EAT! SET TO DISH OUT FOUR DAYS OF FESTIVAL TREATS
Sole Food holds fundraising feast in the orchard
The 14th annual EAT! Vancouver Food and Cooking Festival is just around the corner. If you want in on any of the events, you should book now.
The festival runs from Oct. 4-7 at various locations and the red carpet event is EAT! Harvest on Oct. 6, hosted by Food Network star chef Michael Smith and featuring dishes from 17 top Canadian chefs (includes chefs from Winnipeg’s Deer+Almond, Toronto’s Richmond Station and LOKA and DaiLo, Montreal’s Park) as well as wine and desserts.
Visiting chefs will also partner with some of Vancouver’s best chefs in their restaurants (West, Royal Dinette, Wildebeest, for example). Three of eight such dinners were sold out at press time. Plus there’s food for the brain in the food trends class (Oct. 7) with a panel discussing trends with tastings.
On Oct. 4, BETA 5 presents a chocolate demonstration. An Intimate Evening with Chef Michael Smith is sold out. Tickets were still available for five of eight dinner series with visiting Canadian chefs.
“This spectacular four-day event showcases the very best of what Canadian culinary brilliance has to offer,” says event producer Alan Fogel of Fulcrum Media. Proceeds support the Greater Vancouver Food Bank. For more information and tickets, go to eat-vancouver.com.
MIRACLE WORKER
Michael Ableman has always been a can-do guy and Sole Food Street Farms, which he founded, is nothing short of a miracle.
In its seventh year, the project takes empty urban lots (five) and transforms them into portable farms, training and employing people with mental illness or drug addiction or both (some 75 people since 2009).
Produce is sold to some of Vancouver’s best restaurants as well as retailers and at farmers’ markets. Sole Food’s yield is 15 to 25 times higher than conventional openfield systems. It has employed 75 people since its start in 2009 and produces 50,000 pounds of food per year. It has made $1.7 million in sales in the seven years (discounting an estimated $20,000 loss because of city rats).
“Michael Ableman’s work and passion helped make Vancouver a global leader in urban food systems, with happier and healthier people,” says Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson.
On Oct. 6, Sole Food will host a fundraiser dinner called An Evening in the Orchard, with chefs from Hawksworth, Bishops, Farmer’s Apprentice, Savio Volpe, Homer Street Cafe, Burdock & Co. cooking. Ableman will also be cele- brating the launch of his new book, Street Farm: Growing Food, Jobs and Hope on the Urban Frontier.
The event, emceed by Fred Lee, will feature presentations and an auction. The event takes place under a tent at a Sole Food orchard on the corner of Main and Terminal and is $175 per person. For more information and tickets, go to solefoodfarms.com.
A IS FOR APPLES
On Oct. 2, the 17th annual Salt Spring Island Apple Festival will feature hundreds of varieties of organic apples. (Last year, 372 were displayed.)
As well as ogling an astounding number of apple varieties, there’ll be pie (apple, natch) and other apple goods to consume, plus there will be a farm tour. It’s at 2591 Fulford Ganges Rd., from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. ($10 for adults, $5 for students, and free for kids.) Go to saltspringapplefestival.org for more information.