We live here now.

Froth Cafe

Sarah’s family has a few cottages littered throughout the township of Tiny, Ontario. During this trip back to Ontario, while the Blue Jays have traveled out of town, we’ve spent most of our “down time” in and among those cottages. I have really enjoyed the disconnected time, as it has given me the chance to read The Four Hour Workweek and come up with some new ideas for the next phase of our retirement.

More than this, we recently found out about Froth Cafe, located on Main St in Penetanguishene, about 15 km from the cottages. We’ve only managed two trips there so far, but early returns have looked good for the fledgling cafe.

In short: very good espresso drinks, fresh and bright decor, very pleasant staff, commitment to quality over speed.

Sarah and I visited Froth looking for espresso drinks: Sarah her cappuccino and I my latte. We walked into the shop and immediately noticed the bright, airy feel. Light-colored wood and clean glass dominate the decor. On the blackboard behind the counter, the cafe’s proprietors set a relaxed tone: if you want fast food, then please go elsewhere. I loved it straight away. We ordered our coffees, chatted with the staff for about 10 minutes, and enjoyed what we drank.

We visited a second time, me bringing some technology to keep me busy while Sarah and her family went shopping for clothing for an upcoming wedding. I found it a delightfully relaxing place to sip a latte or two while working away, seated on one of their big, comfortable lounging chairs.

Overall, I really enjoy Froth Cafe, and find it a shame that we might not have the chance to visit it again soon. If you have a cottage in the Penetang area, please visit them and buy some coffee and food. If you live in the area, please support this fine new establishment to help them survive the winter and provide the community with something better than fast food and burnt coffee.

Disinformation at the CBC?

I saw a news item on CBC Newsworld reporting on a study that claims that organically-produced food does not deliver any more nutrition than conventionally-grown food. Whoever wrote the piece claimed no additional health benefits from organically-produced food, as though this second claim followed logically from the first.

Sorry, but it does not. It represents a second claim with which I vehemently disagree.

First, let us safely ignore the bias issue here. I don’t want to debate the merit of the study based on who commissioned it and why. Yes, Monsanto might have commissioned it as part of a disinformation campaign. I don’t care about that here.

Next, let us safely ignore the possibility of a flawed study. Yes, the researchers might have made 37 mistakes in conducting the study. I don’t care about that here, either.

On to my point: the flaw in logic that warps the message of study. Logic does not dictate that “no additional nutrition” implies “no additional health benefits”. Indeed, Sarah and I immediately looked at each other after hearing this news item and said the same thing: organically-produced food doesn’t have more nutrition as its goal, but rather less toxicity.

Let me repeat that: of course, organically-produced food doesn’t have substantially more nutritional content than conventionally-produced food. Who cares? First, give me consistently less toxic food, then let me worry about additional nutrition by choosing food with the nutritional profile I need.

I didn’t expect CBC Newsworld to participate in this disinformation campaign. Sloppy writing; sloppy reporting. A shame.

I had started to write this post as “Saving money at the Farmer’s Market*.”  But then I realized that I don’t actually believe in saving money at the farmer’s market: if something looks good or we know we need it, we buy it.

We came back from our very first market trip saying, “Well, I didn’t think we were going to need a cheese budget to live here!”  We probably spend between $15 – $25 on cheese alone each week.  If you think this is just another latte factor, then you’ve likely never had applewood smoked cheddar, Le Sieur de Duplessis, organic PEI Gouda from the Cheese Lady or truffle-infused brie.  These aren’t luxuries in our household; they’re essential staples.

Even produce can be more expensive at the farmer’s market: cucumbers are $1.50 and a bag of salad greens is between $2.00 and $3.00.  But, we’ve had greens last over two weeks in the fridge (undertaking no special freshness-extending methods) so not buying food to feed the compost bin is a definite financial win.  Not to mention that the delicious salad greens we’ve been able to get have caused us to swear off iceberg lettuce forever!

Every Saturday, during our walk back from the market, we tally up what we’ve spent.  This week, it was about $120.  (We have a house guest coming this week, so we were buying for an extra person, too.) $46 of that went to fish truck guy for salmon, smoked salmon, haddock (Heavenly Halibut was sold out by 9:20 a.m.!) and scallops.  About $35 went to cheese, shitake mushrooms ($11) and a package of German sausage.  $21 was spent on produce (greens of all kinds, onions, herbs, peas, cucumbers).  And rounding out the spoils, $5 for chorizo (our first purchase so far from Pleasant Pork, since we don’t eat a lot of pig) , $5 for eggs and beef from “eggs and beef guy” and $4 for PEI strawberries.

So far it doesn’t sound like we’re much of a financial role model, especially given that we still need to use ValueFoods to supplement with things like milk, cream, butter, flour, rice, snacking fruit (apples, oranges, pears, bananas), lemon and limes, tea and cat treats.  But in many ways, our farmer’s market shopping is completely in tune with our financial philosophy: spend your money on what you value.

Even when we don’t necessarily spend less in absolute dollars, shopping at the farmer’s market significantly ups our value per dollar spent.  Here are just a few of those values we get for our money at the farmer’s market:

1. Quality: How many times have you bought a cucumber or an onion from a store and, totally seduced by the aroma, had to try it right away and then make everyone around you try it.  An onion for crying out loud!  And how many times does the captive audience think, “Oh, I’ll try it to be polite and shut this guy up,” but then exclaim, “Hey, that is pretty awesome!”  When every meal or quick snack of apple and cheese turns out to be a local food love-fest, I’d say you’re doing pretty well.  We value knowing where our food comes from, who produces it and knowing that we never have to eat crap again. (Can you believe we’re worried about the quality of food we’re going to find in Toronto because we’ve been spoiled by PEI?)
2. Quantity, or lack thereof (ie. “enough”): Good food comes in smaller packages, or at least has a higher unit cost.  We naturally, therefore, think more carefully about exactly how much to purchase.  Will we eat this all before it goes bad?  Do I really need this much? Compare that to how many $0.59 heads of cabbage we’ve never fully used.  Waste is waste, and if we’re willing to waste pennies, we’re willing to waste dollars.  Cutting waste by buying products that are too dear to waste has made us carefully and consciously consider how much is enough.
3. Intention: Yes, there are jewelery and craft vendors at the farmer’s market, but honestly, the chances of us walking out with a wooden lighthouse as an impulse purchase are slim.  When we go to the market, we’re there to buy food (specifically the basics) and there are no new shiny kitchen gadgets or snack food sales to steer us off course.  Although $120 for our weekly basics may seem high (and this week we’re expecting company this week so we erred on the side of being over stocked), if we’ve ever walked out of the Superstore paying less than that, and with only food items in our cart, I’d be shocked.  Shopping at the farmer’s market is our equivalent of the “make a list and stick to it” tip.  If we are tempted by something we hadn’t intended to purchase, at least we know it will be quality local food and our money will go to someone in our . . .
4. Community: OK, I know some people are still “eggs and beef” guy or “fish truck guy” in my mind, but at least we recognize each other and enjoy our transactions.  I’ve always said that one of my reasons for eating local was to have a network so that if ever the *&?!%# hit the fan, we’d have a food source.  And in a strange turn of events, while buying the Succulent Shitake this week, Tina confided that she’d never tried them herself and she asked me how we prepared them.  I never thought we’d have the chance to give back to the community anything other than our cash.  But, since I take pictures of everything we make/eat anyway, it might be nice to give the vendors something (a scrapbook page, a recipe?  Sadly I’m not the crafty/creative type) showing how we used and enjoyed their food.  Since we travel too often (as it stands now, anyway) to actually grow anything ourselves, this interaction and participation with our food supply gives us a connection to our food that we enjoy.

So, just like we make a distinction between “retired” and “rich”, we also differentiate between “spending less” and “spending well.”  Our goal isn’t to reduce our spending to the bare minimum.  Reducing our spending at all costs would at times be at odds with our values of purchasing high quality, healthy local products and supporting our community. Our goal is to reduce our wasteful spending to the bare minimum, spending that doesn’t give good value in return.

We’re saving money by not wasting money, and thereby able to feel like we’re living rich even though we’re clearly not. When you can get so much value from purchasing the basic necessities, things you have to buy anyway**, then maybe you’ll be less likely to make impulse or excess purchases that don’t really make you happy.

Do you think it’s crazy to get excited over your particular choice of laundry detergent?  TP? Olive oil?  Toothpaste? Maybe if you allowed yourself to buy the stuff you really liked (or to spend the time on making your own) rather than picking up the cheapest no-name brand or whatever’s on sale this week, then you’d feel more satisfied and less deprived as you navigate the superstores.  Maybe you’d feel a greater connection to a community (“Hey, you use the soap in the bottle covered with crazy, religious rants, too!”) or maybe you’d just feel good every single time you washed the dishes that the suds going down the drain aren’t causing shrinking testicles in frogs.  Maybe you’d be more likely to tell yourself, “I can’t afford this Meatball Grill Basket (thanks, Unclutterer.com!) because I know I spend a little more than the average person on good cheese every week.”

Spending well can lead to spending less.  Take the time to think about what you truly value — and more importantly, what you spend money on that you don’t actually value.  Then, even if your absolute dollars spent figure doesn’t change significantly (though there’s a good chance it will), at least you’ll gradually reallocate your resources to align with your values.  That’s true “retail therapy.”

* It seems like it really should be farmers’ market or maybe even farmers market.  My last choice would be farmer’s market (there’s definitely more than one farmer), but that’s what’s on the sign outside the building, so that’s the phrase I’m using.

** Not everyone needs to buy food, but most of us aren’t farmers.  For us, food shopping is a necessity.  But, everyone has their own list of essential purchases; even our local farmers need to buy TP, I’m guessing!

OK, so enough people have been asking me, “How’s the PEI diet going?” that I should probably publicly reiterate, we’re in the very preliminary stages of evaluating the diet, not going whole hog, so to speak.

I describe our current eating style as the, “Oh hey, if we were only eating PEI food, this would count!” stage of the game.  So, please don’t give us more credit than we deserve!  We may have noble intentions, but we’re only human.

All that being said, the Spring Street Farmer’s market in downtown Summerside has been a lifesaver.  It’s now been I think 4 consecutive weeks that we have not needed to cab it uptown to the Atlantic Superstore because we can buy almost all our weekly grocery needs at the Farmer’s market.  I can’t tell you how thrilled we are about this, and our decision to move here has been completely validated on this fact alone.  (We do need to hit the ValueFoods 1-2 times per week for things like butter, milk, cream, apples and household products.)

Jen and Derek have been our exclusive suppliers of all kinds of interesting salad greens (we couldn’t care less if we never see iceburg lettuce again!) while Emmerdale Eden farms (previously known as “The Cheese Guy”) blessed us with not only portabello but also shitake mushrooms last week, in addition to the most heavenly of cheeses and organic bacon.  (How weird is it to have heard Jedidja say that they were getting p.o’d with one of their pigs… oh, and next week, there will be bacon!?!) I feel bad that I don’t know “egg and beef” guy by name, nor do I know “waffle/sausage vendor who sells us rhubarb jam” nor the “fish truck guy” who give us halibut that doesn’t even taste like fish and the best smoked salmon we’ve ever had.  If I weren’t so shy, I would have struck up a conversation or two.  Heck, I only spoke to our mailman for the first time today and found out he’s from Toronto (Rosedale)! (He noticed our York University alumni magazines.)

Today, Jedidja joined us at Dooly’s for beer and pool… so much of the former we mostly forgot we were playing the latter.  We do always go for the PEI brew on tap, and we got so caught up in socializing that we only left just in the nick of time to deliver Joe to bowling, so I have a feeling we’ll be supporting another local business tonight (A-1 Beamer’s Pizza, who have been so, so good to us even in just these few short months) as he didn’t have time to eat first.

Dooly’s had a whole stack of the  Farm Fresh 2009 Directory brochures out, so I snagged one of them.  A happy coincidence as I’d been reading about ideas for both a Food Trading Group and an Online PEI Farmer’s Network just this morning.  So, we are still exploring ways to localize our food and food supply chain, but since we have travel plans for much of the summer and apparently winter takes forethought and planning, we can’t reasonably start anything until next spring.  We are in the idea-gathering stage and simply enjoying the fruits (and veggies, and meat) of the Summerside Spring Street Farmer’s Market to the greatest extent possible.

This morning’s breakfast, for example, was smoked salmon and Jen/Derek greens on homemade biscuits.  Last night’s dinner was a combination of leftover chili (local meat, but canned beans/tomato and grocery store onions, peppers) with pre-cooked farmer’s market potatos (thanks to egg and beef guy) that was leftover from making fish cakes with fish truck fish.  Don’t even get me started on the scrambled eggs w. shitake mushrooms/bacon breakfast we had with Corey last weekend!  So, I think we’re doing quite well with what we have, but we certainly have not forced ourselves into any kind of hardship, or required MacGyver-esque maneuvering to put a complete meal together.

The only things we could possibly complain about (and I use that term loosely), are

• the fact that we really do have to haul our butts out of bed at what seems like a terribly unreasonable time Saturday mornings to ensure that things like mushrooms aren’t sold out.
• we don’t always know who will/won’t be at the market, and what they will/won’t have for sale
• It’s only on Saturdays, and we may return home from a business trip on a Sunday/Monday/Tuesday and be out of luck for that entire week grocery-wise.

Minor quibbles for sure, but enough to make us willing to try to establish better relationships with local food producers/organizations for sure.  For a normal week at home, though, the market has more than provided and I don’t think we’ve ever eaten healthier!

Thank you to the Spring Street Market, and all the vendors, organizers and supporters who make it possible.  You’ve made it pretty difficult to envision life on the road this summer (although our house sitters are in for the time of their lives!), and we’ll make it back to you just as soon as we can.

Related Links:

Jen and Derek’s Farm Fresh Veggies – http://farmfreshveggies.blogspot.com/

Emmerdale Eden Farm - http://www.emmerdaledenfarm.com/

Jedidja’s Blog (New beginnings and continuing adventures in food, fitness, farming, and sustainable living on beautiful Prince Edward Island) – http://newlyplanted.blogspot.com

We’ve been watching the series 100 Mile Challenge on the Food Network and of course, we’ve always tried to eat as much local food as we can.  Remember how we decided to take on a raw food diet a couple of years ago?  (Of course, we were assisted by the fact that our oven was essentially a carpenter’s bench in the middle of the floor at the time)

Well, we’ve been contemplating an all-PEI diet this time as the island is small enough to basically consider that our 100 mile radius.  (Technically, we could even include some areas of other provinces, but the PEI border is much simpler to use.)

So far, we’ve simply started making a list of what we think we’ll have to do without to see whether there are any real snags or non-starters, and of course debating whether PEI roasted coffee counts.  (What do you think?)

Our concerns right now:

• yeast – we make our own bread and can buy local flour at the Spring Street Farmer’s Market, but I don’t know whether we can get local yeast
• rice – we do eat a lot of rice because it’s convenient, but we can always cut it out
• bananas – I’ve heard the kind of bananas we have access to are little more than nature’s junk food anyway, but we do like them for a quick hit of something
• tea (for me, green tea) – I don’t like herbal teas at all, so unfortunately I don’t think any of the crazy alternative melanges will cut it for me.  It will probably have to be just hot water and lemon for me.  “Lemon?” you ask?
• lemon – apparently it’s super easy to grow lemon trees indoors in Canada.  This will happen.  (I’ll just buy the tree before we start any challenge!)
• sugar – I don’t like honey, so this will be interesting
• salt – I’m not a big salt person anyway, and I’m not sure whether Summerside harbour is the best source water for home desalinization.

So, this is very preliminarily stage 1 of the pre-PEI diet challenge.  I spent some time this afternoon reading about the nutritional benefits of potatos, and that will become its own post later.

Right now, though, Joe wants to play pool, where locally-brewed beer is served, so we’re already in compliance!  Well, technically, we’d need to find out whether all their ingredients, especially yeast, are from the island.

This leads us to one of the discussions we’re having – is it good enough to include local products like the coffee and the beer because at least we’re supporting local enterprise?  Or, is that hypocritical because we won’t be supporting the local Chinese restaurants and coffee shops, for example?

We have some details to hash out, and probably will try to read the 100-Mile Diet book for some suggestions.