Mission Challenge: Weekend Adventure
We challenged people in Mission, B.C., to try local eating for 100 days starting June 1. Nearly 100 people signed up - and we couldn’t resist signing up, too. Can a community change the way it eats? It’s never to late to get involved: Join in for a month, a week, even a single meal.
DAY 30 - I can hardly believe the Mission 100-Mile Challenge is almost one-third over. Alisa and I spent the weekend out in Mission, starting with the Friday night 100-mile show at Bad Dog Grill, where the food portions were local, tasty, and huge, and the music by the Lolligagers featured some of my favourites, from sea shanties and Gordon Lightfoot to the Pogues and R.E.M. We heard some good news and some sad news. The good news: There is local club soda! (But I can’t remember which brand it is-someone, please, let me know.) The sad news was a story we heard from a family that was recently at a local First Nations’ community dinner and heard that, given the way the Fraser River salmon runs are these days, future salmon dinners might only be held to mark funerals. If that isn’t symbolic of the fact that we need to get back to caring for our local food systems, I don’t know what is.
The next day Alisa and I rode our bikes from Mission to Agassiz and back (104 km), fueled only by local foods–salted new potatoes, green peas, hard-boiled eggs, roadside farmstand strawberries (we ate about five pounds between us…), and Farm House cheeses. I had my doubts about fueling such a long ride without commercial sports drinks or at least granola bars, but I have to say, I’ve never felt better on a long ride as I did on that one. (And sunwarmed, picked-that-morning strawberries dipped in chilled Farm House fromage frais is about as amazing a summer-day snack as I’ve ever had.)
That night we hit Stella’s (note: the website wasn’t working when I set up this link) for another 100-mile meal, bumped into several other 100-milers out for a night on the town, and finally ended with some local wine overlooking the town and the Fraser River. As a couple of tourists in our own region, we couldn’t have had a much better day. I’d encourage other people in the region who are heading out to the Fraser Valley, maybe to do one of the Circle Farm Tours, to stop in for an affordable 100-mile restaurant meal in Mission (Bad Dog Grill, Stella’s, or Embers BBQ House). Do call ahead to let them know you’re coming so they can make sure to have extra food on hand. Let’s support restaurants that are supporting local food producers!
On Sunday, we hit the Farmers’ Market for more strawberries, then hit Steve Peters’ Fruits & Greens Market (more gooseberries…and more strawberries), and finally headed into Vancouver with stops at local wineries. Most do not have truly local wines, unfortunately, and instead mix Fraser Valley grapes with Okanagan grapes to deliver “typical” wines like Chardonnay, Merlot, Reisling, etc to the consumer. This is one reason we admire Domaine de Chaberton, which has had the guts to grow more “unusual” grapes like Bacchus and Madelaine Sylvaner (which do well in our difficult climate), then educate the local palate to accept them and embrace them. The Bacchus, in particular, now has a strong local following. That’s what real local food culture is about: What works right here, not what everyone is drinking from here to France to California.
So: Thank you, Mission, for a great weekend of eating and adventure and adventurous eating.
Looking for past Mission Challenge blogs? Click here.
-JBM
