Wendy Rodda and her husband Howard Selig own Valley Flaxflour in Middleton, NS. The couple, who were vendors at the recent Saltscapes Expo at Exhibition Park in Halifax, contacted us after the event to tell us about the unique spirit of sharing they experienced at Expo. Here's their story, as told by Wendy.

We had a ball at Expo. We shared a four-way booth with Propeller Brewing Company, Tideview Cider and Meadowbrook Market - so we had sausages, beer, cider and us!

Andrew, who was in charge of the Propeller booth, asked us, "Have you ever made your bread-maker-bread using beer?" We hadn't, so we talked about the kinds of beers he had on tap and decided that the Pilsner would be the best. Howard had just finished a batch of bread - not using the beer, and it was OK. Then he started a new batch using the Pilsner and the flax flour - and it was the best bread we had ever made using the bread maker! It was unbelievable!

So then we made another loaf the next day using the Pilsner again, but we ran out of butter. I grabbed two or three big slices of the bread and ran down to the Sherbrooke Village booth. They had made butter. So I said, "Can we make a trade? Can I have some of your butter for some bread?" and they said "Sure!" They used our bread as part of their demo, and we took their butter up to our booth and told people, "This is homemade butter, made today by the Sherbrooke Village people," and they loved it!

Also, the folks from Van Dyk's gave us two bottles of blueberry juice so we could put it in our fruit smoothie as part of our demo. 

Our flax flour was also in the black box in the Taste of Nova Scotia Cutting Edge Culinary Competition. Roland Glauser used it to coat pork loin, and he was the winning chef!

Atlantic Canadians know that we all have to work together to promote everybody's products. I knew that if I needed a speciality item, there would be someone at Expo I could call on. We had a wonderful time.