Southern Ontario Local Menu Plan – June 17-23

The Falls:

Niagara Falls was incredibly awe-inspiring and beautiful.  We had so much fun seeing the falls and exploring the region while Madame was at a conference (and if you’re wondering about my assistant’s helmet, he had been practicing riding his balance bike)!  By the time we got home however, I was sick of eating restaurant food, to the extent that I exclaimed while eating leftover rice and beans on Tuesday night, “I love real food!”  Kind of cheesy, I know, but seriously, it’s what I said and I meant it.  Still, we did have a great time there and got loaded up on some of the locally produced goods that are found there—wine and nuts.

We visited 5 wineries, the coolest being the organic and biodynamic Southbrook Vineyards , and sampled lots of great wines grown less than 100 miles from where we live.  The nut orchard, Grimo Nuts , was also really great to visit and we left with three pounds of Persian walnuts (that’s your standard walnut) and one pound of black walnuts (as well as a box of antique pop bottles that I plan to recommission as Kombucha bottles) .  The price was comparable to what I would expect to pay for nuts from California ($11/pound for the Persians, $14 for the black).  I should think I can make four pounds of expensive tree nuts last a while because otherwise I can’t hope to obtain any more local ones until the end of the growing season.

Exciting news in the garden, the peas are here!  I’ve been munching on them already but will use them for a real meal on Monday.