OK, so we bought snow shoes. And before it turned freakishly warm for January, we tried them out around the neighbourhood. First couple times, we puttered around the nearby conservation area. And that was kind of fun. So the next time, in the lovely fresh snow of New Year’s Day, we decided to try a community trail area. We had a route all mapped out on the GPS. Only…
There was a fence. And the GPS route had not accounted for this fence. Why this fence? Well, near the community trail, where there are now trees and streams, a new development is going in. And apparently, the developers don’t want people getting too used to walking around in what will soon be a bunch of new suburban houses and lawns. So they’ve put up a fence, and posted “No Trespassing” signs. But not only that.
Other signs say: “Domestic animals will be disposed of”. Ponder that one.
You almost have to admire the chutzpah. Planning to cut down all the trees, not letting anyone enjoying them in the meantime—that’s just warm-up. Next, we are going to kill your puppies and kittens! Take that, tree huggers!
For the past few years, our New Year’s Eve activity has been to prepare a gourmet dinner for two. This year, however, Jean was interested in going to Verses for their New Year’s Eve dinner. So, we decided to do our gourmet dinner the day before—on New Year’s Eve Eve. Time will tell how wise it was to plan on two multi-course meals in a row.
In the meantime, this year we remembered the request to post descriptions and pictures of what we made for dinner.
Appetizer: Dried Cranberry Scones with Stilton
Source: LCBO Food and Drink Magazine, Holiday 2005
Matching “wine”: Fonseca vintage 1988 port
Description: Baked scones with dried cranberries, cut in half and filled with cranberry-orange marmalade, topped with Stilton cheese, more dried cranberries, and chives.
Assessment: The Stilton really “pops”, but is nicely contrasted with the cranberry and the touch of chives. The scones turned out really well—fluffy and tasty. Both scones and marmalade were made the day before, which meant only assembly was required.
The port was amazing—complex flavours, smooth going down but a little bite afterward. And a good match for the cheese.
Salad: Apple and oyster mushroom salad
Source: Cooking with Foods That Fight Cancer (cheery, huh)
Matching wine: NZ Kim Crawford Pinot Noir (Vintages)
Description: Apples and oyster mushrooms cooked in a little butter and placed over arugula coated with olive oil and cider vinegar. Topped with walnuts.
Assessment: The mushrooms, in particular, tasted quite nice, and went well with the apples, arugula, and walnuts. The Pinot Noir smoke was a good match for the mushrooms, as hoped.
Fish course: Lemon-Shallot Scallops with Sugar Snap Peas
Source: Cooking Light Magazine, June 2002
Matching Wine: NZ Whitecliff Sauvignon Blanc
Description: Scallops are first pan-seared in a little olive oil, then shallots and garlic are cooked in a little butter, and simmered in white wine. Scallops are then tossed with the sauce and topped with fresh parsley.
Sugar snap peas are simply steamed.
Assessment: Simple but effective. The key is to not overcook anything. The Sauvignon Blanc is a typical NZ type, with a nice bite to it.
Meat course: Loin of lamb with fresh herbs, served with oven fries and cinnamon sweet potatoes
Source: A Taste of Quebec Cookbook (lamb), The Best Light Recipe Cookbook (oven fries), LCBO Food and Drink Magazine, Holiday 2002 (sweet potatoes)
Accompanying wine: Spanish Merlot-Cabernet Sauvignon blend (not available in Canada; we brought it back from Spain)
Description: The boneless lamb is pan-seared, then baked at 450. Meanwhile, a red wine, beef stock, and fresh herb sauce is prepared for it. The oven fries basically involve soaking the cut potatoes, then mixing them with some olive oil, salt, and pepper, and baking them. The sweet potatoes are cut into disks and baked. They get topped with a mix of brown sugar, cinnamon, and salt for the last 10 minutes or so.
Assessment: I’d never cooked lamb before, but this turned out quite well—nice flavour, not overdone, good sauce. I had done the two potato recipes before, and they both turned out fine, even though we had to compromise on cooking times and temperatures in order to get everything done together.
The wine was really fantastic. Big and fruity but not overwhelming.
Description: A totally decadent mixture of quality chocolate, butter, and eggs, topped with a port sauce mixed with dried cherries. Not too hard to make, and all doable the day before. Served with vanilla ice cream as well.
Assessment: We had to wait a bit before digging into this, but it was certainly good. And a small piece is perfectly satisfying.
Interesting how people often lump all types of “musicals” as being one thing, and categorically answer “yes” or “no” (more often “no”) to that question.
Do I like musicals? Some, very much. Others, not really. Loved Moulin Rouge, Les Miz, Once More With Feeling (Buffy musical), Rocky Horror, Singing in the Rain, Tommy (the play), Hair (the critically drubbed movie), and Grease. Didn’t so much care for Chicago (despite the Oscars), Oklahoma (the play), Tommy (the movie), and Hair (the play).
So wasn’t sure what I’d make of Hairspray, part of the Broadway Series playing at Centre the in Square. Would I be transported, or sighing as yet another song stopped everything dead?
Not having seen the original movie, the movie remake, nor any other version of this play live, I have to say, I thought this was fantastic. (And so did Jean which, trust me, is high praise.) The swing dancing was top-notch and a lot of fun to watch; the very good-natured plot moved along swiftly; the tiny lead actress had a serious set of chops; and many characters—particularly that of the best friend—were just comic gold.
I will recognize that the lead actress was not quite as good a dancer as the part requires, and that a couple of the slower numbers in the second half did seem a little—slow. Overall, however, no matter. I went in sleepy and grumpy and emerged upbeat and smiling. That’s a fine musical in my book.
Up next: the local production of The Producers. [Postscript: Which turned out to be another musical… I didn’t enjoy.]
It’s not news that gone are the days when flying, being at an airport, was actually kind of fun. Security and loss of competition have ended that. But when exactly did the airline experience change from being merely unpleasant to actively evil?
Let start with the computer glitch that inconvenienced thousands of Air Canada travellers. Now, I’m sure Air Canada didn’t do this on purpose. But the way they handled is just so typical of the lack of caring with this airline. As just one case, the Globe and Mail’s Stephanie Nolan reports not being called out of the huge lineup (though other people were), and therefore missing her flight; receiving no apology for this; not being rebooked onto another flight (though the people behind her in line, at the counter beside her, were); boarding a plane and waiting an hour on the tarmac, only to be told to de-plane; and of Air Canada losing her luggage, though she never left the ground.
She finally flew, luggage-less, on West Jet.
But maybe that’s not evil. Maybe it’s just callous, bad customer service.
Well, how about acceleration the destruction of the planet? Airplane emissions are a considerable contributor to global warming. Some environmentalists feel we should basically stop flying altogether. It’s hard not to feel some guilt in boarding a plane, since you know that when planes aren’t full enough, flights are cancelled.
Or are they?
Last week it was reported that British Airways “has flown dozens of empty planes across the Atlantic Ocean in the past two weeks to avoid losing valuable runway slots at London’s airports.” London has a use it or lose policy, and they chose to use it. Isn’t that charming?
But one man who won’t have to face the upcoming global warming apocalypse is poor Robert Dziekanski, the Polish man who died after being tasered twice by RCMP officers at Vancouver Airport. Most of the attention has been directed to the actions of the RCMP in this cases, and the question of whether tasers should continue to be allowed. And it’s very appropriate to look into both of these—the incident truly puts Canada in a bad light.
But I think some attention should also be given to what led to Mr. Dziekanski being in such an agitated state, and that is the callousness or incompetence of airport staff. Mr Dziekanski, flying for the first time, out of Poland for the first time, had been trying to reach his mother for 10 hours. His mother, who was indeed in a different part of the airport, had asked repeatedly for help in finding her son, only to be told he was not there. Meantime, apparently no one noticed or cared that this man had been wandering, lost, in the secure immigration area for such a long time.
Airline staff did not kill Mr. Dziekanski, but they certainly led him to slaughter.
“Science may have found a cure for most evils; but it has found no remedy for the worst of them all—the apathy of human beings.|— Helen Keller
I get invited to plays put on at UW each year. Not exactly sure why I get the invites, but I’m guessing it’s because I donate, and have given my email address. At any rate, this year the performance was a live version of the Rocky Horror Show.
I must say, that was great fun. The story (such as it is), and songs are pretty much exactly like the movie (Rocky Horror Picture Show). But it’s really cool to see it live, and the actors / musicians / makeup and costume people / videographers did a great job. We thoroughly enjoyed it, and would highly recommend it, even if you don’t get to go free (like we did) and don’t get to eat pastries afterward (like we did).
Plus, you’ll be spared the somewhat uncomfortable experience we had in being at a “special” performance full of dignitaries. Who tend to be a little more, uh, aged.
‘Cause sweet transvestites from transsexual Transylvania? A bit of a weird thing to be watching with people who remind you of your grandparents.
I don’t do dinner parties very often, and when I do, it’s only after a lot of planning. Often the planning is so exhausting, I don’t get to enjoy the actual party. But this time I managed. I kind of had to, given the effort Tim and Kristi put in, helping us renovate the living room. Thanks were definitely in order. So we invited them, and added Karen and Herb, whom we owed dinner to, and whom we thought would balance things out well.
We’d hoped to be showing off a largely finished living room, but were deterred by our new couches not having been delivered yet. (We’re getting them tomorrow, about a month late.) As a result, other finishing touches weren’t quite done yet, either: paintings not put up yet, area rug not purchased. But people still needed to sit, so “move downstairs couches upstairs” had to be added to the list of tasks to do.
The planning challenge for this meal was the combination of a vegetarian, a meat and potatoes guy who doesn’t really eat vegetables, and an idiosyncratic eater. I came up with the idea of a multi-course Italian menu, figuring that each person would eventually get to a course featuring food they liked, and then they could stick there. That actually worked out! Here was the menu (which I also typed and put at each place):
Apertivi
Black pepper pâté, brie cheese, crackers
Wine: Cuvée Catherine, Henry of Pelham (Ontario)
Antipasti
Fresh oysters [for the daring]
Wine: Oyster Bay Sauvignon Blanc (New Zealand)
Prosciutto-wrapped melon (or just Melon)
Wine: Collavini 2005 Pinot Grigio, Villa Canlungo (Italy). “Crisp, lively, and jolting. This will get you going.”
Primi
Vegetable Lasagna
Source: The Best Light Recipe. “We wanted to make a vegetable lasagne comprised of tender noodles enveloping evenly cooked vegetables… Creamy cheese and tangy tomato sauce pull the dish together into a hearty crowd pleaser for vegetarians and carnivores alike.”
Wine: Fontanafredda 2004, Barbara d’Alba (Italy). “Plummy meets rustic”
Secondi
Parmesan-herb chicken with Herbed roasted potatoes and seasonal steamed vegetables
Source: In Shape magazine, HM magazine. Brady’s chicken coated in herbs and Parmesan; Crisp-roasted, small gourmet red and white potatoes; Ontario broccoli, cauliflower, and carrots in butter and maple wine vinegar.
White wine: Mike Weir 2005 Chardonnay (Ontario). “This charmingly impressionable wine is easy drinking on its own or a great accompaniment to food. It’s the wine for all, and all occasions.”
or
Red wine: Domaines Bernard 2005 Côtes du Rhône-Villages (France). “Gorgeous, fruity, peppery flavours and a ton of charm and vitality.”
Intermezzo
Easy romaine salad, with basil, balsamic, and pine nut dressing (on the side)
Source (dressing): Jamie Oliver, The Naked Chef Takes Off. The way to get Jean to eat his greens—add meat, nuts, and fruit.
Wine: Your call!
Dolce
Tiramisu
Source: Cooking Light magazine—their most requested recipe ever
Chocolate gelato
Source: Whole Lotta Gelata Waterloo).
Wine: Rush Creek Wines Framboise. “Rush Creek’s premier dessert wine. Very rich and full bodied bursting with luscious raspberry flavour and smooth raspberry essence.”
Coffee, tea
Minimal last-minute preparations were required, other than throwing things into the oven at the right times, and everything seemed to turn out well. More importantly, though, everyone seemed to have a good time. Things were pretty relaxed, and fun, and several of us are getting together again in a couple weeks!
So maybe I’ll do this again sometime. But not for a little while.
Bit of a family weekend, what with it being Canadian Thanksgiving and all. And with an Ontario election on, talk at times naturally turned to that subject.
Both my Dad and my sister expressed surprise that I was not voting for the Green Party.
Dad also commented that he was surprised I didn’t have those cloth shopping bags. Well, in this case I could assure him I did, but still needed to gather some plastic bags to put cat litter in, because nothing else will do.
But the point is… I’ve somehow developed the reputation of being the family environmentalist.
This is a bit alarming, as I was feel sorry for environmentalists. They have an important message to impart, but their opponents can always attack something they did as being “harmful to the environment”. David Suzuki had too many kids. Al Gore drives a big car and lives in a big house. Stéphane Dion flies a lot. Cameron Diaz’ shirt is politically insensitive. Etc.
I do care about the environment. I think it’s the most important issue of our time. I get frustrated the more isn’t being done about it, faster.
But… I’m also conscious that I live in a pretty big house for two people, that we each have a car, that I drive to work even though it’s well within biking distance, and we like to fly places for vacation…
We do all the “easy” stuff, certainly. We have the fluorescent light bulbs, the programmable thermostat (never set to extreme temperatures), the composter, the recycle bins. I do cold water wash when I can. I walk to the store when I’m not getting more than I’ll be able carry back. (My husband says we should get bonus points because we’ve been doing most of this for quite some time, well before it become trendy.)
But all in all, I’m sure the ecological footprint isn’t the greatest.
“Love of iPod” is not exactly an original sentiment. I’m coming up on two years of ownership of my 30 GB “video” iPod, which holds no video and, despite the presence of some audiobooks, I mostly see as a music machine. The house and car are finally arranged such that I can listen to it anywhere, sans earphones (which hurt my ears, and make me sound particularly insane when I sing along). I love the playlists—the ability to combine a subset of my 3500 songs according to genre, mood, theme, composer, quality, date…
But the downside, of course, is that you really limit your exposure to new artists and songs—ones you might well come to love and appreciate, if only you ever had a chance to listen to them.
Then again, even before iPod, I’d already mostly given up on radio stations that played new music, whose between-song patter and ads were clearly aimed a couple decades younger than me, and the music television stations, which seemed to be largely taken over with rap music. At least, with the iPod/iTunes store, I cheaply sample a song or two from a new (or new to me) artist, if it happens to reach my consciousness.
I haven’t deleted the “Purchased” playlist that the iPod software automatically places all your bought songs into. It becomes kind of a map into the music that has managed to break through the barriers of “the music I already own”. So what does manage to burst through?
Music from TV. (Just not from music TV.)
Most influential has to be the addictive reality shows Rock Star: INXS and Rock Star: Supernova, from which I have not only have I bought performances from the show itself, but also originals of what was covered, and songs by the performers on it. But there’s also a smattering of Canadian / American Idol, and even some influenced by dramatic series.
“Single” by Kalan Porter. The winner of the first season of Canadian Idol I watched most of, the judges kept commenting on his rich, mature voice. Though recognizing he was a good singer, I didn’t really grasp that quality of his voice until this song, which really plays that up from its opening notes. Hard to believe he’s only 17.
Nevermind by Nirvana. I had the Unplugged album already; Rock Star: INXS convinced me I need this one too.
“Wish You Were Here” by Marty Casey. A breakthrough moment in Rock Star: INXS, as Marty Casey sang this more melodically than anything he’d done previously, which helped carry him through to the final. Also a bit of a breakthrough for me, as I finally started to understand the mania for Pink Floyd, a band I’d previously dismissed as too dark. “Wish You Were Here” is beautiful, and some of their other stuff doesn’t suck, either.
“How to Save a Life” by the Fray. This song became so associated with Grey’s Anatomy that I actually thought it was the official theme song, and wondered why it didn’t play at the start of the show. Then it stuck in my head and I had to get it.
“Anything, Anything” by Dramarama. The wonderful Storm Large won her first encore on Rock Star: Supernova with her performance of this song, that I’d never heard of before. It’s a barn burner. (I also bought Storm’s own “Ladylike” single, a true feminist anthem.)
“California Dreamin'” by JD Fortune; “Baby One More Time” by Marty Casey. Two radical reinterpretations of these well-known songs reveal the creativity on display in Rock Star: INXS. In both cases, I think I like these better than the originals.
“Save the Last Dance for Me” by Ben E. King. I bought this because it was the soundtrack for Brian and Justin’s season 1 prom dance on Queer as Folk, and have developed an appreciation for just how sexy this song is, in its own right.
Others in this category: “Pretty Vegas” by INXS (their first single with winner J.D. Fortune), “Bohemian Rhapsody” by Suzy McNeil (a tour de force from the show), “Man Who Sold the World” by Jordis Unga (beautiful song, beautiful performance), “We Used to Be Friends” by the Dandy Warhols (Veronica Mars theme song), “Over My Head” by The Fray (since I liked their other song), Suzie McNeil’s Broken and Beautiful album (girl has pipes), and “Mr. Brightside” by The Killers (whom I suspect I should get more of).
On the dance floor
I don’t have a whole lot of pure dance albums, but I do love me a really good dance tune. Sometimes I first read about these; sometimes I caught a minute on MuchMusic after all; sometimes I heard it when out dancing at parties or weddings! “Mambo No. 5”, “Livin’ La Vida Loca”, “Hips Don’t Lie”, “Maneater”, “Can’t Get You out of My Head”…
But the ultimate has to be Great West’s “Home for a Rest”. Because that’s just what you need to do after dancing along to this infectious tune.
From when I used to listen to radio
“Laid” by James. I loved this song when I used to hear it on 102.1 (back when I still listened to that), but had a heck of time figuring out what the song and artist name were. When I finally found it, this became, like, the fourth song I bought for the iPod.
The only other one in this category, I think, is “Closing Time” by Supersonic.
The Grammy’s / The Junos
TV again, but in the specific genre of music awards. These would have some influence over my owning some Shakira and Nelly Furtado (as previously mentioned), and definitely affected these purchases:
“Hey Ya!” by OutKast. He was really criticized for his “native American” theme here, but it kind of blew me away.
“Lose Yourself” by Eminem. I don’t think he performed at the Oscars, did he? But he still won, and I love this song, and I don’t even know why, because it’s definitely rap.
“Hallelujah” by KD Lang. Gorgeous, gorgeous; I have two versions of this, live and studio. The lyrics just get me; I don’t understand them literally but they seem to reach right past the logic into the emotion. (I also bought a few more of her covers from Songs of the 49th Parallel.)
“Beautiful” by Christina Aguilera. This was not a beautiful look period for her, but she really killed this song.
Green Day’s American Idiot album. It’s sort of punk/pop and kind of great.
“Not Ready to Make Nice” by the Dixie Chicks. Although, it was more the documentary than all the Grammies that had me buy this song.
The Globe and Mail‘s web column had an interesting article on Ontario’s referendum, bringing up a point I had really thought of before: This is not a choice between two equally valid options, our current electoral system vs. the proposed MMP. In fact, the Ontario Citizens’ Assembly on Electoral Reform has already weighed multiple voting systems, including our current one, and found them all wanting. They recommend MMP as the best option for Ontario. We are voting to ratify that decision.
So Ontarians should be incensed at how the government has distorted this fact, by having all official material pretend this is a neutral campaign between equal options. Your Big Decision. A (current) or B (MMP). Why aren’t they also telling us why the Citizen’s Assembly has already concluded that B is better?
And that’s online. On TV, they won’t even tell us what the A or B choices are! You have call a number or go online to get details. For heaven’s sake; why can’t the commercial at least give a clue what the referendum is about? Takes less than 30 seconds to say “electoral reform”.
Furthermore, in order to be ratified, the decision to switch to MMP must be agreed to by 60% of the electorate and 60% the ridings. 37% is enough to get you a nice majority government for a good four years. But to get actual democracy? Oh no, even 50% won’t do for that.
Of course, the government’s attempts at covering the issue and handicapping the vote wouldn’t matter as much if the media were doing a good job of informing the public about this, but outside of newspapers (read by your more devoted political junkies, typically), they are not. There was barely a peep out of them before the election started, and now they’re all about the religious schools debate and “promise breaking”. If they mention the referendum at all, it’s to say that “people don’t seem to know about it”. Well, duh.
I guess it’s clear I am voting for MMP. And since the media and government don’t want you to know why, I will explain.
a) Under the current system, a minority of voters gets the majority of power.
It takes only about 40% of votes to get a strong majority government, and that basically allows the government to do what they want for 4 years. 60% of voters are currently disenfranchised, not once in a while, but every single time. It’s unfair and absurd.
Not convinced? In recent Quebec and BC elections, parties have won majority governments despite getting a lower percentage of votes than another party. (In Quebec, the PQ over the Liberals; in BC the NDP over the Liberals.) That’s how distorted our current system is; even the party that wins more votes than any other doesn’t necessarily get to govern.
b) Our current system does not produce stability.
That’s what all the naysayers go on about. Oh, it will be unstable! Give me a break. Ontario is a case study in how this isn’t true. Ontario went from a radical left NDP government (elected by 37%) to a radical right Conservative government (elected by 42%), both of which caused the majority who didn’t want them to suffer under their more extreme policies. This, ironically, after the popular and balanced coalition NDP/Liberal government—exactly the kind of government we’d get under MMP.
c) Do not fear the political “appointee”.
The other thing the naysayers seem obsessed with is the appointed list of politicians who would balance out the legislature according to the electorate’s party votes. Again, I find this argument bogus. Political parties already pick their candidates (the ones whose names appear on your ballot), some by party vote, many by appointment. So I really see no difference at all between political parties picking who is on my local ballot and political parties picking who will represent the popular vote. Either way, ultimately, it’s parties who decide who has the opportunity to sit in the House. If you don’t like it, join a political party.
Furthermore, it’s not as if people currently know who the heck their local candidates are anyway. In small towns, sure. In bigger cities? As if. People already just vote for parties anyway. Under the new system, they’ll just have to do the same thing twice.
d) We will not have a “pizza parliament”. But the Green Party will have some seats. And that’s a good thing.
The Citizens Assembly weren’t idiots; there is a 3% threshold before a party can win a seat. So truly bizarre parties with no appeal will not win any seats, even if a few jokers vote for them. But small parties with serious appeal, like the Greens (or the Family Coalition, I suppose), will.
Make your vote count on October 10, so that your vote will count in the future. Vote for MMP.
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