September 2009 – Grandview Woodland Food Connection

The first annual Stone Soup Film Festival is happening on October 17th and 18th in the Britannia High School Auditorium! Through the screening of several international, Canadian, American, and homegrown BC films, we hope to expose and educate as many people as possible on the politics of food from what’s going on right here in Vancouver to Los Angeles to Jamaica.

For a film list and schedule visit http://stonesoupfilmfestival.blogspot.com/

Tickets are either by donation at the door per film slot or you can by a weekend festival pass for only $15. All proceeds go to community gardens. You can’t argue with that price and that cause! Festival passes are available at Britannia Community Info Centre and Health on the Drive (1458 Commercial Drive).

Bring your friends, family, sisters, brothers, co-workers, it really is going to be a wonderful weekend and we can’t do it without you!

I really enjoyed running my first hot bath canning workshop today, producing 21 jars of organic Roma tomatoes. I think it all turned out well. I guess the proof will be in the taste.

5 of us spent close to 5 hours. The thing with tomatoes is that you need to first blanch and peel them, then cook them for 5 more minutes in boiling water, then boil the jars in the hot bath for 40 minutes. It also takes a heck of a long time for the large pots of water to come to a boil, so the entire process was much longer than we had planned.

For further details on tomato canning see Bernardin’s recipe at http://www.homecanning.com/can/AlRecipes.asp?R=194

Still, it was a great learning process for all of us and most of the techniques can be duplicated with fruits, which are not as involved or requiring as long to boil.

Thanks to Barb, Carol, Merilee, Shauna, and Haley Place for use of their kitchen.