Edible Tulip

First Choice Video Club

I lived for so long without either a a) television, and then b) a VCR or DVD player that I simply just wasn't connected to the world that evolved around either. I saw movies at the local rep cinema, the Paradise in my case, and also at the different theatres around town that show movies I seem to like - the Cumberland, the Carleton, the Cinematheque, and the Goethe Institute to name a few. I like the movie theatre experience. I don't always eat popcorn, but sometimes; and then other times, I bring my own treats from the Strictly Bulk place around the corner (a guilty indulgence are hard cheesies, wine gums or sesame sticks), or I'll pack an apple or a piece of banana bread from home and shove a large bottle of water in my backpack. I enjoy watching movies by myself. Probably more than seeing them in the company of someone else. I like that it's my experience, unfiltered by someone else's interest or disinterest, views or biases. Sometimes it's frustrating not having someone to banter with about the movie afterwards but at the same time I'm left in the glow of whatever emotion rung true for me unfettered.

The Cinematheque is having a retrospective this month of one of my favourite filmmakers: Chance Encounters: The Cinema of Krzysztof Kieślowski. He's a beautiful director, full of silence, and grace, quiet dialogue, stunning cinematogrphy, poetic moments about life. I lived in Poland for a while and I had that childlike desire to randomly bump into him, hoping that he'd star me in his next movie about a young woman, new to Krakow, living in her monastic room above a blooming courtyard, listening to the Italians make loud love all night, smoking in the courtyard at dawn with the pigeons each morning, sticking fallen leaves and twigs from the Jewish cemeteries into her journal, living a life that felt so unilluminated that it strove to be told so as to become real/large/something. His movies are often scored by the industrious and darkly seductive composer, Zbegniew Preisner. His music will make you either want to weep or go insane. And by insane I mean twirl around in a balletic dance with a broomstick yearning to fall out of the 3rd story window and land in a scene of despair and passion.

Anyway, back to the movies and televisions, I lucked into a perfect working order television that had been dumped outside my building with a converter. It's a large black t.v. and I don't get cable but I get lots from the rabbit ears. I then lucked into a VCR found in my parent's basement and a DVD player from a friend who had one too many. I hunted around for a video store that struck a chord with me. I had frequented the old Suspect Video on Markham Street for years when I house sat for friends and loved their eclectic amalgamation of movies you could flip through by cardboard movie casings. I tried Queen Video on Bloor Street and found their selection okay but the environment oddly competitive in a Queen Street black framed eye glasses polyester shirt I don't give a shit sort of way. It unnerved me. Then I happened across First Choice Video Club just east of the corner of Bloor and Ossington. I struck gold.

FCVC is run by a Greek man named Frank and his daughter. He's owned the store for over 25 years. He has a collection of movies (both VHS and DVD) that could counter any cineophile. He has Kieślowski's Decalogue plus all of his films. He organizes everything that is quite old by genre and movie star or director (i.e. Hitchock, Dunawaye, early Musicals, black and white horrors). He also gets new movies in weekly that he rotates around the store (he favours documentaries and foreign films but carries almost all of the big new releases and hot television series). I have never gone in there and asked for a movie that he wasn't able to pull from a stack of organized cassettes lined up against a wall. Everything is done by paperwork. You follow a code of honour when you rent from Frank. And after you meet him, I doubt you'll ever consider breaking it.

Movies stores, like independent book stores, aren't easy to manage these days. If you live in the area, I encourage you to drop in and stay a while.

Thomas Homer-Dixon - Sustainability Network

You migiht think I haven't been cooking or buying or perusing vegetables and fruits and cheeses at the farmer's markets of late since I keep posting about EVENTS but I simply want to celebrate all of the wonderful open forum and community happenings that are currently going on in our city. Spring always engenders a desire in me to pick up new hobbies and follow through on all of those hare-brained ideas I dreamt up during the dormancy of winter.

Thomas Homer-Dixon is the Director of the Center for the Study of Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Toronto. He is also an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science and the author of a number of books, including The Ingenuity Gap, which won the 2001 Governor's General Award for Literary Nonfiction. I have a personal connection with him because I went to visit with him one fine day down in his cavernous office space in a rather medieval building on the U of T campuses. I was thinking about doing my MA in his department and I wanted to talk about a number of issues and questions I had. He was really great to chat with, very conversational, approachable, and full of insight and supportive ideas. He was the antithesis of my other experiences at U of T that very much reminded me of Queen's - elitist, patriarchal, extremely competitive, exclusive. I did not pursue my MA at U of T. At the time, I was also considering attending the Straford Chef's School. And doing a MA in Anthropology at Guelph so that I could take some interdisciplinary courses with their agricultural departments.

Anyway, the Sustainability Network, whose tagline is "strengthening management skills and building capacity in the environmental community", is hosting a breakfast next Wednesday, May 31st, starting at 7:30 a.m. and held at 215 Spadina Avenue, Suite 128. The cover charge is $10. The focus of the presentation will be "the rising likelihood fo the breakdown of the economic, political, technological, and ecological systems that sustain humankind".

Native Plants for your Garden

“Be the change you wish to see in the world.” -Mahatma Gandhi

I'm really not one for proselytizing although I can see that using a quote by Gandhi might suggest otherwise. I do however like to encourage people to realize the change in the world that they can effect. Planting a garden (or volunteering at someone else's) is one of the simplest ways to do just that. Evergreen (a charity that focuses on the themes of nature, culture and community in an urban environment) has an extensive database of native plants that you can search through according to your ecoregion. Planting a garden with exclusively native plants encourages what is known as ecological restoration - the slow process of returning an area to a self-sustaining state. This inturn fosters a natural habitat for local birds, mammal, butterfly, and insects.

Like many invasive fish species that enter into a lake and destory a native population that had previously thrived in the local conditions, invasive plants cause similiar destruction in a different environment. They spread quickly and overtake and strangle out natural plant communities. That Purple Loosestrife (often called Beautiful Killer that you see along highways is an example of an alien weed that has wreaked havoc in both rural and urban habitats. If you have purple loosestrife somewhere on your property, please refer to this website to see what you can do about it.

Similiar to the idea of the 100 mile diet (eating food produced within a 100 square miles of where you live), planting native gardens is about returning to the local, establishing balance in our ecosystems by supporting the biodiversity of our environment by using natural plants (the plants that are the most capable of thriving in our soil types, etc, just like asparagus from 20 miles away tastes better than that harvested from 2,000 miles away and transported here).

If you don't have a garden to tend (and I know how hard those early morning spring days are without dirt to dig around in), then google "community gardens" and your city. They almost always have a call out for volunteers.

Grain

I was led to the website of GRAIN after a visit with a friend who mentioned her friend who lives in Montreal and does research on native seeds - their preservation and politicisation and the ongoing battle with GMO crops.

If you are interested in community involvement and control over agricultural biodervisity then Grain is definitely a website you should spend time scrolling through. It is based out of Spain but has an international reach and team of staff.

They describe themselves best in the about section on their website:

"GRAIN is an international non-governmental organisation (NGO) which promotes the sustainable management and use of agricultural biodiversity based on people's control over genetic resources and local knowledge.

GRAIN was established at the beginning of the 1990s to launch a decade of popular action against one of the most pervasive threats to world food security: genetic erosion. The loss of biological diversity, undermines the very sense of "sustainable development" as it destroys options for the future and robs people of a key resource base for survival. Genetic erosion means more than just the loss of genetic diversity. In essence it is an erosion of options for development. Central to our approach is the conviction that the conservation and use of genetic resources is too important to leave to scientists, governments and industry alone. Farmers and community organisations have nurtured genetic diversity for millennia, and continue to do so. Any effort in this field should take their experience as a starting point.

Now entering its 16th year of work, GRAIN has witnessed and contributed to an enormous and ever-growing momentum of international concern, debate and action to redress the imbalances in the management and control of biodiversity. What started as a small and Euro-centred outfit in the early 1990s, has now grown into a dynamic and mature organisation with thirteen staff in nine countries and spread across 5 continents, carrying out a broad and challenging programme on local and global management of genetic diversity and the impacts of biotechnology on world agriculture, particularly in developing countries.

This evolution would not have been possible without permanent efforts to strengthen the growing network of partner groups in every continent of the world. The foundations of our work lie in the daily networking, communications and information activities of our small organisation. It is on this basis that we are able to strengthen our capacities and those of our many partners the world over in mobilising popular concern and constructive action for the safeguarding of the world's genetic diversity."

Ken's Eggs

I know when my parent's first built their spectacular house on the hill outside of Creemore more than 10 years ago they knew the importance of making a local friend - someone who lived nearby, who knew the lay of the land and reacted quickly when something instinctively felt amiss, who genuinely took pleasure in his perambulations around the property, and who knew a little about the birds and the bees and the deer and the coyotes and when to plant at which lunar cycle and why if the wind blew from the north on a specific day in April it signified a rainy, colder than usual, arrival of spring.

They found all of that, and much more, in our neighbour Ken. Ken has lived in the neighbouring farm for almost 80 years and his family has farmed that land and lived within the parametres of it for so long that he remembers taking a horse and buggy to the town of Collingwood (I won't mention how he feels about Intrawest and the million dollar golf courses sprouting up all over the coast of Georgian Bay).

Ken usually had a cigarette or a piece of grass dangling from his mouth whenever I ran into him. You had to relax into conversations with him because even if you were in a hurry Ken had no concept of hurry and one thought turned into three thoughts and there was no rushing the silences that interspersed the dialogues. Ken was so smart about so many things (weather, human nature, animal instinct, gardening, the land) that it was almost incomprehensible that he had lived his entire life in a tiny pocket of the world, that he didn't much care for newspapers and current affairs let alone the great literature of the world, and that he spent 99% of his days out on a tractor alone. He was a sieve however and his daily meanderings and general curiosity about the world at large plus made him thoughtful and profoundly philosophical, of course in the most understated way. Many of the extremely wealthy folks who built houses in the area began to understand the importance of having Ken on their side not because he was threatening if he wasn't but because of the great reward of having him around. Nobody could drive up our driveway without Ken noticing from his kitchen window or his tractor fields far removed. He examined tire tracks and bent twigs and always knew who had been where and when.

We sold that house a few years ago and moved not too far away but far away enough that Ken no longer comes to visit. My father still drops by his farm and picks up cartons of his special eggs (blue, white, beige, brown shelled with the brightest yolks you'll ever see). Ken had cancer. So did his wife. They are better now but their life of physical labour has taken its toll. Some people, in fact many, and this makes me so unbearably sad, blow Ken off as a one-tooth, dirty fingered, white trash local nobody. I will spare you the details of the dinner that Ken was invited to by the daughter of a wealthy family who was sitting down to eat when Ken drove up to drop off firewood and the matriarch of the family in front of guests likened Ken to a pig that claws through the dirt of the earth. The new owners of our old house barely spend any time there. Ken told my mother "Don't go back, don't drop by, it'll break your heart". They pulled up all of my mother's gardens and planted shrubs. The cedar trees my parents planted have been eaten down by the deer. The new owners took the magic of the beauty out of it, the nature that evolved with each season, and although they view it as easier maintenance which makes me feel morally spiteful, Ken just shrugs it off and does what he can to let things be as good as they may be.

Eggs on Top

One of the easiest and most rewarding meals for a Spring dinner is poached eggs on Ontario asparagus with a side of toasted sourdough pada buns. I really only cook this with the super thick meaty asparagus. The spindly kind, not only lacking in the essence of earthy flavour of the thick stalks, cannot make a meal unless you pile them high like spaghetti on your plate. I gently steam 1 1/2 lbs of the thick asparagus, meanwhile toasting my bread in the broiler, and boiling water for poached eggs. When the asparagus is still crunchy but has turned a bright green I drain it and let it sit for another minute while I finish poaching the eggs. Then I place them all feather side one way and broken ends the other way, put a dollop of pesto in the middle, a drizzle of olive oil, a sprinkling of coarse salt, then place the eggs on top and then ground pepper on top of it all like a maniac. It's truly delicious. And surprisingly filling.

Asparagus Season

Asparagus, for all its simplicity in flavour and design, is complicated to grow (despite all the tendrils of wild asparagus you see growing alongside country roads making it look easy!). Once you've planted asparagus plants, you are to let them grow high and reseed themselves for 4 years prior to picking your first harvest. Even then, many people express frustration and say that the asparagus never took. In gardening centres, you may see asparagus roots for sale which claim to guarantee a faster harvest and a more productive crop. Again, not necessarily the case. I was lucky because I moved into a farmhouse one year that unbeknownst to me until the rains of Spring had asparagus hidden in its grasses and hay covered flower/vegetable garden beds. I first noticed them because I was responsible for cutting the grass. We lived on over 3 acres of land and I had to mow the lawn with a small handmower. There wasn't much else to do than eye the land and see what I was coming across (rabbits often nest in the grasses). One day after much rain and a sudden burst of hot sun, I noticed feather tips erupting from various spots in the grasses. When I investigated, I was overjoyed to find asparagus, a favourite vegetable. One of the most beautiful things a person can find when move into a house or rent one is the gift of a garden someone else has left behind.

Up near Creemore, where my parents' live, we like to get our freshly picked that morning asparagus from the Giffin's in Glen Huron or at their new market in Nottawa. They have purchased the Gadway's (famous for their asparagus and for their sense of humour!) asparagus patch. In Toronto, I'm delighted to find that my local green grocer on Bloor Street has both fiddleheads and Ontario asparagus - thick meaty stalks of it! Last night's dinner was 3 eggs poached on steamed asparagus. It's a nice amalgamation of flavous and a perfect way to taste the earthiness of the asparagus.

Ramps Online

The wild leeks are ALMOST done. We spotted some up around the Bruce Trail south of Georgian Bay last weekend but they are going to start to get dry and mealy. Now is the perfect time to flush them out of the woods (follow the garlic aroma) and fry them up in place of garlic/shallot/onion in any recipe.

My entry on Ramps/Wild Leeks was published in the online edition that the famous Kripalu Centre for Yoga and Health in Massachusetts publishes monthly. You can read it here.

The Pomegranate Restaurant

*photo taken from restaurant website created by legofish.

Tucked into the nook of a cove of frontal windows that overlook College Street (through the flattering light of candleabras and tall piller candles), this bed sits beside a tiled reflection tub filled with fish. It is covered in Persian weavings and pilllows for rear-end comfort. You take off your shoes and recline and wait for the charming waitress to come and offer you a beverage - they have a fairly decent collection of wine, mostly favouring the richer heavier varieties (Chardonnay and Shiraz) from Australia and Chile that complement the Persian flavours of walnuts, pomegranates, saffron, lamb, split peas, lentils, dates.

I always favoured (they don't make it regularly anymore) the Qeymeh which is exquisite and suits my palate perfectly. It is a bowl of yellow split peas stewed with a tangy fresh herb green sauce with lamb chunks and dried lime. The taste is overwhelmingly (in a pleasant aphrodisiacal sort of way) citrusy and herbaceous. They will make many of their evening specials with a similar flavourful sauce using fish (last time it was a perch) or chicken. The Baqali Polo has a lot of dried dill in the rice (a turn off) but the large green fava beans were flavourful and buttery and it was served alongside a braised lamb shank and persian pickles. The Fesenjen is a stew of ground walnuts and pomegranates served with portobello and button mushrooms, boneless chicken or lamb. The dishes are served in small bowls atop a large platter with one side perfectly cooked saffron basmati rice and the other a lime dressed mixed green salad. There are also serving size portions of creamy yogurt and persian pickles. Is there anything more delicious than placing a dollop of cool slightly sour yogurt atop a simmering spicy heady stew?

I've frequented the Pomegranate a few times in the past year and I find myself going back - on dates, with family, with out of town guests. It's cozy, reliable, family run, excellent home cuisine, authentically ethnic, not pretentious, reasonably priced (think 44$ for two for 2 mains and 2 glasses of wine and food leftover!).

Housewares Store - Bianco Plus

Always alert and on the hunt for excellent gift shops, I stumbled into Bianco Plus today sort of as a reason to duck out of the torrential rain and sort of as a way to extend my lunch break from just going to the flower markets at Av and Dav into something more productive? fulfilling? money consuming? Not sure. But it worked. I felt grand after my visit.

The store is located at 130 Avenue Road and is tucked in between all the luscious flower markets on the corner. Their storefront always has wildly colourful and fun aprons in the window or umbrellas that pop open with the touch of a finger. The shelves are stacked high with bud vases and blenders, odor free parafin for oil lamps and any utensil you could think of for a barbecue, linens and fancy shower curtains, spice racks and gadgets like natural face sponge holders. Baby whisks? Yup. Silicone pastry brushes? Ditto. Plain white square plates, colourful table runners, drip free candles. Everything is marked at market value and the 2 women I keep coming across in the store (wearing aprons!) are always charming and helpful to the point of nearing an embarassing level of kindness. I love a store where you can buy a trio of bubble glass coloured bud vases that costs under $15 and they'll wrap it in paper, seal it with a kiss sticker and put a colourful crimson bow on it. They'll pack it up in a plastic bag with a knot so it doesn't get wet in the downpour and then send you off warmly at the door.