Working for a Meal?

This week, I came across two articles on a food trend of people working for their lunch or dinner. Working in the sense of volunteering their time to help in the labour intensive process of bringing harvest from the farm to the table.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/food-and-wine/food-trends/free-labour-diners-line-up-to-volunteer-at-restaurants/article4566712/

Having volunteers help a restaurant produce food product is quite the clever ‘win-win’ situation-helping educate the consumer in the farm to table process while the restaurant receives some extra labour they could use at a time of abundance. Creating good, high quality food does require work!

I particularly like the community spirit behind working for your dinner at the Irish Heather in Vancouver:

http://ltsmenu.blogspot.ca/

I truly believe that the more we can be involved in the process of bringing food from harvest to table, the more we can understand and become aware of best practices for environmentally and economically sustainable food production.

Perhaps this could be inspiration to go apple picking at this time of year. Great outdoor activity and opportunity to work for your Canadian Thanksgiving dinner…