Cucumbers and a Father's Legacy

Photo by Amy Zambonin
A photo of David's Greenhouses in Metcalfe, Ont., on the wall of Eli Njaim's office at Mid-East Food Centre, serves as a reminder of his father's entrepreneurial spirt and legacy.
A pail of fresh Lebanese cucumbers.
Eli Njaim, above, sells the thin-skinned, crunchy cucumbers at Mid-East Food Centre along with prepared Lebanese foods....
...such as kibbe and Z'atar, cheese and meat pies, hummus, baklava, feta, labneh and cheeses.
While large commercial appliances assist staff with much of Mid-East Food Centre's take-home food production...
Noha Ghazal, Njaim's mother-in-law, still makes the vegan kibbe by hand, spinning the shells as though it's potter's clay.
Andre Hanna, his brother and two workers from Mexico, grow more than 280,000 pounds of Lebanese cucumbers, as well as purslane, in a relatively short, four-to-five-month growing season.
Several of the 27 greenhouses on the 88-acre farm in Metcalfe.