Photo: Michelle Kim for Miss604
Ever since I attended the magical Araxi Longtable event at the breathtaking North Arm Farm in Pemberton back in 2011, I’ve been obsessed with the concept of farm dinners — where people sit down at table that stretches as long as a length of an Olympic swimming pool and communally experience eating food from the land on which they dine.
After some research, I soon learned that Outstanding in the Field, a company that tours and hosts dinners at farms worldwide, was a pioneer of the concept of farm dinners.
The company has hosted over 430 events worldwide since 1999, feeding 55,000 guests at over 200 farms in North America, South America, and Europe. And more importantly, through my research, I learned that Outstanding in the Field came to BC annually to host a couple dinners, and was coming to UBC Farm.
Photo credit: Michelle Kim for Miss604
Outstanding in the Field at UBC Farm opened with some delicious rose from LaStella Winery in Osoyoos, BC, along with a talk about the company by founded Jim Denevan, as well as a guided tour at UBC Farm. Encompassing 24 hectares of farm and forest land, UBC Farm is managed by the Centre for Sustainable Food Systems, which offers learning, research, and community programs (including a summer camp, introducing children to the concept of farming).
Many local restaurants get their food from UBC Farms, including La Quercia, whose chefs Adam Pegg and Lucais Syme cooked the meal for the event, along with wine pairings from LaStella. Each course contains fruits, vegetables, and flowers from the farm, and I loved how everything was served family-style so you got to know your neighbours, asking to pass dishes along, which really enforced a sense that sustainable, local eating is the responsibility everyone at the table, and in this community.
Photo credit: Michelle Kim for Miss604
I loved the first course: a plate of cold gravlax spring salmon & hot smoked spring salmon, with rye berries, crème fraîche, and rye crisps. The contrast between the differently-prepared salmon was superb, and I never had tried rye berries before and thought they added a perfect amount of sweetness and tartness to the dish.
The second course was with a pasta called casarecce, with an arugula pesto, almonds carrots, and zucchini. I’ve never had casarecce before and loved the long shape of the pasta it held the sauce and how the arugula embedded in it’s long grove found on the pasta beautifully.
The third course was a quail dish and since I’m not a quail fan (though it was prepare beautifully), I’m going to skip right to dessert: aerated white chocolate, with blueberries, nasturtium, olive oil & elderflower. To die for.
At the end of the meal, the Outstanding in the Field team, along with the chefs, came out for a final bow, and I know for one, I’m hoping for an encore next year.
Ocean Park is a lovely area to pass through in south west Surrey when venturing between Crescent Beach and White Rock’s waterfront but it’s also a very nice place to visit and live. In fact businesses and residents have been celebrating with the Ocean Park Day festival for the last 14 years and they’re inviting you to come and discover what their community has in store.
Ocean Park Day
This year’s festival will take place on Saturday, August 17th from 10:00am to 4:00pm at 128th Street and 16th Avenue. The Ocean Park Library will have storytelling in the garden, there will be a a vendor marketplace, giveaways from local businesses, popcorn, slushies, BBQ hot dogs, gift basket draws, a White Rock Rotary book sale, Leo the Lion, and more. The main stage line-up includes:
Michele Partridge (Ocean Park’s The Drama Class) as the MC
10:50am Antoinette Libelt (singer/guitar)
11:15am The Rhythm Well Percussion Group
11:40am Ron Fairbairn (singer/guitar)
12:05pm Portal a Tango (Tango dancers)
Spotlight on Ocean Park youth talent
12:30pm Arden Reimer (singer/piano)
12:40pm Curtis Heimburger (singer/guitar)
12:50pm Jasmine Stacey (singer)
1:00pm Alanna & Brianna Finn-Morris (singers/guitars)
1:25pm Yasmine Dance Productions (Belly Dancing)
1:50pm Chris Hamilton (Children’s Entertainer)
2:15pm Ava Carrich (singer/guitar)
2:40pm Brigadoon Highland Dancers
3:05pm Kelly McQuillan (singer/guitar)
3:30pm John Nicholson Jazz Group
For more information you about this event and other community happenings in Ocean Park Village you can follow along on Facebook and Twitter.
The Squamish Valley Music Festival was the largest ever this year, with over 17,000 jubilant concert-goers packing the Logger Sports Grounds in Squamish for this festival that first began in 2010. My intrepid photographer John Biehler took some great photos throughout the event for three days. Here’s what he captured up the Sea to Sky on Saturday:
Squamish Valley Music Festival Photos
Contributed by John Biehler: Saturday was the third day of the festival and it was jam packed! Here’s just a small sampling of photos from the acts I saw.
Local favorite The Matinée put on a great show on the Garibaldi Stage:
…Including one of the coolest banjo solos I’ve ever seen:
Dear Rouge‘s first trip to the festival (and my first time seeing them live) was amazing: Continue reading this post ⟩⟩
This post has been contributed by the Stanley Park Ecology Society (“SPES”). I have been following SPES since I moved into the West End almost eight years ago and I recently became a member. I wanted to offer the team an opportunity to share their news, events, and work so I have created “SPES Saturday” where they will be contributing stories with my audience once a month.
Stanley Park BioBlitz and Nature Events
By now, you have probably noticed that there will likely be a little more activity happening in Stanley Park on August 24th and 25th than usual. Stanley Park is turning 125 years this year and the City of Vancouver is putting on a grand celebration for Canada’s most popular urban park.
Celebrate! Stanley Park is a weekend of free events spread over five festival zones in the park. For music lovers there’ll be oodles of entertainment at Second Beach; those interested in the fascinating, and surprising, history of the park should check out the historical tours and displays in the Rose Garden; for sport fans, head over to Brockton Oval; those bringing their families will find lots to do at Lumberman’s Arch; and nature lovers should visit the Lost Lagoon festival zone.
We’re joining in on the celebrations too. This year we’re celebrating 25 years of bringing Vancouverites closer to nature and making a difference to wildlife in Stanley Park, and our main contribution to Celebrate! Stanley Park is the Stanley Park BioBlitz, which takes place on the same weekend. You can find us throughout the weekend in the BioBlitz tent at Lumberman’s Arch and at the Nature House on Lost Lagoon.
SPES Photos by Don Enright and Robyn Worcester
We invite you and the rest of our community to help us learn about all the wonderful creatures that fly, hop, crawl and flutter in Stanley Park. There’ll be lots of opportunities to get involved with biodiversity at the Stanley Park BioBlitz, through surveying local wildlife, taking part in hands-on stewardship activities and learning about everything from forest ecology to local birds, and bats to beavers at educational walks and talks.
Look at our schedule to see what takes your fancy. With more than 30 different events and activities, there should be something for everyone. Participation is free and there is no need to pre-register, just show up.
Never heard of a BioBlitz before? The basic idea is simple. Within a 24-hour period, scientists, volunteers and members of the public will collaborate on finding, identifying and recording as many species of plants, animals, fungi, and other organisms as possible to increase our knowledge of the Park’s native biodiversity. Building a more comprehensive ecological inventory of Stanley Park will help us to better guide future stewardship activities and provide improved management advice to the Vancouver Park Board, who we work closely with.
We did our first and only BioBlitz in 2011 in partnership with South Coast Conservation Program and thanks to the more than 1,000 community participants who joined in, we learned a tremendous deal about the different creatures that live in Stanley Park. The BioBlitz identified no less than 395 different species of flora and fauna, including 152 new species, and the results have greatly furthered our conservation efforts in Stanley Park.
With so much going on in Stanley Park on the weekend already, we’re hopeful that even more people will join us this year in our quest to identify species and provide some amazing opportunities for learning about the natural ecology of Stanley Park.
The 2013 Stanley Park BioBlitz is generously sponsored by TD Friends of the Environment Foundation and the Job Creation Partnership Program of the Ministry of Social Development. All our BioBlitz events are listed on our website. Find out more about what’s happening at Celebrate! Stanley Park.
Today is the last day of the Squamish Valley Music Festival, which opened its doors for its fourth annual summer music extravaganza on Thursday night.
I have covered this event, formerly the Live at Squamish Music Festival, every year and this was the busiest I have seen it during the first full day. About 17,000 festival-goers filled the Logger Sports Grounds and Hendrickson Fields to catch acts such as Said the Whale, Dragonette, Dan Mangan, The Boom Booms, Young the Giant Jordan Klassen, Jurassic 5, Macklemore and Ryan Lewis, and Vampire Weekend — just to name a few.
Squamish Valley Music Festival Changes This Year
- There is a new wristband system for entrance and drink purchase. Each wristband has a chip that is read at the door to confirm your entry and instead of purchasing drink tickets in the beer gardens, you “top up” your wristband like a gift card at top up stations. Once you have an appropriate dollar amount loaded onto your wristband, you can walk over to the pouring station, have it scanned and debited automatically, and pick up your drink.
There were issues with the system on Thursday night at caused delays at the gate but these seemed resolved on Friday. However, the lines for the top up stations were far longer than the drink stations so it is worth it to full top up your wristband to avoid future top up trips in the future. That, and there is a service fee charged with every top up.
- The children have returned this year! In the first few years of the festival we noticed far more families but they seemed to have tapered off. Yesterday, there were many families, strollers, toddlers, and kids running around and dancing to the music — it was great to see.
- I hear the Glamping is the best option this year with access to showers and the Brennan Park Recreation Centre.
- The VIP beer garden’s only benefit this year isn’t just being closer to the stage. It’s also up on a riser so you get a definite improvement in your view of the Stawamus stage.
- The marketplace has grown, with more vendors and many more freebies and promotional items being handed out. With one pass between the rows my sister came out with a handful of granola bars, ice cream bars, iced tea, and other goodies.
- It seemed like music was just everywhere this year, not just in pockets around the Garibaldi or Stawamus Stages. The Market Square stage, Woodshed, and a smaller stage inside the main beer garden filled the air with music at all times.
Next year the site will be expanded as the festival, working with the District of Squamish, has been approved to expand to allow a capacity of over 30,000 each day.
Squamish Valley Music Festival Day 1 Highlights
You have to cheer for the homegrown Vancouver talent, Dan Mangan, who played for the festival crowd of thousands who got up from their comfortable blankets on the grass and danced their hearts out to his tunes.
When one song blended into another and the familiar chorus of Robots prompted fans to sing along, Mangan called up a few costumed members of the audience to stand on in front of the stage while he took a spin around the audience, crowd surfing over the masses.
Later in the evening, and incredibly happy, ground-shaking party ensued when the newly re-united Jurassic 5 hit the Garibali stage. This legendary alternative hop hip group, that parted ways in 2007, was a definite highlight, fully engaging the crowd who then migrated to the Stawamus stage to catch Macklemore and Ryan Lewis.
Macklemore, from Seattle, weaved stories between songs, captivating the crowd that was hungry to hear the blockbuster hits from his album The Heist, with Ryan Lewis. The music went well into the night, with the last acts of the day — such as Madeon — hitting their stages at 11:00pm after main stage headliners Vampire Weekend.
The schedule picks up again today at 2:40pm with Foy Vance followed by Yukon Blonde and The Matinée, and later this evening is Band of Horses, Childish Gambino, and Queens of the Stone Age.
John Biehler is my photographer this year as John Bollwitt and I have prior commitments this Saturday. He’s been snapping some amazing shots of the bands on stage and will be posting a photo essay by the end of the weekend. Stay tuned!
![[PIC] @DanManganMusic crowd surfs after inviting some robots on stage @squamishfest #vmsquamish](http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2841/9474217713_65ca92352f.jpg)
