard along with rows and rows of broad beans. Of course, I call them by their Italian name, fava beans, and these beans have a rich history in the Mediterranean region, and like me, Barbara thinks they are vastly underrated:<\/p>\n

\n

“I was reading about them and then I realized they are a really great vegetable to get into when you are thinking about going vegetarian since they are high in protein, one cup of fava beans will give a woman 28 per cent of her recommended daily intake of protein, it’s 23 per cent for men.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I brought Jo-Anne<\/strong><\/em>  just a little taste of fava beans, along with another favourite of mine, snap peas. My assistant blanched the shelled fava beans in salted water for a couple of minutes, along with the snap peas, fished them out and put them right into an ice water bath to set the gorgeous green colour and stop them cooking. Then into a fry pan on gentle heat with some butter and olive oil and salt and pepper and that\u2019s it.  Oh, and a few hot pepper flakes! Thanks to my kitchen slave for the day, Meghan Kelly, for doing all the work on that dish…<\/p>\n

\"\"Also on the farm during my visit<\/strong><\/em> hey were getting ready for one of their inspections by their organic certifying body. This is part of the hard work of having a certified organic farm, keeping all the paperwork, making sure all of your inputs coming onto the farm are certified organic, making sure all your workers know what to do when it comes to keeping that organic certification, But Barbara says for people who want to eat fresh food unadulterated by artificial pesticides or fertilizers and not genetically modified it\u2019s absolutely necessary:<\/p>\n

\n

“It\u2019s the only way you can be sure that you are getting a truly organic product. And I’m not going to get a young family who wants to feed their children organic food off to a bad start. Also, if it’s not certified organic there are a lot more genetically modified organisms out there and that’s not not the way we want to go.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\"\"Barbara and Lorne have given retirement <\/strong><\/em>a lot more thought over the past few years. Their daughter was going to take over the farm but five years ago she was killed in a car accident. Now they would like to turn the property into a co-operative but they really want to be sure they\u2019ve got the right people to take part in the co-op so that\u2019s an ongoing search. Perhaps some farmers will come from the many that they have trained over the years…and have that dedication and devotion I mentioned at the beginning of this.<\/p>\n

Contact the farm <\/strong><\/em>via their Facebook page here:  Nanoose Edibles<\/a>. And if you missed my chat with Jo-Ann you can listen to it by clicking on this link<\/a>.  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It takes a lot of dedication and devotion to be a farmer, and of course lots of hard work. For the past 24 years the farmers at Nanoose Edibles near Nanoose Bay have been tilling the soil and providing organic … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[33,44,34,35,129,524,130],"class_list":["post-1010","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-food-matters","tag-all-points-west","tag-artisan-foods","tag-cbc-radio","tag-don-genova","tag-fava-beans","tag-food-matters","tag-nanoose-edibles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.dongenova.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1010","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.dongenova.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.dongenova.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.dongenova.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.dongenova.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1010"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blog.dongenova.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1010\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1012,"href":"https:\/\/blog.dongenova.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1010\/revisions\/1012"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.dongenova.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1010"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.dongenova.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1010"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.dongenova.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1010"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}