As we sadly bid farewell to one of the best, old-fashioned HOT Okanagan summers that we have had in years, we can look forward to an equally beautiful autumn. The good weather is holding and the harvest season is about to begin.
While we continue celebrating the fruits of our industry’s labour this fall, the wineries are still extremely busy at harvest and crush, the farmers busy with tree fruit harvest and vegetable farmers remain in full swing offering plentiful crops of autumn’s treasures like squash, heirloom tomatoes and corn. Make sure to relish every moment of the farm fresh produce while you can, and take time to preserve some to enjoy during the winter months.
There are exciting winery updates and news of fall wine releases shared in the following pages of this issue as well as great restaurant news. Congratulations to RauDZ Regional Table who are opening micro.bar.bites in Kelowna! We have a couple of special recipes shared in our recipe section including one from celebrated island author Bill Jones’ delicious new book The Deerholme Mushroom Book- From Forgaging to Feasting. We are also introducing one of our local food heros, Helen Kennedy from Arlo’s Honey Farm in this edition – look forward to this becoming a regular feature.
We are featuring our celebrated friends who provide us the very necessary service of being a great coffee house. The ones listed are my personal favorites and I adore not only there life-blood high quality coffee, but also their delicious food and wonderful, welcoming personalities – the combination of which provides me with the fuel I need to make the best of every day. Yay for coffee folk! Happy crush to all of my winery friends and happy harvest to our hardworking farmers – we treasure each and every one of you and give thanks to you all for sharing your passion and filling our tables with good food and wine.
PS: This summer I was thrilled to be nominated and accepted into the prestigious BC chapter of Les Dames Escoffier! Check out our website to learn more about what we do: lesdames.ca/ – Dame Jennifer