Bradford, ON

With Christmas just around the corner, many people are beginning to feel the stress of the holiday season. Instead of worrying about the gifts, and the parties, why not volunteer and help others this holiday season. Many organizations are looking for volunteers to help them, help others. Whether your visiting children at a hospital, or helping serve food at your local soup kitchen, every bit helps.

Get the entire family involved! Have your children go through their room and pick out old toys and clothing they don't use anymore, and donate it to families in need. Its a good learning experience for them, and will make them feel good about helping others in their community. Sometimes the best gifts in life are the ones that don't cost anything.

*Every Christmas, Every person has 1000 wishes, a cancer patient only has one: to get better *

Its that time of year again. As winter approaches, we are entering another flu season.

We can help reduce the spread of influenza through a proactive regimen including frequent good handwashing, covering our coughs and sneezes (or coughing into our elbows), staying home when sick, but the best way to prevent the spread of influenza is to get vaccinated every year. The influenza vaccine is recommended for everyone over the age of six months who is not allergic to the vaccine.

A recent study showed that the influenza vaccine results in a reduction of 30,000 visits to hospital emergency departments, 1,000 hospitalizations and 300 deaths in Ontario alone.

Upcoming Bradford Flu shot clinics will be held at:

• Bradford Honourable Earl Rowe School, 2526 12th Line, RR2 on Saturday November 12th
• Bradford Public Library and Cultural Centre, 425 Holland St. W. on Wednesday November 16th and again on Wednesday Novemeber 23rd

Appointments are being booked online. South Simcoe Clinics can be accessed and booked online by clicking on this Simcoe Muskoka District Health Unit Link

Greenbelt - Holland Marsh from Manifest on Vimeo.

Located about 50 km North of Toronto on the east and west sides of Highway 400 immediately north of Highway 9, Ontario's Vegetable Basket is the source of some of Ontario's best Carrots, Celery, and Onions as well as specialty items as Water Spinach, Asian Radish, Chinese Broccoli and so many more fruits and vegetables.

The incredible soil is the first thing you notice. Originally swampgrounds, this land was drained by the creation of dykes and canals in the early 1900's to expose incredibly fertile "muck soil".

Click on Halland Marsh for history, photographs and information on the drainage system employed to keep this valuable land viable.

If you are driving by on Hwys 9 or 400, exit on Canal Rd and sample some of the many fruits and vegetables availabe. Buy Local, reduce your carbon footprint and eat healthy!

Holland Marsh

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Here is a link to a Previous post about a Harvest Share Food Program

I was commenting on a blog earlier today and the graphic at the bottom of the blog was the word CHERIMOYA.

This was the name of the fruit I had tried for the first time late last month. I was visiting with my parents and my father wanted me to try this strange looking fruit. He told me that his mother had talked about a fruit that she had eaten as a youth and had never seen again.

He was in an Asian food mart in Markham and saw the name. He pronounced it phonetically like "cherry moyer".

It looked a little like a similar fruit I have often seen in Chinese food marts called a custard apple. He had bought two and shared one with me. It was definitely ripe, slightly soft and perhaps bordering on the over ripe...

Cherimoya

He cut this fruit (probably the size of a large orange) with it's thick green skin in half, and inside was a healthy amount of white flesh and pods of black seeds.

I am not sure if I am doing the fruit justice to say that it tastes a little like a guava and a custard apple. It is not an overpowering flavour, and when ripe is very sweet. A cherimoya seems to have much more flesh and less seeds that a custard apple which, in my experience have white flesh surrounding each individual seeds, but definitely is similar. Some sites say that a cherimoya and a custard apple are the same, but the custard apples I have seen and eaten look like this:

Custard Apple

If you have never tried a cherimoya and ever happen upon it, take the chance and buy one. If it is still hard, I would keep it out of direct sunlight and extreme heat until it softens, cut it in half and scoop out the flesh with a spoon (do not swallow or eat the seeds) and then prepare yourself for a taste sensation.