This month is all about wild blue­ber­ries and greens, like kale, spinach and chard. Check out these two cool events you don’t want to miss out on.

Wild Blueberry Festival at the Brickworks:

Children’s activ­i­ties includ­ing wild blue­berry tie-dyeing, face-painting, crafts,  bak­ing work­shops with Bettina Schormann. Complimentary wild blue­berry sam­pling and recipes at the Wild Blueberry Association of North America booth www.wildblueberries.com . A wild blue­berry feast with wild blue­ber­ries pro­vided by the Wild Blueberry Association of North America.

Vendors include:  Chez Vous Dining, Merchants of Green Coffee, The Waffle Bar, Stasis Preserves, Monforte Dairy, Augie’s Gourmet Ice Pops, Sunshine Natural Foods, Alli’s Bread, Oikos Tea, Hearty Catering Inc., Nzyme and LPK’s Culinary Groove. Wild blue­berry treats at Café Belong’s out­door patio pre­pared by chef Brad Long and guest chef Charlotte Langley of Whalesbone Oyster House in Ottawa, along with bev­er­ages from Muskoka Brewery and Southbrook Winery. Wild Blueberry Garden Talk with grower, Laura Sabourin from Feast of Fields farm.

A Wild Blueberry Pie Bake-Off with prizes — any­one can enter, check out the details here. Book sign­ing by Earth to Table chefs and co-authors Jeff Crump & Bettina Schormann. ‘Preserving The Wild’ work­shop on how to make wild blue­berry pre­serves led by Voula Halliday, Slow Food Toronto advo­cate and chef.

When:  Saturday August 20th, 2011   8:00 AM — 4:00 PM

Where:  Evergreen Brick Works, 550 Bayview Avenue, Toronto

http://ebw.evergreen.ca/whats-on/food/wildblueberryfestival/

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Cookin’ Greens Wants YOU to get “GREEN WITH ENVY”

Who doesn’t want to give their kids nutrient-rich dark-leafy, body-building greens? The trick is get­ting them to eat the good-for-you greens with the same zeal with which they devour their favourite foods. Cookin’ Greens – the dark-leafy greens that are farm-picked and, within 6 hours, double-washed, dou­ble– blanched, chopped and quick-frozen to lock in flavour and nutri­tional ben­e­fits – knows that moms and dads across Canada have been try­ing to fig­ure this out for decades. We want to tap into your know-how and share it with par­ents across the land as part of our “Green With Envy” contest.

Cookin’ Greens took on the chal­lenge to come up with healthy and deli­cious greens that even the most rushed, picky diner would enjoy on a reg­u­lar basis. Young, selec­tive palates that gen­er­ally don’t want to try greens are also chang­ing their tune. Whether it’s our sin­gle veg­etable chopped kale, spinach or rap­ini, or one of our two blends that you pre­fer (includ­ing our Designer’s Mix of col­lards, rap­ini, spinach, yel­low beans and onion), what we want to know is:

Ø  What’s YOUR most inge­nious tip, method, or idea for get­ting Cookin’ Greens into your family’s meals? Tell us (through an anec­dote, recipe, poem/nursery rhyme, or song) or show us (via pho­tos, a video, a play, a draw­ing or car­toon) – make us laugh, pon­der or shriek with your entry — it’s up to you and the sky really IS the limit!

Ø  To Enter: Like Cookin’ Greens on Facebook and post your entry there. Then, go to Twitter and copy your entry’s link to @cookingreens with the phrase: “Going Green with Envy”.

Ø  Stay in the con­ver­sa­tion with updates using the #green­with­envy hash tag on Twitter.

Ø  The con­test is open from August 15, 2011-September 20^th 2011. Winning entries to be decided by Cookin’ Greens founder Toby Davidson in tan­dem with a panel of local food indus­try experts – with the lucky win­ner announced by Sept. 30/11.

What’s in it for you? Enviable Prizes of Course!
FIRST PLACE: $500 gift cer­tifi­cate to a gro­cery store of your choice for a shop­ping spree or two + a few bags of Cookin’ Greens.

·         SECOND PLACE: Cookin’ Greens for a year — 2 FREE Coupons per month (or 24 bags of Cookin’ Greens) and an hour con­sul­ta­tion with a local, Registered Dietician so that you can bet­ter under­stand your family’s dietary needs.

·         THIRD PLACE: A one-hour con­sul­ta­tion with healthy eat­ing advocate/mom Nettie Cronish, a signed copy of her lat­est cook­book — The Everyday Flexitarian, and 6 FREE bags of Cookin’ Greens.

Never savoured the vibrant greens or blends from Cookin’ Greens? Just email contest@cookingreens.com to receive your free coupon voucher to redeem a pack of the greens of your choice at a local supermarket/health food store near you (par­tic­i­pat­ing retails here: http://www.cookingreens.com/store_ontario.html ).