Edible Maritimes #3

the land ~ the sea ~ the people ~ the food

On the cover: Gilles Pelletier at the grinder in his knife-making studio

Photo by Dave Snow

This page: ‘At the root of it’ by Dave Snow

hello from us

In our last issue, Nick Chindamo, wild food ethusiast, chef and storyteller, considers the phrase ‘food as art’ and suggests “the art of cooking is not in the act of cooking... but in the human connection that brings it all together.” In this issue, we dig deep into this notion through the stories of artists whose work intertwines with the world of food and creative folks who are making spaces for art, food and, perhaps most importantly, conversation.

We’re dedicating this issue to creativity and how our engagement with one another and the world around us leads to new insight and new perspectives. When it comes right down to it, we’re all inherently creative and there is so much opportunity when we get together.

We begin in the kitchen, with Milda Titford, an artist and chef, who suggests food and art are the same thing. New Brunswick knife-maker Gilles Pelletier shares his passion for making and Alanna Baird invites us into the way she imagines and reimagines the seaside world around her. We meet Adam Sweet, knife expert, and Gessy Robin, a curator with a vision. We talk with food photographer Al Douglas about the art of living well and the joy of food. Erin and Jon Welch share the beauty, and the value, of making space for getting together and Moncton’s Epoch Chemistry’s team encourages us to take it slow. We are pleased to feature art by Charlottetown artist Niyi Adeogun as well as poetry by Nova Scotia’s Alice Burdick and photography by Amber d’Entremont.

There’s a lot of fine coffee in this issue, and connections, and that’s not an accident. We encourage you to flip through this issue with a friend — over coffee, a pizza or even a carrot.

Make art not war, Sara & Dave

Maritimes

the land ~ the sea ~ the people ~ the food

CO-EDITORS & DESIGNERS

Sara & Dave Snow

CONTRIBUTORS

Alice Burdick, Amber d’Entremont, Al Douglas, Niyi Adeogun, Gessy Robin Gislain

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Photo: Spring Garlic by Dave Snow

We respectfully acknowledge that we are in Wabanaki territory. On the unsurrendered and unceded traditional lands of the Wolastoqey/ Wəlastəkwey, Mi’kmaq and Passamaquoddy peoples, who have stewarded this land throughout the generations. This territory is covered by the Treaties of Peace and Friendship which the Wolastoqey/Wəlastəkwey, Mi’kmaq and Passamaquoddy peoples first signed with the British Crown in 1725 recognizing Wolastoqey/ Wəlastəkwey, Mi’kmaq and Passamaquoddy title. We stand with them in their efforts for land and water protection and restoration, and for cultural healing and recovery.

Edible Maritimes

L'sitkuk

Pronounced “elsetkook”

L’sitkuk is a river in the Mi’kma’ki region of Kespukwitk. It flows from several tributaries and becomes a tidal river as it approaches the Annapolis Basin. L’sitkuk means “water that cuts through” or “water through high rocks”, because the river appears to cut through the landscape.

This river has been home to Mi’kmaq for thousands of years. The river is also known as Bear River, and Muin Sipu, Bear River First Nation, is located here. The river also flows through the center of the village of Bear River, splitting it in two.

To learn more about L’sitkuk, the region, history, Mi’kma’ki place names, and pronunciations, visit www.bearriverfirstnation. ca and the Mi’kmawey Debert Cultural Centre online at www.mikmaweydebert.ca.

Experience the art of hospitality

Located in the stunning seaside town of St. Andrews, NB, the Algonquin Resort is the perfect holiday retreat for families and couples and an ideal setting for those special celebrations. With incredible dining, a wonderful spa, and an award-winning golf course, the Algonquin o ers an unparalleled experience. We are pleased to support and promote local artists throughout our resort.

Art by Alanna Baird on exhibit in our lobby and Passamaquoddy Room

Peace, creativity... and pizza

Chef and artist on art, food and making connections

WORDS

For me, food and art are very much the same thing,” explains Milda Titford, visual artist and owner of Milda's Pizza & More. “My art is very connected to what I do. I worked and exhibited as an artist before starting culinary school. One thing kind of merged into the other but they're not separate.”

Along with an inspired selection of pizzas and daily specials, soups, salads and desserts, Milda’s Pizza & More is a gallery and a meeting space, located in the basement of the Charlotte Street Arts Centre, a community-based facility for the arts in Fredericton.

Titford describes the beginnings of the pizzeria and café as humble — with croissants at the Fredericton Boyce Farmers Market. Its origins date back years before market croissants though, and is tied to a commitment to creativity and community she and her husband Cedd Titford brought with them when they immigrated to Canada from the UK 15 years ago. Milda suggests, with a smile, that they moved to be on “equal footing”. In the UK, Milda missed Lithuania. If they had moved to Lithuania, Cedd would miss the UK. So they made the logical decision and moved to Canada. Here they would start from scratch together.

“When we came to New Brunswick my husband started as a truck driver,” Milda explains. “And I started slowly building a business, making croissants at the market. And then, a friend mentioned someone was moving out of the basement space at the Charlotte Street Arts Centre. I ignored it at the time but my husband didn’t. And now it’s taken on a life of it’s own.”

The Titfords met while studying Culinary Arts at the UK’s Concord Institute of Integral Studies. “We were learning about healing foods, about philosophy, about what food means, what it is and does,” Milda says. “To learn what food is and what it means — to ‘feel the carrot’, if you like — is another story altogether but that’s what we were doing at the Concord School.” This approach to food as meaning-full makes of food something to experience. She says “food is art and art is food” and argues for a more elevated appreciation of both, drawing parallels between the ways in which the work of both, are maligned or demeaned, often the first victims of funding cuts but so essential to life and community. She argues for more of both — art and food education — in school curriculum.

Walk into the café any time it’s open and Milda and her team are busy — rolling dough, slicing vegetables, answering the phone, greeting customers, sliding pizzas into the woodfired oven,

BY SARA SNOW PHOTOS BY DAVE SNOW

stoking the oven, making coffee, and packing boxes. The hum of the fire and constant conversation among the team, in more than one language, suggests the work of food is neverending.

Sit down at one of the large tables in the open dining space and you’ll find the space to chat, meet new people and take in the art on displayt. Today it’s a collection of staff artwork. Many of Milda’s team are working artists and students of art programs at the University of New Brunswick and the New Brunswick College of Craft and Design.

For Milda, connecting with others for food and conversation is artful, and it can be change-making. Her pizzeria offers a space to talk “about peace, creativity and food” as she says. “I noticed something during covid — I really missed people,” Milda says. “We were doing take out and delivery and didn’t see anybody. There would be a phone call and the pizza goes upstairs. It just proved to me that you need to connect with humans so that you don’t feel alone in this crazy fight.”

Milda’s Pizza & More

732 Charlotte St, Fredericton, N.B.

Open Tuesday through Saturday and Saturdays at the Boyce Farmers Market mildaspizza.com

Previous page: Two pizzas head into the woodfired oven.

Top left: William, an artist and pizza chef, stokes the fire.

Middle left: A June 2022 exhibit of artwork by Milda Titford hang in the Penny Gallery upstairs in the Charlotte Street Arts Centre.

Left: A typical busy morning behind the counter at Milda’s Pizza & More in the basement of the Charlotte Street Arts Centre.

Some questions

A poem by Alice Burdick

Does any person have the ability to incubate a robin’s egg?

No apples to apples in the empty barrel.

The cheapest thing is sleep all the time.

The invisible storms the ramparts, visible blossoms drop.

I’m scared of the news, nothing new. It should be scared of me.

Men raise hesitations I raised that they didn’t hear.

What do we do now? This question brings us together.

Nobody can have it allbut would you want it?

PHOTO BY AMBER D’ENTREMONT

Alice Burdick (she/her) lives in Mahone Bay, Nova Scotia, and is the author of four full-length poetry collections, Simple Master, Flutter, Holler, and Book of Short Sentences, and one selected: Deportment: The Poetry of Alice Burdick (Wilfrid Laurier University Press). She has also authored two cookbooks, and her essays and poetry have appeared in many print and online chapbooks, broadsides, folios, magazines, journals, and anthologies since the early 1990s. She has been a judge for various awards, including the bpNichol Chapbook Award. She also visits elementary and high school English classes as a “Poet In Your Class” through Poetry in Voice/les Voix de la Poésie, and leads workshops through the Writers Federation of Nova Scotia.

Amber d’Entremont, acadienne, mère de famille, danseuse professionnel, photographe, artiste, bref une femme multidisciplinaire tenant plusieurs cordes à son arc. Elle trouve l’inspiration à son art dans la douceur des moments de la vie. Elle sait reconnaître la profondeur dans la simplicité de ce qui nous entoure. / Amber d’Entremont, Acadian, mother, professional dancer, photographer, artist, in short a multi-disciplinary woman with many strings to her bow. Finding inspiration for her art in the sweetness of life’s moments, recognizing the depth in the simplicity of what surrounds us.

Forging a creative life

Knife-maker Gilles Pelletier, of Pellet Knives, shares his enthusiasm for making something that will last a lifetime.

WORDS BY SARA SNOW

PHOTOS BY DAVE SNOW

Picture a freight train barreling through the forest — the weight of it, the sound of it. Now imagine a blade of the sharpest steel slicing through the flesh of a tomato — the sleight of hand, the quiet, almost imperceptible sound. The contrast between the two images is striking. The way the two align in Gilles Pelletier’s life, however, makes perfect sense.

Dave and I meet Gilles Pelletier and his wife, Vicki Lentz, on a snowy day in March. Their studio sits next to their house in a maple forest at the top of a rise overlooking Rivière-à-la-truite in the northwest corner of New Brunswick. On this day in early March, the road carves its way through metre-high snowbanks and trees covered in a layer of newly-fallen snow. The occasional spindrift sparkles in the sun, and Marley, their big golden retriever, lumbers out to greet us. The setting is nothing short of magical.

Pelletier is a knife-maker and Lentz is a mixed media visual artist. When they first moved into this space 22 years ago, the studio was an old, windowless barn with a dirt floor. Over the years they’ve transformed it into a stunning space big enough for two very creative people. Lentz’s painting studio is up the stairs to the right and, this morning, she is at work on a new project, as she shifts from abstract work into realism. Pelletier takes

us in through the big front doors of the building where long, solid work tables offer much room for the makers to make. “I poured the concrete for the floor myself,” he explains. To the left is Lentz’s sculpture studio, complete with kilns, and to the right Pelletier’s workshop, filled with all of the tools of a woodworker and someone who, as he says, “loves to make things”.

Years in the making

Gilles Pelletier has just celebrated his 64th birthday. He wasn’t always a knifemaker. He retired two years ago from a long career as a locomotive engineer with CN. “Most of my career I went from here to Moncton, and also to Quebec, with freight trains. All my life. I got hired on at 18 and stayed until I was 61. It was a long career. 42 1/2 years on the railroad. I had the best job.”

Pelletier grew up in this region, in a village called St. Hilaire. He was the sixth of nine children and his father, who also worked for CN, died when they were young. They didn’t have a lot but they had each other — and the big outdoors. “We played outside a lot, back then that’s what you do, and we fixed our own bikes, our skates. You have to be industrious. If something breaks, you fix it.”

Pelletier has always loved fixing, building, making. He’s

Artisan

been a woodworker for decades, has tried his hand at blacksmithing, and his workshop is filled with tools he’s made himself.

A new passion

When he retired, in January 2020, he took a knife forging class at the New England School of Metalwork in Auburn, Maine and instantly fell in love with the craft. He made his first knife in that class, a Japanesestyle knife; with a single beveled edge, and made of harder steel than western knives. Since that first course, Pelletier has made nearly two hundred knives, primarily for custom orders, and for sale at the Apple Gallery in Moncton.

“Right away people liked my knives and I gave 12 away to family — they were my first knives,” says Pelletier. Since then, he’s taken subsequent courses with Noel Vachon in Québec — most recently a san-mai knifemaking course. San-mai is a term that refers to both the type of blade, with layers that reveal a hard steel edge, and the ancient Japanese technique itself of creating that blade. Pelletier finds support in the growing knifemaking community on the east coast. He bought his first piece of steel from Charlottetown’s knife expert Adam Sweet. “Knife-makers share with each other,” says Pelletier. “There are no secrets.”

In the workshop, we stand around a work table and chat over tea and leftover birthday cake — a carrot cake made from a secret recipe by a well-known Maritime chef. Pelletier and Lentz love food, which makes Pelletier’s new passion very handy. They use his knives in their kitchen, and Pelletier brings out a few. “I like making kitchen knives,” he says. “I find the smaller hunting knives harder to work with, and I’m not a hunter so it doesn’t speak to me. As far as cooking, everybody cooks every day. This knife you’ll use every day and it will last your whole life if you care for it.”

Crafting the knife

When we’ve finished our cake, Pelletier takes us through a door beyond the long work tables to his knife-making studio. The forge sits at the far end, then the grinder, anvil and some mighty hammers. At the other end is drill

Page 10: Pelletier puts a piece of steel into the forge. Page 11: Pelletier in his workshop.

Top left: Pelletier hammers a piece of steel from the forge.

Bottom left: Pelletier selects a piece of wood for a handle.

Top right: Pelletier and a selection of his knives. Right: A knife just off the grinder and out of the water to cool it. Pelletier repeats this process several times.

Bottom right: Memorabilia from Pelletier’s work on the railroad.

press and a smooth steel table for taking photographs of the finished pieces. The walls are lined with tools, many of which Pelletier has made, with handles he’s carved himself. In one corner hangs the sign from his grandfather’s blacksmith shop. Both his grandfather and great-grandfather were blacksmiths. “Back then times were often hard,” Pelletier explains. “They would exchange blacksmithing for beef or milk.”

Pelletier fires up the forge and dons his heavy work apron, gloves and goggles. “The flame is like a ribbon,” he says over the roar of the oven. “Rather than heating the steel in one place with one single flame, there are 28 or 30 holes, so the flame is a ribbon.”

He places a piece of steel inside the hot oven, and the fact that he’s a railroad engineer turned knife-maker makes perfect sense. He removes the red hot steel from the heat and places it on the anvil, pounding it with a hammer. “High quality steel gives back,” he says. “When I hit steel it gives back about 40% back. The cheaper version sucks in more of my energy so it makes me work harder.” The quality of the steel is important to Pelletier, who prefers the harder high carbon steel of Japanese knife-making.He repeats the process of heating and hammering. “The more practice the better I become and the more efficient.” The grinding process follows and sparks fly as Pelletier places the blade on the spinning stone.

The centre of the work space is for shaping blades, building handles, and finishing knives. Pelletier’s customers typically order three types of knives:

• Gyuto, a chef’s knife for larger cuts of beef

• Nakiri, a straight edge for vegetables

• Petty, a utility knife for delicate, ie. coring an apple

Left: A Pellet petty knife in production. Above: Tools of the trade. Right: Gilles Pelletier and Vicki Lentz in front of their forest studio.

Adam Sweet, owner of The Cook’s Edge in Charlottetown, describes the petty as a category of smaller knives that originated when Japanese and French began trading hundreds of years ago — petty from the french word petit . “Some are small enough to do jobs in your hands,” Sweet explains. “Some are better suited to the cutting board, others for butchering small animals like quail.”

Shifting with the light

Each of Pelletier’s knives are unique and many are made with customer’s requests in mind — the type and colour of wood for the handle for instance. A stack of wood — apple, maple, spalted birch, birdseye and curly maple — sits at the entranceway of the barn. “90% of the wood I get from my land,” Pelletier says. “Once a piece of wood has aged, I’ll look at the pattern and decide if I’ll make a handle with it. Each one is different.” He cuts the pieces to size and a new stack forms in his workshop.

The sanding process reveals patterns that were formed in the wood over the life and death of the tree. Chatoyance is one particularly stunning effect. “Chatoyance,” as Pelletier explains, “is how the pattern of the grain moves with the light.” It is rooted in the French word chatoyer which Larousse (www.Larousse.fr) defines as: “présenter des reflets changeants suivant le jeu de la lumière” — to play with light in a flickering movement. This term is often used in woodworking and gemology to refer to the way light catches the minute irregularities in the grain of the wood (or stone) giving it a luminous, almost

three-dimensional quality — as in curly maple.

Back outside, sun filters through the snowy trees and Lentz tosses a scoop of seed for the birds. Her reach is long and her smile broad. Dozens of birds swoop down. It is clear they know her well. Lentz grew up in Ontario, studied Archeology and Ecology at the University of Toronto, and then made a snap decision to join the RCMP. When it was time for her first placement, over thirty years ago, she decided she wanted to be by the ocean so she checked off each Maritime province. “My mistake was saying I wanted to be by the ocean,” she says with a laugh. “They sent me to Edmundston — the furthest point from the ocean in the Maritimes!” She smiles as she says this — her home and studio in a forest above a river in this remote place seems the perfect fit. As she and Pelletier built a life and raised a family in this corner of the province, she made another shift to full-time artist.

Lentz and Pelletier share a curiosity for the world around them, and a deep connection to the environment. The paths they’ve chosen may appear to have taken some sudden turns — a railroad engineer becomes a knifemaker — but perhaps it’s just the way a little light can expose new possibilities.

Pellet Knives, www.facebook.com/pelletknives/ Saint Jacques, N.B.

Adam Sweet grabs a carrot from the small refrigerator at the back of his downtown Charlottetown shop, and places it on the cutting board built into the long counter. A carrot may seem a banal way to demonstrate the beauty of a handcrafted Japanese knife, but it’s perfect for this demonstration. Sweet takes a knife that a customer has dropped off to be sharpened and slices the carrot. The worn knife tears at the carrot’s fibres. “A piece of carrot like this on your tongue is not going to touch as many taste buds as a flat piece,” Sweet says. He selects one of the perfect knives from beneath the glass and slices the carrot again. “Feel how smooth this is,” he says. “This changes the way your food tastes.”

Sweet is the owner and resident knower-of-all-thingssharp of The Cook’s Edge, a boutique kitchen store with the largest selection of handcrafted Japanese knives on Canada’s East Coast. What began as a small knife sharpening business is now a beautiful shop with knives for any skill or need, expert knife sharpening services, and a wealth of knife knowledge.

Sweet found his way to the world of knives by way of the kitchen. He is a French-trained chef who worked for years in restaurants in Alberta. “I kind of burned myself out so I moved back east and found myself in a restaurant again.” He began looking for an alternative to the kitchen that remained true to his passion for it. “I started sharpening

The Sweet art of the edge

Adam Sweet, owner of The Cook’s Edge in Charlottetown, shares some sharp wisdom

knives,” he says. Sweet’s sharpening enterprise quickly turned into a full-time occupation, a business proposal, and the funding he needed to open his shop. He partnered with a blacksmith in Japan and within two months had his first batch of knives. “Japanese knife-makers have a centuries-old tradition.” Sweet has visited Sakai City in Osaka, Japan — the capital of hand-forged knife-making and once the capital of sword-making. He met with blacksmiths, toured knife-making facilities, and is growing fluent in the Japanese language of knives.

Sweet’s favourite knife is the 240mL Gyuto — the Japanese word for ‘beef sword’, a 10-inch chef’s knife. “This is the most versatile knife, in my opinion.”

Sweet picks up a customer’s knife and pulls a stone from a shelf. Sharpening is a vital part of the business. “There are three kinds of stone: course, medium, and fine,” he explains. Stones are then categorized by a range of factors, including grit and location. “A specialized 220 grit stone from Naniwa is different from a 220 grit stone from Suehiro,” Sweet points out. Sweet’s fluency in the art of sharpening and means he is sought after by chefs and homecooks alike.

Sweet raises the knife to examine it, before placing it on the stone, “You can tell all sorts of habits from a person’s knife,” he says.

WORDS BY SARA SNOW

PHOTOS BY DAVE SNOW

Inspired in the intertidal zone

Seaside artist Alanna Baird repurposes and reimagines found objects and ideas.

WORDS BY SARA SNOW

PHOTOS BY DAVE SNOW

In the badlands of Alberta, a 17-foot ichthyosaur sits in a courtyard. On the other side of the continent, a 15-foot sea raven, typically a bottom-dwelling fish, overlooks a river in New Brunswick, and three mackerel swim along a trail on Prince Edward Island. Meanwhile, on either side of the Passamaquoddy Bay, an inlet of the Bay of Fundy, fish float in and out of galleries, gardens, homes, inns and restaurants.

Maker of Tin Fish

“I call my tin fish invasive because they are everywhere in St. Andrews,” Alanna Baird says with a laugh. Baird is an artist and is known to many as the “Maker of Tin Fish”. She is a sheet metal sculptor, print maker, analogue 3D pen artist, and former ceramicist. She works out of her solar-powered studio on a lane that leads down to the shore, as well as in the printmaking studio at Sunbury Shores Arts and Nature Centre in St. Andrews, N.B..

“I work in copper and I work in tin,” Baird explains. “A lot of this is locally sourced in that it arrives on my doorstep. Sometimes I don’t even know who drops it off.” Her work is

well-known in the community and friends and neighbours enjoy contributing to it, with coffee cans, cat food tins, soup cans, even pop bottles, that Baird transforms into works of art, inspired by the sea. “Sometimes I even get these lovely coloured ones, green or blue,” Baird says, pointing to a stack of blue tin. She began repurposing metals in Ottawa when she participated in a weathervane competition for the Museum of History. With no materials and a deadline, she found what she needed in her recycle bin. “Ottawa was also a good place to find copper, every time they repaired a roof,” she points out.

Baird takes a rivet gun hooked to a bungee cord that hangs from the ceiling and demonstrates how she pieces metal together. “I’ve been building fish for 31 years and the first couple with hand rivets which was very hard on the hands.” The rivet gun on the bungee cord makes the hours of riveting easier on her hands and her shoulders. She’s currently working on a tin boat. She started with a sketch, created a pattern on paper, tracing out its hull and gunnels, its sail, and then cut metal into pieces to shape and rivet, piece-by-piece, into a three-dimensional form.

Left and above: Alanna Baird in her Tin Fish Studio in St. Andrews by-the-sea.

Baird’s husband, Alastair Fox, is also working on a boat. His workshop is at the back of the studio building and today the sailor/boatbuilder is working on a powerboat.

Recently, Baird has been working with bronze, repurposing her own pottery forms from 30 years ago, creating wax molds that she then casts into bronze sculptures — part of her “Sea Urchin Series”. “These pieces are reminiscent of sea urchins,” she explains. When the tide goes out, globelike sea urchins, with their spiky but oh-so-fragile shells, are everywhere along the floor of the Passamaquoddy Bay. Baird’s bronze sea urchins give a weight and a permanence to these tiny, delicate creatures, guaranteeing them a longevity that would otherwise elude while capturing their textures and the way their forms break down as they tumble on the sea floor. Bronze Sea Urchin #3 is currently part of Craft NB’s Atlantic Vernacular virtual exhibit.

Playing with paper

Baird’s studio has many paper-based sea urchins, fish and other sea creatures, as she explores the art of printmaking. She has just participated in a print-making collection representing 25 artists from the US and Canada on invasive species for the Smithsonian Environmental Research Centre’s 2022 Altered Environments conference.

Baird’s contribution is a print of the golden star tunicate, an invasive species that is now found on the east and west coast of Canada and, if numbers are large enough, they will compete for food with filter feeders, such as mussels and scallops.

“Playing with paper is really interesting,” she says as she pauses to consider one of her prints. “I’m a much more three-dimensional person than two-dimensional but I often explore the idea of something two-dimensionally and then take it to three dimensions.” “This piece above your head, I don’t really know what this piece is because it’s so big, but it’s quite fun,” she says, reaching up to the paper orb covered in flying fish. It’s a series of lino block prints done individually and laminated onto a paper form — a Chinese technique that involves wet mounting,” she explains as she traces the lines around intricately printed fish on the paper orb. Layers of fragile paper strengthen one another on flat surfaces and on reed structures she creates.

Several of Baird’s paper-mounted works were part of the recent Printers Inc exhibit at the Andrew & Laura McCain Art Gallery in Florenceville, N.B., featuring prints by several artists from Sunbury Shores Arts and Nature Centre and Carleton County Artists. Dave and I had the opportunity to spend time in the gallery in June with this exhibit’s breadth of extraordinary two- and three-dimensional works on paper. Baird’s pieces, often suspended from the ceiling as if floating, create an ethereal space where sea creatures alight around our heads.

While Baird’s art is contemporary, her work, particularly her paper forms sometimes recall an age-old tradition or style that are of another place. Alanna Baird talks of how she’s always been influenced by her surroundings and explains how her childhood home was filled with a juxtaposition of Group of Seven prints next to the Chinese art and artifacts from her parents’ childhoods in China. “I grew up with my parents’ aesthetic with objects they cherished and that has affected my own aesthetic,” she explains.

Found objects and new perspective

Baird’s works are sometimes large — like her 17 foot “Ichthyosaur” at The Royal Terrell Museum in Drumheller, Alberta or “Spike, the sea raven” that sits beside the Huntsman Marine Science Centre in St Andrews, N.B.. She created “Ichtyosaur” to be a bicycle-powered float for a parade before it made its home at the museum. “Spike, the sea raven” came to life on a concrete pad next to her house in St. Andrews. As the large fish grew, Alastair built the studio up around her. When all but one wall was complete, she finished the fish and it was taken away to its new home. Throughout her studio and her home tiny objects have methomorphosized into creatures large and small — sitting on shelves, hanging from beams, and hiding in corners. A smaller ichtyosaur, the model of the larger, sits in a cubby over the stairs. In her cellar, she has hung several other-worldly orbs she’s created with a 3D analogue pen, in her recent experimentation with plastic. These pieces are intricate and translucent. They are

Left top: Baird demonstrates how she rivets each piece of metal to form the hull of the boat.

Left bottom: One of Baird’s Tin Fish hang in her house.

Right bottom: Floaters - lino block print laminated onto papiermaché form, Ginwashi paper as part of the Printers Inc exhibit at the Andrew & Laura McCain Art Gallery in Florenceville, N.B..

reminiscent of lacy candied syrup. Outside, flowers cling to the fence, created out of plastic bottles. Their weightless beauty contrasts with the weight of cast-away plastic and our dependence on the use of plastic for packaging.

Next to the doorway to her studio sits a large table covered in objects she’s collected along the shore. “All of this comes from the seascape that surrounds me because I’m walking down there all of the time looking at little tiny things.” Some of these are of-the-seashore while others have landed there because humans have tossed them away. “I’m like a crow,” she says, “Little objects attract my attention.”

Baird finds inspiration in a part of our planet that spends half of its time under water — the intertidal zone. Here, just steps from her front door, as the tide goes out she finds treasures, both organic and inorganic — shells, stones,

sea-creatures and their markings, sea glass and tossed away human-made items.

“I live right here by the water and the tides go in and out every day, exposing new things. I’m always picking things up, I have piles of things, but it speaks to me as a creator,” she says. “I like to change scale and do different things.”

In collecting, repurposing, and rethinking those often unnoticed or thrown-away objects Baird’s work causes us to consider our relationships with the world around us while also pulling us into an intimate view of creatures, and questions, we might never have considered.

Allana Baird St. Andrews-by-the-sea, N.B. tinfish.ca

Below: Fish bowl - papier-maché using Ginwashi paper, laminated lino block print layers, reed structures part of the Printers Inc exhibit at the Andrew & Laura McCain Art Gallery in Florenceville, N.B..

Above: Baird outside her studio with her adopted friend Sapphire. In the foreground, her table of collected objects and a bronze fish.

A curator for the people

Charlottetown-based photographer and filmmaker Gessy Robin is partnering with Receiver Coffee to showcase local artists.

Gessy Robin Gislain Shumbusho, or Gessy Robin as he’s known professionally and to his friends, is a Charlottetownbased photographer and director with an eye for dramatic portraiture and storytelling. He was born and raised in Rwanda, Kigali, and moved to Charlottetown five years ago from Montreal to study film and photographic arts at Holland college.

Last summer, this town is small, a PEI artist-run centre, and Receiver Coffee presented a solo show of Shumbusho’s work called “Beauty like a sunflower”. This summer he is the curator and he’s kicking off a year-long exhibit for Receiver Coffee’s Brass Shop featuring local emerging artists.

“I am bringing together under-represented artists,” Shumbusho says, “those who don’t get as much press or even an opportunity to show their work. These are artists who might post their work on instagram or online but to see their work in person is exciting.”

Shumbusho says that he loves to explore art, culture

Above: Self-portrait by Gessy Robin Shumbusho.

Below: A sample of work from Niyi Adeogun, a Charlottetown-based interdisciplinary artist who will be part of Shumbusho’s upcoming show.

and food from various places and is looking forward to including artists from a range of backgrounds, with diverse perspectives, in this exhibit. “The exhibit will feature of range of mediums,” Shumbusho says, “including painting, illustration, sculpture, fabric art, digital art and I am looking forward to seeing many of these together in this space.”

Niyi Adeogun is one of these artists. Adeogun is a Charlottetown-based artist and design engineer who collaborates with Shumbusho and Shumbusho’s brother Armel Gispain Shumbusho on creative projects. They are part of a growing community of emerging and talented creatives on the island.

this town is small has curated shows for Receiver Coffee’s Victoria Row location and owners Colleen MacKay, coowner of Receiver Coffee, says “We were excited when Gessy pitched this new show for our Brass Shop location.” “We have a great amount of respect for Gessy’s work,” Chris Francis, MacKay’s business partner, adds.

The Brass Shop is one of the oldest buildings in Charlottetown. Receiver Coffee opened their second location here in 2016. During the railway era, brass components for locomotives were polished here. “The idea of this old historic building filled with contemporary art is a very cool contrast,” Francis says. For Shumbusho, the opportunity to “showcase new and under-represented artists here is exciting,” he says.

gragstudio.com

receivercoffee.com

Receiver Coffee Brass Shop, 178 Water St., Charlottetown, P.E.I.

Above: Brothers, Armel Gispain Shumbusho and Gessy Robin. Armel is a photographer and creative director at GRAG Studio. He and Gessy work together as GRAG Studio.

WORDS BY SARA SNOW

PHOTOS BY GESSY ROBIN

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For the locals

With creativity, hard work and a little serendipity, Jon and Erin Welch have built a rural life.

WORDS BY SARA SNOW

PHOTOS BY DAVE SNOW

It’s a Saturday afternoon and sunshine pours in through the large front windows of Sissiboo Coffee Roaster’s Coffee Bar and Gallery in Bear River, Nova Scotia. Someone orders an espresso at the counter, two children pull their mom over to look at the baked goods, while a pair of travellers take their cups to the table by a big street-facing window. A group of cyclists has just come through for lunch and congregate on the sidewalk to chat. It is summer and, like many off-the-beaten-track spots throughout the Maritimes, it is buzzing.

For Jon and Erin Welch, owners of Sissiboo Coffee Roaster, this busy-ness is welcome. It makes rural life possible. At the same time, Jon and Erin do what they do for their community. “By local demand, it’s become a community hub,” Jon says with a smile. “We always said that we built our business for the locals,” Erin adds. “We knew there would be tourists in the summer and that would be great, but we would also need to make it all year round — for us and for our community.”

In 1989, Ray Oldenburg published a book called “The Great Good Place: cafés, coffee shops, bookstores,

bars, hair salons, and other hangouts at the heart of a community.” He was concerned with a growing “problem of place” — a loss of public spaces and increased isolation. The antidote, he suggested, are “third places” — those public places where people gather informally, outside of home and work, where everyone is on common ground and conversation is key. In rural communities, these are typically community halls and churches. Throughout the Maritimes there is a growing resurgence of “third places”.

Jon and Erin Welch know rural living well. It could be their own rural roots, and their inherent sense of what makes for community connectedness, that led them to Bear River, to coffee roasting and to their own gathering place — Sissiboo Coffee.

Like every great story, this one begins with a lasagne. For years, Jon and Erin Welch worked as tree planters in British Columbia — Jon from Cape Breton and Erin from northern B.C.. One night, when their crews were staying at the same hotel, rather than out at camps, Erin made herself a lasagne. “It was meant to last me for days — until my next day off,” she recalls. “And then there was Jon and

he was hungry… so I offered him a piece. I guess he really liked it because he finished the whole thing,” she says with a smile, “I wasn’t expecting that but he offered to wash the dishes and he made me laugh the entire night. It was a good trade.”

Both Erin and Jon suggest that roasting coffee follows naturally from tree planting. “Usually on a day off from planting,” Jon recalls, “we would end up in the best coffee shop, and we’d talk with the roaster and I always thought it would be something that would be fun to explore.”

“As tree planters,” Erin adds, “we could be our own bosses so being entrepreneurial felt right. And moving to Bear River 12 years ago it really felt like we could choose anything and try to make a go of it.”

The village of Bear River is located on either side of the tidal river that flows into the Annapolis Basin. Creeks and winding roads make their way down into the village from almost every direction, where several buildings stand on stilts and a bridge connects the village at its centre. A large blue clapboard building that backs onto the river is home to Sissiboo Coffee’s Bear River roastery, coffee bar and gallery. The café and gallery open to the street while the back of the building is dedicated to roasting and packaging. The Welchs lovingly refer to the building as ‘The Rebekah’, a nod to its long history as a gathering place.

A decade and a half ago, Jon had been dividing his time between B.C. and N.S. when he found an old house in Bear River. “I had a romantic notion then that I could buy this old derelict house and restore it,” he says. “But I didn’t have the means to buy it so someone else did.” But Bear River had made an impression so the Welchs found another house. “I always joke that when I first met Jon he had a homing device set for the Maritimes and he was very generous in making it known that I could come with him, but he was heading there,” Erin says with a laugh.

“When we first moved back Erin started a landscaping business, I started construction,” John says. “And when we first bought this building in 2008 we had no real plans.” They may not have had had “real plans” for ‘The Rebekah’ initially, but a view of what it could be slowly came into view. Friends reminded Jon of his interest in coffee

Page 29: Sign outside Sissiboo Coffee Roaster in Bear River

Left: Jon and Erin Welch

Right top: Barista Jess pulling a shot behind the counter. Right bottom: The big roaster

roasting so he invested in a small roaster and dedicated months to experimentation — with beans, roasting times and temperatures. “I don’t know how other people roast, I just know how I do it,” Jon says. In 2009 Jon and Erin started selling their small-batch coffee at the Annapolis Royal Farmers & Traders Market.

“People started saying to us, ‘Hey, we’d love to get a cup of coffee every day,’” Erin says. “So we partnered with a friend on a storefront on the main drag of Annapolis Royal, and that first winter, 2015, was the epic snowstorm winter with snowbanks four feet high. People were literally crawling up and down snow banks to come and spend $2 on a cup of coffee, all winter long. That support of local people is something we have never taken for granted.” This support has buoyed their entrepreneurial spirit and inspired them as they create a place for locals and travellers to get a fine cup of coffee, to gather and to take in art by local artists.

The small roaster is still here and occasionally Jon will fire it up for a special roast. Past that roaster, to a long room at the back of the building where a loading bay door opens to trees and the river, sits another larger roaster. Jon roasts approximately 1500 pounds of coffee a month to supply their market stall, cafés and wholesale customers. The Welchs source organic, fairly traded beans and work hard to create a premium coffee, “as an expression of deep respect for our producers.” They see their relationship with coffee producers as a “bridge” between rural economies thousands of kilometres from one another.

The creativity of community

Their attention to the perfect roast is matched by the Welchs’ commitment to their community. Erin describes opening up their cafés as galleries for local artists as something that happened “organically”, growing out of the artful community that surrounds them. “When we first started, I wasn’t thinking how it would go five or six years down the road,” Erin says. “There is so much incredible talent here, we have hardly had a repeat show in the last six years and 80% of the work has been original work created for these shows.” They accept submissions from artists in SouthWest N.S. region. “Every six weeks I get to take down a show and hang new artwork and it just

Middle: Jon Welch at the Sissiboo booth at the Annapolis Royal Farmers and Traders Market.

Bottom: A rug by local rughooker Roger Pulver.

Left top: A bag of Sissiboo Coffee Roaster Coffee.

Left bottom: In conversation, over coffee, at the Sissiboo Coffee Bar in Bear River.

never ceases to amaze me the talent that is here,” Erin says.

“The nature of the gallery lends itself to be experimental — there is a lightness to the atmosphere,” Erin says. “And we have the opportunity to show mediums that don’t typically get a lot of wall space in a gallery.” December is dedicated to local elementary students’ artwork. “I get to see a lot of children’s art because I have young kids but I realized that first winter that I hung the show that so many people no longer get to see children’s art en masse ,” she says. “So that’s always super fun. We have one for Children Really Matter Elementary School and one for a Muin Sipu Learning Center in L’sitkuk, Bear River First Nation. They often use it as a fundraiser and we have a silent auction on the pieces. Aunts and uncles get pretty competitive and it’s a lot of fun.”

Supporting local

Two strangers look up at the menu. One says “Hello” to the other and “What a fine day.” They order their coffees and chat about the weather and traffic at the corner this morning.

Jon takes us past shelves full of beautifully packaged coffee beans. “There’s just a real commitment here,” he says. “I sound like we’ve been here forever now and we haven’t, but

12 years is a chunk of time in the lifespan of a community and even back then there was such commitment to supporting those of us who have chosen to do something here. We feel very loved.”

And that old “derelict house” that originally caught Jon’s eye years ago? The Welchs bought it five years ago when it went up for sale again. “The house I wanted when I was 26 is where we live now,” Jon says with a smile.

Sissiboo Coffee Roastery, Coffee Bar & Gallery, 1890 Clementsvale Rd., Bear River, N.S. and Sissiboo Coffee Café, 262 St George St. Annapolis Royal sissiboocoffee.com

For the love of food

Al Douglas, Island photographer and videographer, has become widely recognized throughout the region for his stunning perspective on food and the Atlantic coast. Dave Snow chats with Douglas about photography, food and tliving well.

DS: As a photographer who has worked extensively in the food world, how would you describe your approach?

AD: When I began, I was looking at every plate, every piece of food, every ingredient as a work of art, especially those ingredients we have on PEI and not just the typical

oysters, mussels, lobster or whatever. These are all beautiful in their own right but a lot of ingredients here are kind of just starting to come to the forefront of the culinary world such as foraged foods.

DS: Bringing foraged ingredients out in an image, on a plate, is an interesting challenge — things that people wouldn’t normally find or see at a grocery store.

AD: We’re surrounded by all of these edible things that just need a little bit of education for people to be able to use a little bit better or a little bit more. I love seeing people use lovage, for example, in different dishes now and being able to help with that and being able to tell that story.

DS: What was your first food gig?

AD: I kind of relate all this back to my family being in the restaurant business. When I was super young, my family had a restaurant in town called Mini’s and my uncle, my aunt, my mom all worked in this restaurant. I don’t really have detailed memories of it but I was definitely around. Having family involved in the food community on PEI at a young age I was exposed to it, whether I knew that or not at the time and it pushed me to appreciate food a little more. Also, my mom and my aunts and my great aunts were always baking and cooking around me. It stuck all the way through — that appreciation for food. And as I got older it was one of those things where I realized that I really really liked eating food. I thought, if I could make a living eating all kinds of food that would be perfect.

DS: It goes very well with the camera.

AD: It does! As I say this out loud now I feel like this whole life of mine of photographing and filming food is just a way for me to eat more of it.

DS: When did you start shooting food?

AD: When Instagram first started I noticed that there was a way to take photos of food that was interesting. I had always been taking photos, whether it was with film cameras, or DSLRs, but it wasn’t necessarily about being a food photographer. It was landscapes and people and that kind of thing. Mostly just for fun but as Instagram started rolling and I could see food photography was a thing

and that pushed me down that route. Getting involved with the Murphy Hospitality Group would have been my first real exposure professionally. And I think having that background in food and an appreciationhelped propel me a little further. I started thinking this is something that I actually really enjoy amd tell a story.

DS: Your work must lead to more work. Was your work with Michael Smith and his cookbook the first book you’ve been part of?

AD: It was the first. I had done some one-offs for magazines but hadn’t done a cookbook and the process was very cool. Michael wanted someone from the island to handle the photography. He’s very connected this place and wanted someone who was equally connected. We shot that cookbook in Summer 2019. It was an incredible process, working with a food stylist and chef Tanya Kelly at Inn at Bay Fortune, and Michael was great. He came with a direction but let our creativity move it forward — he let us run with it and he trusted in my work. He knew how I portray things and let us do what we do best. The book came out in spring of 2021. And then two months later, we were shooting the next book for him.

DS: What’s your favorite thing to eat?

AD: That’s a tough question. There’s so much. When I think of my favourite food it’s what brings me back to the best memories. That’s the big thing for me is it’s not so much the food itself but what it means and what it means at the time. So early summer, about this time of year, it’s new potatoes from PEI, fresh yellow beans, lots of butter and steak. That is quintessential summertime. cooking over a fire outside with my family around. In a big cast iron pan with with new potatoes, peppers, beans, steak — that is perfection to me. It’s brilliant.

DS: And your favourite beverage?

AD: Any kind of cold beer. As long as it’s cold that works for me.

Al Douglas Charlottetown, P.E.I. aldouglas.ca

PHOTOS BY AL DOUGLAS

The chemistry of slow

A group of coffee innovators in Moncton, N.B. invite you to take your time.

WORDS BY SARA SNOW

PHOTOS BY DAVE SNOW

The chemistry that makes a great cup of coffee begins where it grows — with the humidity, the soil and the temperature, and continues as growers harvest the beans and those beans make their way to roasters around the world. The roasting process then brings out a myriad of chemical reactions, not least of which is the way the bean’s polysaccharides and amino acids react with one another. Small changes in the length of time and the heat of the roast will affect the flavour, its body, its acidity, and so much more. For Conor Conway and the entire Epoch Chemistry team, those complex reactions are crucial but it is the interactions that occur over a cup of coffee they find most compelling.

“Epoch means a moment in time,” says Conway, co-owner of Epoch Chemistry, “and for us it’s about that moment we take for coffee.” In that spirit, Epoch Chemistry’s coffees are categorized by a period of the day. An Epoch 6 is a decadent, bold first-coffee-of-the-day coffee, while an Epoch 9 is perfect for that mid-morning brew. The bean’s origin may change but the Epoch 9 will always have a “sweet, round, silky-mouth feel” Conor explains.

Rachelle Leger heads up the roasting at Epoch Chemistry. Leger came to Epoch with nearly a decade in Moncton’s coffee world and an interest in learning the art of the roast. She serves up a cappuccino with finesse and leads us to her roasting room at the back of the historic red brick building that houses Epoch Chemistry Tasting Room on St. George Street in the heart of Moncton. The roasting room is a small office complete with white board, desk, buckets of beans and a roaster. “Typical roasters would be in a larger room but this is what we’re working with and because I am the only roaster it works,” Leger says as she steps up to the slick, compact machine. “This is not your traditional roaster,” she explains as she touches the display screen, bringing it to life. “Being carbon neutral was a huge push for us so we found this model from South Korea. It’s innovative technology and fully electric.” Leger can control the machine from her phone, log profile data and save settings as she goes.

Together, Leger and Conway assess and record roasting profiles. They log results and origin details on their website, tracking the process as they go.

Leger currently roasts approximately 250 pounds per week and is hoping to double that. With Epoch’s second location now open in Saint John’s Area 506 this is likely going to happen quickly. Asked how she prefers to make herself a cup of coffee she chooses the pour over ice brew. “They call me the Ice Queen,” she says.

Left: Rachelle Leger creates art in a cup.

Right top: Shop shelves with Epoch coffee and other items.

Right middle: Leger at the roaster.

Right bottom: Buckets of green beans ready for roasting.

Building on the shared philosophy of taking time, Conway and his team offer a new way to enjoy a cup of coffee: the Tasting Experience. The Tasting Experience is an opportunity for individuals and groups to explore a range of brewing styles and roasts with expert guidance. Just as a wine tasting is about deepening one’s understanding of the flavours, aromas and general characteristics of a wine, Epoch Chemistry’s Tasting Experience is about gaining a deeper understanding of origins, roast profiles, flavours and brewing techniques. This experience is not simply about enjoying a cup of coffee, it’s about learning through experience. “Our purpose is to fuel community through conversation,” Conway says, “We are very deliberate about this.”

Conway comes to coffee by way of music and music education. He plays the trumpet and has worked as a professional touring musician, performing with orchestras in Ontario and New Brunswick. He and his wife relocated to Moncton from Ontario as music educators to work with Sistema NB, a music education program with roots in Venezuela’s El Sistema, a program that provides children with the instrument of their choice and free instruction. Similarly, Sistema NB’s program is all about social change through music and now operates in nine centres throughout the province. With this background, it’s no surprise that education and engagement are central to Epoch Chemistry.

Conway draws several parallels between music and coffee, in particular the importance of practice and preparation. “Music and coffee serve the same purpose in my life in that they are both a constant challenge,” he explains. The experience Conway has gained as a musician at practice, preparation and performance has undoubtedly contributed to his success in barista competitions. This spring he competed in a Toronto qualifying event for the World Barista Competition and, as one of the top six, he will be competing in the National Barista Competition in Vancouver

in August. Competitors prepare three courses in 15 minutes, following a large set of rules and then scored in three categories — sensory, technical and performance. This year’s finals will take place in Melbourne, Australia at the end of September.

Despite Conway’s competitive spirit and his intense passion for a perfect cup of coffee, he swears by Epoch Coffee’s motto “In praise of slow”. “It doesn’t matter if you have two minutes or 100 minutes,” he explains, “You can always carve out a piece of slow.” How does Conway prepare a cup for himself? A slow and thoughtful pour over, and his two-year old son is learning the art of slow with his own coffee-free pour over set.

At the front of the shop, Bryce Kibler is talking with a customer about a new cold brew. When asked how he prefers his coffee, he responds with a simple “Yes”. Kibler found his way to Epoch by way of a Tasting Experience bachelor party he attended. He fell in love with the experience and the concept. He’s now part of the team, hosting events and creating educational content.

Alexander Aubé is behind the counter today. He pulls a shot of espresso, his preferred brew. Aubé has just started at Epoch Chemistry. He’s a transplant from Bathurst and has immersed himself in Moncton’s growing coffee culture. It’s just his second day on the job and the chemistry is palpable. Aubé has quickly become part of the family, a tightly knit team of coffee lovers super keen on delivering that perfect moment.

Epoch Chemistry Coffee Tasting Room, 400 St. George St., Moncton, N.B. and Epoch Chemistry Coffee House, Area 506, Saint John, N.B. epoch.coffee

Left: The Epoch Chemistry team including Olivia, Alexander, Sam, Rachelle, Sam, Rachel, Conor, and Bryce. Missing two Olivias.

Top: A cortado, equal parts milk or alternative and espresso.

Above: Alexander brewing up a second day on the job at Epoch Chemistry.

OCTOBER 1–2, 2022 | DENVER, CO

Join thought leaders, writers, innovators, and industry experts in Denver as we celebrate 20 years of telling the story of local food and explore the ideas, challenges and changes that will shape our food communities in the next decade and beyond. For more information, visit edibleinstitute.com

Edible is pleased to announce Dr. Temple Grandin as our keynote speaker for this year’s Institute.

Dr. Grandin is a scientist whose ground-breaking work in animal behavior has helped shape standards of excellence for the humane treatment of animals around the world.

Art by Niyi Adeogun

On the back cover of this issue we are pleased to feature a piece by Niyi Adeogun.

Niyi is a Nigerian interdisciplinary artist, design engineer and creative entrepreneur working as a Creative Director for ZeroResistance Studios. Niyi has been passionate about art and design since his early childhood years. He kept his zeal on hold for a while until 2015, when he began to explore his faith, which led him to go into graphic/digital arts. He finished at UPEI with a B.Sc in Sustainable Design Engineering. Over the past years, Niyi has been involved in project management and execution, creating communitydriven events. He also helps brands develop their identities by providing design services and advice based on his experience creating logos, style guides, startup branding kits, design libraries, and conceptual and modern art.

His work will be part of an upcoming exhibit at Receiver Coffee’s Brass Shop in Charlottetown, P.E.I.