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Food and drink: What's in your fridge, Jennie Helmer?

When ‘homemade’ takes on a whole new meaning

It's pretty new, ergo the brushed stainless steel exterior, and it's definitely electric. But Jennie Helmer's fridge is about as timeless as Neil Young's Unplugged album, and as surprising.

Jennie catches me red-handed after the reveal that her fridge is this new silvery-toned Maytag. "You were expecting an older one, weren't you?" she says, laughing. "You wanted to peg me!"

Busted. On the other hand her stove is a retro throwback, some 30 years old.

Like so much else, these two appliances happily co-exist in the eclectic, open-plan home she built with her partner, Veronika Vackova, on the Helmers' 70-some acre farm in potatoville's heartland - beautiful Pemberton Valley.

Here the Helmers grow organically and biodynamically some 15 different kinds of potatoes, primarily for sale. They also raise animals, keep bees and grow all kinds of other market-garden goodies for themselves and a few lucky chefs at high-end Vancouver restaurants, including C and Bishop's.

Mom and dad - Jeanette and Doug Helmer - have the main house that they built back in the '80s. Jennie and Veronika built their place above one of several barns. This one happens to have a huge tool shop and the root house for storing all the potatoes below.

Up above, the kitchen and living room are filled with natural light and tons of original artwork, including a metal and wood coffee table and a winking raven piece by Corrine Hunt, who designed the medals, and a big, juicy red tomato painting by Annette Effe. No plastic here - it's all wide-planked fir floors, recycled wood trim and wood-burning stove.

The main rooms also enjoy a view of Mount Currie and the duck pond. "So it's a bit of a contrast with a big mud pit in the springtime, then gorgeous Mount Currie in the backdrop," Jennie says.

The ducks are all there now, splashing around, frequently joined by the chickens, the turkeys and the dogs. What you can't see are the pigs and the two big black and white belted Galloway cows she just bought.

The fridge also enjoys a great view of Mount Currie and, if we are speaking of fridge as metaphor, which we are, Jennie assures us it really likes where it lives, as, it becomes evident, does she. You couldn't picture her living anywhere else, although she works part-time as a paramedic in Whistler.

"I'm really into eating stuff that rots eventually and my own stuff, so I can a ton and make jam and that sort of thing," she says as she swings the door open. "When I open my fridge, all I really see are canning jars."

It's a given that nary a single Twinkie will be found dead or alive in here. But then people with Hostess on their shelves never seem to do this interview, anyway. (Somebody prove me wrong!)

What we do find is such an assortment of homegrown, homemade delights it seems impossible this kind of food supply could exist in a post-post-modern Canadian kitchen at the beginning of the 21st century.

Like most farmers' market vendors, the Helmers trade their goods, in this case potatoes, for items from other vendors. "I come home with all this stuff and we can't even begin to eat it all, so I process it," Jennie says.

There's a 500 ml Bernardin jar of jam she made from plums grown by friends on Stein Mountain Farm, near Lillooet. And there's a jar of dill pickles she made from her own cukes, dill and garlic.

There's a mustardy-flavoured pickle relish she made, again, from her own cucumbers, ones that got away from her and got a little big. And there's a jar of chicken soup she made from a chicken she raised, killed and roasted, then, once most of the meat was gone, cooked for hours with potatoes, carrots, turnips and celeriac, all from the family farm.

We find more jars of food she's made - beet pickles, more Stein Mountain plums, these ones canned whole for desserts, and a jar of rhubarb chutney she loves. (Enjoy it yourself, using Jennie's recipe, below, since the rhubarb will be up soon.)

"I feel that because I can do these things, I should do them. Like with the cows and the pigs and the bees and all that stuff - we have the space and the farm, the interest and the passion," she says.

There are four eggs from the girls, as she calls her chickens. These ones are rare, a Sussex/Bard Rock cross, beautiful birds with a golden head and chest. Heritage breeds like this haven't been bred to be either egg-layers or meat chickens, so they do double duty, providing Jennie isn't too attached to kill them.

Next to the eggs is a T-bone steak from a farmer down the road - when they do eat meat it's their own or from neighbours. Other neighbours, the Litsetts, have given them some hazelnuts they grew.

The veggie drawers are stuffed with, what else? Helmer farm veggies: carrots, parsnips, beets, the last cabbage from the root house and three of the 15 kinds of potatoes they grow - banana fingerlings, purple ones and German butter potatoes.

I try to imagine what it must be like to look in your fridge and see so much food you've raised or grown yourself, or it's come from friends and neighbours.

"I love it!" says Jennie.

We do find a few commercial items, most of them condiments or dairy products, including butter, organic milk and yogurt, Dijon mustard, Que Pasa salsa, artichokes, miso gravy from the Naam, sundried tomatoes and some leftovers from a dinner party the other night: beer from Granville Island and Prince George; feta dip; and at least one thing that positively will not rot - a bottle of Monster Energy drink someone left behind after the dinner party turned into a dance.

 

Jennie Helmer's Rhubarb Chutney

 

10 c. rhubarb chunks

6 c. brown sugar

2 c. apple cider vinegar

2 tsp. cinnamon

2 tsp. allspice

1 tsp. cloves

Combine all ingredients in a heavy saucepan. Bring to a boil and let simmer, uncovered, for about 1-1½ hours. Stir occasionally to prevent sticking. When chutney is thick and shiny, pour into hot sterilized jars and seal. Delicious with rice, curry, chicken or cold roast.

 

Glenda Bartosh is an award-winning freelance writer who will not can for fear of killing someone.