Belly rumblings and brain ramblings
Consisting of pulled pork, reconstituted dehydrated mashed potatoes, baked beans and drizzled with the ’sauce’.
A pulled pork parfait is it….a good idea? Parfait as they say? Or more like Barf-ait?
You decide.
“It’s all in the sauce, baby!”
Oh, just an instant. At the Pickering Flea Market.
A perfect ending to the First Annual Buddies’ Xmas.
Forest tidings. Who shall we eat first? Real talk.
Partially demolished Capon roast chicken avec sauce à l’orange.
Happy new year, ya lovelies!
Passing through Canadian customs:
“A hundred and twenty? What did you buy?”
“Chips and socks”
“What? You bought 120 dollars worth of chips and socks? No alcohol?”
“Yes”
Trish: ”You know, I’ll always remember you as the guy who gave me my first burrito…”
Brandon: “I’ll always remember you as that girl that got me to dance…”
“Come, come, whoever you
are.
Wanderer, worshiper, lover
of leaving. It doesn’t
matter.
Ours is not a caravan of despair.
Come, even if you have
broken your vows a
thousand times.
Come, yet again, come,
come.”
Rumi (30 September 1207 – 17 December 1273)
Come, come…..
I had forgotten about my first blog that I started back in 2001, the good ole Livejournal days (like whoa!). But then today, my clumsy hand unintentionally clicked on a link, and I accidentally stumbled upon an old entry….quite resonating, when I think about where I am now.
February 3rd, 2007
Food In the Heart
So I mentioned in my last post that I have started volunteering at a food community centre. I’ve volunteered to write for the newsletter and also partake in its production. I am absolutely taken by the organization so far. They do so many things of which I find fascinating and certainly want to have a part in. I am trying to ascertain how much of the community they are serving.
The people wanting to work for the newsletter and I have been meeting to brainstorm and to keep abreast of developments. We have been meeting early and partaking in some communal cooking in the industrial kitchen. So much fun! I went for my second meeting on tuesday. I am planning to submit two articles.
They run a community kitchen for various groups. I happened to come at the end of a session for 13-16 year old girls who had just finished making some indian curry dishes, and had painted their hands with henna. The energy that the group was putting out was quite exciting to see. I felt a little shy and sticked to the side of the room, observing and waiting for them to leave while listening to the Indian music playing in the background. The girls and the community kitchen coordinator left a platter of Indian desserts: different types of laddus, jalebi, ras malai and a couple other things, which I nibbled on.
We made two tofu dishes: Pasta in a tomato and tofu cream sauce and a delicious garlicky tofu spread which we ate on rye bagels and chopped raw kale on top. One young woman, who I have taken a particular liking to and feel we have a lot in common, brought in these yummy gingery Chinese stuffed tofu rolls with all sort of vegetables and mushrooms. Jasmine tea was brewed and we settled in the common room with our food and deliberated.
I was asked if I would be possibly be interested in helping out on this youth advisory and education initiative, as well as possibly help out with a gardening/seed saving initiative of sorts. The details have yet to be mapped out. I am just excited. This is all a learning process really and I hope that I am able to contribute and be productive. I have to say, my getting pleasure and being more excited doing pro-bono work for a small organization, says something about where my heart lays.
Work has sort of been a drag due to a number of unfortunate events and issues but things might be looking up. Our organization is looking to do more advocacy work and undertake some serious strategic planning, and I am hoping to be super involved.
This was written when I had just discovered and got into the field of food security/sovereignty/urban agriculture/food activism/community gardening all bushy eyed and earnest, whilst working my old communication/fundraising job in a more established institution.
It is a painful process to sometimes to read old writings. The ignorance (which is a continuing state of being really ). The triggers. The memories you have purposely forgotten for a reason… resurfaced. There is always that risk. I think a lot about the act of journaling and recording, personal and otherwise, of history, and how skewing it is, how the act of writing itself, of situations and feelings just further imprints certain moments and people into you.
I am always left with the feeling that the act of what I do, because I can’t help but be compulsive when it comes to writing and recording, makes me rather a sentimentalist, a fatalist, an idealist and reluctant romantic….how I always feel that puts me at a disadvantage. A distant memory in others’ lives. A footnote. When they are a chapter in my notebooks. Maybe a volume.
More old entries to follow I am sure.
the winter wind, chilled our feet and our cheeks. nearly frostbitten toes. father and son, alone, walked to her last resting place, holding each other by the arms, whispering. his black peacoat flapping in the january wind in the jewish cemetary. they slip on a patch of ice.
stones, small and large, lay on top of the marble headstones around us. placed by family, friends, lovers and foes.
back at home.
the table was adorned with the following dishes: pickled herring with stuffed olives and onions, chicken meatloaf with a mushroom and cheese topping, a plate of cold cuts, sliced lamb roast, fish liver egg spread, a plate of rye bread, stuffed eggplant rice wraps, housemade quick white vinegar pickled whole plum tomatoes and cucumbers, bbq chicken wings, boiled potatoes with dill, corn mayonnaise salad, moussaka, a bowl of cut up vegetables and onions.
a pot of chicken vegetable soup with chicken meatballs simmered on the stove. filling the air with the warmth of carefully prepared broth. the scent of carrots and celery.
sitting for shiva.
we each had a tiny shot glass by our plates. refilled with vodka and whiskey after a toast. as per tradition.
in memory of her.
stories of her achievements in the ukraine, her strong willed and sage like personality, the doting aunt, consultant confidant, sister, mother, best friend, wife, mathematician, scholar.
he sat there at the table, plate untouched, fork in hand mid-air. pensive with a slight smile on his face. staring off in the distance. surely thinking about an old memory. maybe of being in grade 3 again when they met one another as 9 year olds. thinking about how he can only seem to remember the beginning and the very end when she got really sick. but not quite remembering the 30+ intermediate years in between. reminiscing.
reaching across the table to squeeze each others’ hands.
eventually he was able to spoon the dill potatoes into his mouth. pushing the creamy potatoes with his knife onto his fork.
laughter & tears.
we later put out plates of cut up pears and apple slices on the table. a bowl of clementines. baklava and danishes.
marshmallow meringue sweets nestled in a cream coloured box.
tea.
old photographs in shoe boxes. short hair, thick glasses, short shorts, stripped shirt. the proto-hipsters circa 70s in the old U.S.S.R.
the walls decorated with photographs of the early 1900s. solemn and stern faces. bow ties and dark suits. ceremonious war medals and accolades. uncanny resemblances, 3 generations. paintings of tomatoes on a cutting board, a lake in the old country, roses, a woman shrouded in purple. svelte legs up to there.
the small pine tree in the corner held in a ceramic vase, decorated with bulbs, looked pitiful. the top drooping to the side with its loose needles pooling on the floor.
the abundant fruit ripening in overflowing baskets and bowls in the kitchen. outliving. and dying.
At the annual doctor’s pizza party (organized by Carlos, who calls me his favourite archnemesis due to a 2010 pizza making altercation that involved basil….I like being an archnemesis) back in the fall, a bunch of us started arguing about what baby body part would be the best to eat.
It was deemed by Shreyas that undoubtedly the tastiest bit would be the thighs.
“Tender, they are.”
When you cut them open.
From the mouth of a pediatric surgeon.
Who could argue?
Baby agrees?
(My brother and sister-in-law may never allow me to watch my niece alone ever)
Sabrina took me to the Toronto International Art Fair last weekend. What a treat to see so many fabulous paintings, photographs, installations, what have you from world famous artists (some local too!), presented in such close quarters, comparatively to museums. Because the collections were on display by galleries from different cities, there was a wide breadth and range. What was also great, is that we got to see the prices listed on the pieces. Their value. Anything from $1,400 to more than $140, 000 to “inquire within for a price”.
To be honest there was too much to take in one evening…as I get overwhelmed visually easily.
I loved the Edward Burtynsky (who is famous for capturing aerial shots of industrial sites the world over, and his documentary Manufactured Landscapes) photographs of Dryland Farming (#13) in Monegros County, Aragon, Spain. Because it looks like an oil painting, even up close, and I looked that closely, I am talking if I-stuck-my-tongue-out-I-could-of-licked-the-photo, it’s uncanny.
(c/o artnet.com)
“Dryland farming has evolved as a set of techniques and management practices used by farmers to continually adapt to the presence or lack of moisture in a given crop cycle.” This non-irrigated method of farming is dependent on natural rainfall of which there is little of in the arid regions where this is practiced, which blows my gardener’s mind, as someone who has only grown food in relatively wetter climates and has had access to municipal water.
The Burtynsky piece reminded me of the rice terrace farming in Sapa, Vietnam, along the mountains, of which I had the opportunity to trek through back in 2004, and elicits the memory of the smells of indigo dye and burning wood in the villages…at the time though I didn’t know I’d get into food growing and agriculture in a big way when I took this photo!
(c/o photo of a photo taken with 35 mm)
