Glog
Beginning of our summer at the Gardens (May 31, 2011)
June heralds the beginning of our summer and the more than 100 events that populate the gardens with life and people over the next four months. This 2011 program has music, art, literature, fine cuisine and lots and lots of gardens. Sharing a garden is one of the many pleasures of managing a garden. A great deal of work goes on behind the scenes. Five weeks spent cleaning up after winter by our gardens and workers, months of planning by our office staff and almost a full year working fine tuning the program of activities and events.
This summer, we are sharing the gardens with 8 authors, more than 60 designers, 30 musicians, 5 artists, a couple of guest chefs – and we hope many thousands of visitors. Numbers only tell part of the story. What we strive to offer are individual experiences that each visitor takes home – the discovery of an unknown plant, an encounter with an artist or designer, a moment with an author or a fellow reader or simply the pleasure of strolling through a fragrant garden on a clear summer’s day. The festival gardens this year are very exciting and will offer up a multitude of experiences for visitors of all ages.
The season starts with the first of our many culinary events. On the evening of our opening day on Saturday June 4th, chef Pierre-Olivier Ferry welcomes many of the local producers whose produce and delicacies are featured daily in the menus offered in Estevan Lodge. Among them, the suppliers of poultry (Ferme Petite Campagne), honey and mead (Vieux Moulin), cheese (Fromagerie du Littoral) and an other dozen of local products.
Like many other restaurateurs throughout Québec, we strive to source as much as possible locally. This network of growers and suppliers includes many of the growers in the surrounding seashore communities from Bic to Matane, and producers whose farms stretch along the hills south of Rimouski, Mont-Joli and Baie-des-Sables. Obtaining produce locally has many advantages – the produce is fresh, organically grown and covers a broader range of flavours and includes more varieties than those available from distributors. Some of the fine herbs and exotic vegetables that cannot be obtained from growers, we produce ourselves, in our greenhouses and the flowerbeds and herb garden adjacent to Estevan Lodge. This is just one of the many ways in which Les Jardins de Métis and its staff think globally and act locally. Purchasing local produce is a small gesture that has a major impact on our growing network of friends and allies in the agricultural community for whom the gardens have become a major buyer and contributes to their efforts to promote their products and expand their networks of clients.
The inaugural meal on June 4 is a celebration of local producers and also a recognition of their importance to us. For the past 124 years, Estevan Lodge has been nourishing the local economy. It has in turn been nourished by local suppliers. Join us for this celebration....and the many others that form part of our 2011 program of events and activities.
