The Great BC Easter Dinner

Easter loomed early this year. No sooner had the last dregs of winter quietly been washed away by Spring's gentle temperatures, and had the early markings of lilac buds peeped out from branches deadened with the dull grey of March, than Easter was upon us.

Three weeks ago, with Easter but a faint memory of last year's Creme Eggs, I sat in a crowded classroom at the university and listened with rapture to a talk by James McKinnon and Alisa Smith, authors of the 100-Mile Diet. As they detailed the bounty and sheer variety of crops and foods available in th lower mainland, I sheepishly thought back to the Costco run from the night before, mentally compiling a list of the origins of the fruit and vegetables stuffed into an already over-stuffed fridge. Exotic locales immediately came to mind: California, Mexico, Peru, why, on a cold day at the beginning of March, even Washington and Oregon began to sounded alluringly exotic.

I've always made a conscious effort to think of consumption in terms of seasons. In the summer in Kamloops, the 100-mile diet is transformed into more of a 500-metre diet, as I tear myself from slumber early on Saturday mornings, make my way to the farmer's market a mere 3-minute walk from my house, and load up on precious gifts from the earth around me. I dreamt wistfully during the talk of how our wedding celebration in Newfoundland this coming summer would be a meal coming from farms on the bountiful Avalon peninsula. But this now was winter, and I was forced into buying produce from elsewhere, my upcoming birthday would be in winter, with Easter coming fast on th heels of the Equinox.

My first foray into local winter eating was then to be my birthday party. We were lucky enough to find produce - potatoes, turnip, hothouse lettuce and apples - all coming from BC (100 miles would really limit us to little more than apples and wine), in addition to BC goat milk feta. We feted the evening with potato latkes, mashed turnips, salad, and for desert, canned cherries from a friend's backyard.

This wasn't so bad. In fact, it seemed downright easy. A culinary experiment limited only by my lack of imagination and low tolerance for potatoes.

Easter, however, turned out to be a different story. The turkey was a snap - a simple matter of filling out a form at the health food store guaranteed us a local free-rang turkey. The produce, however, was, well, an exercise in frustration to say the least. I was, of course, able to find potatoes (red, however, not the russets I had hoped for, and which make for fluffy, airy mashed potatoes), apples and pears. I was elated to find signs in the store indicating the kale and beets had come from BC. I also found a sign for BC squash, and yet, on closer inspection, found a tag on the squash that read "product of mexico."

The staff, a good ten years younger than me, and through no fault of their own (yet don't get me started on the millennials), were unable to help me, and the best they could do was forage through boxes in the back of the store with the hopes that the origin would be printed on them somewhere. There were no squash boxes left. Their advice was for me to find a squash with a different sticker and that brand may be from BC. When I asked about the contradiction in signs and labels, their answer was that they often don't change the signs, but the produce comes from all over, so it was most likely an old sign that hadn't been changed. So I grabbed a different squash, one with a purple label and no definitive origin, and hoped for the best. Arriving at the counter, I thought it best to double-check the labels on the kale and the beets. Both were from Mexico.

Easter dinner this year ended up being a learning experience, celebrated with copious libations of Okanagan wine. My experiment with searching out local produce forced me to buy vegetables I would never have normally chosen for such an occasion. The dinner ended up being a cornucopia of colours: red beets, orange squash, green kale. I also learned not to trust grocery store signs, to ask questions even if the staff don't know the answers (maybe one day they'll get the hint), to make a point of writing letters to grocery stores demanding adequate consumer information, and that sometimes, the most important things, just like in yoga, are awareness, intention, and breathing.