The Great Big Crunch is when 700 students gather on the front lawn of Queen’s Park and simultaneously bite into a fresh, local apple. And it’s happing this Friday at 2pm, Oct. 8.
The Great Big Crunch is part of a province-wide Eat-In Ontario fall harvest celebration, which aims to teach students of all ages the joys of cooking, growing and tasting good, healthy food.
Eat-In Ontario is part of FoodShare’s Recipe for Change initiative, which is working hard to improve food literacy across Ontario.
So pack an apple and come on down to show your support! It’ll be worth the trip just to see 700 kids do anything simultaneously.
Who: Students, JK-12 and anyone else who eats food
Where: Front lawn Queen’s Park
When: Fri, 8 Oct. 2 pm
Why: Because good healthy food matters, and not just for kids
Not far from the Tree’s fruit picking program organizes volunteer groups in Toronto to harvest fruit from trees on residential properties that would otherwise go to waste.
If you have a fruit tree that yields more than you can handle, consider calling these guys to come pick the fruit and put the unwanted bounty to good use.
One third goes to the fruit tree owner, one third goes to the volunteer pickers, and one third goes to community organizations in the neighbourhood.
And Not Far from the Tree is sharing their return with the public tonight as part of the Gladstone’s Fly by Night exhibition for Nuit Blanche. Starting at 6:57 pm today, they’ll be pressing apple cider from dusk till dawn.
Enjoy a cup of local love … a tireless cider-pressing extravaganza that animates the urban orchard!
Snap snap!
?”If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.”
– Carl Sagan
If you don’t have time for that universe inventin’ stuff, pick up some ready-grown apples at your local market and get busy.
Here’s a little guide to help you choose the right kind of apple for your needs:
Cakes, Pies, Crisps/Pudding, Skillet
Northern Spy, Spartan, Empire, Cortland, Gala, Banana gold, Idared
Baking whole
McIntosh, Empire, Spartan, Northern Spy, Jonagold, Mutsu
Sauces
McIntosh, Gala, Empire, Northern Spy, Spartan, Cortland, Gravenstein
Snacks, Salads
McIntosh, Gala, Golden Russet, Red Delicious
I haven’t had the chance to sample every single variety of apple out there, yet, but so far it tastes like a damn fine year for McIntosh.
Not very original, I know, but crisp, juicy, sweet, with a touch of tart.
Ever just stood in the produce section of a supermarket, an array of brightly coloured super-sized fruits glistening before you, and just being stumped about what to do?
On a recent visit to the suburbs to see my boyfriend, I went to a supermarket to buy some coffee. While there, I decided to pick up some fruit for a fresh post-coffee snack. Now this supermarket is rather pricey & high end, not my bf’s regular stop, but I don’t mind it because it’s smaller and less mega-conglomeraty than its counterpart down the road.
Being a fancy store, it has a huge selection of imported and exotic fruits. But liking the idea of keeping it simple, I walked down the apple aisle, past rows of shiny red, green and yellow baseball-sized fruit.
How did they get that big? Chemical fertilizers.
Why is their skin so perfect? Pesticides.
Why are they so shiny? Wax.
No way is that going to “refresh” me after a coffee.
But lo! At the end of the aisle, there was a small organic section… with normal looking Gala apples. Hooray! The sticker on the apples even had the right organic code number (any produce sticker with a number beginning in “9” means it is certified organic). Then I saw the country of origin written in small letters beneath. Argentina.
Mmmm. Hesitation. Now I have nothing against Argentina. I love Buenos Aires. One of my best friends is from there. But does my right to avoid ingesting certain chemicals override my right to expect a piece of fruit to travel 8945 km (5558 miles) and two hemispheres, burning fossil fuels and spewing carbon dioxides along the way?
What’s more important, me or the environment? If you have asked yourself the same question, you may have already found yourself standing in the produce section of a supermarket stumped about what to do.
What’s more important, my internal environment or my external environment? Me, or the world?
Is this the choice we have to make now? As familiar as it’s become, I was face to face with the “local” vs. “organic” debate. And I know where I stand on this issue, but still, it gets me every time. And of course, there’s no ultimate right or wrong. Showers are no better than baths, just different. Local vs. organic is a huge debate and I will not try to cover it here. But I do believe that it is an individual’s right to chose what is right for themselves. And I do think that it is an issue that demands proper consideration and discussion. And maybe a few minutes reflection in the produce section.
You or the environment?
On this day, since I couldn’t have both, I shied away from organic and went with a nice bag of “Canada fancy” regular-sized golden delicious from Ontario. I mean, come on, apples? They’re so Canadian! They rival the maple and could well be on our flag. This is one fruit we can certainly eat local.
