Vital Green is presently Alberta’s only organic dairy and Earth’s General Store has arranged to have this product line in the store. The first shipment was actually a pick up from the dairy by Timothy and myself but today (Saturday, July 3rd, 2010), thanks to Ron Hamilton from Sun Works Farms I bicycled over to the Old Strathcona Farmer’s Market and loaded up my trailer with milk, cream cheese, cream, and sour cream.

So if you are looking for Alberta organic dairy products from Vital Green in Edmonton check them out at our store. They are also available at Planet Organic and through the Good Food Box.

When Andrew Johnson heard that I was going to move the store he offered to lease me one of his pickup trucks. I was reluctant at first but when I started to use it I found how useful it was but I found that I was slowly using it too much so I returned it to him a few weeks ago.

Before I had the pickup truck I would have figured out a way to do it by bicycle trailer and this is precisely what I did last week when I went and picked up the last shipment of rain barrels. I figured out a way that I could easily modify my bicycle trailer to carry rain barrels (they are bulky but fairly light).

It worked nicely. All 8 barrels fitted on the trailer safely and securely. I will usually only order 8 barrels a week but it looks like I could easily carry 10 or even 12 barrels.

On my trip from 50th street and 82 Avenue to the store three different people asked me about the rain barrels. Good way to raise awareness about rain barrels!

I love that Momentum Magazine exists.

There is so much bicycle culture out there and Momentum brings it to life in their magazine every two months. 

You can drop by the store (Earth’s General Store, 9605 – 82nd Avenue), Edmonton Bicycle Commuters’ Society (www.edmontonbikes.ca), United Cycle, or MEC to pick up your free copy of this excellent publication. (MEC and EBC won’t get theirs for several days and possibly not until next week).

Pick one up, go for a ride, and enjoy life!

Several months ago I found a product made in Israel and I put it on sale but it has not moved so I guess I will put it in the free store.

Why am I getting rid of products that are made in Israel? I do not have respect for their government and their agenda – specially with respect of their treatment of the Palestinian citizens. Yes there are Palestinian people that have done wrong and Israel has the right to protect its citizens but there is something fundamentally wrong with the reasoning. Both sides have done wrong and I am not here to defend either party but to say that it is in my power to choose not to financial support a regime that I do not respect.

So after these items are removed from our shelves we will not have any products that say “Made in Israel” on it.

The other day Google Alert notified me that my name came up as a signer of letter of complaint to the BBC on their take on the attack by the Israeli military on the Freedom Flotilla in May. I thought that this would probably be something I would sign but couldn’t remember doing so. I checked it out and realized it was someone in London, UK that had the same name as myself (Michael Kalmanovitch, International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network). I decided to contact him.

Whoops! It looks like I will have to do the Lilith Fair Ticket draw this evening (Wednesday, June 23rd, 2010) at 6pm since the organiser from To-Go Ware needs the names earlier. Sorry for any inconvenience to anyone that put off purchasing any of their items until the date and time that I originally posted.

Good luck to everyone that entered!

The draw this evening will be for a set of two Lilith concert tickets kindly offered by To-GO Ware  to the store for people that bought their product.

Timothy and I travelled down to Calgary and stayed with our friends Scott & Renate. In 1991 Scott started Calgary’s equivalent of Earth’s General Store – The Eco Store. Later he transformed his environmental store into a food store (Sunnyside Market) – much as we are doing with our store. He did an excellent job with the store but later sold it so he could do some other projects.

We then went down to Lethbridge and Timothy visited with his maternal grandmother.

After that we drove down to Manyberries to have some time with my mother and her husband Carl. Unfortunately I got quite ill and spent most of the time we were there in bed.

The next morning – after a shaky start (still a little woozy) we made our way over to Ehnes Organic farm and picked up some Red Fife Wheat Flour, Rye Kernels and Wheat Kernels. Red Fife is a landrace wheat variety that is gaining popularity amongst artisan bakers (I have heard that Treestone Bakery has started to use it).

We then went up to Picture Butte and stopped by Vital Green Dairy to pick up some milk and yogurt. We stopped over night at Strathmore since I was still not well and we would not make it to Camrose in time to pick up the next items.

Timothy and I are going to head south to Manyberries (small town south of Medicine Hat) to visit my mother – it will likely be the only time we see her this year. We also plan on visiting Timothy’s maternal grandmother in Lethbridge.

Part of our trip will be visiting a few other places – Wayne’s Bagels (I would like to start to carry these wonderful Montreal style bagels at the store), Vital Green Alberta’s only organic dairy), Ehnes Organic Farm in Etzikom, and a visit to the Sunny Boy mill in Camrose to pick up an order. Travelling, learning and spending time with my son – pretty fine.

Several of the staff are away on holiday or up at the North Country Fair this weekend – Elise is off camping with her boyfriend, Ruth is off to BC with a friend, Tammy and Fire are having fun up at North Country Fair. So it leaves much for the few people that are left to keep the store open so thank you to Layne, Jacqueline, Deborah, and Hannah for keeping it going. It didn’t help matters that I choose this weekend to go south (it was the only window of opportunity that I had).

So yes we will drive safely and have a good time exploring some new places.

Whew! People are certainly buying up this product. I tried it the other day and it is a very nice product. I just fried the strips up and had it with a side of pyrogies. Yummy!

Tofurkey has scored a winner with these Tempeh products. I like that they use organic soy beans, it is a healthy product, and it tastes good. I am going to try it in a stir fry, a tofu omelette, and a sandwich.

I have ordered more for next week but the way that it is selling it is likely we will be out of stock by the weekend.

We do need help to get rid of a few products – Kootenay Kitchen Pates, Happy Planet Iced Tea, Olympic Dairy Cream Cheese, some Nature’s Path EcoPac cereals, Annie’s Naturals packed pasta boxes, Life Choices packed macaroni and cheese packs, and I am sure there are a few that I have forgotten about. To entice people to help move these items off our shelves we have put them on sale.

Many people have been phoning the store over the past few days looking for tickets to the North Country Fair Music festival happening this coming weekend.

We do have tickets available at the advanced ticket price - $100 compared to the $120 gate price. At the close of business on Wednesday we had 127 tickets left so if you are looking for tickets it is likely we will have them for a couple more days.

If you pay with cash the price is $100 but if you use electronic payment options (debit or credit card) you will be charged a $2.00 per ticket surcharge.

On Thursday we are open from 10am to 8pm and on Friday (the last day of advanced ticket prices) we are open 10am to 5:30pm.

Have a great time at the festival.

http://lslncca.ca/current/

Today Liane Faulder had an article in the Bistro section of the Edmonton Journal about Daiya Cheese. You can read the article at http://tinyurl.com/3x6rhdz.

The above photographs are several of the items that Mill Creek Cafe has available using Daiya cheese – grilled cheese sandwich, Margarita Pizza, and a grilled vegetables with Daiya cheese and roasted pecan sandwich. Yum!

Daiya Cheese is becoming very popular. We almost ran out of cheese today but the latest order arrived just in time. Once people try it they realize that they can have a product that has the cheese flavour, melts, and is gooey without the dairy, lactose, nuts, gluten, and soy ingredients that people wish to avoid because of food allergies or lifestyle diet choices.