Cake and Community

The best thing about my week, the best thing, is Arty Farty night.

Making art.

See, I am beyond blessed to live in a neighbourhood with the most amazing women around. And every week, we get together and “do art”. Only one of us (Sara) is a real artist, but she freely shares her knowledge and does her best to teach us her real arty skills. I will state upfront that I’m faking it, because I can’t draw or paint to save my life, but I watch the others bring forth beautiful things and I feel inspired and hopeful.

So I can’t art, but what I am good at is baking. I love, love, love to bake. When I get stressed out, I bake to relieve it (my family appreciates that. Mama gets bitchy sometimes, but it usually results in delicious tarts.)

I figure if I can’t whip up a water coloured apple,  I can at least make an apple cake.

Kate's apple-y masterpiece

There are few things as satisfying as starting with a bunch of individual bits and pieces, and bringing them together into something whole and beautiful. My generation doesn’t do this very much.  We’re much more inclined to buy stuff that’s been pre-made than to make it ourselves. But I’ve discovered this amazing sense of accomplishment and satisfaction and competence in producing things with my own hands. Common things – bread, blankets, clothing… this is my art. So, last night, for Arty Farty, I brought the apple cake and a loaf of banana-date bread, and a bottle of wine, and I dotted some brown paint on a picture of a house, and I sat with some of the most amazing women, and we built community.

My art is to feed.

Even better than the art, the food, and the wine is the company of these women. The conversation. Thoughts are sharpened, ideas are developed, care is expressed – these are the bricks laid in our community building. And to walk down the street, be greeted with a genuine smile and an invitation into a warm kitchen, well, there’s nothing like it. I know not everyone is fortunate enough to have an armful of friends all living within a couple of blocks of each other, but imagine if otherwise-unknown neighbours became those friends. Imagine if your kids knew that they could run to the house next door for help. Imagine if you had something to gather around – some food, some art, some project…  it would change what community looks like. It would make being home a lot more lovely.

(I’ll post the apple cake recipe in the recipe section. It’s amazing.)

Better Meat, Less Often

I was talking to a friend of mine – one who is very good at stretching a dollar – and she said that she and her family had decided to buy “better meat, less often”. That phrase stayed with me, and I began to wonder how the world might be changed if we all moved to that way of thinking.

Now, I know some people become almost rabid at the suggestion that they should not be entitled to as much meat as they want, when they want it (which is a whole ‘nother story, and frankly, a slap in the face to the world’s populations that go without on a regular basis). Others, well… others become obnoxious about the consumption of meat, and any vegetarian knows just what I’m talking about. But most reasonable people seem open to the idea that how we treat our food will ultimately decide the quality of the food that we consume. And who wants to consume poor quality food?

I have two friends, two dyed-in-the-wool meat-eating friends, who changed their views on meat after discovering how it’s produced in factory farming. I was shocked to see their about-face, and if I had been a betting woman, I never would have put my money on them for such a drastic change. I’m not going to link to any information on factory farming, because it’s truly too horrific and appalling to look at myself, but anyone interested in learning more will find all they can handle by doing a quick Google search on it. Needless to say, animals that are loaded up with hormones, antibiotics and fed the by-products of other animals are pretty sick, and them we ingest them (this does not even take into consideration the mistreatment and inhumane slaughtering practices that most factory farms employ). It really doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that eating poor quality food equals poor quality nutrition for us, but worse, it also equals sky-rocketing illness (allergies, behavioural issues, cancer, etc.) in our human population.

So what is this meat? It’s the meat at the grocery store. Nicely packaged, clean, federally- inspected meat. There’s no back story included though – and our meat-handling and packaging standards seem like they should be trustworthy… but there’s a disconnect between meat production and the acceptable standards our government has employed for judging which meat is *safe* and which is *healthy*. But if your grocery store has “free from” meat (e.g., free from antibiotics, hormones, etc.) and it is labelled as such, it has to make you wonder, what’s in the meat that can’t bear that label??

Ideally, we want to buy our meat directly from a farmer. We are still trying to figure that out. But in the meantime, we’re choosing the “free from” meats that President’s Choice has started producing, or we’re going to St. Lawrence Market and buying the organic meats that some of the butchers have started stocking. It’s more expensive, that’s true. But this is where the “better meat, less often” idea comes into play. You still pay the same amount if you buy the good quality meat less frequently than the other stuff. There’s lots of other delicious things to eat besides meat – and some creative, open-minded exploration of the internet’s vast recipe stores will quickly reveal that. And you know what else? If more people bought the better quality meat, it would send a message to meat producers that THIS is what consumers want – and they would be inclined (simply driven by profits) to change their practices to attract the business of shoppers who are buying other meat.

So why should you pay more for better quality meat and go without a few nights a week? Because hormones, antibiotics and poor animal feed have a serious impact on human health, especially on children, whose bodies and organs and immune systems are still developing. So, you can pay now, or you can pay later. But the price later is much higher. 

The Indestructible Bag

Like most little kids, my son carries a backpack to school. And like most little kids, he is really hard on it. In fact, he’s only done two years (junior kindergarten and senior kindergarten) but I’ve had to replace his backpack three times. Three times, I’ve had to throw away a half-torn up bag because he drags it on the pavement, kicks it down the hall, swings it around his body (or at others), jumps on it, over-stuffs it, and just generally mistreats it. He’s 5, and he’s very good at it.

So, as the start of grade one approached, we found ourselves in need of yet another backpack (presumably printed with the theme-du-jour. So far we’ve had Spiderman, Transformers, and Thomas the Tank Engine, I believe). These are very cheaply made and cost about $25-$40, but to 5 year old eyes, they shine like solid gold. Somehow, up until this point, I’ve never really given these bags much thought. Now, I like to think of myself as a fairly with-it gal. I tend to be pretty conscious of what I buy and how its made and what happens to it after I’m done with it. But for some reason, seeing a themed backpack through my little boy’s eyes has totally clouded my normal judgement. I haven’t thought about the garbage they produce when they’re torn and falling apart, or how many hundreds of years it will take for them to breakdown in some over-full landfill. I haven’t thought about the repeated cost (so far we’ve spent over $100 on backpacks, but we still don’t have one to show for it!). And, shamefully, I haven’t even thought about who was paid some tiny amount of money to make it, no doubt in some terrible conditions that I would never agree to work in myself. No, what finally made me realize how ridiculously stupid the whole thing is was: The Mall on Labour Day Weekend.

The Mall on Labour Day Weekend is a sub-set of hell. And the reason is, things are so cheap that we have no attachment to anything we buy. We don’t like to think about the way it was made, or who was exploited, or the resources that were polluted in some poor country far away – we need Hollister. We need to stay on top of trends. So when we buy our cheap crap and then next year replace it all with newer, trendier cheap crap, no biggie.

Except, it’s a huge biggie! It’s a giant biggie! It matters so much.

I can never hope that we’ll suddenly have a mass awakening to the backwards consumerism that propels our society and our stock markets and our hedonism (am I a drag, or what?) but I CAN decide that, in a moment of near-breakdown from trying to wield a baby in a stroller through a giant throng of teenagers with too much disposable income, I will DO THIS DIFFERENTLY.

A lightbulb went on, I’m sure of it, just above my head. I stopped dead in my tracks, turned to Damien and said, “Why don’t we just get him an indestructible bag from MEC?” (Mountain Equipment Co-op for those who don’t know about it.)

Josh caught on to this – and the questions began in a flurry: “What’s an indestructible bag?” “What colour does it come in?” “Does it come in army colours?” (what? Whose kid is this?) “Does it have a pocket for toys?” “Does it never ever fall apart?” “When can I get one?”

And so, today after work, Damien is stopping in to the reasonably-busy store, with his membership in hand, to purchase an ethically-made, durable, cleverly-designed Indestructible Bag for Josh to use throughout the rest of his time at school. Josh has decided it shall be red.

And to that I say, go ahead and give it your best shot, you 5 Year Old Tornado of Destruction!

I wish gratitude were fashionable…

… the world would be a much sweeter place to hang out.

Damien told me the other day that we live like kings. He wasn’t being poetic or arrogant, either. He was referring to a recent article he’d read that translated the modern, average North American lifestyle into comparable lifestyles throughout history. The fact is, we have more wealth, health, and stuff, than people ever have; that is, we live like only the kings did in their own days. How about that?

And yet, every day, I notice how bloody unhappy most of us are, how quick to complain. I will offer my 5 year old son an unsolicited bowl of ice cream. Do you know what he will say? “Is that all you’re going to give me?” (I swear to you, I swear, I spend over half of my breath trying to instill good things in this child. His resistance has got to be the fault of some kind of genetic anomaly or something.)

I hear grumbling all day – people are upset that the streetcar is late, upset about the taxes we pay (taxes that translate into education, paved roads, police, clean water, etc.), upset that the kitchen floor is stained, upset that they’re too fat, upset that the battery on the cell phone is dead, that long weekends are only 3 days, that Sephora is out of that particular shade of eye shadow, that the exercise class pulled a muscle, that the milk spilled, that the cat barfed on the new area rug. (I implicate myself in these things too. I’m writing this as much to catch myself as I am to catch someone else.)

The thing is: we have a way to get around and don’t have to walk miles and miles. We have incomes that we can afford to pay taxes on (and which result in education, paved roads, police, clean water, etc.). We have kitchens. Full of appliances that make our lives enormously convenient, even if they get stained, or break down, or burn our toast from time to time. We have so much to eat that we can get fat. We have the convenience of instant communication, at our fingertips, wherever we go and whenever we need it (except, of course, when the battery dies and we need to re-charge it. Then we have electricity FLOWING INTO OUR HOUSES.) We get weekends, that is, time when we are legally protected to stop working. We have make up, and push up bras, and fake hair, and pedicures. All those things that make us feel more beautiful. We have the luxury of paying someone to exercise our bodies. We have milk (and yet none of us own a cow). And eggs. And other staples… cheese, rice, beans, meat. We have new area rugs. And animals who can be pets rather than dinner at the height of hunger and desperation.

I’ve been focusing a lot on gratitude with my book club. What if we treated life with a tremendous sense of holycrapWOW, instead of entitlement, expectation, disappointment, and complaining? I think things would be appreciated, enjoyed, well-treated, and protected… and people would be a far more tolerable kind of creature.

Challenge yourself to live in gratitude. Spend 5 minutes looking around, and see if there aren’t at least 30 things to be thankful for. I bet there’s even more than that.

What will they say about you when you die?

I’ve been so moved to read the countless tributes and memorial messages in response to Jack Layton’s passing. It’s made me realize that the best of what we think about people often comes out only after they’re gone. Why do we wait so long to say what should be said now?

I’ve also been thinking about what people will say about me when I die, and what I hope they will say… what will I be remembered for?

It seems to me that the reason so many people are lining up to pay their respects and pour out their sadness and condolences in chalk and flowers and oranges and art for Jack is because he used his life to make life different for a lot of people – even if they never articulated it while he was alive. I want to make something out of my life that is well remembered and means something too.

My confession: I don’t know what that is… yet(?) I’m still not sure what to do or how to do it, but I feel like it’s big, and it’s out there, and it’s waiting for me to find it. I know I’m passionate about a lot of things – faith, ecological stewardship, midwifery, slowing life down, learning how to do things that used to be a given for earlier generations – but I don’t know how that passion translates into something large-scale practical. Inside my head, I’m buzzing around all the time. I’m full of great ideas and no idea how to get them off the ground. It’s frustrating and incapacitating, both at once.

Perhaps the example of Jack’s life and its work will inspire my own. Or perhaps my contribution to the world will be raising up up two boys who figure it out far better than I ever will.

What will they say about you when you die? What do you want them to say? Start living it now.

Sometimes I despair the world will never see another man like him

Tonight, I am very, very sad.

I’ve been sad all day; heart hanging heavy in my chest, each breath a weighty sigh.

This morning, Jack Layton, leader of the New Democratic Party, the official opposition of the federal government (and really, the only hope standing up against the obnoxiousness of the Stephen Harper Conservatives), succumbed to cancer. And though I live in his riding, and I voted for him in the last election, I think I’m taking it way harder than most Canadians.

I’ve got several reasons for this, and I’ve been thinking about them all day.

For one, Jack was not just another talking-head politician. He was charismatic, honest, handsome, and singularly dedicated to the purposes of the New Democratic Party. He was a man of integrity and resilience. Whether riding his bike to work, or retro-fitting his home to make it eco-friendly, or demanding affordable housing for the poor, or taking on the most powerful in our country, he was the same man wherever he went. He’d overcome his battle with prostate cancer, and hip surgery, and in the midst of it, lead his party to an historic victory. He fought and fought and fought and fought for the protection and dignity of the most vulnerable in our country – how could anyone not love him?

I’m big on justice – I have a reminder to “do justice” tattooed on the inside of my wrist. And in a world where conservative voices win elections by promising the rich that they’ll get richer, and the powerful that they will be more powerful still, and that the fittest will be the only rightful survivors, Jack’s voice rang out against that, insisting that the weakest among us still matter, that they have value and worth as well. He was not ashamed to be counted among their ranks; he was not willing to get into bed with big business to win his place at Canada’s federal table. He lived among the ordinary people, sharing their ordinary lives, and infecting them with his unyielding optimism.

And while he fought his public office battles with integrity, tenacity, and grace, he fought his personal battle with cancer in much the same way, insisting that he would rise up and do all that he could to wrestle it back down. Tonight, I am praying for his wife Olivia and for his children, because we have something in common: watching someone we thought was invincible become another victim of that beastly disease. That disease knows no boundaries; it does not care about wealth, or status, or importance in the world. It takes without reason, and without care. Leave it to Jack to go down in the most ordinary of ways. How fitting.

This afternoon, I headed over to his modest riding office, a few blocks away from my house. I saw people standing in line to write their condolences in a notebook someone else had left on the window ledge. I saw flowers, most of them orange, some exotic, like orchids, left behind on the steps. I read a few of the many, many notes and tributes. I stood under the sign bearing his name, and wept before a reporter chased me down and asked me to explain why I was so sad.

Someone on Facebook arranged a vigil tonight – a simple, quiet act of solidarity – a candle in the window at 9 p.m. I lit my candle and went out walking around the neighbourhood to see if any others in his riding were participating in this same memorial. I discovered only one other – the hippie down the street with the “Stop the Seal Hunt” sign on his door (actually, I think we’d make great friends). As I walked in the dark, chilly night air, I thought of his wife Olivia, and his children, and I felt that same hollow disbelief that I did the night my mother succumbed to cancer (8 years ago next month).

I thought about the cruelty of the minutes that follow that final breath – each one in painful forward momentum that takes you further and further away from your last moment together. I thought about the way night time falls again and how empty everything feels when you climb into bed, and you’re expected to sleep, but you can’t, because your mind is a whirlwind of memories and wished-for scenarios that end differently. I thought about the audacity of the cars driving by outside, the shopkeepers open late to sell cigarettes to those who’ve just run out, the friends meeting other friends for drinks… all the people who have no idea that the world has stopped turning; that nothing is the same, and nothing is right…

Aware that he was coming to the end of his days on earth, Jack took some time to write a goodbye letter to Canada. Instead of resting, or sliding into despair at having lost his battle, he plucked up and reminded us to carry on. He finished it with: “My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we’ll change the world.” I read his letter and cried some more.

Poor Olivia. Poor Canada. Good-bye Jack.

Raw! Raw! Raw!

Not to be confused with “rah! rah! rah!” but I do kind of feel like a cheerleader.

A few years ago, my friend Kathryn and I started investigating a raw food diet. It’s hard to do 100%, but the bits that we could do were really fun. Eating raw is an investment in many ways – it takes an investment of time, of creativity, and yes, there’s a bit more cost involved in buying fresh food and some of the staples that the diet depends on (e.g., nuts and seeds), but the return is amazing. At the time, I was managing to eat a raw breakfast and a raw lunch, but a cooked dinner. Even with that 2 outta 3 scenario, my energy supply was increased a hundredfold. I remember waking up one morning, about a week into the new eating plan, and I didn’t feel like someone had dragged me behind a pick up truck for the first time in… well, probably forever. I didn’t hit the snooze button (I didn’t spring out of bed either, let’s be real, but I also didn’t curse the day, my job, my kid, or the cruel inevitability of daylight). I got out of bed, and I didn’t need to gulp down 2 cups of coffee before I could function.

Nothing I’ve done since then has compared with that time. I not only had more energy, my skin cleared up (I suffer from eczema), my eyes looked brighter, I lost some weight, I didn’t need my inhaler and my attitude improved (ha!) There’s something about not cooking or processing food that our bodies really, really like. So, I’m giving this a go again, and again, I’m aiming for a 2/3 goal of what I eat. Fortunately, my husband is a total trouper and he’ll eat pretty much whatever I put in front of him. My 5 year old is not a trouper, so I’m going to have to get creative there, but I think his overall health and demeanor would be improved with a little more raw too. I think smoothies will be a good start for him.

I’d love to hear if anyone else is willing to try incorporating more raw food into their diets and whether they notice a change after doing so. There are a tonne of websites out there that are dedicated to raw living, raw recipes, and the transition from the standard American diet (aptly shortened to “S.A.D”) to a raw diet. A quick Google search will turn up a treasury of information to get a handle on it (believe me, there’s way more to eat than salads), and jae steele has some raw recipes in her books as well.

Here’s what I served for breakfast this morning, which received the Husband Stamp of Approval:

1/2 cup soaked oat groats (which is the whole grain, before it’s processed to become oatmeal)
handful of almonds
1/2 cup of sliced strawberries
1 tbsp maple syrup
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 cup rice milk (the rice milk is not raw – but homemade almond milk would be!)

You have to soak the oat groats, which look like this:

Mmm.... groaty oats

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
They’re available at bulk food stores and health food stores. So what you do is, put a couple of cups of dry groats in a dish and cover them with water. Let them sit for 12 hours, rinse, sit for 12 hours, rinse, eat (e.g., 24 hours total; put them in at 8 a.m., rinse them at 8 p.m., put them back in water overnight, and they’re ready to be rinsed and eaten at 8 a.m. the next morning – not really as complicated as it looks at first read!) They’ll keep in the fridge, in a sealed container, for 3 days.

And because I have a buttload tonne of tomatoes coming in now that the plants are ripening them up, I’m looking forward to getting creative and coming up with new ways to enjoy them and all their raw, tomato-lovely goodness. Mmmm. Happy eating.