:: the view from my desk - newly sanded and finished red pine plank floors in two bedrooms

:: the intense perfume of lilacs filling every room of Gothic Cottage from one tree discovered on the edge of my farm and renegade flower collection under darkness

:: the fruit of Ashley’s and my labour. A freshly painted bedroom - ‘Quiet Splendor’

:: most romantic, delicate new peachy leaves - I could live in this scene

:: a clean and fresh ‘Crisp Linnen’ sun room painted by my dad and ready for his easel (I waver between getting swept up in the romance of some paint shade names and busting a gut with friends over how seriously cheesy they are. Someone’s having fun creating them…)

:: collecting pea sticks for a thriving row of shelling peas

:: a kick in the ass - I need to stick to my guns and steer clear of non-sustainable meat, and tonight’s Ideas program on CBC radio delivered. I sat in my car after returning from yoga and kept listening in the dark with the engine off. No more prosciutto unless I know the pig was happy.

:: the field and forest slowly filling out in electric lime and emerald green (can you see the white clover growing?)

:: brand new music from Caribou, Dr. Dog, The Morning Benders, and Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros

:: little Mason jars waiting to be filled with tart rhubarb jam (does anyone have a delicious recipe?)

:: design ideas germinating from conversations and cool magazines that I would never find myself but discover in the homes of my style maven friends - leaves me buzzy!

Living in the country has brought me up close and personal with three products: wheat, corn and soy. Corn, soy, wheat. Soy, wheat, corn. These three food commodities, which drive our mass produced, processed foods are rife in the countryside! It’s pretty depressing when I think of all the ‘real food’ that could be covering our fields.

At Union Station last week, I was rushing to find a healthy breakfast before my early morning train departed for Montreal. Still bleary eyed and getting desperate, I reached for a V8 Splash but had the sense to read the label first: “water, high fructose corn syrup, …” I stopped there. Isn’t this drink supposed to be loaded with fruit? Why on earth does it need added sugar? Because that’s essentially what high fructose corn syrup is - a chemically produced sweetener made from corn, which is just as sweet as sugarcane but cheaper to process and ship. The concoction is also almost certainly made from genetically modified corn and then processed with genetically modified enzymes. Yuck!

I worked for five hours solid on the train, fueled in part by Fair Trade organic green tea (kudos to ViaRail!), but glanced from my laptop at a stop near Dorval to take in the snowy scenery. I might have just glazed over the writing on these cars, but I love the aesthetic of cargo trains, especially the really old cars. And there I was, face to face with the corn that may have been harvested just down the road from our farm, processed into high fructose corn syrup and traveling to a Coca Cola plant, or destined for V8 perhaps?

I wonder if we’ll see a shift away from the mass production engine in our lifetimes? I sure hope so!

Meet Carlo Petrini - passionate founder of the Slow Food movement. Doesn’t he have great hands? I think they’re still field-dirty. And that relaxed pose! It looks like all that beautiful food came running to him, like little children following Jesus! I want to hang out with this chilled old guy. After reading this article in today’s Guardian, I’ve got yet another reason to dream of a pilgrimage to Italy.

I LOVE Italy. The food, the weathered architecture, the pace, the passione! I love films set in the country, and I’ve even endured the slightly annoying Jamie Oliver in his Italian escapades - just to see him loose a pasta making contest. I traveled back vicariously with Barbara Kingslover in her new book. There is so much more to this complex place than I could take in during one fleeting visit - like the tradition of city folk escaping to host farms to work the fields and experience the good earth. Hmm - B,B&F?

The biennial Slow Food Movement party, Salone del Gusto is on right now. That leaves me two years to stash funds in a Mason jar and brush up on my conversational Italian. There are big plans on the horizon that will likely divert those pennies, but a woman can dream!

Photo credit: Barry Lewis/© Barry Lewis/Corbis - The Guardian

Tonight, Bill C-517, the Private Members Bill that would make labeling mandatory for all genetically engineered foods will be voted on. Contact your MP to ask them to support this Bill. (The Bill would then be sent to the Health Committee.) You can search for your MP with your postal code at www.parl.gc.ca

See www.cban.ca/labeling for a sample letter and more information.

40 Ways to Encourage More Local Food Production (from 100 Mile Diet)

This comprehensive list has some fantastic suggestions — so many that I found it painful to cut the list down:

For Local Food Growing Champions

3. Hold regular Sustainable Food Forums for networking, education and planning.
4. Organize organic year-round food growing courses and workshops, including for youth, people on low incomes, and ethnic minorities.
5. Encourage micro-market gardening in the city, and Spin Farming.
7. Establish a Farmers Cooperative to share skills, materials, and marketing.
8. Establish a Young Farmers Institute for the next generation of farmers.
9. Encourage more Brown Box and Community Supported Agriculture programs.
10. Celebrate local food through festivals, community events, and by showcasing public food-growing gardens.
11. Encourage more seed saving by organizing an annual Seedy Saturday community show.
12. Encourage Community Fruit Tree Projects to harvest unwanted fruit, and have it juiced for sale and for fundraisers.
13. Create a “Buy Local” label for use in retail food stores.

For Municipal Councils

15. Make an inventory of all available land, both city-owned and otherwise.
16. Pass a resolution stating the importance of local food cultivation, listing the many benefits of greater food self-sufficiency, and including a goal that most food consumed locally should be grown within a few hundred miles. (e.g. Berkeley Climate Action Plan). Integrate food cultivation into all municipal planning documents. The American Planning Association’s Policy Guide on Regional and Community Food Planning (May 2007) contains 26 recommendations.
17. Support the development of Farmers’ Markets and neighbourhood food stands.
18. Prioritize the use of local organic food at all city-owned events and facilities.
19. Set a goal to develop new Community Allotment Gardens every year, supported by municipal staff. (Seattle has 5.5 municipal staff who support 65 gardens). Create a Matching Grant Fund to support the development of new Gardens, and offer small grants to help with soil-building, water systems, tool sheds, deer-fencing, and improvements.
24. Permit the long-term use of temporary dwellings on farmland for agricultural workers.
25. Integrate ornamentals with edibles, bio-remediation, fiber and medicinal plants in city landscape planning.
26. Establish a community-wide composting program (as in Ladysmith, BC; Halifax, NS; San Francisco, CA).

For the Provincial Government

29. Provide financial support for apprenticeship and internship programs created by organic growers.
30. Provide grants and low interest loans to help new farmers buy land, including for the cooperative purchase of land by groups and Land Trusts.
31. Prohibit the removal of land from the Agricultural Land Reserve without replacement with equivalent quality farmland.
34. Create legislation requiring municipal councils to provide at least 15 allotments for every 1,000 households and no more than six people waiting for a plot at any one time (as in Britain).

Food and farming are big ticket items in the news these days. The world is facing huge price hikes for basic commoditites and inflation is rife, only Canada seems to be bucking the trend. Wal-Mart has driven down food prices in its new supermarkets, pressuring others to follow suit. So, for now, Canadians are still wandering the aisles of unrepresentative prices. According to this article in yesterday’s Globe and Mail, we’ll start feel the price crunch in 2009.

In the meantime, is the western world going to finally realize that the current food system it supports is fatally flawed? Is it really going to take price hikes at the supermarket for consumers to admit that cheap food is unsustainable?

Viva la locavore revolucion!