Looking at this julienne on Wednesday morning, my first thought was, 'Joel Robuchon would kick my ass all the way back to Canada.' The idea made me smile. Remember Jamin? *sigh* Probably in 2023, Joel Robuchon has a posh school in France that would charge me tens of thousands of dollars to learn to cut julienne his way. Wonder what it costs to do a stage in one of his restaurants? “Qu’est-ce que c’est?” When I worked in France, the executive chef said that when presented with anything below standard. The tone was incredulous, like he was being presented with a lunar rock. You could tell how far off course you were if you could see his tonsils. Humble pie is super tasty. One of the joys of still standing in front of a cutting board is knowing I fell for the right profession. I still love chopping. Don't get me started on mis en place. Knife skills are the first and last lesson. *** I'm writing a novel. The process is interesting. I've had a lot of advice from writers and have a small group of readers. One Canadian writer told me to write the first draft through to the end with little editing. That's Haruki Murakami's practice. The only problem is it doesn't suit me right now. Another suggested I write a chapter as close to complete as possible. That's been golden. It got me thinking about character depth, the subtle ways it's expressed, the relationship between characters, and the world around them, including nature. The advice was freeing. It's still a first draft. And it's also a fleshed-out chapter. There's a second chapter almost there and a third needing some work. It's barely a start. And it's real progress, given I work full-time. The writing is still young and a bit stiff. I know from working with pro-editors that it will loosen up and become more of what it should be in time. I feel like I'm still finding my voice. The way is full of surprises. I'll spend a two or three-hour period writing. And when I am away, things surface. I add highlighted notes to Scrivener, put them in my Notes app on my phone or record voice memos if I'm on the move or at work. The story is always with me. And time away is productive. I've also been laying the foundation simultaneously. The structure is evolving — there are character sketches, chapter outlines, and a couple of years' worth of research starting during the pandemic. It needs more underpainting. I learn new things about the process all the time. This week, I began tracking food for continuity's sake. There's a fair bit of cooking, which must make chronological sense. I sometimes fantasize about having 12 to 24 months to devote to this in an MFA program. When I studied at the Humber School for Writers, most of my peers had novels in progress. I studied creative writing purposefully. This feels natural. I'm here for a reason. I also fantasize about hiring a coach to help with organization, tracking progress, setting goals, and projecting milestones. But none of that is possible right now. And for many writers and artists since time immemorial, it's not a prerequisite for creating. What I do have is a circle of support. The work is simultaneously engaging and unnerving. Making something from scratch is nourishing. It's a cocktail of hope and insecurity. I have dreams. Are they outrageous? Would a man ask that? What becomes of it is not my concern today. Pressing on is. *** I saw two stories this week about artists and their creative process that spoke to me. This on printmaker Jacob Samuel (watch the video). And this short reel of the late painter, Pierre Soulages. *** I went to a wedding last night. Barely took a photo. I had a good time. Caught up with people, including a few from my years at Rundles. Musically I had something lined up and then I heard this Greg Allman song and it fit the day and the mood. A musician of tremendous depth. 1974I went for a walk last night with a friend. We processed some of the global events of the week. She said to me, ‘what is obvious, again, is that humanity is a thin veneer.’ The next morning, on the subway train to work at 6:15 a.m., two men were arguing at the other end of the car. I couldn’t get the gist of it from a distance, but it sounded crazy. It was distressing to hear and made me tense. I was on alert for signs of escalation. Then, a young mother and her little boy got on at a stop and sat down opposite me. He was six or seven and flashing a big toothless grin — all his top front teeth were missing. His legs were dangling just above the floor. He was happy. They both were. They got off at Spadina station. I imagined them going to the Jewish Community Centre for a morning swim in the saltwater pool. Maybe she was passing along the habit of caring for the physical body to her son. Humanity was right in front of me. What I focus on is a choice. And a privilege. *** If you’ve worked in restaurant kitchens for any time, you know people who have fled war. In Toronto, brilliant career dishwashers came to the city from Sri Lanka in the mid to late eighties as part of a great wave. Generations of people — mothers, sisters, brothers, fathers, grandfathers, daughters, sons — fleeing a brutal civil war at home. I work with two men who came during that period. They are the backbone of the team. In many restaurant kitchens right now, there’s a person who knows war first-hand or has family living in a warring country — Ukraine leaps to mind. I’ve heard stories of war. A few told by children. Many people live through unthinkable hardship. Our privilege is being sheltered from those horrors. *** Walking and talking about life’s important stuff with a friend is good for my spirit. A perfect French croissant and a cortado are too. *** I looked for music to calm my anxious heart. 1998I made the first poppyseed babka of the season, today. It's to share at work tomorrow. I make the filling and it is so good. *** Here's a bit of perspective. I asked someone at work if they were doing thanksgiving, and they looked amused and gave me a forthright 'no.' I live and work in a city where people from many cultures don't do this holiday. Who can blame them? The company has to be fantastic for me to enjoy turkey. (Roast a chicken, and I'm all yours.) It's a day that finishes with pie and a big pile of dishes. That could be a Thursday at my place. I can get with the idea of an agrarian holiday — the harvest. And I need to avoid gross nostalgia. Because getting goods from farms to markets and tables is difficult from a labour perspective. There are abuses. Any story involving the celebration of white settlers is disturbing. What we stole from First Nations is devastating to consider in fullness. I can't even imagine what that last word means. Many people can't look yet. And it needs immediate repair in a way that will challenge us. First Nations are clear about the debt. What we owe. Will this be an age of reparations? I hope so. *** This is some of what I'm grateful for right now: This image of cultural and political leadership from the other day. The kids are alright. Here's a group of elementary school students playing Led Zeppelin's Kashmir on xylophones. I want to hug their music teacher. I'm working with a good kitchen team. They're making me a better cook and human. A small group of women and men lead in a way I respect and admire. Thirty or more years separate most of us in age. But I'm still teachable. That's attractive. If this is my last kitchen stop, I'm leaving the industry the same way I came in, as an apprentice. Allan Jenkins posts fabulous minestrone photos. I've been faithful about following Marcella Hazan's Minestrone di Romagna recipe because of the pleasure of sitting in front of a bowl. She was careful — a scientist. I like her lead. But Jenkin's minestrone has an independent spirit — a classic vegetable soup made by a free and mature cook. I would expect nothing less, given minestrone is an expression of the garden at that moment. It’s hard to codify. He's helped me consider the way I make mine. My mom eats two Thanksgiving dinners. One is from her friend Janet on Saturday. The second is from Elaine on Monday. It comforts me to know she's cared for. Feeding others is the spirit of hospitality. It’s a good human practice. It should be clear by now I'm a night person. But the colour of the eastern morning sky is a wonder. I'm no convert, though. The middle of the night is too fine. I got a haircut yesterday that needs more work. The shape is good, but it needs finessing. Online, I shared dismay at the cost and results. I don't feel all that way today because the foundation is good. At any rate, a young woman I know sent me this DM: "I'm sorry you don't like your hair, but I'm sure you're just as vibrant as ever." Exactly what I needed to hear. Good medicine. I live in safety. Many people around the globe this weekend don't because of war, famine, and persecution. *** I hope your knees are under a dinner table at home or in a restaurant with the people you love. That might include family. *** This song reminds me of the Aretha Franklin song I shared a few weeks back. It's a modern spiritual. I can't stop listening to it. I briefly heard a podcaster talk about Cleo Sol and went looking for her new album. It is good. 2023Think about all the women who stood and threw their arms up as Billy Jean King launched her racquet in the air. *** One of the many pleasures of ageing is being an eyewitness to history. For a moment like this I'll gladly take the extra pounds around my waist. Growing up, the only time a tennis match was on the television in my house was fifty years ago — for the Tennis Battle of the Sexes. I was ten and a half years old on the day Billy Jean King showed Bobby Riggs all her talent. The four of us in my family were some of the ninety million people watching the match around the globe. Well, half-watching and half-playing because we were kids. We knew it was important without understanding why. The stakes were high, but there was plenty of theatre and fun about the event. Bobby Riggs was obnoxious — an athletic Archie Bunker. "Women belong in the bedroom and kitchen, in that order," he said. Who can forget the Sugar Daddy t-shirts? Helen Reddy sang I Am Woman. King was carried on the shoulders of men — Cleopatra-style — into the stadium. She would leave as the Queen of all our hearts. I teared up watching this tribute narrated by Venus Williams. On September 20, 1973, Billy Jean King won a tennis match. Became a legend. And she has not squandered the privilege. She continues to work for our good. *** Gender equity levelled the prize field for the U.S. Open in 1973. Away from celebrity sports circles, women have gone from earning $0.57 in 1973 to $0.82 in 2023 for every dollar a man makes. Twenty-five cents over 50 years. Still, eighteen cents to go. Another thirty-six years. 2059. Would men call that progress? Can your daughters wait? Wage transparency would get us there sooner. It's a good labour practice. *** Have you ever dealt with a man you knew wasn't your equal? A man dead sure of his superiority? Who knew nothing about you? But had calculated your worth? A personal Bobby Riggs? I have. I could probably put a team together. I can't imagine for what sport. It makes me laugh thinking of the t-shirts I'd put them in. Who should I hit up for sponsorship? There are a few star players. Should I make them wear headbands? *** Here's the match as we saw it. Howard Cossell was on one of the mics. *** The Philadelphia Freedoms is the name of a co-ed tennis team Billy Jean King played with from 1974 to 1978. Elton John honours a friend here. Together, they have raised hundreds of millions for Equal Rights and HIV/AIDS causes. This is a lovely short read about the song and their friendship. 1975My grandfather Harry would come home from working on a boat on the Great Lakes and wouldn’t want to go anywhere. Unless Theo was driving. A guy happy to be on dry land with his wife behind the wheel. He was an affable easy-going passenger. They did loads of road trips. They had another arrangement. Shortly after Harry came home for a time, Theo would be off. She travelled solo to some interesting places. I admired that in her and have emulated her on occasion. Going solo is another kind of travel. It’s an experience of anonymity and autonomy. The first book Theo gave me was James A. Michener’s The Drifters. It was purposeful. She was passing on something important. The love between Theo and Harry, in some ways, was unconventional. Independence is something they both came to value. Time on their own was normal and important. That changes the dynamics of being a couple. *** This is another kind of road trip. Returning from a family gathering in the near south. I was living on the promise of seeing Fallingwater. And then plans changed for the driver. The man behind the wheel was going home — Raleigh North Carolina to Hamilton Ontario — bathroom breaks only. By then, being held hostage in a vehicle with him was familiar. We had one of our near-fatal relationship-changing arguments outside Pittsburgh. We stopped. That tells you something about my will. I was ruthless. I didn’t know when I’d be back down that road again. I dropped him in the parking lot. Did not look back. Took all the time I needed. I’d sat in dark art history classes looking at slides of the place and experiencing a sense of falling in love. Art does that to me. The thought of being so close to that beauty was everything. Passing it was impossible. A postcard of Serena fell out of a book recently. It’s where I hide memories for surprises. Standing in that alcove looking at her on that day I knew I’d done the right thing. The image took me back to the nice time I had…by myself. What a horrible thing to visit Fallingwater with your daughter. I think a lot about the man who knew what was in my heart and decided to drive past. Of course, things happen as they do. But I cried hard about it this week. Writing is often the turning point. My dad was not unique. He was a man of his time — the authoritarian. But there’s still no shortage of grossly self-focused men today. Often, they come wrapped up in several active addictions. Many never get right with the people they use and hurt. They miss out on so much real human relations. *** The song landed early Saturday morning as a complete surprise. Everything about it fit. The lyrics are handcrafted. And that guitar lick. Also, it’s been too long since I took a road trip. 2005The quilts were hung in several barns, and wooden blanket racks were on the lawns. The world’s longest clothesline — a swelling sea of cotton. A vision of wholesome. The Mennonite Quilt Auction in New Hamburg. I can’t even imagine how you choose. The subtle variations were mindboggling. I felt a bit dizzy from all the patterns, like the fatigue after going to a big museum. I think about the women who gathered around them. The stories and experiences shared while stitching — the laughter, heartache and boredom. There were so many quilts it might represent the female population of a small Ontario city, or a few country townships. The last time we went, we piled into the car my dad left Ford with — the Country Squire. (The way we sell men cracks me up.) In the time before seatbelts, we would sit in the spacious back with no seats and horse around. The back window was wide open. Cutting through acres of corn — a fabric unrolling to the horizon — heading southeast on Highway Eight. We all liked venturing out of the small town on Lake Huron. Peameal bacon on a bun is what we were all thinking about. Is it the Ontario equivalent of Wilensky’s? It was served from a gas barbecue a bunch of men wearing felt black hats and suspenders huddled around. They came wrapped in lovely paper-lined foil — soft in the hand like a blanket. Some people roll it down a little as they eat. I’m a get-this-wrapper-off kind of girl. On a bleached late spring day we sat on the grass in a patch of shade with others and ate. The auctioneer's banter had the same effect as the acres of patchwork. He was whirling buyers — like a country and western dancer — toward a purchase. A perfect day. *** Because I don’t like being visually and mentally overwhelmed, I’m picky about going to galleries. Art has always been a big part of travel (gardens too). I can’t cover a whole museum. It’s overload and the plot starts to unravel. I don't ever feel like I've missed something. I go see a show, the work of a particular artist, or a single painting. The first time I went to the Tate was to see the Turners. What a luxury to be in their presence. In one day do you need more? *** Robert Plant’s voice and Jimmy Page’s guitar. Both men are masters. Untouchable talent. Their music is orchestral. My first acid trip. Houses of the Holy on the eight-track. In the back of a Trans Am, driving country roads. Four of us in the car. I was fifteen, maybe. Extraordinary memories from that night remain in me. A quilt of vivid colours. The shadows of trees and fences on the gravel road in the headlights. I was safe. And laughing…laughing… I don’t need to tell you on how many levels I love Heart singing Stairway to Heaven. We need to hold our Bic lighters up for Ann and Nancy Wilson. Two women hand-delivering a high honour. 19942012September reminds me of Muscat grapes in France. I shared the memory with a Hungarian chef at work last week and he knew exactly what I was talking about. A heady ghost scent is in me even across time and a great distance. It makes me wistful for Europe. Occasionally I see them in Canada, but the best half is MIA. Where did their smell go? They are half measures and nothing more. It must be the varietal. I took the photo in Les Halles market in Lyon. It doesn’t do them justice. The grapes are straight out of a Renaissance still life — the colour of Panama grass with a vermillion blush. To walk by a display is a baptism in ripe lychee fruit, honey, and jasmine in bloom at night. It's the smell of desire. It reminds me of a Friday night dinner a long time ago. Paul Bertolli cooking in the kitchen. Votive light dancing on the dining room walls of the Old Prune restaurant. Blustery Perth County snow out the window. I was five months sober then and didn’t drink the Muscat de Saint Jean de Minervois served with the almond cake for dessert. But I stuck my nose in a glass and inhaled deeply more than once. So pretty. I knew to taste it with the cake was a pleasure. And I didn’t need to go there. By then I had an appetite for freedom. *** I’ve been asked to be an international judge for the Irish Food Writing Awards. It feels like the Northern Lights in my heart — the fit is bespoke. Look at the lead judging panel. So many humans I admire. A pile of stories will soon arrive. To have two great passions — food and writing — in one short life is a privilege. *** There are aging filters on TikTok. You can tell a lot about how a person feels about growing older by their reactions. So much of it is plain sad. Disturbing really. We talk a big game about diversity and blow off a life time of experience. Whatever! I’m here to tell you that growing old is beautiful. Mostly if you’re growing. Here’s a man who handles the filter like a grown up. (He's currently stranded at Burning Man.) And to be perfectly clear, men have an easier time aging, culturally speaking. For a bit of perspective, here’s what a 70-year-old beautiful woman deals with. *** Harvest is here. It’s the season for preserving fruit. What are you putting down that will save you on a stupid cold March night? *** I love the photo of Aretha as much as the song. She knew her power. And where it came from. “You don’t find this song; this song finds you.” activestment640 2016These are threads I'm pulling on. Reading one thing and linking it to another. Trailing the scent of connection in the quiet. Thank you to Claire Dederer for writing this brilliant book with forthrightness. It should be on the New York Times Bestsellers list. The bold quotes are from Chapter Five, The Genius. *** Both cookbooks are first editions. I was hungry when I bought them. Insatiable is closer to it. I wanted it all. Twenty-seven years old and working garde manger and pastry at Le Bistingo on Queen St. W. when it was top spot in Toronto. Shucking Fine de Claire oysters flown in from Brittany and whipping Calvados sabayon to renaissance clouds. I was months away from going to the Stratford Chefs School. *** "And yet—isn't the genius the person who changes everything about his or her field? Thomas Kuhn called this a paradigm shift, before the word "paradigm" got taken over by corporate dipshits and lazy undergrads." They were wild, obsessed, sexual men. Look at the photo of Marco, the oil stain on the knee of his houndstooth chef pants. The jacket looks like he never leaves the kitchen. I imagine the thick cotton slightly damp and smelling musky. In the afterglow of dinner, a trail of women in stilettos and petit four dresses wander through his kitchen. Who will ever forget Jean-Louis Palladin's "get-me-the-Vitamix" moment? Palladin's book is tall and lanky, like the man and his blender. It needs a big coffee table. The cookbooks cum art books were released within a year of each other. When I look at the food, Harvey's is still everything I want in a restaurant. If you have White Heat, go get it and turn to page 73. That dish is pure Troisgros brothers — it is utterly perfect. If it were put down in front of me, I might cry. Now turn to page 103 and imagine the pleasure of crushing golden sugar threads into red currant sorbet. For all the bad boy rockstar in him, the cooking is modern French haute cuisine. Palladin expresses the same level of expertise, but his presentation embodies a new world verve. It's a mature, freer spirit at the plate. In 1989, when Cooking With The Seasons was released, Jean-Louis Palladin was 43. When White Heat was released in 1990, Marco Pierre White was twenty-nine — a pauper prodigy (read the foreword by Albert Roux). There's a fifteen-year age gap between the two. Palladin was born in 1946 in post-war France, in the early days of national recovery from horrific loss. White came into the world during the British Invasion — fed a diet high in Robert Plant and Mick Jagger. What they were doing was taking eyes off France. London was ascending, and America. A pivotal moment in global culinary history and culture. Besides these two, dozens of chefs leap to my mind. Too many to name in this small piece for fear I'd miss someone beloved. Those were the salad days of my apprenticeship. *** "You need to say to your wife, if you have a wife, 'I'm sorry, but you will need to be second in my life…Being in the restaurant 10, 12, 14 hours a day, that's your family." Jean-Louis Palladin The work family is a luxury of men. Think of how many lonely partners and kids — real families — there were (and probably still are). Men chased stars and young women and promoted their books and restaurants. Their spouses managed households and children. Not a real partnership. Stepping back for a woman's career was beyond our imaginations. True equity remains a radical concept for many chefs. White and Palladin were not easy men at work. There's the crying story about Gordon Ramsay at Harvey's. Eric Ripert said this about an almost early departure from The Watergate. "The performance of masculinity, and its conflation with genius, has not been a great thing for women, who are simultaneously the genius's victims and forever excluded from the club of genius." They behaved in a way no woman could. Like they owned everything. Women were doing brilliant things in restaurant kitchens — chefs like Barbara Tropp, Joyce Goldstein, Lydia Shire, Nancy Silverton, Alice Waters, and Sally Clarke. I staged in one of their kitchens and never looked back. Chasing heroes who looked like me was a choice. But the patriarchy was, and is, in me. Just like it's in you. Stripping away a dominant culture takes rigour and attention to detail. I’m wary of anyone professing enlightenment. We've been stingy in applying the luscious genius sauce to women. Like a filthy apron, it's a character flaw in our industry. It takes the smallest effort to speak of and treat professional women with high regard. "In the wake of #MeToo we began to undertake a collective thought experiment — or maybe it was just me — in which we tried to imagine a world where maleness, virility, license, and violence were not required to make great art." When do we arrive? *** When it was released, I heard The Blaze's Territory on a late-night CBC radio program. I could not stop listening. It always gets me out of my chair — longing for a packed, sweaty dance floor. The back and forth between machismo and family love is gorgeous. The scene where the four men wearing thoubs are kneeling on their prayer rugs as the sun sets over the rooftops of Algiers is gorgeous. And the way they crowd in to smoke the shisha. The Cannons is for twenty-seven-year-old me. 20172019I wish I'd saved some of my old band shirts. Van Halen, the Diver Down tour and U2, The Incredible Fire. Why didn't I collect more? I was in a swish shop a few weeks ago, and classic rock band t-shirts cost between $400 and $1400. Seventeen-year-old me didn't know they'd become collectible. I also wish I'd saved copies of Creem and Hit Parade magazine. I bought a Bowie shirt at the AGO (from the V&A touring show). I wore it one day in Charleston and was stopped twice and asked where I got it. *** The CNE starts this weekend. Whoosh… My mom took us every year. Those childhood memories are a full tank of fun. There's a photo of two of us on the Polar Express — we're maybe six and eight years old. It's mostly tonsils. The ride operator asked if we wanted to go faster, and we screamed, "No." We went on the steam train that ran parallel to the Gardiner. I still have the ticket. We visited the horses in the stables. From the time it opened until just before closing, we did everything. My uncle Jay was a DJ at CFRB in the 70s. His baritone voice was smooth and rich. We'd visit him in the booth. Being in a glass box felt special — people looking in at us. If there is a heaven, it's how I remember the International Food Hall. My mom bought us gendered surprise bags one year. She paid decent money that my dad worked hard for. In my bag, the big prize was a girdle. A GIRDLE. I was too young to understand that a woman's body needed restraining. We weren't worshipping in the temple of FUPA in the 70s. In my early teens, under severe bodily insecurity, I fished it out from the back of a drawer and tried to squeeze into it. Imagine the person who packed those bags. *** Seeing Thelma & Louise might become an annual event for me. I feel relief that I never hitched myself to a husband like Darryl — that shot of his dinner and the note still in the microwave when Thelma calls at 4 a.m. because she's in trouble. That loathsome moment is brilliant storytelling. The movie's been restored, and I saw it with a full house at the TIFF theatre last Saturday night — we applauded their courage a couple of times and laughed along with them. I had a good time. Watching the taillights on the 1966 green Thunderbird convertible weave through the desert night — Marion Faithful crooning The Ballad of Lucy Jordan — is breathtaking. It quenches my thirst. Thank you, Ridley Scott. I went looking for something to read about it the next day and discovered this jewel of an essay by a favourite writer, Rebecca Traister: "It's not just that Thelma and Louise get inarguably hotter with every discarded lipstick, floral blouse, and trapping of conventional femininity; it's that, in Khouri's script and through director Ridley Scott's lens, along the geographically impossible road from Oklahoma to Mexico, their increasing liberation makes the country itself more beautiful, both to them and to us. These women and their willingness to disobey, hang up on, laugh at, and even kill the men who degrade and underestimate them are not a blight on the nation; rather, their trek west, toward imagined freedom, flatters America, lights it up from within." *** My friend Heather sources "gently loved vintage." She has a great eye. And it's getting better with practice. That's what happens when you do something you love. Some of you have admired this old-fashioned glass I bought from her. She sold me the four plates in the photo. I want to use them. Do you want to come over for biscuits, homemade peach jam and cultured cream, the colour of okra flowers? *** Broken English was huge when it was released in 1979. I was sixteen, and everyone had the album. Thirty-three-year-old Marianne Faithful expressed the anger and sexual confidence we were craving. I've been loving Yves Tumor. 19792023 |
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