Over the holidays I thought just a quick several minute episode would be a nice added option to share to everyone this week and next week!  I recommend taking time over the holidays with your loved ones! And please consider going back to listen to another podcast that you may not have listened to last time!  May people who are enjoying a good meal be grateful and people who may wish for more food know that you matter. If you celebrate - I hope you have a wonderful time. If the holidays are challenging for you - I hope you are kind to yourself.

Take a listen to Paul Moores who speaks to a wide variety within a career. There are excellent comments on being excited about lobster, food safety  training, including in restaurants. Since having completed this podcast - he now owns Shediac Bay Cruises:www.shediacbaycruises.ca Here are some quotes: There are many numerous lobster processing facilities here so there was one right on the wharf here. They still hold lobster here...  they will process a fair amount of lobster and ship all over the world. Food access ... most people see grocery stores as access. More people are looking at community farms, markets, we do local rather than supermarket...  and there are becoming more access to local products. I see a little bit of food safety... I mean I do a lot of training for people in food banks... I know there are a lot of security issues for people to get a safe healthy meal.  A quick note:Food skills is important, is discussed throughout the podcasts AND separate from food security in the definitions. 

Tim speaks so well that I was enthralled about his farming experience, the importance of soil, the loss of honeybees and how pollination is super important to help support agriculture and food in Canada. Please do take a listen to a wonderful expert on agriculture and farming

Chef Michael Smith

“this whole idea when we lived in Vancouver, my wife drew this whole thing on a piece of paper and she always wanted to have the restaurant and drew this whole thing on a piece of paper, and the concept, the rooms, the inn, it’s pretty amazing yea” “10 weeks renovation time, this room didn’t exist, this wall didn’t exist… and we couldn’t use the kitchen… you can’t take out the loading beam… lots of surprises when you open a restaurant.” “this is the fish’s name, the latin name and how it’s being fished so you have an idea where it is coming from… there’s a lot of things going on what when fish getting renamed because they are getting endangered… it’s a very unique fish… you can forget this thing in the oven and it comes out moist…” “if you stand behind what you put on the plate it is all that counts” “after an air traffic controller, the life of a chef is the craziest in the world.” “the cultural influence from Nova Scotia… compared to the West Coast there is a lot of cultural influence… when you open up a restaurant you just have to adapt and make those changes and slowly introduce those things.” “working with local communities, working with local and what is in season… this is the concept of our restaurant and we have it on the back of our shifts, we source over 90% local and out of those 90% is 20 km away from this restaurant…” “some kind of a family connection for this is why I am doing this.” “a lot of cooks don’t season right… taste and taste the food… after 40 years of cooking… that and the work ethic don’t take anything for granted take every day as your first day and you have to repeat it every day and be good every day… The curtain opens at 5 p.m.”

Welcome to a refreshing child's view of food - I learned a ton! What an incredible way of looking at food, sharing food, and enjoying the garden. I will let these lovely ladies speak for themselves. I hope you find it as enjoyable as I did! 

Juliana beautifully describes the importance of a celebratory mother's day feast, her love of food both for simplicity and complex flavours with different dishes in a wonderful way. yes, actually [I do love food] and I am for one person I am tired for apologizing for that, I do love food, I genuinely do…” "In a first nations community that there is a lot of work being done on food security, just like any other first nation community all across Canada, they're all doing work on food security because they know it is an issue." “Green beans are meant to be sweet… I didn’t realize that until you know like an adult…  they are meant to be really nice and sweet they are really a sweet bean, and you don’t realize that until you grow it, pick it, taste it…” "My whole family was very very into it... they bought into the whole idea and I think that when I stopped buying into it, my family stopped buying into it... and that's a lesson for everybody is if you want your kids If you want your kids to be into certain type of things, know where their food comes from, and know what they're eating and stuff, you can't do that without you participating in it... it's different that's for sure." "we have a community feast every mother's day... it is a community gathering, it's people spending time together, it is people socializing, it's people chipping in and helping one another, it's mom's, it's the youth getting out and serving the mom's, it's the mom's to be getting used to the idea of coming to a mother's feast." “It’s a real enjoyable community mother’s day feast… it started out little and it grows.”

Previous chef Jeremiah from Reluctant Chef NL several years ago (pre-Covid) spoke about his time and strategy to accommodate some beautiful meals. 

Colleen Cameron speaks very eloquently with an extensive background from farming, food security, her work at St Francis Xavier, multiple volunteer organizations, the international Coady Institute, and - blueberry farming. She has a very direct approach to speak about topics and has made a huge effort. 

We would grow tomatoes but what was interesting I never realized why green tomato chow was so popular which was pickled green preserve was so popular but it was so cold and foggy where I lived that they never ripen but you kind of have to eat them green. I made it my mission to learn how to make things from scratch That really kind of spearheaded a love of food in terms of really feeling some … a little bit of pride and really understanding how to make the stuff and you didn’t actually have to go to the store and buy chicken stock because you could make it yourself … and I think the piece what stands out for me was the relationships with the people, and them teaching me their traditions which likely passed on from their mom’s and other people who were important to them. Participatory action research to activate for in this case better income so people can purchase the food that they need. There is an active decision that is made that this is all you get if you are dependent on the system … it communicates a message that we obviously as a society we don’t think that they’re worth having everything that they need so it helps them see that it’s not their individual fault and it helps them see that policy change is what we need in order to improve the situation and it has motivated them to get involved in that broader advocacy work and policy change. To have enough to have their basic human rights met. They find this research most impactful because it blends both the hard evidence the numbers the facts, when you see those tables and you see that they are $900 short of meeting their basic needs and the methodology is sound but it is more impactful because it comes with the stories of the lived experience so what does that mean for these individuals. You are always going to do better if you look at all of the angles. I see it so broadly that I often wonder if someone has any choice at all. The people around you influence the choices you make.

JCharles​ Moments/Quotes:   "It is such an important thing to understand where food is coming from."   "What is that?                - that's fennel. People really can't identify certain ingredients. It's a little bit disturbing at times... understand the amount of effort and time and how things are grown and again once you have an appreciation and respect for the food I think it is super important and I think it cuts down on waste and how people approach and cook vegetables and ingredients."   "90% is brought in by boat and freight. If the ferry goes down for several days the supermarkets are barren."   "Its just the sense of being creative and work with your hands. It is a challenging environment - it's long hours."   "Restaurant is so unpredictable."   "I think we have one of the best culinary scenes in the world. Canada has so much to offer. It is beautiful. It's wild."   "It's crazy how people lived here... the first settlers... my grandmother tells me stories these guys row out and haul these boats out."   "A big part of the culture was the stories, the music, the jigs and reels, and people here have a real    "[A healthy relationship with food] knowing where your food is coming from... knowing the people who are growing your food you know your farmer's/grower's, to me being in tune with all that... being hands on... going to farmer's markets just having that connection is very important."

Dr. Liesel Carlsson, Interim Director and Professor at Acadia and – Registered Dietitian Her PhD was completed in Sweden at Blekinge Institute of Technology (Strategic Sustainable Development). See more about her education and courses at Acadia, Research and her most recent publication At present, a lot of my work is on the https://internationaldietetics.org/sustainability/  ----- "it keeps coming back to me the famous words of Barb Anderson take care of those relationships those are as important to get work done to move towards something that you are driven to move towards ... it is unlikely you are going to do it well without the support of the people around you... you know so sometimes you may have to give up the outcome in order to take care of the relationship ... and to get really theoretical on you... I actually really like that... you have this constellation of food system actors that are all interacting with one another.... and these subclusters and humans are exactly like that too, social systems are exactly just like that and when you start to degrade the relationships between people... if you don't attend to those relationships... the system actually starts to fall apart just like in the food system... I'm going to carry Barb's torch and say... pay attention to your relationships." ------ Podcast Moments “my biggest hope is that… people will get excited about… what we can contribute... I can feel this gap between today and tomorrow and I want to be a part of the transition… oh that’s really cute… she really cares!” “how sustainability affects food access is big… we can do a whole interview on that…but it’s interesting… one of my colleagues handed me a paper that essentially looked at the two of them - that essentially lined up the food and agricultural organizations definitions of food security which is about access and availability and utilization and stability ... and they … just broke it out into those three classic dimensions of environment, and social, economic and looked at them and lined them up… if I am going to narrow it down… it’s a story of low income families often times of how economics meets food… and it’s almost a predictable crowd and almost a predictable scenario… but it turns out that food security on [school] campus is extremely high... but I was shocked at how high it was... for me the university story was so surprising." “I have a couple of colleagues who every once and a while hold up the reality to me… when you are so entrenched in the world of sustainability… but I care and I think it’s important and I try to activate change… and in my believing self everyone else wants to do the same.” “… people eat mostly because it tastes good… but I actually think taste should be the number one… what tastes good is often also really healthy and often tends to fall in line with what is sustainable anyways… and tend to be from whole foods…” “I think it is ok to not know anything about food and actually not really care about food and that’s healthy, but it is also important and healthy to be really literate about food and what it is and where it comes from and to make joyous choices about your food and also based on knowing that your food choices is a political action as well.” “work of ecologists... and for me right now... how I find it helpful to think about food systems... is to think of them as adaptive and complex systems... and it can change over time... constellation of different actors and networks... there's clusters... looking at food systems as... looking up at the stars and drawing lines in between them." "I tend to stay away from being too prescriptive..." "when I am thinking from a global perspective again my message in a sustainable future - a hard line that all humans need to be vegan is not sustainable i think we all understand it doesn't work like that ... yea but I think right now for the people where it is a acceptable, I think the more plants ... the more we can pull back on

Chef T. Perrin has a beautiful way of speaking to make you comfortable while speaking his mind on important food matters. He has intelligent and considerate thoughts on eating, food, food security, and policy.   Chef Todd Perrin Moments/Quotes: “my love for food started with eating it, you know, and then, and then turned into making it after a while.” “eating something for the sake of the food is a reasonably new way of thinking here within the last generation or two … going to dinner at someone’s house was not about .. dinner, it was about meeting people and hanging with friends and family and you ate something hearty and good because you had to get up in the morning…” ”our attitude towards food and dining has changes .... it’s allowed restaurants and mine... because people are more open to enjoying a meal for the sake of enjoying a meal than they used to be.” ”we are a restaurant so we use lots of salt, lots of butter, lots of fat but everything we use is unprocessed... if we take a local carrot that’s been grown in the ground here, we you know wash it we saute it with a bit of local butter and season it with a little bit of sea salt that’s not going to make people sick... we try to serve people natural food, real food that’s you know prepared carefully...” “[A healthy relationship with food] … we try to let the ingredients do their work… you know like the old saying right - everything in moderation”  “Food is a very intimate thing… we should take it seriously we should not take it for granted.”  “We were sustainable because we had to be because if it wasn’t sustainable you perished.”

A mini version of the full episode for Chef Todd Perrin