The title says it all: the following plugs our new project, a monthly half hour radio show called The Farmer’s Table. Shameless self-promotion, here we go. It’s a new medium (radio broadcast), for a new station (CKGI Gabriola Co-op Radio on your FM dial, 98.7 starting Nov. 2nd), with a new partner (that would be Sean, old partner actually but new in the working together sense). More importantly, what’s really dear to my heart, is that this is a project about food.

Unloading my weekly CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) box is like Christmas because you never know exactly what you’re going to get. Being faced with a new (sometimes unidentifiable) vegetable becomes a challenge, like cooking on a dare. Yeah, we’re precariously close to becoming like that couple of Portlandia; I jest, but truth is stranger than fiction. Maybe I really want to know that my ham had a name and that he had a lovely life before he gave it to fuel my own.

Dovetailing with our natural affinity for food (the discussing, obsessing, shopping, preparing, photographing, consuming of), we developed The Farmer’s Table as a way to channel that energy, learn things, and share what we find out. Working on The Farmer’s Table allows me to think about food all the time. I think about where it comes from, how it’s grown, who’s behind the market stall table, what their land looks like, what their life looks like, what their land might look like after they’re gone…

The show profiles local farmers and explores issues around small scale agriculture and the food movement on Vancouver Island and the Northern and Southern Gulf Islands. It’s fertile, fertile ground. (Discussing agriculture is an invitation to pun. Sorry, deal with it.)

We hope you’ll check out the podcast of our pilot episode The Language of Local. Being new to radio production, the learning curve was steep, but we’re pretty pleased with how it turned out. Other people seem to be too, which feels nice. Episode 2 is in production and we’re overflowing with story ideas, so as long as CKGI is happy to have us, we’ll keep coming to you from The Farmer’s Table.

(And if you didn’t get the Portlandia references, check these out.)
Your CSA box — just like Christmas!

Can you tell me more about my food?