Food For Forest Critters

I hope the defining aspect of my generation is not its dedication to theme parties, but it's beginning to look that way. And so here is my theoretical contribution to the age's great body of work:

A Dinner Party Featuring Food A Hedgehog Would Make If A Hedgehog Could Make Food.

Drinks would be Forever Nuts tea from Davids Tea, and dessert would be this, a Scandinavian Dried Fruit Soup. God, doesn't the name alone make you think you're living in a burrow? And that's not whipped cream on top. Oh no, there are no whipped cream cartons in the forest. Only yogurt for this one (although I'm not sure why I've decided there are plastic yogurt tubs in the wood either, but I'm the hostess of this theme party, and so my word is law.)

It's from the Moosewood Daily Special Cookbook, and although I was expecting something that tasted like dates floating in spruce beer (don't ask,) it's rather sweet thanks to the four cups of peach juice you pour into this. Those hedgehogs might be on to something yet.

Book Covers I Have Loved: What To Cook And How To Cook It

Thanks to my new job, I've learned that designing a cookbook is hard. Each page has a dozen bits of information, from ingredients to cooking times, that must be communicated clearly to a reader who is similarly doing a dozen things at once trying to make that page into a meal.

However, I don't much care whether the inside of What To Cook and How To Cook It is easy to use, because the outside is certainly nice to look at. There's no creepy, branded photo of a celebrity chef with their signature scrawled across their own face, like you would get with your David Ramsays. Or a bunch of boring text that marks kitchen classics like The Joy of Cooking and How To Cook Everything.

There's just a few illustrations, including a fish who is so cute, I could eat him up. Literally. Like, with tartar sauce.

Book Covers I Have Not Loved: Room

If I could justify the purchase of a new hardcover book, I would have bought Emma Donoghue's Room a long time ago. It's received stellar reviews everywhere, including from a much-respected professor, and its subject matter is right up my true-crime inspired alley.

I would have even ignored its unfortunate cover.
You know what this looks like?
The poster for Jack, that's what. And if I'm going to be reading one of the best books of 2010, I don't want to also be reminded of a Robin Williams schmaltzfest.

The Social Network And Storytelling

Caesar And His Imperial Pyjama Pants

If you can stop creeping your friends long enough to go to a movie theatre, you should probably go see The Social Network. Aaron Sorkin’s dialogue is hyperactively clever, David Fincher’s visuals are clinically perfect, and Jesse Eisenberg’s ability to project fussiness is finally used for evil instead of good. And once you’ve finished – if you don’t run home to delete your profile – you should read this long New Yorker profile on the man himself, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.

I don’t think you should read it to give you some fresh perspective on who Zuckerbeg is, or what really happened when Facebook was founded. I'm sure the guy we saw in The Social Network bears only a minimal resemblance to the real thing, but I'm not all that interested in what that would be anyway. What's neat is to see what was left out, what was changed, and what that says about our narrative expectations of the rich and the assholish.

For one thing, Zuckerberg's long-time girlfriend Priscilla Chan, who we meet in the article in an awkwardly stagey way, is completely out of the movie. Well, unless she's one of the Asian girls who give Zuckerberg and Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin blowjobs in the bathroom. Instead, we meet his white, well-spoken ex who provides the spark for starting and growing Facebook by rejecting him. The movie even ends with a superficially current tableau, where Zuckerberg friends her and waits, refreshing the page, to see if she accepts his request.

Well then, where did Priscilla Chan go? She was ditched so we could have a traditional, psychological narrative, where the engine driving the success is a personal failure. Starting a site for sexual vengeance makes more sense in this framework than the straightforward empire-building that comes out of the New Yorker piece.

It also allows the movie to play one of the most satisfying of narrative tropes, where vast wealth is gained but at a loss of all connection. Zuckerberg hitting refresh is just Charles Foster Kane alone in his mansion, except with worse tailoring. It would be hard for anyone in the audience to have more money than Zuckerberg, but at least they can congratulate themselves for having a warm body to go home with after the credits roll. Knowing "Zuck" gets to curl up with Priscilla and his DVDs just isn't as tasty.

I'm not saying that I mind Fincher and Co. making these changes. I probably enjoyed the movie more. I just find it interesting that traditional narrative expectations prevail even when we're dealing with a true story, about a new technology, developed recently enough that facts can be checked. It appears there are some things even more powerful than the urge to stalk the Facebook walls of people you hate.

(Oh look, Max rambled about the movie here. Why not check it out?)

Eco/Illogical

As part of the social contract of living in my current apartment, I have to abide by my landlord’s desire to use only environmentally-friendly products. Which is why I spent last weekend sunning myself under fluorescent lighting, debating the relative merits of dish soap.

The problem is that, once you veer from the path of Old Dutch, you’re suddenly chasing the vanishing point of virtue. No deed is ever good enough. Say you need hand soap, and start out with the store brand. Well, you might as well go down to the local pond and choke all the fish yourself, with what that will do to the algae population. So, you pick up the slightly more expensive store brand, the one that has a tasteful green and brown label and the words organic on it. Well, that’s better, but not good enough – after all, it’s still full of chemical additives and fragrances, in spite of the microscopic amounts of “organic” olive oils. The next is not made locally, the next has cetyl alchohol in it, the next has no alcohol, but has sulfates… and suddenly you’re considering spending over twelve dollars on hand soap.

And this is the point where virtue eludes you entirely. At least, it did for me. Paralyzed between Island Essentials and Nature Clean, I realized my own privilege was debating itself, and wondered if it wasn’t somehow better to spend three bucks on SoftSoap and send the difference to Amnesty International. But then – what about the fish? Surely, the best thing would be to spend over twelve dollars on soap, still send off nine dollars, and do something about the plastic bottle, because it’s hardly biodegradable, NOW IS IT?

By the time I had worked through this exhausting mental calculus, I still hadn’t found the all-crucial integer for keeping food in my belly. So, I spent five dollars on the mid-range natural soap - tragically unscented so no one could smell the eucalyptus and French lavender fumes of my goodness - and left. After all, you can’t save the world when you’re faint from hunger.

Greetings From The Island

Well, as promised, I made the move to Victoria just over a week ago. And, as my brother promised me, finding a room in Victoria is a bit of a nightmare. I finally ended up with a place that reminds me of what being a young career girl in the '50s must have been like, except with more Ikea furnishings. I live above an older couple and have a wee kitchenette all to myself, and kind of do and kind of don't have Internet.

So, posting will likely be erratic until I figure out what's going on with the connection. Hopefully it won't all end with me darning my nylon stockings by the radio, waiting for the phone to ring, or whatever it was ladies with an education and without a husband did back then (bridge?).

Elephant Sweater : Cuteness Made Physical

I have a bad habit of getting bored of a knitting project before it's cast off. Unfinished sweaters and shawls litter the graveyard of my good knitting intentions. However, that didn't happen with this sweater, which was finished just over a week after I purchased the yarn.

Blame the adorable elephant. Or its even more adorable recipient, who's turning one later this month. The pattern comes from Roo Designs, which seems to have produced a fleet of aww-inducing kiddie duds. The alligator, owl and whale patterns were also close seconds when I was picking one up at All Strung Out, but... you've gotta love a pachyderm.

I would also love to knit with the yarn, Mission Falls 136 Superwash, again. It's soft, squishy and superwash and comes in such lovely colours. I used Teal, Oyster and either Poppy or Russet (I lost the ball band) for this sweater, but am now imagining another in Thyme, Cornflower and Ink. But adult-sized, for me.

Classic Entertainment For The Children: Wallace And Gromit

People who have been reading this blog for a bit might have noticed that I link to the Onion's AV Club from time to time. I like them, and they like lists. Recently, they dedicated one to children's pop culture that adults could love, and it's really made me question my positive relationship with that site - How could I respect any place that would leave Wallace and Gromit off the list? Well, let me make up for their oversight, and in their own format too.

Marty Q. Protagitron: I don't know you guys personally, AV writers, but y'all suck. I'm sorry to use such vulgar Americanisms within the quaint British hearing of Wallace And Gromit, but there it is. No animated duo can bring joy to the hearts of both child and man like this hapless inventor and his much cleverer dog. Wallace and the mute Gromit wander through an eccentric, imaginary England that has kept all of its old charm - lace doilies on the furniture, three channels on the telly, and everything closed for a bank holiday - while opening itself to the fantastic. The moon is made of a Stilton-like cheese and penguins rob museums, but Wallace and Gromit still always make it home for tea.

My introduction to Wallace and Gromit came with the short The Wrong Trousers. It wasn't their first (that would be 1989's Oscar-nominated A Grand Day Out) but it's certainly their best. I was about eight, and I loved it then because it was a cracking good story. Gromit, with his prominent brow and resourceful nature, was also my Platonic ideal of dogdom. Now I appreciate its clever film allusions, from Hitchcock to silent classics. 2009's A Matter Of Loaf And Death even had a shout out to Aliens, but unlike some other flicks (ahem, Shrek), the jokes never get in the way of the story. Watching Wallace and Gromit in claymation action is like eating a big bowl of homemade oatmeal. It's hearty and comforting, without the regret that comes with indulging in the sugary pop candy of lesser kiddie fare.

Odd Questions My Dad Has Asked Me

Grand news! I am moving to Victoria, BC, for a job! I'll be there for at least 44 weeks (well, unless I'm a total washout, but let's not think of that now - instead, let's great ready for the THUNDER of EMPLOYMENT and the THRILLS of LEARNING.) So, I am busy readying my supply of polar fleece and bulk food containers for the trip.

Sadly, this means I will soon be a 6-8 hour flight away from my family. I will miss them all terribly, although my kind, understanding father has one odd habit that has left me feeling I was living in a Quiz Bowl for the past two weeks. He asks questions. Lots of questions.

Most of which I do not know the answer to.

For your and my amusement, here's a list of five random questions he asked me today, to which my answer was either "I don't know" or "I'm not sure, but..."

1. A list of all the cookies offered at the cookie bakery I visited in New York, almost 18 months ago.

2. What the Russian people thought of Dostoevsky.

3. If there were any real Jewish restaurants left in Montreal, besides the delis.

4. Why k-os would write a song about Natalie Portman.

5. If there was any great writer or thinker no one had ever made a great documentary about... yet.

Guelph By The Thingies: Hillside Mug

The Hillside Music Festival is just big enough that it sells out every year, and just small enough that I still ended up proselytizing about it to people in Montreal. This weekend-long tribute to music and the crunchy arts is well-known in most Canadian music circles, to be fair. But get away from seasoned CBC listeners, or even just cross the provincial border, and many people don't know it exists.

Which is a shame, because Hillside always has a decent lineup. And it doesn't make you pay 4-8$ for a bottle of water. No, all of its food comes from a rotating roster of local restaurants and catering companies, there's a water truck for you to fill up your reusable bottle and you get a special plastic mug in which to deposit your beer.

You can also take a break from the music whenever you need to, and learn how to vermicompost or parse the difference between brownies and imps. (I wouldn't know, as I couldn't work up the courage to attend Fairies 101 last year.) It's also a good lens on Guelph tensions, as the questions of whether this Hillside is better than the last, whether there should be more people allowed in or not, or even whether the Guelphite to Outsider ratio is too high, all hang over the main stage. However, those issues are also easy enough to forget as long as you've brought your trusty mug and some money along with you.