April Showers Bring May Flowers... and Food!

May is upon us, and everywhere I looked today I saw Daffodils, Forsythias, and Magnolias in bloom. All of that rain in April is paying off. Now it's time for spring veggies! While we wait for the edibles (and if you're reading this on Monday night, election results), let's check out two great foodie events.

This week Food Forward is hosting its monthly networking and social event around the good food movement: Foodie Drinks. As usual, the guests will include one business and one non-profit working to better the food system. This month, we will be hearing from Ayal Dinner, coordinator of the Sorauren Farmers' Market, which is run by the West End Food Co-op. Also speaking will be Erica Lemieux, founder of City Seed Farms, a backyard farming business that has started growing veggies in the High Park neighbourhood and sells this produce at the Sorauren Market! Read up on Ayal and Erica in this recent newspaper article.

Date: Thursday, May 5th, 2011

Time: 7:00 - 10:00 pm

Location: Stella - 1261 Bloor St W at Lansdowne. This cafe/bar will have light snacks from neighbourhood stores for purchase along with Steamwhistle on tap and other local brews by the bottle.

Cover: This month we're asking for a $5 donation cover; we also have memberships available for $10. As always, snazzy Food Forward buttons will be available.

For more information, visit Food Forward's website, and you can RSVP on the Facebook event page.

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Not to be missed next Monday is the Toronto Youth Food Policy Council's community meeting. This month's theme is farmland preservation. Did you know that the cities and towns of Southern Ontario have been developed on top of some of Canada's best soil? That's right, we're losing Class 1 Farmland that can grow anything the climate will allow, and more of it is disappearing every year. The meeting will include a panel discussion featuring youth experts on agricultural zoning policies, the Markham Food Belt, and creating careers in sustainable agriculture. Stick around for brainstorming opportunities, the outcomes of which will help the TYFPC develop its position to be presented to the Toronto Food Policy Council in June.

Date: Monday, May 9th, 2011

Time: 6:00 - 8:00 pm

Location: Metro Hall, Room 308 - 55 John Street.

For more information, visit the TYFPC website, and you can RSVP on the Facebook event page.

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You know what's funny about elections? I have no issue going to bed early and hearing/reading about the results in the morning. I'm also not one to tent out in front of a store to be the first to get my hands on a new tech gadget... if you couldn't already guess that about me! Both the election results and the piece of electronics will be there in the morning!


Photo credit.

March Foodie Drinks

Announcing the March edition of Foodie Drinks! Next week Food Forward is hosting its fourth monthly networking and social event around the good food movement.

We have a special guest coming to speak: Thu Nguyen is preparing to travel to Vietnam, where she will be cooking with chefs in their homes and restaurants, as well as with KOTO, a non-profit restaurant and vocational training program designed for street and disadvantaged youth. On her trip, Thu will be working on a recipe book on this topic called My Quest.

As usual, we will be featuring one business and one non-profit working to better the food system. This month, we will be hearing from Second Harvest, a registered charity that picks up and prepares excess fresh food that would otherwise go to waste and delivers it daily to around 250 social service agencies such as shelters, community centres, and breakfast programs in the Greater Toronto Area. Our business guest will be Culinarium, a gourmet food store that features a range of organic, natural, artisanal, and/or sustainably produced products from Ontario. Besides offering produce, meats, and dairy, this store also carries unexpected items like peanuts from Vittoria, birch syrup from Thunder Bay, and saskatoon berry pie from Stratford.

Date: Wednesday, March 30th, 2011

Time: 7:30 - 10:00 pm

Location: Stella - 1261 Bloor St W at Lansdowne. This cafe/bar will have light snacks from neighbourhood stores for purchase along with Steamwhistle on tap and other local brews by the bottle.

Cover: This month we're asking for a $5 donation cover; we also have memberships available for $10. As always, Food Forward buttons will be available, and we're also offering free sprouting seeds for anyone interested in growing some greens in their kitchen.

So whether you're planning out your vegetable garden and looking to share growing tips... or you've come up with an idea for making healthy, local food more accessible and would like to brainstorm ways to turn your idea into reality... or you keep hearing stories of farmers having to sell their land to developers because they can no longer sustain their activities and you want to get involved to prevent further farmland loss... then come out and mingle!

If you've never attended Foodie Drinks before and don't know where to start, come find Darcy or me - we'll be wearing funny hats, you won't be able to miss us!

For more information, visit Food Forward's website, and you can RSVP on the Facebook event page.

Announcing the First Ever "Foodie Drinks"!

I'm pleased to pass on the word that this Wednesday, December 8th, Food Forward is inviting local foodies who want to make Toronto a better place to come to the downstairs room at The Blake House (449 Jarvis between Wellesley and Carlton) between 7 and 10 pm. The first ever Foodie Drinks event is the place to be if you want to network within this growing community, discuss local food politics, and generally have fun! Attendees will also be treated to a presentation on one food business and one local organization working to make a difference. The event is free, but you are encouraged to "buy a drink for Food Forward" if you can make a $10 donation to help support current and future projects.

If you can make it, please let Food Forward know on their event page.

See you there!

The power of networking.

[Photo credit]

Pushing Forward with 100 Hands

This afternoon I had the pleasure of attending a workshop on developing a career in the sustainable food movement. "Pushing Forward" was organized by Food Forward Advocacy Alliance, a food system advocacy group based out of Toronto working with the public, politicians, and those involved in the food sector to strengthen the city's food movement. The workshop doubled as a fundraiser, with proceeds supporting Food Forward's work and programming.

Eglinton Park Heritage Garden

The goal of the event was to provide interactive sessions for people interested in getting a meaningful job or starting a social enterprise in the food or environmental sector. The day was structured around a series of educational talks delivered by speakers whose enthusiasm for their work was infectious. The 50 workshop participants (that's where the 100 hands in my title came from) heard four great success stories:

Chris Wong, co-founder of Young Urban Farmers (helping residents grow their own food in the city) and its non-profit sibling CSA, told us about the importance of being passionate and having a can-do spirit when trying to make it as an entrepreneur. He pointed out that starting a business often brings about a fear of failure, but that this fear can be transformed into motivation because the worst case scenario is spending the rest of one's life regretting never having tried.

Anne Freeman, coordinator of the Dufferin Grove Farmers' Market and the Greenbelt Farmers' Market Network, explained the myriad of details involved in creating and operating farmers' markets and other small food business start-ups. In addition to passion and drive, she underscored the need for planning and cost analysis before venturing into business. Anne also provided great tips and directed us to useful resources, including the Toronto Food Strategy project / Food Connections and Toronto Public Health food handler training courses.

Melissa Shin, Managing Editor for Corporate Knights Magazine (a.k.a. the "magazine for clean capitalism", showcasing the leaders and losers of the corporate world with respect to their environmental and social impacts), spoke about facing adversity with passion and being gutsy enough to do what you love. She remarked that while we may not want corporations to run the world, they current do; so it's necessary to work with them to achieve our goals.

Nogah Kornberg, Executive Director of Young Social Entrepreneurs of Canada (a hub for connections, education, and support for young people in social enterprise), remarked that as a high school teacher, she has often been asked by students how to choose between pursuing a career that interests them vs. one that pays the bills. Outraged that youth are convinced these are mutually exclusive concepts, Nogah became a big proponent of social enterprise: working towards meeting social and economic goals simultaneously.

Riverdale Farm Farmers' Market

After these four informative talks, we moved on to the more interactive portion of the day. In order to take advantage of the great wealth of knowledge present in the room, Nogah invited five workshop participants to briefly outline their ideas for pushing the sustainable food movement forward. The rest of us created little groups around these "masterminds" and furthered their ideas through feedback, questions, and the raising of problems that needed solving. It was incredible how in ten short minutes, one person's vision was boosted by eight brains coming at the idea from a variety of perspectives. I sat with a driver for FoodShare's Good Food Box program who wants to distribute healthy snack packs to convenience stores in food deserts, and our group came up with lots of suggestions to improve the feasibility of his idea.

Finally, although I could not stay for the post-event social at a nearby pub (serving local beers, naturally), I had a chance to chat with Food Forward volunteer Michelle Gruda (whose blog you should read). We talked about how exciting it was to hear from people who have been able to pursue careers they love, but agreed that the missing piece is knowing how to turn an idea into a successful business. Between the two of us, we were easily able to identify areas that desperately need change and come up with half a dozen objectives, but how do these concepts become detailed proposals?

In the coming weeks and months I hope to devote more time and energy to answering this question, and with some luck I will find myself working on a project and keeping you up to speed on my progress through this blog!


Photo credit: Eglinton Park Heritage Garden - Toronto Community Garden Network ; Riverdale Farm Farmers' Market - The Friends of Riverdale Farm.