BC has a range of food service venues, many of which are located in semi-remote to remote areas of the province. Good Stock's experience with food preparation and elite service in the wilderness is life long. They have been in numerous camps: the Nass for steelhead fishing, north of Prince George for logging, Wells Gray Guest Ranch and the Big Bar for tourism, the Muskwa up north and Bear Valley in Manitoba for hunting, and west of the Alaska Highway south of Prophet River for oil. Tourism is a primary sector: expediting safe food transport and organization (orders, storage, inventories, menus, service, packing) is of critical importance for a quality product from the camp and resort kitchen.

Good Stock Foods is based in the Salmon Arm area, British Columbia's cradle of summer holiday activity. The business began in 2002 producing culinary stocks and now assists other businesses in the industry become operationally effective. The proprietor is a 'Red Seal' chef, 24 years in the business and an instructor at Okanagan College servicing an array of ethnic and food service courses for the continuing education department.

"Energy, enthusiasm, integrity, professionalism describe Good Stockís consultant while at our facility; definitely a positive asset — and experience — to any agency looking to jazz up or completely revamp their kitchen operations. The organizing, implementation of food cost controls and menu creativity was of great benefit to our food services."

Andrew Boyd, Executive Director, Westcoast Genesis Society, New Westminster, B.C.

"I've worked with the business' owner and it's obvious she knows her stuff — she knows all of the parts of food services, and organizing/administrating any kitchen, and tons about food... I think it's her pursuit of creating and fusing, and her fresh herbs... "

Tanja Carlson, Marketing & Development Coordinator, Shuswap Community Futures, Salmon Arm, B.C.

"I have known the owner of Good Stock Foods for many years; her innovative creative juices flow 100% of the time guided by a phenomenal true blue-collar work ethic. Thorough, professional, she sets a very high standard of service and products harkening to a throwback quality nicely mixed with everything modern."

Deb Berard, Berard Design Group, Kelowna, B.C.

"From Thai to Mexican, soup to salad and all things in between Janna Hanson has provided our students all that's needed to become gourmet chefs at home. Not only that she is equally adept at training our students to work in restaurants and pubs in a professional and courteous manner."

Don Kolysher, Program Administrator,Okanagan College, Salmon Arm, B.C.

Good Stock was here again; she gutted all of the storage areas and organized our three-year-old new commercial kitchen, implemented more strict food safety procedures for the cook to adhere to, and commandeered our annual community barbeque for over 300 people from across our community. Everything was a complete success, once again!

Andrew Boyd, Executive Director, Westcoast Genesis Society, New Westminster, B.C.

Pasta Potato 1

The husband of a successful spatial designer in Kelowna asked me what I thought would be the top twenty essential food items to always have in the kitchen. He does all of the cooking. I started listing. "Onion, olive oil (or butter), lemon (or lime), garlic, celery, peppercorn (or dried chili), parsley, carrot...". We bantered and I whittled it down to those items I know I'd need at a base level for maximum output. The 'or' substitutions are either flavour preferences or indecisiveness.

It was tight, and disturbing to have to contain a seemingly impossible small inventory to a definitive list. Then it changed to being what twenty food items only would I want available to cook with. I continued listing: "Barley flakes (or stone ground cornmeal), long grain brown rice (milled for flour, the barley flakes and cornmeal could be too), brown sugar (or molasses), salt, tomatoes, potatoes, whole milk powder, beef (with bones), dried black beans, prunes (or raisins), eggs and peanuts." Mister conceded with some reservation I knew a sound reason for each item's existence. And I kept referencing that if I was in the backcountry (on a wood stove) I couldŠ We didn't quite find consensus and the conversation ended.

I kept mulling it over because the list was not sold on me either, and I began to wonder if two lists were necessary dependent upon two very different scenarios. Let's say, the classic dinner date and at your disposal an amenity — endowed kitchen, or you invite a favourite friend to a log hut up on a mountain with a roasting-hot wood stove beckoning your cooking talent to show off. Off track?

As I thought about the bush kitchen's list I took the liberty of assuming I could step out and snare a rabbit or grouse, taking care of the palate for chicken. A sourdough starter keeps nicely on a wood stove producing a myriad of baked goods. In the summer and fall a virtual natural harvest of berries, herbs, grasses — could I go fishing? — came to mind. Could I still play? The wilderness food list began to take on a boundlessness of its own. But maybe I was starting to cheat.

Working the pioneer lifestyle spells kitchen wench to me, lovingly so. The immediate needs are get wood, melt snow or haul water, do the cooking, sweep constantly and hand wash dishes at least three times a day — that fills it. Talk about a carb demand. Then I walk into my friends' ultra designer kitchen and see banks of stainless steel, the possibility of fire sprouting from ten different places with a flick of the wrist and I melt. However, in this kitchen the list stays at twenty because that's all there is to work with. One could do equally well in either environment with that list of twenty, it's just that in the forest there are many more things to work with than what the urban human would be limited to. Go off in the bush, find the bounty, do something with it. I dig it.

People should carry food and water with them at all times. I travel with parsley (the fastest salad in the west), onion, celery, orange or lemon, carrot, garlic, a hand full of raisins and a hunk of cornbread. A little travel list of eight. Of course I am a chef, love to eat well and am obsessed. Peace out.

Pasta Potato 2

Records say almost a million years ago, maybe in France, fire changed man's life. He threw other foods on the fire besides raw meat like kernels of ancient grain and then (many thousands of years later) created cooking utensils like vessels and flat surfaces to contain his rudimentary cuisine. This activity brought the clan to the fire and kept them there for warmth, light and a more diverse menu. It was the beginning of man's true socialization, and the strengthening of the core and extended family unit.

Today, the closest western societies might get to a regular, ordered meal gathering would be at dawn, when light and work and school stir the family to get up, bump into each other at the refrigerator and in their rested state say a few words of importance or not in their hurry (or not) to get to all points. That's it. No wonder life on our continent is lacking the most basic skill of survival.

Going back about 12,000 years man's brain grew with astonishing speed and gained wondrous ideas; this is when he accelerated his learning in the outdoor kitchen. The frying pan, cook pot and oven were built coinciding with the agricultural boom, keeping groups in one spot to establish a community, develop skills and live harmoniously. Communication continued to be critical; sharing, language, expression and boundaries had to find their balance. Problems from the day were brought to the fire to be dealt with by the end it. Nourishment brought families together, encouraging communicative cooperation, exploration and growth for the human race. Man of old was proving to be an amazing animal.

People who gather around fires and kitchens to eat regularly have an advantage. Our family's table habits were structured; it saved time and made sense knowing what time we ate, how to peel potatoes and set the table, where one sat, how to serve, be served and ask for food and seconds, and how — and when — to ask to leave the table. It made meal times comfortable, and interesting, and even fun. With all of the etiquette learned, it remained only to gather and enjoy food and the family experience. Nourishment on many levels occurred. Our people skills were corrected and honed.

My mother did a great job. While she tended the fire behind her Dad sat at the darkest and most dangerous end of the circle, guarding and observing. He had been away all day, building and fixing and hunting. We four kids sat at our places, just about heeding the rules, and hungry. We told our stories, waiting for the other to finish but not always. Us girls sat closest to the kitchen too, we got up to get things if asked. All of us cleared and cleaned except Dad. He rested.

It was an eating system that many folk of the times followed. Being together was everything, with food present and inviting. The whole process was natural, as much as it was necessary for survival — using good manners meant one ate well. That's pasta potato please.

Janna Hanson

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Website: www.goodstockfoods.ca