Yesterday we celebrated summer and our wonderful community! Continuing last year’s tradition, we hosted the second annual Parkdale Food Centre Summer BBQ in neighbouring Laroche Park. A beautiful day was made even better by teaming up with our community partners to deliver a magnificent BBQ for PFC clients.
It was all sunshine and fun thanks to an enthusiastic group of volunteers in the kitchen, at the BBQ, serving, cleaning and hoola-hooping! Special thanks to the Merry Dairy for donating 170 servings of ice cream, Hintonburger for donating 100 of their famous burgers, Sue’s amazing Kitchen Team for mounds of pulled pork and countless bowls of salads and condiments, Hidden Harvest for their nut cracking demos, photographer Dwayne Brown and his Love Ottawa Project, Councillor Katherine Hobbs and her staff, the Salvation Army Transition House for music/setup/tear down, the Somerset West Community Health Centre, and Lorrie Marlow of the Mechanicsville Community Association. This day wouldn’t have been possible without any of you!
Photographer Dwayne Brown from Love Ottawa was on-hand to capture some incredible images of PFC clients, staff and friends with the trademark Love-Ottawa giant white canvas. He shared the photos, and some thoughts on the day over at love-ottawa.com.
On May 1st, the Parkdale Food Centre went “Back to Our Roots” as we hosted our first ever gala fundraiser at the Urban Element, located at 424 Parkdale Avenue. 424 Parkdale is the original site of the Parkdale Food Centre so the location holds many special memories for our volunteers and our community. It was the perfect location for our gala and Payton, Carley and the entire Urban Element team went above and beyond to help make the event a success!
A spirit of generosity and friendship infused the evening as our volunteers, community partners and neighbours came together to help raise funds for the Centre’s healthy food programs. Renée Yoxon and Craig Pedersen created a relaxed vibe with their soulful renditions of some of our favourite jazz classics. We thank the Professional Entertainment Group for providing the PA system for us. Also thank you to Partytime for all the rentals which they provided as a donation.
Beyond the Pale generously provided an array of delicious local brews and guests enjoyed a special delivery from Stratus’ Vineyards in Niagara on the Lake. Cheers!
As guests mingled, snacked and enjoyed the music, they also had a chance to bid on a fantastic lineup of Silent Auction prizes. We were overwhelmed by the generosity of local business owners who provided great prizes to help us meet our fundraising target. Miv Photography, Renu Spa, the GCTC, Twiss & Weber, The Elmdale Oyster House, Whalesbone, Andrew King, Alison Fowler, Beyond the Pale, the NAC, Gallery 3, CAA and essence Catering were just a few of the generous donors who provided prizes for the auction. The bidding was brisk & competitive. We had many happy prize winners at the end of the night!
Jim Watson stopped by to surprise us during the evening.
It was a fantastic evening and thanks to everyone’s support, enthusiasm and contributions, we were able to surpass our fundraising goal and raise over $12,000 in one night! Now that’s a reason to smile! Our shelves will be stocked over the summer months when we typically struggle to keep up with demand when many of our donors are away on summer vacations.
It was our first foray into a large scale event and overall we were overwhelmed with offers to help and advice on how to proceed. Thanks again to our hosts at the Urban Element, we felt the magic in the venue.
I met J.J.’s mother at a Taste of Wellington last summer. I was a woman on a mission, spreading the word about poverty and food insecurity in an increasingly affluent Wellington West and Hintonburg. She was innocently trying to nab a free but famous mini Flying Banzini cheesecake.
Months later she was at our door with a wide-eyed J.J. He came to ask me a question. “What can I do to help,” he said somewhat shyly.
I knew he had already done the most important thing…he showed interest.
J.J. listened while I spoke about poverty and poor nutrition, the horror of old school food banking and the joy to be had in sharing. We talked about the meaning of empathy and the importance of caring for others.
J.J.’s father is a dentist. He immediately offered toothbrushes. My eyes lit up because toothbrushes are expensive and when forced to choose between buying whole foods or toothbrushes, real food always wins out.
Last week J.J. turned 10. He remembered what his mother had told him about hunger in his neighbourhood. “I didn’t really need anything,” he told me as his mother handed me a cheque for $120 –the proceeds from his no-present birthday party.
I’m smiling in this photo. But inside I am doing cartwheels.
When the Parkdale Food Centre was founded nearly 30 years ago, it was first housed in the old fire station on Parkdale, which many of you may recognize as the current home of the Urban Element — a cooking school and event space that our neighbourhood treasures. We are thrilled that Urban Element has agreed to host us in our original space and let us go “Back to our Roots” in order to raise funds to help our neighbours in need.
The event will feature a silent auction, and music by Renée Yoxon and Craig Pedersen, as well as the opportunity to mix and mingle with Parkdale Food Centre supporters, community members, and local foodies.
Tickets for the event cost $150 (including a $65 tax receipt). A limited number of tickets are available, so don’t delay if you’d like to attend!
In January, Petit Bill’s hosted a Tutored Whiskey Tasting and Food Paring evening, featuring a great selection of whiskies and bourbons from Beam Global along with an excellent five course dinner prepared by Petit Bill’s chef Glen Sansome and this team. Petit Bill’s has hosted similar events in the past, with a portion of the proceeds going to the Parkdale Food Centre. In fact, last year’s Bourbon evening raised money for us and this year was an even more successful repeat performance.
It was a sold out event and I counted myself lucky to have gotten a ticket. The warmth of the packed restaurant contrasted with the rather cold January evening. 48 guests were welcomed by co-owner Randy Fitzpatrick and we kicked off the evening with an awe-inspiring barrel-aged maple/bacon Manhattan. We even walked away with the rather simple recipe for creating your own bacon-infused whiskey. Any recipe that starts with a pound of bacon is guaranteed to end well!
We settled at our tables and I joined a group of guys who were veterans of the whiskey/bourbon tasting crowd, having already logged one trip to Kentucky to tour the various bourbon distilleries. Laid out before us were the five whiskeys we would be tasting throughout the evening.
Matt Jones, a cocktail mixologist from Maker’s Mark, was our guide for the evening, introducing us to the history and pedigree of the whiskeys as well as many great stories about the industry and its personalities.
Then it was time to eat. Chef Sansome delivered a delicious and varied set of courses that perfectly complimented the whiskey – or was it the other way round? Imagine seared sea scallop with sour cherry, bacon and barley fricassee. Or how about house-smoked salmon rillette, grilled pork tenderloin medallions with orange-cranberry marmalade and Owensboro Kentucky BBQ lamb? And of course, there was dessert – a honey-crisp tarte tatin with homemade praline ice cream. Each course coupled with its own whiskey – a decadent evening.
The evening ended on an especially high note. Beam Global donated two gift baskets, a bottle of Maker’s Mark 46 with glasses, and a bottle of Devil’s Cut along with a mini aging barrel to make your own maple/bacon whiskey. Both baskets were raffled off and here are the two lucky winners.
Speaking of winners, the proceeds of the raffle went to the Parkdale Food Centre and Karen readily accepted a cheque of $845 from Randy and Terry of Petit Bill’s. A big thanks to them and their efforts!
Ottawa foodies will not want to miss the Flavours of Ottawa: Westboro Easter Food Market on Saturday, April 12th. Taking place from 10 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. at St George’s Parish Hall, eighteen local artisan food vendors will be selling their delicious goods at this Easter Market and raising funds for the Parkdale Food Centre at the same time. This event is generously sponsored by Diane & Jen, Kitchenalia and Givopoly.
The first order of business was chopping, and lots of it. We all gained an understanding of why chefs have sous chefs. It’s all about the chopping! Onions, celery, garlic, ginger and tofu (no fingers though) were chopped up. Jason also had two teams prepare the Salisbury steaks (beef patties) and meatballs, combining ground beef and pork in a traditional recipe for the meatballs. The Salisbury steak patties were ground beef seasoned with a few spices including Worchestershire sauce. It’s really the onion gravy that provides the extra flavour.
Jason worked with another group preparing the tomato sauce for the meatballs, frying up the onions for the Salisbury steak gravy and sautéing the garlic for the spicy pork.
Amongst the all the cooking action, Jason took a few minutes to talk about chopping green onions and dividing them up, the whites to be cooked while the greens are used as an aromatic topping. It was a simple but valuable tip on how you take a simple ingredient like green onions and use it in a dish in a number of ways. He also highlighted the many uses of miso paste as an all-purpose seasoning.
Jason is a great fan of Ottawa’s Chinatown, visiting often for ingredients and seasonings like miso paste. Finally, he let us in on three tips for great tomato sauces – lots of oil, a good can of tomatoes and a long slow cook of at least two hours. It really did make a difference.
With the sauces and gravy under control, Jason and the team turned their attention to the meatballs and Salisbury steak patties. The meatballs went into the sauce while the patties were first fried and then put into the oven to finish cooking. Once the patties were in the oven, Jason turned his attention to finishing off the spicy pork, adding the ground pork to the sauce and cooking it.
It was not long before the three meals were ready and we had reached the most important and anticipated part of the workshop, the communal meal. The cooking workshops are more than just an educational experience – they’re a chance for the participants to sit down together and enjoy the food that they prepared. Everyone chatted, laughed and ate a great meal with new friends. As for the ultimate review on Jason’s choice of recipes that day – all the platters were empty by the time we finished.
The Parkdale Food Centre wishes to extend our thanks to Jason Laurin for his help leading the workshop, the participants who so enthusiastically joined in and of course, all our volunteers who helped make it happen (and helped clean up afterwards) . We hold the workshops every month and greatly welcome donations of new crock pots, money for the ingredients or sponsorship of a workshop. To learn more about our cooking workshops, visit our Cooking Workshops page and learn how you can help.
Thanks the fantastic team at Beyond The Pale and Tanya Sprowl-Martelock of Phive Design, we have a new focal point at the Parkdale Food Centre. This new chalkboard has been added to the middle of the room so it can be seen by everyone, with the intention of being our new education center — until now we’ve not had an easy, single spot to share important info, nutrition ideas, post upcoming programs or even just highlight our food of the month. Over the coming weeks, we’ll add a new section that shares what we’re out of to help our clients be aware, our volunteers packing orders, or donors that come in wondering what we could use the most.
We’re still on the lookout for a brochure rack so that we can share brochures and pamphlets, but this is an amazing improvement. We love it!
Imagine walking into the cafeteria at school, everyone around you is eating. You sit down next to your friend, you don’t have a lunch. They wonder why, you say you’re not hungry, you say you had a big breakfast but the truth is you haven’t eaten since last nights dinner. They accept the answer, not remembering that you didn’t have a lunch yesterday, or the day before, you don’t know if you’ll have one tomorrow.
When you donate to the food bank it has an immediate impact; the food, or money goes straight from you to a person in need. I feel that we are morally obligated to care for people in our community who are going through difficult times; I couldn’t stand the idea of a friend coming to school without anything to eat, or a mother going without dinner so she can feed her children.
I spoke to Karen Secord who runs the Parkdale Food Centre (my local food bank) and asked her a few questions about hunger in our community. Karen said that she works at the food bank because she feels that “when people live in poverty they become invisible” and she doesn’t “want to live in a world that is us and them.”
Karen also told me that we have to make wise choices when donating food. “Why give them Kraft Dinner? I don’t want Kraft Dinner!” She said that when we donate processed food we become part of the problem. We shouldn’t give people food that we don’t want to eat ourselves. It’s important for everyone to eat healthy, nutritious food; as Karen put it, “it’s a basic human right!”
In addition, Karen said that it is exceedingly important for kids (of all ages) to volunteer at the food bank. I believe that you are never too young to want to change the world, and by giving someone food, is one of the easiest ways to do so.
Everyone uses the food bank. The man on your bus, the girl from home room, the mother you see dropping off her kids at school. Collage students, elderly; people you know, and think you have figured out. Without the food bank people would get sick, which would only put more stress on an already stressed health system.
The food bank is not an answer, but for now it’s all we have. For many people it’s the difference between eating and hunger. It’s important to volunteer or to donate healthy, nutritious food to your local food bank. But ultimately, what we need is for people to think. Think of a way to eliminate hunger, especially in a country like Canada, where we have vast resourses and no reason for anyone to be hungry.
Today is different. Today you have a lunch, ham and cheese on whole wheat, with fresh fruit for desert. Today you’ll smile brighter and study harder, because today you don’t have to pretend you’re not hungry; because today you’re not.
Neve Stewart — January 18 2014
Neve and Paul Dewar, MP for Ottawa Centre at the Parkdale Food Centre
Summer Baird, the owner of the Hintonburg Public House, comes by almost weekly to donate…and how do we count the ways….
toiletries
laundry soap
warm clothing
non-perishable food
meat
cash – lots and lots of sash!
The HPH is a glowing example of Community Social Responsibility. They give because they care, because they feel morally committed to helping their neighbours. They care with flair! Nearly every week in November and December they collected specific items, engaging their customers in the process and encouraging the discussion about need in their neighbourhood. A highly successful raffle and party, of course, capped off weeks of giving. Next up? A TWEET UP with a green theme… You don’t want to miss this!
