Wonderpot Wonderment

   My friend has a wonderpot.  It is a cast iron Dutch oven with a wire handle that can be put on an open fire.  He loves to invite friends over for a wonderpot meal.  He starts by sautéing onions and perhaps adding some sausage for flavour.  I like to go to a farmer’s market before one of these meals and buy vegetables in season if possible.  Carrots, orange, yellow and purple, peppers, red and orange, tomatoes, green beans, kale, squash of all kinds, fresh from the earth are beautiful.  Once I found a parsley root as big as a parsnip to put in. The vendor taught me how to prepare it.

  The rest of the meal is potluck and the guests bring something for the pot.  You never know what might appear – a handful of Swiss chard from the garden, carrots, more sausage, even apples.  The pot gets fuller and fuller and it bubbles away creating what we have come to call “wonderment”.  One friend brought bannock as well.  We cooked the dough wrapped around sticks over the coals as we waited for the wonderpot to do its magic.  The smells of cooking vegetables and bread in the cool fall air were wonderful.

   I love to grow vegetables and I lived on a farm for over twenty years.  Now that I have moved to town, I comfort myself by buying food directly from people who grow or raise it whenever possible.  Some women love to buy shoes.  I love to buy fruit and vegetables – it makes me happy.

   I found a store near my new home on a local farm where you can also pick your own strawberries, raspberries and blueberries.  They have figured out how to make buying local very easy.  I can get local milk, eggs and whatever food is in season on the farm.  It makes me feel connected to the earth and farms and that also makes me happy.  I love the enthusiasm the vendors have for their products, be they bread, sausage, fruit, vegetables or cheese.  I have found that I appreciate the food more as well.  I don’t let it go to waste and I enjoy eating it more.  I don’t know if it is more healthy or not, but it helps me to feel connected.  And did I mention, it makes me happy?

   A few weeks ago in November, we were at a farmer’s market in Midland, ON.  I bought some potatoes which actually tasted like potatoes, the end of the season’s kale, some garlic and some feta made from sheep’s milk.  I used to have sheep and I used to milk them and make cheese, so it was really exciting to find a man who makes cheese from local sheep’s milk. We had a long chat about the virtues of sheep milk. I took my treasures home and like one of those cooking shows, figured out what to make.  I sautéed the kale with the garlic, steamed the cut up potatoes and when they were cooked, combined them with sheep’s feta that made a lovely creamy cheese sauce.  I don’t know if it actually tasted wonderful or if I felt nourished by all the different farmers that I had chatted with as I shopped and that made me pay attention to the flavours.  It doesn’t really matter.  The important thing is that I felt nourished physically and emotionally and I felt connected to the wider world and the earth.  That’s got to be good for me!

   Earlier in the fall we went to buy cranberries near Bala, ON where there are two major bogs.  We decided to go to the Iroquois Cranberry Growers on the Wahta Mohawk Territory (iroquoiscranberries.com).  They have 68 acres under cultivation and can produce up to one and a half million pounds of cranberries annually.  There is a store near the bog where they sell all manner of cranberry products such as fresh, frozen and dried cranberries, tea, soap, candy, preserves and juice.  I decided to get Christmas presents while I was there and I chose a cranberry cookbook.  The friendly woman at the cash told me proudly that it was a community cookbook from Wahta and that her recipe was in there as well.  I asked her to show me which one it was and she happily found the pumpkin cranberry muffin recipe.  I was looking for a pumpkin recipe to make with my grandson after we carved the Hallowe’en pumpkin so I was thrilled to now have one.  The following week he and I made the muffins and I told him the story of the recipe.  He declared the finished muffins a success.  They did taste really good and I felt great about the pumpkins I had bought at a farm gate stand and the cranberries from the Iroquois Growers and the connection I felt with the woman in the store.

   Buying locally grown food and eating seasonally is good for lots of big picture reasons such as a smaller carbon footprint and better quality.  It’s not possible to get everything this way and I still shop at the local supermarket as well.  But I find it is much harder to feel connected with that food and much easier to take it for granted.  Even if we only buy some of our food locally and eat seasonally some of the time, we are supporting people who are passionate about the food they grow and raise. The producers can only produce what we will buy.  We may not get the cheapest price but then again I waste less, eat it more mindfully and don’t buy junk food there so perhaps it is cheaper.

   Like the last story of the open door, when I purchase food from these hard working, enthusiastic people they are happy and by now you know that I am happy and maybe you are remembering a similar experience in your life that made you happy.  We are nurturing our bodies, our minds and our communities and remembering how we are connected in this big wonderpot we call life.