Best poem:

I am sitting here in front of the window,
and I am being bored.
I wish I was two puppy’s
so I could play together.

I have no idea who to attribute it to, since it was sent to me by a friend without a signature. If it’s yours – sorry, but I love it.

*********

My friends two year old son is suffering from a sudden mysterious neurological illness that left his peripheral nervous system totally down. (The doctors think he’ll be okay, but they’d really like to diagnose him.) The neurologists are testing him for everything known to man to see what caused it, and some of the things he had to do were:

- Check to see if he has any unvarnished furniture in the house - take a white cloth and rub all furniture hard to see if it stains.
- Vacuum the entire floor with a special sealed vacuum bag to see if anything is present
- Bring in all household pills he may have had access to and so on.

What I got out of that conversation is that our houses are probably more toxic than we ever even imagine. I want to read Slow Death by Rubber Duck, but dread it at the same time. 

*******

Google does NOT in fact have all the answers. Earlier this week my boyfriend and I were watching that story on that guy who killed that young girl while she was jogging, you know? And he asked me whether pedophilia exists in the animal world. Weird but legit question. Well I’m not Google, so I fired up the trusty laptop and went to town. And I got nothing. No relevant search results at all. I don’t know what to make of that. I feel a little scared and lonely now that my search engine that could failed me. (Actually this is so not the first time I’ve stumped Google, but I can’t remember what else is NOT out there, and that’s probably a good thing).

*******

In other news, I am officially starting my tomatoes today, and the race begins anew. Seeds go in the pods tonight. Wish me a warm summer please!

It’s no secret that going out to eat is one of my favorite things to do, right up there with skiing and reading, and people, that says a lot. I’m one of those travelers that will have a ‘must eat’ list before going on a trip, although I don’t plan every meal, that would be anal. Just a list of several restaurants that define a city, from big names to hole in the wall gems. Often I came back from those vacations and cried because they reached a level of awesomeness rarely seen in Cowtown. So it was in the spirit of low expectations that I checked out Calgary’s newest restaurant last Thursday, and it was surprisingly awesome.

Having been open for only two days when my friend Vanessa and I descended on it, they were still a bit unprepared in the drinks department, especially when it came to anything other than wine – no beer kegs yet, no hard cider, no soda for a highball, but undeterred we requested a caesar. It was rather serviceable as my friend put  – worse than Spur and better than the Keg. They must have been out of veggies too, as it arrived unadorned with beans, celery or asparagus – namely the best parts of a caesar.  But they were JUST opened, so can’t really complain.

The menu was quirky and fabulous  – bone marrow gratin (in Calgary!), romaine with crispy chicken skin, arugula and tuna conserva with lemon pickled new potatoes and shaved celery, baked raclette… and although it was hard to decide, ya gotta start somewhere, so we went with carnivore’s delight -  the bone marrow gratin, duck fat poutine, and the share burger – a min. 9 oz order of a garlic sausage burger topped with an egg.

This was my friends’ first time with the bone marrow, and luckily she’s an adventurous soul – it consists of two thick rounds of bone, seasoned lightly and broiled, served with flakes of parsley to cut the richness, flakes of sea salt for crunch and to bring out the flavor and thin crostini. The marrow was as divine as expected – warm, rich, beefy and robust. (For the uninitiated souls the texture is similar to soft boiled eggs’ egg yolk and the taste is not unlike bread and drippings, or dragging your bread through the bottom of a roast dish.) The crostini appeared to be buttered though, which is a bit of overkill since beef marrow itself is intensely rich. (Yeah, go ahead and ask for more crostini right away – four is just not enough.)

The duck fat fried poutine was… ducky. A small dish of thick, hand cut fries with a mild duck fat flavor and just a bit less gravy than it should have had. It was well seasoned, and had the fries been crisper and the gravy more bountiful it would have reached greatness.

The burger was not a traditional beef burger, but a sausage burger as stated on the menu. A thick patty charred on the outside and cooked to medium on the inside it was one of the most satisfying burgers I’ve had in a while. Topped with a sunny side up egg which slowly dripped over the meat and served on golden brioche it was just an embarrassment of riches when it comes to flavor. I’m almost reluctant to admit that in the midst of this carnivorous nirvana I actually wouldn’t have minded some tomatoes or pickles on the side – just to cut the richness. But no worries – I ordered a second caesar instead.

The portions are on the small side which led me to wonder at the outset whether we ordered enough food, and I’m happy to say my concerns were unfounded. The three dishes we shared left us very comfortably full, on the verge of stuffed really, and according to all witness accounts we eat like lumberjacks, so believe me when I tell you that three dishes between two people is plenty. Of course we did go all out on the meat front – had we ordered some lighter fare we might have had some room for dessert, which sounded just as original and fun as the menu – Saskatoon berries layered in a jar with cheese cake and graham crackers anyone?  Alas we did not, so it will be with pleasure that I’ll be returning there in the weeks to come to see Charcut come into their own and be an extremely worthy and welcome addition to the Calgary scene.

While people down south have been gleefully shoveling rare snow and building gray snowmen, February has been unseasonably warm on the prairies. Like scary warm, with temperatures barely dipping below zero and daytime highs of 4-8 C.

Instead of snow Calgary has been frequently blanketed by insanely thick fog. The kind that muffles all the sounds and gives a cathedral like hush to the city. The kind that turns the sky dusky white, even in broad daylight. The kind that settles in a kind of beautiful hoar frost all over trees and railings and bushes and mailboxes. The kind that feels like there’s magic in the air and it could swallow you whole.

Most of the time this happens at night lending an otherworldly stillness to the evenings, but the photos below were taken at 2 pm or so on a Saturday a couple of weeks ago. It was enchanting, and I have a feeling we will dearly pay for this with crappy weather in April/May/June/July – take your pick.

Does someone want to tell me why this tree in my front yard never shed its leaves? Thanks.

Living in Canada I am often exceedingly frustrated at how much online content is not available here simply because of some arbitrary geographic restriction and outdated modes of thinking on parts of both the content providers and our very own governmental regulations. From TV shows to music files to the latest Olympic coverage I am often confronted by the screen-of-death error message that tells me I’m in the wrong part of the world to be able to watch whatever it is I was looking for. And that just pisses me off to no end. Take the latest Olympic coverage – last night I missed some event or another because I have a life occasionally and can’t be glued to the TV all day, so I optimistically thought I’d catch it online. Except for that didn’t work. Cause you see the International Olympics Committee has some sort of asshat restrictions on who is allowed rights to broadcast online in each country, so if I’m not mistaken it’s NBC in the states and CTV here. Except for CTV’s video page has all sorts of asinine clips available like someone’s workout routine and lame interviews and such, but not very many videos of the actual events where those athletes do whatever it is they do to merit an interview. I mean does anyone really go on their site to watch them light the cauldron or the opening essay, both of which are prominently featured on their sparsely populated video page? I sure don’t. I go to see actual coverage of actual events both past and present except for the content is not there. I’m sure NBC’s site has what I’m looking for (US sites in general seem to be much more on the ball about digital content), but due to asshat Canadian restrictions they can’t stream them here. See the pattern?

So in this supposedly free digital age of endless information there are oh so very many instances where people around the world are excluded from the conversation and participation by their very own governments and third party agencies that should not be allowed to have any say in who watches what when and where. It smacks of paternalism and results in mass frustration and leads users to either find the content illegally or fume silently. Perhaps once upon a time this may have made sense as many shows aired in the US much earlier than other countries and restricting online content until after the show aired was only prudent, but in this day and age of the modern media environment it seems like a throwback to the ridiculous protectionist policies that permeated earlier decades. The Olympic events already happened after all.

In my frustration I know I’m barely scratching the surface of the battle for digital freedom. Google’s skirmish with China shone a bit of a spotlight on the issue, and right now the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) is being negotiated between the US, Europe, Canada, Australia and Japan cloaked in secret negotiations and shady repercussions ranging from border searches to ISP providing information about suspected copyright infringers without a warrant. If you want to read some real scary discourse check out these posts by Michael Geist – the Canada Research Chair of Internet and E-Commerce Law at the U of Ottawa, and this brief by the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Perhaps it’s just my small-government (yeah I know, I live in the wrong country) and free market sensibilities but the fact that these policies are hammered out behind closed doors and seem to cater to corporations irk me if not outright scare me. The fact that anyone feels like they have the right to dictate when and where I can watch or listen to digital content strikes me as absurd. And the fact that CTV can’t get their site to join the 21 century is just pathetic.  I know that despite all the rhetoric we don’t live in anything approaching personal freedom but it sucks to be disillusioned this badly about the digital frontier.

There are many cons against large cities. From the crawling traffic congestion to urban sprawl, from rising crime rates to choking pollution, living in cities is not for everyone and many people long to escape, which is why vacation properties are so popular. But undeniably there are perks too. And for me one of those perks is discovering new places – new places to eat, shop, browse and in general make life more palatable and entertaining. In the last decade Calgary has reached some magic population density where new stirrings around town outnumber one person’s ability to keep track of them.  More little subcultures are developing, more restaurants opening, more small businesses are finding a niche, all of which makes for much more interesting city life.

Which is how I discovered completely fantastic churros right in Calgary, in a small restaurant in Bridgeland, which has actually been around for a few years but never made it onto my radar. One cold (is it ever anything but in Calgary?) Saturday morning I was at work in my office downtown.  (I normally never work weekends, and in fact have a personal rule to only put in overtime for an exceedingly good cause, so this was an exception). A girlfriend took pity on me and proposed going out for brunch to break up the slog of the workday.  Quickly searching a place that serves late brunch we decided to stick close to the core and ended up at Artisan Bistro in Bridgeland.

Located on a wide quiet street Artisan Bistro is a small restaurant that has managed to get plenty of accolades from the local papers. Inside it was quiet and airy with pale yellow walls, burgundy trim and white linens on all the tables. A single perfect rosebud on the table added a cheerful touch. The menu was two pages long, with brunch stuff on one side and heavier fare on the other.  They have a house granola, crepes, French toast and the usual assortment of omelets and eggs. I was seduced by the sound of El Bistro – an omelet with house chorizo, grape tomatoes, scallions and mahon cheese with pan roasted potatoes and golden grain toast.  My girlfriend was more in the mood for lunch and settled on a bowl of seafood chowder and the  Athena sandwich with grilled lamb, roasted peppers, caramelized onions and herb aioli.

The food was just shy of fantastic, firmly in the Very Good camp. The soup was hearty with real chunks of seafood, perfectly cooked veggies, homemade tasting broth, hot and creamy and utterly satisfying. The sandwich was excellent – tender flavorful lamb offset by caramelized onions and a savoury mayo. The side salad had pretty good house dressing. The omelet was tasty with good house sausage, but lacked the height of greatness that AKA Bistro’s omelet achieves. The potatoes were very good and served with ‘real’ ketchup… couldn’t resist there. The toast was surprisingly a highlight in itself, not a mere afterthought. Warm, buttery, grainy it tasted way better than any toast I’ve had lately.

But on this very momentous day, we somehow overcame our natural resistance of desserts when we saw churros on the menu. Both of us are an anomaly to womanhood in that we don’t have much of a sweet tooth and will gladly skip dessert in favor of a savory appetizer but the stars were aligned just right that day and soon the best dessert I’ve had in some time was placed before us. It’s hard to fault anything deep fried, but these strips of deep fried dough sprinkled with just enough icing sugar to enhance their taste and served with the richest, smoothest, most decadent cup of dark chocolate were a revelation. Crunchy, warm and – this is key – not too sweet they were a perfect dessert.  And now I understand how they’re such a hit in Spain, at a much lower cost than a plane ticket.

Cool walkway in the back

4/5

Artisan Bistro

809 1 Avenue NE
Calgary, AB T2E 0C2
(403) 263-3727 

All Day Bruch:  Wednesday – Sunday 9:00 AM – 3:00 PM

(kitchen closes at  2:30)
Dinner: Friday – Saturday 6 :00PM – 10:00PM

(kitchen closes at  9:30)

One of the neatest parts of the year is upon us – browsing the gardening catalogues for next seasons’ seeds. Now, I’m the last person to get all excited by catalogues (I have weird Sears associations), and gardening too (it’s a lot of work people), but on a damp and chilly February day there is nothing better than to day dream of summer, sunshine and fresh veggies.

There are several reasons I garden – one is the need to maintain the beautiful flower beds I inherited from the previous owners, two is the desire to learn to grow my own food and increase my independence, three is the desire to learn something new once in a while, four is the incomparable taste of produce straight off the garden bed, and five because I love to eat.

While preparing myself for the first forays into gardening I read a load of books, websites and the like. The great Gardening When It Counts was an invaluable guide into the fascinating world of seeds, from the seed growing market to seed trials which reputable companies perform. I learned seed quality, the many assets of fine seeds and how not to fail at growing them. All of this was not as boring as it may sound as Steve Solomon is an excellent writer and storyteller. He sold me on searching out fine seed varieties NOT the wee plants from your local garden centre and taught me to ensure success.

I turned to Salt Spring Seeds for a vendor because of the great variety of heirloom seeds that they carry and because they provide real taste descriptions not just the catalogue jargon that larger companies have. Then we were hit with the worst summer in history and all my yields were off, but that’s beside the point because my fewer than expected tomatoes kicked the pants off my pro gardener father-in-laws tomatoes. His were fine, but average – like very good supermarket tomatoes. Mine were a revelation. This year I am browsing their site yet again, and suffering from analysis paralysis while I do so, because their offerings are larger than ever.

How do you decide between the ‘taste surprise of 2009’ and ‘picture perfect fruit with rich sweet flavour’? Do I want rich and fruity with some zest or unsurpassed acid but unique and complex flavor? That’s like asking a mother to pick her favorite child. I wish I could grow them all, but in all seriousness I guess I’ll just order way too many seeds and frantically try to find room for the huge plants they will inevitably become.

** By the way the beauty above is Valencia – one of the best tomatoes I’ve ever tasted.

*** Also check out the wonderful idea on organizing your seeds by when they should be started from Old House, Old Garden.

I’m back. Literally and figuratively. Since working non-stop since mid-December, celebrating a birthday and taking a quick week off to jaunt over to a slightly warmer but much prettier British Columbia, I am finally easing back into my slightly boring but predictable schedule. Over the last few weeks I ate a ton of food, skied a ton of slopes, ate some very expensive jam (which I will tell you about in due course), read some great books, and in general kept myself all too occupied, which happens to be one of my least favorite things to do. I enjoy my downtime and go out of my way to plan a life where I have plenty of it.

But in the meantime I was looking at this picture of a bunny I took some weeks ago, and pondering the huge abundance of wildlife that shares with us this land called Canada. It’s kind of hard for people here to understand, but this is one of the very few places in the world where animals and humans share any kind of space voluntarily. In most countries the only birds you see are pigeons and the only animals the stray cats and dogs skulking in the streets. The rest are scarce to the point of extreme rareness and reticence.

Many people that move here cannot believe that rabbits and deer are frequent visitors within the city, fearlessly venturing on our lawns and hopping our fences. That squirrels are not only common, but cheeky, and that folks routinely name the chipmunks that drop by to pilfer bird feeders. They are astounded to hear coyotes howling at night, and see huge elk crossing the highways, never mind the foxes, ducks, geese and many other denizens of any average Canadian neighborhood. Certainly no bears have ever entered their hospitals like they did here a while back, and no animal crossings are built so that critters can cross the highways safely.

The reason animals shy away from people in most of the world is because they are prey there, and feel it keenly. The plump ducks, geese and rabbits would quickly be poached by families thankful for a free dinner, deer would be poached too, never mind the season, fish would be caught until there’s none left, and the predators would simply be exterminated. Not that North America doesn’t have those tendencies from time to time, but overall animals fare much better here than elsewhere.

It’s funny to me how we mourn the animals that have to be shot due to posing a hazard to people and whose numbers drop as we take over their habitat, but as soon as an enterprising species acclimatizes itself to living around us we call them a nuisance, like the unfortunate seagulls, pigeons and gophers. Methinks we’d be better off celebrating their adaptable natures that ensure their survival and take the occasional inconvenience they pose with humor if not grace.

I have not died.

I have not fallen off the face of the earth.

I have not contracted a mysterious disease that makes my skin fall off.

I have not been kidnapped by aliens and violated in uncomfortable ways.

I have simply been very very very, exceedingly, extremely busy with this thing called work (that I resent more and more the older I get). See in the accounting world we have this crap called year end. All you need to know about year end is that it entails shoving accounting data furiously into the system with a big shovel so that as much data is captured as possible for financial reporting.  Since our little company is still a bit understaffed (just not according to management), that means some long days and tired evenings for moi, especially given the fact that I’ve also gotten back on the exercising wagon. But I promise to be back very soon with a glimpse into a typical house in Cuba, a new place to eat brunch and new ponderings about the state of the world.

See ya soon!

We sit on the patio outside the hotel lobby and drink illicit pina coladas. Illicit because Raul is not a guest at the hotel and is technically not allowed on the grounds without purchasing a day pass which he could never afford. I didn’t get him one because he can’t take a day off from his school and work and is coming to see me for a couple of hours in the evening.

He’s lost a lot of weight since we met two years ago, and doesn’t want his picture taken.

“Why?” I ask.

He’s uncomfortable at the question, but answers in halting English.

‘Because when I go fishing the water is very cold’ he says. ‘And sometimes I don’t have time for lunch, only breakfast and dinner.’

My brother and I met Raul on the beach where tourists are taken to go snorkeling at the coral reef in 2007. He was selling shell necklaces to supplement his meager income and he spoke some English that he learned from a book a tourist left behind. My brother fell to talking with him and invited him to come back to our hotel so he could pick up a shirt that my brother promised to give him. When we exit the hotel lobby he is waiting for us perched on the concrete railing looking distinctly shy. He’s brought a canvas bag as a present for us in exchange for the shirt. Galvanized into action my mother who has a heart of gold and endless generosity stuffs his bag with all the items we can possibly leave behind – sandals, toiletries, clothes, hats and such small items that we always leave behind for the staff.

Several drinks later we learn a little bit about him, he lives with his father and extended family in Cardenas – a small city close to Varadero. He goes to school to learn English to he can work with the tourists. He wanted to get a sociology degree but working with tourists will enable him to survive whereas the government salary will not. When he’s not in school he fishes for the simple reasons of needing to eat. Every day he fishes from about six am to sometime in the afternoon, and goes to school four days a week. He can’t skip a day or the fish will drown, or someone else will empty the traps. His catch feeds his family, neighbors, friends and any excess sold to pay for the basics of life which there are never enough of.

If he’s very lucky, after he’s done two more years of school he can get a job at the airport or hotel. He doesn’t understand why he earns his money in pesos but has to pay for everything in tourist dollars. For that matter neither do I. The prices of goods are about the same – an ice cream on the side of the road costs 1.00 CUC, soap costs about 2.00 CUC and a pair of shoes 40.00 CUC. For people that earn 15-20 CUC per month the cost of living far outpaces their ability to pay.

‘When I moved here to go to high school’ he tells me, ‘I could not afford shoes.  I was very lucky when a cousin went to Miami, as he left me all his shirts and shoes’.

I have nothing to say to that. I’ve known poverty when we first immigrated to Canada with nothing but four suitcases, but it was a genteel poverty compared to his. I’ve never gone without shoes or not had enough food to eat. Yet this is his daily life and the daily life of all the citizens of that mismanaged and beleaguered island. With very little private enterprise and oppressive and constant governmental control citizens must do what they can to survive, be it engage in black markets or try to engage tourists to spare a buck to complement their income.

Since we met we’ve corresponded with Raul several times, with a few letters and parcels going missing. The first thing he asked for as we told him we’re sending him gifts? An English Spanish dictionary. Now that I see how much weight he’s lost and how hard he works I wish I feel a deep sense of injustice. It is not lack of willingness to work or a lack of opportunities that keeps him struggling to live, but a government that is totalitarian and obsolete and rules all areas of life including food production that accounts for the horrific shortages Cubans experience daily.

We sip drinks on the patio until the guard approaches and tells him he has to leave.

I walk him to the bus bound for his hometown, hug him goodbye and tell him we will help however we can, and that I hope there are major changes in Cuba soon.