Last summer, we partnered with the Vancouver Master Gardeners Association (MGA) to provide a series of ‘Gardening Q&A’ blog posts. This Spring, we are grateful to have the master gardeners join us again in sharing their knowledge to create kid-focused gardening resources and activities, assisting our teachers with classroom growing support, an exciting new webinar series, and more! We are so excited to work with them again this growing season, to bring our Growing Chefs community the information they need to grow their own local, nutritious food.
To kick it all off, we want to introduce you to James Spears, a Master Gardener who will be taking the lead in coordinating our collaborative projects, and engaging other master gardeners and students-in-training to share their knowledge with us. We feel so fortunate to have James working closely with us, he is a super cool guy with extensive experience growing food in his year-round garden where he gets most of his inspiration and key ingredients to cook delicious meals from.
Hi James! Tell us a bit about yourself!
I tell my gardening friends I’m really a cook, and I tell my cooking friends I’m really a gardener. Any season, I like to wander through my kitchen garden and decide what’s for dinner. My “day jobs” were as a journalist, photographer, and lawyer prior to retirement; during the late 60s and 70s I had an acre of garden in Langley and rented an organic plot in Richmond before establishing my Kitsilano Kitchen Garden in 1983. It has been a year-round kitchen garden since, with a list of 60 herbs and veggies that I have enjoyed, not necessarily in the same year.
Thanks to many trips to France, I have sampled roughly 400 French restaurants (not including breakfast) and can remember two really bad meals, and many, many good, inexpensive meals in restaurants without expectation of attaining a Michelin star.
Why did you want to get involved with the work that Growing Chefs is doing?
Good, local food, and the knowledge that is needed to excel in the kitchen.
What are you eating these days?
I am eating fresh leeks, chard, kale, parsnip, onion, cilantro, lettuce, kiwi, salad burnet, chives, daikon radish and carrots. Lots of winter squash. And of course rosemary, thyme and other herbs. The beets have just finished; it seems I didn’t plant enough!
What's your favourite meal to cook?
I have given a number of garden club talks on: "Minestrone Soup Reverse Engineered” in which most of the ingredients are available in all seasons.
Hint: Basil is important, and summer-only, but frozen pesto is a great substitute.
What is your earliest food related memory?
Too many good meals to answer, but I am old enough to say that my parents, and grandparents, took it for granted that they would grow big kitchen gardens. So I don’t remember a time when a supermarket or grocery store was a prime source of veggies. Meat and cereals? That’s another story.
Current produce obsession?
Tromboncino squash (pictured below)
*Also visible for the sharp eye in the photo below: Arugula, parsnip, artichoke, parsley, kiwi, pole bean, onion, fava bean, pepper, and leek.
You’ve never heard of Tromboncino squash? Learn all about it at James’ webpage ‘Tromboncino 101’ romboncino.ca/.