I drove over last Saturday and I have to say I was really impressed. It’s not a large market by any stretch, but as organizer Merissa Nudelman, a community nutritionist, points out “the goal of this is to allow local citizens to make more environmentally-sound and nutritious choices, as well as to foster a sense of communal solidarity.”
NDG Seasonal Markets succeeds on all counts, featuring several vendors that sell healthy foods and are fun to chat with as well. The Good Food Box cooperative, for instance, is a collective buying group for fruits and vegetables that cuts out the middle man, thereby lowering prices substantially. They have many offerings, so bring along the largest of your eco-friendly shopping bags.
I enjoyed my chat with 25-year old NDGer Olivier Lamoureux, of Coop les jardins de la Resistance, although instead of spotting Che Guevara, I learned that what Olivier, his partners and his volunteer mom Diane Tardif are resisting is the use of toxic chemical products and the marginalization of small farms by expanding industrial farms. The group grows delicious, fresh vegetables using ecological methods and is in the process of obtaining official organic certification by Ecocert.
I also revelled in talking to NDG resident Daniele Blain, who works with her husband, beekeeper Alain Pericard, at their Rocher Apis facility, an apiary in Estrie that produces THE best all-natural honey. Many years ago, I was a business partner with a Swiss mechanical designer named Kurt Streckeisen who also owned a farm, raised bees and provided me with excellent honey on a regular basis. Thanks to Kurt, I know my honey and this is good honey, just $8 a kilo for this year’s delectable wildflower variety. They won’t be there this coming Saturday but will return the following week. Daniele can be reached at dblain@aei.ca
Shelley Edwards was also there, representing Rigaud’s La Ferme de la Rive operated by her and husband Bruce De Waele the past four years. They specialize in pesticide-free vegetables and she told me that of the 16 markets they attend annually, starting every July, “we keep coming back to this one, because there is not a lot of competition and people from NDG respond very well.”
Finally, enjoy the tasty, healthy samples whipped up by The Lunchbox, which organizes nutritional workshops for young students and teens and brings experts in from various cultures to showcase menu items that help bring people a little closer together via the best possible medium: food.
While enjoying food purchased at the market, remember that not everyone can afford to eat healthy meals, if they can afford to eat at all. The NDG Food Depot provides emergency food to people in need and donations of food and funds are always accepted. Call 514-483-4680 or e-mail them at admin@depotndg.org.
I have often written about the sorry state of Montreal radio and predicted that its self-immolation would reach crisis proportions. Well, CJAD, which has been in crisis mode for several years now, reached for new lows with the firings of a minibus-full of staff including their man of steel, late-night host Peter Anthony Holder, who toiled harder than anyone else there for 20 years, Kevin Holden, who kept us entertained while keeping abrasive wife Trudy in check, the always likeable Al Gravelle and, gods be praised, the Screeching Divas, amateurs Laurie and Olga, no great loss there. And Q-92 joined in the bruhaha, as GM Mark Dickie’s prints were all over the brain dead move to eliminate Paul “Tasso” Zakaib and Suzanne Desautels from Aaron Rand’s morning show, this mere months after Dickie fired legendary morning man Marc “Mais Oui” Denis from his perch at AM’s 940. The radio execs responsible are truly graduates from the Aural School of Morons.
