Chestnuts in the Dordogne, 1994

Saturday morning, cycling south on Lakewood from Venables to the Trout Lake Farmer’s Market where we join the crowds of people lining up for their helpings of organic fruit and vegetables. Everything fresh-picked that morning and trucked in from Fraser Valley orchards and farms. What bounty and range of colour! A Pantone of produce, you might say. The ruddy cheeks of Red Sensation pears; scrubbed carrots sporting their iridescent orange; baskets of heritage tomatoes in yellows and reds; arugula, mizuna and the many other shades of green.

And plums! — the season’s crowning glory. Victory and Voyageur, Italian prune, mounded into regal purple heaps. Selecting a few pounds to make a pair of Plum and Ginger Galettes that evening, our contribution to the next day’s pot-luck meal. We stop in at La Calabria for cappuccino, sitting at our favorite table near a window open to the street, and browsing through the weekend Globe and Mail.

In both directions we ride through the heart of one of Vancouver’s old-time immigrant neighborhoods; Italian, originally, and Portuguese, but much more varied now. This time of year the back yards have their harvest on proud display, the legacy of amateur green thumbs who dug and planted, weeded and watered; summer after summer after summer long. Grape vines trained along home-made pergolas, clusters that will soon be turned to wine; fig trees — some netted, some not — the plump, scrotal fruit half-hidden behind a modesty of leaves; squash vines forming a defensive perimeter, their gourds deployed at intervals upon the grass like mines; pocket orchards — all it takes is a tree or two — the branches laden with ripe plums and apples; and in one front yard a squad of corn whose stalks have lunged towards the sun all summer, their tassels as high, now, as the second story eaves.

Against all this plenitude there are the odd examples of urban renewal, where the old wood frame houses have been torn down or renovated beyond recognition; it is the Professional Landscaping which gives them away. Hedges of decorative cedars or boxwood have replaced the chain-link fences; gingko and aspen planted in place of plum; because who has time, nowadays, to deal with all that rotting fruit?

What a difference between the homes that have been truly lived in, with all their evidence of loving wear and tear. Compare these with the houses which have been bought for later resale. Tarted up to mimic some fake House & Garden vision; potential profit is all their owners see as they survey their immaculate domains.

As J and I ride homeward we note the locations of the home grown Italian chestnut trees, heavy with their bristly harvest. A few more weeks, I’d guess, before they start to fall. And already I’m plotting my return; a few hands full would sure be nice, to roast before the fire.