So this is a hard one to put into words. Salt Spring Island is like paradise for food, with all the right ethical considerations and practices in place. Its pretty similar to Cowichan valley, only a different climate and it's an island off an island, which makes it a lot more isolated. That's a blessing and a curse for certain. Things are more expensive on Salt Spring, but there's less issue with the crazy tourist throngs and losing integrity. We pulled in on Friday before the famous Saturday morning Ganges farm and artisan market. Pretty wicked little town kicking it, and right on the main strip I stumbled on an Ottawa cook who used to work for my dad back in the day. I knew he was on Salt Spring, but had no idea he had his own spot there and was right outside the market place. It's called Bruce's kitchen, and like most of the community there, he's supporting only island producers and rolling a small menu out, mainly for lunches. We had a quick chat and then me and the German decided it was time to drink. We headed out to Garry Oaks winery and Salt Spring Island Vineyards. Had a couple tastings and a run around the Garry Oaks winery and then popped right next door to sample some blackberry port and a couple others from Salt Spring. We had a pretty good talk with the owner's daughter at Salt Spring, she recommended some stuff to do and places to visit on the Island and got pretty excited about surfing. After the wineries we got hungry, so we took a trip south to Ruckle Park, which I think it the biggest park in Salt Spring, and acted both as our dinner area and crash pad for the evening. It's a really nice park, right on the south-eastern tip of the island, and provides wicked views over the water. We jumped around for a while, invented a way to play chess with playing cards, and then decided it was time for dins. This one was a certified 9$ Nosh. Beet salad with it's greens and feta cheese, grape vinagrette. Pretty simple, but it was good fresh local ingredient and kicked ass.
This is also a crafty and highly recommendable way to shower if your in the woods.
After our little Ruckle adventure, we woke early to get to the farmer's market early, because apparently at this time of year there isn't enough supply for demand and things go fast. We also decided to get our lunch there, which was awesome. The farmer's market was really cool, lots of really interesting farmers and producers, bakers, tons of quirky artisans and their oddball creations as well, if your into that kinda thing. We also met up with Michael Ableman, who is a Californian raised farmer/author who now resides on a farm on salt spring. We'd been bouncing e-mails back and forth and he'd somehow convinced me to do a couple days of free labour on his farm. That was to begin Monday, so we had a day and a half to jam in as much of salt spring as possible before our internment at Foxglove farms. We ran around quite a bit, visited some really cool farms/cheesemakers and then decided we'd try the town nightlife on for size. For the record, goats love cedar. Like crack for goats=cedar, only with none of the recorded negative side effects. Moonstruck cheeses was kind of disappointing because they only have a farmgate shop, and no one was around to answer our questions. That's what we get for not phoning ahead I suppose. Salt spring Island cheese was pretty incredible, really a nicely streamlined place. That's where the goats appeared, and there was a chicken who looked distinctly like Donald Trump. Nightlife was nowhere to be seen, until we headed to this oyster bar called Moby's, where we met some industry folks, got invited to a party, and drank altogether too much to be in social contact with other human beings. It was a good and strange evening. I know this post might seem to end quickly but the next one is going to be awesome and the place I'm in is closing soon.
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