Best of Blush

Adventures in Keremeos

2011-10-04T11:49:00.012-06:00

700 Kilometers outside of Calgary and passed almost just as many fruit stands, lies the Similkameen Valley. The valley is the lesser known little brother of the well known Okanagan Valley, and though smaller, its just as full with fruit orchards, especially certified organic orchards.

The main centers in the valley are Cawston and Keremeos. Like in the Okanagan, the streets of both towns are lined with fruit stands. One of these stands, just outside of Keremeos, is the Blush Lane fruit stand and behind the stand, is the Blush Lane Organic Orchard.

I was lucky enough to have spent four days on the Blush Lane orchard, learning about tree fruit production, touring local organic orchards and meeting the amazing people who produce our food. I have been working for Blush Lane for over a year, and in that year have seen a lot of produce and a lot of produce boxes. On each of these boxes is a label, stating the organic certifying body and the name of the farm it comes from. As time goes on you start to notice patterns, whenever you see especially beautiful produce, the names of a handful of farms is usually the source. The chance to meet some of these farmers, is a real honour, especially for someone, like myself, who wants to farm.

You can't spend much time on the orchard before you do get to meet one of the local organic farmers. There are farmers dropping off their amazing produce, to be shipped to Calgary within 24 hours, regularly throughout the day. Rob Horricks, one of the Blush Lane owners, spends his summers taking care of the Blush Lane orchard and ensuring the farmers get a fair price for their product and our customers get the highest quality organic produce. Cutting out the middle man allows the farmers to get a better price for their produce and because of that, they bring their produce to Rob at the orchard, first. Handing the farmer a cheque for their produce as they're dropping it off, is, unfortunately, a rare thing. Usually your lucky to get payment within 30 days of selling produce. Because Rob does this, not only does he get the freshest produce, he also gets the highest quality.

A number of these farmers were nice enough to let me spend some time touring around their farm and picking their brains about the organic industry. One was Fred Danenhower, of Danenhower and Daughters farm. Fred and his family have a main orchard, where they live, and an orchard they lease close by. The Danenhowers provide us with everyone's favourite apple, the Honeycrisp, along with a number of other great varieties. While I was visiting, the Danenhowers were doing summer pruning on their Fuji apples. Summer pruning means removing the foliage blocking the apples from the sunlight. During the hottest part of the summer, you need foliage to protect the fruit from getting sunburned. But in the late summer/early fall, you can prune it off, without risk of sun damage. Pruning the foliage helps improve colour on the apple, resulting in a more marketable piece of fruit. The one thing that the Danenhowers and every other farmer I talked to kept bringing up was how late all the fruit was this season. Most were worried about even being able to harvest some of their later varieties, like Pink Lady. Most of the fruit was up to three weeks later than other years. That's why we haven't seen all of the apple varieties customers are used to at this time of the year, but its also the reason we get to be spoiled with amazing summer fruit a bit longer then other years.

Another farmer who let me pick his brain was Art Nugteren, from Art and Lina's Garden.

Art and Lina grow the most amazing cherry tomatoes I've ever had. Everything that comes off this farm just seems special: it stands out from among the rest. Along with cherry tomatoes, they grow amazing peppers, zucchini, roma tomatoes, beans, corn, etc. Art showed me around and gave me a vision of the whole process, start to finish. I saw the greenhouses where they start all their own transplants and where they grow their transplants until they're ready to go in the ground. I got to see the end process as well, as Lina and her family were busy picking peppers while I was visiting.

We have a special friendship with both of these farmers, not only do they provide us with great produce, but both of their daughters work at the Blush Lane fruit stand outside the orchard. Fred Danenhower's daughter is planning on moving to Calgary and you may be able to hear all about her Mom and Dad's orchard as she joins our Blush Lane team at the Calgary Farmers Market. Rob has also set up a university fund for Art's daughter, as the profits from her Dad's cherry tomatoes sold at the fruit stand will help her pay for her schooling.

While at the orchard, I got the opportunity to see a different side of Blush Lane. I've always known a bit about the orchard and I've also known that we buy direct from organic farmers in the area. I knew that buying direct from farmers allow us to provide our customers with the

freshest, highest quality produce, but what I didn't understand was how much the farmers benefit from our arrangement. These farmers were some of the hardest working, most dedicated people I've met. I love being part of a company that places a priority on ensuring they get a fair price for their hard work and amazing products. I love being part of the bridge between farmer and consumer. It's great to connect farmers with new markets and new customers, who appreciate their produce.

Next time you're at one of our Blush Lane locations, don't be afraid to ask where your produce is coming from. You may get to hear about one of the great people that grow our food. When your salivating over an amazing peach in your home, you can feel good knowing your helping one of those great farmers. Farmers who choose to grow organically, sell locally and follow their passion by making a living farming. By taking care of their land, they're ensuring that not only their children, but also their grandchildren will have a future farming. Being a small part of this, to me, is something worth being proud of.

Great local veg!

2011-08-29T09:10:00.004-06:00

For obvious reasons at this time of year, the BC fruit tends to get the spotlight. But I wanted to tell you about all the great BC and Alberta veggies we have on our shelves. The past few weeks have seen a transformation of the veg coolers from Northern US states to almost nearly 100% Canadian produce.

Here`s a photo of Rob`s heirloom tomatoes, straight from the Blush Lane Organic Orchard in Keremeos, BC. The garlic (Red Russian variety) is also from BC, and Art and Lina grew the Roma and cherry tomatoes. This week we also have peppers arriving from them, and below I am linking to the post, back in April, of the starts in their greenhouse. Hard to believe that they are now reaping the harvest of these tiny plants. If you`ve ever grown your own food, you know the gratification of that first, ripe tomato, or the unmatched taste of the first picking of spinach. We`re lucky to have great people like Art and Lina to grow our food for us: it doesn`t get any better than this!
On this wall we have some more great BC and Alberta veg: BC celery, red peppers, bunched beets, cauliflower, and corn; Art and Lina`s eggplant, zucchini, mini sweet peppers and herbs; Parsnips, leeks, and field cukes; Alberta red spring onions, herbs and potatoes from Busy Bea`s Market Garden.

Enjoy it while it lasts; soon enough we`ll be back in March, lamenting the poor quality of the produce, dreaming of this time of year. Somebody pinch me!

I FOUND OUR MASCOT!!

2011-08-24T19:24:00.004-06:00

Today, while putting out the White Champagne Peaches in preparation for the Farmer's Market tomorrow, I FOUND OUR MASCOT!!

I must explain: a few months ago, they got me to draw up a graphic of a peach, to use as an alternate logo to represent our company. So, in the photo above you see the peach I drew, which is on our new sign stock. Below it, you see the real-life mascot! It even nearly has a heart-shaped blush!

I guess life really does inspire art!

Peaches! Peaches! PEACHES!

2011-08-22T11:15:00.002-06:00

Our Freestone Peaches are abundant, juicy, delicious, and you should buy some: If you buy 3 or more cases, you'll get them for $40 a case. There's only about 3 weeks left of these babies, so get them now and get your preserving done; the price will not get lower this year on these, nor could the taste get any better!

I'll have lots available for pickup at Northlands Farmer's Market this Tuesday from 3:30-7:00, or visit our Aspen Woods store or Calgary Farmer's Market location.

I always say that we have the best peaches in town: I can be confident in that, the way that only a person who has a peach on her business card can be! If you don't believe me, come visit us and try one!

Northland Farmer's Market (Crowchild and Shaganappi Tr NW) Tuesdays 3:30 - 7:00
Blush Lane Organic Market, Aspen Woods (17th Ave and 85th Street SW) Mon - Sat 9-8, Sun 10-8
Blush Lane in Market 17, Casel Marche, (17th Ave and Crowchild) Mon - Sat 9-8, Sun 10-6
Calgary Farmer's Market, (Heritage and Blackfoot) Thurs 11-7, Fri-Sun 9-5
Millarville Farmer's Market (Millarville Racetrack, Hwy 22 S) Saturdays 9-2

Looking forward to sending lots and lots of peachy love your way this week!

Dillon Produce Courier Service

2011-08-11T15:20:00.008-06:00

Ever since I moved to Calgary seven years ago, my Mom (who has her own market garden in Manitoba) has been shipping produce with anyone who has the unlucky fortune to let her know that they are going to, or driving through, or going to be anywhere in the relative vicinity of Calgary. I've picked up boxes from all over the city: from the trunks of cars at five in the morning, from people's doorsteps who I've never met, at obligatory visits with relatives from out of town.

When I started working at Blush Lane, I finally had something to send back with those poor souls who had turned into our personal courier service. At this time of year, one doesn't dare mention "Calgary" or even "Alberta" around my mother, who refuses to eat any peach other than a Blush Lane one, and ate so many nectarines when she was pregnant with me that the mere thought of a juicy, sweet nectarine gets me salivating.

She left me an excited message early this week that her neighbour Susan is going to be coming to Calgary for a few days and has "the whole backseat!" available for fruit transit. So, she called again today to see what is available.

Well, poor Susan couldn't have picked a better (or worse, depending on how you look at it) time to drive out to Calgary. We've got ridiculous. That's RIDICULOUS. Peaches. (There has to be a period after it just so you pause and consider what it means for a peach to be. RIDICULOUS.) They are incredible.
We have mini nectarines, which are everything you want from a great nectarine, just mini. Amazing apricots, something you can't truly appreciate until you've had a really, truly, amazing one. Santa Rosa plums, one of which juiced all over the front of my shirt today, and I couldn't even care because my eyes were watering with the deliciousness! Even my favourite, prune plums, such a surprising yellow on the inside and not too sweet. And of course, we still have cherries and blueberries, sweet and flavourful and beautiful.

So, it looks like Susan's going to have a very full car when she goes back to Manitoba, and a few lucky people in Brandon will get to have a taste of our veritable rainbow of seasonal summer fruit. Maybe if I'm lucky I'll get a kohlrabi or a bag of cucumbers in return!

Back in Blush!

2011-08-04T15:14:00.011-06:00

Though this is our lucky number 7 weekend back in the Calgary Farmer's Market, it didn't really feel like we were back until the direct shipments from the orchard started, and we were back to wading in Blush Boxes for another season.

I love Blush Boxes. They are the perfect size, they have handles, and there's numerous ways you can cut them and stack them and make them look awesome, en masse. Even my pet bunnies live in them. They look especially great when filled with perfect, direct-shipped tree-ripe peaches.

Why is the product that we receive direct so special, you ask? Anything that we get in direct has typically been picked within hours of loading on to the truck, either from our orchard or one of our neighbours in the Keremeos/Cawston area. Since we are a relatively small local company, we are able to get in the product as fresh as possible and have it in all of our stores usually the same day. That's something that the bigger grocery chains just can't do, due to centralized warehousing and distribution.

Also, one of the owners spends the summers in the Orchard in Keremeos, working on relationships with all the organic farmers in the area, seeing what is being picked, securing quantities, and giving the farmers a fair price for their product.
There's a lot of work that goes behind bringing you a perfect peach, and I'm proud to be part of a company that supplies such amazing quality organic produce to Calgarians!

We're "Back in Blush" at the CFM, 510 - 77th Avenue SE, Blackfoot Trail and Heritage Drive, so come buy your own Blush box of our perfect peaches today!

Stonefruit season begins...

2011-07-09T13:19:00.005-06:00

Stonefruit season has begun, and though we've been getting this California fruit for a number of weeks now, it doesn't truly "begin" to me until I take a bite of that first perfect tree-ripe peach. We are hopefully about a week away from the start of the BC cherries, moving into apricots, plums, nectarines, peaches, summer apples, melons, squash-- I can hardly wait!

Here's some photos of us appreciating the fruit in Blush Lane today!
California Stonefruit in all its glory!

Jeda enjoys the first tree-ripe peach of the season! I found it, perfectly ripe, in the bottom of the peach box. I couldn't resist cutting it up and sharing it around the store! We were covered in juice but thoroughly satisfied!

How gorgeous is that?!

Pascal’s Patisserie - June 17, 2011

2011-06-17T14:34:00.003-06:00

What’s better than fine French pastries in a Paris cafe? Fine French pastries right out of your oven! Now you can enjoy artisanal French pastries made with all natural locally sourced ingredients any time you want with Pascal’s Patisserie Take & Bake French Pastries.

Pascal’s Patisserie is a new local business headed by a classically trained French Pastry Chef from Toulouse France with 20 years experience and who has the knowledge of the classic French style of pastry-making in his head, his hands and his heart.

Blending time-honoured tradition and craftsmanship with technology, he creates fabulous French pastries unbaked vacuum-sealed and fresh for your freezer to enjoy whenever you wish.

All you do is thaw, bake and voilà..the best pastries this side of Paris! Your home has the amazing aroma of a French patisserie and you’ve just transported yourself to France - no passport or brushing up on your high school French required.

Perfect for weekend brunches or with your favourite coffee or tea. Beautiful for summer wedding breakfasts or make any moment special with these classic continental treats. Bake up a few and bring to the office and your colleagues will adore you. Executive business and board meetings will never be the same. Your book club, girls get-together, meet-up groups, bridge club, any time any where is a great time and place for French pastries.

The boutique menu includes: classic croissant, cinnamon rolls and pain au chocolat. If you’re going to treat yourself, say ‘oui’ to these! Pastry lovers of the world unite! You can have authentic classic French pastry - warm right out of your oven. Pick up a package in the frozen section and add a little ‘ooh la la’ to your life!

pascals@shaw.ca
www.pascals.ca

June 8 - Wine and Cheese at Casel Marche

2011-06-08T19:55:00.002-06:00

As we speak, there's a celebratory wine and cheese going on at Casel Marche. Jon and I set up a display of our beautiful produce as a hint of what's to come on the Grand Opening Saturday June 11, when we will be fully stocked and open for business!

Cheese of the Month - Natural Pastures Smoked Boerenkaas

2011-06-04T15:28:00.005-06:00

One of our most popular cheeses now comes in a smoked version! Ever since I started working in the deli at Blush, (yes even the old deli!), the Boerenkaas was always hands down, the most popular cheese. Made by Natural Pastures Cheese Company, in Courtenay, British Columbia, they place great importance on animal stewardship and sustainability. After reading a bit about their cheese-making processes from their website, I learned they pride themselves in using fresh milk from local farms, practising sustainable farming with the cows raised on a grass-fed diet in a healthy environment. Their numerous varieties of cheese-- all of which you can find in our store-- have true quality artisanal taste!

Boerenkaas, in Dutch translating to "farmer's cheese", is a semi-hard cheese with salty and buttery tones, with a slight sweetness towards the end. It is wonderful in everything from soups, salads, omelettes, pizzas and is even used in the Tuscan turkey sandwiches we sell! It is as versatile in food as it in on a cheese platter with red or white wine. Just recently, we got in a smoked version of the Boerenkaas. Not surprising to me, it was just recently announced a winner in its category of "Flavoured Cheese with Added Non-Particulate Flavouring" at the 2011 Canadian Cheese Grand Prix: considered the most prestigious cheese competition in Canada. It is cold-smoked using a blend of local hardwoods in their own smokehouse. The smoked Boerenkaas retains the sweet and buttery tones of the original, with a wonderful smoky finish that lingers. The uses to this cheese are countless and is just as great on its own.

It's hard to explain how amazing it tastes in words, so come try it out for yourself and you will be hooked!

By guest blogger Regina

Hotchkiss Alberta-Grown Heirloom Tomatoes!

2011-05-22T16:37:00.004-06:00

A co-worker and I had a discussion today about Hotchkiss-- we forget, as produce nerds, that not everyone knows what "Hotchkiss" means in Calgary. She was snooping in someone's fridge, and found a little bag of greens, and exclaimed, "Is that Hotchkiss?" (I can just picture the retort, "No, it's Arugula!").

So, if you don't know about Hotchkiss, you need to! Hotchkiss is the most local produce we get here in Calgary, short of growing it in our own gardens. Plus, a lot of their farm is indoors, which means it's gracing our shelves year-round! Arriving on our doorstep, the day after it's picked is chard, arugula, potted herbs, romaine lettuce, spinach, sundried tomatoes, pea shoots, beans, broccoli, purple cauliflower, carrots, green onions, and ridiculously beautiful heirloom tomatoes!

Hotchkiss, to us produce nerds, is synonymous with quality: the best of the best.
http://www.hotchkissproduce.com/

Fresh Heirloom tomates from Hotchkiss, $4.99/lb

For more on this story, follow the blog this week when we take a field trip to visit the Hotchkiss farm in Rockyview, Alberta.

Regina writes about Oka!

2011-05-14T10:10:00.004-06:00

When I am asked for recommendations on the perfect cheese for a cheese platter, the first thing that always comes to mind is the Oka cheeses! For anyone who has ever asked me for my favourite cheese, I always get excited and encourage everyone to try the Oka. It was the first cheese I tried when I started working in the deli and I have been in love ever since.

Named after the small village in Quebec in which it is made,( just southwest of Montreal), Oka has become a household name in Quebec since it was first made by Trappist Monks in 1893. All five have a relatively similar taste and texture profile but each is hidden with a unique flavour. (Each is ripened for different periods of time and each rind is handled differently.) My personal favourites are the Oka Classique and Oka Artisan, both made with raw milk, with a perfect balance of nuttiness and butter tones, I can eat a few slices of both just on their own. Oka Mushroom has been a recent addition to our deli, with the wonderful creaminess of the Oka Classique with delicious mushrooms, it won 1st Place in flavoured cheese category at the Quebec Fine Cheese Contest in 2010. However, they are also the mildest in flavour of the Oka's, so if you are looking for something a bit stronger, the Oka Regular or the Oka Raclette (are best). Both cheeses are ripened for over 35 days in the cellars of the Cistercian Abbey in Oka, before shipped, and possess intensified aromas of butter and hazelnuts. The Oka Raclette is made in the traditional style of the Oka, with the culture of Raclette, giving it the most intense flavour of all, while still retaining its creamy texture.

Classified as a semi-soft, the Oka's are perfect for crackers, cheese platters, wine pairings, cooking and it is perfect for melting. The rind of the Oka's intensify the flavour but are wonderful eaten without it as well.

I have used the Oka Artisan in sandwiches and burgers, as well as pizza's and nachos! (In fact, my perfect snack is cubes of Oka Mushroom with Falafel Chips, washed down with a GT Kombucha!), After reading more about the Oka's, I found countless recipes using the cheese, in poutine, pasta's, fondues, pastries, and basically anything imaginable!

So come try the Oka's in our deli today, you will not be disappointed! As a nice little bonus, the Oka's are also 15% off until May 29th!

Interesting recipe.
http://www.pleasureandcheeses.ca/recipes/oka-cheese-twists

By Regina

Blush Lane Organic Orchard in bloom!

2011-04-23T17:01:00.011-06:00

Here's some current photos of the orchard. It's beautiful and in bloom!

The season begins...

2011-04-22T10:41:00.013-06:00

We live in a society of instant gratification. Not many of us stop to think about where our food comes from, never mind when and where it starts. Though we are a long way off from Art and Lina's sugar-sweet cherry tomatoes, and their beautiful multi-shaped and -coloured zucchini and peppers, the work season has already begun for these folks.
Below are some photos of the started plants in the greenhouses at Art and Lina's. In the months to come, we'll be enjoying the fruits of their labour. I can't wait for a bite into the first grape tomato of the season, bursting with flavour!

Mexican Fiesta for two different diets!

2011-04-05T15:30:00.006-06:00

So, I'm 8 days into my gluten-free experiment, and haven't found it to be too much of a struggle as of yet. Luckily I am surrounded by tons of great products to discover. Such as falafel chips, which proved a great gluten-free alternative to tortillas for last night's supper.
Derek's regular answer to what to make for dinner is chicken fajitas. He bought some Tres Marias whole wheat tortillas the other day, and then clued in that I couldn't eat them. Getting home later than I had hoped yesterday, I was starving and in a hurry to make something easy. So, I cooked up the chicken and peppers, divided it in half and only added the fajita mix (containing sugar and gluten) to his half. On mine, I just put some chili powder and hot paprika. I pulled out the homemade salsa, Hotchkiss Spinach and Arugula, the rest of the Daiya Pepperjack shreds, and the falafel chips. So, he got fajitas (which you can see in the back of the photo) and I got a delicious fajita chicken salad, with falafel chips on top to satisfy my "crunch" craving.

Being honest with myself, there's a fat chance I'm going to cook separate meals for each of us for very long, but it's nice to know that with a little bit of creativity we can eat similar meals at least. Of course he had to buy the best tortillas in town to sit in my kitchen and tempt me!

(Save 10% on Tres Marias Whole Wheat, White Wheat, Spelt, and Corn tortillas this month, starting today April 6 through the 27th!)

Poached egg over Daiya cheese, quinoa pasta, and BPA-free tomato sauce!

2011-03-31T10:15:00.001-06:00

I was alright with eating only veggies and Sunworks meat for a couple days, but by Day 3 I needed to make something a bit more substantial and exciting. My boss Matt, who has the good fortune to have a wife who is a fantastic cook, described a recipe to me that is really simple: pasta with tomato sauce, with cheese and a poached egg on top. He walked the store with me, and we selected items that my new diet would accommodate. I was a little hesitant to follow a recipe once-removed (as in, if it didn’t turn out I would be blaming Matt and getting it straight from Erin next time!).

THE INGREDIENTS:

Ingredient #1: Eden Organic Tomatoes in Amber Glass Jar

Crushed Roma Tomatoes: No Salt Added, Unpeeled

Ingredients: Organic Roma Tomatoes

This is a new item in the store, the unique thing being that the tomatoes come in an amber glass jar. The good thing about this is (1) the glass jar means they are BPA-free, and (2) the amber-coloured glass prevents premature spoiling (As an example, anyone who has ever had a “skunky” Corona can attest to the benefits of amber glass!). There are also pasta sauces in this line, but I prefer to start with crushed tomatoes, add a bit of balsamic vinegar, fresh garlic and basil, and salt and pepper to make my own—that way I know exactly what is in my sauce. There is no need to add any sugar, as the tomatoes were nice and sweet all by themselves. And they were a really great, silky-smooth texture, something that isn’t always the case with crushed tomatoes.

And, a side note about BPA (Bisphenol A). I remember years ago first hearing about this chemical in the news, in relation to its use in baby bottles and the concerns of parents, and also it’s use in plastic water bottles. It is identified as an endocrine disruptor, and “(e)xposure to BPA has been associated with effects on the developing brain, and mammary and prostate glands in laboratory studies” (Silentspring.org). I did further reading about it in the book “Slow Death by Rubber Duck”, and learned about its use in the epoxy resin coating on the inside of food cans, especially with acidic food items like tomatoes. The possibility for leaching increases when food containers are heated, so think twice before microwaving your plastic container full of leftovers! Many companies (including Eden Foods) are now making BPA-free cans, but unfortunately it's a matter of seeking the cans that are specifically labelled BPA-free, as the contents of the material the container is made of are not required to be included on the ingredient listing of canned food, even in organics. It remains that a foolproof way to avoid BPA in canned food is to buy food in glass jars, like the Eden Organic tomatoes.

Ingredient #2: GoGo Quinoa Pasta

Ingredients: Organic rice four, organic quinoa flour.

After already trying the GoGo Quinoa cookies, I had high expectations for their line of pastas. I wasn’t disappointed! Though he knew before eating the meal, Derek said he wouldn’t have been able to tell it wasn’t wheat pasta. I thought it was much better than rice pasta, which I always seem to overcook and it gets soggy/rubbery. Another thing with using rice noodles (even the ones in conventional pasta shapes), is that I always feel like I have to have Asian inspiration… Traditional spaghetti and tomato sauce just doesn’t taste the same. With the GoGo Quinoa pasta, we tasted the appropriate Italian-ness of spaghetti and tomato sauce. It had a relatively long cooking time of 13-15 minutes (for spaghetti noodles), but was the perfect al dente after 13 minutes, so it was worth it.

Ingredient #3: Daiya Pepperjack Style Shreds

Ingredients: Filtered water, tapioca and/or arrowroot flours, non-GMO expeller pressed canola and/or non-GMO expeller pressed safflower oil, coconut oil, pea protein, salt, inactive yeast, vegetable glycerin, xanthan gum, vegan natural flavours, lactic acid (vegan, for flavour), spices, garlic, titanium dioxide (a naturally occurring mineral).

This ingredient to my meal was truly something I wouldn’t have touched unless on a restrictive diet, but I went with the logic that it sells really well at the store, and since they have just introduced a new flavour, it must be good! Since I am staying away from dairy and alwasy try to eat as little soy as possible, Daiya cheese was the obvious choice. “Daiya products do not contain many of the common allergens including; soy, dairy (casein or lactose) gluten, egg, peanuts, and tree nuts” (Daiya Foods.com http://www.daiyafoods.com/products/index.asp).

The cheerful package joyfully proclaims “Melts and Stretches!”, which I laugh at, but I know it is an issue with non-dairy cheeses. (After all, there’s that image burned in everyone’s mind of picking up the slice of pizza and having the cheese stretch back into the box… It wouldn’t be so appetizing if it flaked off in big gross chunks!). So, for all the vegan and dairy-free out there, Daiya is a true breakthrough. The ingredient list is quite a read, but very specific and detailed, which in my mind means that it is thoughtfully prepared. Companies are not yet legally obligated in Canada to include the GMO status of ingredients, so the fact that this product includes that the oils are non-GMO is a bonus, as well as the bracketed explanations of a couple of its ingredients.

Overall, the Daiya cheese was better than no cheese, and a great addition to the recipe. The pepperjack flavour was really nice, a good amount of kick to it, and went surprisingly well with the tomato sauce on the pasta. And anyone who likes hot sauce on their eggs (me!) would know that it also livened up the eggs. Derek, who is not following my eating restrictions, chose to go with plain ol’ cow milk parmesan on his dish, and I think I ended up with the better dish out of the two of us, so go figure!

Ingredient #4: Sunworks Farm Fresh Farm Eggs

The Certified Organic, Free-Range Eggs you love from the Farmer’s Market are now government inspected and for sale at Blush Lane! These are some serious eggs. Not only do they taste great, but they require serious commitment to crack. I’m not sure, but I always think that a healthier chicken would produce a strong eggshell: That must be the case, as you’d be hard-pressed to find healthier hens anywhere!

I have a serious love-affair going with these eggs, so when Matt described poaching an egg and adding it on top of the pasta, I could imagine how good it would be pretty easily. And who says eggs are just for breakfast?

THE MEAL:

Here’s the grand finale: My delicious gluten-, dairy- and sugar-free meal, prepared in about 40 minutes from scratch, totally delicious and easy and something I would definitely make again!

Thanks for reading! -T

Gluten- Sugar- and Dairy-freedom: An Overdue Decision

2011-03-31T09:42:00.005-06:00

We just got back from a week's holidays, which we spent road-tripping through the American Mid-West, down to Moab, Utah: A world mountain biking destination. The riding there was amazing, and overall it was a great trip, but it really drove home to us how well we eat on a day-to-day basis.

We knew we couldn’t take much across the border, and even knowing that we ended up sacrificing some delicious organic Cara Cara Oranges (Derek forbid me from arguing with the border guards: “But they’re from California!”). So, we embarked on our trip pretty ill-prepared: There’s not a lot of natural food stores or roadside organic cafes through Montana, Idaho, and Utah. We ate what we could get and did as best we could to make healthy choices, but limp nutrition-less salads, white buns, and mystery meat meals were by far the standard. We did find a Whole Foods in Salt Lake City, Utah, but by then we were crashing hard from the excess fat, sugar, and sodium-laced food we had been eating for the past 22 hours. We got some supplies, and I picked up some GT’s Kombucha and our multi-vitamin that we had forgotten in order to get our guts through the week.

There was also a nice little natural food store in Moab (Moonflower Market 39 E 100 N, (435) 259-5712), and a great café that we visited for breakfast each day, but when travelling it was really hard to consistently make good food choices. At dinner, I would ask for double vegetables instead of deep-fried potatoes, and be presented with a lack-lustre array of carrots mixed with things from a can, far from the beautiful organic vegetables we are spoiled by at home. While we were away, our two pet rabbits ate better vegetables than us!

Arriving home this week and getting back to work, I walked through the produce department, marvelling at the delicious apple smells and all the colourful, alive vegetables. I peeled a fair-trade banana and exclaimed “I missed you!” before biting into it (Ask Jon, I really, truly did—He overheard it!). I made a decision then and there to focus on fresh for at least a week. I’m hesitating about calling it a cleanse, but I suppose if it needed to be classified that would be what it would fall under (specifically an anti-candida cleanse, something that was recommended by my Naturopath and I have been avoiding doing for nearly a year now!). So: no sugar, no dairy, no gluten, no wheat. For the sake of my co-workers, I am still allowing myself 2 cups of coffee every morning, and for my Dillon sweet-tooth and personal sanity, I am letting myself eat fruit, just no processed sugars.

In starting this restrictive diet, I was inspired by two customers whom I have had a couple of conversations with in our store. They have recently started doing the 100-Mile Diet and are committed to finding local products and grocery store staff that are knowledgeable about where things come from. Luckily for them, Vital Greens Dairy in Picture Butte, Alberta is on the grey area of 100 miles, Highwood Crossing in Okotoks has local grains, and Hotchkiss Produce out of Rockyview is still producing fresh produce in these dreary winter months. I commend them for attempting the diet, though I go with more of a perspective of choosing as local as possible within the range of clean, healthy food. That means that I will always choose Sunworks Farm meat and eggs, even if a feedlot opened up beside my house. And given the choice of local cheese, even though there is not a salt source within 100 miles of Alberta, I will overlook that particular ingredient in order to support a local business (Sylvan Star Cheese, Smoky Valley Goat Cheese, and The Cheesiry Sheep Cheese are all great Alberta cheeses that we carry in the store). For resources and a guide to the 100-Mile Diet in Calgary, visit Slow Food Calgary.

Anyhow, these two guys doing a 100-Mile Diet got me to thinking about my blog. Trying things like GoGo Quinoa cookies and liking them as a person with a non-restrictive diet is one thing. Having a restricted diet and finding things that are good despite is a complete other story, one that many of our regular customers struggle with on a day-to-day basis, and a reason many of them shop at our store. So, I decided to give it a try, for as long as I deem necessary, in order to refresh my perspective and to understand our regular shopper a bit better.

I’m fortunate to have a team of experts at our store to consult. Our store manager Sherry Sweet is a Health and Body Care specialist, with a great team of professionals behind her. Our store owner Matt Paulson has extensive knowledge of the various grocery products, and his wife Erin is a top-notch allergy-free chef and co-cookbook author, with many dietary restrictions herself. Many of the staff at our store follow alternative diets and have a wealth of knowledge and personal experience. So, if there were ever a time that I should be trying out something new, the time is now! I know from a brief week of gluten-freedom that wheat is hiding in nearly everything. (I must also note here, that I mean no offence to those who have “alternative diets” or “restricted diets”. Distinguishing that which differs from the “norm” unfortunately comes with a bit of a negative connotation: Think “organic” produce versus “conventional”… Why is it called “conventional” when up until the last century, chemical pesticides, fungicides, and fertilizers were not the norm, and organic was? And who says the norm is necessarily right?)

Anyhow, in embarking on this journey, I hope those of you who have ever had to restrict items from your diet will be able to identify with me; I hope those of you who know me or read the blog will be able to laugh with me (and sometimes at me!); and I hope that if nothing else, I will be able to learn and grow as a person and develop more knowledge about food. Sprung from my roots as a market garden slave to my mother, to my short youth stint as a fast-food monger, and finally a move from conventional grocery store to grassroots and an English Lit degree in-between: food is my passion (followed by writing), and I know this will be a rewarding experiment.

My adventures in Blush: GoGo Quinoa Cookies

2011-03-19T08:40:00.003-06:00

I asked Matt yesterday if there was anything I should be blogging about before I leave for my trip and he said, "Try the GoGo Quinoa cookies". I replied that the blog is turning into Teri's adventures in Blush! Nothing wrong with that I suppose, so long as anyone reading it doesn't mind.

Before I talk about these cookies, I must update my Zico coconut water post. I purchased a case yesterday, as Derek and I are on our way to Moab, Utah tomorrow for a mountain biking trip. The stuff has actually grown on me. I have this intense distaste for water (I know, I know!) and wander around most days in a completely dehydrated stupor, (plus the three dehydrating cups of coffee I drink first thing in the morning). Usually, later in the afternoon I get headaches. Knowing the cause, I started grabbing a coconut water. I guess it's easy to like anything that makes you feel better!

So, on to the GoGo Quinoa cookies. Having already tried their Quinoa-Amaranth burgers, I knew that it was a good line of products. I picked up the chocolate chip cookies yesterday, and was quite impressed. From my completely non-vegan, non-celiac point of view, they are delicious-- crunchy and light tasting. But from the other perspective-- knowing how hard it is to avoid gluten after attempting to do it for a week and failing miserably, and imagining that being vegan would be a similar hurdle-- they are fantastic!

I personally love quinoa, Derek and I eat it at least twice a week, so cookies made out of quinoa equals awesome! Another great thing about them is that they are individually wrapped. I am going to bring the rest of the box on our roap trip, they will make for handy grab-and-go snacks. It's also good that they are individually wrapped because it stops one from eating the whole box at once (if one were so inclined!). Finally, though they don't say anything about it on the website, I couldn't find a tree nut warning on the box, so I fed one to Derek and he appeared to still be breathing when I left for work this morning. So, don't quote me on them being tree nut-free, but based on my experiment they seem to be!

Forget everything you thought you knew about mangoes...

2011-03-15T19:28:00.004-06:00

Seriously. Forget every mediocre mango you've ever eaten.... Even forget the mangoes you've had that you thought were good.

THESE ARE RIDICULOUS!

They don't make enough bold and italics to describe to you, so you're just going to have to get your butt down here and try some. I'll be here all day tomorrow sampling them, only because I really and truly believe that they will blow you away. So, if nothing else, stop by and at least give them a try!
These mangoes are the sweet start of what promises to be a fantastic mango season. We have more to come, but none will ever touch this deal of a whole 7-count case for $6.00. That's not a typo, folks!
I am super excited about these mangoes (in case you couldn't tell!), and it's the kind of excitement that can only come from eating something that is just so perfectly delicious that it kinda blows your mind a little bit. It's like eating a pea straight out of the garden in the peak of the season; it's like the juiciest tree-ripened peach; they might as well be straight off the tree, they're literally glowing with tasty aliveness and begging to be eaten.

That's 7 organic Peruvian mangoes for $6.00!

Tomatoes, in general

2011-03-13T16:14:00.011-06:00

Look at these luscious beauties. Perfect even in the middle of winter!

$4.99/lb

I'm not the greatest at blogging about grocery items, we all know my passion is for produce. So, today I am blogging generally about tomatoes and specifically about some great products I love that have tomatoes in them! Let's face it, if it's good for you, it likely grew in the dirt.

"Tomatoes are one of the most tasty and nutritious fruits available for our everyday diets. Extensive research around the world has shown the benefits of eating tomato based foods on a regular basis. Tomatoes are a major and one of the only dietary sources of the anti-oxidant lycopene, an agent that amongst other things has been found to reduce the risk of a number of cancers. Tomatoes are an excellent source of, vitamin A, vitamin C, beta-carotene, potassium, folic acid and other B vitamins, iron and fiber. Interestingly enough, the lycopene in cooked and processed tomatoes is more readily available and absorbed by our bodies than in raw tomatoes. "

From Thomas Canning WebsiteLycopene, who knew. You can buy a can chock-full-o-lycopene of your own for the low low price of $3.99. I especially get a kick out of the fact that this company's website is ThomasCanning.com... Because we sometimes forget that all it is is a tomato in a can. You can even do it yourself, in season. (But we have these for those who didn't!)

Tomatoes really aren't in season right now. But you know what is? Soup!

$5.49 each.

This Happy Planet Organic soup-in-a-bag is one of my favourites. The Tuscan Tomato is delicious and creamy, with the perfect amount of zest. It's great for work lunches; there's about enough for two lunches and the bag is resealable. Nothing better than a hot bowl of soup on a cold winter day (is it Spring yet?!). Available in our newly renovated Deli section!

$10.99 each

Also available in our newly-renovated Deli section is something that may not be a tomato, but I sure wouldn't want to have a fresh tomato withoout it! Buffalo Mozzarella, and Buffalo Bocconcini from Natural Pastures. Did you know that real mozzarella, authentic mozzarella, is made from water buffalo milk? I didn't, until the Food Network taught me. Then I found this product, and now I can't be without it. Slice some tomatoes and mozzarella, drizzle a little olive oil and balsamic... What could be better (NOTHING!).
P.S. Here is a picture of a water buffalo, one of the ones who gets milked to make the cheese. (She's licking her lips, thinking about tomatoes, I bet!)
http://www.fairburnwaterbuffalo.com/

Mangoes!

2011-03-08T13:53:00.002-07:00

In our flyer this month:

Organic Kent Mangoes

3 for $5.97

$1.99 each

Sunworks Farm: 15% off Pork Sausages

2011-03-04T17:45:00.009-07:00

This week at Blush Lane, a special on Sunworks Farm Pork Sausages- 15% off!

Here is a note about the pigs from Sheila, farmer and owner of Sunworks Farm:

"We want to let everyone know that our production of our Certified Organic Free Range pork is back into full swing. We were so thankful to have our sister Dorothy and her family raising our pigs for many years. Now that Dorothy is concentrating on her Certified Organic lamb flock we have taken over the pig part of the project. Our pigs live outside year round. Right now they have lots of straw for bedding and great shelter from the cold winds and snow. The only time they are inside is when they farrow (have their piglets) as it is too cold right now for the little ones to be outside. Once they are ready to leave the sows side everyone goes back outside again. They receive their certified organic feed (which we make ourselves) free choice – this feed includes alfalfa so that they continue to get the greens they need year round. We continue to sell our Certified Organic Free Range pork by the cut as well as our specialty meats e.g. ham, bacon and a variety of sausages. As usual everything is certified organic – the specialty products only contain our own Certified Organic Free Range pork and certified organic spices – NO gluten or other fillers – NO chemicals (nitrates, sulphites,MSG) – this meat is safe for everyone including Celiacs! See the right side of our front page for savings on our Certified Organic Free Range Pork and our Certified Organic Free Range Chicken. We look forward to seeing you at our market locations!"

Sheila Hamilton
Farmer/Owner
Sunworks Farm
Armena, Alberta

*pssstt!* Try the Pork Italian, they're my favourite! Just the right amount of spice and great flavour!

Blush Lane March Flyer

2011-03-02T20:12:00.003-07:00

Check out our March Flyer for great deals!

(Click on the images to zoom in)

The Deli Renovation

2011-03-01T20:02:00.003-07:00

I had intended on doing a day-by-day update on the deli renovation progress, but it happened so fast all I have time for is the finished product. So, here it is, in all it's glory!

We've been getting lots of positive feedback from customers, and it's so nice to have a big welcoming space in the front of the store. Come by and check it out today!

Coconut Milk is back!

2011-03-01T19:53:00.003-07:00

The first time we got this it flew off the shelves, and before we were able to get more, there was some kind of tariff/labelling issue. But now it's back!

I have no baby, but I use Baby Gourmet!

2011-02-24T09:15:00.005-07:00

I have no babies in my household, but last week I bought two packages of Baby Gourmet for my baby bunny, Maverick. She has an upper respiratory infection, and we have to give her eye drops three times a day and medicine twice a day. She has no problems with the drops, but the medicine is another story! After getting pretty scratched up and frustrated a few times, we started mixing her meds with a banana (which worked, but was a pain because I always had to make sure we had bananas in the house). So, I had the idea of baby food, and why not go for the best baby food (so I've been told). She LOVES it, and when it's time for her medicine, she rattles her cage bars. Not just for babies!

http://babygourmet.com/

140% daily allowance of Vitamin C per serve
100% Organic
No Added Sugar
No Added Salt
Gluten Free
Nut Free
No Fillers
Kosher
BPA Free Packaging

Zico Coconut Water

2011-02-18T09:33:00.005-07:00

"For more than 4,000 years, coconut water has been revered as a natural source of nutrition, wellness, beauty and hydration. In times of famine and war, coconut water has been used as an intravenous fluid and saved many lives. It’s the only natural substance that can be safely injected into the human blood stream. Now modern science has validated its effectiveness, especially as a natural sports drink.
ZICO contains the five essential electrolytes that gives your body everything it needs to stay hydrated and perform at your best. One ZICO has more potassium than a banana – 15 times more than most sports drinks – to prevent cramping. Drink ZICO before or during a workout for the natural energy you need for optimal performance. After a workout, ZICO replenishes and re-hydrates you to speed recovery."

--From product website: zico.com

Never a better time to try than when it's on sale at Blush!
One of our managers said that she uses it for cooking rice, which I think is a heck of an idea. I bought a bottle the other day to try, and wasn't sold on just consuming it; however, I think once winter is over and I get back into mountain biking it would be a great alternative to sugary sports drinks (They also have a bunch of mixed drink recipes on the website, and let's be honest, that's more likely where my coconut water will end up!). Another time I have used this is when I caught the flu that's been going around... Good for replenishing those electrolytes!
Zico Coconut Water, Assorted Flavours $3.33 each, $36.78/cs. of 12.

Mangoes have landed!

2011-02-17T09:03:00.004-07:00

I booked some mangoes this week, and asked if they would be "blushy"... Because nobody wants a rock hard green mango. They arrived, and now we have blushies at Blush! The first good ones of the season, and they only get better from here!
They're delicious, trust me-- I've eaten two already!
$2.99 each 3 for $8.00, 8-count case for $18

Next, we have CitrusFest at Blush!
So, I typed "citrus fest" in Google, just to make sure I wasn't infringing on anyone's actual CitrusFest, and I came up with this:
Menton fete du citron (Lemon Festival).
Okay, so maybe we aren't building Taj Mahals out of lemons, but the citrus we have tastes great (and you don't have to destroy a Buddha sculpture to buy it!).
The Navel Oranges and Riostar Grapefruit are on sale for $1.77/lb, and the Cara Cara Navels (aka Red Navels), are $1.99/lb. If you've never tried a Cara Cara, come in and try some... They are a personal favourite!
We've also got your standard Lemons and Limes, and then we've got Blood Oranges, Tangelos, Kumquats, and Seville Marmalade Oranges.

Lastly, Blueberries. They're in the flyer, they're fair-trade, and they're a little taste of summer in the middle of winter! They're grown by the same Chilean farmers that we helped support last year during the earthquake. Your dollars last year went towards rebuilding their homes, and this year we still have great blueberries because of it. For those who supported the farmers last year by buying blueberries, Thanks!

$3.99 each

We've gone bananas!

2011-02-13T18:30:00.004-07:00

...And they're on sale, 99 cents a pound!

Not all organic produce is created equal. Ask me to tell the difference in taste between an organic mushroom or a conventional one, or to try to discern an organic potato from its conventional counterpart-- quite an impossible task (though you should still eat organic!!).
However, one item where the taste is glaringly much more spectacular is the organic, fair-trade bananas that we sell at Blush Lane. It's great that they are fair-trade, it's great that they are organic, but most importantly-- it's ridiculous how delicious they are. Careful though: all other bananas will taste sad and flat after these babies!
Come get some today. 99 cents a pound is cheap!

Raincoast Trading- Premium Quality Wild Seafood

2011-02-13T18:10:00.004-07:00

This can comes with an "Ocean Wise Recommended" seal on the side of the can. But what does that mean?

We are currently carrying a cookbook called "The Ocean Wise Cookbook: Seafood recipes that are good for the planet" (Edited by Jane Mundy,2010 Whitecap Books). Here's what this book has to say about canned fish:

"...we need to be aware that all canned products are not created equal. Most of the tuna on our grocery store shelves comes from Asia, where fish is typically canned well past its "best before" date. As well, mature fish can carry high levels of toxins, such as mercury. These fish are typically heavily disguised in oil or packed in tomato sauce. It's hard to read the labels to determine the source of the fish-- its usually in fine print-- and you'll seldom find information about how it was caught.
Fortunately, Canandian products, such as those from BC's Raincoast Trading, are now appearing in our stores. Raincoast is a member of Ocean Wise because it supports sustainable fishing practices and harvests only wild-caught tuna and salmon. Plus, its canned fish is single-cooked to preserve its natural oils, nutrition, and rich flavour, and Raincoast does not add water or oil to the fish during the canning process."

Stop by Blush Lane today for some Ocean Wise Raincoast tuna and salmon!

The Deli!

2011-02-10T08:36:00.005-07:00

Best of Blush has extended its scope over the past 2 months, which is why you haven't heard from me in a while! With the closing of the Farmer's Market, I have moved up to the store as the "Fresh Manager". The dairy, fresh and frozen meat, produce, and deli are now under my umbrella. Now that things have finally normalized, I want to keep the blog going, but it'll be a bit more product-focused.
But today, I have some photos of the Deli. We started storing our big wheels of cheese in the display case, because they are BEAUTIFUL! Also got some greenery to spruce things up a bit.

Castles made of Mandarins

2010-11-26T20:43:00.007-07:00

I picked up a CD in our back alley one day, titled "Killer tunes for times that are killer also". Amongst the mix, it had Jimi Hendrix's "Castles made of Sand". This is unofficially "Castles made of Mandarins" week at Blush Lane!
Each one of these mandarin boxes comes in a bigger box. Each of these boxes holds only 6 smaller boxes. This weekend, I have opened over 170 boxes, each with 6 boxes inside. Blerg! (Though it is pretty fun to build mandarin castles!)

Joanna's beautiful citrus/apple wall. Those are Star Ruby Grapefruit, people! They are ridiculous delicious, and FAIR TRADE!

Bagged Apple Sale!

2010-11-24T11:46:00.003-07:00

Nov. 22 -28 at the Store, we have a variety of bagged apples for $1.00 off. This is a chance to pick up a bag for a big savings over buying them by the pound, as a bag usually works out to a bit of a savings in the first place. So, buy a couple of your family's favourites!
Juicy, sweet Chinese Mandarins in 3 lb boxes 2 for $10. Seriously, they're delicious. Derek and I have eaten our way through 2 boxes at home already!

Fruity baskets

2010-11-22T19:46:00.006-07:00

I attended a friend's housewarming a week or so ago, and wanted to share the "Best of Blush" with them, so I made this fruit basket! You can make one yourself-- all you need is a basket, some cellophane, a ribbon, and about $25 worth of fruit from Blush Lane
(Another project for "when I get more time" is making some of these on special order for customers at the store)

Apple Parade!

Citrus is just starting, and I have booked a ton of California Satsuma Mandarins, due to arrive ...MAYBE... next week but likely the week after. For now, we have juicy California Navels and Chinese Mandarins (in 3lb boxes 2 for $10).

The pears are like BUTTER. Seriously, biting into a ripe D'Anjou right now is like eating a perfect peach in the middle of summer. We've got Green Klapperton, Abate Fetel, D'Anjou, Red D'Anjou, Flemish, Bosc-- all from BC-- and I know they all taste different but I can't differentiate which is better amongst so many stars. Eat a pear, even if you think you don't like them. It'll change your life, I swear!

Sunworks Farm

2010-11-09T11:24:00.007-07:00

By now, everyone knows that I'm a produce nerd.

So far, this blog has featured the "best of blush" only on the produce side of things, but today I am going to mention the other side of our farmer's market stall and also a big draw at our Aspen Woods store: Sunworks Farm and their fresh Certified Organic chicken, beef, eggs, turkey, bison, lamb, and pork.

For more information on Sunworks Farm you can visit their website.

After spending Thanksgiving in Edmonton, we were fortunate enough to get a tour of Sunworks Farm with Sheila. Here are some photos:
Here are some little chicks that will be market chickens in seven weeks (meaning that we will be eating these little cuties in about 2 weeks!). It was tropically warm in the chick house, like being nuzzled under a hen's breast. There was an ambient "peeping", and I could have watched them wobble around for hours. It was immaculately clean in the chick house, especially for being a room full of babies!
Free-range pigs, who were as friendly as the family pet dog and just as playful. Look at those ears!!
A room full of Mamas. Did you know red hens make brown eggs? These hens make the best eggs, and they are available every week at the Farmer's Market.

Here are some "teenage" turkeys... I call them teenagers because they are so awkward-looking and curious! These guys are fattening up for Christmas.

It was incredible to have a tour of Sunworks Farm and get to see where the meat we eat each week is raised-- Something not many people are fortunate enough to get to do in this "modern" food system. Sunworks Farm is an important part of the Best of Blush, for what goes better with a beautiful, delicious fruit or vegetable than an ethically-raised, equally delicious and satisfying piece of meat?

Thanks to Ron and Sheila for doing what they do, so that we can all choose to eat better food.

Goodbye, Hammie Town

2010-11-09T08:21:00.007-07:00

What do you get when one hamster owner is a organic produce manager and the other is a photographer? Lots of photos of Hammie eating various cute fruits and vegetables!
Unfortunately, our little buddy passed away last week, so here is a homage to Hammie, eating various Blush Lane produce items!
Baby zucchini from Art and Lina's

Blueberry!
Mini Sweet Peppers from Art and Lina's

Blush Apple Spectrum!

2010-11-09T08:10:00.002-07:00

Since I can't be there to answer questions for every customer, I made a self-serve apple learning station.

How it works: The apples are arranged in sides, the right being sweet apples and the left being tart apples. At the top center you see the Fuji, the most sweet apple. If you like the Fuji, choose one near it on the right for something else you would like. (I know this works, as my boyfriend likes Fuji best and picked the Sweet Orin two doors down and loved it).
The tart apples start at the top and go left, starting with the Newtown Pippen (the green guy next to the Fuji).

You should check it out if you are at the store, but here's the list of all the apples, in order from Sweet to Tart:
Fuji
Gala
Sweet Orin
Ambrosia
Maigold
Winter Banana
Golden Delicious
Red Delicious
Spartan
McIntosh
Braeburn
Honeycrisp
Orange Cox Pippin
Pink Lady
Newtown Pippin

(and I just counted, we actually have FIFTEEN varieties!!)

Assortment from the past few weeks

2010-11-09T07:12:00.007-07:00

The peak of the season may be over, but it doesn't seem as though we are any less busy, just busy with different things! Apples have hit big-time, with fourteen different varieties at the store at the moment!
Here are some photos:
In the right corner of this photo, you see the "queen of tarts"-- that is, the Pink Lady, in many opinions (including mine!) the best tart/crispy apple, with a beautiful pink colour, tart flavour with an underlying "champagne-like burst" (http://www.pinkladyapples.co.uk/). Great for pies and cooking, and delicious for eating, if you are not a soft apple person.

Sweet tooth and sweet banana peppers from Art and Lina, the last remnants of their beautiful garden.
Asian pears! Citrus, just starting to be in season. I would swear people are suffering from scurvy, waiting for the citrus. Navels are scheduled to be in today at the store, and Friday at the market!

Thanksgiving weekend

2010-10-19T08:57:00.008-06:00

Thanksgiving was celebrated at Blush Lane at three locations: The Millarville Farmer's Market, The Calgary Farmer's Market, and our store in Aspen Woods.
Above is the last Millarville Farmer's Market of the year. It was pretty crispy in the morning, but the sun came out and so did the customers. The end of the outdoor markets marks the official end of summer!
The apple harvest is in full swing, and the question often posed by customers is "What is the best tasting apple?". To which I must sigh a little bit and curse my non-psychic abilities.
The answer is often best found by sampling a few to find out. Best for baking are the Shamrock, Orange Cox Pippen, and (surprisingly, I have just learned) Golden Delicious. If you normally like Gala, you will LOVE the freshness of a new crop gala, and likely the Summer Fuji, Ambrosia, Sweet Orin, Maigold, or Golden Delicious. If you like tartness you will go for a Honeycrisp, Orange Cox Pippen, or Shamrock. If it's crispness and complexity of flavour you go for, the Honeycrisp and Sweet Orin will steal your heart. You soft baking apple kind of people will die for the McIntosh and Spartans.
And the beauty of it all is, each person experiences an apple differently. I have had people make a sour face at a Honeycrisp and the next person says it's the sweetest apple they have ever had. You will be shocked at the sweetness of the yellow-green Sweet Orin, an apple that looks as though it is going to pack the punch of a Granny Smith. The Ambrosia-- "nectar of the gods"-- is heaven for some and too honey-sweet for others. Anyone from England will exclaim over an Orange Cox Pippen and anyone from Canada's East Coast will not believe their eyes when they see a Gravenstein. Those who love the crispness of a Honeycrisp or a Pink Lady will turn their nose at a McIntosh or a Spartan, apples coveted by those who love them.
So, the next time you ask which apple is best, be prepared to offer a little more information, and even try a sample of a few. We'll make sure to send you home with a bag of your favourites!

Yams are the orange ones, Sweet Potatoes are the white ones. If you want to humour me, learn a little more and find out that they are actually BOTH types of sweet potatoes: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yam_(vegetable)
We've got Butternut, Acorn, Blue Kabocha, Red Kuri, Delicata, Confection Kabocha, Turk's Turban, Sugar Loaf, Spaghetti, Pie Pumpkin, Carnival, Sweet Potato, Buttercup, Small Wonder Spaghetti, Green Kabocha, Sunshine Kabocha: and even at that, someone will ask about one we don't have!
We also have a great Squash guide to tell you much more than I am capable of telling you about the "honorary root vegetable", synonymous with cold winter days and thoughts of hot steamy soup. Find it here: http://www.blushlane.com/documents/SquashPosterMAtt8.pdf
Finally, a photo of the store, ready for Thanksgiving, root vegetables heaped and bountiful. Thanksgiving is a time to think about not only what we are thankful for in our own lives, but how thankful we are to the farmers who grow all this wonderful produce for us to enjoy: Especially on a day like Thanksgiving, when even those who don't normally cook don an apron and buddy up with a Butternut.
To all the farmers in BC and Alberta who grow our fruit and vegetables, Blush Lane and our customers owe their thanks to you for this harvest!

Blush Lane Organic Orchard

2010-10-05T21:08:00.064-06:00

Welcome to Blush Lane Organic Orchard, nestled in the beautiful Similkameen Valley, surrounded by towering mountains juxtaposed by lush, green organic orchards and gardens. This is the Organic growing capital of Canada, the source of our beautiful harvest every year, and a very special place.
I was very, very lucky to get to visit the orchard for a week, to meet various farmers and suppliers, whose superb produce makes it to Calgary every week to be carried home to hundreds and thousands of tables across the city. On my trip I learned a lot more about how we do what we do, and had reiterated exactly WHY we do what we do.
So, follow me through the Orchard and the Similkameen Valley: the story of how our produce arrives on your table every week.
Blush Lane Organic Orchard - Keremeos, BC
I arrived on a Friday night, and Rob ushered me out to the orchard before it got dark, to see the fruit trees. The Spartan Apples were near-ready, and apples hung heavy on the branches. I have never been up close to an apple tree like that before, and I was immediately struck by firstly; its beauty, but secondly; its presence. I grew up in Manitoba, where farmers harvest grain and other annual crops. Fruit farming is different: the trees are planted and take a couple years to fruit, by the time they are into their peak production they are a few years old. There is time to build a real relationship with the trees; they stick around for a time, and this one has a unique trunk, and that one is the only Golden Delicious in its row, and this one died so was replanted with a younger tree, and that one didn't get thinned and is heavy with fruit. Each tree is different and from year to year has characteristics that set it apart from every other tree in the orchard. Maybe on a bigger scale this presence might be lost, but the Blush Lane orchard is about 10 acres, bigger than I expected, but small enough for me to visit every tree during the course of the week.
The Golden Delicious, an apple I had relative distaste for, stole my heart on my visit. I found out why this apple-- an old, canonical variety-- has been ruined for the general public. I used to think that people who came in the Farmer's Market asking for this apple didn't know what they were talking about-- why choose an apple that is both dull in colour and in flavour, when there is Honeycrisp and Ambrosia and other exciting varieties, bursting with flavour and freshness.

I found out that because of their light colour, the Goldens are much more apt to show bruises, and are thus picked weeks before they are ripe, so that they can stand up to the rigours of picking and packing. When they are green they are chalky-starchy tasting and lacklustre. This year, Rob has decided to let the Goldens hang on the trees until they are ripe, and sell them as "Old-Time Golden Delicious", as they are meant to be, as Mother Nature intended them to be, ripe, fresh, distinct, and delicious. After all, they are suspected part-mother of the Ambrosia, the younger, more popular apple!

The Spartan apples are also much more exciting when viewed in their natural habitat than when they are stacked high in the market stall. The weather this year has caused all of the apples to develop fantastic colour, and the Spartans have a deep purple blush, a colour more beautiful than can be captured on film, so deep it seems as though it should be nearly bleeding into the crisp white flesh.When taking photos of apples here, the clear blue sky and soaring mountain peaks are a big part of the photo. In most, you can see the top of a mountain in the background, a reminder that it is a relatively close valley, the mountains looming huge above the trees.
Before coming here, I wondered what made an Organic orchard recognizable from a non-organic one, or if you'd even be able to tell as an outsider (It's definitely not a swarm of hippies and waft of patchouli emanating from the rows of trees-- though some places I'm sure it may be!). The main distinction for someone, like me, who knows nothing about tree fruit farming, is that conventional orchards spray herbicide at the base of the rows of trees, so there are aisles of brown, dead earth bordering the trunks of the trees. In one particular orchard, the earth was worn away to bare stones, making one wonder how a tree could even grow from such a base. In the Blush Lane Orchard, the trees rise from native grasses and sandy topsoil, towering above the healthy earth that is their base, their foundation. Healthy soil is the main building block of organic food.
The Ambrosias at the Blush Lane Orchard are one of the newest trees, and are in the more contemporary style of farming. The first thing one needs to know about apples is that

"In the wild, apples grow quite readily from seeds. However, like most perennial fruits, apples are ordinarily propagated asexually by grafting. This is because seedling apples are an example of "extreme heterozygotes", in that rather than inheriting DNA from their parents to create a new apple with those characteristics, they are instead different from their parents, sometimes radically."

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple

What this means, then, for the apple, is that a bud of the desired variety is grafted onto a rootstock (often a more native tree) of the desired size, rather than planting seeds like in a ground crop. The rootstock determines the size of the full-grown tree, and it has recently become an industry standard to use dwarf-- or at least less than full-size-- rootstock, grown with supporting wires in higher density, rather than the full size tree which requires the apple picker to circle the tree on a high ladder with a heavy apple picking bag strapped to his or her front. This allows for much higher density and therefore higher yields and easier picking.
The newest part of the orchard is in this style, less aesthetically pleasing, but more functional.
My favourite part of the orchard was a grove of Apricot trees, long past harvest, but huge, beautiful trees nonetheless. There was a kind of quiet in this grove that is unmatched anywhere-- despite the fruit stand being right on the highway, you would swear you are inside of a poem when sit for a while in this quiet place. The trees are old and it feels like they are all good friends, like they can communicate through the hushing of leaves. I can't imagine how beautiful these trees would be with fruit!
The peach trees are frilly and beautiful, with long leaves that make them stand out, even from far away. You can recognize a peach tree without even being close to it, it looks like it doesn't belong because it is just too perfect.

This photo is of Betsy, the tractor. She's an old, reliable girl.
Beneath all these leaves are hundreds of pounds of squash, though you can't even see a single crooked neck or spotted body sticking out! Believe me: I picked some!

~~~~~

The Ambrosia Mother Tree
The Ambrosia is one of our best-selling and most popular apples. While in BC, I was fortunate enough to have a most excellent guide who was able to take me to see the Ambrosia mother tree, something not on the agenda for just any tourist! Luckily, we caught the mother the day before her apples were picked, and she was a breathtaking sight!

In returning to Alberta, I was surprised at how few people-- including most of our staff-- knew the story of the Ambrosia apple. Here is the story, for those who don't know:

"In 1980, when Sally Mennell purchased her orchard it was planted to Red and Golden Delicious, MacIntosh and Spartan apples; Italian Prune Plums; Bartlett and Anjou pears; nectarines and peaches. Between 1980 and 2004 the entire orchard was replanted.
In 1987 a row of Jonagold apples was planted where there had previously been Italian Prune Plums. The nearest apple tree was a Golden Delicious planted among the prunes. A seedling grew up in the row of the new Jonagold apple trees that was different from all the others in the row. In 1989 it bore its first fruit. The fruit was so good and distinctive that the pickers ate the apples before the Mennells could properly taste them.
The following year the same thing happened and as pickers seldom eat apples the Mennells thought that perhaps they should take this seedling seriously. In 1990-91 about 180 trees were budded onto M26 rootstock to see if the variety would remain true to type. It did and by 1993 Wilfrid, Brian and Robert Mennell had propagated about 400 trees. Wilfrid named the new variety Ambrosia because it had the honeyed flavour of "a food of the Gods"."
Source: http://organicambrosiaapples.com/origins.html

The mother is now surrounded by her progeny, but in the rows of smaller grafted trees, it is easy to spot her gnarled, twisting trunk and reaching branches.
Every Ambrosia apple originated from this tree... Lots of new apple cultivars originate in apple research stations, but the Ambrosia came from Mother Nature, she is distinctly Canadian and grew in a healthy Organic orchard.

~~~~~

Fred and Nancy Danenhower and Daughters

I didn't have my camera with me the day that we saw the Danenhower's farm, but they are too special to go without mention. Right now at Blush Lane, more than half of our delicious, crisp, and juicy apples are from Fred and Nancy Danenhower's farm.
Technically, they are "Danenhower and Daughters", and before I left for the orchard Joanna and I giggled at a stick-person drawing of a family with two daughters that had recently started appearing on the sides of the Blush Lane boxes. We thought it was very cute, and wondered how old that little girl must be, obviously one of the daughters. Well-- nearly as exciting as seeing the Ambrosia mother tree-- I also got to see the original drawing, and the best part of it all is that I found out the daughter is in her 20's!

~~~~~

Lina's Gardens
In the beginning of the summer season, we received beautiful rainbow assortments of cherry tomatoes, and when I tasted them I was blown away. We told customers they were sweeter than candy, and one lady in particular was so excited when she saw them she exclaimed "I wait all year for these!" and bought 6 packages.
On my trip I had the good fortune to meet Art and Lina Nugteren, the growers of the fine cherry tomato assortments and many other top-notch products.
The quality of their peppers, tomatoes, zucchini, and all their other produce is unmatched-- the kind of stuff you can tell was grown, picked, and packed with care, because it is glowing from the boxes when we get it. In my visit, I saw the behind the scenes as to why their stuff is so great.Each tomato plant is tended with care, staked to its own bamboo, in neat and accessible rows. The day I was there, they were picking cherry tomatoes, carefully selecting only the very best, picking into small pails lined up into a half-bin, taking them to the house to be packed. Art and Lina's daughter Ariela helps her mother with the packing, and with each clamshell of tomatoes painstaking care is taken to ensure that a pleasing mix of colours and shapes is achieved. The second sort that happens in the packing is another reason that the quality on their produce is so high-- you would be hard-pressed to find a single blemish or crack amongst the sugar-sweet babies.

~~~~~

Cawston Cold Storage

Cawston is the neighbour to Keremeos, 5 minutes away and really so close that it all seems like the same town. In Cawston, we went to the big packing house to check out some Honeycrisp apples (that turned out to be beautiful behemoths!) and while we were there, got a tour of the facility and got to see some of the neat "toys" that they have at their disposal.

The packing line that you see in the above photo is all controlled by computers, they can speed it up, redirect a specific size of apple to a specific station, et cetera, et cetera... The control room had multiple computer screens (and looked like somewhere one could really do a lot of damage if one didn't know what one was doing!). They had a new piece of equipment that we got to see as well: a machine that could scan an apple without harming it at all and tell the operator the starch level, pressure, and sugar brix (a test that used to be performed by a farmer's tastebuds, probably with less reliable results!). Overall, in a place as small as Keremeos and Cawston, it was pretty neat to see a state-of-the-art facility, which has obviously emerged out of necessity so that the farmers can sell their fruit to a larger market. In the winter, once our direct apples are finished, this is where we get our apples, the ones in the "Nature's First Fruits" boxes.

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Picking Apples
On the last day of my Orchard trek, I got to do something that I have been wanting to do for years: Pick apples. I remember being in University and telling my Mom that I wanted to journey some 800 kms west to pick apples for a summer and her telling me "If you want to pick something, I have plenty for you to pick here!"... So I always journeyed east instead. However, no trip to the orchard would have been complete without picking something from a tree, so Rob set me up picking the "buffer zone" apples.

In a certified organic orchard, there must be a 25 foot buffer zone between conventional and organic trees. In the Blush Lane Orchard, there is less than 25 feet, so the first 2 trees in the row on that side of the orchard must be kept separate from the other apples. I got to pick the buffer zone apples: I put them directly into boxes and packed them up to ship to Calgary and donate to the food bank.

Here I am on Betsy the Tractor!

I picked just under 1400 lbs of apples (34-40 lb boxes) in about 4-1/2 hours. A really good apple picker will pick up to 10-800 lb bins a day... So, it appears I will not be quitting my day job!

~~~~~

The Weeks' Culmination: Produce to Calgary

And finally, the culmination of my week in the orchard: the weekly shipment to Calgary. We had about a dozen pallets of produce, which I then returned to on Friday (conveniently after they had all been put away on Thursday!) to sell at the market.

It's truly something special to meet the people who grow the food you eat. My trip to the orchard allowed me to develop an even deeper connection to my food, which I can pass on to customers and staff and friends alike. Not only are we selling great produce at Blush Lane, we are supporting local farmers and building relationships with them. That's the secret to why our produce is so great-- it is handled with love by some of our closest friends.

Thank you to the farmers for all that you do, and know that all of us appreciate every ounce of hard work that is behind each thing that you grow.

~~~~~

Packing Apples

2010-09-29T09:21:00.000-06:00

I wish I could say this was in real-time!

Art and Lina's cherry tomatoes

2010-09-27T14:05:00.006-06:00

This morning I got to see Art and Lina's Garden: they are the ones that grow the fantastic cherry tomatoes that most of us are addicted to back in Calgary!

At the Orchard!

2010-09-26T16:52:00.007-06:00

I have arrived at the orchard, and between all the hard work, have had some time to snap a couple of photos! (There hasn't actually been any hard work yet, but the apples hanging on the Spartan trees promise a busy day or two!)

Click on any photo to make it go bigger!

Everyone's favourite-- Ambrosias!

Spartans

Derek was kind enough to loan me his fancy "second" camera-- as there are no weddings this weekend-- so I am taking lots of extra special photos that I will upload once I am back (They may not be extra special, as I don't know what I'm doing and they'll likely all turn out blurry!) So, lots more to come, check back often!

Harvest time in Aspen Woods

2010-09-23T21:29:00.000-06:00

Produce clerk-in-training!

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I was building a display and looked up and saw Matt pulling a pallet, and Tao behind him, pushing! That kid is going to be a produce clerk fer sure!

Apple-lanche!

2010-09-17T20:29:00.000-06:00

Honeycrisp are in, and we even have some sheaths of organic wheat to go with our Harvest theme. The last of the Nectarines hint to the end of the summer and the official start to fall. Still clinging to peaches as the last remnant of summer!

Check out those awesome purple carrots!

Last week was not the peak... THIS is the peak!

2010-09-16T19:43:00.001-06:00

Aspen Store Sept. 13

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The poor store has been ignored by me quite a bit over the past 6 weeks, but we've pulled through and with everyone back-to-school and the market slowing down, I can finally focus a bit more attention on the store.
We're shifting out of stonefruit and into apple/pear/winter veg harvest, so lots of changes and re-sets to come: with photos!

Pre-Teri Best of Blush

2010-09-13T19:14:00.000-06:00

I forgot my memory card today, but I had my camera, and an idea that there was a "produce camera" floating around somewhere. I managed to find it, and the memory card was the same as mine, so I plugged it in and snapped away. On it I found a bunch of photos from the store, so I am uploading them as an homage to the "Best of Blush" before I was around!

Finally, the Galas...

2010-09-12T07:52:00.001-06:00

5 different kinds of plums, with Prune plums the big seller, and Lareda's my personal favorite (like a Santa Rosa). The Bradshaw are the most beautiful.
Finally the Galas have arrived, they are firm and crispy and sweet, and now we are fielding questions all day of: "Are these this year's?". Reaaaaally.

Peak of the Harvest

2010-09-09T19:50:00.000-06:00

Today Matt and Joanna pulled all of the pallets off the truck and lined them up across from the stall. Before we put them all away, Matt took a moment to look from upstairs, and we saw a pretty breathtaking sight.
About 10 farmers picked all this produce; every single piece was touched by someone.
About 8 produce clerks will put it out with care over the next 3 days,
6 cashiers will ring each piece and pound through,
...and it will all leave the building in plastic, cloth, and paper bags, carried by hand to hundreds of tables across the city.

This is why we do what we do!

"Waterfall weekend"

2010-08-27T18:35:00.000-06:00

I am officially nicknaming this weekend "waterfall weekend", as we have waterfalls of stone fruit, mangoes, corn, tomatoes, plums, melons, etc. all throughout the stall. With blueberries done and no cherries until later in the afternoon, we had a pretty smooth ride today.
First weekend of Bartlett pears: People have been looking for them for weeks. I always say to the first person who asks about something: "Well, usually I start getting questions about things about 3 weeks before it's ready, so based on that I would say we will have that item in 3 weeks". Pears were no different!

This nectarine is a handful, and make my eyes water with bliss as I devoured it. They were rock hard when they arrived and are beginning to ripen under the lights today. I started sampling them once I found ripe ones and sold them by the case!

Sunrise Apples, the crowd pleasers! Followed by Tydemans, which I have nothing good to say about. At least you know if I say something is good, it must be, because I can't lie!
Re-dicilous mangoes!

I don't know what it is about prune plums, but they seem to be pretty special. People go nuts for them and seem to have a twinge of "plum snobbiness"... (like "peach snobbiness", only about prune plums.)

Aspen Store veg wall

2010-08-24T08:53:00.000-06:00

Millarville fair

2010-08-22T20:05:00.000-06:00

Joanna and I started calling it "Millaaaargh-ville" some time ago, and now every time I say Millarville I have to catch myself so that regular people don't think I'm crazy.
This weekend was the fair, so we were moved beside the grandstand, which worked out as we were right beside the action and drew a lot of people who might not otherwise stop for organic fruit. Peaches sold out due to Art's mad "fruit pusher" skills!

Setting up at 6:30 am, we could see our breath!

Patchwork Plums

2010-08-20T19:44:00.000-06:00

Lots of beautiful stuff this weekend, including some really special heirloom tomatoes and four different kinds of plums!

The mangoes are unreal, lots of comments like "Those can't be organic"... As though all organic fruit has to be small and scrappy-looking.

Sunrise Apples were the stock-of-the-weekend, in that we stocked them every 5 minutes all weekend!
I ate one of the long tomatoes, which was kind of like eating a banana, but it was a tomato, and therefore messed with my head a little. But it was delicious!

Summer Stall Photos

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Outdoor Markets

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Samples!

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Vegetables!

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Apples and Pears!

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Mangoes!

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What is "Best of Blush"?

2010-08-19T19:54:00.000-06:00

In January of this year, I started working at Blush Lane Organics as their produce manager. Of all the many reasons I love my job, getting to build awesome produce displays is definitely a highlight. I haven't really found much online about building produce displays, but in my industry it is definitely a skill and a talent, and a very important part of merchandising.

While sending a set of photos for a claim tonight, I came across the dozens and dozens of photos I have of the displays I have built in the past few months. I have enough photos to start a "worst of Blush" blog full of rotting fruit and vegetables, but it makes more sense to focus on the beautiful, wonderful stuff that makes us who we are. Beautiful produce gives out positive energy, especially when it is creatively displayed. It's the basic building block of a Farmer's Market: Why people brave the crowds and double-wide strollers just to look.

(Well, that and the samples, I suppose!)