Garden Artisans
An exciting new pilot project entitled Garden Artisans: Fresh food in the kitchen for children and youth began on Monday, July 17 at Shatford Centre involving vegetable growing and cooking with young people and elders.
A grant from TELUS has made this project possible allowing youth to learn the basics of the ‘garden to plate’ approach to food.
Collaborators in this program include the Okanagan Boys and Girls ‘Drop-in’ Program, Salvation Army’s Community Vegetable Garden, Food Bank, local chefs and master gardeners, scientists and artists.
The participants meet every Monday afternoon and Thursday morning to learn about horticulture and cooking.
The team is proud to be launching this innovative initiative. The summer program will include hands-on gardening and harvesting for each cooking session as well as harvesting food for the food bank.
Cooking will involve basic recipes creating delicious, nutritious simple meals as well executing special recipes with guest chefs.
On Monday, the guest chef was Dana Ewart from Joy Road Catering. With Dana’s assistance the youth created and baked their own fruit galettes.
This food literacy project will facilitate a new awareness and appreciation about our local environment, the foods we can grow and eat and food species origins; encourage openness to trying new foods; and foster familiarity with fruits, vegetables and other ingredients used for cooking.
Growing up in Slovenia (while still part of Yugoslavia) I never knew of a family that didn’t grow food in their own garden or on an allotment. As a child I was routinely sent out to our vegetable garden to pick parsley just as my mum started ladling hot steaming soup into individual bowls at the table.
I have fond memories of my quick sprint to the parsley patch, breaking off a few stems, running back in, quickly rinsing off the stalks shaking them dry and chopping to be ready as the last bowl was placed down.
Today the act of picking and chopping parsley often takes me back to those happy memories.
Perhaps the children in our new program will also look fondly back to the days when they first discovered how growing and cooking your own food always tastes so much better.
For more information about this program please contact Eva Antonijevic at Eva.Anton@shaw.ca