ALAMEDA — Marilyn Simons received some national attention for her efforts to preserve produce.
Simons, who operates Auntie M's Garden Produce, was featured in Preserved, which was the first episode of Season 5 of Flat Out Food last month. It premiered on CityTV Saskatchewan and also aired nationally on CityTV.
Simons lives on a 10-acre farm south of Alameda with her husband and two children. They grow and pickle their own vegetables, and supply farmers' markets and local restaurants with their vegetables and pickles.
Simons said she received an email from Flat Out Food producer Adrian Halter to see if she was interested. At first, she thought the message was a scam. Then she learned more about the series and realized it was legitimate.
"I know the show," she said. "I'm very familiar with the past seasons. I love the show, I love watching it, so I reached out back to him, I emailed him back and I said I would love to do this."
Halter said he would let her know if she was selected.
"I had to really explain who I am, where I came from, what I do on my farm, and send pictures and give them a whole encompassing view of Auntie M's Garden Market and who I was. And then he emailed me back a few weeks later and said 'We'd like to have you on the show. Is it OK if we come out to your farm and quickly take a look at things so we know where to set up and what we can possibly film and do?' And I said 'You bet.'"
Simons shared how she got started when she moved to southeast Saskatchewan years ago, and saw the land opportunity in an area where there wasn't a lot of fresh vegetables going to farmers' markets.
"One day I came home with a whole bunch of baby potatoes. I didn't know what to do with them. You have to use them; they go bad. New baby potatoes only last two or three days in the fridge."
She pickled them, and they are Auntie M's top seller. She takes them to trade shows and markets across the province with a few different flavours. They have other products, including tomatoes for salsa, cucumbers for dill pickles, plus peppers, beets and beans. They will outsource some things if they can't grow them or if they have a bad crop year.
"If I do outsource, I love supporting Saskatchewan farmers first. We support a Saskatoon berry farm that's in the area. We support … some of our neighbours. If I run out of beets, I phone one [farmer] and say I'm out of beets, I need beets."
Also showcased on the episode were Lucie Vasela with Vasela's International Kitchen in Preeceville. They have varieties of sauerkraut and probiotic drinks, which Simons called "phenomenal", and a restaurant in Regina named Tangerine, owned by Amy Aimee Schulhauser.
"How the episodes are laid out is they feature the two businesses, one at a time in the beginning, and they tour the various aspects of their world. Then they move along to a restaurant and they follow this restaurant through a day in a life, and the different dishes that they encompass within their business."
At the end of the episode, all of the participants came together for a meal at Tangerine and enjoyed a prepared dish using ingredients from Simons' garden and Vasela's. Simons said it's been a similar format for all five seasons.
The meal at Tangerine was "wonderful", she said.
She was pleased with how the episode turned out, and the way it incorporated all of the aspects of the traditional family farm, growing and pickling your own produce. It's not hard for the average person to learn the process.
"The wonderful thing about this show is it's all in Saskatchewan. There's all these people in Saskatchewan that do this and are willing to show it to other people, and have other people learn how to do it as well."
Simons was also impressed with the drone footage for the show.
As a viewer, people don't realize all of the different things that go into a scene, she said. At times, she had to say a line from different angles or provide different answers so that it fit. Other times she had to move her mouth without words.
The crew of Flat Out Food was "absolutely fantastic", she said, and she thanked Halter, host Jennifer Sharp, camera assistant Joel Tabak, production manager Mari Climenhaga, director of photography Adam Burwell, and sound mixer Brent (Tbone) Blazieko. She was thankful the crew was willing to travel to the southeast to share her story.
Simons said she knows she's not the only one who does preserves, pickling, jams, jellies and more, so she feels "very honoured" Flat Out Food chose her and thought the pickled potatoes were worth showcasing.
