Chelsea Novak
Rossland News
The Old Fire Hall was filled with music, mingling and great food on Saturday night for the inaugural incrEDIBLE Thanksgiving dinner.
The dinner was hosted by the Sustainable Local Agriculture Committee of the Lower Columbia Community Development Team Society (LCCDTS) to raise awareness of the economic potential of agriculture in the area.
“We have a lot of land here that is suitable for development, and we have a lot of land—just in Areas A and B we have about 15,00 hectares—that is suitable with our current climate for a cash crop,” said Gina Ironmonger, chair of the committee. “And by cash crop I’m talking about hops, and grapes, and berries and that type of thing.”
All of the food for the evening was sourced locally, and was prepared by local chef John Premier.
Premier runs his own catering company, Premier Chef Services, and moved into the Old Fire Hall two months ago.
“It’s like my catering base, my headquarters,” said Premier.
Premier prepared a number of appetizers for the evening, as well as a four course meal.
The main entree was goat from Moon Gravity Farms in Rossland braised in red wine from Columbia Gardens Vineyard and Winery in Fruitvale, roasted potatoes from Earthy Organics in Fruitvale, and roasted beets and carrots from Soahc Estates in Fruitvale.
Soahc Estates and Columbia Gardens Vineyard and Winery were both also behind the bar for the evening, serving glasses of wine and selling bottles to take home.
Dessert was pumpkin pie made from Earthy Organics pumpkins, and Rossland resident Samantha Troy also brought an additional dessert, cricket carrot cake.
Troy made the mini cakes using cricket powder to replace one-third of the recipe’s flour. She farmed the crickets at home, and is starting her own business, Kootenay Mountain Cricket Company.
Her primary product will be the cricket powder, but she also hopes to supply crickets to local chefs so they can experiment with different dishes.
Fletcher Quince, a member of the LCCDTS, supplied the location for the evening.
Quince recently leased the Old Fire Hall from Kootenay Savings and is starting up the Rossland Social Club. His plan is to invite a number of local businesses, of which Premier Chef Services is the first, to use the space as a social hub.
“The space is intended to bring a whole group or series of sole-proprietor or non-profit or corporate level groups together to serve the individual purposes of the space in a gestaltian model, in the sense that by putting them all together we can offer something that’s greater than the parts can on their own,” said Quince.
He’s also hoping to bring in a group to organize live music performances and hopefully broadcast live from the space.
Music for the evening was provided by local jazz musician Ronald Halliday.