A Visit to Vancouver

I had a great time visiting a college friend in Vancouver this past month. Here are some highlights from my trip!

The City of Vancouver is a major tourist destination, and it is very beautiful. Vancouver tends to have a mild climate year-round, with warm summer days, and a rainy winter season. The city is very walkable, and there are bike lanes everywhere. Driving and public transportation are other options to get around Vancouver. In addition, there are many parks all over the city.

Vancouver

Grocery prices in Vancouver are quite high, although I did make some interesting finds, including this marinated cabbage, primed for fermenting.

Marinated, sour cabbage

On my first full day in Vancouver, my friend and I visited Granville Island Public Market. You can get to Granville Island by walking, by public transportation, and by ferry. I enjoyed going to Granville Island Public Market, and I went there twice during my stay. The public market features homemade products and independent food vendors. I had a delicious focaccia from Terra Breads at the public market, and the best chocolate covered mocha beans I've ever had from Bon Mano Bon.

Granville Island Public Market

My friend showed my around Vancouver, and we visited several cultural landmarks, such as the Inukshuk.

Inukshuk

We also went to the International Summer Night Market in nearby Richmond, British Columbia, which was a blast!

International Summer Night Market

I found out that Lululemon stores offer complimentary yoga classes once a week, so that is what I did the following morning. For lunch, my friend and I had delicious lunch sets at Kingyo, which offers Japanese cuisine. We both ordered Kingyo's assorted deluxe bento box for lunch (limited to only 10 sets per day). It was amazing.

Kingyo's assorted deluxe bento box

After walking off some of our lunch, we decided to have gelato at Bella Gelateria, which has been voted to have some of the best gelato in the world. Mmmmmm.

Akbar mashti (rosewater, saffron, pistachio, and cream) and black sesame gelato

I also did some explorations of my own. This included renting a bike and biking around Stanley Park, and visiting the Vancouver Aquarium.

Anemones and rockfishes at the Vancouver Aquarium

I stopped by VanDusen Botanical Garden, which originally was a golf course before the site was transformed into a botanical garden and opened to the public in 1975.

VanDusen Botanical Garden

 There are many gorgeous flowers and plants at VanDusen Botanical Garden.

I visited the University of British Columbia (UBC) as well, which has a nice campus.

University of British Columbia

At the University of British Columbia, I went to the Beaty Biodiversity Museum, a natural history museum. At the Beaty Biodiversity Museum, I saw numerous preserved animals and skeletons, and I was lucky to catch the beginning of their Herbarium Project exhibition.

Rattlesnake skeleton

I also went to the Nitobe Memorial Garden at UBC, which is beautiful!

Nitobe Memorial Garden

For my last dinner before I left Vancouver, my friend and I ate at Nuba, which provides Lebanese cuisine.

One course of "La Feast," a vegetarian mezze sampler at Nuba

For dessert, we had donuts from Cartems Donuterie, including a Vegan Earl Grey donut and a Honey Parmesan donut. Yum!

I enjoyed seeing my friend and traveling to Vancouver. It was a relaxing visit, and Vancouver is a great city to explore and to eat delicious food!

Community Garden Plot at the Fenway Victory Gardens!

I had lost all hope of getting a community garden plot this year, until I recently received an e-mail that several plots at the Fenway Victory Gardens were available!!! Even though I have just a few summer activities, including taking biochemistry at Tufts, resuming volunteer work with CitySprouts, interning with Bountiful Brookline, and starting a second part-time job at Taberna de Haro (all their beef is from River Rock Farm!), of course I had to say yes. This weekend, I finally had a chance to view the available plots, and I even got to choose my own!:

Plot L-19. There were weeds everywhere, but that was nothing a few hours of weeding couldn't cure:

I am using the weeds as ground cover for the moment. They help to keep the moisture in the soil and help to prevent new weeds from growing.

The plot clearly needs a lot more work, but I am very lucky that there are already some raised beds installed. There are also some perennial plants left from the previous owner, including sage, chives, oregano, and some gorgeous blackberry bushes in the back. I plan to grow plenty of vegetables, including carrots, cabbage, kohlrabi, and kale, and I also hope to put in some medicinal plants. Sending a soil sample to UMass Amherst's Soil and Plant Tissue Testing Lab is another task on my to-do list.

Because this is my first garden, I know I will have many successes and failures alike. But they will make my garden next year that much better! 

Stay tuned for updates about my garden plot, and please stop by L-19 and say hello. :) 

CitySprouts' School Garden Celebration!

Last Saturday, I volunteered at CitySprouts' School Garden Celebration (formerly the Harvest Festival), which was a blast!
Despite the rainy weather, we had a fabulous set-up indoors, which still allowed us a view of the Graham & Parks school garden.

I had the opportunity to work at the Stone Soup station with JJ Gonson from Cuisine En Locale.

The kids did a wonderful job chopping up the vegetables for the soup, the majority of which were a generous donation from Parker Farm!

Photo courtesy of Susan Young

Although most of the festival was indoors, we cooked the stone soup outside. The soup, which was mostly vegetables, salt and pepper, and just a little bit of stock, came out delicious and warm and was perfect for the cold, rainy day.

At the celebration, each of the schools set up tables, held activities, and sold various items to help raise money for their gardens.

Photo courtesy of Susan Young

Activities during the day included pumpkin decorating by the Haggerty School, and apple cider pressing!

Photo courtesy of Susan Young

There were various informational booths at the festival, including one with School Nutritionist Dawn Olcott. Dawn coordinates the Tasty Choices program in the Cambridge Public Schools, which helps to bring more local foods into the school lunches.

In addition, the King Open School will be involved with the program Food to Flowers, part of an environmental iniative by Compost That Stuff and the City of Cambridge.

And how could I not take a picture of this gorgeous broccoli?

Despite the rainy weather, the School Garden Celebration was very well attended by children, parents, and the community.

CitySprouts' is a nonprofit that now maintains gardens in ALL of the public schools in Cambridge, and helps to incorporate these gardens into the school curriculum. Read my previous post about interning with CitySprouts. Interested in volunteering? Find out more information here!

All photos taken by Annabelle Ho unless otherwise noted.

CitySprouts (and The Food Project)!

This summer I had the fabulous opportunity to intern with the organization CitySprouts. Based in Cambridge, MA, this nonprofit will maintain gardens in all of Cambridge's public K-8 schools by this fall.

During the academic year, the CitySprouts' garden coordinators work with the Cambridge school teachers to incorporate the gardens into the school curriculum. Additionally, during the summer, CitySprouts runs a middle school intern program, in which middle school students learn, among other things, how to grow, harvest, and prepare food in an urban environment.

During my internship, I was able to assist two of the garden coordinators with their middle school intern programs, and I held two of the school garden drop-ins while the middle school intern program was in session. I also had the opportunity to work in the CitySprouts office, allowing me to see both sides of the organization.

















Working with the CitySprouts staff, and interacting with the other college interns, parents, students, and volunteers in the community was definitely an amazing experience! I would highly recommend volunteering with CitySprouts and volunteering at the CitySprouts' drop-ins, which are held at the various public schools all over Cambridge, from the end of April until mid-November.

And, as you can see, I also had a wonderful time taking plenty of photos during my internship. I am working on creating an online photo album with all of the pictures that I took- I simply could not resist taking pictures of all the beautiful vegetables, flowers, and plants that were in the gardens!!!

And if you do not live in Cambridge, there are plenty of other organizations to volunteer with to get your hands dirty, including The Food Project! The Food Project's mission is to "grow a thoughtful and productive community of youth and adults from diverse backgrounds who work together to build a sustainable food system." During certain times of the year, individuals can volunteer at their drop ins at their Lincoln and Roxbury locations on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. In May, I had the opportunity to volunteer at The Food Project in Roxbury with a group that I am involved with, Slow Food BU. Read about SFBU's experience at The Food Project here!

I cannot believe that classes are starting again and that it will already be September. But that also means that cranberries, pumpkins, and winter squashes will be in season!

Have a great week!