It’s hot and humid outside.

.

Recently watched Our Daily Bread, a German documentary on modern food production from a couple years ago, and had mixed thoughts — which is really my preferred reaction to most issues and life in general. I found it to be both revolting, ugly and beautiful — poetic - the juxtaposition of repetitive and rhythmic work required to feed us, the shiny metal machines slicing through countless pig and cow carcasses, workers, human machines on their own, ripping out the guts out of animals continuously for hours in repetitive motions, the skinning of the carcasses by machines, constantly rotating…thousands and thousands of animals passing through slicers and cogs and rolling carpets, workers injecting semen into pigs by hand, and than the very same workers on their breaks eating their lunch (what looks like a ham sandwich in one case), on a smoke break, or workers riding a bus to get to work was a nice parallel.

I felt my body ache watching people do the back breaking repetitive labour required…watching workers crouched in lettuce fields, picking, bagging and placing packaged lettuce ready for the supermarket in crates in front of them monotonously, that slid into a moving truck car, with a plastic covering over the labourers with lights above so they could work throughout the night.

And this brings me to prison farms — CBC featured this story. Canada has 6 prison farms in the country but they are being shut down next year by mandate of the Conservative government. Which is a shame.

Proponents, like Margaret Atwood, advocate that prisons farms are great for inmates, allowing them to be productive, grow food for themselves, learn skills, earn a bit of money, and give them an opportunity to give back to the community via donations of the food they donate to food banks. A damn shame. This demonstrates a move away from focussing on rehabilitation and a move towards prison complexes à la United States. Having once volunteered with former prisoners in a small greenhouse, packaging sprouts for a food organization has shown me how effective and positive these type of programs are. I remember the camaraderie and pride shared by the men in being able to collectively grow sunflower and pea sprouts for consumption and how these skills would make them more employable in the future. It’s a tough sell though, many people do not feel any particular compassion for people who commit crimes, regardless of the circumstances or nature of the crime, preferring to see the world as white or black, good or bad. Which boggles my mind. CityFarmer lists the various reasons why we should save our prisons farms a lot more eloquently than I.

On that note, this reminds me of another story about Riverdale Farm. According to Sunday, Riverdale Farm ( read Lauren Archer’s post about the history - so fascinating!) and the land that stretches out all the way to the former Don Valley Jail used to be a prison farm back at the turn of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century, mostly inhabited by Scottish and Irish debtors aka poor people. This is apparent by the style of some of the resident houses at Riverdale Farm(particularly the former morgue– which is now the Resident House), some of the buildings’ scaffolding having brick designs layered in a particular style that is reminiscent of Scottish architecture. The prisoners were worked to death then though…

I suppose I am bias. I think we should have gardens everywhere, schools, community centres, malls, apartments, houses, parks, hospitals and various public and communal spaces — but I see the social benefits every day at work — especially as I have gotten to know many of the children in the past couple of years.

From the garden:

Children exploring the garden grounds finding new ways to interact with nature.

Sour leaf (aka garden sorrel) bouquet

Picking and tasting mei qing choi flower petals. Tastes like sweet mustard.

A series of current visual inspirations borrowed from films:

Curse of the Golden Flower

Gong Li as the fearless Empress. The opulent costumes and the textures, layers, lavishness and colours of the palace.

Flying assassins & horses

2046

Tony Leung as an emotionally unavailable bachelor in the 1960’s  Honk Kong. (sigh)

Zhang Ziyi (double sigh)

La Belle Personne

The autumn colours, sweaters, coats, scarves and wind blown hair of the young, beautiful and tortured French. L’amour qui n’est jamais consommer…

À Bout de Souffle

L’Américaine Patricia. Quel coquette! Michel! Quel voyou!

Swimming Pool

Les relations improbable entre une jeune femme et une femme plus agée.

Ludivine! <3

“I guess I have to eat my foie gras all alone”- Julie

Sting of the Dragon Master(s)

Angela Mao. Fierce and beyond awesome martial arts hero of the 1970’s. Her flashy fighting eyes. Feel the terror.

]]> http://rumblingsandramblings.com/?feed=rss2&p=337 http://rumblingsandramblings.com/?p=330 http://rumblingsandramblings.com/?p=330#comments Sun, 18 Apr 2010 23:43:44 +0000 XY http://rumblingsandramblings.com/?p=330 I can’t find my camera which is too bad.

I picked up some live scallops from Kensington Market (after eating a selection of shucked oysters outside New Seaway) as a treat. I’ve never bought them before to make myself.

Somewhat improvising the following will be my dinner:

1 . Live scalllops baked in the oven with panko flakes, grated Asiago cheese, and a healthy dollop of butter. I just put them in the oven.

2. Inspired by the Charlie’s company (a war term?!?!) hotdog served at Disgraceland on Bloor, I am making a grilled pork hot sausage in a bun topped with kim chi from P.A.T. Central, grated carrot, shredded 5 year old cheddar, Sriracha chili and cilantro.

I think my appetite is coming back! I even had my reoccurring dream last night where I am visiting France and I make a purposeful trip to the grocery store so I can buy my favourite French dairy products and saucisson. I had a detailed dream where I am eating this delicious vanilla pudding with chantilly.

Tonight I am going to watch a French-Italian film from 1973 called “La Grande Bouffe”. It’s about a group of rich men who rent out a villa for a weekend, invite prostitutes over and resolve to eat themselves to death after having group sex. Or something.

It's one giant cosmic joke.

I’ve been sorrily MIA and not writing as frequently as I’d like to. For good reason (and maybe a touch of laziness). I’ve had a few personal and interpersonal issues and health problems pop up rather unexpectedly in the past three months and have been dealing with what I can only call a series of misfortunes. I can only laugh. Really.

My friend Jay, who is similarly going through a rough year, jokingly said he was going to make a t-shirt saying “I survived Crap Storm 2010″.  I think I might actually consider getting a shirt made.

Through these various adversities, I have learned a lot about myself (and others!) and can actually appreciate the turbulence. The stagnancy that has been previously pervasive in my day to day was a lot worse. I rather feel and live honestly and happily — and am working towards living like that all the time after many years of not doing so.

Now possibly the kicker, and somewhat hilarious in my twisted mind is the following incident that happened two weeks ago:

I was trying to cut open a mangosteen open that my mother had given me with a knife. Now, I knew it probably wouldn’t taste good, because the skin was hard and not peeleable with fingernails. It had obviously travelled thousands of miles from Vietnam. But I persisted because I hardly ever eat them (maybe once a year?), figured it was worth a try, and was quite fond of them when I lived in Vietnam and they were available fresh. They are possibly my favourite fruit. Apparently they are also the new ’superfood’, according to trend hunters (whaevs I say!).

Now keep in mind I ran a series of cooking workshops with middle school aged children the past couple of winters before I tell you the following. I teach them knife safety skills, of which they always protest me going over, claiming they already know them. I should know better. But I have always been on the clumsy side of things my whole life. I am sure those that have known me for a long time can attest to that, and have witnessed me tripping over my own feet for no explicable reason a number of times. This is a story of idiocy and lack of coordination.

(Also, if you get easily squeamish you might want to avoid reading the following.)

So I am fighting to cut open the fruit for a minute, when the steak knife slips as I am trying to break open the thick purple skin of the mangosteen, and goes right into the inner base of my left middle finger: a small puncture wound but it went in quite deeply. A Tarentino style amount of blood spurts out, along with the rhythm of the beating of my heart, I am not kidding you.

I freak out, as the blood splatters and drips on my pants, the futon, the coffee table, all over the floor. I grab four or give nearby tissue papers, but I go through them and they are soaked in 5 seconds. I grab my phone and call Steven and Leslie in hysterics. Steven rushes over, I am in the living room with what looks like a CSI crime scene, and takes me to the emergency ward at Toronto Western. I get one stitch but my finger goes numb and I cannot feel a thing.

This condition worsens for a few days. I can tell you it is a disconcerting to feel like you have a “stranger’s” finger wedged in between your index and ring finger, as is closing the door twice on your finger by accident because you can’t feel. Linda from the Soup made me an aluminum foil crown to make me feel better. I get some partial feeling back.

A week later I see a plastic surgeon and hand specialist who deducts based on a series of administering a pin pricking discrepancy test that I have very likely severed a digital nerve and that it won’t heal without microscopic surgery. I placed 12 on the discrepancy test, when anything above 8 is suspect.

So tomorrow I am going to have surgery even though the cut has healed pretty well. They are going to reconnect my nerves with stitches smaller than a width of a hair! And if all goes well, the nerves will grow back in 1.5 to 2 years.

I am stoked because a) Having lost sensation of that one finger has made a difference in the way I move and I am developing pain from my hand to my shoulder. I want it to heal; and b) I get to live out my dream of sporting my very own cast. I had always envied those kids at school that had casts with drawings and signatures all over them. I distinctly remember seeing my uncle Hung  in France stick a bent coat hanger in his cast to scratch his itchy broken leg and being jealous because it was such a huge cast — more space for drawings! I was a strange child. (Side story: I was also jealous of people that had to use crutches to get around too. I pronounced crutches “crotches” back in middle school, as I continue to mispronounce some English words as it is not my native language. More on that at a later time.)

Lessons learned and realizations from the past three months:
-I found out what people, friends, family and acquaintances are made of and how solid they can be — and that’s it’s ok to let others support you in times of need. I am generally closed off from people, even those I purport to be close to. I am trying to get over ‘my wall building’. I realize now that I’ve also closed myself off from myself and that has done me much harm too.

-The health care system is awesome when dealing with emergency/physical injuries regarding nerve damage.

-The health care system is terribly difficult to navigate if you’re looking for a family doctor or dealing with mental illness.

-“It’s complicated” is what I said to describe the state of my relationship with my long-term partner to friends last night. Facebook you are so astute.  My friend Dave commented that there’s movie with that exact title starring Alec Baldwin and Meryl Streep. You probably saw the ads for it in the subway, of them in bed together, Meryl looking regretful recently.

In summary (if you’ve managed to read this rather long entry about my trivial life) there has been a lot of changes, challenges and a few setbacks - but I am just going to look forward. I’ve had some successes too. If anything, these trials and tribulations reminds me how lucky and privileged I am. How lucky I am to have so many wonderful people in my life for support. Destiny’s Child’s song Survivor is playing in my head. As is my desire to kick 2010 in the ass and still make it an awesome year!

Now I am off to go on my last bike ride for awhile and enjoy the rest of the afternoon…

On Saturday my family celebrated Matthew’s one month old birthday. My cousin Thuy and his wife Jane held a baby shower so that friends and family could meet the little dude with the funniest face. He looks like a puppy. A human puppy. Very cute!

Because there was so many of us, at least 90 people, it only made sense to have this event at an Asian buffet in Richmond Hill aka the 905. This is where buffets reign supreme. I will say it’s a bit daunting and dazzling if you take a moment to ponder the number of different species you can eat at a buffet. It is a game I play. My count was at least 18 different animals that night. My usual thoughts and considerations about sustainable and local eating were forced to be on hold.

I avoid buffets now, but going to one was a lot fun and very nostalgic.

When I was young, when we were not frequenting Chinese or Vietnamese restaurants, my extended family on my father’s side occasionally went to buffets. Sit down dinners of mostly the Western variety was not an experience I had much of. Try getting 12 aunts and uncles, plus their spouses and significant others, 20 first cousins, plus their spouses and significant others, to the table.

You see, my father’s family, eats an enormous amount of food. I am talking vats of noodles and soup. I do not think I have seen a man or woman eat as much as some of my uncles. Going to buffets allowed everyone to be full and content, for a set price, as going to a normal restaurant was a bit of a risk - of not satisfying people’s appetite, of having to spend more than one could afford, of not being able to provide and losing face.

It was a treat to go. My mother would regale over the idea of eating “all-you-can-eat” seafood. Now, not all buffets are created equal, so part of what made a good buffet (oxymoron for some I am sure) was what seafood they had as offerings. Another determinant, and a counterbalance to the quality of the food, was the price. Going for lunch or dinner made a difference.

I remember this one time, when I was about 10 going with my cousins and our parents. I was the eldest and thought it would be fun to eat whatever made up concoction my cousins and brother offered. I was brave and wanted to show off - that I had a steely stomach and could eat whatever. So with eyes closed Anh Thi put a spoonful of something in my mouth.

And I choked. I still remember the taste in my mouth. Imagine a mixture of hot sauce, fish sauce, soy sauce, noodles, rice, some meat, strawberry ice cream, and what tasted like peanut butter - whatever it was it was velvety, hard, chewy and liquid all at the same time. It tasted like spicy hot vomit.

Generally at a buffet, I’d eat myself so full, I was uncomfortable. There were many moments where after eating, I’d clutch my stomach in absolute agony. Having eaten myself physically sick. I remember one time, having to excuse myself so I could go lie down in the backseat of the family car, feeling as though I’d been punched repeatedly in the stomach by Mike Tyson, feeling that I just might die of gluttonous blows. Feeling like my stomach would burst and my dead body would be found, guts exploded all over the backseat.

Nowadays, I am more restrained, and my palate more picky and critical. But the experience is just as fun. It’s not just about the food per say. It’s mingling with my family members. It’s my cousins, ranging in age from their mid-thirties to the one that shall be born in a month, teasing each other and laughing. We can change seats and have different dining partners each time we make a new trip. It’s people filling their plates up, feeling as though they have a lot (and they do!), and everyone having something they like to eat.

Bac Hai, can fill his plates with snails and eat plate after plate of them. My cousin’s boyfriend Ly can bring back a plate of crab legs, and offer them to family members - as he happened to be right there when the restaurant workers refilled the chafing dish with the steaming crustacean. My sister-in-law Elanor can rave about how she never gets to eat seafood and joyously eat crabs, possibly her favourite food. My little cousins can make the ice cream sundae of their dreams with 4 different scoops of flavours and drizzle it with chocolate, a warm waffle at the bottom. The young ones get to autonomously choose what to eat instead of just eating what their mother or father puts in front of them.

I realize I have idealized buffets. Food memories inextricably tied with familial feelings. Buffets offer promise and plenty. At a cost I can only imagine.

In the end I didn’t want to waste it - as it was to expire later this year. And felt a little homesick for my French family. So I say to justify my hunger.

And so as a last minute dinner idea, I smeared butter on a slice of crusty baguette, added a dab of foie gras and topped it with a boston lettuce leaf. I ate maybe 7 or more, the last three having turned into mini foie gras and lettuce sandwiches, two baguette slices haphazardly coddling rich items. A crumb of foie gras fell off one of my slabs and onto the kitchen floor, which my cat ate up before I could do anything about it,

While we ate I asked if they felt they could make the lasagna at home now. And they all said no. My heart sank a little, but I realized after telling Lara, who said: “Did you learn to cook well in one lesson?” — that I had unrealistic expectations. I certainly did not. Why should I expect these 12 and 13 year olds to be confidant and sassy in the kitchen after one workshop when they had little independent cooking experience?

The following evening I attended my first hip hop class. My first dance class. I’ve never taken dance lessons. The closest was one gymnastic class, one session I took when I was 6 in France. I had hopes of taking dance lessons afterwards - but then my family moved to Canada and my parents could not afford to enroll my brother and I in any extra-curricular activities. I’ve been wanting to go for a really long time but did not have the courage to. I’ve never really seriously articulated it, only in jest, nor have I pursued it. I found out Anne Marie was going and she invited me to tag along with her - giving me enough incentive to actually follow through.

And as predicted I was terrible.

T-E-R-R-I-B-L-E.

Térrible.

I cannot reiterate enough how bad I am. I can’t do a body roll to save my life.

I would not be exaggerating to say I was the worst person there hands-down-times-a-quadruple-thousand.
It was mortifying, knowing that I looked like I was straight out of a parody mocking someone trying to take hip hop dance lessons. But I was being serious.

But it was also humbling.

I still managed to have fun, laugh a lot, and got a good work out where I actually sweated. As this doesn’t happen ever - occasionally, sort of, when I bike in the summer. Even though there were moments where I contemplated bolting out of the room - which had a window into the reception area so that people could watch and laugh at you. Including an acquaintance, a teacher at one of the schools that I teach at. Anne Marie would give me a look as to say she knew what I was thinking every time I looked at the exit.

By the end of it I couldn’t keep up and had given up hope on getting my body to coordinate or my  arms to cooperate into the moves. To be in sync with Ludacris’  “How Low(can you go)?”. I still tried and tried - and even just let myself go and tried not to over think the moves.  I got over my unrealistic expectations of being good enough to be on America’s Best Dance Crew and reminded myself that people who are good at dancing practice hours upon hours on end, per day and for years.

So I can’t just give up now after one class.

And I can’t give up on this cooking program or the idea that somehow my facilitating these food experiences for these youth, to develop healthy food habits and life skills, will have some impact. Even when they are filled with some calamities and set backs. There are some victories.  The youth asked - after a long afternoon of cooking, having gone even past last period and the end of school - if they could make pizza from scratch next. And many teachers and students “dropped by”, enticed by the smell of the bolognese sauce simmering on the stove and the lasagna finally baking in the oven. The caretaker even walked in a couple times.

One day I’ll be able to blow everyone away with my mad hip hop dance moves which I’ll break out at a party (ok it’s still quite unlikely!).