The Dream

It was the first summer of the pandemic. We were still trying to grasp the strangeness. I was baking banana bread, oodles of banana bread, a fundraiser for the good folks at RAVEN Trust. I was worrying about all the people, the lonely ones, the abandoned ones. I was reading Robin Wall Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass, and Wendell Berry’s essays on the household economy. We were learning to avoid each other on sidewalks. The gardens were thriving. We were banging gratitude pots for healthcare workers, each on our own stoop. Separate but together but separate. And one day my mum said, these are inventive times. Then I had a dream.

I was in a hot kitchen making jam — my favourite copper pot on the stove, the sweet sweet smell of thickening fruit, the hiss of the canner. Then a huge pot of soup appeared and I was chopping a mountain of vegetables. Onions frying in olive oil with garlic, mmm. And the dough! Dough rising under worn flour sack tea towels, dough happily overflowing big metal bowls. There was just so much food it started to spill out of the kitchen and into the porch, down the front stairs and out into the neighbourhood. And I knew.

I would make food like my Omas did. I would share it with anyone who happened by. Neighbourliness would be my guiding principle; trust and care the foundation. It would invite new worlds.

“Building strong community with friends and neighbours is what will ultimately get us through the multi-crises of our times.
This is exactly what Marianne set out to do early in the pandemic with her Farm Stand. We join Marianne in her kitchen as she builds community, explores old / new ways of doing, ponders the big questions, challenges the systems that have dehumanized our lives and disconnected us from each other, making delicious food by hand (part of the family and cultural remembering) — always returning to the connectedness of all and everything, and a world that is both gentle and generous.”
—Jessica Duncan, Victoria, BC www.letters-from-a-canadian.com
“I am in conversation with you all the time in my head.
I borrowed a cake pan from my neighbour and your essay on borrowing a cake pan is what helped me reach out.
I often think of what conversation would happen around your table when I'm trying to shape an approach. Your kitchen table has been a beacon for wading through these last few years with grace.”
— Angie MacRae, Guelph, ON
"The most remarkable feature of the Farm Stand is its commitment to decolonize its economy and spirit.
Week after week, for years now, the Farm Stand has invited us to try new ways of caring for one another; by sharing our particular gifts of presence, creativity, time, skills, knowledge, resources and wisdom. Each individual offering circling back into the collective, nourishing and strengthening our local community bond.
A new kind of sustenance; a small revolution in its own right."
—Myriam Parent, Musician & Pollinator Steward
“Each Wednesday, from 2428 km away, I devour her words like a warm slice of sourdough bread.
The letters help us see rhythms of making, growing, giving, and learning that coincide with tending the farm stand. But, they also gently and beautifully challenge us to consider all of the complex ways generosity and attention can transform the ways we inhabit the spaces of our everyday lives...
I often find myself forwarding her words on to others, so they too can share in the breaking of this bread. The neighbourhood extends so much farther than we can ever imagine.”
— Susie Fisher, Treaty 1 Territory, Altona, MB

In Conversation

The Farm Stand featured in RAVEN Trust

Read the article →

Marianne appears on Remixed (by Trophy)

This recording is part of Remixed, an immersive listening experience by Trophy. For more information about Remixed, please visit:
https://www.thisistrophy.com/remixed→

Look inside the book

Every week Marianne writes an email to the farm stand community letting them know what is on offer — soups and breads, flowers and veggies, jams and sweets. It was a natural next step to start writing stories as well — letters to her neighbours, and neighbourhoods everywhere. The book consists of these stories — spanning themes such as neighbourliness, love, respect, and food, turning capitalist colonialism on its head. The tender, often difficult process of making a village together. Bonus: Mennonite comfort food recipes.

• Everything we do is political, we are all needed
• The gift economy, the expanded self, and belonging
• Togetherness is the response to the unravelling
• Sharing food and stories invites new worlds

Look inside the book!

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If you’re local to Victoria and pre-order Farm Stand News by the end of May, you will receive an exclusive invitation to the Farm Stand for Cookie Palooza in June!

If you’re local to somewhere else and pre-order Farm Stand News by the end of May, you will receive a link to my “How to Make Farm Stand Sourdough” video.

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About The Author

Marianne (she/her) was born under the big blue sky of Treaty 1 territory into a long line of Russian Mennonite women who love to make and grow and tend to food. She started the Farm Stand in 2020, a response to Covid and the great unravelling, and as a way to let her life spill out into the neighbourhood. Marianne believes that the slow, tender, often difficult process of making a village together is everything, and that sharing food and stories will get us there. She now lives inside the grey-blue beauty of the Salish coast on Lekwungen land with her family — Olive and Lisa, happily woven into the lives of her many awesome Fernwood neighbours.

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