Local food features strongly in our summer meal

Bikes getting a rest on the Agassiz Slow Food Tour

Last week we hosted a dinner for my parents and some out-of-town guests. I really wanted to show off our abilities, as Vancouverites, to obtain food from local sources.

A week ago Saturday we drove out to Agassiz to participate in the 3rd annual Slow Food Cycle Tour. I realize that driving the 125km from Vancouver doesn't seem very "local," but the 23km ride through the countryside of Agassiz was a treat. We participated in the Tour last year, but the weather was cold and rainy, so this year's sunny day was welcomed.

One of the stops was at The Farmhouse Natural Cheeses where we purchased about 5 different types of cheese, two of our favourites being the Goat Gouda and Goat Cheddar. We also bought some pea shoots at Yangbing Pea Shoot Farm, some fresh honey and some hazelnut pesto at Canadian Hazelnuts. One of the real highlights of the tour was riding through the hazelnut orchard from Swift Aquaculture – it was so peaceful!

We also have our own vegetable garden, in which we experiment with growing a few different vegetables along with the tried and true every year. I decided to bring as much of our own produce to the table for our meal, to showcase what we had ready to eat! From our carrots, I made a roasted carrot dip which we enjoyed with some of the goat Gouda. We picked 12 cobs of corn, and barbecued these to perfection. I chopped up some of our fresh yellow and red tomatoes to add to the pea shoot salad.

Of course, we served BC wine with the meal. Elephant Island's 2006 Crab Apple was the perfect finish to the evening.