Food Feeds Community: Deep Change Happy Hour, Our Second Episode
Join us Friday on Facebook Live for a lunchtime chat about how to cultivate, harvest and savour the best of our local land, sky, rivers and sea — with a live cooking demonstration!
Yum! What better way to spend lunch in the Maritimes than talking about the awesome variety of our local foods and how to nurture the development of community-led food sectors.
We’re thrilled to welcome Cecelia Brooks, Cornel Ceapa, Emmanuel Charretier and Laura Reinsborough to the Deep Change Happy Hour table this Friday May 29th at noon (ADT) on Facebook Live. They each bring a wealth of experience and a passionate joie de vie to the topic of how our local ecosystems nourish our bodies, our communities and our spirits.
And Chef Emmanuel will be cooking up some freshly harvested clams in his home kitchen live on the show!
Cecelia Brooks is a member of St Mary’s First Nation and comes from a family of mixed indigenous heritage. She is a practitioner of Etuaptmunk (Two Eyed Seeing), a Land User/Knowledge Holder and an avid medicinal plant harvester. Cecelia is the co-owner of Wabanaki Tree Spirit Tours & Events where she partners with her son Anthony to guide people on medicine walks through the local forests to teach Wabanaki culture and history. She has served as the Water Grandmother with the Canadian Rivers Institute at UNB since 2010 and teaches Indigenous Perspectives in the Department of Forestry and Environmental Management. Cecelia has a B.Sc. in Chemistry (University of Tennessee) and worked as a manager of organic extractions laboratory for an environmental laboratory in the U.S. before managing municipal water and wastewater laboratories. Upon her return to Canada in 2006, she served as the Science Director for the Maliseet Nation Conservation Council (MNCC) where she began the process of working with Elders and Land Users to develop an Indigenous Knowledge Study Guide. Cecelia completed numerous IK Studies while working with the Mi’gmaq communities in New Brunswick as the Director of Research and Indigenous Knowledge with Mi’gmawel Tplu’taqnn until early in 2019. Her family also runs Soul Flower Herbals, a non-timber forest product company that produces plant-based wellness products using extracts from NB forests.
Cornel Ceapa has dedicated the greater part of his life to studying and working with sturgeon. A scientist with a PhD in sturgeon biology, he is a conservationist, a researcher, a fisherman, a businessman, a roving salesman and an unadulterated sturgeon geek who can spend hours talking about sturgeon migration, sturgeon anatomy, sturgeon fishing, sturgeon recipes and sturgeon everything. With his wife Dorina and their son Michael, the Ceapas founded Acadian Sturgeon and Caviar in Carters Point, New Brunswick in March 2005 a couple of years after emigrating from his native Romania with a desire to work with sturgeon, initially as a research assistant at UNB Saint John. They work with the two local sturgeon species — Atlantic sturgeon and shortnose sturgeon and produce some of the rarest and unique caviars in the world: Acadian Wild, the only wild caviar in the world, Acadian Gold, and Acadian Green, the only farmed caviar from shortnose sturgeon in the world. In addition to their award-winning caviar, the Ceapas strive to use every single part of sturgeon, including smoked, raw fillets, loins, and by-products. Cornel works with and supports chefs in New Brunswick and across Canada because he believes that by doing so we can all elevate and build the identity and recognition of the New Brunswick and Canadian cuisine. Acadian Sturgeon’s strategy of developing an aquaculture business while also managing a sustainable sturgeon fishery is unique in the world and Cornel believes it can be a model for other species.
Emmanuel Charretier is a chef, farmer and an instructor with NBCC’s culinary program in Moncton. Originally from France, Emmanuel has worked in restaurants around the world, including England, Hong Kong, New York, Australia and France, eventually moving to Canada and working in Quebec before settling in New Brunswick where he opened L’Idylle Bistro, a high-end restaurant specializing in French cuisine. The restaurant was named one of Canada’s Top 10 Restaurants by En Route Magazine in 2007 and in 2012 it was one of Macleans Top 50 Best Restaurants in Canada. After closing the restaurant, Emmanuel began teaching at NBCC’s culinary program where he specializes in value-added, sustainable food production, teaching the next generation of chefs about the importance of developing relationships with local farmers, fishermen and foragers. Today he lives it via his catering business, which he co-owns with his wife Hélène. Check out Emmanuel’s new YouTube channel which features Emmanuel in the kitchen and out on the land.
Laura Reinsborough thrives when communities are empowered to make long-lasting, positive change. Named one of Canada’s “top changemakers” by Canadian Living Magazine for her work as the founder of Not Far From The Tree, Toronto’s innovative fruit sharing project, which has galvanized thousands of people to take action in their own backyards. Upon returning to her home province of New Brunswick, Laura has been Director of Food For all NB | Aliments pour tous NB since 2017. In 2019, Laura Reinsborough was the Green Party Candidate for the federal riding of Beauséjour. Laura lives in Sackville with her partner and two children.
Join us Friday on the Deep Change Happy Hour Facebook Page for our live stream. Noon ADT, 12:30 NDT, 11 a.m. EDT, 10 a.m. CDT, and 9 a.m. PDT.
