Oh, hello East Coast.

Before I fill you on the details of our east coast adventure, I thought I’d rewind a little to share how Melissa and I first met (because it’s quite the random food story).

We both appeared on a documentary web-series about Canada’s wild foods and game, called From The Wild. The show has gone on to win two James Beard nominations in 2018 and 2019 (think The Oscars of the food world). Even though we were on different seasons, we quickly became friends with the help of social media. Now we’re on this edible adventure together and this is only the second time we’ve ever met each other in real life.

We want to see how edible Nova Scotia is; comparing the growing seasons, doing geeky east coasts vs. west coast experiments with salts, seaweeds, wine and spirits, testing out that east coast hospitality that I keep on hearing about, foraging, getting hands-on with craft producers and local ingredients, cooking with fire, camping (yes, it’s the fall) and pretty much learning all the things. We are also travelling with a dehydrator to play with some ingredients from Quebec, New Brunswick and PEI before getting to Nova Scotia, but most importantly taking some of the Maritimes back to British Columbia and Ontario respectively.

Before we properly get to know each other, here’s some background on us:

Meet Aman Dosanj/The Paisley Notebook / Kelowna, BC

(Photo Credit: Jessica Zais Photography)

Food geek, marketing geek, former England footballer (soccer), people watcher, middle child, Slow Food member, adventurer, imperfect environmentalist, storyteller, and just weird enough to be interesting. I have a business degree not kitchen papers, so you can say that I stumbled across this food thing. After 6 years of restaurant life and winning Western Living Magazine’s ‘Foodies of the Year’ 2015, I decided to say goodbye to #restaurantlife and eat the world for 7.5 months writing about how food connects us. Once I returned to the Okanagan (otherwise known as ‘home’), I started creating dishes based on those amazing humans and building a mega Canadian pantry with local ingredients from across the country.

I host pop up dinners across the Okanagan aimed at bringing the community together, but without the privilege or price tag associated with magical experiences. And so, I’m super proud that my little project has raised over $47k for charity since 2017. Each dinner tells a different story about the Okanagan, supporting local and sustainability – we follow the seasons and play with our food. Think of me as Morgan Freeman to guide you every step of my surprise menu based moveable feast. The Paisley Notebook kind of also won the ‘Culinary Tourism Experience’ category at the 2018 Canadian Tourism Awards, and was a two-time finalist in the BC Tourism Industry Awards’ ‘Remarkable Experiences’ category. Now I’m experiencing the Maritimes for the first time with the hope of re-telling some of this adventure at future pop ups back home.

Social Media Tags:

Website: PaisleyNotebook.com / Instagram: @paisleynotebook / Facebook.com/paisleynotebook / YouTube

Meet Melissa Finn / Toronto, Ontario

A former restaurant General Manager, runner, coffee nerd, hunter, lover of the outdoors, at home cook, karaoke lover and I laugh…a lot. I don’t take myself too seriously but I am a seriously passionate person. Like most people, I have had my share of difficult times but when my brother died suddenly in an accident when I was in my 20’s my perspective on life changed. I had a daily reminder that life is too short to do things that I don’t believe in and as a result live life fully invested in whatever I put my mind on. I tried a number of industries prior to the food industry, such as hair styling (I still do all my friends hair…), makeup, church pastor (I don’t do that to my friends though). It wasn’t until I started a job as a daytime bartender in a fine dining restaurant with a focus on local sustainable and regional cuisine did my passion for food and beverage really begin. I fell in love with the people responsible for the ingredients, their story and why certain things tasted different as a result of the love they were given, or not.

I managed restaurants for 6 years and burnt out hard. Damaged and hurt by my love for food and beverage and not wanting to abandon her, I decided to take on the life of a bartender/server to discover where I fit in the food industry. Now I can enjoy the reason I got hooked on food initially – the ingredients, for a sense of place, the people behind it, and their story.

In my adventures I consistently taste, think and experiment with any edible ingredient I come across. It becomes a consumable story telling experience to share with others. It is the story of where I have been, who I have met, the community that continues to grow, what time of year it was, and what mother nature had in store for me at that time and place. Perhaps it is a slightly selfish attempt at capturing the experience to bring home, but mostly it is out of respect and awe that I get to experience some of the things I do and my excitement to share it with others.

Website: foodradicals.com / Instagram: @melyfinn

So, together we tell stories with food and drink. Even from opposite sides of the country, we feed off each other creatively. So now it’s one big social experiment to see whether we can experience the same things at the same time, then create the ultimate food and beverage pairing(s).

I think that food shouldn’t be something that we just do. It is so readily available that it’s unfortunately become that, but these adventures are pretty much accessible to everyone and that’s the exciting part. We want to bring a little of Nova Scotia to Nova Scotia, so we’re here to plant a seed and hopefully inspire you to explore more of your own backyard, sharing our tips and recipes along the way.

To all the adventures ahead,

Aman and Melissa