Summer is the season of all things good

If I were to say the word bread to you, what comes to mind? 

Do you hear crusts crackling as you tear into loaves, or do you visualise perfectly sliced loaves wrapped in plastic bags? Do you think of grandmothers and toasty kitchens, or of the first time you baked it yourself? 

Over at CBC Radio here in Atlantic Canada, I was recently asked to write and produce a radio piece about bread, and so I wrote about the knowledge transmitted through bread. I wanted to write about bread as a form of cultural and culinary identity, agricultural foundation and 21st century balm to pandemic anxiety.

The piece is part of an ongoing summer series the CBC is producing in this region all about Atlantic Canadians’ relationship to bread, and I was more than happy to provide a bit of a foreword to it all. You can listen to it here.

Speaking of summer content and radio, I’m also about to start a weekly column over at Le Réveil, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland’s morning show on Radio-Canada. The series, called Plaisirs d’été, will be weekly looks into what is available in our gardens and our local farmers markets. 

I also recently started a new column for Le Courier, Nova Scotia’s french language newspaper. Called Finis ton assiette (clean/finish your plate), it will be a continuation of the information presented on Radio-Canada, but with a bit more context as to the changing shape and nature of how and what Nova Scotians eat, with tips and guides on how to use the season’s bounty to the best of your ability. 

Le Courrier was kind enough to let me start the column with a slightly more personal piece, where I talk about what it was like to talk about Acadian cuisine outside of Acadie, and how doing so led me to understand what it means to be Acadian while describing it to others through food.

Here’s to summer bounties.

Out like a lion, in like a well-seasoned lamb.

As someone who makes a living by recording other people’s voices, I am often told, “I sound so different.” No, I think you sound exactly as I know you.

But waking up this morning on this first Monday of the new year, I experienced a bit of that.  I was listening to my local morning show on CBC Radio, and I heard my name being called. It was an interview I had recorded with the host, chatting about food trends and topics for 2016. 

To be honest, I am used to hearing my own voice on the radio. I have recorded, edited, and heard my own voice quite a lot over the past few years, so it doesn’t phase me. Maybe it was because I wasn’t awake, but I listened to myself chatting away with the host, and thought, “I should be doing more of this.”

So that’s my resolution. To tell more stories that I am proud of. Stories like that of the Chen family, and how tofu was more than food, it was a way of life. Stories like that of Alexandra Mansour, and how an immigrant housewife came to change the palate of an entire community of rural Nova Scotians.  Stories that speak close to home, whether home is in Nova Scotia, or 2000 miles away. Like the story I told in Gravy, the Southern Foodways Alliance’s podcast. 

How is a region of the far north—Canada—intimately connected to a region 2,000 miles away in the Deep South? In this episode of Gravy, the story of the Acadians and the Cajuns, and how they’re reconnecting… through gumbo.

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I've already started on things for the new year. New radio pieces. More stories. And most importantly,  I'm working on a book project, one that will take me throughout Atlantic Canada, and through decades of dishes. Dishes likes the ones detailed in these recipe. But more on that later. Stay tuned.

They say years come in like a lamb, and out like a lion. I say this year went out with a roar, but this new one is coming in like a well-seasoned lamb. Tasty, indeed. 

Old stomping grounds, new foraging grounds.

It can be complicated to explain where I grew up. 

I was raised in a village in Nova Scotia, called Pointe-de-l'Église. But it's also known as Church Point. You see, I grew up in a french-speaking community, in an anglophone province, hence the two names.  The community is called Clare, which is also its municipal designation. It's also known as la Baie Sainte-Marie, or the french shore, which is the name given to the series of french-speaking Acadian villages that dot the shoreline in the area between Digby and Yarmouth.  

Is that as clear as mud? Good. I'll just call it home for now. 

Participants in the Tintamarre, an Acadian tradition where participants gather together to make as much noise as possible, to remind the rest of the world that Acadians are still here. 

Suffice to say, I recently went home to visit my family, participate in the 60th anniversary of the Festival acadien de Clare, which is the oldest Acadian festival in the world. I had the chance to go picking fruit in my parents' orchard, and even go fishing for mackerel. You can see the best bits of the trip over on Steller. 

A crab apple tree in my parent's orchard.

But I also went there to do some work for an upcoming project, an audio documentary that will be podcast in the next few months. I can't say much more than that, but stay tuned. I'll keep you posted.

I also had the chance to visit my old alma mater, Université Sainte-Anne, Nova Scotia's only francophone university. It was there that I ran into Sébastien Dol. Sébastien and I were both students at Ste-Anne, and his father was a professor in the science department at the time. When I ran into him, he suggested he take me out to go foraging for mushrooms on the campus, a habit he picked up from his father.

Sébastien Dol spent many a day in the woods as a kid. But he wasn't always playing hide-and-go-seek with other kids. He was usually out with his father, seeking out edible wild mushrooms that grew in the area. In the latest episode of "Assis Toi", Sébastien recounts tales about his father, and how they bonded while foraging for all sorts of local mushrooms. "Assis Toi" is a radio series that airs on Information Morning and Island Morning on CBC Radio in the Maritimes. It tells stories about the kinds of relationships that people have with food. For more info on "Assis Toi" and its producer, Simon Thibault, check out: http://simonthibault.com http://twitter.com/simonathibault

You can hear more about Sébastien in this episode of Assis Toi, which you can listen to via streaming over at CBC, or you can download the podcast on iTunes.