Hot Shots- Ursula and her camera show us what's gorgeous this week

Dear Ones,

Miss Valerie VanEe is back from holidays and we’re all here for the moment before Lil’ Annie takes off to visit with her parents and first off I’d like to apologize for not putting this newsletter out while we’re short staffed.  I can’t seem to just whip it off in a heart beat.  It takes a little more juice than that to write to you. 

In other news, the sun’s gone done finally showed up, and with it stone fruit from the interior, greens from the valley, and broccoli and beets from just a step south of the border.  It’s summer.  I’ve been freezing and drying berries regularly enough to have red fingertips, Chloe’s promised to show me how to make jam and I’ve promised to do a pesto workshop with the Dream Team.  Everything is good.  Except that Mark is gone for one month of which there is still about three weeks to go.  And I’ve been stompin’ through my house thinking: “oh don’t you be that kind of woman.  Don’t you fall to pieces just because someone’s not around.  Fill it up!”  So I’ve been cleaning like a maniac, reading like a scholar, I’ve been drawing and sewing and weeding and watering like nobody’s business, filling every minute with something useful so that I don’t have a second to miss him.  But just last night, I sat down on my bright red couch and I had a good cry.  Because I do.  I miss him.  And he’ll be back soon, but for now, I just miss him.  And I finally thought, what does “that kind of woman mean, Ush.  What kind of woman are you avoiding ‘being’?  One who loves hard and earnestly, truly and honestly?  One who can’t fill the ache of noticing that something’s not quite right with recipes and ‘tasks’, who doesn’t care about glowing baseboards at the end of the day because it’s hard to care about such things on one’s own; am I a woman who loves knowing that sometimes that loving hurts when the beloved is not right in front of your face?"  I am.  And so is every woman I’ve ever admired, so is every person I’ve ever trusted and liked.  I like the ones that love hard, the one’s that miss you, the one’s who ached while you were away just a bit, who cleaned the house because they couldn’t think of anything to do with their hands and ‘nothing’ just wasn’t going to cut it. 

And I thank each and every one of you who loves like that for loving like that, for living like that.  What would it be like if it weren’t for us?  Boring, I think.  And a little bleak.  I thank every one of you brave enough to love even when it pinches a little.  It’s good.  This is good.  Reminds you you’re alive.  A love and a live. 

So are these new crop no dip kent mangoes.  For all y’all wondering what no dip means, it means that the mangoes have been directly imported to Canada rather than having to enter the US on their way and so are not hot water treated for fruit flies.  This hot water treatment sometimes kills the fruit, and so when we have and boast ‘no dip’ mangoes, it means that the probability that the fruit has been compromised by heat is unlikely.  Perfect mangoes!  Perfect fruit.  That’s what you get when you haul straight into Canada. 

These are the little mixed Heirloom clamshells from Garden Back to Eden.  Someone asked for the tomatoes from heaven the other day.  I said, “You mean Eden?  Garden Back to Eden?”

“That’s what I said,” she said.  Ok. 

Bing cherries from Cawston BC, a small town with not enough bylaws to have more than one traffic light.  One of the richest places in the world, the most fertile and organic valleys.  You should check it out.  When you’re out that way, once you get to Cawston, don’t’ just drive on through.  Stop for some cherries, at least.  Maybe you’ll even have to stop at the light.  Unlikely, but maybe.   

The boxes with this corn in them say “Swank Farm.”  I like that.  Also, I like this corn.  It’s yummy straight off the cob and packed in a lot of ice.  BC corn is small just yet, though we are bringing it in little by little.  This US corn is a beautiful backup until our local crops are strong. 

Warkentin Blueberries from Matsqui Prairie, which is also called Chilliwack, but if you wanted to be really right, you’d say Matsqui Prairie.  Fraser Valley, anyway.  The valley’s got the blues.

Just as we’re running out of walla wallas (we were shorted our last order of them), we’ve got sweet fresh yellow spring onions in from Covert Farms. 

These are our black grapes.

And these are our red grapes.  They’re gorgeous, they’re hard, they’re fresh and the stems are bright snappy green. 

Haven’t seen those Nash’s Farm boxes in awhile and it was great to walk into the veg cooler today only to run into a few pallets of them.  These are their beets. 

And this is their broccoli.  The florets are small, the crowns are narrow, the stems are fresh and sweet and young.  Do not order this broccoli and claim it because it doesn’t look right.  This is what it looks like.  It’s tall.  And it’s sweet.  And you can see Victoria from this farm so really, this is what I’d esteem to be ‘local’, fo sho. 

The jazz apple: when a gala and a braeburn fall in love.  It makes, jazz.  Kind of.  Or my Mom named this apple after something she thought was ‘funky’. Or yours did.  Anyway, someone’s did, but at the end of the day, that’s what it is.  Just a bit of each of the best. 

That’s Chloe:  She’s the best, too. 

And these are our orchard run goldbar apricots.  They are various size, blushy and perfect.  They’re called orchard run because they’re packed in the orchard.  That’s it.  I bet you I’d be blushing like this if I were picked up in an orchard.  Just sayin’.  Orchard run often means ‘fresh’. 

Here’s to loving strong and well, to being brave enough to miss someone, to wandering around with a big wide open heart even if that means that the wind races through it once in awhile.  I guess it’s just another feelin’.

Shine, baby, shine. 

Big Love,

Ursula Twiss