By Debbra Mikaelsen

We wouldn’t normally send you off on an adventure that requires three ferries and the better part of a day’s travel, but this is one experience you can’t get to by cycling across town. Hollyhock on Cortes Island offers an extensive range of programs, and when planning my trip I was tempted to sign up for something enlightening, empowering, or emboldening.

Spiced Beverages Take the Chill (and the Edge) Off

By AnnMarie MacKinnon

Photos By Kevin Clark - kevinclarkphotography.com

Vancouver winters are not known for their bitter cold or colossal amounts of snow. There are few stories of children walking to school in chest-deep snow, or of skin freezing in seconds, as is the case in other parts of the country. But winter, even in a city known for its mild weather, is the time of year when kitchens fill with richer aromas. Hearty root vegetables figure heavily on menus, food is of the comforting variety, and thoughts often turn to sugar plums and gingerbread houses.

Dungeness Crabs Taste of Home

by Katy Campbell

Winter often looms as an intractable barrier for all but the most dedicated and prepared locavores. Fresh fruit is a distant memory from other seasons, and potatoes tend to assume a dominant position in every dish. Fortunately, the Dungeness crab is here to scale the walls of the seasons and pinch its way onto the table at any time of the year. Unlike most other local foods, crabs are at their best in the depths of winter, when they have completely filled out their shells with their soft, sweet flesh.

Hazelnuts Are Health Nuts

Story By Arlene Kroeker • Photo by Jenn Pentland

I asked my daughter where she put the whole nutmeg. (She had re-arranged the kitchen.) “I know where they are,” she said, and pulled out a glass container of small brown orbs.

“Those are hazelnuts,” I told her.

A Confession, with Recipes

By Eagranie Yuh - Photo By Leeanne Munn

All my life, I’ve been in love with pudding.

I was one of two Chinese kids in my Grade 1 class. I didn’t really think about the fact that I looked different. These are, for the most part, things that grown-ups think about and that kids think are irrelevant.

My classmates were fascinated by my lunches. They, with their sandwiches of lunch meat on white bread, would carefully inspect my lunch: a thermos filled with last night’s leftovers. It usually consisted of rice, vegetables (bok choy or gai lan, never broccoli) and protein (chicken with garlic and black beans, pork dumplings, or tofu).

By Jeff Nield • Photo by Jenn Pentland

Bruce Swift talks like any other farmer dedicated to local markets and integrated systems. He talks about how the “no-brainer” of recycling nutrients produced by a farming operation is “Farming 101.” But Swift isn’t growing ground crops with composted manure from the chicken barn or heirloom tomatoes in a greenhouse. He’s farming salmon.