A guest post by Frances Millerd
~ Like many Vancouverites in the summer, we often pack up our dinner and walk down to the grassy knoll that looks over the ocean a couple of blocks from our apartment. Dinner is simple and often features a crusty baguette, cheese and fresh summer fruit.
A couple of days ago, a jar of Sea Change Savouries Canada’s new Ice Wine Jelly with Mint arrived at my door like a gift from the picnic gods, a little classy pizzazz for our summer spread. The jelly had a beautiful consistency – liquidy and glimmering with delicate flavours, but thick enough to smooth over a cracker. This was the debut of wine-soaked condiments at my dinner table (or picnic blanket.) Why hadn’t I thought of this before?
Having recently visited to the farmers’ market, I had a small wheel of camembert that was begging to be dressed up in ice wine. Like honey drizzled over brie (a personal favourite) I had a feeling the Ice Wine Jelly would be great friends with camembert. I was right.
The recipe which follows involves spreading the Ice Wine Jelly lavishly over the top of the cheese wheel, topping with sliced almonds, and baking it until the cheese soft and the Ice Wine Jelly trickles over the edges.
A warmed Camembert adds elegance to an outdoor meal. However I suggest you bring friends, or you are in very real danger of eating the whole thing, which is not elegant at all.
Warmed Camembert with Almonds and SeaChange Ice Wine Jelly
1 250g wheel of Camembert
2 tbsp Ice Wine Jelly with Mint
3 tbsp sliced, lightly toasted, sliced almonds
Crostini, crackers, or a baguette to serve
Preheat the oven to 400°. If you will be packing the cheese to go, you may want to place a small square of foil on the baking sheet. Place the cheese on the foil, spread the Ice Wine Jelly over the camembert and top with toasted almonds. Bake for 8 minutes, or until the cheese is warm and soft. Wrap the whole thing loosely in paper or foil before placing in a container. Hurry to your grassy knoll (or patio) before allowing enthusiastic crostini to dive in.
Do you suffer from donation fatigue? It’s easy to become overwhelmed by the number of people requesting your support personally. For a business it can also be a problem figuring out who to support, and how to avoid spending too much time considering every cause that knocks on the door. Wasting precious time agonizing over this issue will only result in less profit to donate!
SeaChange was faced with this problem for many years. We got requests for multiple causes from Cancer to Multiple Sclerosis, from Girl Guides to Easter Seal. Sometimes we said yes, but then endured endless solicitations for subsequent donations (which by then we had given to someone else.)
We finally came up with a strategy. We decided to “just say yes” to friends and neighbours in our home community of Salt Spring Island, who represent local non-profit organizations. We give that support in the form of SeaChange product donations which can be used as raffle prizes, door prizes, speaker gifts, etc.
In addition, we decided to to make a fixed financial commitment to one main charitable cause. In selecting our “big” cause we considered many worthy and compelling alternatives, trying to find a match between who SeaChange is, and what was central to each cause. In the end we decided that because the desire to share food is at the core of what SeaChange does, we would like to support Food Banks. We commit 5% of our net profits to this cause.
Making these decisions has helped us in two ways. First, we don’t waste time pondering – we can get on with running our business. If we can help you and stay within our mandate, we will. Secondly, we feel good because we are meeting our own goals for contributing to community. Phew! What a relief!
This strategy has worked for me in my personal life as well. I have given myself permission to support friends, family and co-workers with modest donations toward causes for which they fund-raise, when they ask for my support. I have also chosen one specific charity to which I make my main, annual contribution – a cause that resonates for me. Once again, relief!
So last week SeaChange took $2400 worth of SeaChange goods at wholesale value to the Food Bank, one of at least two donations we make annually. (We also donate to the Christmas Hamper program, and we occasionally make special donations to food banks and soup kitchens in both Vancouver and Victoria.) For all of us at SeaChange, it feels great to be part of our local community, and it also feels good to be doing something about hunger by sharing food with others.
We are often asked whether SeaChange products can be taken as gifts to another country. At the risk of blowing our own horn, SeaChange products cross borders extremely well. Over 25 years, we have had letters from happy recipients of SeaChange Canadian gourmet gifts from many, many different countries. This said, every country makes (and may change) its own rules. Here is the fine print:
Person to person. SeaChange products can be taken in your personal luggage or mailed in a personal package pretty much anywhere in the world.
Business to business. To mail a SeaChange product from your business to a business in another country (especially the US) we recommend that you phone SeaChange first, because some paperwork may be required. We have a toll free number for this purpose: 1-888-747-5641. Or you can email us, telling us what you want to send and where you want to send it. If documentation is required, the CFIA requires that the paperwork for your shipment is prepared BEFORE the product leaves SeaChange. So check in with us before you actually purchase. We are experts at facilitating this process – we have done it hundreds of times.
Tip. If you are sending any SeaChange salmon in a gold foil pouch (this includes Smoked Sockeye Salmon in a cedar box) call it “canned salmon” on the Customs declaration. The gold foil pouch, also called a retort pouch, is a high tech can. Canned products are almost always allowed across borders, where fresh fish is not.
Oh, except for Australia. Australia does not allow any food product containing eggs into the country, even in canned products. SeaChange Pâtés do contain egg yolk. So take SeaChange Smoked Salmon, rather than SeaChange Pâtés, to Australia.
More info. For information about Customs regulations in a specific country, contact the importing country’s department of agriculture or its embassy/consulate/trade commission in Canada.
I was thrilled this morning to get an email from Firehouse Gourmet , a specialty food store in Peterborough Ontario, which carries SeaChange products. Anna and Dave write:
We had two customers in our store this morning looking for tasty items to send to their son-in-law serving in Afghanistan. Apparently the food that the Canadian troops eat is pretty bland so we were helping them pick out spicy seasonings in travel-friendly packaging. Then we recalled that several of your products made it onto the Space Station so we thought they ought to make it over to Afghanistan just fine. We threw in a package of Smoked Salmon Jerky along with your card mentioning the astronauts’ choice, something the troops could probably appreciate.
It feels good to know that SeaChange can be a gift from home to some young Canadian soldier working hard in Afghanistan. Thanks so much to Firehouse Gourmet for sharing this story!
This is the "card mentioning the astronauts' choice" – included free with orders upon request.
To leave a comment, click on the green number to the right of the title of this blog post.
The May 2010 issue of Profit Magazine includes an article about the passion for emergency preparedness which follows a decade of disasters such as 9/11, Hurricane Katrina and now the unpronounceable Icelandic volcano. Included in the Profit Magazine article is a photograph of some items that that might be included in a Survival Kit, including a package of SeaChange Smoked Salmon Jerky. (Top row, second from left.)
Almost every kind of smoked salmon in the SeaChange line-up keeps without refrigeration, summer and winter, for many years, and can be opened with your bare hands while crouched under a tarp in the rain. (Although you may not care at the point of being under the tarp, this remarkable shelf life is not achieved with nitrates, but through the retort pouch technology. The retort pouch – or gold foil pouch – creates a sterile environment in which the smoked salmon remains good to eat indefinitely.) The only problem with including SeaChange Smoked Salmon in a Survival Kit is the temptation to raid the Kit in situations that can’t truly be regarded as emergencies.
The truth is that despite Profit Magazine’s photo endorsement, SeaChange Smoked Salmon Jerky is not SeaChange’s best offering for a Survival Kit, because it is preserved with drying and smoking (no nitrates) and is vacuumed packed in a clear pouch rather than a retort pouch. SeaChange Salmon Jerky has a relatively short shelf life of six months, which is a bit short for most Survival Kits. (It’s great for camping, though.)
To leave a comment, click on the green number to the right of the title of this blog post.
