Can You Taste the Terroir?

Cynthia Montgomery is a concerned citizen who loves living in the Cowichan Valley

Isuspect many people’s first revelation concerning the excellence of fresh, local produce is when they taste a just-picked tomato. Ripened on the vine, basking in full sun until it’s soft and almost squishy, the richness and complexity of flavour of such a tomato will never be found in any supermarket.

I’ve noticed that the same tomato variety, grown in different regions, can taste very different. Can it be that, just as grapes reflect their ‘terroir’, (soil, topography and climate), so too do tomatoes gain a particular flavour from the environment in which they are grown? When we eat fresh, local produce, we are tasting our Valley.

If you can’t grow your own, there are still many ways to access local food. One complaint I hear is that it’s too expensive, costing more than you will find in supermarkets. True enough. But if you can only afford to buy one locally produced food item, I urge you to try free-range eggs. (Not free-run.) The beautiful, large orange yolks, thick and luscious, have an indescribable saucy richness. The whites of a very fresh egg sit up high in the pan, instead of running all over in a watery mess. They also whip up beautifully for baking. If you have never tried a truly fresh free-range egg, you are really missing out. But be warned: once you try one, you may never go back.

And that tasty, fresh produce is also more nutritious! Here’s an easy test you can do in your kitchen to compare whether a truly fresh apple contains more Vitamin C than one storebought. Which do you think will win?

1. Dissolve 2 teaspoons of cornstarch in 2 cups of cold water, stirring, and heat to bubbling. Cool.

2. Fill each of two glasses with 1/2 cup of water and mix in 1 teaspoon of the cornstarch solution. Stir again.

3. Into glass #1, add 2 tablespoons of a supermarket apple, grated. In glass #2, add 2 tablespoons of a fresh, local apple, also grated. Stir.

4. Take a bottle of Tincture of Iodine (available at most drugstores) and using an eyedropper, drip one drop of iodine into each glass. Stir or swirl until the blue colour disappears.

5. Continue, drop by drop, into each glass, stirring or swirling each time, letting the blue disappear, until the liquid in one glass remains blue, even after swirling.

6. The glass that first remains blue is the loser! The more drops of iodine that are needed to cause the liquid to stay blue, the more Vitamin C is contained in that sample. Also, since safety is so important, consider that the produce, meat, bread, cheese and eggs you purchase locally have probably been touched by only two or three sets of hands before they touch yours.

Tastier, more nutritious, safer-- and you’re giving a leg-up to a local farmer or baker so they can keep on producing for our benefit.

Sustainability --the ability to live within one’s resources, is one of the Green Party’s six core values. Our community is far more sustainable, cohesive and resilient in worrying times when we consume our own produce and products and trade with our own local businesses. So many reasons to eat fresh and local food! Bon appetite!

Lexington Spa

A PROFESSIONAL MOBILE SPA THAT COMES TO YOU! Cindy Beam, Owner MANICURES • PEDICURES • REFLEXOLOGY 250-514-1380

www.lexingtonspa.ca I lexingtonspa@shaw.ca

Our Island. Your Pharmacy.

Duncan • Lake Cowichan • Cobble Hill • Shawnigan Lake • Mill Bay • Gabriola Island • View Royal

FREE PRESCRIPTION DELIVERY - Nursing In Home Daily Medicati on Administrati on Compounded Medicati on - Veterinary Mixtures - Compression Stocking Fitti ngs Duncan Locati ons: 192 Kenneth St. ph (250) 746-4680 I 102-330 Festubert St. ph (250) 746-7494

www.islandpharmacy.ca

In the last 3.5 years as your MLA, I have worked tirelessly in service of our community.

The BC Greens put principle ahead of politics to collaborate with the other parties, even though we don’t agree with them on everything. Sadly, this is not a common practice in the BC Legislature. The political structures we have in place reinforce hyper-partisanship, perpetuating the myth that this is ‘just how politics is done.’

Unfortunately, this kind of politics has reared its head again, as a completely unnecessary, irresponsible early election has been called in the middle of a pandemic simply because it might benefit one party’s political fortunes.

John Horgan and the B.C. NDP had a responsibility to govern, not play politics. We have two overlapping health emergencies, we spent days and weeks this fall gasping for breath because of smoke from climate fires, our kids are navigating an entirely new way of being in school, and COVID-19 cases are rising.

This was not the time to dissolve government, to leave a province leaderless for over a month in hopes of securing more power - this is a time when we need our Ministers of Health and Education to be working alongside our Public Health Officer to do all they can to protect the health and well being of the people of British Columbia. By calling this election, John Horgan and the B.C. NDP have stepped away from their responsibility to govern.

Come in and see all the great new products available to help you maintain a healthy and sustainable household. 250-748-4421 4-180 Central Rd, Duncan - Village Green Mall www.lynnsvitamingallery.ca

In Service To Our Community: How We Create Successful Outcomes

They have succumbed to the old ways of doing politics, even in this new and altered world that demands that we come together to survive and thrive.

The BC Greens have proven that we can do politics differently, and we can have tremendous success while doing it. We have been able to offer an alternative to the divisive politics in this province, and shown how effective government can be when it makes decisions based on evidence and the public interest. This approach has yielded results:

We banned big money, reformed the lobbying industry, and made crucial changes to environmental

protection and oversight laws; We championed professional reliance reform, including new legislation to provide better oversight and evidencebased decision-making in the approval of development projects; We passed the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act, which represents an important opportunity to do things differently and move forward together on reconciliation; And as MLA for Cowichan Valley, I have worked with the community to ensure that we will have a new hospital, a new high school, a hospice, and the engineering study underway for a new weir to better protect the Cowichan River.

And we are just getting started. With your support in this election, and with your vote on October 24, we will continue to make British Columbia and BC politics better.