lens....baby

Whenever I travel home to Ontario I pack the majority of my camera gear...just in case. While home for the Christmas holidays I found myself rather uninspired by beautiful blue skies and weeks-old snow. Finally, on my last day in Sturgeon Point, I awoke to a wonderfully foggy day and set out trekking through the farm with full camera/tripod getup only to discover after half a dozen shots that my lens was being woefully uncooperative. My aperture was jammed and my focus was slipping and I was wet and slogging through melting snow with a hunk of useless glass. Back on the left coast a few weeks later, I found myself sans standard lens while it was being repaired by the wonderful people at Camtex. So what's a girl to do? Why, bust out the trusty old Lensbaby of course. To be honest, I haven't had this thing on my camera for about a year. A Lensbaby is a poor-man's bellows. It allows you to tilt the focus plane and create some pretty unique effects. The optics aren't top of the line, it's totally manual, and it takes a lot of finessing to get something...ANYTHING....sharp.

This is what I did with it on a day trip to Squamish with the family.

Open For Business

As a brand new blogger I'm setting out on this journey with a lot of excitement, a little trepidation and high hopes that I'll be able to spark a new online community of people who dig the kind of epicurean lifestyle that I strive for. I turned 30 in October and have found myself taking a hard look at what I value most in life. A comfortable home, good food on the table and a "village" of friends and family to share it with mean a lot to me...but before you roll your eyes at the Martha Stewartness of this dream, I must stress that my life is far from a perfect autumn, Hamptons afternoon torn from the pages of a Restoration Hardware catalog. I live in an apartment, I work a hectic full-time job and my quaint domestic intentions are often abandoned for a beer and a night of trashy TV. This blog is not a how-to guide but rather a work-in-progress. As I embark on this journey of food exploration and mind-body connection I hope we can all learn a lot about the important things in life.

This summer will mark my 5th year of living in Vancouver. Although there are a hundred things I miss about being back home in Ontario cottage country this time of year, one of the things I love most about living in Vancouver has just started up again. The weekend farmers' market is the highlight of the week for me this time of year and this weekend marked the first day for the Kitsilano market that I love to visit. Most of what I eat during the summer comes from the market because I love being able to talk to the people who are growing and raising the food that I eat.

So, what can you expect to find at the markets? Some of the earliest crops include succulent asparagus, perfectly tart rhubarb, peppery radish, vitamin-packed spinach and lots more...and if you're one of the lucky ones with a garden plot (or even a sunny balcony) the markets are packed right now with plants for you to grow at home. Early tomato and basil plants were plentiful at Sunday's market and had me yearning for a little patch of soil to call my own.

To find your local farmer's market, check out http://www.eatlocal.org.

No. 1

Food drives our bodies, soothes our souls and gathers families around a common table in ways that make humanity so uniquely connected. I’ve been cooking for others since I was a teenager. Before I even had my driver’s license I would plan our meals and my mom would drop me off at the grocery store so I could do the shopping for our family for the week. Our relationship with food defines so many of us, whether as foodies, food addicts or just flat out gluttons. I like to think I’ve evolved into a foodie of the most accessible variety. I love browsing the farmer’s market on weekends, throwing together the freshest ingredients to see what will come of it. But I must confess, I lack the worldly pretension that seems to define a true 21st century bona fide foodie. I don’t like sushi (I’ve tried it but my roots in the bovine regions of central Ontario trump the taste of pungent seaweed on my tongue), I will never be the gastronomical adventurer sampling dry roasted grasshoppers on the sidewalks of Khao San Road and in the darkest moments of existential angst I will always turn to a classic grilled cheese and a glass of Australian red wine. In life I try to blend my love of clean, natural food with my aesthetic passion for photography. This blog is the culmination of those two passions as I blend flavours and images in the hopes of inspiring you to reevaluate your relationship with the stuff that fuels you. Thank you for joining me on this journey. Cheers. Christa.