Another Friday behind me…
Fridays are almost TOO busy. Although the Community Market was fairly “slow”, I still made a little money. Some of it was fun, like Gary coming to visit with me for a little while, and seeing a few other friends.
One of the problems with our Market lately is that the Ministry of Health has appointed a Food Inspector for this area and he is doing his job too zealously. The same Ministry actually succeeded in preventing a whole community function, an ethnic potluck dinner for Canada Day, in the town of Fort Saint James, for no other reason than that is WAS a potluck. The government is trying to regulate which food we share and how it is prepared. The event had been held for 15 years.
I find that I’m nearly too exhausted to actually WRITE about this. The bottom line is that they are spoiling our fun, and some foods such as my Spanakopita are now “banned” from being offered in a Farmer’s Market. Even if my kitchen were to be “certified”, I would not be permitted to sell it because it is supposed to be kept hot. I’ve looked at most of the regulations from many angles.
I’ve still been taking cheesecake to the Markets for six years , and when I talked to the Food Inspector, he asked that I submit a “food handling plan” which includes where I buy the ingredients and how they are handled, my recipe, and how the finished product is kept safe for the public. I can do this… and it will be a work of creative writing, all the truth, of course.
This Friday, because the lad who usually sells hot dogs and hamburgers was away, I took it upon myself to bake large buns and then make “bunwiches” to sell. Cognizant of the food guidelines, I did not include meat or even butter, so they were CHEESE bunwiches with two kinds of cheese, tomato , swiss chard and margarine. I kept them on ice packs. They were popular; I got great feedback. However, there seemed to be a large number of people who wanted to “joke” about the whole scene regarding food safety… asking how I could “get away with” the food that I DID offer. Next time I might pin up a poster which gives the Food Inspector’s office phone number, and ask people to direct their concerns to HIM. Have you ever found that people who step on your last nerve are invariably “only joking”? I wanted to ask some folks if they had ANY idea how many times I’d already heard that crap; they wonder why I act defensive.
I’ve got another week to think about it, but maybe I should just take my jams and jellies. Trouble is, the whole thing works so well together: our neighbours and friends love to come to the market to eat!
Okay, a little voice in my head is saying, “Blah blah blah, blah blah blah…” so maybe that’s what you’re thinking too. I’ll come back when I’m more rested and positive. I love you for reading my weblog.
~Ann
