Yesterday, damned early, I found myself in the passenger seat of a car lined up at Horseshoe Bay for the first ferry, worrying that I didn’t have enough cellphone juice to last the journey. Robert Clark, the executive chef of “C”, Raincity Grill, and NU restaurants, was behind the wheel. Asleep in the back seat was “C” chef de cuisine Quang Dang. Next to him was an old friend and co-worker from back-in-the-day, Ben Berwick, now sous chef at Kitsilano’s Hapa Izakaya. It was going to be a good, sunny day on Saltspring.

The four of us were mixing work with pleasure, which (very happily) is often impossible not to do when doing this sort of job. Much of the time was spent listening farmers and producers tell their stories for a new book  project that Robert and I are working on. We started shaping it – part history and part cookbook – back at the start of the summer. If all goes according to the direction we are going now, it will tell the story of Raincity Grill’s evolution through the prism of its many suppliers around the province, from mushroom foragers and potato farmers to salmon fishermen and artisan cheesemakers.

It was also the annual Apple Festival, which was a bonus for us as it’s sort of a big deal for the islanders and they like having clean, organic fun. As  you can see from the photos – especially of the Queen in drag and the pot head wearing the sack – it’s not a rock without a sense of humour.

Having spent a few young and wayward weekends there without money or food, I knew there were plenty of apples to be had along or near most of the roadsides, but I never would have guessed the Island boasted over 300 different types. And so we bounced around some orchards, too, slicing and sampling shiny, waxen-skinned orbs the likes of which I’d never imagined possible, from red-fleshed Russian Niedzwetskyana crabs to the greenish pink Hidden Rose of Oregon.

The remainder of the day was spent eating amazing cheeses at both Moonstruck and Saltspring Island Cheese Company, the Island’s two artisan cheese makers and suppliers to many Vancouver and Vancouver Island restaurants since the late ’90’s. We sat in the shade and ate our way through a whole load of bread (and a wheel of Romelia) at the latter, while I submitted to a rather Zen-ish sort of massage at the former, offered to me by a well meaning stranger. Both cheese houses were involved in the Apple Fest as well. Here too, loads of people were all also about, sharing in the Island-wide ramble. We capped the adventure, sort of typically, with cold local beers at restaurant built around a tree.

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