Learning From the Past

Louise Bruns is set to reveal the secret of baking a perfect pie and a luscious loaf of bread, canning the most delicious jam and preparing the freshest salsa in the Chestermere Agriculture Society’s Preserving Your Skills workshop on July 28.
“It really isn’t difficult to make good pie or bread, and it doesn’t take that much time – you just need to learn how to do it,” said Louise. “I hear people say they can’t make things as good as grandma once did, but really, all you need to do is stand by someone who knows and learn from them.”
‘Learning from the past to prepare for the future’ is a motto Louise Bruns lives by. A passion for preserving and teaching traditional skills makes Louise, a qualified teacher turned modern homesteader, the perfect person to run the coming Preserving Your Skills workshop.
“Really, once you start cooking from scratch, you’ll ask ‘why did I ever buy a mix’? When you do it yourself you control the ingredients and that means there’s no long lists of things you can’t pronounce like you see on the industrial foods people buy,” said Louise. “All you need is a bit of time to learn the technique.”
And that technique is something Louise has, in spades. In addition to 40 years experience in education, Louise has been exhibiting at the Millarville Fair since she was six years old – on the competition circuit, her apple pie has earned her the nickname of ‘pie queen.’ But Louise’s passion for preserving and teaching traditional skills has deeper roots than winning awards and ribbons. With a Permaculture Design Certificate, Louise is motivated by the impact we make with our food choices.
“If we could start living more sustainably, by doing more things for ourselves, it would be good for everyone and good for the earth,” said Louise. “It is prudent for us to reduce our dependence on foreign goods…if we go into the big box stores, we see stuff from millions of miles away – like pickles from India. We’ve gotten to the point that we don’t really know what we’re putting in our mouth.”
But through the hands-on Preserving Your Skills workshop, Louise and a team of talented locals will give participants the skills they need to take control of their food future. And perhaps share a few tips that will result in prize placings at the Chestermere Country Fair Red Ribbon Competition this September.
To register for the Preserving Your Skills workshop, contact Carol at accounting@chestermerecrca.com or calling 403 272 7170 x 223. The workshop will run 9-3 on July 28 at the Chestermere Recreation Centre. Sign up as an individual or part of a group of four for this great FREE event.