Program Description
Greenest City’s Growing the Future is a new youth program that seeks to promote food sovereignty in Parkdale, engage and empower young people, and connect people to each other and to food. Growing the Future aims to involve 13-15-year-olds in extra-curricular programming focused on skills building, leadership & communication skills, basic nutrition, food preparation, urban agriculture, advocacy, environmental education, and capacity building.

Key Responsibilities
* Work with the Urban Agriculture Manager to develop and implement Growing the Future programming activities
* Work with the Communications and Outreach Director to recruit participants and connect with the local community
* Coordinate the program logistics, activities, workshops, field trips, and the Summer Farm Day Camp
* Provide support and guidance to Growing the Future participants undertaking public education and advocacy projects
* Develop and maintain relationships with participants and with program partners
* Provide content for communication materials
* Conduct participant outreach
* Coordinate youth project mentors and additional volunteers as necessary
* Record and track information and statistics on project deliverables
* Assist in project evaluation and reporting activities

Qualifications
* Demonstrated ability and experience working with 13-15-year-olds, particularly marginalized youth
* Interest in food preparation, food security, and youth development
* Highly motivated, resourceful and passionate - demonstrated commitment to issues of environmental, social and economic justice
* Demonstrated ability to connect to and work within diverse communities
* A positive and kind way with staff, participants and partners
* Outstanding writing and interpersonal skills
* Ability to speak a language relevant to the South Parkdale neighbourhood considered an asset (for example: Tibetan, Mandarin, Hungarian, Polish, and others)

This is a full-time position based in the Parkdale office. Some evening and weekend day work is expected

Salary range is $29,000-$32,000 depending on qualifications.

Please submit a cover letter and résumé by Friday, December 18th at 5:00 p.m. to the attention of:
Greenest City
c/o Masaryk Cowan Community Recreation Centre
220 Cowan Ave, Toronto ON M6K 2N6

EMAIL:

Educational opportunities at Irvine Creek include all aspects of running a small CSA farm, including business planning, record keeping, greenhouse and field production, event and workshop hosting, marketing, hops production, field crops, winemaking, beekeeping, nursery management, berry production, food preservation, and anything else that is taken on throughout the season! The emphasis of an internship at Irvine Creek will be coming away from the farm with the knowledge to do this for yourself!

The farm is run by a previous CRAFT intern and, as it’s still in its early years, is an excellent opportunity to see where you might find yourself in a few years. The owners are seeking passionate, self-motivated, idealistic individuals with a strong work ethic. If this is you, come grow and learn!

Interns will have housing and some food provided in addition to a weekly stipend, and will work Monday to Friday with some Saturdays (farmers’ market) from early April until early November. Please submit your resume with a cover letter when you apply. Please apply by email:

How do you manage the heavy schedule of the kitchen and then the farm on top of that?
It’s exhausting, frustrating and rewarding.  Christine helps. Actually, she really loves it. Last year she did more than I did. This year, her work schedule hasn’t allowed for that.  I get up in the morning, I harvest, weed and plant the next rotation. I try to get to the restaurant before lunch service, but it doesn’t always work that way. I try to do that two to three times a week, and I’m usually at the restaurant until 10 or 11. I tried to organize more personal time, but last summer, all my days off were spent on the farm. I love the summers, watching everything grow, but I start to feel relieved when October comes around.

What did you grow this year?
I try to grow primarily heirloom varieties, 40 of them tomatoes. No cherry tomatoes, no beefsteak. Some of them are pretty weird, like this gnarly cluster variety where you can actually break off pieces. The skin is only joined in small sections. I’m trying to grow things I can’t easily find, like heirloom radishes. One variety is firey hot, looks like a purple carrot and grows 10 inches long. I put in eleven colours of swiss chard, heirloom squash and pumpkins, barnacle squash that’s bright orange and pink, and banana squash that looks like a summer squash, but it’s yellow-orange and grows about a foot long and weighs 15 pounds. There are also heirloom peppers - I’m going through the rows in my head - 30 varieties of lettuce, eggplant, artichokes, dandelion, arugula, beets, turnips and seedlings.

What made you want to cook?
Food was always a big deal in our house. My mom was very much about freshness and buying in season. As kids, we always went to the grocery store with her. As soon as things were in season, we’d have a lot of it, whatever it was, and when the season was over, that was it. This gave me a very good sense of food.

Who are some key influences or mentors?
Keith Froggett, definitely. Sinclair Phillips, chef of Sooke Harbour House. I’ve known about him for a long time and finally met him a couple of months ago. Arlene Stein of Terroir brought him in for lunch. Rob Clarke of Ocean Wise and all the work he’s doing with the Aquarium. And Alice Waters.

What’s the most important thing to you as a chef?
I want to say quality of ingredients, but that sounds so generic. I would say, sourcing the freshest ingredients. I spend a lot of my time doing that. I use companies like 100km Foods, and there are a lot of farmers I deal with directly.

What do you have on the menu right now that’s really exciting for you?
Rising Star elk from Ontario. I’m still harvesting [interviewed in mid-October] Swiss chard, herbs, squash, lettuce, arugula, radishes. I really love serving what I harvest. That’s really exciting, and it’s great that the servers get behind it. Right now, I’ve also got Mennonite partridges on for a special regional menu.

How do you do it?
I serve a half bird in an old northern Spanish style, with figs, grapes and chocolate, a little bit like a Mexican mole. I debone the bird, sear the skin, deglaze, take it out of the pan, add onions, figs, grapes and bittersweet chocolate, duck-chicken stock and herbs. I put the partridge back in the pan and roast it just like that. The skin continues to crisp up and the sauce reduces.

What’s the biggest mistake you’ve ever made as a chef?
Serving skate and monkfish without realizing they were endangered at the time. Part of the challenges of running the restaurant is keeping on top of information like that. We’re getting close to running a fully sustainable fish program. Selection is a big challenge.

What do you like to eat?
Fish. I cook a lot of fish at the restaurant. I love grilled, whole fish. Also Asian cuisine - Chinese, Korean, Indian. Simple, no-fuss food for the sake of food.

What do you bring from your heritage?
A lot of Middle Eastern food is very simple. When you have a lot of vegetable-based dishes, freshness and preparation mean so much. My inspiration for sourcing comes from having had a lot of vegetables and salads on the dinner table growing up. We weren’t vegetarians, but my mother was such a great cook, and she paid as much attention to the vegetables as the meat. They were never an afterthought.

Where do you think food should be headed?
Many of the chefs of my generation are on the right track, questioning provenance and wanting to support local. This is the direction we should go in. We need to be sustainable and to support our local economies. I also think there has to be a little give and take. I’m not a die-hard. We can’t do everything locally. We live in a multicultural city, with an international diet. We can’t grow all of these ingredients here, and we need these foods for our society’s cultural identity.