Taste spring:summer 2017

TASTE POWELL RIVER

spring/summer 2017

OUR FOOD HERITAGE

OUR FOOD HERITAGE

Tla’amin Nation elder Jeannie Dominic tending to dried salmon in 1954.

POWELL RIVER HISTORICAL MUSEUM AND ARCHIVES PHOTO

A lot of things can be said with food. For instance, watching your grandmother carefully wrap pierogies or knead bread the way she had been taught by her mother, who had been shown how by generations before her. Even though our history may be connected to a specific place, we take our culture with us to where we make our homes. Looking at the food of a community or region will tell us many things about the people who have lived there.

Powell River’s rich history can be seen through the food we serve in our homes or eat in local restaurants. Whether it’s the traditional foods of Tla’amin Nation, a cherry cake recipe passed down through generations, or a family dish that’s too good to leave off a restaurant menu, there are many examples of how our community’s story is told every time we gather around the table.

Unlike any other storytelling tool, food has a way of bringing people together on common ground. It can be hard in the chaos of our busy lives to find time to sit down and share a meal, but so much is gained in those moments when we feast together.

We are not just nourishing our bodies, we are also feeding our souls by sharing in the experience with those close to us, and honouring our ancestors who shared their history with us.

Megan Cole, Peak contributor

TASTE

PUBLISHER/EDITOR: Jason Schreurs ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER: Kelly Keil CREATIVE DIRECTOR: Alicia Newman COVER PHOTO: Ernie Hammerton in his Townsite garden in 1944, Powell River Historical Museum and Archives powell river 4400 MARINE AVENUE • POWELL RIVER, BC • 604.485.5313 EDITORIAL CONTRIBUTOR: Megan Cole PRPEAK.COM • PUBLISHER@PRPEAK.COM PHOTOGRAPHY: Jennifer Dodd SALES: Dot Campbell, Cindy Bavin

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What is chum-head soup?

Elders would just love that. It was the “fish-head soup,” they called it, with the fish head, the fish roe and chunks of salmon. It was a big, monster pot that served loads and loads of people.

Growing up in a coastal community, what other seafood do you remember?

There was spring salmon and coho. One of the things I remember from the teachings

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What other traditional foods do you remember eating?

We hunted deer and bear. Some people ate seal, and duck, of course. Seasonally, there were also the berries and wild rhubarb; that was a delicacy we would search out.

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What do you remember most about the food from your childhood?

Growing up with a big family, when there are many mouths to feed, you make use of the natural resources that are around. One of the tastes etched in my head is salmon.

There was everything from smoked salmon to barbecued salmon, salmon in every form, right down to the favourites like chum-head soup.

is around steelhead. My grandma would not eat it. They called it the snake fish, and that was because it could come out of the river and wiggle its way up Clint Williams the shore. I don’t know if it was just my grandma, or elders in general, but steelhead is not a popular food for us. We’ll eat pretty much everything else around it. There are a lot of things we ate that came from the sea. There were the two different kinds of sea urchins, oysters, manila and butter clams, and cockles. Seasonally, when it was bountiful here, there was herring. People preserved the herring, and the roe was a very big delicacy. Traditionally, saving the herring boughs led into spring. Just before spring, one delicacy our people enjoyed was the ling cod eggs.

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As a child, Tla’amin Nation hegus Clint Williams has vivid memories of the traditional food of his people. Harvesting, fishing, preserving and hunting food was seasonal, and reflected the changing seasons and resources.

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TLA’AMIN NATION FISHERIES POWELL RIVER HISTORICAL MUSEUM AND ARCHIVES PHOTO

Salmon and herring an important part of traditional food and ecosystem Fish are a vital food and income source for communities on the west coast of British Columbia, and were way before Europeans ever arrived to the area.

Salmon and herring have been fished in the rivers and oceans of Powell River for thousands of years and Tla’amin Nation hegus Clint Williams says there have been major changes to the local environment that have impacted traditional salmon and herring fisheries.

“There were various species of salmon, and when you look back into some of the more recent history, like the introduction of the mill, it changed the ocean climate around here,” says Williams.

For example, the damming of Powell River “nixed a nice run of chinook and sockeye,” says Williams.

Before Teeshoshum was located where it is now, Tla’amin’s village was located on Powell River, which was an important source of salmon for the the nation,

Tla’amin Nation resident Lee George inspects some of the 45,000 coho salmon fry transported to Sliammon Lake for release in the Tla’amin fish hatchery in 1989.

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says Erik Blaney, owner of I’Hos Cultural Tours, which includes traditional meals during its tours of the area.

“There are even landlocked sockeye still in Powell Lake,” says Blaney.

Access to t r aditional Tla’amin seafood, such as salmon, is dependent on a healthy marine ecosystem, and one of the most important pieces is herring, a small fish that has not been prevalent in our area in recent years.

Herring, which Blaney says were at one time a main food source for Tla’amin, have been making a slow return to the Salish Sea near Powell River, but Williams says it is nothing like what he remembers as a kid.

“I remember from around Black Point to Tla’amin a solid strip of ocean looked like the tropics,” says William. “It was a greeny, white colour. There was so much herring that it

went all they way across the front of Westview to Tla’amin.

It was amazing to see because everything was thriving.”

The barking of the sea lions has become a nearly yearround part of the Powell River experience, but Williams says the animals used to only arrive with the herring.

Since an opening of the

remove a piece from the food chain, it throws everything off.

Fishing was always bountiful here.”

Even though the herring and salmon fisheries are often sporadic and patchy, especially since the ’80s, Williams says some Tla’amin elders continue to use the traditional methods of air

Did you know?

While residents of Townsite and the surrounding communities were virtually food-sufficient during the early days of the Powell River mill, the tens of thousands of Tla’amin people living in our region pre-European contact were entirely food-sufficient.

commercial herring fishery by Fisheries and Oceans Canada in the early- to mid-1980s, the herring populations in the Powell River area have been devastated, says Williams, which has impacted the other food systems that relied on the herring spawn.

“It’s the whole food chain thing,” says Williams. “If you

or wind drying herring and smoking salmon.

“It’s a bit of a smelly process,” he says. “You just imagine leaving fish outside for a month or two, and it’s hard and dry as cardboard.”

Once the herring are dry, Williams says the elders soften them with the heat of a fire.

Using a rock kept nearby, they

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repeat a process of putting the small fish in the fire and then hit them against the rock to soften them, and also knock off any coals and char that had built up from the fire.

“The taste is good, but herring is a pretty bony fish,” says Williams.

Salmon were caught with tidal weirs and traps at the mouths of spawning rivers, and when herring were prosperous they were often caught with fishing racks.

Like herring, salmon were smoked and preserved in many ways, to create what Dorothy Kennedy and Randy B ouchard descr ib e d as “Indian Cheese” in the book Sliammon Life, Sliammon Lands.

Over the past few years, the area has seen some return of the herring and salmon fisheries, but it has been inconsistent, according to Williams.

What are some of your favourite food memories?

So many of my memories revolve around the garden, planting and picking, as well as going fishing and hunting with my father.

Some of my favourite memories of the garden are picking and eating raspberries and boysenberries in the summer sun, fresh peas shelled directly off the vines and pulling baby carrots to eat after cleaning them on the grass. We didn’t have electricity until I was 11, so my mother canned a lot of the garden produce: berries, of course, but also tomatoes were canned, as well as made into juice, apples were sauced, and endless jars of peaches. Certain things stick out strongly; the taste of biting into a tomato, sitting around the kitchen table slicing pieces of lettuce from the head, and sprinkling vinegar and sugar on Padgett them, and the crunch of a tree-ripened apple.

POWELL RIVER FOOD MEMORIES

Both of Jan Padgett’s parents grew up in the Powell River area. Her father’s family were Jan homesteaders in Paradise Valley and her mother’s family had land and built a home near Grief Point. Both families had gardens and fruit trees, and her father grew up hunting.

Who did most of the cooking?

My mother did most of the baking,

including bread, and I remember playing under the kitchen table as she kneaded the whole-wheat dough, and her handing me little gobs of dough, which I would roll into balls and eat. She made us sandwiches for school from that bread, and one of my favourite fillings was the watercress my father would gather close to the mill and bring home in his lunch pail. As most of the other children at school were eating store-bought white bread and Cheez Whiz, my lunch was considered odd. My sister and I would spend hours picking huckleberries and the small native blackberries that my mother would convert into pies, and sometimes muffins. She would make special little tarts for us with the huckleberries; that wonderful tart and crunchy taste of the huckleberries is a strong memory of childhood. Every week or two, my father would arrive home from work and ask my mom if she would like fish for dinner.

And out we would go in the rowboat, to a couple of cod banks near Myrtle Rocks.

We could line up the location with trees on the shore, and within minutes dad would have either a ling or snapper on the line, and that soon became dinner.

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POWELL RIVER FARMING

Local food production and gardening part of community history Establishing a pulp and paper mill in Powell River that was, at a time, the largest in the world, did not just require a lot of material and money, it also needed a large workforce.

People from all over the world came to our small frontier community to get their start in Canada. Powell River Company, owners of the mill at that time, needed a large workforce to keep production going, and the men and women who moved here needed to stay fed and fuelled for work at the mill.

“People are often surprised by how selfsufficient this whole frontier work camp

T.F. Scott rakes his large garden at 681 (now 5637) Maple Avenue circa: late 1940s/early 1950s.

POWELL RIVER HISTORICAL MUSEUM AND ARCHIVES PHOTO

was,” says Townsite Heritage Society vice-president Ann Nelson. “There were hundreds of guys building the dam and the machine room, and all the rest of it. We don’t really think about the limitations that were placed on the food with having three steamships a week coming in, sometimes more.”

Nelson says the first thing the company did was set up small farms around Townsite. It also had its own orchard up near Cranberry. The whole area between

the firehall and park was an orchard that supplied Townsite residents.

In addition to food production done by the company itself, there were also entrepreneurial, small-holding farmers who could sell their eggs, milk and other produce to the company for use in the cookhouses.

“Most of the people who came here to work were immigrants from other countries, and for them it was routine, both as a matter of survival and

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preference, to grow a lot of their own table goods,” says Nelson. “They would turn their whole backyard into vegetable gardens.”

Throughout the area from Stillwater to Lund, for decades after the mill was established, homesteaders were finding their way and learning how to survive away from easy access to food and resources in bigger cities.

Jan Padgett, whose parents grew up in the Powell River area, remembers a year when their garden provided more cucumbers than they needed, so they sold the extra at a roadside stand, much the way local farmers do now.

“We joined the neighbour kids at their roadside stand. They sold corn and we sold the cucumbers,” says Padgett. “That was before the road to Saltery Bay was completed, so the traffic was minimal. I can remember the excitement when we would hear a car rattling along the dirt road and we would wave our produce at them to entice them to stop.”

Walking up and down the lanes of Townsite, and driving through areas such as Paradise Valley and Lund, it is clear that many residents have continued the

tradition of food production on their properties.

This is celebrated in Townsite by the heritage society that hands out annual home and garden awards. The garden awards are not something new to the area. According to Nelson, Powell River Company began encouraging the development of decorative and food gardens through awards.

Did you know?

Powell River was once home to the largest goat dairy in Canada. Goat milk from Lambert Farms was shipped to Vancouver by steamship where it was then transported across Canada by refrigerated train car.

“ T here was a real intent ional encouragement,” she says. “It shifted from being about the skills and habits that come from living in a country where your family is dependent on you saving your tomato seeds and seed potatoes, to gardening being a matter of great pride and competition as well.”

Those who moved to Townsite brought with them their own traditions around

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food production, and Nelson says they were not just growing them for use in their own homes.

“Italian families brought a huge gardening tradition with them, and so did the Dutch families,” she says. “There wasn’t an ethnic group that came here, to our little United Nations, that didn’t bring with them their own traditions of providing at least some of their own table veggies, and when possible they were able to share or trade with others.”

More than 100 years since the mill was incorporated, Townsite residents continue the tradition started by those who formed the community, but they have also put their own spin on it.

According to Nelson, etiquette suggested that original Townsite residents kept their vegetable gardens in the backyard, which was where groceries and milk were delivered, as well where clotheslines were hung.

Some of today’s Townsite residents are not as concerned with etiquette, however, and you will now see vegetable gardens planted in the front yard, or a combination of ornamentals and edibles growing side by side.

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City of Powell River councillor CaroleAnn Leishman grew up in Powell River. With her Finnish background, she has many memories of dishes being made that reflected that part of her heritage. In addition to the flavours of her family, Leishman also remembers watching her grandmother cook.

What is one of your fondest food memories from your childhood?

My Finnish grandmother Rauha and grandfather Aimo, we called them mummu and pappa, moved to Powell River to be near us when I was seven.

Mummu and mom used to make all kinds of Finnish dishes; präiskäleitä [mini crêpes], pulla [a sweet bun with cinnamon on top], pannukakku [a large pancake made in a cast-iron frying pan in the oven] and riisi puro [rice pudding].

There were also Finnish cabbage rolls, salted pork, a baked spaghetti dish, which likely wasn’t really Finnish, and other mouth-watering meals from the old country. Oh, and never mind all the cookies and pies. If I close my eyes, I can almost smell everything baking and bubbling away in the wood-burning oven in their cabin on Powell Lake, and

hear Mummu singing one of her songs in Finnish trying to get us to sing along.

POWELL RIVER FOOD MEMORIES

Did your mom do a lot of the cooking?

CAROLEANN Yes, my mom would LEISHMAN do a lot of Finnish cooking and baking as well, because mummu was her mother and pappa her father.

I would sometimes get in there, too, and there would be three generations of us baking cookies or them teaching me to make certain dishes.

What do remember about cooking with your family?

My favourite memories around food that aren’t up at my grandparent’s cabin would be at Christmastime with the whole family getting together and having dinner at mummu and pappa’s on Christmas Eve with some Finnish dishes thrown into the typical fare, and then we would have Christmas Dinner at our house on Christmas Day. Oh, the smells coming out of those kitchens.

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IMMIGRANT FOOD CULTURE

New Powell River residents share their heritage Evening strolls through Powell River are often met with the aromas of dinners being cooked, breads being baked or even the sweet fragrance of fruit ripening on the tree. The smells of meals being prepared come together to create an intoxicating experience that represents different cultures, backgrounds and histories.

While connections to the food of our ancestors can sometimes be lost, many

people are moving to our community from all over the world, and bring with them the food of their culture and heritage.

Before the Syrian War, Sharbel Azrak owned a hummus factory and falafel restaurant in Syria. In their Townsite home, Sharbel’s wife Kinda describes some of the many dishes that represent her life and memories of Aleppo, while showing pictures of them on her phone.

“Especially Aleppo, my town, is famous for its food,” says Kinda. “If you go to Syria and ask where the good food is, they say, ‘Go to Aleppo.’”

Kinda describes a dish called kibbeh, which is meat, either beef or lamb, mixed with onion and lots of spice, wrapped with a small bulgar,

Kinda and Sharbel Azrak, along with their parents, have been sharing their culture through the food of their Syrian home in Aleppo.

mixed with more beef or lamb.

Kinda and her mother Sonia Krikorian laugh about the outrageous size of zucchini and eggplant in Canada. In Syria, these vegetables were small, about the length of an index finger.

The small zucchini and eggplant are used in one of Kinda’s favourite dishes.

Zucchini and eggplant are stuffed with potato and

peppers and cooked with tomato paste and spices.

“Always spices,” says Kinda.

Like many other cultures, Kinda and Kirkorian say that food is a major part of Syrian celebrations. One dish they make for festivities is similar to dolmas, where grape leaves are individually wrapped around a meat filling.

While describing the dish, Krikorian mimics wrapping the leaves, and says, “It takes a »

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long time,” which is why family and friends come together to cook and prepare food together.

Last November, Kinda, Krikorian and Sharbel, along with his parents Aboud and Mouna, came together with another Syrian immigrant family to cook and serve food for their new community during Celebration of Cultural Diversity at Powell River Recreation Complex.

The dishes they served, hummus and falafel, had been very important to the families when they were living in Syria.

After serving an enthusiastic crowd at the community celebration, Kinda says the families were asked when they would be opening a restaurant in Powell River.

“They liked the food,” says Kinda. “They asked where the restaurant was in town, and I said, ‘I don’t have restaurant,’ and they said, ‘You should open Did you know?

At one time, shrubs of cranberries grew on the peat-rimmed shore of Cranberry Lake.

a restaurant.’ Maybe one day.”

Cities such as Aleppo and León, Spain, where Laura Suarez is from, have a long history and culture connected to food. For immigrants such as Kinda and Suarez, food goes beyond being a necessary meal to keep you fuelled for the day’s tasks; it’s part of their lifestyle.

Suarez has lived in Powell River with her husband and young daughter for the past four and a half years. When she moved to Powell River she says she immediately noticed differences in the food and still misses the food culture in her city.

“I’m more used to the food here now,” she says. “I miss some things, but when I go there I want to eat all of it.”

León is in northern Spain, four hours from Madrid.

She describes it as not being a big city, but Suarez says there are hundreds of bars, or what we would refer to as neighbourhood pubs.

“In my town it’s very common to go out after work for a beer or wine,” she says. “We have hundreds of bars, and we don’t stay in just one.”

Suarez says they will go from one pub to another, and with their beer or wine they are given tapas, which are small plates of food. Each bar has a different kind of tapas and she says they will often pick the bar they go to based on the food they are serving.

“The tapas can be everything, because every bar has something different,” says Suarez. “It can be fries with different sauces, or mushro oms, musse ls, embutidos and salchichón, two kinds of chorizo and jamón, which is like prosciutto. In my town we have another kind that is like prosciutto, but from a cow.”

Cheese is another typical tapas offering, as well as chicken wings and garlic soup.

Even though Suarez’s husband does most of the cooking at home, she has taught a cooking class for a group at Elder College and they will often host friends at their home.

“People are curious about Spanish food, but I don’t think they really know what it is,” she says. “They think Spanish and think of Mexico, but there is nothing similar.”

When Suarez first arrived in Powell River, she was surprised by a couple things, one was the size of the community, and the other was the diversity of food available.

More than 100 years since the Powell River mill started in 1908, newcomers from all over the world continue to come to our region, bringing with them their culture and food.

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Tai Uhlmann was born and raised in Lund after her parents moved to the area in the late 1960s from the United States. The Lund community, which included other US residents who had left their country following violence and political unrest, was very close and the group often shared communal meals.

What’s one of your favourite food memories growing up in Lund?

Potlucks. Every meal growing up was a potluck-style spread of local, homegrown and mysterious edibles.

From two types of brownies made of carob, brown ones for the kids, and green ones for the grownups, to inedible, but not poisonous, fungi soup, fiddlehead ferns and meat from an old male goat.

What do you remember about cooking when you were a kid?

We started cooking young. We cooked with our mom, often later than most people eat dinner. The meals were healthy and there was always lots, just in case people showed up unannounced.

POWELL RIVER FOOD MEMORIES TAI UHLMANN

What was one of the weirdest things you ate?

We ate the steer we raised. Their names were Archie and Jughead.

Szechuan & Cantonese Cuisine

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SENIORS RECEIVE 10% OFF DINNER SMORGASBORD EVERY DAY 10% OFF PICKUP ORDERS OF $25 OR MORE FREE DELIVERY WITHIN FIVE KILOMETRES NO MSG | VEGETABLE OIL USED

604.485.4612 | Crossroads Village | OPEN SEVEN DAYS A WEEK 11:30 AM-2 PM AND 4-9 PM 14 SPRING/SUMMER 2017 | POWELL RIVER PEAK

INGREDIENTS: 1½ pounds fresh or canned sweet, dark cherries, pitted ¼ cup butter, unsalted, at room temperature 1 cup sugar 3 eggs, at room temperature ½ teaspoon pure vanilla extract 1 teaspoon pure almond extract 1¼ cup flour A traditional German 1 cup corn meal cherry cake 3 teaspoons baking powder From 1 cup and 1 tablespoon milk

KIRSCHENMICHEL Tai Uhlmann

METHOD: Preheat oven to 400 F. Grease a 10-inch round spring-form pan and set aside.

Sift the flour and mix with cornmeal and baking powder and set aside.

In a stand mixer, combine the butter and sugar, then mix on medium speed for four minutes.

Add the eggs one at a time and mix well.

Add vanilla and almond extract and mix well.

With the stand mixer on slow, alternate mixing in the flour and milk (start and end with the flour mixture).

Fold in the cherries by hand with a spatula.

Transfer the dough into the prepared baking dish and bake for 40-50 minutes or until a wooden skewer comes out clean when poking the cake.

Serve Kirschenmichel warm or at room temperature. It tastes wonderful served with vanilla ice cream and whipped cream.

604.485.4838 | 4741 MARINE AVENUE MONDAY TO SATURDAY 8:30 AM–5:30 PM 15 SPRING/SUMMER 2017 | POWELL RIVER PEAK

Jamie Burt, current principal of Brooks Secondary School, moved to Powell River as a teenager when he was recruited to be a member of the first Powell River Paper Kings (now Powell River Kings) junior hockey team. Burt moved from North Delta at the beginning of grade 11. Being a teenager away from home, there were lots of new experiences in Powell River, as well as things he missed from home.

What was one of your fondest food memories from when you moved to Powell River in high school?

When I moved here, my fondest food memory was being able to walk across the road from Max Cameron high school at lunchtime and have time for an A&W Mozza Burger and Whistle Dog before returning for class. If we were quick enough, we’d even have time to walk down to the Villa Esso station for a slushie. A mozza burger and whistle dog is still my usual A&W order today.

Were there any dishes you missed that your family made?

One of the biggest adjustments for me was being away from home for the first time as a 16-yearold. I was very fortunate to be billeted with an awesome family, Dave and Jan Kinley. My mom is an excellent cook, and I definitely missed some of my favourites she made: beef stroganoff, Jamie shepherd’s pie, lasagna and homemade chocolate pie, to name a few. I quickly realized Jan had some great culinary skills as well. I lived with the Kinleys for two years, and Jan’s cannelloni is to die for. She’ll still make it for me when we get the chance to visit.

POWELL RIVER FOOD MEMORIES Burt

URBAN BAKERY AND EATERY

• Breakfast all day, wraps, sandwiches, soups, salads and more • Scratch baking daily • Gluten-free, paleo food and baking choices • Outside seating on patio • Fresh organic beans from our roaster • Free WiFi • Catering available • Full espresso bar, all-natural smoothies • Sit in or take out, large groups welcome Crossroads Village Shopping Centre • 604.485.0011

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2 16 WEDNESDAY.JUNE SPRING/SUMMER15.2016 2017 | POWELL | POWELLRIVER RIVERPEAK PEAK

Did you know we roast our own coffee beans?

20 years and counting

FOOD FOR FUTURE GENERATIONS

Local kitchen program provides young adults with education and opportunities It is an unlikely place for a feast. Past the carpentry area and boxing club at Oceanview Education Centre, there is a door propped open where a small group has gathered late on a Monday afternoon.

In a collection of mismatched aprons, Young Adults Community Kitchen (YACK), whose members can often change from week to week, are making chicken shawarma and a big bowl of Greek salad. A special kind of funky, spicy, saltiness is in the air as the youth work on a bowl of cabbage that will

Jonathan Mühlemann works with YACK program coordinator Vanessa Sparrow to learn new skills in the kitchen.

become kimchi.

Every person in the room is busy with their own task. One chops a mountain of garlic while another squeezes and massages the cabbage, but every welloiled machine needs someone to set things in motion, and for the past

five years YACK program coordinator Vanessa Sparrow has been that person.

“This is my dream job,” says Sparrow.

“The idea was really less about food and more about social inclusion, and social connectedness.”

The original grant for the program »

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604.485.5171

Monday to SaturdayAvenue 11 am-9 pm 4454 Willingdon Sunday 3-9to pmSaturday 11 am-9 pm Monday 604.485.5171

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2 17 WEDNESDAY.JUNE SPRING/SUMMER15.2016 2017 | POWELL | POWELLRIVER RIVERPEAK PEAK

identified that there is a point when a lot of people in their late teens start to fall through the gaps.

“They’re not at school.

They might h a v e s e p a r a t e d from their families, and start to couch surf or whatever it might be, and some become increasingly i s o l a t e d ,” s a y s Sparrow.

Once the issues of inclusion and socialization among these young people were ident ifie d, Sparrow used the idea of providing a free meal, cooked by the young people who drop in every week, as the catalyst for the program.

In the five years since YACK started, Sparrow says 150 young people have come through the door and participated by cooking and

eating a meal together. They have even been hired to cater community events, such as last April’s Tapping the Groundswell conference.

several others, giving those w ho par t icipate d wor k experience that helped them gain employment in hospitality.

For some of the young people helping to put together the chicken shawarma meal, it is not necessarily about landing a job in a restaurant kitchen. Instead, it is about building basic skills they can use in their daily lives.

“We did a full hot lunch for 150 people,” says Sparrow. “We taught ourselves to cater. We were doing spreadsheets and learning how to scale up recipes.”

After that event, the group went on to cater

“I wanted to further my skills and figure out more recipes to make at home,” says program member Amanda Grassmann.

Grassmann started coming to YACK a year ago when the program was suggested by her friends and a support network that was helping her transition to independent living.

With so many meals cooked during her first year in the community kitchen, Grassmann says it is hard to pick out a favourite.

Meeting new people and cooking were what kept her coming back week after week, she says, but “the food and eating is the best, too.”

Like Grassmann, Bradley Badger started coming »

AUTHENTIC CUISINE OF INDIA Open 7 days a week for Lunch and Dinner Vegetarian and non-vegetarian Gluten-free and dairy-free options

DINE IN OR TAKE OUT

BUFFET NIGHTS

SUNDAY, MONDAY AND TUESDAY

PRIVATE PARTIES • EVENTS • CATERING AVAILABLE

604.414.0143 • 6275 Marine Avenue • powellriver@royalzayka.com Lunch: 11 am-2:30 pm • Dinner: 4:30-9 pm • Seven days a week 18 SPRING/SUMMER 2017 | POWELL RIVER PEAK

RESTAURANT & BAR

Shaina Reath helps prepare the Greek salad at one of the weekly YACK cooking classes.

to YACK when friends mentioned it to him. Those friends have stopped coming, but Badger has continued to cook with the group at YACK for approximately four years.

“I’ve met a lot of new people,” says Badger. “It’s a nice social environment and I don’t have to be as shy as I normally am.”

In addition to helping Badger build his skills in the kitchen, he said YACK has also helped him become more conscious of health and nutrition.

“I never really cared much about that before I came here, but being here has really helped me. Now I save money and try to buy food for the month,” he says.

In March, Vancouver Coastal Health announced that it would be pulling the funding for YACK after five years of support since the program’s inception. Sparrow

says she was concerned about the future of the weekly cooking group, but Powell River Child, Youth and Family Services Society has since decided to maintain its funding.

“Getting this support to continue to offer free, weekly cooking to the 15 to 25 age group is wonderful,” says Sparrow. “YACK offers an inclusive and supportive environment for a diverse group of people, and is the only social support program specifically for this age group. It’s much more than cooking and eating together each week; it’s a chance to meet and share food with people you wouldn’t otherwise get to know, feel more connected to community and have a lot of fun in the process.”

For more information on YACK, go to facebook.com/ PowellRiverYACK.

Seasonal menu Dine on the water Best fish and chips on the Sunshine Coast

Gluten-free menu available

The Boardwalk

bringing family and friends together 604.483.2201 • boardwalkrestaurantpowellriver.com • Lund, BC Call for reservations | Free parking | Courtesy wheelchair for guests who have difficulty walking 19 SPRING/SUMMER 2017 | POWELL RIVER PEAK

THE PERFECT LOCATION FOR EVERYONE The Waterfront Patio: Powell River’s destination patio with our unbelievable ocean views, stunning sunsets and an open fire pit.

The Pub: A great meeting place featuring our famous Chicken Wings, Stuffed Yorkies and Beer Battered Fish n’ Chips.

From the Grill: Try our mouth-wathering Triple A Angus Beef Steaks!

The Dining Room: Delicious entrees like and excellent service.

Banquets and Catering: The Bight is the perfect place for weddings, family reunions, corporate events or private parties.

Featuring Daily Specials: Don’t miss our daily Happy Hour from 3-6pm or our nightly dinner & drink specials (see all specials at savourybight.com)

EAT • RELAX • ENJOY

604.485.0996 | savourybight.com

Located on the waterfront at the Beach Gardens

COME VISIT US AT THE TOWN CENTRE HOTEL! Situated in the heart of the hotel is the Garden Court Restaurant. Serving all day Breakfast & Lunch 7 days a week.

TC’s Pub is open from noon till late, serving Lunch & Dinner Monday to Saturday. TC’s is the perfect place to meet friends & business associates.

Catch all the sports action on one of our 8 big screens!

Full Banquet Facilities and Catering available.

With Music Bingo Mondays, Free Pool Tuesday and Jam Night Wednesdays!

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MONDAYS AT 7PM

604.485.3000 2 20 WEDNESDAY.JUNE SPRING/SUMMER15.2016 2017 | POWELL | POWELLRIVER RIVERPEAK PEAK

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