Paula Deen, you’re ridiculous

Oh, Paula Deen.

You have diabetes. No one is surprised. You waited three years after your diagnosis so that you could, presumably, figure out a way to make money off of your diagnosis. No one is surprised at that, either. You’re a money-making machine. It’s what you do. You smother on the Southern charm like butter. People like you. It’s OK. In fact, it’s good—the world needs more successful women.

However.

I’ve seen you on TV a number of times, and read in a number of articles, that the reason you cook the way you do is because it’s what you learned when you were broke and having to feed your kids.

Have you seen how much a brick of butter costs? About the same as a head of lettuce. Or a big bag of carrots.

Have you seen how much diabetes medications can cost? About the cost of a gym membership and a healthy diet.

You tell broke people to cook in a way that is obviously detrimental to their health, then you tell them what meds to take when they get sick. But it’s not like you put a gun to people’s heads and said, “Put another cup of sugar in that.” People choose to eat the way they do. However, what this world doesn’t need is more high-profile people actively promoting eating unhealthy food prepared in an unhealthy way every single day. Taking diabetes medication instead of changing your diet and getting off your couch is unhealthy. Smothering everything in butter is unhealthy. Making a lasagna—and then deep-frying it!— is criminal. All this, under the guise of cheap cooking for normal American families. It may taste cheap, but let’s get real here—it’s not cheap at the grocery store, and it’s not cheap at the doctor’s office. Stop trying to convince people otherwise.

Paula Deen, you need to shut up. Shut UP. Seriously.

i didn’t order this barcode with my latte!

I’ve got a new piece up today on OpenFile Montreal‘s website about the new sales-recording modules required by the Quebec government. These machines must be installed on restaurants’ cash registers as of Nov. 1, but they’re expensive to purchase. I wrote about how small businesses are affected by the new law here:

http://montreal.openfile.ca/montreal/text/quebecs-new-fancypants-cash-register-headache-some

St-Henri gets a woonerf

I wrote a story appearing in today’s Mirror about St-Henri’s future woonerf. The woonerf is literally in my backyard.

Little did I know when I moved here that a woonerf would be in my backyard. I also didn’t know there would be a huge new condo building at some point in the near-future—although, how could I have not known? This city’s going up in condos, and the Sud-Ouest still has tons of gentrification potential. My new neighbourhood is ghetto as all get out, and I kinda like it as an industrial no man’s land. Condo dwellers, I don’t welcome you, but I’ll take the woonerf that is being created in your best interests.

Here’s my story, for your reading pleasure: 

http://www.montrealmirror.com/wp/2011/11/24/st-henri-goes-dutch/

Farewell, St-Antoine

I’ve lived a block west of Atwater, on St-Antoine, for the past five years.

Five years can be an insignificant blip on the radar of someone’s entire life, but the past five years have been among the ones that really defined me. I finished my university degree while living here. I traveled to Russia, all over the U.S., to five European countries and to Mexico (twice) based out of this apartment. I was unemployed for the first time since I was 15 in this apartment (those five months were my Brian Wilson phase). I became a baker, and lost 85 lbs, and adopted a mutant kitty, and was able to afford cable TV for the first time in my life, and made two good friends out of roommates, and returned to my natural hair colour after years of dyeing it black, all while living here.

In a week, I’ll be moving into another place and onto another chapter in my life. And while it’s just the walls around me and the neighbourhood that are changing, it feels like my entire life is changing.

I must admit, I’m disappointed it didn’t work out better here, though it’s not anything I could have made better on my own. The lack of cooperation from the owner on fixing basic things got tiring and in the end, I just didn’t have it in me to continue battling it out with her. It’s too cold in the winter, too humid in the summer, the floors are slanted and warping my furniture, the sink gurgles uncontrollably whenever the upstairs neighbours run the washing machine (which is at least six times a week). I’m tired of putting up ghetto window plastic on my windows just to cut some of the draft during the winter. We’ve been entertaining the idea of moving for several years, but we decided to only move if the quality of our lives would improve significantly, and so we’ve got a lot of hopes pinned on this new place.

But I couldn’t wish this place good riddance if I tried.

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And while we’re on the subject…

Occupy Wall Street

I’m not entirely sure how I feel about Occupy Wall Street in its Canadian incarnation.

I mean, average people who don’t usually pay attention to the news, have probably heard of Occupy Wall Street. People want to know what it is, how they’re affected, if it’s a justifiable cause. Hundreds of people have written their stories on pieces of paper and taken pictures alongside them with their webcams. People are sick and tired of being sick and tired, they’re tired of being taken advantage of, they’re tired of getting poorer while the rich get richer. For this, the purpose of Occupy Wall Street is very real. A lot of people have been fucked over by corporate greed and irresponsible government, and I totally support those people. I understand what they’re mad, and I’m proud of my brethren to the south for finally standing up to something that came to a massive head at the end of the previous president’s term. Inspired by the Arab spring, people of the richest nation in the world are speaking out about the inequities and injustices of how money works in the US.

I completely understand why people in the US are mad, and it’s not like class or wealth disparities and irresponsible corporations don’t exist in Canada. But we do have free healthcare. We have unemployment insurance, welfare, disability, CSST, cheaper tuition (especially compared to the U.S.); in Quebec, we have the Regie de logement, and it’s illegal for landlords to ask for first and last, or even a deposit. There are programs in place to help people who can’t always be self-sufficient.

This isn’t to say there aren’t problems here. There are still poor people Canada. People are broke. Student loans suck, people have to live in shitty apartments with bed bugs and cockroaches. Welfare doesn’t pay out enough. My parents are still living paycheque to paycheque and my dad doesn’t have any kind of pension or retirement plan. The future looks grim as the population ages and the young people are asked to support more than just themselves. But.

People in the US can’t even go to the doctor when their kids are sick because it’s so expensive. A woman I met in San Francisco pays $500 a month to sleep in what used to be a walk-in closet. My old (American) roommate owes upwards of $40,000 to Fannie Mae for her education—and that’s for having studied in Montreal.

Some Americans decry government programs because they think they infringe on their freedom. So, congratulations, then—you have the freedom to be impossibly broke. When you get cancer, you’ll be bankrupted by chemo treatments. When your kids grow up, they won’t be able to afford to go to college. When you lose your job, you’ll also lose your house and car. Where’s the pride in that?

Canadians face those problems too, but it just feels as though it’s to a lesser degree. Here in Montreal, you can be a student who works 15 hours a week and afford a tiny room in a tiny apartment and go out with friends on weekends. You can be a welfare parent and take your kids to the doctor whenever they get sick AND get them medication, without having to worry whether enough will be left over for groceries.

As the crazy old lady I spoke to on the phone last night said, people act so entitled to everything, and despite the fact that I disagreed with 99 per cent of everything else she said to me, I can’t help but find a grain of truth in that. You can’t have the government give you everything you need and want—that’s unfeasible.

All this to say, I’m not sure the message is getting across in Canada. If the local Occupy movements are simply just shows of solidarity for Occupy Wall Street, that’s one thing. But at least here in Montreal, people are talking about local problems. Which is, you know, fine. People do it all the time here. There’s a protest a day in this city, so the more the merrier. We certainly have our share of problems in the city, that are different from Toronto’s problems, that are different from Vancouver’s problems. We’ve all got our own local problems with economic inequality and getting dicked around by the system. I do. You do.

But for the larger message of Occupy Wall Street—that 1 per cent of the population has 99 per cent of the nation’s wealth: the 1 per cent have 99 per cent of the wealth because Americans gave it to them. They wouldn’t be in business if no one purchased anything from them, after all. And so the most important thing you can do is stop giving your hard-earned money to the 1 per cent. As long as occupiers have iPhones and $5 lattes at Starbucks, no real and honest lesson is being taught (or learned) here. If they stop feeding the 1 per cent their money, they won’t be able to stay in business. It’s not like the government’s going to shut down Bank of America anytime soon, or that Wal-Mart’s going to close up shop because they suddenly realize the damage they’re causing.

Outside of actual elections, the most important vote you can cast is with your hard-earned cash, so be wise with where you spend it.

More reading:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/writer-allan-fotheringham-on-the-occupy-wall-street-movement/article2207089/

Laissez les bon temps rouler

Bourbon St. painting by Diane Millsap: http://diane-millsap.blogspot.com/

This is it. This is the year—THE year—I get to cross this off my unwritten bucket list:

We’re going to New Orleans for Mardi Gras.

I’ve wanted to go down to Louisiana since reading VC Andrews’s Ruby series back in the 1990s. (For the record, as a pre-teen and young teenager, I read pretty much all the VC Andrews books between Flowers in the Attic and the Logan family series —good, old-fashioned young adult reading, right?).

For those who aren’t familiar with the Ruby books, they’re set in the bayou and later, in Baton Rouge and New Orleans. I haven’t looked at any of those books in at least a decade, but they obviously left me with some kind of lasting impression about what New Orleans is like. It’s a romantic vision, like how some people must imagine Paris or New York to be, and that vision remains intact even in my post-Katrina reverie.

We’re going to be staying in someone’s shotgun house that we found off of Air BNB, right on the Mississippi in the Marigny district of the city. We’re going to ride the Canal St. streetcar. We’re going to get drunk at the parade (but not flash people for beads). We’re going to eat Cajun food and listen to good dixieland, zydeco and all sorts of awesome music and maybe go visit a plantation house and go on a swamp tour and hopefully not get bitten by tree snakes or alligators.

And then we’re going to get in a car (hey, I got my license this week!) and drive to Austin, TX and eat awesome BBQ and go to cool bars and venues and meet Austin weirdos and hang with locals and it’s gonna be awesome. Yeah!

retrospective on russia

Last year, I travelled to Russia with my best friend. I re-read my posts about my trip earlier today and reminisced about my time there. If you’d like to check it out, follow these links:

Part I: Moscow
Part II: St. Petersburg

Please note the pictures are no longer visible since I deleted my Flickr account, but I’ll give you this one for your enjoyment. Taken inside a café just outside Nevsky Prospekt.

Morning glory muffins

Who knew flourless, sugarless muffins could be so delicious? This recipe is tried and true—delicious even for non-paleo peeps, and certainly delicious for people with gluten sensitivities! The dried fruit in the muffins make up for the lack of refined sugar, and the almond meal is a good substitute for flour. The protein content from the almond meal and medium-chain amino fatty acids from the coconut of the muffin means they’ll keep your hunger satiated for a while. They’ll also satisfy a carb craving since the muffin format easily tricks the mind into believing you’re chowing down on some sweet, delicious bread-like things.  Thanks to the folks at Paleo Comfort Foods, this is a mainstay in our home. Click the link for full instructions, but here’s the gist of it.

Morning Glory paleo muffins

2.5 cups almond flour
1 to 2 tbsp cinnamon
2 cups grated carrot 

New York, a decade later

New York City, NYC. Pretty mean when it wants to be, or so said one Lemmy Kilmister once, a long time ago.

The first time I went to New York, I was a 16-year-old high school student on a class trip. I went to a Broadway show (The Music Man), the Statue of Liberty, South Street Seaport and some people went into the World Trade Center. I just saw it from across the river from Liberty Island. It was the spring of 2001 and little did I know that between then and my second trip to New York, the city—and arguably, the world—would change drastically.

The second time I went to New York, only a few months had passed since 9/11. We went down to the site and it was as if a massive asteroid had punched a rectangle into the earth. It was a hole more massive than I ever imagined. There was still dust sitting on some of the store awnings, some blocks away from the WTC. It was emotional. It still is.

There are many more tragedies in the world before, and since, 9/11 that outnumber the body count, outweigh the gravity and overwhelm everyone on this planet. Haiti, Japan, the tsunami, Hurricane Katrina, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan—the world seen plenty more tragedy than that experienced on that fateful September day. But this isn’t a contest. Tragedy is tragedy, life is life and death is death.

I’ve been to New York many times since 2001 but I’m sad to have not really ever known it in a pre-9/11 way, having only been there once before the WTC attacks, and only as a stupid high school student. Every time I go, I find something else to love about New York. Here’s some of that from my most recent weekend there.

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