The Everyman and I live a relatively healthy, locally sustainable lifestyle. And we’ve been doing it for a lot longer than it’s been en vogue, too. We’ve never been militant about it, and to be honest I’m pretty certain that the Everyman just follows along because I do 95% of the cooking, but I am a strong believer in the ability to change the world in many small, impactful ways. There are obviously things that we both enjoy that aren’t local (chocolate and tropical fruit for me and citrus and bananas for him) and we don’t exclusively limit ourselves just because something doesn’t grow in Canada. I like to think of it more in terms of incremental savings; neither of us drinks coffee, and we rarely drink tea, plus I buy as many of the things I want to eat from local sources as I possibly can. If I had to ballpark it, I’d say 85-90% of the food we consume comes from the farmland surrounding the Greater Toronto Area, and what doesn’t are the small luxuries or gourmet items we love, enjoyed sparingly but often. During the summer that number is even higher because the majority of our fresh veg is harvested from right outside my patio door.
Always mindful of what I put in my body, when I saw that Death On A Factory Farm was on TMN last week, I decided to record it. Given that the Everyman and I have wildly divergent tastes in television, film and literature, I knew it’d be a movie I’d be watching solo. When I finally sat down to view it, it was during the 2 and a half hours a day that I typically have all to myself (before he monopolizes the tube) between when I get up and he stumbles out of bed in the morning. It’s a film in a genre that I would refer to as a shockumentary, one that essentially beats you over the head with gruesome images or over-the-top histrionics in order to get the point across. It delves into issues of animal cruelty (primarily), speaks a bit to industrial farming, and looks at the importance of sustainable agriculture. There have been a lot of really heavy-handed documentaries about food production and commercialism in the past, like King Corn, Supersize Me and the Michael Pollan/Eric Schlosser epic Food Inc. but in truth I do think it’s important for people to ask questions and learn more about the places that food comes from, because what you learn just might surprise you. Even just watching 5 minutes of the new 100 Mile Challenge program will show you that most have no clue what is local or where it comes from, aside from a styrofoam package or plastic wrapper.
This particular movie does a decent job of causing you to question all of those things, and more. If you’re an animal lover or squeamish at heart, I would not necessarily suggest watching this (least of all alone, and definitely not first thing in the morning). While it vividly documents the cruelty and injustice that exists in commercial farming, there are many images that now haunt my dreams. Namely, a scene where the erstwhile farmers wantonly fling tiny, live piglets through the air, cramming them into a bin like so much garbage. Just because an animal is destined for a dinner plate does not mean its life has no value, and that it shouldn’t be treated with kindness and respect. The content of the movie serves to prove that there is too much commerce and not enough soul in larger scale operations today. The disgusting climax of the film occurs when the intrepid, undercover farmhand catches the method the farmer uses to dispose of ill or stunted animals on tape. I won’t go into it here, but it I found it abhorrent that people capable of such heartless actions exist. From what our organic grocer (who used to be a farmer) has told me, farming is not a particularly profitable business, no matter what brand of meat or veg you’re growing. Which is exactly why it boggles my mind that people who so obviously dislike animals and care very little for their welfare would choose to become farmers in the first place. The only reason I could come up with is that they must’ve gotten some perverse enjoyment from exerting their dominance over small, simple creatures. It’s a crying shame, but the fact that the whole thing went to trial at the end is a small, bittersweet victory.
As I said, earlier we don’t consume much that isn’t locally sourced, organically grown or of which I don’t know the provenance. After watching Death On A Factory Farm, I can honestly say that the gravity of the movie has spurred me to be ever more vigilant about what ends up on my plate and in my belly.
Until next time…
Tags: 100 Mile Challenge, Death On A Factory Farm, Eric Schlosser, Food Inc., King Corn, Michael Pollan, rantings, Reviews, Supersize Me
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It’s a trying time of year for me here at Foodie and the Everyman right now. The weather in Toronto has been experiencing the usual ups and downs; it’s just that this year there seems to be a much more extreme variance than usual. For me this is like some kind of medieval water torture. The temperature soared to 16 degrees one day last week, and then several days later was back down to below zero. Of course the way we gauge temperature is all relative, but when it changes so quickly it can feel downright arctic in your head.
It can be also be very frustrating when you’re trying to plan a garden and start seedlings when the weather is neither consistent nor cooperative. I have about 40 tomato seedlings (as seen below) currently hanging out in my basement, waiting for their turn in the sun. Every time the weather warms up a bit, I get my hopes up, yet they are continually dashed. I still have all my other plants to start, but the lack of space and shifting weather have left me slightly confused about how long I should wait to start them. I read recently that the You Grow Girl folks are starting their seeds in a greenhouse down the street this weekend, so that should be a good indication that I need to get my butt in gear.
I also have a few lonely fig trees cloistered away in my sun room; one of them has even started growing it’s first fig already. I look forward to the day I can put them (and their lemon and lime tree brethren) out on the deck where they’ll hopefully fare better.
Springtime, won’t you come on down?
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Some Day My Figs Will Come
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Tall Trees In Paper Cups
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Tags: Gardening, rantings, You Grow Girl
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I wish there was a better word to properly articulate my level of frustration right now. I don’t think sigh quite cuts it, linguistically speaking.
First off, Frankenstein died. That would be my less than a week old levain. See, I forgot to feed him a few times because the instructions were so involved that they stopped making sense. Compounding it all, I couldn’t remember what day of the instructions I was on, so on days I was supposed to feed him I didn’t, and vice versa. I suppose that once I rinse out his jar and decide to start over I’ll have to be attempt to be more organized. Maybe even write down a schedule on the fridge or something. Really, I just need to summarize all the paragraphs of nonsense that all amount to remove half a cup of dough base and stir in half a cup of flour and a quarter cup of water or, better still, do nothing. The investment in time also slightly bothers me. The idea that once the dough is fully activated I have to cultivate it just like a pet or a plant that could live for many years longer than I is both equally thrilling and suffocating. It’s cool that what I’m doing now could directly affect bread I make 20 years from now, but in the very immediate future the time required to get it off the ground just makes it seem like too much to take care of.
Admitting to another of my failures, I haven’t yet hung my guanciale. In order to buy myself a bit more time, at the last minute I opted to let it cure in the salt for 10 days total, instead of the regular 7. Perhaps through some great miracle by the time Saturday rolls around I’ll have figured out where and how to hang these things. I read a post online the other day about a charcutier who hung his guanciales in the window of his sun room. It almost sounded like a good idea until you got to the addendum to the story that explains how light tends to make fat go rancid. So far it seems the broom closet is still looking like the best option…
Unfortunately, the gardening front is not overly promising at the moment either. Of the 30+ tomato seedlings I started in the basement a few weeks ago, about 2/3 germinated, which is great and around what I expected. However, the toilet paper roll pots I used to start my seeds have all started to mold, and about half of the plants that did germinate are already starting to wilt and die out. To get back on track I have to carve out some free time to catalog what’s still growing well to figure out what isn’t, and then replant that. On top of that I still have to start all of the other plants that aren’t tomatoes that I’m planning on growing this year. I have no clue when I’m going to have some free time to do that either, and considering that it’s March now, the pressure is on to start getting my shit together.
Overall, I feel extremely tired and disconsolate over this last round of perceived failures. I have so much more I want to do, but no energy to accomplish my aims. I’d badly like to go on a vacation, but can’t afford any of the places I’d want to go.
I’m sick and tired. Of everything.
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Tags: Baking, Gardening, guanciale, levain, New Projects, rantings
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I’m mentally and physically exhausted.
I just want to curl up in a ball and sleep for a few days. We had a bit of a personal tragedy recently, and I’ve pretty much been subsisting on pudding, red velvet cupcakes and chocolate bonbons for the last week or so. I’m convinced that a body can only exist on that kind of crap for so long before it just gives out altogether.
I have so many things to do that are all starting to close in on me. The Everyman, as usual, is very little help in that regard. I’m sure he means well, but he never does anything unless it’s implicitly requested. He’s so wrapped up in his own little bubble most days that he just doesn’t even notice when things are dirty, toilet paper rolls are empty, or garbage needs to be taken out. This ends up leaving me with very little time to myself. I’d be lying if I didn’t say that sometimes I wish that for my birthday he’d gotten a maid service instead. I’m not even sure that I want the kitten he offered anymore because it would just be one more thing to take care of. The pets are all fun and games to him because he never gets involved in any of their maintenance.
This week alone I have to re-seed the failing seedlings (losers!), do some stupid DriveFit online training, start my driving lessons and feed my Frankenstein (heh, I think that’s actually an Alice Cooper song). And tonight I also have to find somewhere in our house to hang my guanciale that is far enough away from the cats. I’ve wracked my brain over that one for the last week and am still no closer to an answer. The plan to hang in the basement got shelved after I remembered that the litterbox was also in the basement… ewww. The coat closet also got axed because of a door that doesn’t latch. The Everyman suggested hanging them over the cupboards in the kitchen, but there isn’t anything in the ceiling to hang them from. That pretty much leaves either the broom closet or the sputtering old bar fridge that smells like feet on a good day anyway. Not exactly great options either way.
Sigh.
I just really badly need a nap.
Until next time…
Tags: guanciale, rantings
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The Everyman has a habit of mentally keeping a list of secret criteria that either make or break his dining experience.
In previous posts I’ve alluded to one of these; his bread and butter test. Whenever we are brought a bread basket in a restaurant, the first thing he does is test the butter to see if it’s hard or not. You see, there’s almost nothing worse when you want a piece of bread and butter than not being able to properly spread the butter on your bread. Or as the Everyman puts it, you end up breaking your bread by exerting so much buttery force.
Coincidentally, I also have a list… the bread and butter thing happens to be on mine too, but there are others, which I’ll outline below.
Restaurants that do not have websites. Honestly, let’s get real here. It’s the 21st century, and everybody and their grandmother are on the internet these days. There is no valid excuse for a restaurant not to have a website in this day and age.
Advertising menus on the website that are no longer being served. This is probably the one that drives me the most nuts. If I decide that I want to go to your restaurant, I’m going to visit your website to review the menu (see above). Once I review your menu, chances are I’m going to have my heart set on certain dishes. There’s nothing I hate more than showing up to a reservation, sitting down and seeing nothing I want on the menu because it’s not the same one I looked at 24 hours ago. If you must change your menu with the weeks or the seasons, do us all a favor and change your website on that schedule too.
Unreliable servers. This category covers a multitude of sins. Think servers who don’t notice when your wine or water glass are empty, those who forget to bring you cutlery, or the ones who accidentally misplace your order. Incidentally, this also includes the special breed of Siberian servers that are popping up more and more these days. If it’s been more than an hour since you popped by my table, something is wrong with this equation and your tip is probably going to be proportionately affected.
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Tags: Lists, rantings, Restaurants
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After work today I ambled over to The Healthy Butcher, eager to finally get my paws on a couple jowls for guanciale. I say finally, even though the plan for this guanciale-making endeavor was only formulated several weeks ago. What can I say…? I’m an impatient foodie.
The various recipes I’d consulted led me to believe that a single jowl would weigh in at nothing larger than 1.5 pounds or so. Working with that rough estimate, I asked the butcher to order in 2 for me. I figured that would be safe because it would leave me a spare if I messed up the first (highly unlikely) or a second to play with at a later date once I got the base flavor down. Well… when I got to the butcher I found out that they’d put aside about $50 worth of jowls for me. At approximately $4.99 per pound, you can do that math and figure out how much meat I ended up with. I’d ordered it in though, so I took the meat and figured that at the very least, I was now set for jowls for the next year or so.
Getting the meat home, I began unwrapping my prize. Lo and behold it turned out that I actually had 4 jowls. I opted to freeze one whole package for later, and make a double batch with the other package for now. As one of my recipes suggested, I began picking over my jowls for any errant glands; apparently these need to be removed prior to curing. I didn’t see anything that looked like glands, but there were several sections of small, bubblewrap-like pockets, so for safety’s sake I pared those back. Once that was done, I started to mix together the curing concoction. It’s a pretty simple ratio; just use equal parts of salt and sugar, and whatever fresh spices you want your meat to take on the flavors of. I’ve heard talk of people also using something called pink salt; I’m not 100% sure what that is, but I know it contains nitrites, so it’s not going in my food. Next, you massage the mix into the meat, pressing it well into both sides and all the edges. Place the thoroughly coated meat into a large freezer bag with any leftover mixture, close it and put it in the refrigerator. Let it rest for 5-7 days, and make sure to flip the bag daily to evenly distribute the cure.
Once I was done with the basic guanciale, (which in addition to the salt, sugar and peppercorns also contains thyme) I decided I wanted to get a bit crazy with the next one. Instead of using thyme, I opted for a healthy pinch of several types of chili flakes. Once mixed, patted and put away, I started to feel a bit dejected. All of the anticipation and excitement of the last few weeks was over in less than 20 minutes. The next 7 days will be relatively boring, and the 21 after that absolutely excruciating. If everything goes well after that, I’ll have guanciale instead of a thriving bacteria population eager to kill us all. Obviously I’m sure you can tell which one I’m hoping for. During the next month I’ll continue to post periodic updates on Project Guanciale, and if it turns out, I may even post a few pictures. In the meantime, here are some recipes for cures you can use, since people always tell me I need to write this shit down. Um, no, I don’t, but I’ll humor you this once nonetheless.
And as an aside, I also finally got to the bottom of the Everyman’s squeamishness regarding guanciale. When he took a peek at the butcher package today, he remarked incredulously to me, “Hey, this is pork?” Well of course it is, and I thought he knew that. It turns out that the first time we had guanciale was at Cowbell, on one of those mixed beef nose to tail plates that the chef loves so much. The Everyman didn’t care for it then, and ever since had wrongly assumed that the guanciale I keep talking about was also made with cow cheeks. Now that he realizes that I’m using pigs, I think he’s alot more receptive to the idea of Roman bacon. Success! Now all I have to do is make sure it tastes good… hmmm… maybe I should ask Grant from The Black Hoof for some tips…
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Tags: Cowbell, Grant Van Gameren, guanciale, Mark Cutrara, pork, Preservation, Purveyors, rantings, Recipes, The Black Hoof, The Healthy Butcher, The Spice Trader
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You know, it’s not often that my friends get the one-up on me foodie-wise. But it just so happens that recently, they managed to catch me unawares.
While there will always be a new ingredient to try, new restaurant to visit, or technique to test drive, I’m usually pretty in tune with what goes on in the Greater Toronto foodie world. So you can imagine my surprise when a total non-foodie friend sent me a note attached to some birthday wishes about Toronto’s newest anti-restaurant. What’s an anti-restaurant, you say? Well, according to the blog post my friend sent me, it’s a revolving group of Toronto chefs who host exclusive, secret tasting menu dinners under the guise of Charlie Burger.
My interest has been piqued.
If you go to their website, you’ll find an unassuming picture of a graffiti-covered door. It invites you to enter your email address, and that’s about it. If you’re brave enough to give up your info (it really can be a challenge sometimes in the SPAMcentric age we live in) Charlie will send you an email questionnaire that explains their manifesto a bit more, and asks you some rather open-ended questions. Is it a coincidence that they chose the name Charlie (a la Charlie’s Angels… ), because this feels awfully covert to me… (and just so we’re clear, I’m talking kitschy ’70s, not ho-bag 2000s) Once you fire off your responses, what feels like a popularity contest ensues. I don’t think I’ve sweated my answers to an application so much since I applied to that Hellman’s contest last year. According to the post I read of a woman (I think) who attended the last secret supper, they received close to 150 applications initially. Basically, they’ll read your answers, and decide whether you’re in or out. If you’re lucky enough to be in, you get put on a waiting list that’ll get you a space at a secret supper sometime. Apparently a week before one if you’ve been chosen they’ll send you an email with details about the chef and menu so you can accept or decline at your leisure.
Lucky for me they liked my answers, so I’m in. I feel so exclusive! So this is what it must’ve felt like in high school… I have no idea when the next dinner will be, but I’m hoping it won’t be too long coming. I’ve been given the green light by Charlie to blog about it too, just so long as I don’t get too specific with the details for all you readers out there. I guess you’ll just have to wait and see.
Until next time…
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Tags: anti-restaurant, Charlie Burger, rantings
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I kind of feel like Eeyore.
Nothing seems to be working properly or coming to its anticipated conclusion lately.
Specifically, my stupid hippie seeds finally showed up, but the order was incomplete. Considering I followed up with these people several times since I ordered they could have mentioned that some of these items would not be available. I guess I just have no patience for things not going my way today. Now I will have to see if I can find these seeds elsewhere, or else discard the plan for them altogether. Damn Ambition shallots and Sungold tomatoes foiling me! It’s ironic that I’m being bested by something named ambition. Oh, bitter irony.
On a completely unrelated note, hot (red) chorizo #1 was a smashing success as determined by the Everyman, so I may never buy chorizo from Bob again. Now if only my jowls would get here already so I could get on to this guanciale business. I still haven’t figured out how I’m going to string them up for 3 weeks, but I’m sure it’ll end up in the basement somewhere, or as a last resort, a coat closet. For anyone who cares to try the good chorizo recipe, read on below.
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Tags: chorizo, Gardening, pork, Preservation, rantings, Recipes, sausage
Posted in Gardening, Preservation, Recipes | 2 Comments »
I have had it with winter.
We’re through, it’s over, it’s been enough!
Merely days since the avalanche of snow on my rooftop patio finally melted away, Toronto is being hit with another slushstorm. Every time I look out the window of my office, all I see is this completely unappealing swirl of whiteness. Blech!
Compounding my aggression towards this disgusting season is the fact that I’m itching to get gardening and my seeds have not arrived yet. I thought I’d get an early start on my indoor plantings by ordering seeds in January. Well, February is 9 days from being over and I still don’t have them all. So much for being organized. Clearly the hippies that run the gardening companies I shop at are not as concerned as I am with being on time. I’m a bit of a garden nazi I guess, but I just like things to be a certain way. This year I chose a whole slew of new items to try, on top of some that turned out to be successful last year. Included in this list are Imperial Star artichokes, Ibis celeriac, Touchstone gold and Chioggia beets, ancho and jalapeno peppers, Ambition shallots, Black Krim, Glacier, Green Zebra, La Roma, Sungold, Yellow Pear, Garden Peach, San Marzano, Costoluto Genovese, Black Cherry, Currant and Black Zebra tomatoes, Little Fingers carrots, the Everyman’s pick of strawberries, and possibly even some sunchokes.
As you can clearly see, I’m going to have my hands full, which is why I wanted to get a head start. With each passing day I find myself getting more and more anxious to get things going too. However, my aggravation for this time of year is not solely caused by tardy seeds. In a few more days it will be my birthday. I’ve always hated my birthday for being at this time of year. When I was young all of my friends had summer birthdays, which meant that they got to have cool Canada’s Wonderland or Wild Water Kingdom parties. Being stuck with a birthday in the middle of winter means that there are pretty slim pickings for cool party options. For the majority of my childhood my parents just rented out the party room at McDonald’s or let me have a skating party. I’m sure you can understand why I’d be underwhelmed. My older sister also had a summer birthday, and don’t think for a second that she didn’t rub that in all the time when we were young, too. Couple that with the fact that most years my family doesn’t even remember my birthday anymore, and the Everyman forgetting how much I like to have things to open during the other gifting holiday last weekend, and my general expectations for this year’s birthday are pretty darn low. If I had the ability to fast forward the clock and skip over the day like it never happened, I would. I never end up getting what I want and mostly end up disappointed, depressed and upset by the people who forgot my day altogether. Booooooo!!!! I’m sure this puts an awful lot of undue pressure on the Everyman, because in effect he ends up having to overcompensate for everyone else’s crapitude.
So really, let’s just get this day over with already and move on. Please. One day when I rule the universe I’ll figure out a way to fast forward past it every year.
Until next time…
Tags: Birthday, Gardening, rantings
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Life is funny sometimes.
It often seems to me that life is ruled by a law of diminishing returns. Put simply; you will never get back from a situation as much as you’ve put in.
Kitties are a perfect example of this law in action. For instance, you feed them, water them, clean up after them, hug them and just generally love them, and they barely acknowledge your existence. Yet for some reason, people keep on owning them and trying to win their affection. How odd.
On a more personal level, last night I slaved away in the kitchen for 3 hours to make the Everyman a gourmet 3 course meal for Unvalentine’s Day. Before I even had a chance to serve him dessert, he passed out on the couch. Dinner, (in case you were wondering) was an appetizer of roasted bone marrow with crispy toasts, shallot, parsley and caper salad and a nice Chianti. This was followed by a sweet and sour braised pork belly with a sunchoke and celery root puree, red onion confit and a spicy Gerwurtztraminer. The dessert (which he finally woke up for) was a (very fitting-for-the-occasion) red velvet cupcake with fluffy vanilla frosting. With the exception of the bread, (since I still have not mastered the art of baguette making) everything we had for dinner was made from scratch. I put a great deal of effort into preparing that meal, even going so far as to write out a full prep list so that everything would be properly timed and not forgotten. I even polished and set out the fancy silver; the first time it’s been used since I bought it. Then it was over almost as quickly as it had begun and the kitchen sunk under the weight of the mountain of dishes, and I started to wonder why I bother.
Then this morning for Valentine’s Day the Everyman decided to make me breakfast in bed. This included the caveat that I was not allowed to leave the bedroom, even if I awoke. It always entertains me that he chooses breakfast as the meal to prepare for me, because he never eats breakfast himself. Perhaps it’s his way of making it up to me for never going out for brunch anymore. You see, since the Everyman doesn’t eat eggs or really enjoy the majority of breakfast items either, (pancakes, french toast, etc) we don’t do brunch because most places don’t serve options for people who don’t want a traditional breakfast. When they do, 9 times out of 10 he ends up eating a burger or club sandwich for breakfast. Or, back in the days when we used to live close to C-food brunches, it would be a plate of banana bread, a plate of bacon, and a bowl of frites. This morning he surprised me with a tray of chocolate chip pancakes with fig compote, crispy bacon, a pot of tea and chocolate milk. Not a bad spread for someone who claims he can’t cook. It was indeed a delicious way to start the day. Points off for forgetting the Valentine’s Day card though, even if he did decorate the breakfast tray with a tiny shot glass of flowers.
I often wonder to myself why he doesn’t do this for me more often. Probably because he’s (self proclaimed) lazy. But I imagine part of the answer can be found in the amount of crashing, bumping and cursing I heard from the kitchen this morning as I lay in bed too. Breakfast in bed in itself a strange activity, if you think about it. Beds are not particularly conducive to eating, or really comfortable enough to accommodate a leisurely meal. Not to mention nobody wants to find crumbs in the covers when they return to bed that evening. However, you should never underestimate the appeal of a big bowl of cornflakes and bananas, some toast, peanut butter and jam and a warm pot of tea. If I was a pompous ass I’d probably want the New York Times Sunday crossword in the list of requirements, but I don’t really care for those much at all.
In the end, it’s nice to feel important, and even nicer to feel appreciated. And sometimes if you’re lucky, you might even get both. And if you’re a jerk, you might just get none. Isn’t that how the This Little Piggy story went? They cried wee wee wee, all the way home.
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Tags: C-Food, rantings, Valentine's Day
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One of the things that I think people find so intriguing about the Everyman and I is that we have very few common interests. In fact, in most regards we are exact polar opposites; he loves sports and I hate them, he loves big commercial movies while I love documentaries, he is an extreme procrastinator and I am very driven, he is exceptionally messy and I am a neat freak… the list could go on and on and on…
Super Bowl Sunday is no different… I can’t bear to sit through hours of sports on TV and I often end up getting frustrated with the Everyman for monopolizing the TV and subjecting me to so much boring, sexist crap. I take issue with sports that involve women prancing around in skimpy outfits for the enjoyment of men. I think it’s demeaning and awful regardless of the fact that women do it willingly, and in general encourages pandering to the lowest common denominator. Objectifying women really just gets my blood boiling overall, because really, you don’t see men in g-strings prancing around at female sporting events to get the crowd going, so why is it ok to expect that of women? Aside from that weird group of fat male cheerleaders that is… but that’s an entirely different scenario altogether.
Anyhow, the Stupid Bowl (as I call it) is just another eating holiday to me, and this year (like the last) I decided to make chili. I don’t really enjoy chili all that much, but the Everyman does, and I do like hamming it up in the kitchen, so I do what I can. This year I made a few modifications to an old favorite, a tequila lime chili. Read on for the recipe and happy eating!
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Tags: beef, chili, Cooking, pork, rantings, Recipes
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I’m paraphrasing again… this time from Pretty Woman (I think?). I can’t help it though. I started thinking last night that while I have been writing this blog for almost a year now, I haven’t really elaborated too much on what I’m doing, and why I do it.
I’ve intentionally kept the Everyman’s and my identities a secret (in case you hadn’t already noticed, the only pictures of me you will see on here are of my hands and I never use our real or full names). This is in part due to a request from the Everyman and partially because I don’t think that what I look like has anything to do with what I write. I didn’t sign up for this whole ridiculous Facebook generation, where everyone needs to have “friends” to make themselves feel validated. Why would I want to be “friends” with 200+ people who in reality are barely even acquaintances? The guy who delivers my groceries or my mail doesn’t need to read on my “wall” what I’m doing at any given moment of the day. The people who know me that I care about already know who I am and what I’m up to, they don’t need to read about it on the internest. Can we bring back a little mystique please, leave a little to the imagination perhaps??? </rant>
I’m rambling. And that whole Facebook diatribe actually isn’t what I wanted to talk about, I just got carried away, as I often do. I wanted to give a bit more background about me. Over the years a boatload of people have told me what a nice person I am, but that they find me hard to deal with because I don’t share details about myself and that it feels like they’re having a conversation with a brick wall. In the spirit of that I’m trying to reveal a bit more, while still keeping my privacy intact. I wanted to put myself out there (for anyone who’s reading) and talk about my dreams… what food means to me… how I hope to make it more of an integral part of my life, etc.
So, without adieu, let’s get to that already…
I come from a small (but large) family. Both of my parents have 9+ brothers/sisters, so in that sense I have a large one, but my immediate family unit is small, with only one brother and sister. My mother and stepfather worked in the restaurant business since the 80′s (he even longer, I think) although my mom is now retired from that (for now). Growing up I spent a lot of time in their kitchens; from being parked at the back banquette to eat tri-colored sausage fusilli (so 80′s!) while they worked, to being paid an allowance to make place setting rolls on the weekends, to spending my first summer of high school working in cottage country at their newest venture and eventually making specials and working short order. My culinary goals were vague back then; I didn’t know what (if anything) I wanted to do with food, I just knew I enjoyed eating it, and loved making it even more.
When I finished high school and moved out on my own, I started to become fascinated with truffles (chocolate ones). It wasn’t long before I had taken courses to figure out what I was doing (although in retrospect my efforts pre-training were just as good as what I produced in class – thank you Time Life/The Good Cook!). I spent the next few years talking up my small business to anyone who would listen, and thus Princess P’s Confectionary was born. I was about 19 at the time, so the name is equally immature. I ran the business for a few years, taking in decent orders during all of the major holidays, but it never took off into something I could do full time. In fairness I don’t think I devoted enough time to try and grow it bigger; I was just enjoying the pleasure of being paid to do something I loved.
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Tags: Animal Vegetable Miracle, Barbara Kingsolver, Books, Charcuterie Sundays, Food Matters, Grant Van Gameren, In Defense Of Food, Jamie At Home, JS Bonbons, Mark Bittman, Michael Pollan, Princess P's Confectionary, rantings, Restaurants, The Black Hoof, Truffle Wench
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Sorry, Billy Corgan, I ripped you off; deal with it.
I’m in a very sad place today.
Have you ever had one of those moments where you realize that someone you look up to and respect is just as flawed and fucked up as you are? Sometimes the things that comfort you in their normalcy end up slipping out from underneath and all that’s left is emptiness. I know that probably doesn’t make a lot of sense to anyone but me. Suffice it to say that a dear friend is going through a very rough time right now and the fact that their world is shaken up makes mine seem all the more tenuous as well.
They say that sometimes the weight of another’s troubles can be dispersed just by talking about them; I find that they actually doesn’t dissipate, they just gets transferred to the shoulders of the person you told them to. When someone that you perceive to be a rock falters, it makes you wonder exactly how solid your own foundation might be.
I am so incredibly alone in Toronto. I’ve lived here on and off for most of my life, but about 9 years ago the only close family I have up and moved to BC. For a while I didn’t mind being on my own, but the older I’ve gotten, the lonlier it feels. Around the time I was ready to leave and move to BC myself, fate dropped the Everyman in my lap. It does have a way of fucking around with the best laid plans, doesn’t it? There was a time when I thought maybe if I went he’d come with me; I now know how utterly idiotic that idea is. You can’t solve your own problem by creating the same problem for someone else. And there was a time when I used to think that the Everyman could be all the family I needed. But the Everyman is a complicated person (and in the words of a stupid Friends episode; ‘one unlikely to take a wife’). Most of the time he’s silent, and while he’s always here, he never seems present. I love him so much but that doesn’t make up for the fact that I desperately miss my family. Some days I think I would give anything just to see them all in the same room together. Most days I realize how entirely unlikely it is that it would ever happen again.
Several days ago I awoke with a few words from The Farmer In The Dell inexplicably stuck in my head; the cheese stands alone. Lately, I think I am the cheese, standing alone, waiting for someone who’ll never show up and care for me.
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Tags: rantings
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