Mike is a sausage maker. He lived all over, is action oriented in the food world, and previously was in the military. He speaks about trashy hot dogs in Montreal to making fried rice, cooking dinner while I was there for the interview and everything in our house revolves around food.

This episode Mike is very easygoing, there's a pup and his wonderful family in the background. Since it was closer to the end of the trip he asks a few questions at the end and it does provide quite a nice summary of the trip overall and what is to come as there are quite a few!

Clarification that I think the intention was to say cultural appreciation... "taking everybody we have around us and working together to make delicious stuff"

Discussing how he handles food safety issues as a processing facility.

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"I was in the military so it was really difficult for me to meet people who were interested in food. I started going to these meetings and everybody wanted to do great things."

"I really loved making salami"

"[Favourite food memory] Montreal steamy hot dogs, that trashy... my father has a record of eating 12 in one sitting... I go to GreenSpot across from the Atwater market.. but still at the Atwater Market I will go and eat three hot dogs."

"I can only speak to the values that I produce food by. We try to buy them as close to home as possible. Being close to home isn't necessarily good enough, we have to look at transportation... certified humane... realistically that is just my ethics but that doesn't necessarily make it sustainable."

"There is a lack of local abattoirs..."

"A huge question is food distribution. Produce high quality product and build on that food security."

"Food is very simple in my mind. The salt, the sour, the sweet. So we play with these ingredients"

"I just want to make delicious food people want to eat... It's like that scientific method. I will make the fried rice, and then I taste it, and then I think it needs this, and this, but I can't add them both in the next recipe I can only add one, I can only make one small change... otherwise I am not going to know what I do. I think every dish I cook at home becomes an experiment I have to learn from."

"This is more what I would know about... we do nationally fermented salami, the same way you would make salami ... 100 years ago 500 years ago however we have to do it in today's structured, highly regulated food standards... "

"fat is part of the meat I think... I just learned recently but I don't know if this is true or not... but and they were really clearly bashing those companies ... but those same companies tried to make those recipes healthier, and since they have been making the products healthier but they can't tell people they are making it healthier... but I am not sure where I heard it from.... and my pet peeve is unsubstantiated claims... the consumer is at the end of the day making that decision... We as the consumer created that company... we are even adapting even if you don't want the change.

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**Correction that the amount per month now is closer to $800 - $1000 and in BC 2022 $1263 for a family of four. See upcoming blog post for more information and resources. https://letstastecanada.ca/

https://www.bccdc.ca/Documents/Food_Costing_in_BC_2022_Report_FINAL.pdf0

https://proof.utoronto.ca/food-insecurity/how-many-canadians-are-affected-by-household-food-insecurity/ https://proof.utoronto.ca/resource/the-spending-patterns-of-food-insecure-households/