First, unfortunately there is a trend away from vegetarianism in the world largely due the rapid expansion of Western style fast food restaurants. Societies in Asia that used to be primarily vegetarian (though few were ever vegan) are being weaned into meat eating. In some Western societies there has been growth in the vegetarian ranks but that too has been reasons are not that clear. There is a certain cult of vegetarianism, indeed, but I would argue it's based solely on personal morality and not any economic, social or environmental concerns. Morality alone is not strong enough to convince the vast majority of people to give up eating meat and in reality, their views are counter-productive to the real scourge of agriculture: corporate farming.
Second, regarding the first topic, yes, their are more non-meat choices out there and that is largely due to marketing. Companies recognized a persistent sector of the population had converted to veganism and created products to suit that market. Companies like Cargill and ADM have jumped on the soy bean band wagon. What was once wasted soy product can now be reconstituted into soy milk with the help of vitamin and mineral supplements and presented as a "healthy" alternative to dairy products. Yet, it's no less natural or healthy than dairy products, except perhaps whole milk that has proven anti-allergen properties. Unfermented soy, like the kind found in soy milk, may cause other health problems, but as someone so knowledgeable about food, must already know about the dangers of raw soy. The other marketing ploy of the seed multinationals has been to turn us away from saturated fat and towards oils produced by various plant matter. The result has been almost fifty years of promoting hydrogenated vegetable oils, or transfats, which we now know are seriously detrimental to human health, far worse than natural animal based saturated fats. In fact, there is considerable controversy about the suspected health problems of saturated fats since saturates also contain numerous amino acids that are highly beneficial to human health. Indeed, many nutrients in meat are fat soluble and only ingested into the body through the fat.
Third, relating to number two, our system of factory farming is also largely to blame for the shift from meat eating. Meat is not as good and not as healthy as it once was. Animals are reared with hormones and antibiotics that correlate with the rise in allergies and other suspect health problems. That said, you're no less safe eating vegetables that may or may not be genetically modified. Grocery store vegetables are prone to E coli and other dangerous toxins if not washed and handled properly. The soy bean is the world's largest genetically modified crop.
Fourth, veganism won't necessarily let make you live longer, die younger be smarter or stupider... I mean... less stupid. My grandmother lived healthy to age 93 and ate perogies covered in bacon fat. The last oldest living person attributed her life expectancy to a steady diet of pickled herring. What's the point? The is no point. Neither Noam Chomsky nor David Suzuki are vegetarians and they seem pretty vibrant. The argument is moot. Move on. Einstein also believed in God, but I won't hold that against him.
Fifth, the agriculture argument is the vegan's supposed clincher, but it too is lost in a haze of assumption and a poor understanding of economics. Yes a lot of the world's food goes to feed, but a majority of that is deemed too poor in quality to be sold as food. The meat market is no where near as powerful as the seed multinationals, those who are trying to patent every vegetable and grain source from under the flip flops of every peasant in the world. It's the same ones trying to force feed Indians and Chinese GM rice through various nefarious economic incentives and back room deals with governments. Don't support them, buy your meat and vegetables from local independent producers of organic foods.
Sixth, and related to five, avoiding meat will in no way reduce world hunger. That's simple utopian nonsense. Every report I have ever read clearly states there is enough food in the world to feed the world. The problem is not the "C" word as in carnivore, the problem is the "C" word as in capitalism. Our food distribution system is THE problem and converting to veganism will not make this problem go away. When you have a system where only those who can afford to eat will eat, you have a recipe for starvation. Of course, there are many other problems with capitalist food production in that a vast majority of arable land, especially in the Third World, is owned by a few families growing crops specifically for export. Why sell a pineapple locally for 10 cents, when you can sell it to Canada for 4 dollars. Until land is redistributed fairly people will always have to rely on earning an income in order to feed themselves. Ådd to that the fact that many large landowners are in cahoots with the seed multinationals (or multinationals themselves like United Fruit) and you have something called agribusiness or the "green revolution" which is a nice word for unsustainable farming practices. Agribusiness is heavily reliant on fuel both to power machinery and to use in fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides. Much of this land is only marginally adequate for crop production thus accelerating the need for artificially induced, and largely counter-productive, agricultural methods.
Seventh, you say animals produce large amounts of manure which in corporate farming systems is detrimental to land use. I agree. But in sustainable agriculture systems and peasant societies this manure is utilized as natural fertilizer and is burned as fuel. It's recycled. Peasants also utilize livestock as working animals so they don't need to buy tractors and thus don't need to burn fossil fuels, much to the chagrin of oil companies. Read Vandana Shiva. Also, in true sustainable agricultural systems, livestock are utilized for grazing on fallow and in the process recycling nutrients back into the soil naturally. Isn't that what environmentalists should be promoting?
Finally, another point about the dreaded "C" word. Capitalist farming methods continually squeeze the profit margins or producers forcing them out of business or into more mechanized farming methods. It's the Wal-Mart principle: consumers in the West are averse to paying high prices for products whether it's televisions, salmon or tofu dogs making the entire system continually rationalize methods to save operating costs. If I choose to eat salmon, for instance, the price should not only reflect the effort it takes to catch salmon and ship the salmon to my plate, but it should also ensure fisherman make a decent wage so they do not need to over-catch or sell salmon on the black market in order to survive. Likewise, there should be no need to rake the sea bottom in order for independent fisherman and producers to eek out a basic living. The price should also include the cost of salmon preservation and it entails. If it costs me $50 dollars to buy a salmon, then so be it. Perhaps I wouldn't eat much salmon, but at least I would know that the cost is reflective of the actual price to ensure a productive and sustainable fishery. Of course the same holds true for virtual every product we consume in a wealthy society, whether it's meat, fish, wheat, rice or soy. The pressure on producers is the same: produce more for less. It's unsustainable. Likewise, heavy subsidies in the West keep the prices of our products low, while making it virtually impossible for those in the Third World to either sell their agricultural products here or floods their local markets with cheap imports. It's a vicious cycle and their only choice is often to sell their land to the seed multinationals and work piecemeal as farm labourers. We also see it here: prices hit an all time high, but independent producers can barely make a living. It's the distributors making all the profit.
So you see, being a vegetarian or vegan has nothing to do with the points you make. Unfortunately, there are a lot of activists wasting valuable time and effort in promoting a cause with little basis in fact and virtually no basis in rationality. I don't hold that against anyone who makes that choice, but you should also not judge anyone for eating meat. It's important that we educate everyone on sustainable farming practices, good health and a fair and equitable global economic system. All of which can and should involve keeping livestock.
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
The Vegan Argument
I’m as surprised as you are that you’re reading this in the mainstream press. I suppose the this paper’s decision makers can see the writing on the wall and are beginning to understand that there is a worldwide, irreversible trend and that many of their readers are quite comfortable supporting this movement. So, what’s the trend?
Well, first before I tell you, throw away any preconceived ideas or biases you might have. Just for a minute, be a clean slate. Ready….it’s called Vegetarianism!
I can hear the collective groan. “Not you guys!”.
Oh, come on, you could have done better than that. I said get rid or your biases. I even asked nicely, I thought. Remember clean slate?
I know, it’s got to be hard to do. You know, getting rid of a mindset that has been reinforced your whole life, most of your friends and family think the same way, it’s gotta be tough.
Okay, stick with me here. Let’s move things along a bit with…a pop quiz!!
Ready…with the first answer that comes into your head aaaand…
1. Quick, is the meat alternative section in your grocery store getting bigger or smaller?
If you answered “bigger” you got one right. Five years ago you’d be hard pressed to find tofu, veggie dogs, veggie burgers and those little “chicken” nuggets but now the place is lousy with them. I guess that means that, hey!! More people aren’t eating meat? Why the heck would that be?
Ready for the next one? It’s a multiple choice.
2. Not eating meat will:
a) make you weaker
b) make you dumber
c) make you unhealthy
d) give you a bad sense of humour
e) none of the above
If you are feeble, stupid, sick and dull you’ll most likely have to blame something else because Carl Lewis and Edwin Moses (they’re famous athletes if you didn’t know) don’t eat meat. Leonardo Da Vinci and Albert Einstein were vegetarian. The guy who started veganism (that’s no meat, dairy or eggs) just died at age 95. Bill Maher, John Cleese and (depending on your sense of humour) Weird Al Yankovic don’t eat meat either! So, none of the above is the correct answer.
Here comes another one. Remember, true or false, the first answer that comes to mind, aaaand….
3. Not eating meat will shorten my life expectancy.
False!! Food industry types work very hard to make you think otherwise but peer reviewed medical journals have been saying very emphatically for many years that cutting meat out of your diet will make you live longer, decrease your chances of many kinds of cancer, decrease your chances of diabetes and heart disease, increase the years of a healthy sex life and end world hunger. Ha, ha, ha. Oh yeah, the ending world hunger part. That’s a good one. It gets people aaaall the time. It’d be funny if there wasn’t true!
Hey are you like me? Do you notice that there is this upswing in support for conserving the environment, attacking global warming and just generally using less energy wherever you can? You noticed, too, eh? Well, whether or not you adhere to that tree-hugger doctrine this much is true:
Factory farming is depleting the water supply in the U.S. When their aquifer runs dry they’re coming for Canada’s water and they don’t take too kindly to the answer “no”.
Heard this one?
The grain that is produced to feed factory farmed animals could feed the worlds hungry. What a line of crap, right? Wanna really find out if this is bull? Confront a factory farming advocate like Maple Leaf…you know the “We Take Care” people. That’s their line, not mine. Run this by them and see what they have to say.
Ask them how it would make sense to open your refrigerator, pull out 20 plates of pasta and toss them in the trash, and then eat just one plate of food? How about levelling 55 square feet of rain forest for a single meal or dumping 2,500 gallons of water down the drain? Of course you wouldn't. But if you're eating chicken, turkey, pork, or beef, that's what you're doing—wasting resources and destroying our environment.
Agriculture uses an enormous amount of our natural resources, in large part to produce animal products. Half of the world's grain harvest in the 1980s was fed not to people, but to livestock. HALF! Even during the famine of the mid-1980s, Ethiopia was exporting grain to the West for livestock that could have been used to feed its people. Now that doesn’t make sense.
Farmed animals produce about 130 times as much crap as the entire human population of North America and since factory farms don't have sewage treatment systems as our cities and towns do, this concentrated slop ends up polluting our water, destroying our topsoil, and contaminating our air. And meat-eaters are responsible for the production of 100 percent of this waste—about86,000 pounds per second! Give up animal products, and you'll be responsible for none of it.
Converting feed into animal products is notoriously inefficient. It takes 16 pounds of grain and soy to produce just one pound of beef, from cattle raised in a typical North American feedlot operation.
And by doing so, 90 percent of the nutrients, 99 percent of the carbohydrates, and 100% of the fibre is lost. The amount of grain fed to farm animals could feed seven times as many people if they were to consume it directly rather than in the form of animal products.
Okay, is that ending world hunger? Well, it’s heading in the right direction for sure.
Alright, enough of the environment. What about your health?
You ever seen the cigarette pack with the limp cigarette? Why don’t you see that on a bag of pork rinds, or head cheese, or pork butts?
Well, first before I tell you, throw away any preconceived ideas or biases you might have. Just for a minute, be a clean slate. Ready….it’s called Vegetarianism!
I can hear the collective groan. “Not you guys!”.
Oh, come on, you could have done better than that. I said get rid or your biases. I even asked nicely, I thought. Remember clean slate?
I know, it’s got to be hard to do. You know, getting rid of a mindset that has been reinforced your whole life, most of your friends and family think the same way, it’s gotta be tough.
Okay, stick with me here. Let’s move things along a bit with…a pop quiz!!
Ready…with the first answer that comes into your head aaaand…
1. Quick, is the meat alternative section in your grocery store getting bigger or smaller?
If you answered “bigger” you got one right. Five years ago you’d be hard pressed to find tofu, veggie dogs, veggie burgers and those little “chicken” nuggets but now the place is lousy with them. I guess that means that, hey!! More people aren’t eating meat? Why the heck would that be?
Ready for the next one? It’s a multiple choice.
2. Not eating meat will:
a) make you weaker
b) make you dumber
c) make you unhealthy
d) give you a bad sense of humour
e) none of the above
If you are feeble, stupid, sick and dull you’ll most likely have to blame something else because Carl Lewis and Edwin Moses (they’re famous athletes if you didn’t know) don’t eat meat. Leonardo Da Vinci and Albert Einstein were vegetarian. The guy who started veganism (that’s no meat, dairy or eggs) just died at age 95. Bill Maher, John Cleese and (depending on your sense of humour) Weird Al Yankovic don’t eat meat either! So, none of the above is the correct answer.
Here comes another one. Remember, true or false, the first answer that comes to mind, aaaand….
3. Not eating meat will shorten my life expectancy.
False!! Food industry types work very hard to make you think otherwise but peer reviewed medical journals have been saying very emphatically for many years that cutting meat out of your diet will make you live longer, decrease your chances of many kinds of cancer, decrease your chances of diabetes and heart disease, increase the years of a healthy sex life and end world hunger. Ha, ha, ha. Oh yeah, the ending world hunger part. That’s a good one. It gets people aaaall the time. It’d be funny if there wasn’t true!
Hey are you like me? Do you notice that there is this upswing in support for conserving the environment, attacking global warming and just generally using less energy wherever you can? You noticed, too, eh? Well, whether or not you adhere to that tree-hugger doctrine this much is true:
Factory farming is depleting the water supply in the U.S. When their aquifer runs dry they’re coming for Canada’s water and they don’t take too kindly to the answer “no”.
Heard this one?
The grain that is produced to feed factory farmed animals could feed the worlds hungry. What a line of crap, right? Wanna really find out if this is bull? Confront a factory farming advocate like Maple Leaf…you know the “We Take Care” people. That’s their line, not mine. Run this by them and see what they have to say.
Ask them how it would make sense to open your refrigerator, pull out 20 plates of pasta and toss them in the trash, and then eat just one plate of food? How about levelling 55 square feet of rain forest for a single meal or dumping 2,500 gallons of water down the drain? Of course you wouldn't. But if you're eating chicken, turkey, pork, or beef, that's what you're doing—wasting resources and destroying our environment.
Agriculture uses an enormous amount of our natural resources, in large part to produce animal products. Half of the world's grain harvest in the 1980s was fed not to people, but to livestock. HALF! Even during the famine of the mid-1980s, Ethiopia was exporting grain to the West for livestock that could have been used to feed its people. Now that doesn’t make sense.
Farmed animals produce about 130 times as much crap as the entire human population of North America and since factory farms don't have sewage treatment systems as our cities and towns do, this concentrated slop ends up polluting our water, destroying our topsoil, and contaminating our air. And meat-eaters are responsible for the production of 100 percent of this waste—about86,000 pounds per second! Give up animal products, and you'll be responsible for none of it.
Converting feed into animal products is notoriously inefficient. It takes 16 pounds of grain and soy to produce just one pound of beef, from cattle raised in a typical North American feedlot operation.
And by doing so, 90 percent of the nutrients, 99 percent of the carbohydrates, and 100% of the fibre is lost. The amount of grain fed to farm animals could feed seven times as many people if they were to consume it directly rather than in the form of animal products.
Okay, is that ending world hunger? Well, it’s heading in the right direction for sure.
Alright, enough of the environment. What about your health?
You ever seen the cigarette pack with the limp cigarette? Why don’t you see that on a bag of pork rinds, or head cheese, or pork butts?
Monday, April 23, 2007
The Secret of the Universe
Just a short blog tonight before I continue back on with the global warming stuff, which I'm sure, by the way, everyone is orgasmic over. I know, you're sitting at home saying "by God, he's right, global warming is crap... It's bloody freezing outside." Yes, what a cold bike ride I had home from work last night. Half way on I was imagining riding over some damn iceberg somewhere in Antarctica and I had forgot to pack gloves! I was also wearing flip flops of all things. My toes developed frostbite as I neared home, but thank heavens I remember to bring a pair of dry socks to cleverly leave in the bag in favour of the wet ones I'd been wearing all day. I got three writing projects on the go at the moment and hope to finish all three: one is for work, one is for Budget Travel magazine and one is for this blog. I hope I'm not running out of ideas. What do I write now? This is a classic example of "writing yourself into a corner." I got no escape, I can't just continue on with the bike ride story. Damn I'm getting tired.
Sunday, April 15, 2007
Happy Songkran-Thai Chicken Recipe
Happy belated Songkran. Songkran is actually April 12th and marks the Thai New Year. It's one of the only national holidays in Thailand and is celebrated throughout the country with family gatherings, drinking, gambling and, or course, soaking anybody and everybody with water. It is the national water fight. Three years ago, Julia and I were in Thailand during Songkran and were soaked with water returning from an elephant ride in Khao Sok. It was a subdued Songkran as Khao Sok consists of barely two hundred residents and the majority of them own or work at the numerous little bungalow operations in the rainforest. Nevertheless, the spirit of Songkran was alive and well, with children running around shooting super-soakers and adults playing cards until the wee hours of the morning. In honor of Songkran, I thought I would write one of my favourite recipes: Thai Barbequed Chicken. Anyone who's been to Thailand will recognize it almost instantly. The smell of this chicken lingers throughout the narrow alleyways of Bangkok and wafts through the dead air of the tropical forests in Koh Phangan and Koh Samui.
Thai Barbequed Chicken
Buy at least one dozen chicken thighs, bone in and skin on, since the leftover chicken is great with rice and sweet (or hot) chili sauce. In a blender, add these simple ingrediants:
One can of coconut milk
One whole bulb of garlic (not a clove, the whole bulb, don't be shy)
One tablespoon of each sauce: oyster, soy and fish sauce
One teaspoon of whole black pepper
One half teaspoon tumeric
As many fresh, dried or fresh/frozen Thai hot peppers or Habanaro peppers as you can handle (or equivalent chili powder)
About a quarter cup of fresh or fresh/frozen cilantro
Blend well and use to marinate chicken for at least one hour. Cook on the barbeque, charcoal works best because it's what they use in Thailand and a proper charcoal barbeque won't flare. If you are using gas, be careful, the dripping coconut milk is inflamable. Use the marinade to the baste the chicken so its smoke helps season the meat. Cook until the skin is near black and crispy. Always eat the skin, it's good for you. The smell of this chicken will damn near kill the neighbours with gastronomic envy. Enjoy with rice, noodles or another Thai curry.
Thai Barbequed Chicken
Buy at least one dozen chicken thighs, bone in and skin on, since the leftover chicken is great with rice and sweet (or hot) chili sauce. In a blender, add these simple ingrediants:
One can of coconut milk
One whole bulb of garlic (not a clove, the whole bulb, don't be shy)
One tablespoon of each sauce: oyster, soy and fish sauce
One teaspoon of whole black pepper
One half teaspoon tumeric
As many fresh, dried or fresh/frozen Thai hot peppers or Habanaro peppers as you can handle (or equivalent chili powder)
About a quarter cup of fresh or fresh/frozen cilantro
Blend well and use to marinate chicken for at least one hour. Cook on the barbeque, charcoal works best because it's what they use in Thailand and a proper charcoal barbeque won't flare. If you are using gas, be careful, the dripping coconut milk is inflamable. Use the marinade to the baste the chicken so its smoke helps season the meat. Cook until the skin is near black and crispy. Always eat the skin, it's good for you. The smell of this chicken will damn near kill the neighbours with gastronomic envy. Enjoy with rice, noodles or another Thai curry.
Thursday, April 12, 2007
Vive la cuisine à Montréal!
The question on my mind was always: "Where should we go for lunch?" Followed by the inevitable: "Where should we go for supper?" A week in Montreal provides numerous culinary options: Lebanese, Italian, French, Chinese, Vietnamese, Iranian, Thai and the near ubiquitous English and Irish pub fare. I wanted to explore them all; I wanted to take in everything Monteal had to offer and view the city from the inside out: inside restaurants looking out to the crowded streets and breezy thoroughfares. But I'm getting ahead of myself, first it was a few days in Ottawa, also known as the Land Where Nobody Works on Holidays where the downtown skyscrapers flicker with the glow of screensavers and call forward telephone beacons.
Yes, Ottawa on Good Friday was dead, because apparently everyone is a Christian of some derivation except McDonalds and Tim Horton's--both proprietors are long dead and probably postumously baptised as Mormons by now--but there was one other option: shawarmas. The narrow restaurant was what I mistakenly referred to as a "donair" place and having enjoyed a delightful donair in Vancouver last year, I was ready to bite the bullet one more time. I asked the Turkish man behind the counter if I could have a donair and he said: "I don't serve donair's, I serve shawarmas."
"Shawarmas?" I inquired, "Is that like a donair?"
"No... no... no..." He replied sternly, "I use fresh meat, it's a shawarma."
I tried it. Fantastic: shaved lamb and beef, with onions, tomatoes, turnip and smothered in a garlic sauce. My new adage was "Donair-don't care. Give me a warma shawarma!" Maybe he could use that line to lure the donair crowd.
So that started off the culinary delights of Upper and Lower Canada. Montreal also would not disappoint. Who could resist the famous Montreal smoked meat sandwich, the meat piled so high the bread is little more than afterthought, like bookends on the unabridged Encyclopedia Britannica, or the complete works of Ghandi or even George W. Bush's list of books he'd never read. (Unlike the History of Salt that apparently made a great summer page-turner). But the sandwich comes with a mountain of fries (frites in Quebec) as well as pickled peppers, regular pickle slice, then spiked with a toothpick the size of a pool cue.
Of course, what visit to Quebec would be complete without a massive plate of steaming poutine. Some places serve so much poutine, it's reserved in a special square on the menu. There's poutine with chicken, poutine with sausage, poutine with Chorizo, you name it and they'll mix it in poutine. The real magic of poutine is in the cheese curd. When the plate comes to you, the curd sits in lumps, nestled amongst the fries, but as you eat, the curd softens then starts to melt. By the time you near the end of your poutine, the cheese has degenerated into stringy ligaments of rubbery perfection. Unlike most foods you eat, poutine gets better the more you eat. Near the bottom, what are you left with? French fries sitting in a pool of gravy and covered with melted cheese, what could possibly be better than that?
Then there's the famous crepes. We explored this French delight at a weird Hawaiian restaurant run by gypsies. All the crepes were displayed on boards plastered to the walls and each crepe was surrounded by the ingrediants inside. In the picture my crepe was beside a block of cheese, a green pepper and bowl of olives. (I traded the olives for tomatoes--olives in the morning, I don't know). Julia's crepe was next to a pile of mushrooms. It was an interesting little display, but as much as we liked the crepes themselves, that is, the eggy sleeve containing the filling, Julia's crepe had mushrooms and uncooked, undiluted mushroom soup in it. Ick. She finished mine and I finished hers after she tortured herself with about two thirds. She kept saying:
"The crepe is good, but the filling is crap."
I saw someone in the Hawaiian crepe place that I could have sworn I knew from somewhere. I hate that. You try to judge if you actually know them to see them, know them to speak to them or if you were best friends in some alternate reality. I figured I knew her to speak to her, but seeing someone in a Hawaiian crepe place, in Montreal, that's run by gypsies, is totally out of context for most people. She was sitting under a plastic palm tree and speaking with some guy I didn't know and Julia kept saying "these mushrooms are canned... this mushroom soup is gross... I like the crepe part though... can I have some of yours?" A confusing morning. I will learn to make crepes and avoid that Hawaiian place altogether.
Yes, Ottawa on Good Friday was dead, because apparently everyone is a Christian of some derivation except McDonalds and Tim Horton's--both proprietors are long dead and probably postumously baptised as Mormons by now--but there was one other option: shawarmas. The narrow restaurant was what I mistakenly referred to as a "donair" place and having enjoyed a delightful donair in Vancouver last year, I was ready to bite the bullet one more time. I asked the Turkish man behind the counter if I could have a donair and he said: "I don't serve donair's, I serve shawarmas."
"Shawarmas?" I inquired, "Is that like a donair?"
"No... no... no..." He replied sternly, "I use fresh meat, it's a shawarma."
I tried it. Fantastic: shaved lamb and beef, with onions, tomatoes, turnip and smothered in a garlic sauce. My new adage was "Donair-don't care. Give me a warma shawarma!" Maybe he could use that line to lure the donair crowd.
So that started off the culinary delights of Upper and Lower Canada. Montreal also would not disappoint. Who could resist the famous Montreal smoked meat sandwich, the meat piled so high the bread is little more than afterthought, like bookends on the unabridged Encyclopedia Britannica, or the complete works of Ghandi or even George W. Bush's list of books he'd never read. (Unlike the History of Salt that apparently made a great summer page-turner). But the sandwich comes with a mountain of fries (frites in Quebec) as well as pickled peppers, regular pickle slice, then spiked with a toothpick the size of a pool cue.
Of course, what visit to Quebec would be complete without a massive plate of steaming poutine. Some places serve so much poutine, it's reserved in a special square on the menu. There's poutine with chicken, poutine with sausage, poutine with Chorizo, you name it and they'll mix it in poutine. The real magic of poutine is in the cheese curd. When the plate comes to you, the curd sits in lumps, nestled amongst the fries, but as you eat, the curd softens then starts to melt. By the time you near the end of your poutine, the cheese has degenerated into stringy ligaments of rubbery perfection. Unlike most foods you eat, poutine gets better the more you eat. Near the bottom, what are you left with? French fries sitting in a pool of gravy and covered with melted cheese, what could possibly be better than that?
Then there's the famous crepes. We explored this French delight at a weird Hawaiian restaurant run by gypsies. All the crepes were displayed on boards plastered to the walls and each crepe was surrounded by the ingrediants inside. In the picture my crepe was beside a block of cheese, a green pepper and bowl of olives. (I traded the olives for tomatoes--olives in the morning, I don't know). Julia's crepe was next to a pile of mushrooms. It was an interesting little display, but as much as we liked the crepes themselves, that is, the eggy sleeve containing the filling, Julia's crepe had mushrooms and uncooked, undiluted mushroom soup in it. Ick. She finished mine and I finished hers after she tortured herself with about two thirds. She kept saying:
"The crepe is good, but the filling is crap."
I saw someone in the Hawaiian crepe place that I could have sworn I knew from somewhere. I hate that. You try to judge if you actually know them to see them, know them to speak to them or if you were best friends in some alternate reality. I figured I knew her to speak to her, but seeing someone in a Hawaiian crepe place, in Montreal, that's run by gypsies, is totally out of context for most people. She was sitting under a plastic palm tree and speaking with some guy I didn't know and Julia kept saying "these mushrooms are canned... this mushroom soup is gross... I like the crepe part though... can I have some of yours?" A confusing morning. I will learn to make crepes and avoid that Hawaiian place altogether.
Friday, April 6, 2007
Of Pigeons and Heating Grates
Ottawa at this time of year should be bathed in the radiance of the spring sun, with trees budding and the Tulip spike jutting up from ground. Instead, I look out the window and it's grey and dreary with a sharp wind that penetrates your jacket and swirls in your ears until you get a headache. The local pigeons, rarely shy squatting for food at tourist monuments, huddle on the heating grates just a block from the parliament buildings. There will be no crumbs for them today.
Last night was a surprise visit to the new Scotia Bank Centre (nee Corel Centre) to see the playoff bound Senators lose a nail-biter to the playoff bound Pittsburgh Penguins. The game had all the trappings of a messy affair, with several scrums early on, mostly precipitated by a particularly nasty Gary Roberts who spared no hesitation to run every Senator in his gunsights. Roberts repeatedly backed down the invitation of Chris Neal, though, and Neal, despite several dumb penalties late in the game, was a physical force.
It was also an opportunity to see the much ballyhooed Sidney Crosby display his prowess. He made several good plays: drop passes and centering passes, but few times his passes were met with a penguin stick. Spezza was equally unimpressive and despite several dipsy-doodles to undress defensemen, he was frequently a liability on the ice as opposed to creative playmaker. You got the sense he was trying to be Crosby, but without Crosby's precision. Spezza's grade A dumb reverse, blind, spin-o-rama pass into the middle of the ice, on a promising Ottawa break, resulted in a break-away the other way, with Emery making a crucial save to keep the game 2 to 1 for Pittsburgh. Another fatal give-away by Ottawa led to winning goal, scored with 9 seconds left in the third, sent a torrent of bodies streaming down the stairwells to the exits.
The Scotia Centre is not overly impressive. It's a concrete leviathan in side with little effort to dress up the dreary grey walls and steel girders that are it's exoskeleton. The line for the men's washroom was sinewed throughout the food lines and grew as fast as you could seek its tail. I spent the better part of each period break waiting for that all important piss. Please, bring back the trough! And what's with the infatuation with Tim Horton's down here? Even at the hockey game, the line for Tim's was longer than the line for beer. It got us thinking, most of these people probably tossed their last Tim's cup as they walked into the Scotia Centre in the first place. And where would they go after the game? Tim's anyone?
Tonight it's off for Thai food and some wine back in the hotel room. Virtually everything in downtown Ottawa is closed on Good Friday, except for all the kilten scots celebrating Tartan day at the Parliament buildings. Surely even the Lord himself paused for nice pint while lashed to the cross. Speaking of crosses, we saw on the news that people in the Philippines were actually nailing themselves to crosses to recreate Jesus' famous crucifixion. My God, whenever we see this stuff take place in the Middle East, we say they're all wackos. And Tony Blair, that intellectual pip-squeak from across the pond is actually denying the release of the British Soldiers has anything to do with the release of Iranian diplomats on the same day. Apparently it's just a coincidence; and as usual, the story of the diplomats, arrested by U.S. forces several months ago, is buried in the back pages.
Beyond that, all is well. The eternal flame is burning strong. What happens after this, I don't know, but I do know I'm off until next Sunday. I plan on doin' nothing!
Thursday, April 5, 2007
Bamboozled
I just read a note saying I better be up early in the morning... "Happy Birthday." It's not my birthday until June 8th, so I had to read the note twice.
"Happy Birthday? It's not my birthday."
Hey wait a minute, that note is directed at me; well of course it is, Julia wrote it! So it appears as though I might be going somewhere tomorrow. I walk into the office, there's the suitcase. I asked Julia if I could peek inside and she barked "NO!" She knew I was looking for clothing items that may give away the location. All I saw was a t-shirt. What that says, I don't know. It's sitting behind me and the tension is torture. Oh yes, I have to be up early. It's 1:00 am and I'm writing this Blog. How can I sleep now?
So here I am, on the brink of going somewhere and I still don't know a damn thing. This is very disturbing. I've been telling everyone, and I mean everyone, that I wanted to go away, leave, vamoose, and I heard nothing. The silence was absolute. I always looked for clues, listened acutely at conversations, dropped hints, attempted to bait people into spilling the beans and I got nothing. I would be the first one voted off Survivor for sure. I wouldn't have a clue that people were conspiring against me. "Look at that butterfly... What? I'm voted off the Island?"
I gave up planning anything; I wanted to plan things for other people. I was resigned that nothing was happening even though Julia told me--TOLD ME--something was happening. I bought a whole bunch of tomatoes today. TOMATOES! Those things don't last long in the fridge. I went and got a cardiogram today, over a month after my physical, because I thought I should not because I knew anything. I bought a new baking element for the oven, I said I'd install it tomorrow, I guess not.
Whomever all the conspirators were, certainly everyone at Air Supply, (I'm scheduled to work tomorrow--or thought I was) you bastards, there is no way I can trust any of you again! You made me wallow in self pity all this time and didn't spill the beans. I missed all those conversations around the watercooler. To my brother and sister, you guys knew all along. In all the conversations we've had and all those emails, never once did I even sniff a conspiracy. Even yesterday I made another snide comment about "maybe jetting off somewhere" and you guys kept you're cool. Have you thought about careers in CSIS? Wait a minute--it all makes sense now. (Shifty eyes). To Julia, I kept telling everyone that either you were up to something and doing a masterful job of keeping it quiet or you had nothing planned and were just waiting for things to come up. I've been bamboozled. Brilliant!
Wherever we go, thanks. If I've been a little curt over the past couple months it's because I needed this. I guess I realize now what a control freak I am. I hate not planning things; I hate not being involved; I'm such a doubter, a "Hamlet" as Julia has referred to me in the past. I will change! After my trip.
"Happy Birthday? It's not my birthday."
Hey wait a minute, that note is directed at me; well of course it is, Julia wrote it! So it appears as though I might be going somewhere tomorrow. I walk into the office, there's the suitcase. I asked Julia if I could peek inside and she barked "NO!" She knew I was looking for clothing items that may give away the location. All I saw was a t-shirt. What that says, I don't know. It's sitting behind me and the tension is torture. Oh yes, I have to be up early. It's 1:00 am and I'm writing this Blog. How can I sleep now?
So here I am, on the brink of going somewhere and I still don't know a damn thing. This is very disturbing. I've been telling everyone, and I mean everyone, that I wanted to go away, leave, vamoose, and I heard nothing. The silence was absolute. I always looked for clues, listened acutely at conversations, dropped hints, attempted to bait people into spilling the beans and I got nothing. I would be the first one voted off Survivor for sure. I wouldn't have a clue that people were conspiring against me. "Look at that butterfly... What? I'm voted off the Island?"
I gave up planning anything; I wanted to plan things for other people. I was resigned that nothing was happening even though Julia told me--TOLD ME--something was happening. I bought a whole bunch of tomatoes today. TOMATOES! Those things don't last long in the fridge. I went and got a cardiogram today, over a month after my physical, because I thought I should not because I knew anything. I bought a new baking element for the oven, I said I'd install it tomorrow, I guess not.
Whomever all the conspirators were, certainly everyone at Air Supply, (I'm scheduled to work tomorrow--or thought I was) you bastards, there is no way I can trust any of you again! You made me wallow in self pity all this time and didn't spill the beans. I missed all those conversations around the watercooler. To my brother and sister, you guys knew all along. In all the conversations we've had and all those emails, never once did I even sniff a conspiracy. Even yesterday I made another snide comment about "maybe jetting off somewhere" and you guys kept you're cool. Have you thought about careers in CSIS? Wait a minute--it all makes sense now. (Shifty eyes). To Julia, I kept telling everyone that either you were up to something and doing a masterful job of keeping it quiet or you had nothing planned and were just waiting for things to come up. I've been bamboozled. Brilliant!
Wherever we go, thanks. If I've been a little curt over the past couple months it's because I needed this. I guess I realize now what a control freak I am. I hate not planning things; I hate not being involved; I'm such a doubter, a "Hamlet" as Julia has referred to me in the past. I will change! After my trip.
Wednesday, April 4, 2007
Experience Travel
It was three years ago today that Julia and I set off for Thailand, to wade into Asia for the first time. It was by far the most adverturous trip we'd ever done and we didn't know what to expect and didn't what how well we'd fare. We heard good things about Thailand from numerous people and I did a considerable amount of research before going, but barely two weeks before the impending trip I stared paralysed at the snow outside and could not fathom what lay on the other side of the world. It's relatively easy to look at pictures of a place and imagine yourself being there. You can even get away with saying "I've been to a place that looks exactly like that," but pictures only tell part of the story.
When I was young I used to love peeling golf balls. Now you could never peel a good one, because that ball had to be used, but every so often you would find one sporting a huge smile and know it would be sacrificed. Of course, you had to look inside the smile and see if there was elastic first, and if there was, I could hardly wait to get home and dissect it. I would remove the white outer layer to reveal the threaded rubber mantle, seek out the best rubber band to pull, then watch it unravel. You always hoped to find the one rubber string that was key to the puzzle, then you could watch the tension of the string unwrap for you. The ball would literally come alive in your hand and peel itself down to a small rubber core with some mysterious liquid inside. The little core was virtually useless, the joy was contained getting to it.
That's travelling. When we got off the airplane, into the cab and arrived at our hotel, everything about Thailand was strange: Bangkok was like a thick shell, we didn't understand the language, the rules of the road and the symbols of modern living. Immersing ourselves in a different culture was both horrible and wonderful at the same time, nothing was comfortable but there was so much to learn.
Eventually the thick outer shell is penetrated and you start to unravel the country, the people and the culture. Life starts to make sense again, you start getting comfortable, you plug into the vibrations of day to day existence and start seeing their culture's intrinsic structure, uniqueness and beauty. The longer you stay, the more in tune you should get, but it helps being aware of your environment and everything it has to offer. That's where travel is so wonderful.
As I stated earlier, seeing a place is just one sensory experience and seeing a photograph is about one percent of your field of vision. With your eyes, everything is panoramic. But the other experience lies in your other senses, be aware of them. Take time to smell the flowers, but smell the air, smell the city, smell the restaurants, smell the ocean, smell the lake, everything is unique. Feel things (not poisonous things) and understand them through tacit contact. Listen to the noises, the bird sounds, sometimes the sound of silence is the most obvious of all. The most important sense, though, is to be aware. When you take that photograph that you think will live in infamy in your scrapbook, take the time recongize all your other senses at that moment. Every time you look at the photograph, you will remember that smell, the heat of the sun, the sound of the waves and your thoughts at that moment. The photograph will come alive.
As I stared out the window at the snow, then stared at the picture on the computer, the one thing I couldn't grasp was what it would FEEL LIKE being in Thailand. That, I can never forget.
When I was young I used to love peeling golf balls. Now you could never peel a good one, because that ball had to be used, but every so often you would find one sporting a huge smile and know it would be sacrificed. Of course, you had to look inside the smile and see if there was elastic first, and if there was, I could hardly wait to get home and dissect it. I would remove the white outer layer to reveal the threaded rubber mantle, seek out the best rubber band to pull, then watch it unravel. You always hoped to find the one rubber string that was key to the puzzle, then you could watch the tension of the string unwrap for you. The ball would literally come alive in your hand and peel itself down to a small rubber core with some mysterious liquid inside. The little core was virtually useless, the joy was contained getting to it.
That's travelling. When we got off the airplane, into the cab and arrived at our hotel, everything about Thailand was strange: Bangkok was like a thick shell, we didn't understand the language, the rules of the road and the symbols of modern living. Immersing ourselves in a different culture was both horrible and wonderful at the same time, nothing was comfortable but there was so much to learn.
Eventually the thick outer shell is penetrated and you start to unravel the country, the people and the culture. Life starts to make sense again, you start getting comfortable, you plug into the vibrations of day to day existence and start seeing their culture's intrinsic structure, uniqueness and beauty. The longer you stay, the more in tune you should get, but it helps being aware of your environment and everything it has to offer. That's where travel is so wonderful.
As I stated earlier, seeing a place is just one sensory experience and seeing a photograph is about one percent of your field of vision. With your eyes, everything is panoramic. But the other experience lies in your other senses, be aware of them. Take time to smell the flowers, but smell the air, smell the city, smell the restaurants, smell the ocean, smell the lake, everything is unique. Feel things (not poisonous things) and understand them through tacit contact. Listen to the noises, the bird sounds, sometimes the sound of silence is the most obvious of all. The most important sense, though, is to be aware. When you take that photograph that you think will live in infamy in your scrapbook, take the time recongize all your other senses at that moment. Every time you look at the photograph, you will remember that smell, the heat of the sun, the sound of the waves and your thoughts at that moment. The photograph will come alive.
As I stared out the window at the snow, then stared at the picture on the computer, the one thing I couldn't grasp was what it would FEEL LIKE being in Thailand. That, I can never forget.
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