Author: cultureguru

Ambling, eating, and a bit of biking: Quebec 2024

A couple weeks before, I was feeling somewhat despondent about our pending vacation to Quebec City and Montreal, as the weather forecast seemed to be predicting rain, with some more rain, then a side order of rain. 🌧

But as of a week before, the forecast had completed flipped to sun, more sun, and a side of sun. This really perked me up. But I still had to deal with the jitters and the actual work of prepping to go. (Hiring a housesitter is great for the cats, but does mean having to prepare the house for a guest along with organizing oneself to be away.) 😟

The first night of vacation, I was back to dispirited. Lying in an overheated hotel room on a gray day in the uninspiring town of Drummondville, Quebec after an indifferent meal of St Hubert chicken, I wondered what the points of this was. Wouldn’t I be better off in my house, with its working air conditioner, and cute kitties? 😿

Six nights later, after a lovely dinner of French food on a beautiful patio with my best guy, I felt relaxed and content. Which I guess was the point? 🌞

Jean on a patio in Old Montreal.

Itinerary

We were away from Sunday, September 8 to Saturday September 14.

  • Day 1: Just a driving day; we got as far as Drummondville, Quebec.
  • Days 2 to 4: Québec City
  • Days 5 and 6: Montreal
  • Day 7: Another driving day to back home

Activities

Mainly, it was a lot of ambling, first around the Old Town of Québec City, then around the various neighbourhoods of Montreal. While no longer in the height of summer, Québec City was still pretty crowded with tourists, especially when the huge cruise ships were docked. But our hotel was very centrally located, so it was easy to walk to any part of Old Quebec.

Quebec City view.
Lovely view of the Quebec City port

Montreal is always a busy big city, of course. Our hotel was close to both downtown and Old Montreal, but not in either. So here we supplemented the walking with taking the métro. Figuring out the metro cards was a bit frustrating, but the system itself was great.

Leonard Cohen mural over patios in Montreal.
Crescent Street in Montreal

I was pleased to find how much my French came back to me on this trip—not that you can’t manage in English in both cities. But living la vie bilingue again was fun.

We fit in a few other items between the ambling (and eating. A lot of eating.)

Musée de la civilisation (Museum of Civilization)

It’s quite modern and interactive and full of technological gizmos. Featured exhibits on gladiators in Rome and wrestling in Québec were pretty good. But my favourite was the section on Québecois rap. There you had to don head phones that activated based on what exhibits you were standing near. You got the history of that type of music in this part of the world, and samples of it. It was kind of neat!

Map of the world in clothing tags.
The only picture I have from the museum. This map of the world is made up of clothing tags.

Ile d’Orléans

We’ve been before, so didn’t do as many stops this time. The best new discovery was Du Capitaine—Ferme, Vinaigrerie, Distillerie (the captain—farm, vinegars, distillery). We spoke at length with the owner and got to try various interesting vinegars and liqueurs, then buy a number for home use.

Flowers.
Not sure this photo was taken on the island, but it was definitely taken on this trip!

The best revisit was Vignoble du Mitan, where they make a lot of wines with the Vancliche grape that is native to the island. The guide to our tasting was very knowledgeable tasting, and we found that we enjoyed quite a few bottles, so they got patriated, also.

Bike tour

In Montreal we signed up for a three-hour bike tour of the city. This was possible for me because Ca Roule Montreal (Montreal On Wheels) offers ebike options for all of their guided tours. I of course went with that, and Jean decided to do the same. I was somewhat worried about riding an ebike that wasn’t the one type I had, and with keeping up with the group, but these proved to be no problem. I adjusted pretty easily to the bike (found it easier than mine, in some ways) and kept up no problem, given that the other five people on the tour (and the guide) were on regular bikes.

Map of Montreal showing bike tour route.
This was the route we took

It was fun. The other participants were five guys from the States who were in Montreal for the first time. It was mostly on bike paths, which are very good in this city and were neat to experience. And we were guided through the street parts. We would stop and the guide would give us facts about the city. The only riding I found tricky was through McGill campus, simply because it was so crowded.

On the menu

So much eating! It was a great week in these two very foodie cities.

Coffees and cafes

Sure, you can get a good latte and some nice pastries in Waterloo. But it felt like these were just so everywhere, and so good, in Québec and Montreal. And even Drummondville! Whether the Van Houtte coffee chain, the independant Baguette et Chocolat that became our Québec City breakfast go-to, or the lovely Columbian Cafe in Montreal, it was all caffeinated bliss.

The fancy dinner

Tuesday evening was also somewhat cool in Québec, which made patio options a dodgy prospect that day. We’d been talking about getting back to Le St. Amour restaurant for some time, and Google Maps reported that Tuesdays were typically their quietest day.

There was still some hemming and hawing over whether to go, because on perusal of their menu, we weren’t sure about the entrée (main course) options. But yeah, in the end, we went, early, sans reservation, and they were able to accommodate.

Amuse of fish-shaped cracker thing on little pates.
Appetizers of various kinds of foie gras.
At St Amour, not being disappointed by the amuse bouche and the hors d’oeuvre

The wine ordering was interesting, as the menu is 75 pages. We picked one bottle out (there wasn’t much by the glass), but said we’d be open to other suggestions. The sommelier came back with a map of the world to show the various areas of the lighter-style red wines he’d suggest and why. In the end, we picked the cheapest one he recommended, which was $105.

It was in fact delicious.

I resolved my main course dilemma by ordering a large appetizer to start—the beautiful platter pictured above—then followed with another appetizer, a seafood medley. Jean was more traditional, and had an actual main course of lobster. And we both had dessert. I don’t now remember what that were, but it was fantastic. The whole meal was fantastic, the room still beautiful with its natural light and high ceiling (excellent CO2 readings!), the service perfection.

Patio moods

We had many meals on patios, but they each had their own “feel”.

La Buchette. Now we’re on vacation: Our first meal in Québec City, this popular restaurant is right on the main St-Jean stretch. It had an excellent charcuterie board.

Charcuterie board on patio with blue umbrellas and glasses of wine.
Entering vacation mode at La Buchette.

Le Lapin Sauté: Cozy and casual. Located in lower town, they specialize in duck and rabbit. We had the main course platter; all good, with amazing confit in particular. The desserts were also nice. And we talked to people at the neighbouring table here, a rarity for us!

Umbrellas and a big pink man in lower town Quebec, looking up at Chateau Frontenac.
Le Lapin Saute is near this area. The pink dude was part of an art installation. He showed up in various public spaces in both Québec City and Montreal.

L’Echaudé: Joie de vivre. A discovery of the trip, L’Echaudé is also in lower town, a French bistro. The appetizers and main courses were great, and we were both excited to see tarte au sucre (sugar pie) on the dessert menu (which we had in the form of a dessert platter with other delicious things).

Dessert platter of tarte au sucre, creme brulee, meringue, sorbet.
Duck confit.
Lobster popper.
Foie gras with toppings.
Gallery of items from L’Echaudé.

Terrasse Place d’Arme: Cinq à sept night life. A rooftop terrace in Old Montreal. It was crowded (but not too crowded), there was music (but not too loud), well-dressed people, and a great view. Food wasn’t bad, either! Nor was the company.

Jean on terrace at Place d'Armes.

Boqueria Tapa Bar: Bustling. We stopped at this busy tapas bar after our bike ride, when drinks and some smaller plates seemed just the ticket at this point. The first picture on this blog post was taken there.

Bistro La Fabrique: Date night. Our last dinner of the trip was selected and booked just a couple hours before we went, and what a capper! It was at a French bistro on St-Denis, which was nicely decorated with fabric and plants. Though busy inside, we had the patio almost to ourselves (which the waiter was mystified about, as it was an absolutely gorgeous day). It made for a lovely, relaxed dinner.

The menu was very France French, with wine offered by the cL instead of by the bottle or glass, and items like rillettes, terrine, and tartare. I had the slightly less French (I suppose) squash ravioli with beets, Brussels sprouts, hazelnuts, and wild mushroom foam—fantastic. For dessert, we puzzled over what a verrine was (same word used on French and English menus), but ordered it anyway. Turned out to be a jar, filled with fig, nectarine, apricot cream, lemon foam, and hazelnut praline crumble. Mm, mm, good.

Hotels: Meh

The Drummondville Travelodge, booked in Expedia enroute, was renovated and very clean, but as previously noted, was difficult to keep cool enough.

Our Québec City hotel, Terrasse Dufferin, had a great location right by the Chateau Frontenac. But the room was quite small and a bit run down. The bathroom sink had two separate faucets. The shower had trouble maintaining temperature. The room could be a bit stuffy. There was no hair dryer. That sort of thing.

Quebec City port and Chateau Frontenac.
Our hotel was right around here.

Our Montreal hotel, Le Nouvel Hotel, was the biggest and newest of the lot, and had the best-functioning climate control. It offered a Chromecast-type television service, but I couldn’t work out how to connect my apps to it. It also had a bit of cockroach issue…

Precautions

We took some of those! Covid projections for that time weren’t great, but we were lucky enough to be able to do most activities outdoors, and then we supplemented with:

  • Mini HEPA filter for the hotel rooms.
  • Antihistamines, H1 (Allegra) and H2 (Pepcid), taken daily.
  • Nasal sprays before and after more crowded maskless activities.
  • Respirator masks, for places like the Montreal métro (where, hey, we weren’t the only ones!).
  • Laminar personal air purifier to blow clean air onto my face when indoor dining. Less obtrusive than I initially feared (you can see it in the pictures of the St Amour).
  • CO2 monitor, which is merely informative, not actually protective. Biggest surprise: The great readings on the Montreal métro stations and trains.

Whoo, that’s a lot! But if it’s still not enough, you can read this again, with a bit more detail on some aspects, at this location: https://culturearchive.ca/quebec-city-and-montreal-2024/

Candelight concert

Gotta hand it to Instagram: They have quite the good, personalized advertising engine. I find most of the products they push on me somewhat interesting. I have gone on to buy from far more than any other social media site, I’m sure.

And generally I’ve liked the products just fine!

I can’t always ferret out how they go from the posts I look at on Instagram to they advertisements they sneak in between, but one recent link was pretty clear: Brian May / Rufus Taylor / Adam Lambert > Fever Presents Candlelight Concerts: The Music of Queen. At Maxwell’s, in Waterloo.

But what are Candlelight Concerts?

That took a bit of off-Instagram research. Basically, it’s a string quartet! (At least, this show was.) As for the candlelight, well, they do decorate the venue with a bunch of electric candles. And they perform music by popular artists such as Taylor Swift, Abba, and Queen—interspersed with a few classical pieces. And they do some outright classical concerts.

It all sounded interesting enough. Jean and I decided to go.

We hadn’t been to Maxwell’s since seeing Lowest of the Low there many moons ago. This time there were seats! Along with very strict rules about getting there on time, not getting up during the performance, and not using your phone to take pictures or video until the last song. And an expected show time of 1 hour.

But despite all that structure, it was a pretty relaxed fun, evening. They did introduce each song, and I really enjoyed the way they arranged them for the four stringed instruments. The interspersed classical pieces were things like excerpts from Mozart’s The Magic Flute. I won’t remember all the Queen songs included, but there was Don’t Stop Me, Fat Bottomed Girls, Somebody to Love, Bohemian Rhapsody (natch), and this one:

Another One Bites the Dust (I recorded just the sound of the last song, since I find my videos never turn out that well. Sound isn’t terrible!)

More summering, more updates

Because it’s the most important topic ever, I’ll get y’all up to speed on my latest hair colour, while also providing a bit of a “tour de restaurant patios”.

First up, at Loloan Lobby Bar, you can see that the hair is kind of rose gold (and also windswept, and also my makeup is quite faded, but oh well).

Diner with rose gold hair in front of plate with scallops.

We biked over to the Loloan that Tuesday for dinner, and partook of their new summer menu. It was very good!

Then a couple weeks later, behold the blonde look at our anniversary dinner (32 years married, 36 together) chez The Odd Duck.

Blonde in white dress at patio table with red drink in foreground.

I now I understand why Jean commented on how their patio lacked charm—I hadn’t realized til looking at these pictures how much of the street view he was seeing! My view was pretty different…

Coffee pot, cheesecake, man in sunglasses against patio walls.

… because the canvas did block the streetscape for me. (Also note Jean’s weight loss, hey?) We’ll have to trade seats next time to be fair.

Regardless of charm or lack thereof, we both really enjoyed the meal. They know their food, and their wine, at The Odd Duck.

I ended up selecting a semi-permanent colour called light golden brown to dye my hair. I was quite happy with the result. You can pretty much see it in the photo below (along with more faded makeup—I’m really bad about reapplying makeup) from our dinner at Arlo, in Ottawa, last week.

Woman with golden brown hair in front of plates of appetizers.

Arlo also had excellent food! It’s been a good run. This isn’t even a complete list.

A couple days after our anniversary dinner, we biked over to Babylon Wine Sisters to meet some friends for vino and a meal. Less elaborate than these other places, but still très bon. And perfect weather for it.

Woman with cheese ball and sauce.
This was some sort of cheese bombé situation…

And our other big dinner in Ottawa, at Fairouz Cafe, was also fantastic and creative. Halloumi cheese with cappuccino cream, dates, and figs; duck confit flatbread; babaganoush with shaved truffle!

Foregrounded Brussels sprouts, duck flatbread, with cappuccino cream and babaganoush in the background.

And between meals…

we did a few other things. The Friday before leaving for Ottawa, we went to see Something Rotten in Stratford. Lordy, that was funny! It’s set in the time of Shakespeare. Two brothers are trying to compete with him as playwrights. With the help of a soothsayer, they come up with the idea of producing the world’s first musical!

It ends up mocking / paying tribute to numerous musicals, as well as various Shakespearean plays, and it’s all just delightful.

As for the trip to Ottawa, that went well! It was very hot and humid, but we managed by doing our longer walks more in the morning, and spending afternoons in cooler museums or drinking iced beverages. Our hotel, the Sonder Rideau, was very spacious and well-equipped, and located right downtown, so that was all good. We visited KIN Winery, the Canada Aviation and Space Museum, and Rockcliffe Park. If you’d like more details and photos, I’ve posted them here: Ottawa 2024.

Ottawa Rideau canal.
Great photo by Jean from that trip

The poop scoop

I and fellow activists have not been successful in saving the Ontario Wastewater Surveillance Program, but there have been some minor accomplishments:

  • Quite a few media articles about it, in The Globe and Mail, The Toronto Star, CBC, CTV News, the Tyee. The Health Minister got asked about it at a media scrum, which seemed to make her cranky. It’s definitely something, as other program cancellations have gone mostly unremarked.
  • The cities of Ottawa and London have come up with funding to continue the program, in a somewhat reduced capacity, for 2 or 3 more months. (Peterborough and Windsor might also have cobbled something together; not as sure here.)
  • The Federal government has given official statements that confirm the Ontario government has been lying about the reason for cancelling it (their claim was that the Federal government was taking it over):
    • The Federal program does not duplicate what the Ontario one did.
    • The Federal expansion will not result in a system as comprehensive as Ontario’s was.
    • Ontario did not consult or collaborate with the Federal government on coordinating wastewater testing programs.

I personally got a flurry of email responses about this in recent days, from the Mayor of Waterloo, the Chair of Waterloo Region, and my Federal MP, Bardish Chagger.

Solé hair and restaurant, and some updates

I generally don’t spend too much time thinking about or working on my hair. I have a short cut that suits its thin, straight essence, and a hairdresser who knows how to maintain that. “Styling” it takes only minutes.

But I’ve been getting so many comments on it lately. And that’s all because of the colour. A colour people naturally assume I deliberately selected for my hair. Which I kind of did, but it’s not so simple.

The hair is getting pretty gray now, but I’ve still been dyeing it. A while back, though, I switched to Clairol Natural Instincts, which has no ammonia. I figured that should be less harsh (and hopefully less likely to give me cancer or whatever). But it’s a semi-permanent colour. So it gradually fades away.

Clairol Natural Instincts Medium Auburn Brown box.

I selected Medium Auburn Brown. It looks lovely on the box. On me, when first applied, it looks more like, “Holy crap, that’s really red.” (Interestingly, I got some compliments at this stage, also. It was certainly vibrant!)

But then it fades to something closer to medium auburn brown.

Then it keeps going, to kind of a rose-gold colour, which I rather like. There are gray roots by this point as well, but they actually blend in reasonably well with the rose gold, which I also like. Because overall it means no big rush to dye the hair again.

But then it keeps going, and now I’m kind of… blonde? With more significant gray roots, which still kind of blend in. I don’t hate it, but I’m not sure what my end game is now.

Four people on patio table. Both women look blonde.
Not sure how evident my hair colour is in this photo, but it’s the only recent one I have.

Unless I embrace all-over gray next, I’m going to have to dye it again, but I’m a bit mystified about to how to approach that. Do I do the whole medium auburn brown cycle again from the start? Or do I start with something lighter in the first place?

I’m not sure how much “rose gold” hair dye there is on the shelf. And if I go with some sort of blondish brown situation, what is that going to fade to? Platinum?

While I ponder that, I will mention that the photo above was taken on the Solé patio on Canada Day. It was our first time at Solé since the ownership change (and our friends’ first time sitting on this particular patio!). We were all quite impressed with the place. It is perhaps the nicest patio in the region. But the food, in the past, could tend to be… uneven.

This time, everything was really great. Between us we sampled three appetizers, one main, and a dessert. High marks for everything, and I think Solé could be worth visiting for an all-out dinner.

The updates

My non-dairy quest has uncovered the most delicious vegan ice cream yet: Honey’s Premium rocky road. Made with “cashew cream”. And in-house marshmallows. Oh my, oh my. So creamy. So delicious.

Honey's Premium Plant Based Ice Cream: Rocky Road.

And while I haven’t heard back from any more Conservative MPPs—guess they’re pretty busy trying to keep Ontarians drunk—I did drop another line to Waterloo Regional Council for an update. I quite promptly got a detailed and personal response from Colleen James, the Kitchener representative who put forth the motion to try to get the federal government to invest in the wastewater surveillance system locally. She said they are consulting with the University of Waterloo as well. Here’s hoping something can be cobbled together, though I expect there will be some kind of data gap after the provincial system closes down in a few short weeks.

In the meantime, let’s admire this lovely local graph while we still can:

Waterloo wastewater chart for the last 36 months, showing peaks in January 2022 and 2024 and a currently rising trend.

Don’t let our waste go to waste

Imagine, if you will, a system of disease surveillance that doesn’t rely on expensive and painful tests. It does not require us to get swabs stuck up our noses, needles poked into our arms, or even to answer banal questions about symptoms. Instead, this system asks us to go about our regular day, sleeping, waking, eating, and…. defecating… exactly as we would normally. In this system, heroic nerds—out of sight and out of mind—scoop and test samples of sewage in order to tell us whether disease rates are either concerning or tolerable.

Now imagine that shortsighted policymakers decide to defund such a surveillance system, just as its worth and pioneering quality are being celebrated worldwide.

Dr Raywat Deonandan, When The Poop Hits The Fan — Ontario wastewater testing needs to be expanded, not stripped back, Canada Healthwatch

Of course, you don’t have to imagine it, because that’s exactly what’s happening in the Province of Ontario. Dr. Deonandan’s short article linked does a great job of explaining why this is bad; the key points being:

  • It’s really the only metric we have left for informing the public about current infection risk
  • Vulnerable individuals require such information to determine what activities they can do when
  • It’s a useful source for ongoing scientific research into various infectious diseases and conditions
  • It can serve as an early warning system of new threats

The Ontario government points out that the Federal government is planning to expand its wastewater system in Ontario, suggesting that means that the provincial system is no longer needed. Problem is, all evidence suggests that the Federal system will be a poor cousin to what is in place now:

  • Far fewer sites (59 now, down to maybe 8)
  • Much slower release of information
  • No direct ties to hospitals, universities, and public health units
  • Less informative: fewer diseases covered, weaker data analysis

Let’s do a chart comparison. In Winter 2023, Ontario experienced the second biggest Covid wave ever. In Spring 2023, Ontario Covid rates dropped to the lowest level of the Omicron era. Which government agency’s wastewater data conveyed this information most clearly?

The Federal government’s?

Toronto wastewater data, federal

Or the Ontario government’s (GTA = Greater Toronto area)?

COVID wastewater signal GTA, Ontario chart.

My response

As I still (quite unfashionably) feel that Covid is a disease best avoided, I still (even more unfashionably) make some efforts to avoid catching it. This has included periodically checking these charts to assess how much vigilance is currently warranted.

I’m not really sure what I’ll do without that option. Just give up? (I don’t think I can just give up.) Stay at highest alert levels always? (I don’t think I can do that, either.)

It seems very unfair for government / public health to say “Make your own risk assessment!”, then remove any way doing that. So, I have tried to both raise public awareness about this, and contacted various levels of government to complain.

ActionResult
Emailed CBC KW (the region’s most popular morning radio station) to ask them to cover the story.They did a story on it the following week. And they emailed me back to thank me for suggesting it and for giving them a lead on who to interview for it.
Emailed the Big Story podcast to ask them to cover the story.No response and they haven’t covered the story.
Wrote a letter to the editor in the Waterloo Region Record (the local paper).They published it.
Wrote to complain to the Premier, the Minister of Health, and the Minister of the Environment of Ontario.The Ministry of the Environment emailed back saying to not worry my pretty little head about it, that they’re working with the Federal government to keep something going. (I might be paraphrasing.)
Wrote to my MPP, who is an Opposition member.She wrote back saying she agreed it was a terrible decision, and encouraged me to also complain to the government. (Her party has also spoken out against this decision.)
Wrote to some Waterloo Regional Council members, suggesting that they should lobby the Ontario government to not cancel the program.Did not hear back a thing from any of them. However, at one of their subsequent meetings, they did agree to contact the Federal government to try to get them to keep the program going.
Wrote to MPPs in the region who belong to the governing party to point out that it appeared that other cities were going to get some wastewater monitoring, but Waterloo wasn’t, and that wasn’t fair, since we pay as much as taxes as they do (that’s me trying to speak Conservative).TBD, because I just did that.

What you can do

Various sites make it pretty fast and easy to write your own letter of complaint (thanks to John Dupuis for compiling)…

  • Safe Care Ontario: Email template you can copy (and adapt, if you’re ambitious) and a list of the email addresses to send it to you. (Also material for other valuable campaigns you can join in on, should you be even more ambitious.)
  • Still COVIDing Canada: Handy-dandy mailto: links for key provicial politicians, and another email template. Bonus: email template and contact information for municipal politicians in Waterloo (hey, that’s my town!) and Ottawa.
  • Wastewater Advocacy Resources: Google Drive with contact information, email script, phone script, and social media post suggestions.

And I dare say that even you don’t live in Ontario, don’t let that stop you! (Though you might want to adapt the email wording…) The data is serving international research purposes; as with this article in the scientific Nature journal: SARS-CoV-2 viral titer measurements in Ontario, Canada wastewaters throughout the COVID-19 pandemic:

When integrated with other types of epidemiological data, WBS can contribute to a more holistic understanding of disease incidence at both the provincial and national levels in Canada. The extensive dataset and comprehensive methodology outlined in this manuscript, which includes specific normalization techniques, is not only instrumental in improving the current understanding of SARS-CoV-2 WBS but also holds promise for helping public health units and researchers make better predictions for future outbreaks of similar viral diseases. This set of protocols can be adapted by other research institutions or public health agencies interested in employing WBS.

Don’t have a cow, man

Giving up eating beef and drinking glasses of milk was pretty easy. Could I go further?

Instances of Avian flu keep turning up in mammals. Most concerning of late to us human mammals are cases in cows in America. Cats drinking raw cow milk haven’t fared well. Not to worry, they say, because pasteurization kills the virus. Or does it? Well, nothing’s been found so far in commercial pasteurized milk. Especially in Canada. But how hard are we looking?

Overall, I don’t know if the potential risk of HPAI (highly pathogenic avian influenza) is itself reason enough to cut back on consuming beef and dairy.

I do know that there are plenty of other reasons to consider doing that:

  • For your tummy! A lot of people are lactose intolerant. Not everyone who is knows it.
  • For the climate! Cows are the most emissions-intensive animals to raise.
  • For the cows! The life quality of dairy or beef cattle on factory farms… isn’t great.
  • For the humans! Migrant farm workers, in particular, are often exploited.

It’s all got me thinking… Maybe I could at least cut back?

Where’s the beef?

The meat part is done and dusted. I gave up eating beef years ago.

To be honest, I didn’t do it for any of the fine reasons I listed above. Since being a teenager, I’d been a little suspicious of ground beef. I wondered, what was really in that burger? But I didn’t entirely stop eating them until I read Fast Food Nation, which provided an answer:

There is shit in the meat.

Eric Schlosser, Fast Food Nation

(Here I feel compelled to point out that Fast Food Nation was published way back in 2001. Maybe the sanitary conditions have improved since then. Maybe there isn’t so much shit in the meat now. I dunno. I haven’t looked into it.)

Steak, though less shitty, was excised from my diet some time after that, more as a health measure. To follow that general “try to eat less red meat” advice.

Got milk?

Drinking milk all by itself, in a glass, is also something I gave up decades ago. And again, not for any particularly high-minded reasons. At some point, as a teenager, I just decided I preferred drinking other beverages.

Silk unsweetened almond milk.
Silk unsweetened is generally my favourite almond milk

But I continued to use milk as an ingredient. Continue. It’s not a past tense thing. But, I have reduced it, without much pain.

Almond milk, for some time now, has become my go-to for smoothies and hot cereals, because I enjoy the almond flavor with those foods. And while almond milk is not the most environmental choice of milk alternative, it’s still more environmental than dairy milk.

It’s also lower in carbs than dairy milk, if you care about that sort of thing.

And while I haven’t tried this yet—because I don’t bake that much—I’ve read that barista-style oat milk is the best substitute for dairy milk in many recipes. Speaking of which…

You’re the cream in my coffee

Elmhurst Oat Creamer, unsweetened.

Finding an alternative to cream for my coffee was initially a challenge, because many non-dairy creamers contain sugar. I don’t like my coffee to be sweetened, and I don’t need any extra sugar in my diet in general.

But Elmhurst makes an unsweetened oat coffee creamer that I like just fine. It also works for me in black tea. Not going to lie—it has a somewhat different taste than milk / cream, so it might not work for you. But could be worth a try. And oat is a really good environmental choice.

Continue reading “Don’t have a cow, man” →

Mercer and Arden, kids and the symphony, and more odd ducks

The only problem with having events scheduled for sequential Saturdays was that it was getting in the way of movie night. By the third week, we solved our dilemma by watching a movie on Friday night.

Radical, huh?

Anyone but You was quite entertaining. Very funny in parts. As long as you’re good with the whole romantic comedy genre, I say go for it.

But, on to the events.

The will they or won’t they tour: Jann Arden & Rick Mercer

Chronologically, this was first up. Not only for our series of outings, but also for Jann Arden and Rick Mercer, who began their tour of the country in Kitchener. Jann Arden is a singer/songwriter (and also actor and novelist). Rick Mercer is a satirist, comedian, and author.

The Will or Won't They Tour poster: Jann Arden & Rick Mercer.

How the two met was something Rick explained during their live “Night of laughs and intimate conversation”. He was in Calgary filming a bit for his show, Rick Mercer Report. Only the bit was a flop—wasn’t going to air. They had to quickly come up with something else. One suggestion he got was to have Jann Arden give him a tour of Calgary. And he was like, “Jann Arden? Great singer, but I think she’s a depressive!”

Continue reading “Mercer and Arden, kids and the symphony, and more odd ducks” →

Relationship lessons from movies

Without meaning to, we went through a series of movies about couples (before breaking the spell with Marcel the Shell with Shoes On, which is very sweet, and not in a bad way): You Hurt My Feelings, Anatomy of a Fall, Simple comme Sylvain / The Nature of Love, and Past Lives. These are the key questions each one seems to address.

You Hurt My Feelings

Is honesty the best policy?

The least artsy of this collection of movies, I suppose, it centres on a happily married couple, Beth and Don, whose relationship is shook when she overhears him honestly tell his brother-in-law that he didn’t like her novel, which is still working its way toward publication. Things become tense and initially, Don has no idea why.

Beth and Don are also having work struggles: Don is a psychiatrist with some unhappy clients, who feel that he hasn’t really helped them. Beth is stunned to discover that the students in her small writing class not only hadn’t read her previous book; they didn’t even know she’d written one. And their son is wilting under the pressure of their expectations, and is angry about it.

So yeah, it’s a movie about relatively privileged people and their relatively minor personal problems. But it’s snappily written, funny, and very well cast, with Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Tobias Menzies as the lead characters. Jean and I both enjoyed it.

As to the question… Well, in life, as in the movie, sometimes you do want to blunt your honesty in order to be encouraging. But it can go too far. At a certain point, a relationship should be strong enough to handle the truth that you don’t, in fact, appreciate those V-neck sweaters you’ve been gifted with every year.

Anatomy of a Fall

Who lives, who dies, who tells your story?

OK, the question is from Hamilton, but it still seems apropos for this movie. The husband and father, Samuel, dies at the start of it, from falling out of his office window. His wife Sandra is the only one home at time. Their partly sighted son Daniel is the one who comes across the body, after a walk with his dog. We, the audience, don’t see what caused the fall.

Sandra lives, Samuel dies, but who tells the story? Initially, Sandra, mostly, as she’s trying to defend herself against an accusation of murder. Daniel also participates, and in doing so, realizes that he has decide what he believes is the truth about what he heard. But in one of the movies many twists—the nature of which I won’t reveal—even Samuel is able to give some input as to his state of mind at the time.

This was a fascinating one, and I came to my own conclusions about what I believed happened—but not because the movie spoon-fed them to me. The facts remain ambiguous to the end, a fact Jean found deeply unsettling.

Simple comme Sylvain / The Nature of Love

Do opposites attract?

Sometimes, for sure, and this movie, the most popular Québecois film of 2023, presents one such case. Sophia, a philosophy professor, is in a comfortable but staid long-term relationship with another professor when she meets Sylvain, a handsome craftsman hired to do some renovations on her country home. Sophia and Sylvain’s attraction is quick and deep and soon consummated. And consummated again. And again.

Though she initially tells herself it will just be a fling, ending things proves harder than expected and Sophia starts to wonder about the possibility of a long-term relationship with Sylvain. But they are very different, in education, background, wealth, interests… Each phase of their relationship is punctuated by a section of Sophia’s lecture in the course she’s giving about the nature of love (philosophically speaking).

That structure made me think of Le déclin de l’empire américain, though this film, directed by Monia Chokry, definitely has its own strong vision. Jean and I were both drawn in, and he was better at predicting how things would turn out. Fun fact: This movie beat Oppenheimer as Best Foreign Film at the César Awards in France.

Past Lives

Do you ever really get over your first love?

Easy question; of course you don’t! But few people have the trajectory with their first love as the one followed in this film. Nora and Hae Sung are childhood friends in South Korea. Nora’s mom, wanting her to have good memories of South Korea before the family immigrates to Canada, arranges for them to go on a “date”, the apex of which is them holding hands.

But with her family’s pending departure, the two friends are separated before any true, mature romance can bloom. Years later, though, they find one another on Facebook. The sparks still seem to be there, but so is the distance…

By the time Nora and Hae Sung finally do meet again, in New York, Nora is married to Arthur, a perfectly decent guy who is a good sport about the whole thing.

This is a very low-key, gentle movie—too understated for Jean, who gave up partway through. But I quite enjoyed this exploration of the paths not taken, of the forces beyond your control, and what you do with that knowledge. It was lovely.

Won’t whine about the amount of wine: Niagara 2024

We don’t pledge to continue this annually forevermore, but there’s no denying that this is the third year in a row we head to the Niagara area around now. In a lot of ways, it’s a good time to visit: it’s low season, so somewhat cheaper, and quite a bit less crowded—often resulting in better service. Weather of course can be iffy but that means, sometimes, it’s not bad!

Same destination, but that doesn’t mean it was all the same activities. These were the new:

  • Visiting Reif Estate Winery
  • Staying at Shaw Club, Niagara-on-the-Lake
  • Reserving Wine Dome Lounge at Fielding Estate Winery
  • Staying and dining at Inn on the Twenty, Jordan

And these were repeats, though not necessarily “same old”:

  • Dining at Peller Estates Winery
  • Wine tasting at Strewn Winery
  • Hiking the Niagara Glen trail
  • Dining at Treadwells
  • Hiking the Twenty Valley trail, Jordan

Despite knowing I was heading into wine country, I would not have predicted trying a $100 bottle of wine, nor a sherry nearly as old as I am. And yet!

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Getting out of the house

“I’d almost forgotten what that was like”, Jean commented, as we exited the Registry Theatre after a Larry Larson’s Jazz Guys concert. And by that, he met a live musical performance of any kind.

We’d intended to attend many a live musical performance over these past and coming months, but then the Kitchener Waterloo Symphony suddenly and apparently irrevocably went bankrupt—a mere week before what would have been their first concert of the season. Our season’s tickets for various performances, from Bolero to Magic! to Back to the Future to Shostakovitch, suddenly longer worth nothing more than a tax receipt.

There are efforts underway to try to revive the local arts scene, but who knows. Government funding is tight all around. The Globe and Mail has been covering the problems that theatre companies have been experiencing right across the country (🎁 article link). Mirvish is doing fine, but others are not. I suppose the lack of audience return is due to combination of people having become increasingly accustomed to home entertainment; inflation lowering budgetary for spending on discretionary events; and some remaining concern about the health risks of crowded spaces.

But for us, at least this year, it was just mainly that the Symphony disappeared. And we’ve had trouble finding appealing alternatives. It’s been some time since we’ve been out anywhere.

February has seemed virtually packed with arts activities, comparatively speaking.

Continue reading “Getting out of the house” →