Tea-ing Off

With both exams and the Holidays around the corner, soothe a stressed out mind and keep the sniffles away with a piping hot cup of Fairtrade certified tea. This ancient elixir not only heals body, mind & soul but also goes well with socializing, sugar, milk and biscuits.

Throughout the month of November we’ll be taking a look at all things tea! Where does it come from? Where can you get some? And how adding Fair Trade to your tea habit can do some pretty cool things!

Free Prize Draws
One easy way to get your hands on some tea is by taking a step for Fair Trade. When you register your step for Fair Trade on www.fairtrade.ca/step in the month of November, you’re automatically entered in our free tea giveaways. Hurray!

Last Contest of the Year
If you’re looking for a fun break from the daily grind, why not enter our final contest of the year? We want to know who hosted Canada’s Top Fair Trade Tea Party so send a picture of yours to communications@fairtrade.ca by November 23rd. Invite your friends (both real and imaginary) and remember, Teddy prefers the Fairtrade certified variety!

One a Month

“What steps will it take for Fair Trade to go mainstream in Canada?”

Éric St-Pierre is a photojournalist and president of the board of directors of the Association Québécoise du Commerce Équitable. He’s viewed Fair Trade from many angles. Here’s his take on what each of us can do:

A very important step would be to add a new Fair Trade product to your shopping list every month. In Canada, there are many consumers of Fair Trade coffee and chocolate, but too few of Fair Trade clothing, flowers, cosmetics or wine! If we each add on a new Fair Trade product every month, by the end of the year we will have taken many steps towards global solidarity with the producers at the base of our economic system!

Try a new Fair Trade product lately? Register it as your step for Fair Trade!

Basmati Rice and Coconut Milk Pudding

By Nettie Cronish, Culinary Instructor & Cookbook Author

Delicious hot or cold. Makes: 6 servings

Ingredients:

• 1 cup Fairtrade certified basmati rice
• 1 Fairtrade certified cinnamon stick
• 2 cups Vanilla soymilk
• 2 cups Coconut milk
• 6 cups Sliced or small cubed fruit: Fairtrade certified banana, Fairtrade certified orange, melon, berries, pear, kiwi
• 15 Nuts, shelled and chopped

Method:

1. Rinse rice well. Cover it with cold water and soak for 20 minutes. Drain.
2. Combine the rice, cinnamon stick and soymilk in a pot. Bring to a boil, lower the heat and simmer until the soymilk has been absorbed. Add coconut milk. Bring to a boil, lower heat and simmer for 10 minutes or until milk has been absorbed.
3. Remove cinnamon stick.  Place cooked rice in a large bowl.  Fold the fruit into the rice, garnish with nuts and serve immediately.

Register your step for Fair Trade at fairtrade.ca/step 

Nettie’s Fair Trade Banana Bread

By Nettie Cronish, Culinary Instructor & Cookbook Author

The best way to use over ripe bananas. Makes 1 loaf.

 Ingredients:

·  1 cup (250mL) mashed Fairtrade certified bananas (the riper the better)

·  1/2 cup (125mL) buttermilk or yogurt

·  1 tsp (5mL) baking soda

·  1/2 cup (125mL) butter

·  1 cup (250mL) Fairtrade certified brown sugar

·  1 egg

·  1 tsp (5mL) pure Fairtrade certified vanilla extract or vanilla paste

·  1 1/2 cups (375mL) all-purpose flour, whole wheat flour or Nutriblend flour or half and half.

·  1 tsp (5mL) baking powder

Method:
1. Combine bananas with buttermilk and baking soda in a bowl.

2. Beat butter with brown sugar until light. Beat in egg and vanilla.

3. In another bowl combine flour with baking powder. Add flour to butter mixture alternately with buttermilk/bananas beginning and ending with flour. If you do this in a food processor add all the buttermilk/bananas to the butter mixture and blend and then briefly blend in flour.

4. Transfer to a buttered loaf pan lined with parchment paper. Bake in a preheated 350F/180C oven for 50 to 60 minutes.

5. Remove from pan, let cool and enjoy!

6. Register your step!

Step Right Up!

By Michael Zelmer, Fairtrade Canada

As we put the finishing touches on what could prove to be the most exciting Fair Trade campaign in Canadian history, we should take a few moments to lay out what we’re doing and how everything works.

Step by Step

The idea behind the Take a Step for Fair Trade campaign, which officially launches on the first day of Fair Trade Fortnight (May 1-15), is that we can each go a little further with Fair Trade than we already do, and that all of our steps added up together get us that much closer to the fairer world we all want to see.

Your Steps Count!

Taking a step (or many) is the really important bit, but having them counted is important too. That’s why we created the amazing Step-o-Meter! 

It’s pretty simple, really - you just click on the blue box that says “Add Your Step” at the top of any page on the campaign website, and then you’re off and running.

It’ll take you less than a minute or two to have your step added to all the other steps people have already taken…. Heck, why not add a step right now?!

Prizes? Really?

Really. Well, sometimes. Keep an eye on the little black box on the front page of the website.

That’s where you’ll find information related to you taking a step on that day, and that could mean random prize draws. In fact, we’ll have prize draws running everyday during Fair Trade Fortnight (May 1-15), and probably at different times throughout the year too.

To keep on top of it, be sure you’re following us through Facebook and Twitter.

Fame, If Not Fortune

If you take a particularly fun step, then there’s a good chance we’ll feature it on the front page of the site or in our Step Hall of Fame (basically, a history of all the steps we feature throughout the year).

You may even find some familiar faces in there as the campaign rolls on….

Tweet, Tweet

Be sure to tell as many people as you can about the steps you take, and encourage them to take steps of their own too. It’s always good to give people a link to the campaign site at fairtrade.ca/step, and add #FTStep for Twitter too (#ÉquiPas for French tweets).

And There You Have It….

We’ll be counting throughout 2012. So keep coming back to register your steps until the end of the year, and then keep stepping!

Back to the campaign website.