2010 June Archive at Rumblings & Ramblings

Monthly Archive for June, 2010

Hot summer days & nights

Published

on June 21, 2010

. 2 Comments

Foraging for Saskatoon berries along Grace in the heavy morning humidity. Picking a handful and eating them heading southward. Trying to keep cool walking in the shady side of the street. Meeting for Americanos and hitting yard sales with future roommate. Purchasing framed Southern France art deco drawings for the bathroom. Watering and admiring the solanum, prickly tomato plant in my garden. Building earth brick beds with children and youth. Eating fried clams in Queen’s Park North while observing toddlers knocking over floaty balloons filled with helium. Watching younger cousins play “Grounders”. Watching Rose Ave. children playing “Shark” along the vacant portables. Biking along Queen’s Quay. Dodging mini vans and BMWs. Attending panel discussion on colonialism, imperialism and capitalism organized by No One is Illegal at Ryerson. Drinks on a patio with new and old friends. Flirtatious banter. 3:00 am poutine and pop drinking with Montrealers on stoop. Dancing to old school music. Gin and tonics. Getting hit in the head by a flying soccer ball. Drinking a lot of water. Being combative and head butting people. Trading flat yellow shoes for white high heeled sandals to provide relief to fellow female-kin. Stumbling in said heels. Biking through Trinity Bellwoods. Buying myself flowers in Parkdale. Kitty cuddles. The Black Keys’ Brothers album on Repeat. Dancing in my underwear to Sleigh Bells. Taking my cousins to the park. Gelato in Little Italy. Fresh farm eggs from Tony. Pondering. Duck and quail eggs experimentation in the kitchen. Cooking stir fried ginger and onion blue crabs feast for maman-daughter sleepover. Splurging on dark chocolate at the fancy confectionery shop down the street. Shots of sambucca. Swollen lips. Reading L’élégance du hérisson in the park. Waking up sweaty at 2:00 am and 5:00 am regularly. Writing in the wee hours of the morning. Going for Brunch at Grace’s and Mia’s. Savouring congee, runny eggs, pickled vegetables, fried dough patties, and okra and tomato dish. Random solo evening bike rides downtown. Giving away spring garlic in St. James Town to Portuguese lady. Admiring little houses north of Queen West. Staring at the stars on patios and lying down on slides in the playground. Playing on the swings — trying to go as high as possible without getting too dizzy. Petting Great Danes and hounds on the street when the owners/guardian are not watching. French films about love. Speaking French to my cats. Mentally naming things in Vietnamese on my way to work. Xe dap, nha, xoi. Markham BBQ. The Dad brigade at the Commun. Spitting and crying infant. Baby smells. Random encounters and connections. Getting children to fight over sugar snap peas. Skype conversations with long distance friends. Evasiveness. Visiting Amber at Urban Harvest and eating croissants and drinking carrot ginger apple smoothies. Listening to the Wu Tang at 5:30 am on a Monday. Regaling friends with sordid stories. Water play. Making do. Making plans. Outdoor free concerts. Red currants. Sore muscles. Siestas and power naps. Slanted tree out front of house. Toronto Underground Cinema and outdoor films. Fixing the brakes on my bike. Helping others fix their bikes. Fundraiser parties. Laughing by myself. Neil Young. Strolling for hours in the city. Macchiatos on Harbord in the afternoon. Falling in love with beautiful and stylish women on bicycles every day. Sundresses. Dirty feet. Pink nails. Fashion blogs. Broken hearts. Joyful. Old Crushes. Eating too many nem nuongs. Bad 24 Hour Vietnamese food. Giant dandelion gone to seed blowing in the wind at 4:00 am. Wood chips. Breathing in the pre-rain air. Random capitalization. Not being afraid. Doing “Chinese medicine shots”. Checking out community gardens in the dark. Making others grin and laugh. Strategizing and planning around exciting summer youth project. Cordless power drilling. Stumbling on a Beehive Collective workshop over the weekend. Precarious job security. Watching dogs at the dog park. Enjoying my own company enormously. Lettuce from Pasquale. Co Hang’s delicious chocolate cake - a cross between a cake and truffle - not too sweet and a perfect balance between airyness and density. Sitting on storefront pipes commiserating. Bonding with little cousin and letting her dictate what shoes I should try on for fun at the mall. Tasting raw rhubbarb in the garden. Endless texting. Never getting tired of Abbey saying the latin names of plants outloud. Homemade beef jerky made by Leslie in exchange for watering her plants. Being inspired. Being tired. Milk bottles filled with water strewn across the apartment. Disarray. Eating a lot of kale. Wishing I could do a cartwheel. Propagating. Spring garlic all-purpose pesto jar in the fridge. Having friends over for impromptu dinners. Going to bed too late. Waking up too early. Creating. Dynamics. Excited for what’s ahead.

Thoughts on Our Daily Bread and Prison Farms

Published

on June 20, 2010

in Eats, Food Culture, Food Systems, Reflection and Visuals

. 1 Comment

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.

Visual inspirations for June 2010

Published

on June 6, 2010

in Visuals

. 0 Comments

Spending a lot of time alone thinking, planning, creating and just allowing myself to absorb various forms of stimulation and inspiration from around and about…

From the garden:

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