Western Easterner

Hello again, goodbye and congratulations

2011-02-28T11:19:00.000-08:00

Since last I wrote, I've moved back to Toronto. It's for very ordinary reasons involving a promotion for my husband and a desire to be closer to family as we get closer to starting our own. It was also a very fast turnaround. We found out we were moving and a month later we were here. We had to sell our much beloved first home on the north side of False Creek (with a view of the concrete plant on Granville Island), not to mention saying goodbye to all the friends we'd made over the past nearly five years.

It doesn't help that we moved to Toronto just before winter. Stupid, stupid move.

But we bought a fantastic place smack in the heart of the core of downtown Toronto. I have work and I can walk to it. I'm with family and friends I've missed for almost five years.

So hello again to Toronto and goodbye to Vancouver.

I say goodbye not only to the city I have now come to -- dare I say it -- love for all its quirks, but also to a home within a home.

If you've read this blog before you've probably come across it because of my meanderings as a kitchen intern at Lumiere restaurant. I spent every Friday for half a year learning everything from deveining foie gras to where the ice machine is. It changed me, however cliche that sounds. I approach ingredients and cooking with more confidence than I ever did before, even after a lifetime of cooking with my mother. I got to meet people who were incredibly talented, fun and young. I felt like a part of the team and it became a kind of home for me.

I was incredibly saddened to learn that Lumiere and its sister restaurant, db Bistro, will be closing March 12th. I haven't spoken with anyone I used to work with, but from what I gather it has to do with a combination of factors including the HST, stricter drunk driving laws and location (the fact that it isn't downtown has always been a factor in foot traffic).

It's certainly not a total surprise for watchers. Rumours of closures have been around for ages. But that's all they were at the time. I didn't want to believe them. I was just falling in love and didn't want to hear a terminal diagnosis.

Yet here we are. And in my opinion Vancouver will be worse for it. It's a culinary institution and soon it will no longer be.

My first thought is for all the servers and cooks. I have no doubt they will find employment, and soon. Talented people in the culinary world are always in demand. I also have no doubt they will all go on to do something great. I've always known that. Nevertheless it's hard to think they may not be moving forward as a team, the way I've always known them.

I'm sad that I will not be able to dine there when I visit Vancouver. I didn't just love it because I knew the people there. They made EVERYONE feel at home. From the first time I went there in their new incarnation as a Daniel Boulud production I felt comfortable, well fed and happy. I have since discovered it's rare to be able to find this combination.

And yet I say congratulations because I also found out that my former chef at Lumiere is now a competitor for Top Chef Canada. They just announced it today. Dale Mackay will be the only chef representing Vancouver, which is a distinction for him and a shame for the show. In my opinion, Vancouver is the best food city in Canada.

I'll be watching the show proudly, knowing that Dale and his soon-to-be former co-workers are some of the best at what they do. Knock 'em dead.

The Main Ingredient on CBC Radio One

2010-06-17T11:57:00.000-07:00

It's finally...almost here.

CBC Radio's new national food show -- The Main Ingredient -- takes to the airwaves Monday June 28th. It's been years since CBC Radio had a national food show, so there's lots of anticipation.

Full disclosure: I'm one of the contributors to the show. I'll be doing on-air bits, bringing you food news from around the world.

On a personal level, I'm very excited to be doing this. Not only because this will be my national radio debut, but I will actually get to talk about food, combining my two career ambitions. I spent a lot of time in a lot of uncertainty as to where my career was going. As a non-staff member who's been working in the media machine for years, this is a very common but still very unpleasant place to be in. I'm trying to be a grownup, what with the marriage and mortgage and all...and I need a salary to keep these things going. Anyway, I digress. Very excited about not only being able to keep paying for stuff but also move my career along in a big way, in the ideal direction.

Having said all that, you probably want to know what The Main Ingredient is going to be about. It takes a look at the way people approach and perceive food...what it makes people do...and why. For example, one of the first episodes we're airing will be about "yucky" versus "yummy" food and how food frequently falls into both those categories.

There's also an episode on illegal and extreme dining. I brought Khalil to a dinner run by The Wandering Spoon folks. See my previous blog entry here.

It's NOT a cooking show. Repeat: NOT a cooking show. Not to say you can't cook to it while you're listening!

Our host, Khalil Akhtar (that's him right there), might be familiar to CBC listeners as he produces a nationally syndicated food column each week. Now he gets to take his appetite to the next level. But for those of you who don't know Khalil, I thought I'd ask him a few questions, since I have what you would call some sway with the show people.

1.What's this food show going to tell us about that we don't get from the onslaught being broadcast on the Food Network?

The Main Ingredient takes you beyond cooking lessons and lifestyle programming. Don't expect to tune in and hear about how to choose the best balsamic or pair wine with tuna. The Main Ingredient is more about food issues and food anthropology and food philosophy. We tell stories about how food impacts our lives. The other thing that I think is generally missing in places like The Food Network is the food industry stuff. The Main Ingredient will dive into stories about modern food marketing, the fast food industry and changes in agricultural practices.

2. In one of the episodes of the show, you ate mealworms. What was that like?

Mealworms are surpisingly delicious. In this case, they were quickly stirfried in butter and garlic. The texture was a bit odd. You know when you eat popcorn... and the outer husk of the kernel of corn is sort of tough and crisp? The husks get stuck in your teeth... well... that's what the outer shell of the mealworm is like. The idea behind eating mealworms was part of an exploration into why some people find certain foods distasteful. In other words why my yum is your yuck.

3.What have you eaten that you didn't think you would like...but ended up surprising you?

On the show or in general? In general... I'm open to eating anything. So I've never been surprised that I liked something... because I tend to embrace new eating experiences. I generally approach eating with a sense of cultural context. I figure if a food is part of someone's culinary culture and culinary vocabulary, then it would be offensive for me to express distaste for it.

4.What do you HATE eating?

I hate kraft dinner. Can't stand the stuff. I grew up in a punjabi household where the flavours were robust and in-your-face. When I first tried kraft dinner in university I was surprised at what all the fuss was about. I just thought... surely there must be more to this. That said... kraft dinner is vastly improved with lots of tabasco and ketchup. But at that point... why even bother. I make an amazing mac and cheese with nice aged cheddar and a bit of stilton.

5.What do you love to cook?

It changes every week, honestly. A standby, though, is something called yakhni pilau. Classic pakistani rice dish. I make it with dark meat chicken and chick peas. Make a little cucumber and tomato raita on the side... and I could eat for a week. It's a great dish because it takes a little precision to cook... which is fun. People ask for a 'recipe'... and I have to tell them it's not the kind of thing that's easily written down. There is a lot of 'look' and 'feel' in the process.

6.If you were stranded on a desert island and could only choose one meal, what would it be?

Sushi. Layers of flavour and texture. Plus the fish would be plentyful if I was on an island.

7. And if you got to pick a dessert to bring as well...what would it be?

I have a general ongoing debate with friends over the merits of cake vs pie. I'm a pie person in almost everyway. Give me a well-made double-crust apple pie with custard and I'd be in heaven.

So there you go. A little Khalil in a nutshell.

Here's the answer to your last question, which would be: "When is it on??" The Main Ingredient airs every Monday starting June 28th at 11:30 am/noon NT and Fridays at 7:30 pm/8 pm NT. We're also on Sirius Satellite 137 (you can check out that schedule here). Our website should be up shortly at cbc.ca/themainingredient and you can also follow us on Twitter at CBCIngredient.

Shellfish Paradise

2010-06-02T15:06:00.000-07:00

This summer I'll be the "food news" reporter for a national CBC Radio summer food show called "The Main Ingredient". It's a dream come true because I get to talk about food and get paid for it. Lately the stars have been aligning for me in more ways than one.

For this show, the producers wanted to find an underground dining experience and do a piece on it. They wanted to devote an episode on secret dining, the whys and wheres and whats and whos.

Well, well, well...just so happens I know a group of talented cooks who run a little operation called The Wandering Spoon. I blogged about their delicious premiere meal where they roasted a whole suckling pig. Mmm.

I emailed them to see if they were interested in putting together one of their fabulous meals on the fly. When I say on the fly, they had two days to tell me whether they could put together a large dinner in less than a week. Most people probably would've told me to f@#$ off. They actually said yes.

And man...what a meal it was. They pulled off a spot prawn boil on an epic scale.

Some of the spot prawns put up quite a fight. One clung to the lid of the styrofoam cooler they came in until somebody finally pulled him off. Then another one (or perhaps the same one?) jumped right OUT of the cooler onto the floor. It's a good sign of freshness is what that is.

Spot prawn season being so short, it was such a treat. I also employed a lesson I learned recently from another prawn enthusiast. If you are taking advantage of spot prawn season, don't forget the head! Most people just throw the head away, but some of the best flavour comes from the innards in the head. Sometimes you can just suck it out, but sometimes you need the help of a utensil to get that buttery brain goodness out of there. Seriously. It's delicious. Why would I be doing that if it wasn't?

Here's what we got to eat...or at least what I remember through my wine-muddled haze.

-boiled spot prawns (obviously)
-mussels cooked with mustard greens and merguez sausage
-clams cooked in lots of butter with sauteed leeks
-"heart attack bread" -- which was bread slathered in a cream, butter and garlic mixture
-corn on the cob
-more bread
-caesar salad
-boiled potatoes with still more butter and garlic
-rhubarb and strawberry crumble with vanilla ice cream for dessert

TWENTY people showed up and apparently many more wanted to come. We got to see a number of familiar faces from the last dinner and some new ones who were clearly delighted to be a part of the shellfish free-for-all. I had tons of fun tackling my meal with my hands, as you can tell by the carnage I left behind in the top photo.

I am continually amazed at the lengths people who love food will go to indulge it. And I'm not talking about those of us pigging out at the table. Cooking 12+ hours a day apparently isn't enough for the Wandering Spoon folks. They still go out of their way to indulge a bunch of strangers -- not to mention the national broadcaster.

It was also a total steal. I saw what some other restaurants are charging for similar meals.

Thanks once again to the Wandering Spoon folks for a great meal and putting up with our microphone. Can't wait to see what you do next.

By the way, I'll keep you posted about when The Main Ingredient airs their episode across the country.

Dine Out and C Restaurant

2010-04-27T21:01:00.000-07:00

When it comes to Dine Out, there are a lot of mixed feelings.

Before I go any further, let me explain Dine Out briefly. It's where a list of restaurants across Vancouver have set menus for either $18, $28 or $38 dollars. You can find a list of them here .

Anyway, like I was saying. Mixed feelings. People working in restaurants generally dislike it because it usually means a TON more customers who aren't paying as much...which means you have to turn over a lot of volume to make up the extra money. Which means you really have to hustle. For fine dining restaurants in particular this can be very difficult, because of plating and standard of service and what have you. For the kitchen it's a massive pain too because you have to churn out so many extra meals, and with that comes a ton of extra mise en place.

However, customers love it because you can usually score a great deal, especially at some of the finer restaurants. It's an excuse to go someplace you've never tried before. And usually you can get a bigger group of people together and make it a party.

But even for diners it can be a mixed experience. I remember a couple years ago having dinner at the well-attended CinCin restaurant. Not knowing any better, I was drawn there by all the mentions I kept hearing about this celeb or that so-and-so eating there. Yeah, I really didn't know any better at the time. All I can remember is a very darkly lit dining room and this risotto that was gluey and nearly inedible. It was chalk white with some kind of cheese but it tasted a strange combination of sweet and cheesy. I didn't finish it. And I am NOT a picky eater.

Anyway, you take your misses with your hits. We headed out to C Restaurant tonight. It's renowned for maintaining ethical seafood standards and also generally being a great restaurant.

I like going to a new restaurant during Dine Out because it speaks to me about their level of service and food. If you can maintain a consistently great level on both those counts while trying to serve hundreds of people, you're really doing something right.

So here's what our dinner was like at C.

First up: seaweed bread. It had a soft, crumbly texture which I actually like. There were fresh ribbons of seaweed throughout. I don't know if I loved it, but it was an interesting concept.

First course:

Green Tea Cured Dr. Albright Trout
Origin Organic cucumber pickles, arugula, Granville island sake emulsion

You could faintly taste the green tea cure when you had the trout alone. Together, not at all, although the dish was delicious. Very acidic. Loved the pea greens in the salad. It would be a recurring theme throughout dinner.

Next up:

Octopus bacon wrapped scallops with peas cooked with bacon and leeks and a foie gras vinagrette

**This was an extra we ordered because it sounded delicious. And it was. They thinly sliced octopus and smoked it (I think) and wrapped it around these deliciously sweet scallops. In fact, both the octopus bacon and scallops were wonderfully sweet. The peas were also fantastic. I love peas.

Main course:

Pan Roasted Keta Salmon
Ragout of spring vegetables, smoked ham, lemon condiment
Parsley sauce

I really thought the salmon would be a standout given the restaurant's reputation. The dish was very good, but there was nothing particularly outstanding out the salmon. The peas (again, more peas) were FANTASTIC. Again, I love peas. And these peas were sweet and delicious. The parsley sauce didn't seem to add anything to the dish, but didn't detract from it. There was also a pile of pickled sea asparagus on the side. They tasted a lot like Chinese preserved prunes we always have for treats. They added nicely to the dish. Plus miniaturized vegetables always look so adorable.

Finally, dessert:

Chocolate brownie
Vanilla liquid marshmallow, orange Chantilly

I love chocolate cake for dessert. I'm not going to lie, I tend to order this kind of dessert at every restaurant. So I think I'm a pretty good judge of what a good chocolate cake dessert should be. The brownie was nice and dense and rich...but the combination of two kinds of cream was a bit redundant in texture. The liquid marshmallow contrast seems bourne of the molecular gastronomy trend but I don't know if it worked with this particular dessert.

Service wise, it was very efficient. However, and this is probably just for Dine Out, there seemed to be a LOT of servers. If you've ever eaten at C, there's a narrow corridor where the servers have to travel between the kitchen, the front door and the rest of the dining room. We were sitting RIGHT at the entrance of the dining room, which didn't help. I felt a bit claustrophobic. Luckily the wine helped.

All in all though, great meal. I came away happy and satisfied and that's all I ever ask of any meal. I count this among my more successful Dine Out experiences. If a restaurant like C can pull off Dine Out well, there's no excuse for any other restaurant to do any less.

Here, piggy piggy piggy...

2010-04-20T22:26:00.000-07:00

The great thing about food is not only is it delicious, but you can shape it into anything you want it to be. Case in point, a new venture by three Vancouver cooks. They've started up The Wandering Spoon -- their take on "renegade" dinners where a lot of what happens is up in the air.

So what IS this "renegade" style meal I speak of? It's where you're told a date for the dinner and perhaps there are some details about what they'll serve. There's a fixed price, and the location changes. So basically you're agreeing to put yourself in the hands of the cooks...because you're at their mercy.

It's part of an underground dining movement that's been happening around the world for some time. It allows the cooks to bypass local bylaws and liquor laws (it's strictly BYOB)...like a dinner party but with mostly strangers. The appeal for the cooks is that they can serve whatever they like and let their imaginations run wild. The appeal for diners? In my case, having a completely different and new dining experience that turned out to be tremendously fun.

As you can see from the top photo, we ate our way through an entire suckling pig. Imagine walking through the door of someone's loft and seeing that face. But it wasn't merely roasted whole. The pig was butchered, its hind legs removed, ribs and tenderloin removed. The loin was wrapped in spinach and forcemeat, placed back in the pig, the whole thing to be roasted for four hours.

The ribs were cooked up with rosemary, garlic and butter. My personal favourite part, served with cabbage cooked with carrot and bacon. Everyone at the table loved it; it was the first item to go.

The legs , as you can see, were served on top of a dish of cauliflower.
I'd never had an entire suckling pig served to me before, so it was as much fascinating as it was delicious. And it really was good. To the best of my knowledge it was the first time any of the cooks had tackled a dish like this, which made it a great experience for them as well.

Besides the delicious food, most of the enjoyment of going to a dinner like this is the atmosphere. You sit with a bunch of people you don't know (yet). I met yet another Twitter follower who had seen my tweet about the dinner and thought, what the heck? He turned out to be a City of Vancouver planner who seemed to really enjoy himself. Everyone did. We all had at least one thing in common: we like to eat!

Everyone at the table was in great spirits. The wine and beer probably helped a lot. One diner even offered up her plate for this photo you see on your left.

The coziness of seeing the people making the food was also a great treat. Cooks are some of the most passionate people I know, and are always at their best when they're in their element and talking about what they do. If you get a chance to engage a cook, do it. They don't realize how much they light up when they're talking about what they love.

Dessert was appropriately homey: apple tarte tatin with oatmeal ice cream. It was warm, delicious and comfortable, like the rest of the meal.

And like other fabulous dinner parties...we got to take home some of the leftovers. Believe me, even between 11 people there are a LOT of leftovers!

I'd never done any underground dining before this, but it won't be the last. The Wandering Spoon will be hosting dinners about once a month, so keep your eyes peeled to their blog. You're going to love it when this spoon wanders your way.

My evening with Heston Blumenthal

2009-10-19T10:44:00.000-07:00

There's a lot of overhyping of chefs these days. I used to be a Gordon Ramsay fan, and now all I want him to do is stop using that orange self-tanner and sit down and be quiet. All the overexposure about his multiple restaurants, his near bankruptcy and his alleged affair with a "professional mistress" have detracted so much from what made him famous in the first place: his food.

Being used to that...I expected something similar when I went to watch Heston Blumenthal recently. He's got multiple TV shows as well, many cookbooks (although I don't know anyone who actually cooks with them) and has generally become one of those hot shot chefs who's names are tossed around internationally.

I'll tell you one thing. From what I've seen, Heston is not a man who loves to talk about himself, or much at all. But when he talks about food, you can see why the man has earned three Michelin stars for his restaurant, The Fat Duck.

Heston was in town to promote a new home sous vide machine. That's right, you read correctly: HOME sous vide machine. As in, you can sous vide at home. For people who don't know, sous vide is when you vacuum seal food into plastic bags and cook them at very low, controlled temperatures in water. A lot of professional kitchens now have these things, which look like big plastic tubs of water with thermometers in them. They're quite expensive though, so American Drs. Michael and Mary Dan Eades invented this home sous vide machine called Sous Vide Supreme. It's just starting to get off the ground now so they're trying to build momentum and demand in the chef/foodie community. They say it all started with the search for the perfect pork chop...which can evidently be achieved via sous vide.

Who better to enlist as a promoter than one of the world's foremost chefs and proponents of sous vide? I mean, the minute I saw Heston's name I agreed to go. And I'm so glad I did.

It was a pretty small room of people, mostly local chefs and food writers. It was so intimate that Heston spent the first fifteen minutes just walking around and talking to people in the room. He did not, as I expected, spend any time checking his Blackberry (if he even has one) or stick with his entourage (which was only his sous chef). He was totally down to earth.

Listening to Heston Blumenthal talk about food is like taking a university course. He doesn't dumb down what he says and man...does he know his stuff. He doesn't pretend like sous vide is God's answer to food. He admits there are certain things, like langoustines, that actually become worse when you try to sous vide it. He described how the protein strands "snap" and the texture becomes "pappy", which I took to mean that the meat becomes cottony and unpleasant.

The true highlight of the evening was when he described his recreation of a Victorian era dish, mock turtle soup. It's a dish that was created when the British stopped drinking turtle soup. Mock turtle is different parts of a calf (tail, head, etc) boiled together. I suppose it's the gelatin from these parts that create a mock turtle texture. Heston showed us a slideshow of this. It started with him talking about Alice in Wonderland and describing a drawing of one of the characters, a mock turtle, that had the head of a calf. The whole "mock turtle" recipe explained the drawing of course. But I had no idea where he was going with this whole "Alice in Wonderland" thing.

I never should have doubted him.

AS the slideshow played on, you saw a video of the stock they prepared. They boiled the ingredients and vac packed it, froze it, then let it defrost over a piece of muslin. The cloth kept the solids while releasing the liquid. They further concentrated the flavour without boiling (heat decreases the flavour) by freezing it again and using a machine to shred the ice. The water is separated from the rest...somehow. After further concentration they add gelatin sheets to create an even stickier concentration.

Here's the genius bit that ties it all together.

They pour the liquid into molds of little watches (ala the Mad Hatter tea party in Alice in Wonderland, get it?) and they COVER THE STOCK WATCHES WITH GOLD LEAF. They're suspended on little strings. They're served in big teacup bowls. You pour boiling water over the watches and it becomes the mock turtle soup with gold flecks in it. It's all poured over an intricate arrangement of vegetable garnishes.

I was amazed and delighted. And Heston just loves talking about food. He gets really excited explaining it all. He can barely keep up with the video, there's so much detail he wants to tell us about. If only he could explain every dish he made to his customers, he could probably charge double what he charges already.

Of course, we were there to see what these home sous vide machines could do. We ended up trying scrambled eggs (Heston topped it with some beurre blanc and shaved white truffles), brined salmon, steak, eggplant, chicken and poached pears. The best tasting parts for me were the salmon, steak and eggplant. However, the steak and eggplant were both seared off in hot pans after they were removed from the bags.

My one criticism would be that people are not going to love the texture sous vide creates in everything. The chicken in particular had a very soft, almost mushy texture. However well cooked, the texture took some getting used to.

I still have my doubts about whether or not this home sous vide thing will take off. Not because the machine doesn't work or anything. It seems to work the same as an industrial one...but more compact and less expensive. Still, it's going to retail at just under $500 US, so it's not an impulse buy. Plus, cooking for hours at a low temperature when you can't exactly combine foods (cooking chicken and celery in the same bag probably won't work unless you want them cooked for the same length of time) isn't going to be helpful to someone pressed for time. Sous vide is also a relatively new concept in the culinary world and even chefs are still figuring out what they can do with this. I guess time will tell if the home cook is ready and willing to sous vide.

But I am a bigger fan of Heston's after meeting him. I went up to him after the demonstration and he was unfailingly polite and surprisingly humble. I mean, the man doesn't expect applause when he walks into the room. He flinches when people mention his Michelin stars. But he loves food. He is NOT a natural public speaker. Half the time he pretty much forgot about the talking and went to plating, tasting...basically what he does best. I hope he doesn't lose sight of the food. We need him to help the culinary world get a grip and get back to cooking.

Confessions of a Stagiere -- Week Twenty

2009-09-21T12:27:00.001-07:00

I have missed a couple of entries here, and I figured it's better to be accurate about what week I'm talking about rather than having them all sequential.

This week was my last week at Lumiere -- at least, my last week going consistently. I've had an incredible six month run. When I first started I was working just to become familiar with my surroundings. In the last few weeks, I finally nailed down the art of forming a quenelle of cream with one spoon.

I've been referring to my final day at Lumiere as my "final exam". It's very appropriate. The minute I walked into the kitchen the meat cook says, "you know today's the Steve Nash dinner right"?

The Steve Nash dinner he is referring to is the fundraiser for Steve Nash's foundation. A $1500 a plate dinner. I had gotten multiple emails about this through work via press releases, but for some reason it hadn't sunk in that if I showed up that day, I would in fact be working for the dinner.

It also hadn't sunk in that executive chef and restaurateur extraordinaire Daniel Boulud was also going to be there.

"I assumed that's why you were here".

Noooooo, no no no. I had been so glad I wasn't there on another weekend Daniel had come to town because I specifically wanted to avoid having anything I was doing scrutinized by this legendary chef.

So the dinner involved prepping for a yet unspecified number of guests ("thirty to sixty people" is what I heard). The dinner was happening at db Bistro -- they closed down the restaurant for the event. The only dishes coming out of the Lumiere side was the crab dish from the garde manger section. Keeping in mind that when I say "only" I mean we ended up prepping enough crab for about 100 dishes...on top of the regular prep for dinner service.

That's ten pounds of crab that needs to be picked over, then mixed with half a litre of chopped herbs among other things. I don't even know how many mangoes they went through, slicing them with a mandoline and cutting strips to wrap the crab with. Then preparing half a litre of mango bruinoise and piquillo peppers. Then forming and wrapping all the crab. Then wrapping over eighty crab rolls with rice paper wrappers.

It was go time.

In the midst of all this, as I'm squeezing a dozen grapefruits into juice, I hear a deep rich voice calling out behind me. I know it's Daniel. The Vancouver Sun was there to film Daniel and Dale making the scallop dish with corn succotash. I didn't dare turn around to watch, but listening to Daniel direct the action was amazing. He's a producer's dream. He knows what angles are the best, what to shoot, when to shoot it, what to say, how long to talk...considering he does this kind of thing all the time I'm not surprised. But I am in awe.

What's Daniel like in the kitchen? A pro. He doesn't have time to waste, he knows what he needs to get done and gets it done. I got to see that first hand during "the" dinner service. We had set out 87 plates on tables in the narrow hallway that joins the two kitchens. I had been tasked with plating the bruinoise of mango and piquillo peppers onto all the plates. The staff at db were tasked with building the crab stacks, slicing the rolls and plating all the rest.

We were right in the middle of Lumiere's dinner service and I we've run out of the coriander sticks we're using in the crab stacks. The rest of them are all in the db kitchen. I go out into the hallway and everyone is right in the middle of trying to get these 87 plates of crab out of the hallway and to the tables. Because it's so narrow nobody can fit around each other. The servers are on one end, the chefs are at another, the chefs are yelling for people to take certain plates away. Not all the plates have the same design on them so a lot of juggling is involved. Add to this the fact that the crab stacks are plated on top of mango puree which is making the stacks slide around and you can imagine the pressure.

Of course, I know better than to actually try to get anything from the other kitchen during all this. I head back and wait for the rush to subside.

The dinner was supposed to run from 7 to 8 pm. That was going to work out perfectly because the Lumiere dinner reservations had a gap between 7 to 8. There would be free hands available. At least, that was the theory. The dinner got pushed back to 8:15...when a bunch of reservations would have just arrived. It's amazing what you can do when you have no other choice.

And that's what really divides people who work in kitchens and others who don't. There's a breed of people that thrive on adrenaline and stress. The thrill of getting it all done and knowing you can do it.

I got called over to the db kitchen for the main course plating. Picture two lines of cooks on either side of a massive stainless steel prep table. db's chef, Stephane, yells out instructions. I end up near the end of the line, plating the beef and adding a romaine garnish to the plate just before Stephane sauced them. We probably plated everything in five minutes or less. I loved being part of that.

In the middle of everything Dale comes over and asks me if I want to take a picture with Daniel Boulud. Note: you do NOT say no to a picture with Daniel. I'm pretty sure that's a law somewhere. I was thrust into a corridor with him. He has no idea who am I or why I'm there but takes the picture anyway, which you can see to the left. Yes, I'm planning to print that out and hang it somewhere in my house. I don't even have pictures of my family hanging in my house yet, but you can be damn sure there'll be one of Daniel.

So the dinner went off successfully, as did the dinner service we did. Lots of momentary panic but it all got done as it always does.

I've had a bizarrely circular relationship with Lumiere over the past year. When I ate there the first time it reopened last November I met Daniel, as a patron. I gushed about it profusely in this blog posting. Now I've met him as a pseudo-employee. I won a chance to eat and work in the restaurant and ended up staying for six months. I don't know how it all worked out so seamlessly, but I know this has all been a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

People ask me what I've learned. Everyone thinks I'm hosting these incredible dinner parties now but the truth is that the most thrilling experience I've had is getting to be around people who genuinely love food. It's an egalitarian love. You can love ham and cheese sandwiches just as much as duck confit. I could talk about wanting baked Alaska and have a roomful of people talk about their awesome baked Alaska experiences with no hint of snootiness, just a pure love for food. I got to be a part of the monumental task of putting a fine dining meal together. I found out what lengths people will go to work with food just because they love it. Oh yeah, and I finally nailed one-spoon quenelle making!

My time at Lumiere has been absolutely incredible. I am so lucky that chef Dale Mackay and everyone in the kitchen not only allowed me to be there but took their time to work with a total novice. I used their tools, I made mistakes but I hauled ass as best I could. Thanks so much to those who've stayed and those who've moved on: Dale Mackay, Nathan Guggenheimer, Doug King, Alex Amos, Brad Hendrickson, Jesse Zuber, Rhys Jones, Suyin Wong, Celeste Mah, Tony Chang, Trevor Bird and all the people at db Bistro as well for making me part of the team. I'm going to miss working with you but I know I'll be seeing you all around.

Confessions of a Stagiere -- Week Seventeen

2009-08-20T13:25:00.001-07:00

I can explain my procrastination this week. My parents were in Vancouver visiting. After a few days of parental catharsis they're now gone and I'm free to blog once more.

Either I've really earned some trust in the kitchen or the garde manger is giving me new stuff to do just to see what I'll say about it. Just kidding. Sort of. Lots of new dishes at the restaurant means lots of new tasks for me.

I have a new favourite task: making grapefruit juice. I don't have to make beet juice anymore (victory dance) because the hamachi dish has been changed to a beautiful grapefruit salt cured hamachi with grapefruit gelee, tofu puree and other delicious things. Yeah. That'll do as a description.

We can't put the grapefruit through the juicer because it makes it cloudy. So I just cut them in half and squeeze them as hard as I can over a chinois. I believe the garde manger's exact words were "use your superhuman strength to squeeze them". My reply was, "have you met me?"

Lack of superhuman strength aside, it's actually fun to squeeze the bejeezus out of grapefruits. Very theraputic. It also makes your hands feel awesome, really smooth. And they smell nice afterwards.

The tomato gelee and mascarpone roll component of the amuse bouche has been changed. Now we made a mascarpone that's set with gelatin, pour it into our eyeplates and once they're set we top them with chopped up tomato gelee.

Because the amuse bouche is so much easier to plate, I get to do more in the way of plating with the cold starters. It feels like a promotion. I take my victories wherever I can get them.

I couldn't pass up the opportunity to bring my parents to the restaurant. They'd be hearing about it all this time and they had never been to a fine dining restaurant. I was so excited to bring them there and it pretty much lived up to everything I could've thought of. The chef came out to say hello and he took one look at my mom and said "wow, you guys look exactly the same". My mother and I DO look very similar. It made me laugh because I've often thought about the fact that the older I get the more I look like her.

They certainly got a full experience. A couple of the owners -- David and Manjy Sidoo -- were sitting with a party at the table next to us. It was my parents' second trip to Vancouver and they were getting to experience quite the West Coast life.

I had a fabulous meal of the aforesaid hamachi (which I was forbidden from trying the week before because I was coming in for this meal), scallops with corn succotash (I had been dying to try this, it was fabulous), the new duck dish with daikon and cherries, the beef dish (one of my favourites that I'd never eaten in its entirety until then), finished off with cheese and a new dessert: tiramisu sundae. I think we all got sundaes because Fernando wanted "the thing you pour chocolate onto and it melts", by which he meant the sundae. My dad was full so I actually ate his too.

Part of the mignardise was a tiny carrot cake with a tiny marzipan carrots. My mom was fascinated by it. She couldn't stop talking about how small it was. Even the next day I kept hearing about it. She'll never forget that detail. So this meal definetely qualifies as one that's unforgettable. Thanks to everybody in the kitchen and the front of house for making them feel so at home and taken care of.

Confessions of a Stagiere: Week Sixteen

2009-08-04T13:08:00.000-07:00

I've been really terrible at getting these up on time lately. My apologies.

So I didn't go last Friday because I was busy moving into my new home. Woot! Now everything's moved in and almost everything's been unpacked and put away. I can finally concentrate on food.

I did a lot of rejoicing the week before when I found out the amuse bouche had been changed. Not because I didn't like it, but because the new one is 150% easier to plate.

Old amuse: heat up pea puree (which almost always exploded on you if you heated it just a LITTLE too much), heat smoked sablefish under salamander, get heated soup (which turned brown all the time because of the chlorophyll), yell for the bacon foam, coordinate that all together and out it goes. It's not the most difficult thing in the world but man...it could be trying.

New amuse: plate tomato gelee and mascarpone roll ahead of time. Pull out of lowboy when needed. Place heirloom tomato pieces at bottom of cup, pour cold soup into it. Fill puff pastry piece with tomato jam. Done.

This will have changed significantly by the time I head back this Friday. It's a work in progress. But I love the soup. It's a really simple tomato consomme: tomato, basil, cucumber and celery put through a food processor and left to hang over a bowl overnight in a cheesecloth. It's simple and refreshing. The small pieces of tomato inside look like little jewels. Sometimes they float and sometimes they don't. The sous chef figures it has something to do with the size of the pieces. I personally love the way it looks when it floats. With the drops of basil oil dripped into it it is a visual sensation.

There were an inordinate number of people complimenting the dishes this week. Perhaps it's because there are a number of new dishes on the menu, including this absolutely mouthwatering corn and scallop dish I have yet to try. Usually people just send their compliments in with their server or occasionally come into the kitchen to say hello.

This week two guests came in that I will never forget. They were an older couple from Austin, Texas. I only know this because that's what they said. I can't quite describe how they looked, only that they were very American looking (perfectly coiffed hair, artifically whitened teeth). They said it was a "life changing meal".

The woman says, "We're from Austin Texas, where the streets are paved with guacamole".

I don't know what it was, the accent, what she said and the whole American-ness of it, but I could barely hold in the laughter after she said that.

I suppose she was trying to illustrate that there isn't a lot of fine dining in Austin. But it was hilarious to me because only Americans say things like that. This is why we have a saying in (Canadian) radio: Americans on the radio are gold. Because they'll say anything. Love them. They scooted out of the kitchen, saying they would "tell everyone" about this. God, I hope they send more Texans out this way. And if I ever go to Austin I'm bringing along a big bag of nacho chips to sop up all that guacamole.

Food porn

2009-07-26T13:34:00.000-07:00

Thanks to the hard work and photo taking skills of our expeditor, Christopher Cho, I now have plenty of gorgeous pics from Lumiere to share. I'm also largely relying on him for descriptions, given that's what he does for customers every night. Set your tongues to drool.

Pistachio crusted rack of lamb, apricot "canelloni" stuffed with braised lamb, stewed japanese eggplants and chick pea panisse

Curry and cornmeal encrusted scallops on corn puree, fried okra and corn succotash

BC spot prawns, cauliflower puree and pork belly crusted with puffed rice

Duck breast on a bed of spinach, poached cherry, Hennessy gastrique and daikon filled with cherry cardamon puree

Uni crusted halibut, asparagus risotto, asparagus salad and black garlic sauce

Sweet and sour glazed duck breast, duck shoulder spring rolls, banana yam and red wine braised cabbage, pomegranate glaze

I get to watch them recreate these dishes week after week. More pics to come!

Confessions of a Stagiere: Week Fifteen

2009-07-21T08:51:00.000-07:00

Last Friday was my first time back in two weeks. I really did miss being at Lumiere last week.

Although I haven't worked in any other restaurants, I know the kitchen at Lumiere totally kicks ass. All the counters, cabinet doors and drawers are stainless steel. Refrigerated areas are built into the back part of each counter for butter and other refrigeratables during prep and service. All the drawers are refrigerated. It's large enough to accomodate the six to eight people who work in there a day. It's beautifully streamlined. It's even air conditioned (at least, the area that's close to the front of house is). I'm guessing this is necessary for the pastry station with all their meltable chocolate creations.

It's gorgeous. And because I generally don't spend much time near the stove areas, I never really get that hot.

I got a nice dose of heat last Friday though. The temperature outside was over 30 degrees Celsius, which is about as hot as it ever gets in Vancouver. No amount of air conditioning was going to keep things cool in there. The poor cook working the meat section had to change his jacket halfway through the day after sweating so profusely it had pretty much turned into a transluscent sheet.

I should mention that I'm far from the only stage working at Lumiere. Although I seem to be the only one that comes in consistently, there are a number of people that come in during the week for a day at a time. This week there was Jennifer, a student from the Pacific Culinary Institute on Granville Island. She was there at the same time I was. She came fully prepared (as one is supposed to) complete with all her tools. I continue to show up wearing my camo canvas sneakers and NO tools.

I'm continually amazed by the people drawn to food. I've been getting to do a lot of food stories as a result of my work for The Early Edition. One of my favourite pieces of all time was one I did last Thursday. It's about a Vancouver chef named Don Guthro who's started a culinary school of sorts at a North Vancouver homeless shelter. His students are mostly residents at the shelter -- either homeless, formerly drug addicted or disadvantaged in some other way. These students work all day long learning to make food, which they in turn serve to the residents at the shelter. They do a lunch AND dinner service every weekday. After sixteen weeks, they go on to an apprenticeship and then hopefully onto paid work and a career in the culinary world.

When I got there, they were just finishing up lunch service. They had made Monte Cristo sandwiches. After a quick break it was onto mayonnaise. They were whisking it by hand. If you've never done this before, it takes FOREVER. I'm talking over an hour for a decent bowlful. It was a wonderful sight, seeing these people from various backgrounds in their whites, patiently measuring out Dijon mustard, separating egg whites from yolks and whisking away steadily. Everyone was concentrating hard. You could tell they really wanted to be there. It was incredibly heartwarming.

Contrast the above mentioned hour long whisking with my failure to properly whisk a chick pea mixture over the stove on Friday. It's supposed to be whisked over the stove until it's thickened up enough to form a cylinder that stands on its own. I don't exactly have strong arms. After a couple minutes trying to force my forearms to keep going in the tremendous heat I was melting. I will NOT be making mayonnaise by hand anytime soon.

I kind of redeemed myself by whipping some cream later on. I didn't have to stand over the stove for that. Plus the pastry chef showed me an uber easy way to do it. Just move a balloon whisk rapidly back and forth through the cream in a metal bowl rather than in a circular motion. Apparently my method of whisking in the traditional motion would've taken "a month" to finish.

While I was whisking I thought about those students at the shelter making mayonnaise. I thought about how much food can bring people together, not just eating, but creating. It's what keeps you going even when you're ready to burst into flames.

Confessions of a Stagiere: Week Fourteen

2009-07-15T16:32:00.000-07:00

I'm really late posting this one. I actually ended up missing last week's stint because of money transfer issues re: my new mortgage. Here's some of what happened the week before (which would be July 17).

When I first started at Lumiere they had a whole slew of menus going. There was a five course menu, a seven course menu, a nine course menu, a BC menu (three courses for $55) and a la carte. It's no wonder I never fully figured it all out. Now they're back to tasting menus (three of them). The way it was explained to me, this was supposed to make things easier on all the stations because there were fewer dishes to prepare.

However, the fish station was eliminated, shifting the prep from that station onto two others instead. When I first started I used to go from station to station waiting for someone to give me something to do. This week I ended up with people waiting for me to be done one thing so I could do another.

I ended up making a giant batch of sable dough. We put the tiny sable crackers under the morel and pea quiche for the amuse bouche. They've got a lovely crumbly sandy texture. When the garde manger pulled out his notebook for the recipe, he warned me "it's going to take you half an hour to measure this out". I thought, there's no way. There's like, six ingredients on that list. Of course he was right.

At home you end up measuring everything using volume. Teaspoons, tablespoons, cups, litres, etc. In the kitchen everything is measured by weight. Because of that, I now know that an egg yolk weighs about 20 to 25 grams. Flour, butter, salt, yolks and something called inverted sugar. Wikipedia tells me that it's a "is a sucrose-based syrup, produced by splitting each sucrose disaccharide molecule into its component monomers, glucose and fructose. The splitting is achieved through the action of invertase (a glycoside hydrolase enzyme), or an acid. Comparing solutions with the same dissolved weight of sugar, inverted syrups are sweeter than sucrose solutions; at equal molar concentrations, inverted sugar syrup has only 85% the sweetness of sucrose solution but complete inversion of a solution of a disaccharide (such as sucrose) doubles the concentration of sugar molecules - this makes the resulting, inverted, syrup sweeter than the original sucrose solution." All you really need to know is it's a very very dense sugar syrup.

There's also ground up Szechuan peppercorns in them too. When I first got to the spice shelf I had no clue what to look for. There are at least five different kinds of peppercorns, none of which are labelled. When I asked I was told they were the ones "that smell soapy". Sure enough, they have a spicy soapy smell that is very distinctive from the other ones.

Anyway, I finally had all my ingredients together. Everything had to be blended in this industrial sized mixer.

To make the actual crackers, you take some of the dough, roll it out until it's a few millimetres thin and then cut them using a dough cutter set to about an inch and a half. You bake the squares on a Silpat until they're just golden. Too long and they get a funky darker brown, which is still fine but not that perfect golden colour.

The more I learn about what goes into each item, the more I weep (inwardly) when I see someone send it back.

While I wasn't actually in the kitchen last week, I have spent the past two weeks filling in for the reporter on the morning show. She gets to do the food column every Wednesday and this week I got to do it. I finally got to tackle some food stories! I got to make THE quintessential Brazilian dish of feijoada (pork with beans) with the "Queen of Samba" Lucia Azevedo. I can't believe there aren't any authentic Brazilian restaurants in Vancouver. The one that existed apparently shut down some time ago, which is sad because I'd actually eaten there and enjoyed it a lot. Anyway, Lucia and I (mostly Lucia) made enough food for a small army. From Lucia I also learned that chefs are the same everywhere, whether in a restaurant or at home. They all want things done their own way, so the best thing to do is just stay the hell out of the way. Her way works though. Her feijoada is delicious, as is all the side dishes she made as well.

This week I took a tour of the UBC Farms with chef Andrea Carlson from Bishop's Restaurant. Bishop's is all about utilizing fresh food from local producers and sustainable growing. It was great meeting chef Carlson and talking to her about the industry, women in the industry and the kind of people who get into it. Apparently they've had a stagiere in their kitchen for some time. He's a lawyer who isn't changing careers. He just wants to keep a hand in. I'm happy to learn I'm not the only one in this limbo. And it was great to make just a salad, but not just a salad. Pea tips, baby kale, mizuna, etc. with turnips and raspberries and a fresh raspberry vinaigrette. Exploring different kinds of greens is something we rarely do nowadays because what you find in the supermarket is about as diverse as the gene pool in the Ozarks.

Andrea also told me about her most vivid food memory, involving a shipment of turnips from a local producer. Her description of the crisp, sweet taste was the one thing I had really wanted to hear out of everything else. I find that people who love food have the best food memories and it usually involves something simple, like turnips. I love hearing those stories because everyone's face changes when they tell them. It's like they're remembering their first loves. It's a reminder that the simplest things can bring you the most joy.

Confessions of a Stagiere: Week Thirteen

2009-07-03T07:52:00.000-07:00

It was a Jaws kind of service. No, we weren't attacked by sharks or anything. And no, Richard Dreyfuss wasn't there either. There we were...quietly prepping for the day, thinking there were only going to be about 25 tables, when unbeknownst to us an entirely different matter was going to unfold.

Last week was the week I learned to hustle. When you end up with almost twice the number of diners you anticipated, believe me you have to get out your four inch platforms and done hustle quick.

Here's an example of what I mean: Doug only prepares a certain amount of crab for the evening. It really can only hold for one night, then whatever doesn't get eaten goes in the garbage. You can imagine how expensive it would be if he were constantly chucking out leftovers. So at every station people have learned to gauge how many of each thing they should prepare based on the number of reservations and what the chef says. Sometimes he'll ask someone to prep more of something because we have too much of it in house and he's going to try and get the servers to play it up so they can sell more. I couldn't tell you exactly how much crab we prepped, but it wasn't a ton.

This plan usually works out great. Except when about twenty people walk in unexpectedly. It was the first time we'd ever had a walk-in table of NINE. For a fine dining restaurant, this is quite unusual. Welcome, but unusual. And it's not that the kitchen can't handle this number of reservations, but dealing with twice the number of diners you expected is crazy. There's so much prep that goes into each item that you can't just make more soup or prepare more lamb shanks. What's there is pretty much there. Ideally you have some stored away in one of your lowboys (storage fridges, every station has a shelf). But some things you just can't store, like the crab.

Very quickly into the evening we ran out of crab. It's easily the most popular dish off of the garde manger station so usually it is the first thing that goes. It happens. No big deal, we still have the hamachi and terrine dish to send out.

Oh wait a minute. We barely have enough napoleons (creme anglais and prune puree, frozen into individual layers and layered on top of each other) to make it through the evening. Meanwhile, because we have this relatively new and complicated terrine dish, I am whipping sorrel leaves into the backs of the duck proscuitto wrapped plum pieces as fast as I can so the garde manger can actually assemble the 10 dishes in front of him. I used to hang back and try to stay out of the way when there was a plating frenzy. Now I jump in and do everything I know how to push them out. It feels great. Hectic, but great.

I may not love rollercoasters or jumping off cliffs, but when it comes to work I'm definetely an adrenaline junkie.

I can feel myself using all the skills I've gained over the past three months. The entremetier gets me to make a bunch of romaine lettuce "fronds" in the middle of service. They're the tips of romaine lettuce, cut so they resemble miniature trees, with rounded tops and small stems. I remember the first time I did this I was so nervous because I had to do it on the pass with everyone watching. I didn't know how everyone else could do it in twenty seconds and why it took me five minutes to shape just one.

Not anymore! I whipped through those puppies in no time.

If you look in that picture of the beef dish, the frond would be the green thing sticking out of the square potato garnish. Every item gets its own prep. They don't miss a beat.

These little victories made the otherwise incredibly busy service really satisfying. I felt the way I used to doing my chase shift in radio. Like I was a mop, having the dirty floor water wrung out of me so I was clean and ready to go again.

I have no clue how busy it's going to be tonight. But whatever comes...bring it on.

Home Ownership: Speed Dating Edition

2009-06-30T11:23:00.000-07:00

I've never been part of a whirlwind romance. My husband and I dated for a good solid six years before tying the knot. I've been living in Vancouver for three years and only NOW do I actually like being here, though there's still a tough kernel of Easterner stashed away in there.

If you had told me that I would end up being a homeowner in less than a month after I started looking, I would've called you a liar. Stood right up, jabbed an accusing finger at you and called you a filthy lying scumbag. Ok, maybe not that strong. But you know what I mean.

As you have probably gathered, I am a homeowner. Fernando and I now own a one-bedroom plus den on the North side of False Creek in downtown Vancouver. This is quite the accomplishment. We're both first time homeowners who are pretty much on our own. We saved our own downpayment and are paying for everything ourselves.

Thing is, we only started seriously looking a week ago. We got preapproved for a mortgage. We had been to some open houses on the weekends, checking out different buildings. The open houses downtown are as abundant as dandelions. We got ourselves a real estate agent and prepared a shortlist of places we liked. We had a whole afternoon planned with the agent to look at prospective dream homes.

It turns out there was one place that just got put on the market that morning. This is a much coveted building in the much coveted neighbourhood of False Creek. We were told we would love it.

And we did.

For a one bedroom condo downtown, it has a ton of flex space. There's the perfect office space, the huge pantry right next to the large kitchen (with gas stove! YES!) which has a WINDOW...totally unheard of downtown. It's a corner unit with a balcony. Tons of light. Sigh.

Love at first sight.

So we decided then and there to send in a proposal. Unfortunately so did a bunch of other people. Our real estate agent got repeated calls saying there were several people who wanted to put in offers.

This is how fast real estate moves in downtown Vancouver. If you blink, you're homeless.

Luckily our agent kicked ass. His name's Ryan DeLuca if you're wondering, and no, he did NOT pay me to write this! He was all over it, put together the contract and then we played the waiting game. Not very long though. We put in the proposal on Sunday. On Monday he went to submit it to the seller and Fernando and I pretended to be high schoolers waiting for a date to call and stared at the phone.

It didn't take long for it to ring. Turns out there were THREE other people who were going to bid against us (yeah, I know, CRAZY competitive market) and two of them dropped out because they didn't want to compete against so many people. Heh. I LIVE for competition.

So it was us and one other offer. Guess what? Turns out the other real estate agent didn't even show. He faxed in his contract. So even though they bid $3000 more than we did and had fewer subjects attached...we got it!

Normally I disapprove of excessive exclamation points. But !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We got called to come over and sign the contract ASAP. I felt so anxious the whole time walking over there, like I was going to pick up a baby. We took a look around afterwards and thank god, we still loved it as much as the first time we saw it.

So June 30th: apartment ours. July 17/18th: we take possession. You just can't stop for one second in this real estate market.

Now it's time to make this baby ours. We're planning to put in hardwood floors. I want to change the kitchen backsplash. We're looking for new furniture. As my friend Devon puts it, I'm a "real adult now, not a fake one".

My parents (well, mostly my dad) are somewhat pissed that I didn't go to them for advice. But I like the fact that we did this entirely by ourselves. I get to use words that didn't mean anything to me until now, like building "equity". I'm opened up to a whole new financial world. I really am an "adult".

I expect it's just a toboggan ride into middle age now. Oh, who am I kidding, I've never been young. I hope this whole love at first sight things works out. Haven't made a bad life decision yet, so here's knocking on wood...

Confessions of a Stagiere: Week Twelve

2009-06-25T09:41:00.001-07:00

Quick thought before I start: Just reread my last post and I feel I should clarify my comment about low pay and verbal abuse in kitchens. I'm talking about the industry in general, not specifically about Lumiere. Although it's a safe assumption that all kitchens function on these general principles to some degree or another. Of course, it never stops new people from entering the industry because of all the other benefits, like the opportunity to work with food and some great colleagues.

Moving on. I had a breakthrough this week. For the first time, I felt like I hit my stride. During prep, in service, everything. I was moving with confidence. For the first time I felt like I belonged there. In fact, the entire service was one of those ideal services you always pray for but almost never get. Tables were staggered in such a way that we were just consistently busy but never crushed by demand. The last table sat down at 8:30, which meant an early exit.

They changed the terrine dish. There's a picture of what it used to be to the left courtesy of the garde manger Douglas King (in fact all the photo credits go to him -- he knows I stole them). The one pictured is a pheasant and foie gras terrine with prunes, with foie gras mi-cuit and prune gelee to the right. I just found out last week that Doug likes to take pictures of all the dishes. If I had known that sooner I would've started stealing from him earlier. This is the dish where my turnip carpaccio would be used (see them under the terrine)? Because we're no longer doing this dish, the turnip carpaccio has been nixed. Cue the sound of angels. However, the replacement terrine dish comes with its own bag of challenges.

The new terrine (I took the picture last week but he hasn't posted it on Facebook yet for me to steal) is something I actually don't know a lot about. From what I remember it's a foie gras terrine with tiny portions of plums, marinated in spices and wrapped with duck proscuitto. I figured out how to wrap them "naturally" as instructed, although I silently questioned where in nature plums would be ensconced in any kind of meat. You set these little bundles on a trap, standing up, so that when the order comes in you can insert a tiny sorrel leaf into the back. They look incredibly cute like that, little soldiers standing at attention. Unfortunately this is very time consuming and not something you can do ahead of time because the leaf will wilt. This becomes one of my main tasks, while the garde manger is sprinkling hazelnuts on half the foie terrine.

I actually had a bright idea when I was watching him do this. He was struggling to keep the nuts on just one half. I noticed that the pastry folks always use rulers to sprinkle their sprinkleables onto dessert plates and suggested the garde manger do the same. It worked beautifully.

People ask me what the difference is between regular dining and fine dining. You just read it. It might sound overly fussy, but there is a time and a place for food like this. It's not supposed to be food you eat every day. It's supposed to be a special experience, something you think about and dissect or just really, really enjoy.

On a completely different note, I am getting the benefits from working in the food industry. It's a small world and you run into people you know everywhere. I learned that last night while eating at Maenam, the latest incarnation of the late Gastropod on West 4th. It turns out one of the hostesses at Lumiere is a server at Maenam as well and we just happened to be at her table. Not only was she extra attentive, but also passed along a couple tasting glasses of wine for our main (David Thompson's three flavour fish, amazing). We also got a little taken off the bill. It was totally unexpected but so nice.

Anyway.

It's Friday morning right now. Every Friday I get up and feel exhausted, wondering how I'm going to get through today. But then I get into the kitchen and the energy picks me up. It's not just the food -- it's the energy of the team. At one point during service, Doug turns to me and asks "Can you feel the energy in the kitchen"? Oh yeah, I totally can. It's electric. Everyone's got their rhythm down, moving to the same beat and coming together for the service crescendo. It's a thing of beauty. It's addictive. And I'm going back in less than two hours for more.

Confessions of a Stagiere -- Week Eleven

2009-06-19T07:49:00.001-07:00

Whenever you take someone out of a kitchen equation, there's a noticeable difference. After what sounded like a great staff outing at the beach (which of course included some great food) it turns out the sous chef broke his arm during a touch football game. His absence was particularly missed during Thursday when apparently the number of diners hit a peak. I think he was supposed to be out for two weeks. Yikes.

Which meant, as usual, prep time was that much more precious and scarce. I know the drill by now: pick chervil tips, shaving turnip carpaccio, prepping shimiji mushrooms...

Lately I've also been making beet juice. I've mentioned this before, but not what the process is. The beet juice is used to give the hamachi a beautiful colour and flavour after it's been cured in salt. When you cut into the hamachi, there's a beautiful ring of beet juice on the outside with the pale flesh inside. It's gorgeous.

For the juice, you just peel, trim and cut up the beets and then use a juicer to get out all the blood red goodness, then strain to get the foam and solids out. The fun part is seeing the awesome red colour. The annoying part is the fact that this juice will stain ANYTHING. I wear gloves for every step of that process, including cleaning up the machine afterwards. I pray every week that I don't accidentally spill it all over myself. This hasn't happened yet. Knock on wood.

I got to tackle foie gras for the first time. If you've never seen a lobe of foie (and why would you have unless you worked at a restaurant) it's the size of a smaller papaya fruit, which is to say pretty damn large for a duck's liver. I had to devein it, the first step in making it palatable. Having never handled foie before, it was surprising to see how soft it is. It's just pure fat, basically, and it handles much the same way. You have to spread it out with your fingers, layer by layer, as you remove the stiff large main veins. Honestly, it was kind of disgusting. Fascinating -- but didn't really make me want to eat it. I think foie gras is one of those things that is less pleasant the more you know about it. But it is damned delicious. Why else would we eat it when there's not a single nutritional redeeming factor?

I will reiterate that I love learning new stuff. I mean, that's why I'm there and I think they know that. Sometimes I think they give me new tasks just to give me something to write about. Either way, keep it coming!

After weeks of hearing about it, Fernando finally came in to visit the kitchen. I could see the pride that Dale felt hosting someone, showing him his brigade, his food. Fernando was impressed by the professionalism of everyone there, and I'm glad that what I do with my Fridays is no longer an intangible mystery to him. Yet another example of how food brings people together.

I have to address something that keeps coming up. My radio coworkers keep asking me if I'm switching careers. Here's the thing. I have been working as a journalist for the past ten years. Working at the CBC was always my goal. I still love my job, even when I'm ready to throw myself out a window. As much as I love being in the kitchen, there are many, many reasons why making a switch would be almost impossible. The main reason being that I'm just that into my current career track.

But I will say that I frequently think about working at Lumiere when I'm not there. I can totally see the pull of working with food. Despite the long hours, usually terrible pay, verbal abuse and stress, clearly there's a love that many people feel that transcends all that. It sounds idealistic but it's true: why would so many people still do it if they didn't have to? It's because they want to be. That's something you only really figure out by being there, working, talking to the people who've chosen this as a career. This is precisely the kind of insight I was hoping to get by working in a kitchen and an eyeopening one to, on some level, understand.

I'm lucky to be able to do this in addition to my first love. In a perfect world, there would be some way for me to do both without having to work all the time, and for a long period of time. Obviously I can't be a stagiere forever (although I'm sure my chef wouldn't mind!) I'm just taking what I can get for as long as I can get it. Nothing lasts forever.

David Sedaris at the CBC

2009-06-11T16:44:00.000-07:00

I'm taking a quick break from my staging reports to write about another passion of mine.

From the first page of the first book of his I've read, I've been a David Sedaris fan.

In fact, I'm a raging Sedaris fan. If I hear his name mentioned from across the room I'll go over to join the conversation. So when I found out he was coming to CBC for a Studio One Book Club, I was THERE.

He squeezed in one hour for a conversation with hosts Sheryl MacKay and Jen Sookfong Lee...and over 120 Sedaris heads. I knew this was going to be popular, but not everyone else seemed to anticipate it. The first person there was in line at 9 am...and the second at 10. The book club didn't start till 3 pm.

Yeah. If you don't know David Sedaris you won't understand why, but if you know him, then you know.

I was sitting in the back next to the technician. I asked him if he'd ever read David Sedaris. He said the name was familiar but he wasn't well versed.

He spent the first ten minutes reading from his diaries of months past. It's really hard to recreate his stories without just transcribing them, but here's a synopsis by most prominent words: breastmilk, marmots, marshmallows, barber...you get the idea.

The story that stuck out for me the most was one he told when someone in the audience asked him why his writing style has changed over the years. He said that he had hurt someone in one of his stories. If you've read "Me Talk Pretty One Day" you know the story about his trying to learn French and his sometimes outrageous French teacher. In the story he talks about how the teacher jabbed a student in the eye with a pencil and screamed at them a lot. However, as David says, he neglected to say "we really liked her". He regretted not adding that in. Very illuminating moment.

I knew if I didn't ask a question I was going to regret it so I asked him, as someone who writes a lot of poignant stories, which ones were emotionally difficult to write. He brought up the story about his mother's death...and then digressed into struggling to articulate his experience at a nudist colony. He said he didn't quite "get it" until he rewrote it while naked.

Sheryl and Jen were laughing so hard during this I actually felt bad for them because I could tell they were trying to keep their composure. It's hard to laugh at someone when you're right next to them -- even when you're laughing at something they've said -- if they're not laughing with you. I discovered that when I was standing up there, trying not to pee my pants while he was answering my question.

There was a great exchange right at the end between David and an audience member. She gave him some facts on breastmilk..

Audience Member: Did you know breastmilk can squirt across the room?
David: I met a woman who used breastmilk to write her name in the snow. She ran out of "ink".
AM: It can squirt spontaneously.
DS: I met a woman whose breastmilk squirted out in the shower. Later, when she came back to the shower there were ants on the wall and they were eating it.

So for future reference...do not try to out-story David Sedaris. At least, not when it comes to breastmilk.

At the end of the show, I asked the technician if he was going to go get one of his books. He said yes. I think another fan was born.

What I was really hoping to do was to meet him face to face. Because he got there just in time and was whisked off right away, I didn't get a chance.

But as I was leaving the building -- there he and his entourage were -- waiting for a cab. I have always hated asking people for autographs and photos. I would so much rather take them to lunch and have a genuine interaction with them. Of course this is almost always impossible. I watched another guy race out of the building to get a couple autographs. I suppose I could've jumped on his bandwagon, but watching David hurriedly try to sign these while his people were getting his bags into a cab...I would rather remember our interaction at the book club. Him -- being hilarious, thoughtful and honest and me -- trying to politely listen while laughing and crying at the same time.

By the way, you can hear the whole Studio One Book Club on North by Northwest THIS Saturday on CBC Radio One -- 690 AM and 88.1 FM in the Lower Mainland. I don't know what time it'll be on specifically -- but the show runs from 6 to 9 am. It's worth waking up early! Trust me!

Confessions of a Stagiere -- Week Ten

2009-06-09T14:00:00.000-07:00

This week has just zipped by. I'm keeping the entry short this week but detailed nonetheless. Sorry for the lazy transitions!

You know you're one of the team when there's actually an apron waiting for you at your station. Yup -- for the first time, I didn't have to ask someone to get me one. Usually I grab the smallest jacket and pants I can find off the uniform rack and have to find someone to grab me an apron. It's really the only thing keeping me from completely disappearing into the uniform (who sizes these things anyway? Small my ass!) As ridiculous as it sounds, being anticipated was really nice.

In triumphant news: I finally made something from start to finish! Before you burst out into applause, it was croutons for the staff salad. This, surprisingly, turned out to be more complicated than I thought. One: I don't make croutons at home because I don't eat salad with croutons in it. I'm Chinese, what can I say? Two: I've never made croutons en masse (for like, dozens of people). Three: I've never made anything for a bunch of cooks so it's SCARY. Of course, I didn't know that rule one of making croutons is setting a timer so they don't turn into charcoal. Luckily they got taken out at just the right time. And can I just say -- they were pretty fabulous. I wish I could take all the credit but actually the garde manger totally helped me out.

Here's the very useful lesson of the week: making fresh pasta is surprisingly easy. All you need is flour, egg yolks and some saffron water (for colour). Mix them in a food processor. It's all about the feel. It can't be too dry or too wet. I'd describe the perfect dough feel as something like fresh Playdough, maybe slightly less wet than that. Then you have to knead it for a few minutes.

As for observations: It's weird having guys show you how to do stuff, guys that are mostly much bigger than me. For example, when the garde manger demonstrated crushing garlic, he just pressed down lightly with his (what seems like to me) gigantic hand lightly. I have to bring down the flat of my knife down hard, several times, to achieve the same effect. I also can't reach stuff on the top shelf. I've been adapting ok but it makes me wonder what I would do if I ever had to work by myself.

Service: this really was the most disastrous service I've ever seen. All the food went out just fine, it was more like a weird vibe in the kitchen where stuff kept being dropped. The clock fell off the wall at the amuse bouche station and one of the eyeplates smashed to the foor just as it was supposed to go out. One of the servers had two very hot glasses of tea spilled down her front. She had to stay out of the dining room the rest of the night because she was just soaked. And to finish off an already tiring service, as I was taking the induction burner away...the cord brushed another eyeplate onto the floor. Did I mention they're expensive? Yeah.

It was a bit of a mixed bag this past week. I sincerely hope my klutziness dissipates before tomorrow.

Confessions of a Stagiere -- Week Nine

2009-06-03T15:45:00.001-07:00

When I tell people about working at Lumiere it feels like it's been a long time since I started. But if you put all the days I worked together, it's only been nine days. So really it hasn't been that long at all.

I definetely realized that last Friday. Now that business has picked right back up, stress during prep time is back up. And I got to learn a whole new bunch of things I didn't know.

Usually there are two people working the garde manger station. There's a lot of stuff to do. Here's an example: to make the pea and morel quiche that's part of the amuse bouche, you have to peel about a litre of peas. Like, individual peas, the kind you buy frozen in the store. Yeah. Ever done that before? The cook working garde manger does this at least once a week. It takes hours. In fact, he confessed to me that in the early days he would take these peas home and do it on his days off. It would take six hours, or "three movies" as he puts it.

Anyway, last Friday turned out to be my busiest day ever because when business was slow, they pulled a cook off of garde manger. Now that things have picked back up...staffing levels have remained the same. Not surprised. I mean, the exact same stuff happens in every industry.

There was no lack of things to do: making beet juice, peeling mangoes, prepping shimiji mushrooms...and then I got the most valuable lesson of all.

Vac packing stock is the worst, worst, worst thing ever.

Flash back to those terrible infomercials with the Food Saver. Remember, you put food in these thick plastic bags and it sucks out all the air, thereby allowing you to store food for like, forever? Just like that but industrial sized. Half our stuff gets vac packed -- cuts of meat, stock, my beloved turnip carpaccio, etc. I was vac packing a bunch of stuff for the meat cook. All I had to do was stick the bags in the machine, push down the lid and the machine did the rest. Easy.

Nobody warned me about the stock bags though. How they frequently dribble out. In huge globs. All over the inside of this expensive, industrial machine. That you then have to take apart and clean.

Which of course is exactly what happened. Twice.

GAH!

So, in the middle of an already incredibly day, I had to take parts of this thing out and clean out the oily, thick lamb stock that now coated the bottom of the vac pack machine. A couple people walked by and remarked casually, "oh, did it explode?"

Thanks guys.

Last week I wrote about someone who -- for no discernable reason -- sent back half a lamb dish. Really uncalled for. This week -- a little lesson in making reservations.

It's ok to make a later reservation. I mean, ideally everyone would eat earlier so the kitchen could start clearing up and the hard working cooks could leave earlier, but hey, the restaurant is open later for a reason. Fair enough. But when you make a later reservation -- or any reservation -- for the love of god, BE ON TIME. Someone booked a late table and then proceeded to show up half an hour late and ordered a six course tasting menu. Please, please, please don't do this. It's unfair to the kitchen to have to stay extra late (and probably for just your one table) and unfair to YOU because well, who wants to be the only table at a restaurant? I like the atmosphere. It's a social contract: you make the reservation, you're on time. Don't be a douchebag.

On to more pertinent things.

It was the first day I got to serve someone on my own. One of the suppliers had forgotten a case of maitake mushrooms and had to make a delivery during service. It wasn't very busy at that time, so the chef asked the chef de partie to make up the spot prawn dish for him to try. While he was doing that the sous chef asked me if I'd like to make him up an amuse bouche.

I put it together and while I was walking over I heard the chef de partie describing in great detail the dish he was putting together. I realized I couldn't just drop off my plate without a word. I started off with "I'm not very good at explaining this kind of thing..." and explained every single thing in perfect detail. WOO! So I'm absorbing things after all. I guess you'd have to be brain dead working with this stuff week after week without putting it all together in the end. I felt a ridiculous swell of triumph and victory. Some part of my brain is accepting these new inputs. A mind shift.

Near the end of the night, the garde manger asked me, "so are you learning anything?" Yes, I replied, yes I am.

Confessions of a Stagiere -- Week Eight

2009-05-25T15:28:00.000-07:00

Things are picking up speed at Lumiere. Lots of diners this week. I guess closing on Mondays and Tuesdays has brought out the diners. Whew. And just when I thought I had brought some bad CBC layoff karma into the kitchen.

This week's lesson: consomme.

I remember in my last year of high school talking to a guy going into culinary school. We somehow got on the topic of consomme and he was like, "do you know what that is?" And I was all like, "yeah...duh...soup cleared with egg whites". He seemed impressed but if he had actually asked me how HOW the egg whites were used I probably wouldn't have given him a great answer.

I know now because the ever helpful meat cook showed me how he clears his pheasant consomme. You mix egg whites with a combination of mire poix (carrots, celery, onion) and pheasant meat. At this point the mixture is apparently called a "clean meat". The proper way to clear your stock is to let it cool down, mix in the clean meat and bring it back up to the boil. However, there is a very effective cheat method where you keep the stock boiling, stir it up ("like egg drop soup") and pour in the clean meat. The egg white boils, and the meat and veg flavours the stock further because the cleaning process takes some of the flavour out. What floats on top (the egg white, meat, scum, etc) is called a "raft". I'm specifically to note that a clean meat and a raft are NOT the same thing. They use this stock in their pheasant, foie gras and prune terrine by dissolving some gelatin in it and putting it between the layers. This is why the cheat method is allowed. Believe me, this terrine is amazing.

**Correction: the meat cook tells me that it's a "clear meat" NOT a "clean meat" as I have written above. Thanks Brad!

Over the weeks, however, I have developed an adversarial relationship. With a vegetable nemesis known as the turnip.

Here's how turnips come into this. Part of the aforementioned terrine dish is a carpaccio of turnip. You peel them, thinly slice them using a mandolin, stack them and cut them into small circles with a ring mold. These get vacuum packed, frozen and then defrosted and put into a pickling liquid.

Here's the thing. Turnips are out of season now, so a lot of them are mealy on the inside and therefore unsuitable. But you don't know how much of it is usable until you have peeled and sliced them and are staring at a useless pile of holey, frustration inducing turnip slices. I can go through a whole pan of these things and come out with just a couple handfuls of useable pieces. I have never felt enraged towards any vegetable, but these turnips can push me right to the edge.

Think about that the next time you eat out and notice a garnish on your plate. Believe me, somebody worked on that thing. Possibly a lot. Please enjoy it.

Being in the kitchen means you're on the receiving end of a diner's comments. I have sent back a dish only once because it tasted rancid. I think that's a pretty legitimate reason. When you're working in a kitchen where quality control is so important, you don't get those kinds of returns.

What you WILL get, however, are people who a) want to seem like they know a lot about food by sending food back unnecessarily or b) are just super uber picky and don't like your food no matter what it tastes like. This was evinced when a diner sent back a half a lamb dish. They had eaten one piece of lamb, took a bite out of the other and sent it back saying it was too tough. In reality, it was perfectly cooked. The kitchen recooked and plated half a lamb dish for the diner (who did finish it to the best of my knowledge). But really...behaviour like this doesn't make you seem cultured. It makes you seem like an ass.

Here's the thing. If there is something legitimately wrong with a dish (too cold, unseasoned, overseasoned, incomplete, etc) believe you me, the kitchen WILL take it very, very seriously. They will hop to it and get you your food ASAP. There's no need to resort to unncessary nitpicking.

Most of all: eat those garnishes. I assure you someone took the time to make sure none of your carpaccio is whole and unsullied.

Confessions of a Stagiere -- Week Seven

2009-05-21T17:10:00.000-07:00

It happened. People at Lumiere finally read my blog. So from now on every week's entry will feel like a book report. Oh well. I knew this was going to happen. Now my neurosis about, well, everything, is out in the open.

But that's not why I write.

My six day work week is starting to wear me down. In fact, I went in on Saturday last week because I had to work six days at CBC, so technically it was my seventh day of work.

I don't know what it is but I'm constantly exhausted now. So now I struggle to pay attention to anything. I hate it. Sadly I don't drink coffee (traumatic childhood event where I realized that it doesn't taste NEARLY as delicious as it smells) or do cocaine so all I can do is silently scream at myself in my head. Dammit, there's a job to be done!

Like peeling fava beans and almonds. I spent a great deal of time peeling both of those last week. It's for the new char dish. The old char dish required me to cut perfect squares out of blanched leek slices. This new one has morels, fava beans, almonds and these beautiful little potato croquettes that are apparently shaped, frozen, reshaped and refrozen no less than three times each. But damn, is it ever a gorgeous dish.

Things have picked up. There are more people booking for dinner every night. In fact, the day before I got there it was apparently a madhouse with just over twenty booked at the beginning of the day and ending with fifty people coming in for dinner. Apparently nobody expected it and things were...well...less than calm. I silently thanked god I hadn't been there.

The highlight of this week had to be breaking down lamb racks, or "frenching" them. You know that quintessential lamb shank look, with the teardrop of meat and a bone sticking upwards? That's frenching apparently. I finally did some work on the meat station, something I have never really done because it requires a lot of precision and knowledge and skill, things I do not possess in terms of meat. It was great because a) I had never done this before, b) I got to work at a new station and c) the meat cook is one of these people who is almost overly encouraging because everything I did he remarked by saying "perfect" despite the fact that nothing I did was so.

Who doesn't love a compliment?

Frenching lamb is a series of cuts, tears and scrapings that I think I remember but not enough to articulate into words. I felt like a miserable failure trying to make the same clean strokes that the meat cook was. But, as he says, do it sixty times and you figure it out. It's amazing to me how you can take a thick rectangular piece of meat and turn it into dainty presentable morsels of flesh. It's very, very cool.

After getting closer instruction from the cook working garde manger, I was supposed to go home and practice making quenelles. I've watched many people do it and it still boggles my mind. You take your spoon, get it very hot in some boiling water, scoop whatever heavy cream it is you're trying to get shaped and curl it up along the edge of the container it's in until you get a nicely uniform egg shape. Then slide it onto whatever it is you want to slide it onto. It's one of those things that, once you've mastered, it looks effortless. I have a feeling it's hell to pick up though. I was supposed to go home and get some Cool Whip and practice. I really meant to. Then my work week started and I forgot. Dammit. Will do that next week, I swear.

Meanwhile I'm continuing to watch and learn. Not just about how the kitchen runs but this little microcosm known as the food industry. The people, their personalities and idiosyncrasies. The kind of people who are drawn to this life and why they stay in it. These are the stories that I'd love to get at. Let's see how far I get.

Confessions of A Stagiere -- Addendum to Week Six

2009-05-14T16:48:00.000-07:00

I can't believe I forgot to add this to my last post. So I'm standing there, working away doing I can't remember what. I hear the sous chef yell out, "Joan!"

I turn around and there's a hotel pan full of live spot prawns. Beautiful, red with white spots, crawling around, jumping out of the pan. I burst out into a huge smile. They're the most gorgeous things ever.

"These are the first delivery of live spot prawns this season," I'm told.

"They're here for two weeks a year."

This is why I'm a stage.

Then they all get their heads pulled off during prep. The life cycle of the spot prawn.

Confessions of a Stagiere -- Week Six

2009-05-10T09:24:00.000-07:00

Normally I head into Lumiere at noon. This week I got in a bit early -- 10 am. The purpose was to learn to set up the amuse bouche station from start to finish.

By noon everyone's there, absorbed in completing their mise en place. Music's blaring, it's warm to very hot depending on where you're standing.

At 10 am, the kitchen was almost totally quiet. It was cold. Only three other people were there, working away in relative silence. Most noticeably missing was the delicious scent of food. That would come later. It was nice to come in and start the day with everyone else, rather than catching up to them.

The first thing I was supposed to learn was how to make the pea soup. Key to this, besides the actual taste, is keeping the peas as vibrantly green as possible. You achieve this by cooking them as little as possible. When it came time to cook them, I noticed the pot we were using was impossibly tiny for the massive amount of snap peas I just had to prepare.

"Is that pot going to be big enough?" I ask.
"Yeah, probably not," is the response.

Which leads to us having to use a bigger pot, with additional water being put in. That is not boiling. Meaning the peas will have to be cooking much longer than necessary. Which means they will turn an unappealing brown colour. Which leads to another cook getting a look on his face like he's just seen a particularly repulsive sexual act being performed on one of his relatives.

This is a very valuable lesson for me to absorb. Learning from other people's mistakes is just as valuable as learning from my own. And less humiliating on my part.

Luckily for everyone there is a bit of a culinary cheat, involving spinach puree. Spinach puree is the colour of Romulan/Vulcan blood. It's a beautiful, deep bright green. And it virtually has no taste. So you can put it into food you want to be greener and no one's the wiser. Well, until now anyway.

After a while the sous chef pulls me aside to make pea ravioli filling. It's a pretty simple set of ingredients: snap peas, leeks, spinach (read above), mint, shallots and fennel. Cook them (not too much) and then puree them. Then pass them through a sieve. Smooth and delicious.

I did learn how to make bacon foam for the pea soup that's part of the amuse bouche. You have to saute bacon with other delicious ingredients, boil it with milk until it splits. Then you strain and blend the milk until it comes together, then add soya lecithin, which makes it foam better.

I've noticed some of the cooks keep notebooks to write down recipes. This is a great idea that I haven't put into practice yet. I really should do that.

Slowly...I'm becoming more assertive. It's funny because in my "normal" life I have absolutely no problem with this. In fact, I'm pretty damn bossy. But when I'm in a situation where I have no authority and no knowledge I keep my mouth shut. When it came time to plating the beef dish, however, I spoke up. I pretty much told the entremetier to give me the garnish I needed, much to the amusement of everyone who was seeing me act authoritatively for the first time. When the expediter tried to take it away before I'd added it, I all but grabbed him and said, "Stop". Finished the dish. "Go".

The sous chef said to me afterwards, "Be like that all the time".

Ha. Just give it time.

On another note, I finally told my boss at CBC about what I've been up to on Fridays after she kept trying to rearrange my work schedules to work Fridays (I currently work Sunday to Thursday). She agreed to try and keep my Fridays clear. It's been very weird trying to explain to my other co-workers what I'm doing. Either they think it's great or they look at me like I'm an alien. I don't really blame them. But hey, when you can't afford to go to culinary school and you want to follow a dream...you do what you have to do.

I already can't wait for next Friday.

Confessions of a Stagiere -- Week Five

2009-05-07T15:19:00.000-07:00

From May 1

Business is slowing down quite a bit. After Daniel Boulud's hectic visit, weekdays have been slow. Very slow. One night only six people came in for dinner. Today there are only fifteen. They've now opened up a patio for people to dine outdoors. So far no one's actually done it but at least it's getting people's attention. Slowly.

I get an update on Daniel's visit. Apparently he gets filmed just about everywhere he goes, and this trip was no exception. At least one cook was startled when Daniel Boulud appeared out of nowhere and shook his hand in front of a camera. "It was really weird". Having been on both sides, I agree. It IS really weird. This is why I love radio. No lenses.

After the visit also comes an announcement: they're closing the restaurant on Tuesdays from now on -- in addition to the usual Mondays. The recession rears its ugly head yet again. No workplace I'm at seems to be immune.

On the upside, I'm getting to learn how different elements are put together every week. This week: potato lyonnaise. They are delicious coin sized rolls of thinly sliced potato. It's part of the sous vide char dish. I never knew just HOW much was involved in making them until now.

First, you use a hand-cranked machine to spin out very thin strips of potato. Spread them out on a counter. Season with salt and pepper. Layer very thinly with a garlic puree and then a shallot mixture. Then you roll them up nice and tight and wrap them in cling film. Then poke a bunch of holes in the rolls and gently cook them in duck fat for about twenty minutes. Then unroll and rewrap. Saute the ones you'll use for service, then rewrap AGAIN. If you ever wondered where the "fine dining" line lies, it's somewhere in the midst of all that rolling.

Some cooks are hesitant to give me tasks I've already learned, whereas I welcome it. As much as I love learning new things, I at least feel comfortable doing things repeatedly. Seeing as my skill set is very limited, it gives me a feeling of great accomplishment to be able to take something on without a lengthy explanation. I can prepare the micro radishes for the terrine dish. I feel satisfied being able to write that.

Especially because my biggest challenge -- which I have yet to overcome -- is learning where everything is. Here is the typical scenario:

Cook: Joan, get me a pot about *measures with hands* this big, fill it with water and bring it to the boil
Me: Ok. *Goes to where pots are, search frantically, realize there is no pot there of that kind or if it's there I can't see it* Uh...I can't find the one you're talking about.
Cook: Ok. *Goes off, finds the exact pot they need and do the really simple thing I could'nt manage to do*
Me: *feels stupid*

Here's another one

Cook 1: Go get a bowl of ice from the other kitchen (at db Bistro).
Me: Ok. *goes off with bowl* Uhh...where's the ice?
Cook 2: Over there.
Me: OK. *goes off to corner.* uhh...how do you get the ice out of this thing?
Cook 3: *opens lid*
Me: Oh. *feels stupid*

You get the picture. The next time I do something when I DON'T have to ask feels fantastic.

Because there are fifteen people for dinner, the chef asks several of the staff to take a night off once their prep is finished. He will work the garde manger station. And I'll be working next to him. Gulp. At this point I haven't spent any prolonged time working with the chef and frankly it's a bit daunting. It's like having to produce Peter Mansbridge. Intimidating.

In reality, I actually got to learn more because there was more time to teach me. Like how to plate the crab dish. You have to shape the circlet of crab with your hands so that it's just the same height as the pieces of mango you have to wrap around it. Then you have to oh-so-carefully insert two pieces of tuille in a sort of v-shape to give it some height. Then you take a triangular piece of pickled papaya and arrange it against the tuille. Then you add fingerfuls of herbs, a celery leaf and a parsley leaf. Then you squirt some mango puree onto the plate and smack the bottom a few times to even it out. I haven't mastered this yet, having visions of the plate flying through the air into the nearby induction burner. Then you place the crab on top of that. Arrange two ricepaper rolls (that were conveniently precut for me), each facing a different direction. Then take a squeeze bottle of piquillo pepper puree and randomly dot the plate. You can do this all fairly far in advance. Just before it gets taken out you dot the plate with a green herb oil.

And this is just one dish. There's a lot to remember.

I was also reminded of how it's all a matter of practice. Watching everyone doing stations they're not familiar with was revealing. It also gives me hope that I CAN eventually figure some of this out.

I can now identify which actual plate goes with which dish for the items that are the most popular, like the beef and the duck and the char. I can anticipate which garnishes the chef is going to need from the garde manger station so I have them ready when I see the plates come out. I know which elements are going to come off which station. I'm no longer shy about (politely) calling for what I need. I'm learning the system. So I'm going to push myself even more. Next Friday I'm going in a couple hours earlier to learn how to set up the amuse bouche station from start to finish. One tiny step in the culinary world...one giant leap for me.

Confessions of a Stagiere -- Weeks Three and Four

2009-05-07T15:10:00.000-07:00

I've combined two entries into one...from April 17th and 24th

This week I felt a nervous excited energy in the kitchen. Daniel Boulud was coming in a couple days. I mean, you'd be nervous if he was coming to visit in any case but if he's actually your boss...well...that's a whole other story. Apparently he's coming from Sunday to Thursday. I breathed a sigh of relief. Nothing would make me more anxious than having to do anything around him in a kitchen setting. As amazing as it would be to watch him in action, I'm just not ready for that kind of scrutiny.

Because they all spend so much time together, the cooks know just about everything about each other...in excrutiatingly minute and descriptive detail. I, however, remain monolithic enigma. So they've taken to asking me questions like, "what do you like to eat?" "where do you go to eat?" "what do you make at home?" etc. etc.

I keep giving these cryptic answers, stuff like, "oh, nothing really..." only because I don't know how to tell a room full of talented chefs that my favourite meal is a giant bowl of mashed potatoes, sitting on the couch, preferably with no pants on (the waistline gets in the way). My brain freezes up as I try to think of something more intelligent to say than "fried rice". It's these rare times I find myself at a loss for words. And it pains me because I feel like I come off as an incoherent moron. Which I'm not. I'm just a glutton who'll eat anything. I cook simple food because I usually eat alone anyway.

It doesn't help that their conversations about home cooking centre around their sour dough starters and litres and litres of stock that they apparently keep stashed away. Of course, this is all par for the course for them and they work on average about 14 to 16 hours a day.

I don't know a single non-chef who does these things. It could also be a Chinese thing where we don't tend to use stock in a ton of dishes. Whatever. The point is: no homemade stock or sour dough starter at my house. Which makes the whole mashed-potatoes-with-no-pants-on thing even more shameful on my part.

I'm also starting to get asked a lot of questions that I don't have answers for...but they are answers I'd like to have. "What's the best thing you learned today?" I spend so much of my time just trying to focus and learn the next task that I don't fully process anything until I go home and write it down. But if I had thought of it, here's what I would've said:

-how to avoid cutting yourself while peeling shrimp
-which way a piece of leek should be facing when you're trying to scrape off the membrane
-that you can control how you split a snap pea in half, but you can't control how many peas there are inside (damn you, nature)
-men gossip just as much as women do and they're just as bitchy about it too
-hazelnuts can burn really fast in butter

I'm also discovering some of my own talents. Apparently I'm pretty handy when it comes to forming ravioli. I guess a lifetime spent helping my mom make dumplings and folding origami shapes was useful after all.

Every cook has this rolled up arsenal of knives at their disposal. I do not. I used to be really concerned that I don't have any knives to bring in with me. I still kind of am. But I never realized how important it was going to be to have a spoon with me at all times. They look just like your regular spoons at home but ideally it's fairly flat, wide enough and a bit shallow. You use it to taste, plate, mix, etc. After a few weeks of never having one, the sous chef finally assigned me one of his spoons. There's actually an "x" on it. I now bring it in every week. It stays in my pocket. I just love the idea that the utensil I use the most when eating is also one of the best tools I can have for cooking as well.

Confessions of a Stagiere -- Week Two

2009-05-04T16:55:00.000-07:00

From April 10th 2009

After first day jitters, second days are always easier. I wasn't worried about explaining myself to anyone. I could focus on observing and learning and doing my tasks. After an unsure beginning, my mind was starting to pick up on things.

I noticed that I was starting to see things differently. My fingers for instance. During the week, my fingers are just appendages attached to my palms that are at the ends of my arms. I use them for typing. That's pretty much their main function.

In the kitchen, my fingers are the best tools I have. I use every one to manipulate, wipe, adjust, tear, pinch. Even the oft overlooked ring fingers have functions beyond the decorative. I've started to value them infinitely more. Suddenly they all matter because without them, I'm pretty useless.

The way I look at what I'm doing has changed too. I spent the better part of an hour peeling and dicing butternut squash for quiche that's part of the amuse bouche. After a while I started looking at the pieces in the bowl in front of me. Each piece started out a bright orange at the top and got progressively more yellow at the bottom. It was kind of like candy corn. They were just lovely, all piled up in a mound. It was delightful to look at.

I'm starting to see each different art form within the overall culinary picture. It has to be said that there are no unattractive or unappetizing looking dishes. But for some reason one particular dish took my breath away.

It was a beet salad. Doesn't sound like anything special when you put it that way.

Here's what it looks like though: dark purple, candy striped and yellow beets, quartered and artfully arranged on a long white plate that's been painted with concentrated beet juice, careful attention paid to the angles. Then quenelles of white horseradish cream placed on top with sprigs of microgreens. I couldn't stop staring at it. I remember not wanting to breath while I was watching this. This, I thought, really IS an art form.

My hands are starting to take on new characteristics. Cooks are known for their asbestos fingers. They can withstand temperatures most of us would cringe at. Scars and calluses illustrate a lifetime of labour. Mine are a blank slate in comparison. But they're starting to take a different shape. I can feel the tips of my fingers hardening from heat and more frequent use. I think I'm also on my way to developing a knife callus at the base of my index finger. However, calluses generally start as blisters and my soon-to-be callus is currently a painfully burst one. I discovered it in the middle of my butternut squash chopping. Luckily I wasn't asked to cut anything else for the rest of the day. I'm looking forward to when that part hardens up. I just hope it heals in a hurry because I have a feeling I'll need to use it come next Friday.

With any job comes getting to know your coworkers. I'm the new girl -- girl being the operative word -- and discovered that apparently everyone was under strict orders not to say anything remotely crude around me, possibly for fear I'd run off screaming or sue for harrassment. I learned of this the previous week when I was asked what I thought of the kitchen culture in respect to how, well, crude it can be. I said I hadn't noticed much of anything.

"Well, to be honest, it's really toned down."
"Is it because I'm here?"
"Yeah."

The funny thing is that anyone who knows me knows I'm usually the first one to say something profane or outrageous or generally something that has guaranteed me a spot in hell. They don't yet know this about me but they probably will soon. They seem to be getting over it. I won't reveal the general topics of conversation but if you imagine a room full of twenty-something men who are crammed in a small room for the better part of 16 hours a day, you can imagine what those would be.

Everyone has and continues to be very kind and helpful, remembering to call me over to show me things they're doing. The meat cook showed me how to make a hollandaise sauce. More or less it's like a cooked mayonnaise. It was a highlight of my day, because it was a valuable lesson and also because of another hollandaise story I remember.

Months ago I was talking to another chef about working with our head chef, Dale. They were coworkers years ago, before either of them had become the superstars they are now. He said that he had taught Dale how to make hollandaise all those years ago, but that he didn't remember this until Dale had reminded him of it.

Now it seems that I, too, will have a hollandaise memory of my own.

Confessions of a Stagiere -- Week One

2009-05-03T20:05:00.000-07:00

From my first week at Lumiere...April 3/09.

There's nothing like the first day at a new job. You can practically taste the anxiety bubbling up like bile. It crawls up into your throat and chokes you just as you ask the question, "What would you like me to do?"

Once I get in the kitchen there is some surprise at my return but there's always something to do. I learn to start getting into a rhythm of every task: whether it's cutting up the tips of romaine lettuce into "fronds" or picking the tips of chervil.

I've always cooked and helped to prepare food since I was a kid. My mother was always big into making her own food. Whenever we would go out she would inevitably say, "I could make that myself". Money was always tight. But good food was always paramount.

I remember many days sitting in front of the television with a big bowl of snow peas to prepare. It was theraputic, snapping off the ends and taking off the fibrous edges. I always made sure to check them all over once I was finished because there's nothing more unpleasant than eating a snow pea that hasn't been cleaned properly.
There's also a lot of camaraderie while you're preparing food. You're working towards a common goal whose end result (if you did it properly) would only be a good one.

All these "mom" food moments came back as I was helping to make ravioli. Their ravioli consists of a butternut squash filling and shaping the pasta squares into pyramids with square bases...that are also slightly rounded out. I was told to take my time with them.

My mother and I never made ravioli. We made gyoza, a water and flour dough rolled out into circles and filled with a meat mixture. I was never given the responsibility of handling the dough because I was never able to do it to my mother's satisfaction. Whenever I would fill them it was never the right amount of mixture. I was also never able to successfully replicate one of my mother's gyoza. A proper gyoza should be folded in half and crimped by hand so it looks like an elaborately edged purse. Try as I might, I just couldn't get the hang of it and it would always look primitive next to hers. So my sister and I would turn them into barnyard animals and whatever else we wanted, defiantly deformed.

The restaurant had taken a hit since I'd been there last. The number of customers willing to pay top dollar for a world class meal had fallen dramatically due to the recession. It pained me to see the reservation numbers (about half of what the dining room could accomodate). But this also allowed more time for experimentation and invention.

We all got to try the latest invention -- foie gras ice cream. I could see how foie gras would lend itself to ice cream, being pretty much all fat anyway. You could just blend it in. But what would a meat flavoured ice cream taste like? We all found out. The taste was very creamy, and then the foie gras flavour hit you hard and pretty much stayed put. It was cold, sweet foie gras. I didn't really know what to make of it. It was a culinary noodle scratcher. Others seemed thrilled and thought it could've been more savoury. It was definetely one of the more unique food experiences I've ever had.

Another new item being tested was a pheasant and pear terrine. "This terrine is going to be off the hook", one cook commented. I'd never heard a terrine described this way.

I had to ask: what draws people into this very specialized, exhausting, exhilirating road to food?

One was a pre med student in Victoria before he realized he wanted to work in food. He quit school, travelled, then came back and got a job as a dishwasher. I asked him what his parents had thought. "They were horrified." He went off to culinary school and is three years into a promising career. But to this day his family isn't completely convinced. His stories about 16 hour work days has not helped.

Another was studying math and training to be a bioengineer. How does an engineer wannabe go into cooking? "I was always thinking about what I was going to have for dinner." His mother's horrified reaction did nothing to stop his plans. His response is: "I can be an engineer when I'm forty, but I can't cook when I'm forty".

I'm feeling particularly self-conscious because I'm very aware of my position as outsider/interloper. I'm a radio producer who's in the kitchen...performing small tasks...following and observing...for what? People whose curiosity has finally gotten the better of them will ask me, "what are you doing here?" Good question, I think to myself. I'll get back to you when I have an answer. For now, I just reply, "I'm here to learn". It's cryptic but most are not curious enough to inquire further.

Last time during service I stood against one corner of the kitchen trying desperately to stay out of the way and stop my hair from catching fire on the incredibly hot salamander oven above my head. This time the chef looked at me and said "you're going to take care of the amuse bouche so you'll be involved with the service". Great, I thought.

One of the garde manger cooks showed me how to plate the amuse bouche. It consisted of three parts: a crab roll cut into thick coins and placed on top a small pinch ("just what you can hold in your fingers") of spaghetti squash, a squash soup with parmesan foam and a squash quiche cut into a square with yogurt and toasted pumpkin seeds on top. It all had to be assembled at the right time. It was easy enough to organize: you could prepare the bed of spaghetti squash and arrange the quiche ahead of time because they could be served at room temperature. But you had to time the soup just right. The foam came off another station so you had to yell out, "parm foam down" so the person with the foam would know when to pass it to you. The first time I had to do this I couldn't bring myself to yell out the order. "I'll do it next time," I said. And I did. Preparing the foam is fun: you buzz it first and then scoop it off, then drop it vertically from your spoon.

It feels great to be part of this team. All of them work together seamlessly, anticipating, communicating, and watching this culinary ballet up close is a thing of beauty.

At the end of the night, I head over to the office to talk to Dale. I thank him for letting me come in and ask if I can make this a weekly arrangement for the foreseeable future. He has no problems with this, doesn't ask any questions. I leave feeling great, with more skills and revelations and promises of more to come.

Confessions of a Stagiere

2009-05-03T14:03:00.001-07:00

It hasn't exactly been a secret -- but not something I've written about either. I think it's time.

You can tell by scanning through my blog that I love food. Well, a few months back, through a series of food related incidents, I figured I should put my love of food and my love of writing together and do food journalism. This after I would tell people about stories on food I was working on. Finally someone asked me, "why don't you do this for a living?" Good question. Because I'd never considered it as a career possibility? Plus there really isn't any training to be a food writer. Everybody eats. But that's not enough to make you an "expert".

So what does make you a food "expert"?

Some people go to culinary school and become chefs. Some just go straight to work in a kitchen. Some travel the world, eating their way through the timezones. Some grow up on farms. Sometimes you're just a loudmouth that gets picked up by the Food Network (you'd like me to name some names wouldn't you? Pick one). In other words, nothing and everything can qualify you as an authority on the edible.

Having expertise to draw on is important to me. So I set about finding ways to do that.

I had originally thought about going to culinary school. In fact, I had applied and been accepted at the Art Institute in downtown Vancouver. It's a long story, but turns out due to recession related money matters and other things, this wasn't going to be an option after all.

After my day long stint at Lumiere back in January, I talked to the chef about my failed culinary school plans. He suggested I work as a stagiere (working for free) in his kitchen and learn that way.

Well, I took him up on it. Every Friday for the past few weeks I've been heading over to Lumiere, putting on whites and spending anywhere between 10 and 12 hours in the kitchen. What am I doing there? I help with prep for the first part of the day and assist with service during dinner, mostly plating the amuse bouche.

I've been dying to blog about this but there are reasons why I haven't. I don't want to make the chef and the staff uncomfortable in any way by making them feel overly scrutinized, especially when I have to work with them every week. Initially I wasn't sure what to do with the whole experience, but I've come to take it for what it is: insight into one of Vancouver's top kitchens, working with some incredibly talented people and doing one of my favourite things: working with food.

I figure if I want to be a food writer, what better time to start? At the very least I'm an expert on my own journey.

My fridays as a stagiere have become the highlight of my week. Whether or not this will eventually put me into any kind of field of expertise is debatable. But for now, I'm thrilled to go along for the ride -- and blog about it all the way. Postings to follow.

Eating Las Vegas

2009-04-25T10:22:00.000-07:00

I just got back from four days in Vegas. I don't gamble, drink excessively or pay for sex. So yes, I too wondered why I should go to Vegas.

Turns out, you can have a unique experience no matter what your reason for going. Mine turned out to be food.

I must be the last person in the world to figure out that there is a heavyweight panel of fine dining restaurants in Vegas. I've always associated Vegas with buffets and 99 cent shrimp cocktails, but with that amount of money flowing through the desert you can bet there are fine dining restaurants to soak it up.

We stayed at the MGM Grand so first up on my list was Joel Robuchon. It has three Michelin stars...his only North American restaurant with that kind of pedigree. And if the website is to be believed, his only one ever. Sadly, that remained a pipe dream with a six-course tasting menu starting at $250. Next.

Luckily there is also L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon right next door. And I say next door even though what I mean is their entrances are inside...facing all the slot machines. L'Atelier has its own Michelin star...in other words, no 99 cent shrimp cocktails here. But I figured I better make the most of Vegas. Since I wasn't going to indulge in any of the other "finer" things the city has to offer (read: paying for sex and leaving a trail of watery vomit back to your room) I might as well spend it here.

Service at this restaurant is unique. Most people sit at a counter, facing the kitchen so you can watch everything being prepared. I hate sitting at counters (I'd rather face the person I came to eat with, unless it's a deli or something) but I love watching what's happening in the kitchen. Subsequently the kitchen, the cooks and everything else was tailored to an audience. Everything was black with red trim. I didn't notice any reaming out of the cooks by the chef during this meal, although I've subsequently been told that some chefs will purposely do this to keep diners entertained. Maybe I was just enjoying my food too much.

I do have to say I'm not a fan of the over-the-counter service. Part of it is that it's a departure from the traditional. But also the servers were having a difficult time reaching over the various accoutrements just to serve the food. I'm surprised that after this amount of time they still haven't perfected this.

I did something out of character during this meal. I took photos of all the courses. I hate doing that because I feel extra touristy and frankly, in a restaurant like that, I feel tacky. But boy, was that fear put to rest.

Before I go onto the food, I have to write about this one couple. They were sitting a couple seats down from us at the counter. I was immediately drawn to this woman's purse, which had a large clock built into it. If Flavor Flav was a woman, he'd carry this purse. They were dressed like the typical tourist (unflattering khaki shorts). Clearly they'd been to the restaurant before because the chef and sommelier were all over them. Obviously these people had money that their clothing did not reflect.

Anyway, after a while I looked over and noticed something weird about their wine. Then I watched in horror as they proceeded to scoop ice out of their water glasses and put it into their wine. With their hands.

.....

I still don't have the words to describe my reaction to this. It's more like a series of sputtering noises with accompanying uplifted hand gestures. Why??? These people were spending hundreds on their wine. If you come up with an answer, please let me know.

Anyway, after seeing that, I felt much better about our photos. No, we didn't use a flash. I know that bothers other diners and anyway it wasn't necessary.

We had their tasting menu. The descriptions come from their own website.

Amuse bouche: Foie gras parfait with port wine and parmesan foam. Fantastic. The parmesan foam in particular was very familiar to me, so it was like a taste of home.

Smoked salmon in an herb gelée with a light wasabi cream

Poached baby Kusshi oysters with French « Echiré » butter. Notice a couple are already eaten. We almost forgot to take the picture. The oysters are from BC. Another taste of home.

Maine lobster in a tomato sauce and green asparagus. This was the most oustanding dish I had. It was just perfect.

Foie gras ravioli in a warm chicken broth with herbs. I was really looking forward to this one but I have to say, it wasn't all that I'd hoped. You pretty much had to eat the ravioli naked to taste them.

Dover Sole with a warm leek salad and crispy potato

Lamb shoulder comfit, fava bean stew . We split this one because you had a choice between the lamb and...

Foie gras stuffed free-range quail with truffled-mashed potatoes. They were both wonderful.

Pineapple infusion, Tahitian cheesecake.

This was the only thing we had that doesn't appear to be on their website. Dammit. I know that because this sure as hell wasn't Light coffee cream served with coconut milk and lemon from Corsica. What I remember was that it was a strawberry meringue with some kind of ice cream. It was so light and refreshing. I'm pissed I didn't write this down somewhere. But it's not like I was taking notes.

This is already the longest blog posting I've ever done so I don't want to drag it out more. But I know you want to know...how much was the bill? I hate admitting it even to myself. After wine and taxes...for two...it came up to just over $700 Canadian. Was it worth it? I honestly treasure every food experience I have, and this one is going to give me something to digest for years. It didn't give me a gambling addiction or an STD. If anything, it's given me something to write about.

Lambs and other animals

2009-04-12T14:32:00.000-07:00

Your face says a lot about you. But you don't always know what that is.

It took me a quarter of a century to figure out what my face is saying to the world. Apparently mine is saying, "Hi everybody! I'm sweet and innocent and nice and not capable of saying or thinking anything remotely nasty. I am pure and uncorrupted. Fresh, untrodden snow. Gosh, isn't life grand." Not unlike a cartoon lamb with gigantic eyes.

I am not really aware of any of this. My face has been sending out messages that my brain didn't know about. People who know me pretty well know that what my face -- while not exactly lying -- is only telling about 10% of the truth.

I finally discovered this after going from workplace to workplace and experiencing a range of reactions. I can't remember what I said to one particular co-worker, but her response was "that's not very nice." I thought this was a very odd response since...well, I'm not five years old. So I said, "I never said I was nice".

You can use a lot of words to describe me...but I wouldn't use "nice".

The rest of the 90% percent is a mix that includes among other things: snarky, nerdy, sarcastic, profane, opinionated, etc. That's not all, of course. I have lots of great non-douchey qualities too. But you get my point.

There are plenty of advantages to being perceived as a cartoon lamb. Everyone talks to me. I can and have walked into a single room occupancy hotel on the Downtown Eastside and chatted up a bunch of homeless seniors. I've gotten rides from total strangers who spent hours helping me out on stories. And I'm still alive and in one piece. In fact, they were all really positive experiences. Who would turn down a lamb?

The problem is that I am constantly having to prove that I am more than whatever it is my face is projecting. I'm not seen as tough or resilient enough to handle anything remotely trying. People sensor themselves around me. They don't swear as much or give me anything difficult to do. And it's kind of exhausting to have to constantly prove myself, because I can damn well handle just about anything you throw at me. Plus, I swear like a sailor. This is according to my friend Devon who finds it hysterical when people hear me say something profane for the first time because she finds the juxtaposition equally jarring.

I guess this is why I tend to be pretty standoffish when I first meet people. I just know they'll be surprised when they dig a little deeper and sometimes I just can't handle the reaction.

So here's fair warning. If you meet me, now you know. Don't be surprised when the cartoon lamb transforms into a completely different animal.

What is this thing you call "Twitter"?

2009-04-06T18:38:00.001-07:00

I can't get away from it. Everyone's always talking about it. It's invasive, pervasive...

Twitter.

I get the basic concept: people type up to 140 characters of some kind of update, anything from "Man, that tuna sandwich was terrible" to "I don't remember getting this tattoo". If these updates interest you, you can "follow" this person, meaning you get whatever updates they send out. In turn, people can "follow" you too.

The first time I ever explained this to anyone, it was another producer. His reaction was, "that sounds horrible. Why would I want to sign up for someone else's crap?" That was my reaction too. So I avoided it at all costs. Even when everyone I knew kept encouraging me to sign up for it. I refused. I was already all over Facebook and frankly I couldn't handle signing up for anymore social networking sites.

But then I discovered that Christopher Walken was on Twitter. Or at least, what looked like Christopher Walken. Turns out he was a fake. Whatever. He was hysterical. So I figured if just for the entertainment value alone I was going to take the plunge. I also discovered Karl Lagerfeld and Tina Fey along the way...yet to be proven to be fake. I will choose to believe that it's really the fashion and comic legend pounding away on their Blackberries until proven wrong. They're seriously fabulous.

Anyway, so I had the "following" part figured out. But who was going to follow me? Twitter isn't really much of a blowout phenomenon yet, at least not among the folks I know. Mostly it's co-workers who want to use Twitter for journalistic purposes. So I found a few co-workers and old journalism classmates and contented myself to reading Brent Spiner's increasingly bizarre imaginary stories about breaking out of rehab (I still haven't got a clue what's going on there, Brent).

Then people started following me. People I don't know. Whenever someone new starts following me I have to take a peek. They seem like nice enough people, mostly from Vancouver. Thing is, I really have no idea why anyone I don't know would follow me. I'm unable to update as often as all these crazy celebrities who for some reason manage a bazillion updates a day (Demi Moore and John Mayer, I'm looking at you).

The kicker was today. I did a story about a Vancouver singer who posted a "tweet" (because that's what the cool kids are calling Twitter posts) about meeting Robert Pattinson. Then an online publication found that post and ran with it. She blogged about it and fan sites around the world went berzerk. She's gotten tens of thousands of hits on her MySpace page as a result.

I posted a tweet about doing this story to get people to listen, and lo and behold five minutes later something called Rob Pattinson News is following me on Twitter. How did they find me?? So fast?? I feel positively ancient that I don't know the answer to that because I pride myself in my stalking abilities. They've outstalked me. Dammit.

Ironically even this artist that I spoke with is now following me. I have no idea how she found me either.

I really don't care who follows me, I mean, it's great that I have some form of audience I suppose. I guess that's what this whole Twitter appeal is. But I'm starting to feel this weird sort of performance anxiety where I think I need to be really witty and informative or something. I think it's because I don't yet fully understand the philosophy of Twitter. Or maybe I'm just really really overthinking this thing. God. Time to update my tweets.

Groundskeeper Willie and more CBC cuts

2009-03-26T15:41:00.001-07:00

I can hear Groundskeeper Willie now...

"I warned ye! Didn't I warn ye!??"

It's still not going to make all these CBC cuts any prettier.

So here's the ugly breakdown from CBC Online:

Changes on Radio One include:

* Cancellations of The Inside Track, Outfront and The Point.
* Reduction of regional noon-hour programs to one hour.
* Reductions in drama.

Changes on Radio 2 include:

* Cancellations of In the Key of Charles and the weekend edition of The Signal.
* Reductions in live music production and recordings.
* More consolidations with Radio 3.

On CBC-TV, investigative programs such as The Fifth Estate and Marketplace will have reduced budgets, though it's not yet known whether that will mean fewer episodes.

Canadians can also expect to see more repeats of many prime-time programs, with shorter seasons ordered for ones including:

* The Border.
* This Hour Has 22 Minutes.
* Being Erica.
* Little Mosque on the Prairie.

The CBC will also reduce spending on new children's programming and cancel the Living programs produced in each region.

In CBC Sports, there will be reductions or cutbacks in coverage of:

* International figure skating.
* CONCACAF Champions League soccer.
* World aquatics.
* World athletics.
* Skiing.

The CBC will also drop its Blue Jays baseball telecasts.

That doesn't count a lot of the regional cuts.

Also, all provincewide noon hour shows will be cut in half. So down to one hour...and half the staff too. Apparently this will save $2 million dollars.

I have to say, I've worked on all the regional shows equally and there's nothing like BC Almanac. I love working with the host, I love the audience. It's a show that lives in the moment.

I wasn't even one of the people weeping...or depressed about it. That is, until I ran over to tell the host about an interview I'd just booked and he said, "I just wanted to tell you that I appreciate all the work you've done". Then I almost lost it. Kindness always does that to me.

I'm bowled over by the number of condolence-type notes I've been getting from former co-workers on Facebook. Former CBCers, CTVers, print reporters...I guess we've all seen too many colleagues fall away into dust lately. I won't know for sure if I lose my job until mid-May...but as I've written previously I'm pretty damn sure that unless fifteen people decide to up and leave the CBC for good...I'm as good as gone.

I'm exhausted by all this. The worst part is it's coming down in dribs and drabs, prolonging all the angst. I'd rather someone just tell me straight out that I will be around for another two months and then I better start packing. I feel like we're supposed to pretend nothing's happening until we get told to leave. All the programming is supposed to appear that way. What to do.

When CBC also means Chinese born Canadian...

2009-03-08T11:15:00.000-07:00

I had a surreal experience this past Thursday. I was helping give a seminar on interviewing to a roomful of 16-year-olds at city hall with two other people. It was really strange because I felt like I stopped aging when I hit 19. I feel 19 most of the time. Until I'm actually surrounded by teenagers. Then I realized I was about a decade older than all of them. I don't know what your twenties are supposed to feel like. But whatever it is I better find out what it is real fast because I'm already halfway out.

That was the first surreal moment. It was an interesting experience because I realized that I was about their age when I started writing professionally. And I wasn't very good at first. Now having done it for the past decade I realized just how far I've actually come, which was a nice feeling for sure. I can actually say that I know what I'm doing now, for the most part. And it only took me ten years.

Then there was the last part, when two of the teens approached me to ask about working as a journalist. Specifically, what it's like to be a Chinese journalist. Both of them were Chinese by the way.

It intrigued me because it's something I've given a lot of thought. One of them asked if there were language barriers. It's definetely not a language issue for me. I was born and raised here and speak and write better than some people who's families have lived here for generations. What it is is an issue of upbringing. It's hard to articulate but I'll try my best.

I feel like if you're raised in a Chinese family (in most Asian families this is probably the case) that you're raised to be humble. I've noticed in broadcasting that many people who get ahead are people who know how to "sell themselves", which is a disadvantage for me because I don't really know how to do it. Bragging about accomplishments is difficult.

Then there's the whole self-esteem issue which extends far beyond just work. I've noticed this with a lot of Chinese kids that they grow up not having a strong sense of self worth. This isn't because our parents don't love us, we're just not taught that we're the centre of the universe. In fact, we're mostly taught that if we want any kind of attention we have to work our butts off just to get noticed. And maybe we'll be acknowledged as worthwhile then. Maybe.

That's why making a mistake is such a terrifying ordeal. Because you're not just making a mistake. You're less of a person. This also relates to the whole Chinese "saving face" business. I know that sounds like way too much of a big deal, but at least that's how I feel. Even now. I have to tell myself to get over it whenever it happens.

Specifically speaking to journalism now...if you're a Chinese kid and you tell your parents you want to be a journalist, their first reaction will probably be "Why? Why don't you be a doctor/engineer/lawyer instead?" I know that was what my dad's reaction was (lawyer, that is). Actually, what he really said was "you can be anything and become a journalist". That's true and not true. You can do something else and become a journalist later in life. But you can't just become a journalist without some serious training and work experience. The ironic thing is he's the one who has the news on 24/7. In the morning and afternoon it's CBC Newsworld. Then it's BBC World News. Then it's NBC/CBS/ABC. Then it's The National and CTV News. Can he blame me for going this way?

Journalism is pretty much professional shit disturbing. And Chinese people hate shit disturbers. It's why Tianamen Square happened. It's why Communism works in China. We love authority. It's why we blend in so well when we immigrate to different countries. We'll do what you want us to do so long as you let us be.

As a journalist, you must continually question everything. I was the kid who annoyed the hell out of all my relatives by asking about stuff I wasn't supposed to ask about. But breaking that don't-ask training has been REALLY hard for me.

Luckily my dad is a cantankerous old shit disturber. In the best possible sense. So I have some training in that respect.

There's also things that are out of your control. I find that as a young Chinese woman I feel like I'm second-guessed a lot. And no, it's not all in my head. I'm considered not as "tough" as my colleagues even though I can handle a lot more stress than many others. How do I know that? For example, in my current job I was the last of the "casual" workers to be tried in this position. And in the end I'm the one who got signed up to do it for a year. So there.

I have to prove myself on a daily basis. I'm used to that. But I'm also more defensive than other people because I do have to prove myself all the time.

I'm not saying this is what every Chinese person goes through. I'm also not limiting it to Chinese people. But when I mentioned some of this to the students I was talking to, they seemed to know what I meant. I think that says something about our common experience.

I hope things are changing. I hope that young people -- like the ones I was talking to -- do break their "training" and go for what they want, regardless of upbringing or societal perception. It's still a struggle. But I think I'm winning and I know I'm not the only one!

What is a "foodie"?

2009-03-01T10:41:00.000-08:00

Being a writer, I happen to think semantics are important. We choose our words for a reason and to me those reasons tend to be pretty weighty.

My friend Jason and I had an interesting discussion the word "foodie". In general conversation, I suppose it means someone who loves food, knows more than the average person about specific kinds of food and knows about restaurants, chefs, etc.

It's become a default word for anyone who regularly watches the Food Network or talks about restaurants they like to go to. I even got called a foodie on air on BC Almanac. It made me kinda uncomfortable because of my own personal view of that word.

Jason and I both felt this word had a perjorative meaning. It has an air of elitism, as though being a foodie makes you somehow better than other people. It feels like a word people use to define themselves to set themselves apart from people who'll supposedly indiscriminantly eat anything as opposed to "foodies" who have discriminating palates and will only eat the best.

I suppose it depends how you look at it. For me, I love all food. True, when I'm at work or talking to people about food generally it's about some restaurant or some show or cookbook or some such thing.

But there's a whole side to my love of food that doesn't come out regularly.

If I drop something on the floor, I believe in the ten second rule provided it's something hard and self-contained and not creme brulee or something. I think fast food tastes great...but try to avoid it because of social awareness and waistline issues. My absolute, hands down greatest pleasure is to sit in front of the tv with a giant bowl of mashed potatoes and eat until I have to unbuckle my pants. Preferably I'm not wearing anything with a restrictive waist.

I DON'T eat much organic food. Why? Blame my Chinese upbringing. Paying more for food than you have to is anathema. And a luxury that my family could never afford. Similarly I had to pick up the whole knife and fork thing later in life, having used mostly only chopsticks and spoons for most of my childhood. I don't know how to say a lot of the vegetables I used to eat in English, only their Chinese names.

I don't like olives. In fact, I kinda hate them. One of the only things I won't eat.

The only elitist thing I do is that I will only buy one brand of soy sauce because all the rest don't have as good a flavour (and yes, they definetely have a range of flavours. Kung-Fu brand is the best in case you're wondering).

I'll eat at any restaurant but bad food anywhere enrages me. Anything overcooked, undercooked, overseasoned, underseasoned, too greasy, not greasy enough...you get the idea. I recently got food poisoning for the first time from a very respected Mark McEwan run Toronto restaurant. I wasn't expecting that considering the calibre of his cooking. But my chicken was underdone. I spent the whole next day in the bathroom.

I don't have any of the following in my house: any fresh herbs, saffron, homemade stock, a whisk (yeah, I know, it's sad), puff pastry, shallots, etc. I've been meaning to update my kitchen utensils for a while but I haven't really had time. But I can damn well pick those things out of a lineup.

Nothing excites me like watching chefs in action.

I seek out new food experiences all the time. What does that mean? Just trying new stuff wherever I can. Anything. If it's remotely edible I'll try it. I've even eaten grass. The stuff from your lawn. I actually picked it off a lawn. It's not bad actually. Pretty sweet. I also tried my organic vegan shampoo (I figured since it's all organic it has to be ok to eat). It wasn't bad. Not remotely soapy. I'm not advocating people eat things that aren't conventionally meant to be eaten. Just trying to make a point.

So am I a foodie? Or just another person who likes to eat? Who DOESN'T like to eat? And don't say Karl Lagerfeld or Victoria Beckham. Nothing normal applies to them.

What alternatives are there to foodie? Enthusiast? Hedonist? Glutton? Where do you draw the line between someone who eats and someone who lives to eat? Are you the only person who can make that distinction? Or is this a label that must be applied to you by others in order to be validated? How do you compare someone like Jeffrey Steingarten and the dude who really, really loves chicken wings?

I'm sure Brillat-Savarin has at some point addressed this issue. But that was a few hundred years ago now. I'd love to know what other people think of this. Tell me: what IS a foodie?

Going Western

2009-02-15T19:37:00.000-08:00

I think hell is freezing over.

At least a small patch of it.

When I first got to Vancouver, I was so determined to bring all my eastern Toronto Scarborough-ness to the west. The whole premise of this blog at the beginning was to document all the ridiculous differences I noticed (all the ridiculousness being, of course, on the Western end of things).

Well, I just got back from a week-long radio skills training course in Toronto at the CBC mothership. And it was the very first time that I landed in Toronto feeling like I missed Vancouver.

You have to understand. I left Toronto three years ago with nothing but suitcases full of books and clothes, moving for a boy (who I eventually married) with no family, friends or prospects. I was two days off my last journalism school exam. I had, by the way, also lost my voice at a party and sounded like a 98-year-old boxing coach with emphysema. I had no idea what to expect.

At first, I DID notice all the ridiculous differences. When it snowed, people would flee in mass panic as if Godzilla had landed. Despite everything I'd heard, I felt (and still feel) the ethnic diversity is LESS than what it is in Toronto. Nobody knew what West Indian was, or soca music. A lot of the young ladies I'd met had had some kind of plastic surgery. I was totally weirded out and fought back by being as hardcore Scarborough as I could. I even wrote a piece for Ricepaper Magazine as an ode to my hometown, out of homesickness.

When did that all go away?

Somehow in the midst of my building a family, making great friends and kicking ass at work I got used to and, dare I say it, learned to LIKE not just my life but living in British Columbia. Most people I know just fall in love instantly. I never fall for anything instantly. But I guess it's worn down my resistance. I love taking the ferry to Salt Spring Island and going to goat cheese factories and driving up the Coquihalla through Merritt to Kelowna and scootering around to wineries. I still hate the goddamn incessant rain but the summers are fantastic. I still think the housing prices are fanatical and they still drive me into a murderous rage. But the bubble is bursting and thank god I didn't go for one of those forty-year mortgage traps. I've had the most amazing experiences here and lots of incredible people that I never would've met in Toronto. Daniel Boulud, Ross Rebagliati, Elvis Stojko, Paul Martin, Caridee English (former America's Next Top Model winner), Donovan Tildesley (amazing Paralympic swimmer), Syd Mead (designer for Blade Runner), Chris Haddock (Canadian producer extraordinaire)...the list goes on. Not to mention all the extraordinary "ordinary" folks that have touched my life. Pretty much falling into a radio career by accident and discovering that my original instinct about it was dead on: I love it.

Learning that all the things that used to scare me, things like change, pressure, being uprooted...I can take them all on and then some. In fact, I welcome it now. I would not have pushed myself nearly this hard if I had still been in Toronto.

That's not to say I don't miss Toronto anymore. But everytime I go back, it takes longer and longer for me to get back into the Eastern groove. I think I'm going Western. Can you go Western and go back? Frankly I'm not even thinking about that right now.

So, three years later, here's my little ode to Vancouver and the West Coast life. I never thought it was possible. But the fortress of the Western Easterner has been overrun. And it feels great.

And just because...here's a photo of our Radio Skills group. CBCers from across the country, including Yellowknife and Iqualuit, came for this session. It was fantastic to meet all of you. Hope to see you in the future!

Chase producing

2009-02-03T14:59:00.000-08:00

My job is described as the am chase producer. My first job of the day consists of coming in at 6 am and trying to find something awesome that's at the top of the day's news for just after 8 am. I then have to find the perfect guest and write a great script. If you're thinking this is kinda stressful...well, that's why they call it the chase spot.

This morning I learned that it helps to literally chase people.

I walk into work and my producer/director Laura says, "it would be great if you could get Ross Rebagliati on the Michael Phelps story".

Here's a refresher: Michael Phelps -- 14 time Olympic gold medal swimmer who is facing a shitstorm over a photo of him taking a hit from a bong. He confessed. Ross Rebagliati -- first Olympic gold medal snowboarder ever in 1998 who also faced his own marijuana scandal. The idea is to get him to talk about what he thinks about all this.

Anyway, I was freaking out (inside, silently). My one thought was...WTF?!? How the hell am I going to find an Olympian at this time of day?? In less than an hour and a half? When we don't even have a phone number that works??

While I was silently freaking out, I happened to glance over at the two tvs that are at my desk. One is always set to CBC Newsworld.

That's when I saw Ross Rebagliati, in our newsroom downstairs, talking to Heather Hiscox live.

I jumped up. "Is that Ross Rebagliati live downstairs?!" I yell out. Morning reporter Steve looks over and says, "yeah, looks like it."

I hightail it the hell down two flights of stairs.

I stop short of crashing into Ross while he's doing his live interview in front of the camera. I can't go into the newsroom without walking in front of him so I just stand in the hallway, wondering what to say.

Then, to make extra sure I don't make a complete ass of myself, I run over to the nearest phone and call Steve upstairs.

Me: Hey, I just want to make sure that that guy really is Ross Rebagliati so I don't make a total ass of myself. (Because I know shit about sports. Like, I don't know when the Superbowl is or who's playing in it. Ever.)

Steve: No, I'm pretty sure that's him.

So as soon as Ross finishes his hit, I launch my full producer schtick at him (and yes, we all have a schtick). He's more than willing to come on, my favourite kind of guest.

The best thing that can happen to people who become famous is they enjoy it. And Ross clearly enjoys it. He sat right between me and Cecilia (the morning news reader) and drank coffee and answered all our questions. Because when you have a gold medal winning Olympian sitting with a bunch of journalists there are a lot of questions to be asked.

Apparently when Ross lived in Whistler (he lives in Kelowna now) the tour groups that would go by his house would always stop right in front and everyone would turn around and stare at the same time. He seemed to think it was quite funny. I was really creeped out.

He obligingly did an interview with us...then a station ID (where people say "hi, I'm John, you're listening to The Early Edition on CBC Radio...) and THEN he says, "I have my gold medal with me. Do you want to see it?" Well, YEAH!

He's not a psychotic egomaniac. Apparently he had done Good Morning America at 4 am and they'd asked him to bring it. Yeah. Sure Ross.

It's the first gold medal I've ever seen in person. I'd probably wear it all the time and use every excuse to bring it up. I bet Michael Phelps puts his on his bed and rolls around on them every night.

Ross was super accomodating and I thank him so much for that. The morning chase almost NEVER happens like this. Rarely do you have a guest who just so happens to turn up while you're there. I wish CBC Newsworld would fucking tell us when someone awesome is IN THE BUILDING so WE -- the shabby local shows (at least that's what I imagine they call us) -- could interview them too. But hell. I'll take what I can get.

When shit comes together like this...that's when I really love my job.

Scratching the Surface at Lumiere

2009-01-31T10:48:00.000-08:00

The first day I walked into Studio 31 at CBC Radio in Vancouver to watch The Early Edition live in action, I had no idea what was going on. The studio director Shiral was super energetic, which I couldn't understand because it was 5:30 in the morning when I got there. They kept throwing to items and Shiral was frenetically typing on a screen while counting down the host to every segment. Phones were ringing...people were running in and out of the studio...I just sat there and watched, dumbfounded.

Perhaps prophetically, that first day I got to sit in and watch an interview with a very intense and talented chef who had just taken over the landmark Vancouver restaurant Lumiere. It was probably his second day after being named head chef. That would be Dale Mackay.

He -- a year and a half later -- would be the chef who would lead me through my first full kitchen experience.

In a previous blog posting I wrote about how I won a day in the kitchen at Lumiere on New Year's Eve. It was part of a draw they did at db Bistro next door. I was thrilled to pieces because I'd been exploring ways to gain experience in the culinary world in my quest to become a food writer.

I finally cashed in my prize this Friday. And man...did I get an experience.

I had absolutely no idea what to expect when I walked in. My main goals were to absorb as much information as possible while trying like hell not to ruin everything.

Here's everything that I can remember in brief, in as consecutive an order as I can recall. Otherwise I might as well quit my day job to finish writing this:

--------------------------------------------------------

I step into the kitchen at 11 am. Everybody is working full steam ahead already. I'm change into uniform and am desperately trying to recall every piece of culinary information so I can better process what's going on.

Get introduced to everyone and each position. I pray there's no pop quiz or I'm toast.

First up: time at the saucier station. First question I get asked: "do you know how to hold a knife?" Good question...haven't really given much thought to it. Am able to simulate a good enough approximation. Set to work cutting 1 cm long diamonds of peppers to garnish the mussel soup. It's much, much harder than you'd think. Am shown how to clean mussels and how to prepare the soup. Am told this is the greatest soup ever. It is.

At the meat station I am shown how to break down a duck for the first time. My mother does it by hacking away with a giant meat cleaver. Apparently this is not the traditional way to do things. Also get to try veal tongue.

Then am taken to check out one of the supply trucks that comes by every week. Have never been around that much high end produce before. Have never been around people so enthused about their product. It's awesome.

Off to the veg station. I'm cutting out rounds of sweet potato and cabbage. Am shown the potato cooking away in duck fat and butter. Good thing I hate diets.

I watch Dale painstakingly create what proves to be a beautiful terrine. Elements required include foie gras that's soaked in milk for four days and intricately assembled with truffles. Layered with venison and gelatin infused stock. Note to anyone eating this: value every molecule contained in this dish. You have no idea the amount of work per square millimetre.

Am given a tasting spoon to try the various soups and sauces. Am encouraged to try everything. I do. Keep spoon in pocket. Really comes in handy throughout the day.

Get to assist the only two ladies in the kitchen with pastries. Find out all the detail work involved in creating pineapple chips. Will forever treasure every garnish I'm served.

Am repeatedly asked if I'm a new employee. It's awkward having to explain what I'm doing there. But everyone is super nice.

Am also repeatedly told to ask more questions. My question for everyone is just: what are you doing? Everyone is very accomodating...explains what they're doing, what they're working with and how they're doing it without my having to ask. Questions feel redundant. Prefer to revert to journalism mode and observe.

The calm before the storm: at about 5 pm prep ends and the staff meal is served. Everybody hunkers down in the db Bistro dining room. It's nice to see all the camaraderie.

Then back to the kitchen to the garde manger station. Realize the squares under one of the elements of the butternut squash amuse bouche are square for a reason as I set about squaring them. Apparently they warp after baking. Sounds tedious but I love detail work.

At 5:30 service begins. I find as quiet a corner as I can to stand in. Unfortunately it's right under one of the salamander ovens so I spend much time trying to keep my head from bursting into flames.

Service really starts to pick up after 6. Reminds me of a live radio show in that it's all about timing, teamwork and precision. Anyone who doesn't have their shit together would be screwed. Am surrounded by hardcore professionals so this doesn't happen. Only serious issue of service turns out to be an amuse bouche element wrapped in too many layers of cling film. Takes much time and effort to free it of its confines.

And no...Dale does not at any point explode into an expletive filled rage a la a certain British chef. At least -- not while I'm present.

At one point am brought over to the kitchen at db Bistro. Amazing how you can have a completely different animal just a few feet away. That kitchen never stops. While Lumiere serves on average between fifty to sixty patrons a night, db during a peak period will serve between 180 to 200 people. Different food and a totally different atmosphere.

Imagined that my complete lack of experience would've created a fair amount of hesitation in asking me to do anything. Within sixty seconds of meeting chef Stephane Istel, am asked "Would you like to sauce something?" Immediate internal reaction is "ohgodohgodohgodohgod I'm going to destroy their beautiful food". Actual response: "sure". Did not destroy anything.

Then I'm asked to dress a salad. ohgodohgodohgod. I ask how much vinagrette to add. "So it tastes good". Well, duh Joan.

Why the anxiety? Add in all the anticipation, desire to do a great job because perhaps may actually work with these people in the future, and general terrifying fear of screwing up everything. Dressing a salad becomes anxiety-ridden.

Watch the meat station churn out cut after cut of arctic char, with the occasional steak. End up memorizing all the movements but do not dare attempt any of it.

Stephane gives me several dishes to try. They're so good am cursing myself I'm too full to eat them all. Also feel strange eating at the pass while service is going on around me.

At 9 pm -- head back to Lumiere kitchen. One of the waiters has to correct an order. Everyone in the kitchen is pissed because they have to refire orders. I am sole winner in this situation...and get the butternut squash ravioli dish that is no longer going to be served.

At one point am handed half a giant black truffle to hold and smell. It feels dense, heavy and incredibly expensive. Briefly consider running out the door with it.

Am also given other dishes to try throughout course of evening...including hamachi, duck confit spring roll, truffle risotto, and molten chocolate cake with pistachio ice cream. Akin to some kind of fine dining buffet experience I will probably never have again. Am trying to eat as much as possible but human internal capacity is defeating me.

About 10:45 -- service winds down. Now the pastry chef is serving up her beautiful creations. There's a drawer where all the ice cream is stored. Would happily eat my way through that in no time.

Everything is put away and the kitchen gets a good scrub down. Everyone's so fast. Feel guilty about not cleaning my kitchen for weeks. To be fair: haven't been cooking much lately.

---------------------------------------------------------

After 11 pm people start to head off. I thank everyone for their help but feel like it's not really adequate. The experience has been more engaging and revelatory than I could have anticipated. I'm still rolling the day around in my head. It's taken me a couple days of thinking to even start writing it down.

I'm asked if this is going up on my blog (which has inexplicably started to be read by people other than my immediate circle of friends). Trevor, I told you I'd write about it. Hope you're keeping your end of the bargain by reading it.

This is all but a fraction of what I got to see and do. There is a lot more I still don't understand but I hope to one day. I managed to break the mystique of the radio world, so I know there's hope there.

Suffice it to say, spending at least a day in a kitchen is something I'd recommend for anyone who wants to know more about what goes on behind the scenes. Not everyone is going to be invited into such an accomodating kitchen. I was lucky because I got to be in one of the best. My sincere thanks to chef Mackay and everyone in the kitchen who guided me through what they do best. They are, indeed, among the best for very good reasons.

Bocuse D'or 2009

2009-01-28T14:44:00.000-08:00

It's over for another two years. Bocuse D'or 2009 ended today. Well, this morning actually. At 1 am this morning (10 am local time in Lyon) Team Canada -- led by chef David Wong -- put years of anticipation into action.

The live feed from Lyon was working today, thank god. Otherwise I might've pulled out my hair. Despite the hellish chase day I had at work, I still managed to catch a glimpse of the Canadian team at work. It was so great watching David and his commis Grace Pineda finally live in action after watching two of their practice runs. Somehow everytime I had a chance to look up, there they were. I saw their fish and meat platter go out and I thought, "I actually know how much went into that!" The judges get but a glimpse of each platter. Frankly, with that much work it should've gone into a museum. But what do I know.

Despite my dislike for the two hackneyed MCs (could they have been any more obnoxious and self absorbed?) the English MC did manage to give a shoutout to the Canadian team by holding up the hockey jersey worn by the Canadian fans.

I managed to get some photos from the event, unfortunately none of Team Canada in action. Oh well. Above is a photo featuring honorary president Daniel Boulud and competition founder and food god Paul Bocuse. I got shivers remembering my own encounter with Boulud (there's a posting about this somewhere back in this blog).

Side note: What's with the music? Is this a euro thing? I'm pretty sure we could find some better music to go with the world class food. I wouldn't want to eat McDonald's with that shit blaring.

I love the fans though. They were all so damn happy to be there! And all of them screaming their heads off.

The fact the chefs were able to work with the Euro cheese music and the screaming fans is amazing. As you'll see in the following pics, there is no room for error. The judges literally have seconds to see your food on the platter and they're tasting twenty four dishes a DAY. And all these chefs are at the top of their game.

I wish I knew what country's food these were. There are no IDs from the Bocuse photo site. Boo. I know what you're thinking. You want to reach through your screen and eat this with your bare hands. It's ok. We're all thinking that.

Just to show the level of detail. Again, I have no idea what country this chef is from or what he's coating his dish with. But I'll bet anything it's absolutely mouth watering. You should probably go get something to eat if your keyboard is coated with drool at this point.

Another side note: as I'm writing this I'm eating frozen fries. They're not currently frozen, I baked them obviously. But still. Somehow it feels sacrilegious to write this while eating something so uncouth. Le sigh.

Norway's first place fish platter. I kinda think it's a cheat that one of the must use ingredients at this year's event was Norwegian cod...but it IS a gorgeous platter.

Norway's gold standard meat platter. Time to get a napkin.

How could I blog about this without mentioning the winners? Of course, Norway won gold...Sweden won silver...and France got the bronze. I know. I did it in the reverse order I'm supposed to do it in. Suck it. It's my blog.

And what you REALLY want to know is...how did Canada do? We placed ninth out of 24. The Americans placed 6th. South Korea placed 24th.

Let me just say...I'm so immensely proud of our team. Having seen them in action and tasted the food, they're incredible competitors. It was a thrill to see them. Extra congrats go to Grace Pineda for winning Best Commis as awarded by the Academy of Bocuse D'or winners. That's a testament to the level of their teamwork.

I do have to say, the Norwegian winner Geir Skeie was absolutely adorable in victory. He was so ecstatic you couldn't help but feel that enthusiasm. Then someone who I can only imagine was his wife stood with him and she looked like the happiest woman on the planet. It was the sweetest thing ever. They looked like overjoyed teenagers.

On the flipside, the French chef Phillipe Mille looked almost devastated to get third place. I guess if you bet your soul on winning gold I could see how you'd be disappointed. But it's not like they made rillettes out of your puppy so calm the fuck down.

I'm sure David and Grace and the rest of Team Canada are still celebrating and that they'll be celebrating late into the evening. They deserve it.

A gold medal for frustration

2009-01-27T13:08:00.000-08:00

It's finally Bocuse D'or time. The competition is going on as I write this. Well, the first day is actually over because they're nine hours ahead of the West Coast in Lyon.

I've been following the story of the Canadian team (led by the fabulous David Wong) since last May. So I have a bit of a vested interested in what happens.

Like any half decent worldwide event, there's live streaming footage via the Bocuse D'or website (check it out at http://www.bocusedor.com/2009/en/index.php). I watched some of it before I left for work...at 5:30 am. I just managed to catch the Brazilian team putting up their meat dish for the judges. Gorgeous. But I have to say -- appearance wise it doesn't hold a candle to what David's team is producing. I know. I've seen it. And tasted it. The Canadian team is producing food that is everything you want it to be.

I digress. So I get to work and go back to the website, hoping to watch some other highlights of the day. And the live feed isn't working. I try another computer. Still not working.

Thinking it's just some stupid glitch with the CBC firewall, I contact the resident multimedia dude Charlie. We try different surfers. No luck. In his opinion it's something wrong with the Bocuse site.

Le frustration! What the hell? This is like hosting the Olympics and not letting anyone see it!

Even more surprising...with all the world media covering this event, there is surprisingly little coverage online. And I'm no Google neophyte. Most of the coverage is in Portuguese courtesy of the Brazilian press. Even the bloggers that are there aren't providing a ton of insight. If it were me, I'd be walking around with a laptop in a modified Baby Bjorn posting pics and text as fast as was humanly possible.

I can see why the Bocuse D'or hasn't really hit North America yet. Their overall campaign to get out to the public seems to have failed, whatever that campaign consisted of. I could see people posting comments on some of the blogs I'd read asking if one could watch it online. Perhaps they were too lazy to simply go to the Bocuse D'or website for themselves. Or perhaps they tried and were thwarted like I was. Either way, no one seems to be watching except for the people who are there.

For the love of god, webmaster, whoever, let me in!

For anyone reading this, David Wong and team Canada are competing tomorrow at 10 am (that's local time in Lyon, 1 am Pacific time) and they should be delivering their first platter to the judges five hours later. If the live feed is up and running I'm going to be watching. They'll be announcing the winners at 6 pm local time/9 am Pacific time. If I can actually get access, I wouldn't miss it for the world.

Why I love mail

2009-01-17T19:24:00.001-08:00

Ever since I was a kid I've had a habit of saving every piece of mail and every card I get. Thank yous, birthdays, you name it. I have Valentine's Day cards from the third grade. No joke. I learned at a young age that no one knows how to spell "Joan". I have a massive aluminum box full of correspondence and well wishes.

So when I came to Vancouver it was only natural to keep doing that. I keep all my papers stashed in a shoe box I got from a very cute pair of Vivienne Westwood shoes she designed for Nine West. Greatest deal ever.

Why on earth would anyone do this? You're probably asking that right now. It's amazing what a box of old mail can do to a person. It's like taking a trip back through time where only good things happen.

I was putting away some old Christmas cards from this past December and I briefly rifled through some of them. I couldn't remember where half the stuff had come from. So I sat down and went through them all, piece by piece.

I read through the postcards my friend Jason had sent me when he travelled across Europe. His old postcards from Portugal, Istanbul and more took me right back to my immediate post-university grad days. This was before Jason became a cross-country CBC producer that he's become. I guess postcards from Winnipeg wouldn't have been as exciting.

I realized I've been here for nearly THREE years now. Several Christmases and birthdays have passed without my knowing it. It sounds like a cliche, but time really slips by fast.

I remembered exactly why my friend Leona remains my best friend. You think only children need titles like that. But Leona deserves it. I've gotten more hand written letters from her than anyone else I know. For someone who loves mail, that means a lot. Her constancy has meant even more to me as time goes by and I continue to lose contact with people in Toronto. I know she will still pick up the phone the moment I call, provided she's not in the middle of something. You really find out what a friend is when you move away from home. I will continue to treasure her friendship for the rest of my life.

I realized that writing Christmas cards is easy, provided you write the same thing every year. There are a couple of examples I discovered, but they had the best of intentions I'm sure.

I remembered what it was like before I started at CBC Radio. I remembered my friends from my days working in retail. I remembered what it was like just after I started at CBC Radio...the excitement I had going on air the first time and the well wishes people sent.

I learned that there are some cards you read that make you cry no matter how many times you read them. There's one in particular my mother gave me just before I moved to Vancouver. She wrote: "After 23 years, I still remember the 1st moment you were on my chest, you didn't cry but open your eyes, looking around. You are always curious, full of life. I am so glad you can finally set flying, live your life, your dream."

I can't even think about it without choking up. My mother has, and continues to be, my strongest supporter. As time goes by, I have had less and less time to keep in touch with her, but every time I do she's always there.

If you don't already do this, try it. For just a year. Or more. Then sit down with a box of tissues and be prepared to laugh and cry through a lifetime of memories gone by.

Just a quick thought

2009-01-15T09:26:00.000-08:00

Yesterday as I was walking down to the parking garage where our car is I spotted the world's most self-pitying licence plate ever. Y Me. Perhaps it was somebody's initials or the name of a band, but I interpreted it to mean exactly what it looks like it means.

It made my mouth stretch into one of those smirky grins I get. If you have the money not only for a semi-decent '90s era Honda Civic AND a vanity licence plate...can your life REALLY be that bad?

Love affair with a Ms. C.R. tube

2009-01-11T10:33:00.000-08:00

If story telling and food are my polyandrous mates...then television would be my not so secret lover. I watched a ton of tv as a kid and that's never changed. I don't really "get" people who don't have some sort of attachment to something on tv. I guess this has something to do with a love of story telling.

This occurs to me as I rewatch a very, very old favourite series of mine. I am almost finished watching, for the first time in over a decade, the BBC series Red Dwarf. If you've never seen it, it's about a guy named Dave Lister. He's a technician on a mining ship -- Red Dwarf. He's the lowest rank crew member on the ship. He and the second-lowest ranked crew member -- Arnold Judas Rimmer -- are your typical odd couple. Lister's a vindaloo loving, laid back, ambitionless slob. Rimmer's a super uptight, power hungry, annoying loser. In the first episode they lay it all out for you. Lister smuggles a cat onboard. When it gets discovered, it's either kill the cat or go into stasis for the entire 18 month trip and forfeit those wages. Lister goes into stasis. Three MILLION years later he's revived by the ship's computer to find out that a radiation leak has killed the entire crew. The leak was due to an improper repair that Rimmer was responsible for. As a result, Lister becomes the last human in existence. Unfortunately for him Rimmer is brought back as a hologram to keep him company because he has had the most interaction with Lister. And his cat gave birth to what became a humanoid species evolved from cats.

Along the way they pick up a mechanoid named Kryten and have a ton of sci fi comedic adventures.

Now doesn't that sound hilarious?

I started watching this show when I was about eleven. I watched a LOT of BBC when I was about that age, only it was all dated from the late eighties to the early nineties. Black Adder, Red Dwarf, As Time Goes By, Chef!, The Thin Blue Line, Birds of a Feather, etc. As a result I've always tried to work "git" into my list of insults but I can't get the intonation just right.

I remember my parents used to restrict our tv time (well, try anyway) and it never worked. I will always love TV. Watching Red Dwarf reminds me of how my sense of humour became all sarcastic and twisted.

TV is a strange and wonderful seductress. Give in. You'll like it.

2009, Here I come....

2009-01-01T15:27:00.000-08:00

I got here in April 2006. I had only been to Vancouver a couple times to visit. Didn't know anyone. Didn't have a job. Was taking a huge leap of faith that Fernando's job was going to be awesome and that I, too, would find an awesome job.

After months of selling jewelry, clothing, helping teach English to international students, I was facing a 13 HOUR boxing day shift trying to sell overpriced clothes to people with more money than taste. I'd had it.

Then I met a lovely journalism student who was trying on a sweater. We chatted about journalism and she mentioned that she was doing an internship at CTV. That day I applied, got in shortly thereafter, quit my job and worked for free for three months straight. Then I got paid freelance work. Then I got to CBC Radio where I've been an associate producer ever since. It looks simple when I'm writing it now...but that was one steep hill to climb.

This year, I'm going to be facing a whole new set of challenges and what I hope will be rewards. I've set a deadline to go to culinary school this October, so now I'm saving money, preparing scholarship applications, and biting my nails wondering if I'm doing the right thing pinning my hopes on being a food writer. I know I can write. But will anyone want to read?

I like to think that my New Year's Eve celebration is a beacon of things to come, because it was fantastic. We headed out to db Bistro: me, Fernando, his sister Fernanda (no, it's NOT normal for siblings to have the same name in Brazil...) and one of Fernando's reporters. I had just eaten there less than a month ago (there's a previous entry about this below) and had a great time. I wanted to dress up a bit for NYE. I wanted to be coddled. I wanted to eat great food. I wanted to have a great time.

It definetely was a great time. Fernando and I both opted for wine pairings with the dishes, which ensured we were totally smashed by the end of the meal. I had to pass along my last glass of port because I knew I'd end up passed out in the bathroom if I didn't.

The staff passed out noisemakers and other NYE necessities. This greatly outranked the NYE we spent in a casino where, because they don't want people to notice the passage of time, there were no clocks or anything remotely indicating when the New Year was supposed to be rung in. We ended up asking a fellow patron who informed us that it was in fact just past midnight.

The New Year was rung in. Then we were given slips to fill out as part of a draw they were doing. You could win a day with the chef in either Lumiere or db Bistro and then dinner. There would be one winner for each restaurant.

I could barely fill out my own application thanks to the wine and my general lack of coordination. Fernando said, "You know we're going to win, right?" in reference to the fact that every year at his company Christmas party for the past two years -- he's won their grand prize. The first year was a paid day off. Last year was a free trip for two to the Dominican Republic. That was, needless to say, the best prize ever.

Well, Fernando was right. Just as I noticed the draw was taking place, they announced the winner for the Lumiere prize: me. I was of course thrilled to bits.

Shortly afterwards I marched over to their kitchen to once again harass the poor head chef, Dale Mackay (see previous entry about our first encounter). It's probably not a great thing that both times we've spoken I've been drunk.

Dale, as usual, was perfectly accomodating to whatever the heck it is I said. He apparently is notified whenever their public relations person finds an online mention of him, so if he's reading this I do promise that at our next meeting I will be totally sober. The funny thing is, I hardly ever drink. He just catches me at my most celebratory.

I can't wait to spend the day in the kitchen. As I've written before, I have spent over seven hours on my feet with a recorder doing a story in one. This time I'll be an actual guest. And now I will be seeing it through the eyes of someone who wants to actually learn the functions and flow as a future potential culinary student.

I don't want to jinx myself but it does seem as though this particular plan of mine for going back to school is coming together nicely. I'm so ready to take on 2009. Here I come...

...and for my friend Devon...Happy New Year!

Best Christmas gift...ever

2008-12-30T10:45:00.001-08:00

My mom sent me a care package. Didn't get here till yesterday. I kept hearing about this great package...nobody would tell me what was in it. I laughed for ten minutes when I opened it because only my mother would bother to mail me this stuff:

-two bags of Jelly Belly jellybeans
-a bag of chocolate covered popcorn (??? Never eaten this in my life)
-a Ziploc bag full of cashews from Bulk Barn
-a handful of these Chinese flower candies (which I love)
-an adorable Christmas card
-the only non-edible items in the bag...insoles (WHAT??? Why would you mail ANYONE these things?)
-a box of truffles
-and the topper...two chocolate covered fortune cookies (again, WHAT???) that were INDIVIDUALLY PACKAGED IN TWO TINY TUPPERWARE CONTAINERS.

This is my mother. Adorable, inscrutable. Sigh. This is why I miss home.

You want to know why people love doing news?

2008-12-26T09:58:00.000-08:00

I was working Christmas Eve, doing the early morning shift. That involves waking up at 5 am, getting in at 6 am (I live a five minute walk from work, thank god) and bangin' out story after story until 2 pm. I actually like it now. It's weird.

Anyway, my friend Devon and I were both looking forward to working that day because everyone was telling us how easy it was going to be. On Christmas Eve, our noon hour province wide show BC Almanac does a Christmas card show. People call in and send their greetings to other people across the province. It's pretty heartwarming. Then we play Christmas songs in between.

THe morning was great. The Early Edition food columnist brought in sparkling sake. Everyone brought in chocolate.

But of course...in the Lower Mainland it was snowy. And that day the weather gods said, "fuck it" and dumped about another foot of snow onto the roads. In other Canadian cities, this wouldn't have been AS big a deal since well...we're Canadian. But Vancouver is quite the other thing. It's chaos when it snows. People aren't used to it. It's like putting a cat in any kind of clothing. They are extremely uncomfortable and they hate it.

So my "easy day" turned into my having to find three or four different weather related stories and people to talk to about it. On Christmas Eve. I ended up with FOUR people. A meteorologist from Environment Canada, a spokesperson from the Ministry of Transportation, our reporter who was at the Vancouver airport (and btw, his cell phone had died so he had to call in by pay phone, every director's nightmare), I got a clip from an RCMP traffic services cop.

THEN...I actually managed to find a man who was stuck in Calgary trying to get to his wife in Victoria. I actually pulled this off and was SO happy about it. People who aren't in the "biz" (and even people IN the biz) often ask me, "how the hell did you find that person?" Ha. I'm a genius. Just kidding. Actually, you just have to be super super persistent, call everyone you can think of and be very, very courteous. You'd be amazed how far niceness can get you.

When news breaks, and you have to step up, marshall your resources and pull the damn thing off, it's fantastic. When you get it right, it feels so good. It's like winning an important tournament or getting straight A's in all your classes. It's like finally paying off all your debts. You feel awesome and you know it's because you worked your ass off. It's an accomplishment. It's what keeps journalists going in the daily news world.

So Devon was in the studio directing...I wandered in, finally thinking I was done for the day. Fernando and his sister came by to visit because I figured, heck, it's a relaxed day.

But of course it wasn't over.

Just before 2 pm when BC Almanac ends, our executive producer rushes in to say that they're closing the Upper Levels highway in West Vancouver and this is damn near unprecedented. So we're to stay on air an extra hour till 3 pm when the afternoon show takes over and take calls from across the province on how bad the traffic is. And she turns to me and says, "we need you to do traffic".

Here's a little history about me and traffic reporting: I don't like it. I'm not familiar with the roads anywhere outside of downtown Vancouver. Doing provicewide traffic for over an hour does not appeal to me.

But somehow that day...I knocked it out of the park. And I'm not being arrogant...I really felt like I knew what I was talking about, I was calm, I was in the moment...it all clicked. For the first time, I was totally comfortable doing traffic reporting. I'd overcome my fears. It felt amazing. I got compliments from my co-workers afterwards about how I'd handled it and I knew it wasn't just me. A part of my brain was finally at peace.

I ended up staying an extra hour of course. Poor Devon had to stay an extra two to do traffic for the afternoon show. But we pulled it off. I floated home on a breaking news high I hadn't felt in ages. There's nothing like getting it right.

A new start

2008-12-19T19:30:00.001-08:00

I guess what I'm about to write wouldn't be a big surprise if you'd taken my few previous blogs seriously. After years of watching and reading others take on the culinary world...I've made the decision to go into culinary school myself. I've set a goal of saving money and getting my ducks in a row to begin school October 2009. I'm hoping to attend the International Culinary School at the Art Institute of Vancouver, given its stellar reputation and extremely awesome proximity to my house (five minute walk, doesn't get better than that).

I've been floating on a cloud for weeks thinking about it, dreaming about the possibilities. I don't yet know if my end goal is to be a chef, a food writer or a chef who writes about food. But I know that whatever I want to do, going to a great culinary school and earning my diploma is the next step. I'm only 25. School is a year. Now is the time, before I get tied down with a mortgage or kids or whatever else comes my way.

Unfortunately, after a couple weeks of bliss...the freaking out has also set in. I have to quit an awesome job doing something I am good at, that I potentially have a very lucrative future in. I love being on air. I love telling stories. And I love my coworkers at the CBC. Ever since I got to Vancouver, I've been going from job to job, having to meet new people and learn new skills all over again. I finally found a place where I could see myself working for at least the next few years, learning new skills, working with amazing professionals who've helped me tremendously. I've gotten to do so much since I got there. Can I really give up a well paying, fantastic career track job to start something completely new??

I don't know.

I don't even know how good a chef I'd be. I mean, I'd give it my absolute best shot. And I tend to be great at things I love (who isn't?) But...what about my dreams of being on air? Home ownership? Stability?

I'm putting so much on the line. It's terrifying. I've been spending all day torturing myself with scenarios where I crash and burn and get incinerated in the process. I absolutely hate the unknown. I also hate change.

Yet this change I'm planning excites me more than anything has excited me in a very long time. I can hardly think about anything else. I'm practically vibrating I'm so excited.

So tomorrow I'm going to the Art Institute open house to check out the curriculum. I've already planned a meeting with someone from admissions in January. It helps me to set goals and achieve them. I want this so badly. I want to do well. I hope that will be enough for now.

A foodie nerd wet dream

2008-12-12T15:10:00.000-08:00

Who's got a blog and had the greatest dinner EVER last night? THIS GAL!

We finally got to eat at the brand spanking Lumiere redux. Now with Daniel Boulud and Dale Mackay at the helm.

Let's go right to the food. We had a three course dinner. First we were presented with an amuse bouche of broccoli done three ways. I know it sounds weird but it was fantastic. Among the items was an oyster with some kind of broccoli puree served on a bed of sea salt. Fantastic. Also a shot glass with a broccoli soup and a crouton wrapped in prosciutto.

Appetizer: venison with celeriac done two ways. It was so beautiful and detailed. Ever since I got to spend time with Canada's Bocuse Team I've been blown away by how much detail work goes into really great food.

Then my main course: arctic char with leeks. I think the char was done en souvide. It was topped with a cloud of crispy potato. Again, clean, beautiful, stunning. People say the way food looks doesn't matter...well...it REALLY REALLY makes a difference when you make this kind of effort. It's also an interesting juxtaposition between the formality of the way it's presented and the way it tastes, because to me the flavours always seem so warm and enveloping.

Dessert was chocolate fondant with pistachio ice cream. Anytime you pair warm, gooey chocolate with ice cream is just fine by me.

Then came the REAL highlight of the evening. As if the meal wasn't amazing enough. The maitre d' came over and asked us if we'd been over to db Bistro. I said yes, we had just been there a couple days ago (see below). THEN he asked if we'd spoken with Daniel Boulud yet.

Then I think my brain exploded.

We were asked if we wanted him to come over to the table. I was like, "ABSOLUTELY!" Probably scaring the poor guy half to death. So we waited. And then he was there. The whole time in my brain I kept thinking, "do not make an ass of yourself" because sadly, I have a history of making an ass in front of people I admire, including Sarah McLachlan and Wendy Mesley.

Luckily, thanks to the wine I was totally coherent. I think. I told him what a thrill it was to meet him and he took it like a champ who's heard that a million times. He's excellent at self-promotion. He knows exactly how to make you feel like he's interested in you, whether or not he really is. He actually spent quite some time chatting with us (when Fernando was talking about his newspaper I thought to myself, my god, one of the world's most celebrated chefs is listening to my husband drone on about newspapers). He also talked about his displeasure with the service ("not so smooth yet" was his opinion although we could scarcely complain).

THEN........then he asked if we had met Dale yet. As in Dale Mackay, the head chef of Lumiere. My brain exploded again. He led us, oh so gracefully, to the kitchen where the entire staff seemed to stop and stare at us. Dale was totally open to all my prying questions about how he was finding the Vancouver market and how he was adjusting to the opening. I remember the first time I saw Dale in an interview. It was probably the day after he got the job at Lumiere and he arrived at The Early Edition. I was there for the first time watching them put the show on air. He was quite nervous and intense. Talking to him in the kitchen, he was a completely different person, able to laugh and talk freely about his experiences. I think it's a combination of intense media training and the fact that I didn't have a microphone in front of me.

AND THEN.............Daniel escorted us next door to db Bistro to meet THEIR head chef, Stephane Istel. We walked past BC's Attorney General Wally Oppal on the way. Love him.

db Bistro's kitchen was bustling, so we couldn't stay long. We did schmooze long enough for me to figure out that Stephane's charm was going to carry him a long way in this town.

All the while, Daniel was the most charming host. You'd think we were his family members and not some loser journalists barging in during dinner service.

That evening could NOT have gotten any better. I waited an appropriate amount of time after walking out the door before squealing and jumping up and down. Only in Vancouver do you have the chance to hob nob with the likes of Daniel Boulud and his homies. Only in Vancouver. I think I'm starting to like it here!

Wow, I've grown

2008-12-11T16:35:00.001-08:00

I went through some old Facebook postings and found this from April 2007:

Can someone remind me why I f@#$ing went to j-school? Yeah, all you j-schoolers know what I'm talking about...we go to Ryerson all cocky 'cause we're at "Ryerson" and nobody does it like Rye High. We learn all about the ethics and laws and skills and researching and interviewing and technical stuff. Not to say this was all pointless...but...I just finished a three-month unpaid full-time internship (which I loved) but now I'm doing two jobs just to stay employed. WTF?

I mean, I understand that a full-time job in journalism is practically unheard of right now, especially in VANCOUVER (god, I miss Toronto) but come on!! I went to RYERSON for fuck's sake! lol I mean, I survived Mark Bulgutch! I survived lugging all that camera equipment in fucking -40 Celsius weather! I survived doing the limbo with a tripod!! (Probably only Erin, Sam and Kristen actually remember this).

Did I do all that just to move out here and NOT be employed? Ok, I have two jobs, but you know what I mean...freelancing just isn't the same. I will prevail, because damned if I'm going to let Vancouver stop me from becoming the next Wendy Mesley (I LOVE YOU!!!!! MAAAAAAAAILLLLLLBOTT!!! That was for you, Sarah and Jason!) It's getting hard to stomach this. So let's just see how long I can take this freelancing business before I have to sell my kidneys for food.

-------------------------------

Wow, how things change. Little did I know I would be working full time at CBC Radio five months later...and still am. I've learned so much, met so many awesome people and gotten to do so many great things, including being on air...well, daily now. I never would've dreamed at the time that I would be where I am now. If that's not encouragement for me to keep on chugging...I don't know what is!

db Bistro Heaven

2008-12-10T14:11:00.001-08:00

Here I go again...with another gushing foodie nerd entry.

So yesterday at work I get the best email EVER from Fernando: We're being invited to db Bistro. Do you want to go for dinner?

I phoned him immediately and didn't even say hello. "HELL YEAH!" was what I think I said.

For those of you that have no idea which restaurant I'm talking about, db Bistro is a new restaurant in Vancouver, attached to the illustrious Vancouver institution, Lumiere.

A lowdown on Lumiere: was created by uber chef Rob Feenie. Then last year Rob Feenie was suddenly and shockingly let go. The new owners have installed Dale Mackay, a former Gordon Ramsay sous chef from New York, as the new head chef. I kind of have a crush on him, having first laid eyes on him the day after he was named head chef and had come into the CBC studio to do a radio interview with Rick Cluff. He was so intense looking...and for some reason I'm drawn to that. Bordern psychotic intensity is very attractive. I don't know what that says about Fernando. Oh, btw, we were also engaged at Lumiere, so it has special meaning for me.

Anyway, back to db Bistro. So we get there...and it's gorgeous. It's very French bistro meets West Coast chic. We sat down and started looking through the menu. Immediately I know I have to have the charcuterie plate (for two) and the Berkshire pork as a main. We're also given sparkling wine as a lubricant, which doesn't hurt.

The charcuterie plate is magnificent. The jambon ('cause it sounds better than just saying ham) is lush with fat...I think I talked about how good the fat was for...like, five minutes. I also raved on and on about it was a crime that Victoria Beckham doesn't eat ham. I had had a couple glasses of wine by then.

Then comes the Berkshire pork. It comes in two ways: on one side, tenderloin with sauerkraut. A row of potatoes in the middle. Then on the other side: cripsy belly with coleslaw. How clever. Pork and cabbage done two different ways.

Fernando had lamb in this unbelievable ragout. By then all I could do was say "This is SO good..." over and over again. I'm pretty sure the staff thought I was deranged. Or had never eaten food before.

Then our helpful waiter suggested we have a clafouti with two kinds of gelato...and that's when the other shoe dropped. It was molten, bittersweet heaven. And the vanilla and chocolate flavours were so intense, better than any frozen dessert I've ever had.

I know this sounds almost pornographic. But that's how much I enjoy myself when I eat at a great restaurant.

I couldn't've been happier. Until the person who invited us to db Bistro invited us to eat at Lumiere tomorrow. I don't need to tell you how happy I was to hear that!

So my next entry will be about that experience. Get ready for more gushing.

Foodie dreams come true

2008-11-29T20:23:00.000-08:00

I am not a trained chef. I don't even cook on a regular basis...not food I would serve anyone besides myself anyway. But I am a giant foodie nerd. Not just a regular foodie...an actual giant nerd.

So when I got the chance to pitch a radio documentary about Canada's Bocuse D'or team, I jumped at it. Like, 100 feet in the air.

Bocuse D'or, FYI, is the world's biggest, most important culinary competition. European teams spend millions of euros training their chefs. People paint their faces with their national colours and cheer just like it's a soccer game. You cook in the middle of it all. It's outdoors. It's crazy.

The American team consists of no less than all the big Food Network names. You know who they are: Daniel Boulud, Jean-Georges Vongerichten, Mario Batali, Tom Colicchio, etc. etc. Their budget is, at last count, just over a mil.

But let me tell you something about Canada's team. We're represented by the amazing David Wong. Never heard of him? He's based out of Vancouver. He used to be a social worker...turned chef. Trained by one of Canada's best: Robert Sulatycky (more on him later). Now teaches at a culinary school here. His chef commis is Grace Pineda, a very accomplished 22-year-old in her own right. Robert Sulatycky is their coach. Here's a little about Robert: former head of some of Canada's most luxurious hotels, current head of the kitchens at the Bel Air and Beverly Hills hotels. He competed at Bocuse in 1999 and has the distinction of being the highest ranked North American chef ever to compete there (he finished fourth).

Here's the rub: Canada's got a small team compared with everyone else. They've also got a MUCH smaller budget...nowhere near even half a mil.

I've been fascinated by the whole David and Goliath thing. Ha ha. Anyway, I finally got the chance to hang with the team while they did a practice run.

A practice run consists of five and half hours of grueling, non-stop attempts at making the best food you've ever made. That's the time they'll get when they go to the competition in Lyon, France.

I have personally crowned David the nicest chef ever. I've told him this. For example, first thing he does when I walk into the kitchen at 6:30 am on a Sunday is warmly greet me and offer me something to drink.

As a food nerd, being there and watching the pros do their thing was like going to some kind of fantasy camp. I've never been so happy watching people souvide, puree, saute...

I also got to meet the other main players in the team: Robert Sulatycky and team manager Vincent Parkinson. Robert's whole swagger and look reminded me of Anthony Bourdain...but without the arrogance. And Vincent was incredibly helpful in filling me in on the details. Like how their sterling silver platters can only be used ONE time because the oils of the food ruin the plates. So they've got their plates waiting in France for them, with aluminum ones for practice for now. The silver ones cost $22,000. For one shot. Do you get how much people put into this competition?

I kept my mike on and pointed at them the whole time. Never once did David lose his cool. Possibly the most memorable moment was when he tossed me a tasting spoon and gestured toward his pomme puree. "Go ahead", he tells me. I didn't need any encouragement. I dipped my spoon in and tasted something I will never forget. Creamy, almost cheesy, smooth, warm...the flavour spread in my mouth. It was one of the best things I'd ever tasted. I'll never forget that spoonful.

I also got to watch the critique afterwards. Now, some people find it brutal that you could go balls to the wall for over five hours and then be told what you did doesn't work. But frankly...I've been in meetings like that about stories =) When you're trying to make the best you've ever made, it does make a big difference that your parsley leaves be just small enough and facing the right way, consistently on everything. That's the kind of detail we're talking about.

Then afterwards, even after all the cooking and interviews (because I wasn't the only one trying to get his attention!) David was gracious enough to have a chat with me. I had been looking forward to it for months. I had previously booked David for the CBC Radio afternoon show in Vancouver and it was the day the heads of the American team were announced. I remember asking him if he knew who they were...he didn't. Lol. It was a funny moment.

Anyway, I finally got to ask him some of the questions I'd wanted to ask. Like, how do you go from social worker to chef? (A trip to Spain and an amazing paella apparently). How good does he think their chances are at taking home the ultimate prize...$20,000 euros and a gold statue of Paul Bocuse? (Fantastic...everything's been going their way so far, knock wood). I could've talked to him for hours. He's one of those guys who always gives you his full attention and as much time as you need.

I'm frankly terrified that my radio piece won't do him and his team justice. I can't wait to see how they do in Lyon. The competition is at the end of January FYI. It'll be streamed live on the internet if you're interested. I hope one day Canada takes this as seriously as the Europeans do...so chefs like David will be treated like the rock stars they are. I'm rooting for you!!!

What makes a "true story"?

2008-11-02T16:34:00.000-08:00

Note: I originally wrote that the name of the murderer below was Edward Stewart Northcott, but a reader corrected me. It is in fact Gordon Stewart Northcott. Thanks for the correction!!

I really hate going to a movie and seeing the words "based on a true story". Because more often than not, the "true" basis of the story is unrecognizable to what actually appears on screen. Frankly, I'm a stickler for facts. Probably a good thing for my journalism career. That's why I like documentaries; at least there's the presumption that all facts must be true...backed up by evidence and investigation.

I watched "Changeling" this weekend, the new Angelina Jolie and Clint Eastwood tearjerker. It's "based on the true story" of Christine Collins, a woman whose son goes missing. The LA Police "return" her son to her, but she says it's not her son. In fact, it's NOT her son, it's a drifter who wanted a free trip to LA. But the LA Police, wanting to save face, insist it IS her son Walter Collins and in response to her continued protests to the contrary lock her up in a psychopathic ward.

Turns out -- in an unrelated investigation of a Canadian illegal immigrant -- they discover a farm owned by Gordon Stewart Northcott, a man who is convicted of kidnapping, sexually abusing and killing a whole bunch of young boys. Walter Collins is believed to be one of them.

The movie would have you believe that Gordon acted alone...and you never get much of a hint of what he was doing with these boys other than killing them. In fact, after spending some time surfing the web, I found out Edward's mother was also convicted of murder. She at one point admitted to killing Walter Collins herself...although some sources dispute that. However, the movie omits her character entirely.

Every week I read The Toronto Star's movie reviews. The movie reviewer -- Peter Howell -- did all his "fact checking" on Wikipedia. He pretty much writes exactly that Wikipedia seems to corroborate this story. Since when is that the extent of fact checking for any journalist, regardless of whether or not it's "just" a movie review?

Also, in the movie, we're led to believe there's no real evidence that Walter died on that farm. However, if you look at archival photos from the LA Public Library from that time...there's a photo of Walter's clothes found on the farm. So clearly we can make the connection that Walter was in fact murdered. I read an article quoting Clint Eastwood saying he deliberately wanted to keep the end of the movie open ended. If you're basing a movie on a "true story" then I'd argue that you are obliged to present whatever conclusion the "real story" has. The last record of Christine Collins is her suing the police department and the city for thousands of dollars.

This isn't to say the movie isn't enjoyable, but it's far more theatrical than it really needs to be. I'd say the story itself is fantastical enough to keep people entertained. Although the actor playing Gordon Northcott looks eerily like the real man.

So...just how important is staying true to the true story? How far can you stray before it's no longer the same story? I think it's a shame when filmmakers don't realize how interesting reality can be and work with the story they've got.

Is there radio after death?

2008-10-29T16:25:00.000-07:00

So a coworker and I today started talking about the fact that she thought our area of the CBC building is haunted. She said she thought she heard typing when in fact there was no one there. It got us joking about some poor dead associate producer who was still coming to work even after death. Then we started talking about the awesome show you could put together with only dead people.

I know this is weird, but think about it...you could get ANYONE who's dead on your show, because logically they'd have nothing to do once they're dead right? At least, they wouldn't be on a schedule so they'd be free to be on your show and then do whatever else they want. Like, you could get Abraham Lincoln and FDR together to do a debate about politics: then and now. Or you could talk to Nelly McClung about the birth of suffrage in Canada. Or to Jimmy Hoffa and ask him what the hell happened to him and where is his body? The potential is enormous! And I think that the dead would like to listen to a show like that because a) they'd have a lot of time on their hands and b) it's kinda cool to hear other dead...to remind you of all the people you could hang out with once you're done listening to the show. Every show would be a hit. The ultimate guest would be Jesus or Buddha or something. And they'd come on every month.

If I could put together a show...I'd get Salvador Dali because he's totally crazy and would be entertaining. Also Katherine Hepburn because she's so saucy and she's got that awesome voice. Can you imagine the two of them debating...anything?? lol

If you think this entry is really weird, it's because I think I've got the flu and I've been up since 5 am. Try reading it again when you have a fever. I swear it makes sense.

Elevators and upstairs neighbours

2008-09-25T13:37:00.000-07:00

There are some very strange things happening in my building.

Before we moved to our border-of-Yaletown building, we entertained the idea of living elsewhere just off Robson. The owner was a real estate agent who was REAL pushy. So naturally, being the stubbornly rebellious people we are, we didn't go for it.

We did, however, tell him about the new building we were hoping to live in. He told us all about the sketchy Russian (think Mafia) management that supposedly ran the place and all these horror stories. We, thinking he just wanted to sell us his place, ignored it.

He, I'm starting to believe, was onto something.

Take, for example, about a month ago. There was a sign posted in the elevators saying management was going to retile all the elevator floors. Consequently one of the elevators was out of order for some time, presumably to retile.

You can imagine my surprise when the elevator reopened...and the floor was exactly the same. Not a single new tile. In fact, it seemed a little filthier than before. Now, it could be that I've just finished watching the entire series of The Sopranos and now suspect that EVERYTHING is run by the mob...but frankly it seems entirely possible that someone was murdered in that elevator and they spent about a week getting rid of the evidence. They never bothered with the pretense of shutting down the other elevators for "retiling". The retiling phase seems to be over. Even I know I'm being paranoid, but you have to admit it's suspicious.

Then there's my upstairs neighbour. Without fail, every day I hear them drop the same object in the same part of the house. At nearly the same time. It sounds like a marble or paper clip on a tiled floor. Lately I've been working an early shift so I've been waking up at 5 am. At the same time every day there's a constant stream of water, like a bathtub draining, that goes on for at least ten minutes. Who lives up there? A guy with a mermaid for a roommate who has a lot of papers to organize? A clean freak with a marble collection? Someone who takes files, removes the hardware and then soaks it in the bathtub to get rid of evidence? I'd love to know.

However, it's possible that the last person who tried to find out had to be dealt with and precipitated that "retiling phase" of the elevators. It's not like I'm dying to find out or anything.

Offline

2008-08-12T16:29:00.001-07:00

We have a wireless router at home. It's always worked fine...ok, that's a lie. It craps out regularly. But easy monkey-level troubleshooting has fixed the problems easily.

Now we have a fabulous new HP slimline at home with a gorgeous flat screen monitor. And guess what? Our "radio button" on the computer is off and we can't find it. I just Wikipedia-ed it and apparently this thing actually exists. I'm going to find it later.

Apparently while my Internet was out...EVERYTHING happened. Isaac Hayes died. Bernie Mac died. A massive propane explosion in Toronto forced thousands of people to evacuate. I couldn't read my gossip sites. I couldn't go on Facebook. It was torture. I got into work on Monday trying to catch up with everything I'd missed. I felt like what Saddam must've felt like after he crawled out of that cave. Yeesh, you can't do anything without the internet these days! I don't ever want to go a weekend without it again. Horrible. Horrible.

In the meantime, I've been using my computer to watch hours and hours of The Sopranos. I have all six seasons and I'm making my way through them since Fernando is in Toronto and I'm usually too lazy/tired to do much after work. I'm already in the middle of season 3. What an awesome series. I've also got two seasons of Battlestar Galactica but I probably won't get to them before I fly to Toronto on Friday.

I also think I'm getting carpal tunnel from my computer set up at work. As I type this, my right hand is killing me. Carpal tunnel is one of those syndromes that makes me laugh because it reminds me of this story of this phone sex worker who got carpal tunnel because she was masturbating as she worked. Evidently she doesn't like faking it. I guess she felt she was giving her customers more bang for their buck? So I am not nearly as concerned as I probably should be.

I want to go home soon but I still have to cut tape from a bear attack victim. Very sad. Hopefully she knows how to keep her sentences short and sweet.

The incredible Dark Knight

2008-07-21T15:10:00.000-07:00

I hadn't planned on writing anything on The Dark Knight but having already been asked by several people today what I thought I figured I might as well write it out. Many people will not have been crazy enough to brave the throngs of people who waited in line for hours just to get a seat. I actually found a guy who was SIX HOURS early. Yeah.

Anyway, saw the movie on Friday, nearly twelve hours after it opened. Believe me, if I didn't work on Fridays I would've been up till four in the morning like everyone else.

Everyone is hyped about the film because the studio is using Heath Ledger's death to market this thing like crazy. If you think that's cruel and cynical of me to think...who do you think came up with all this posthumous Oscar business?? It had to start somewhere. That's why you can't look at a bus without seeing his face on it.

Anyway, tons of reasons to love The Dark Knight. Every trace of campiness has been wiped clean from the very tarnished Batman slate. Batman is as dark as I've ever seen him. He spends his days passed out from exhaustion, stitching up his wounds from the night before. At night he's doing everything he can to keep more people from being murdered by the Joker. When he does get to go out in public as Bruce Wayne, he puts on a facade of a playboy. He never seems to get the chance to "be himself"...and ultimately the film is about his acceptance of that fact. But while he's learning to accept it...he loses so much. I won't give it away. Very sad.

Yes, Heath Ledger is just as amazing as the reviews say. If you don't think so...take a picture of the clean cut, post-Brokeback Heath with you to the cinema. You would never recognize him. His Joker is a pathological liar, as much as he might profess his "truthiness".

Aaron Eckhart, to me, is the biggest surprise in the film. His Harvey Dent is dashing, dynamic, handsome...his turn into Two Face is possibly the only tweak in an otherwise incredible film. But he's certainly pushed to the brink.

The pacing of the film is what I love best. Christopher Nolan devotes as much time as he needs to give you time to feel the dramatics of every moment. Two and a half hours be damned...I could've watched it for hours more.

A lot of people think it was too dark. I loved that. Everyone in the film is haunted by their past...Alfred included. He actually gets something of a backstory in this one for a change. I'm still haunted by the movie and I love it.

If you haven't watched it yet, go. Go for Heath. Go for Batman. Whatever it takes to get you into the theatre. This is a movie people will remember for a long time.

Shit!

2008-07-14T18:41:00.001-07:00

I live in downtown Vancouver, on the edge of what many here consider to be one of the poshest neighbourhoods.

Yaletown.

Even the name has a certain cache.

What makes it particularly posh is how exclusive and unaffordable it is. Every boutique is meant to make you feel dingy and unworthy. Even the salespeople seem shellacked in something the rest of us can't see: class. The lamps have a very snazzy mellowness to them, everyone's sunglasses seem much more designer than mine.

One unfortunate feature of this lovely neighbourhood is the abundance of feces on the ground. Bird, dog, who knows what else. Merde. Poop. Number two.

SHIT!

Every time I walk anywhere I habitually look at my feet because walking in Yaletown means being on constant shit alert. It's amazing the diversity of the stuff you see. Texture, abundance, colour...you could earn a master's degree in excrement studying here. The smell is just as diverse in scent.

These are no mere peasants coming into town to shit all over our beautiful landscape. No, in fact all the depositors are usually led around by one of these designer-shade-wearing, too-much-money having Yaletowners who would sooner buy bulk than pooper scoop. If you actually watch one of these dog owners, they're usually dragging their poor, two pound mutts into the middle of the sidewalk to take a dump. The owners' expressions seem to denote that not only can they not believe they have to put up with this but they will be damned if they have to go to an out of the way place for their precious pooch to poop. Hence going to the middle of the sidewalk. Anywhere else would lead them on a detour to someplace where their designer shades would go unappreciated.

So anyone who's interested in studying waste management or perhaps needs abundant samples of stool for study, come to Yaletown. At least you know OUR feces are the best.

Learn to drive!

2008-07-05T22:53:00.001-07:00

So Fernando and I were driving on our way back from watching WALL-E (awesome movie, btw, despite it being Disney spawn) and we're trying to make a left hand turn. The street has three lanes. A CRAZY Person tries to make a left turn at the same time from the CENTRE LANE...and despite our insistent honking and the insistent honking of the person behind us this person just smiled and waved at us to wait. We kept honking and gesturing at her none too gently and got through. This person was totally oblivious that they had done anything wrong.

I've omitted any mention of gender or race because frankly I've noticed drivers of ALL ages, races and genders driving like blind stupid squirrels. WHY IS THAT? It's unbelievable! I wish I could say this stuff was shocking but frankly it happens all the times. Bus drivers, regular drivers, men, women, you name it. So here are some tips I have for Vancouver's less than stellar drivers...

1. SIGNAL. For god's sake, I can't read your fucking mind. It's all about communication people! Please don't assume I know and then almost plow into me. I WILL be pissed.

2. CHECK YOUR BLIND SPOT BEFORE YOU CHANGE LANES. Again, assuming I know when I don't. Also, don't slow down when you change lanes either, unless the situation calls for it. Didn't you learn this in driving school?

3. DON'T TURN FROM THE GODDAMN CENTRE LANE. You downtown drivers are MOST guilty of this. WHERE in the world is it ok to do this?? And that's irrelevant anyway, because here you do NOT do that!

4. GO FASTER. Vancouver is obsessed with driving slowly because people think it's safer. Really what it does is create unnecessary backlog and drive people like me insane. Drive faster, it's normal to go about ten over the speed limit. At least where I come from it is!

5. GROW A PAIR. I can't tell you how many times I've been way off in the distance and a driver will wait...past the time it's safe for them to pass me...waiting for me to pass the car....then they finally slowly painfully drive away. Fucking go already. You're not doing me any favours by waiting for me. You're the car, I'm the ped...I am expecting to have to go around you.

6. This is just for the bus drivers...STOP BEING ASSHOLES. You think you own the road because you're part of public transit, but that does NOT give you the right to cut off drivers whenever you damn well feel like it, even when it's totally unsafe. Stop running red lights, stop giving other drivers attitude. Stop running over sidewalks because you can't fucking turn.

I swear, Vancouver's traffic would be cut in half and everyone would be so joyful if we could accomplish these goals. At least, I would stop complaining about it!

Tiananmen Square Remembered

2008-06-04T14:59:00.000-07:00

Sometimes when you work on stories about historical events the actual significance of what happens tends to wash over you. Especially when you're working on a story about a baseball player you know nothing about just before that. Yes, this happened to me today. I barely know what baseball IS much less write about someone being part of a first draft. I already don't know what that means again.

Anyway, I also did a story about Tiananment Square. Today is the nineteenth anniversary of the massacre. Obviously I know about it and the unforgettable photograph associated with it. But I wanted to cut some audio for the story so I went on YouTube to look it up.

It wasn't until I watched these reports that the full horror really dawned on me. I almost cried. It's so sickening to see what the Chinese government is capable of. To turn the army on their own people. You've gotta be some kinda brainwashed to fire on your own countrymen, I don't care how "loyal" you are. That's definetely a failing of Chinese upbringing; you can be blind to the people you're taking orders from.

It makes me absolutely sick that Google agreed to block out any mention of the Tiananmen Square massacre from Chinese searches. Look up the Wikipedia article on the massacre. So many young Chinese have no idea what it is, much less its magnitude.

Anyway, to commemorate the anniversary I've linked two reports to this blog. The first is one from a BBC reporter. Her descriptions of people dying is nothing short of heart stopping.

The second comes courtesy of the CBC. It's Peter Mansbridge with hair. Brown hair. On a much less facetious note, you just can't believe what's happening. That was my reaction. Something to think about while we're all cheering at the Beijing Games.

Never forget. June Fourth.

Sex and the City on the screen

2008-05-31T08:17:00.000-07:00

Yeesh. Somebody take away Peter Howell's movie reviewing privileges. The Toronto Star movie reviewer has had two serious missteps in the past few weeks.

The first being his spectacularly positive review of the latest Indiana Jones. Have you seen that movie? I have two words for you: George Lucas. I think if you look him up in the dictionary it means "over CGI-ing, crappy writing, shallow characters, stupid plot devices".

Now his rave for the Sex and the City movie. I really loved the series. The finale had me bawling my eyes out. I hoped for a movie that was anywhere close to the series. I really really wanted this movie to be amazing.

I always read the Toronto Star reviews because a) they're entertaining and b) I often trust their taste. I'm crossing Peter Howell off my list. Let this be a lesson to the Star to freaking send someone who's actually seen the entire series to review the movie because anyone bothering to watch the film will be a diehard fan.

The movie, frankly, was terrible. Major plot points get about two minutes to resolve themselves. The movie seems more interested in teasing than telling. I swear the trailers they made showed you everything you need to know about the damn movie. I was hoping that if that was what they were showing in the trailers, there had to be way more in the film. Nope. Miranda is shrill, desperate...losing just about all her "Mirandaness". Carrie, too, is reduced to a female cliche. Charlotte surprisingly doesn't seem even remotely maternal, her Chinese adopted daughter serving as mere window dressing to the girls' adventures. And Samantha has NO sex scenes save one very tame one with Smith. And what exactly was the point of Jennifer Hudson's character besides being the token person of colour (because let's face it, tokenism is everywhere) and making us all throw up with her platitudes of love?

Notice how I'm not giving any of the movie away here? Because it's not worth it.

My particular disappointment with the Star review is that he actually believed this movie had substance. Like, he was hedging his bets that the series was that vapid and that the movie was actually going deeper than a dime. The series faced very serious issues on a regular basis that were dealt with in a much more well written way.

Sigh. Another one bites the dust. A sparkly, expensive one.

Indy IV

2008-05-20T17:28:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the couple day delay...I ended up going to the media preview of "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull". I wasn't even born when the first Indy movie came out but that doesn't mean I didn't fully appreciate all the tremulous buildup to the film's premiere in Cannes.

Harrison looks GOOD for 65. But he sure doesn't slow down much. The film is very well paced to feel just like a great summer blockbuster. Lots of action, the plot points are moved along swiftly. That works well with a story that could potentially get bogged down with archaeological hoo ha. You gotta love Cate Blanchett as well. Funny how she often plays very severe looking characters, yet her personality is anything but if I trust what I'm reading on gossip sites. Shia LaBeouf is suitably age appropriate in dialogue and acting, which is great considering he's been often criticised as coming off too old. And it was thrilling to see Karen Allen. She's a live spark in a movie where the characters come off as a bit stereotypical at times (Bad guy = bad Russian lady, good guy = Indiana Jones, young protege = inexperienced brash youth).

Now for the "wtf??" moments...

******WARNING: DO NOT READ IF YOU DON'T WANT THE SPOILERS*****

I can get over the fact that Indiana Jones manages to survive a NUCLEAR FUCKING BLAST by jumping into a lead lined fridge. But at least when he gets OUT of the fridge (which flies through the air and lands hard in the desert) could he have some fucking bruises?? Something? He comes out totally fine.

I don't have a lot of problems but just one HUGE one. The crystal skull is supposed to be the skull of aliens. Fine. I've heard that before. But right at the end the aliens COME TO LIFE...yes, I'm talking cheesy CGI of an extraterrestrial...it's exactly what you think it looks like...that just fucking ruined it for me. And then an actual flying saucer flies off at the end. That might've worked for ET, where the whole movie was about an extraterrestrial. But it was like watching a completely different film at the end.

And I do know for a fact that the whole alien business was the brainchild of George Lucas. Which is a pretty easy guess. Ford and Spielberg were both apparently pretty against this idea (for obvious reasons) and that's why the movie took as long as it did to get made. Well, fuck George Lucas. This is a man who managed to screw up his OWN legacy! That's right, I'm talking about Star Wars 1, 2 and 3. HORRIBLE MOVIES. The acting. The over-CGI-ing. Somebody get George Lucas away from the damn computers! When will filmmakers learn that over-CGI-ing a movie is gilding the lily!

Honestly, this was the real only problem with the film for me. I'm not sure how the audience at Cannes gave it a three and a half minute standing ovation right after seeing the aliens. Is it because they wanted to give the three amigos some props? Fair enough.

*********SPOILERS OVER**************

It IS worth paying to see this though. A TON of fun, fantastic summer film. Here's hoping all the films are just as enjoyable.

AAAPPLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2008-05-20T17:24:00.001-07:00

The above headline should be read the way Captain Kirk screamed, "KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!!!!!!!"

So a couple months ago my iPod Touch shut down. There is no Apple store here so everything must be done through the website. I tried all the troubleshooting tips and nada. So I called their customer service line ended up purchasing two years of extended warranty because mine had expired and I figured if I had to constantly send it in for battery changes it would cost me a fucking fortune (I forgot exactly how much but it's at least $50). So I end up paying around $80 for the extended warrantly.

NOW THIS:

Vancouver (BC) Apple Store opening May 24
Posted May 20th 2008 7:30PM by Robert PalmerFiled under: Retail

There's good news for our friends in British Columbia: Vancouver's Pacific Centre Mall is getting a brand-new Apple Store on the upper level.
The store will hold a grand opening celebration this Saturday, May 24, starting at 10 a.m. The first thousand customers will get a free Apple t-shirt.
Thanks to everyone who sent this in!

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAPPLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The nitty gritty

2008-05-04T12:28:00.000-07:00

Now that I've gotten all the gym angst out (see below)...

It's been really hard to articulate my thoughts on why it's been hard to adjust to living in Vancouver. Everyone always asks me that and I don't know exactly how to say it. So here it is because I just had a eureka moment and I don't want to lose it.

Moving here was a whirlwind for me. I flew out two days after my last exam at Ryerson and I didn't even go to my own convocation because it was too expensive. This really sucked because my high school graduation wasn't a dream scenario (dad didn't show up because he was pissed at me for something I don't remember). It would've been nice to commemorate at least ONE of my achievements in a grand, positive way. I guess my wedding will have to suffice.

Ever since I got here it's been hustle time. I've gone from job to job trying to figure out which one was going to work out and when I would get my "break" in journalism. Not knowing a single person in the city besides Fernando made it an incredibly lonely experience. I used to cry often because I missed everyone, especially my mom who was the only person in my house I was really really close to. I'm not a particularly open person and I don't trust easily so once I do it's really hard for me to find a new person to talk to.

Now, I'm married, been living in Vancouver for two years and have a great job but still no real job security.

Why have I only thought of how to say this all now? Because the other day after work my coworkers and I went to a bar to brainstorm for our show, On The Coast, now that Stephen Quinn will be hosting for two months. It'll be awesome because we haven't had a host for longer than a week for the past...uhmmm...I don't even remember how long now. Having to keep track is even throwing off regular columnists and it damn well doesn't help when you're trying to explain to guests about who's hosting.

Anyway, we were supposed to be thinking of ideas for the show. But I sat there for an hour not saying anything. Not because I was being difficult; I just honestly didn't know what to say. I still feel, even after working at CBC since Sept. 07, that I'm catching my breath after hustling all this time. Not knowing just how long my stay at CBC will be (I'm on contract like oh, about half of the other employees) doesn't help...I would love to be able to make a "home" for myself at CBC. I've even put up a couple pics on "my" desk. Pretty much every day I'm just trying to keep up. It takes all my energy just to stay "in the moment". I'm hoping there comes a day very soon where I wake up and just AM, that I don't have to TRY to be anything. So far I haven't gotten there yet, but I'm trying. I'm still in hustle mode. I wish I could just relax but I've always been a worrier.

There's a beautiful summer ahead and I'm going to try my best to enjoy...

Get the F@#$ off your phone!

2008-05-04T11:50:00.000-07:00

As a person who tends to have problems keeping food portions to a normal and not humongous size, I have to work out on a regular basis. So I go six times a week. There's a gym in my building which is pretty kick ass so it's alright.

Something I've noticed more and more are people who work out WHILE talking on the phone. This happened to me yesterday. I'm on the bike trying to work out through a caffeine headache and this guy gets on the bike next to me and yammers away for twenty minutes. I have no idea what he's saying because a) I've got my iPod on to max because I DON'T want to hear what he's saying and b) I don't care. But wtf? There are a few people (all guys for some reason) who talk on the phone while working out at my gym. It's so obnoxious. Just get off the phone. It's not like you're SO important you can't get off the phone for the twenty minutes you're on the treadmill. And if this phone call is SO important, WHY ARE YOU TALKING WHILE WORKING OUT? These are the same people who work out really slowly and take an hour while I wait impatiently to work out.

On a completely unrelated note, I'm watching the first episode of season 5 of 24...god I miss that show. Kiefer Sutherland, where are you??

Americanization of stuff

2008-04-20T22:01:00.001-07:00

The Americans have it right...when you see a great idea in another country that people love...bastardize it! Something we could stand to learn here in Canada...ahem...not to mention supporting our OWN homegrown amazing talent.

Case in point, TV exec producer extraordinaire Chris Haddock (of the various Da Vinci series and most recently of "Intelligence") was on our show to do an interview. I didn't clue in to who he was until I started chatting with him. Super super nice guy, you would never even imagine he does what he does for a living. He created an amazing TV series for the ever struggling CBC, who then returned the favour by shutting his shit down. As they always do with great series like the Da Vincis.

Guess who saw a good thing and is making it for their own?? THE AMERICANS! Haddock is producing and writing it for an American audience. Our loss is their gain.

Along the same lines, one of my faves, The Office. At first NBC tried to go all re-creation of the British one, and now it's become its own animal. And it's AMAZING. I don't know anyone who DOESN'T watch it. Ok, wait, I do. But they're all like, "I only watch the British one". I love Britcoms as much as the next person but seriously...you have to be a total ass not to give this one a chance.

Not every adaptation is a winner. I'm sure there are lots of people who LOVE the American version of Iron Chef...I for one...don't like it. It tries very hard to recreate the Japanese original but the problem is, the American one comes off as faux Asian and forced. The host is some kind of "asian" (I suspect a Filipino mix of some kind which is NOTHING CLOSE to Japanese for all the Asian impaired out there) and as far as Filipino and Japanese culture being similar...not at all. It's like a German pretending to be a Texan. So to watch him fake it is painful as all hell. And for them to pretend he's the nephew of the original host (I'm not kidding) is IDIOCY. But also indicative of how indiscriminating the audience is to fall for that kind of baloney. I also have a kind of personal thing against Cat Cora...(I don't like Bobby Flay either but it's because I don't consider Southwestern food to be a legitimate cuisine). She's so proud of coining the term "Hellasian" which is supposed to be "Hellenic" (she's Greek) and "Asian" together. Congradu-fucking-lations. It sounds horrible. I could invent the term "Korimexican" but that doesn't make a kim chi taco taste good.

My point is, at least the Americans are taking the chances are for better or for worse they're cherry picking all the best and it shows. Everyone picks up the American shows. The shows that Canada has are few and far between...and we're not giving them a chance. "Intelligence" didn't even last ONE FUCKING SEASON! And they let "Royal Canadian Air Farce" run for the last god knows how long (yes, I know it's ending, blah blah blah...). I don't know what it will take for the Canadian TV industry to catch up. But there's a reason why everyone in show biz heads down south.

CariDee!!

2008-04-14T12:12:00.000-07:00

Working for CBC Radio is not what I'd call glamorous...it's pretty hardcore news. However, being the token Asian/airhead/nerd (I know, I'm not sure how they all go together either) I DO end up pitching all the celeb type interviews. And I landed one with CariDee English, winner of Cycle seven of America's Next Top Model! Woo!

I know you want the deets. She was in town for a talk on behalf of the Psoriasis Foundation. She came in with two publicists and yes, I was losing my shit the whole time because yes, I am a devotee of ANTM. I was cheering for her all the way because I HATED Melrose.

Anyway, she was dressed in a white turtleneck sweater dress with black stockings. I noted also that she had on a white winter jacket from Bebe (interesting choice).

I did speak with her briefly before she went into studio. She lives in New York now and yes, she keeps in touch with Tyra on a regular basis. I asked if she was going to make an apperance on this season of ANTM and she says Tyra asked her to but she didn't have time. She says she probably would in the future because Tyra really wants her to. Judging by the expression on her face, I'd say she's not super keen but she's paying her dues.

And as you can tell by the photo, she obliged my nerdy ass request to take a picture with her. And she definetely loves the camera! She even asked to see them afterwards. And of course she looks gorgeous.

Any celebs in town who are doing something for charity or a university or holding some sort of community event...email me! We're always looking for more! lol

Books and movies

2008-03-26T10:21:00.000-07:00

First of all, uber sorry about the neglect to the blog. I'm always astounded when I find out people actually read this -- and it's a courtesy to refresh. So desculpe.

To my credit, I DID start this one a while ago...so here it is.

During my vacation to the Dominican (see last post) I read a LOT. Having devoured Mystic River I decided that another Dennis Lehane novel would fit perfectly as a vacation read. I was right. I read Gone Baby Gone in about three days and wished the book was three times longer. Lehane's got a great way with plot twists, or I've just been missing out on the whole mystery genre. Anyway, loved the book, particularly the dynamics and complicated relationship between Angela Gennaro and Patrick Kenzie.

As you probably know, Ben Affleck adapted this book for his follow up to The Assassination of Jesse James, which was an extremely devoted and close adaptation of the novel of the same name. He did a fantastic job with it. Naturally, I figured he'd be two for two. But MAN was I wrong.

I don't know if Ben was in a hurry to get back to what Lainey of laineygossip.com refers to as "beige" (aka Jennifer Garner) but he really took a hatchet job to this one. I guess he thought, hell, I've got Morgan Freeman, Ed Harris, my newly amazing actor brother Casey, I can't miss!

It's extremely disappointing because Gone Baby Gone is part of this compelling (if not exceedingly well written) series of books that I've been enjoying for the past few months. I'm very attached to the hardass Angie character and especially as a woman it's nice to have a complex, talented character written for our gender. To see her reduced to nothing but a sidekick is an insult.

So Ben Affleck -- please do whatever it is you did with the Assassination of Jesse James with whatever book you decide to adapt next. Or just stop adapting books.

On a totally different note, it's mid-April in Vancouver and the weather has SUCKED ASS. WTF? I'm ready for sandals and skirts!!! Let's go already!

Punta Cana!

2008-03-14T09:45:00.000-07:00

So unlike my belated Oscar blog, here I am on the day of my return to Vancouver blogging about my trip to the Dominican Republic or the Republica Dominicana.

I haven't typed for over a week and my fingers forgot how. Dammit! This is going to take a while. Also, I slept about four hours on the plane and have been doing chores and catching up on ANTM ever since, so pardon me if this doesn't all make total sense.

For those of you who don't know already, Fernando won this trip. It was the door prize at the Metro Vancouver Christmas party and needless to say all of my public servant CBC coworkers were understandably flabbergasted that a media person could get a prize like this from their employer. We're lucky to score a decent party that we don't have to pay for. lol go CBC!

In a word, the vacation was AWESOME. We spent seven days at the Gran Bahia Principe Punta Cana. It's a four and a half/five star resort so basically it was a 24 hour food and booze fest with lots of beach and relaxing in between. The best parts of the vacation were:

actually getting to stay at an all inclusive resort! Never done it before! Highly recommend it.
going to the Caribbean! Again, something I've never done. Most of my vacations involve visiting family members all over the place.
discovering the "bugambillia", this delicious combination of amaretto, guava juice, orange juice and some other juice. OH MY GOD. My only regret is that I didn't find out about it until halfway through the trip.
the 11 pm to 7 am "La Casita Hamburgerseria" which served, you guessed it -- delicious, wonderful hamburgers in the wee hours of the morning. There are few who love a good hamburger like me. I will eat till I throw up if there's a good burger around. I guess that's some kind of weird, unhealthy love but whatever. We all need a little abuse.
the entertainment. Now, I'm not normally a fan of cheesy family oriented live shows but when your main priority is drinking and not thinking then yes, part-time Michael Jackson impersonators performing at a resort will more than do. It was great being able to drop in on a live show every night after dinner. After the main show on stage for families you could head to the "pueblo principe" where you got to watch another live show, mostly just a house band performing the hotel's anthem. Which leads me to my next favourite...
the "Bahia Principe" song. If you've been there you've heard it at LEAST five times a day if not more. The lyrics of the song (in Spanish) are pretty much "Bahia Principe, the best hotel". Damn right.
swimming with stingrays and sharks (nurse sharks)
learning some Spanish. No, Fernando does NOT speak Spanish (at least not as a first language) because in Brazil they speak Portuguese. Some of you are going, "well duh" and a lot more are going "oh really? No wonder that Brazilian guy doesn't respond to my constant Spanish related remarks". lol This is the first overseas trip I've ever taken where I didn't really expect to absorb any kind of culture at all, but I did get some. Now I have one more language to confuse with Portuguese and French. Yeah.
the food. I was not expecting very good food since it was mostly buffets but I have to say I was pretty impressed. There was this one fish soup in particular that Fernando and I spent a whole dinner raving about. We actually went back the next day and asked the chef what was in it but he didn't really know...which leads us to believe it's brought in from elsewhere. Oh well. Will try to recreate it at home.
being able to really relax and spend time with my hubby. Yeah, we live together but we spend as much time together as two roommates who barely see each other. And yeah, we're married and conventional wisdom goes that we shouldn't WANT to see each other anymore (sad, that is) but we actually like each other very much and enjoy each other's company.

I would say the only thing that bugged me was that the whole island just seemed bent on taking our money by either selling us useless crap or just outright asking for it. For no real reason, mind you, besides the fact that they are under the belief that North Americans are burdened with heavy, heavy cash that must be cast in all directions. Yeah, I know. The island is impoverished. People need the money. Well, here's the thing. I'm not rich. The things I have are things I worked for with my own hands. I won't be getting a downpayment for a house from anyone. In fact, my household income is WAY more than that of my parents. My salary alone is higher. But I work hard at my job which is why I have one. I gladly give my money to people who are providing a useful service. We tipped our maid really well because she did a great job and frankly, women never get tipped. But when you're at the airport trying to take a piss and the cleaning woman is all over you trying to get some money and basically thinks it's her god given right to have yours, it ticks me off a little. I could barely get off the plane thanks to a musician who felt it was appropriate to kick his hat in front of me and stand right next to it to block my path until I dropped money into it. The culture there seems to expect this.

Well, el presidente Lionel Fernandez (who I saw with my own two eyes, he was about three feet away from me when we went to Santo Domingo greeting an Anglican priest from Toronto who we had lunch with) needs to do some things for the better in his country. Apparently a third of all resort profits go to the state, as well as a beach tax. Where's that money going? Certainly not to the roads, even the roads around the resorts, which are so full of pot holes you'll be lucky if you ever get to speed beyond 40 km/h. I don't know what the solution is...I know the resorts are absolutely no reflection of any country. I just have the same kind of feeling I get when I go to the Downtown Eastside...like, the place needs to be helped but what about us working folks? We can only help ourselves.

Anyway, ending on a cheery note, I've spent the past four hours since I got in doing laundry, MAJORLY catching up on gossip (I think I read about 23 pages of Perez Hilton) and dreaming of possibly running into Johnny Depp. I kicked myself when I read he had eaten at this restaurant that I walk past EVERY DAY on my way home from work! Not that I would've known to go there...but...he's Johnny Depp! I don't know. I'm not that reasonable when it comes to him.

All typed out. Last thing: Fernando lost his wedding ring on our trip. Somewhere between the boat and the stingrays. So we're headed to Seattle to replace it. Adios!

The promised Oscar blog

2008-02-27T18:53:00.000-08:00

Ok, ok, I know...I'm like, so late to blog about the Oscars. Don't care, doing it anyway. Going against all my journalistic instincts!

Here are my big-smile-can't-take-eyes-off-screen-loved-it moments:

Marion Cotillard's speech. How lovely. I love it when people win awards and are super happy as opposed to bitter or resentful.
Tilda Swinton's speech. She's so NOT hip she's hip. I guess if you're going to reject convention, do it all the way. And judging by her hair, make up and outfit, she got dressed...oh...in the cab on the way over to the ceremony. The funniest thing is she was wearing a multimillion dollar diamond bracelet loaned to her by Damiani. LOL anyone who would sleep in a box as an installation for a week could definetely pull off that look.
Jon Stewart. He actually seemed comfortable this time around. His remark about Tom Hanks "having no business being there" made me LOL.
The Rock's presentation. He was one of the best presenters of the night. Which leads me to my list of...

God-why-did-this-happen

most of the Oscar outfits. Yeah yeah...lots of them were done on the fly because people didn't know whether they were going to the Oscars or not. Does that mean you all have to show up in a phalanx of black outfits? There ARE other colours.
Katherine Heigl's presentation. If you're so fucking nervous about speaking in public, GET OFF THE FUCKING STAGE. Jesus. The producer probably shat him/herself. She also looked like an overdone Joan Collins. Get over yourself, no one likes you.
Keri Russell and Jessica Alba. What were they DOING there??? Keri Russell hasn't headlined anything since that godawful movie about a diner or something and Alba is only watchable so long as she strips. I don't know why Cameron Diaz was there either but at least she's had a somewhat sizable career. Not like these other two.
Was it me or were the speeches even SHORTER? I mean, when a speech is really good, just let it play! But that's the radio producer in me I guess.
The Enchanted musical presentations. It was like Broadway but even gayer and more over the top. It was like all the Queer Eye guys threw up simultaneously and their vomit came to life and started singing. I got diabetes it was so sweet. Blech.

Stuff I wished had happened

Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt. I know why the gossips are saying they weren't there (Laura Dern and Jennifer Aniston, hint hint) but man...they make my world. They are so gorgeous together and their children are so beautiful. If the population of the world is destroyed please god let them be the ones who repopulate it.
Julie Christie for Best Actress. Because she's Julie fucking Christie, ok?? That's reason enough!
Viggo Mortensen for best actor. He's like the lesser known Johnny Depp in the sense that he is constantly passed over for awards but is incredibly talented. Anyone who hasn't seen Eastern Promises should rent immediately.
Better fashion. This year's red carpet parade was about as exciting as a really boring economics class. That's the problem with LA. Everyone is kissing the same ass and therefore they start thinking alike and before you know it they're just clones of one another. Even the "different" dressers (Anne Hathaway, Miley Cyrus and Katherine Heigl) all wore red. Alba and Cate Blanchett wore eggplant. yada yada yada
how about if we stop preempting the Oscars after years of preempting we TELL people about it!

Anyway, that's all for me this year. At least, all that I can remember right now after working another brutal shift on the afternoon show. One day people will actually give a shit about what I think about stuff like this. Or I'll realize that it's all been a lost cause and a waste of time. At least I can take it out on the internet.

Rageaholics...not so anonymous

2008-02-18T11:53:00.001-08:00

Anyone who's spent more than...oh...an hour with me learns pretty quickly that I got "the rage". You know. The thing that happens when you get fed up with the various kinds of stupidity that get thrown at you during any given day. The thing that happens when your day already isn't going well and some jackass decides to cut you off in traffic (god help the man who cut me off, did he ever hear about it). I don't look like I have "the rage", but believe me, it's of George Constanza-like proportions.

It's hereditary. Or so I think. An aunt on my father's side supposedly "died of rage", something about a heart condition aggravated probably by some rude store clerk. My dad has "the rage".

Thing is, I don't think rage is all that bad. I think "the rage" exists to counterbalance all the idiocy. And that's not my rage talking. Take, for example, this hilarious blog by David Bruser from The Toronto Star which is all about his quitting smoking:
---------------------------------------------------------
Unhinged
So, um, no one told me rage was a major side effect of quitting smoking.
I am not doing so well.
At times, unhinged, you might say.
The other day - this was three days after my last cigarette - this is what happened, I am ashamed to report:
Driving in Yorkville.
Below the speed limit.
There are dirty snowbanks and illegally parked cars, both of which conspire to leave little room for driving and little to no ability to see what's coming at you from the left or right.
As I am approaching a crosswalk, a woman walks out from behind a parked van, setting foot on the street - not even on the crosswalk but five feet away from it - as I am driving past.
She starts wildly flapping her arms, and I can tell she is trying to tell me I have done something wrong.
What I see in my unstable state is someone who feels she should be able to cross the street whenever she wants, and that the rest of the world should anticipate it.
To me, the look on her face says: "How dare there be moving cars when I want to cross the street!"
She is dressed in cashmere and high-heel boots that have her wobbling like a drunk. Most of her face looks pinched with Botox, and the rest of it is covered by huge sunglasses.
So, instead of ignoring her, I punch the brakes - blocking her path - roll down the window, and bark: "What the #^&$ is your problem?"
"It's a crosswalk," she says.
"I can see that," I say, my voice increasing in volume with each word. "So why didn't you press the button over there that lights up the crosswalk signs?"
Now I am yelling.
"THAT'S
HOW
CROSSWALKS
WORK!"
Amazingly, she says, "There's no button."
I scream, "Yes there is. Look. Look right behind you."
Still in denial she says, "There is no button!"
"What are you, $%^&#*& stupid?" I bark.
The woman totters on, leaving me red in the face, enraged at her arrogance.
I roll down the window even more, so I can lean out, take a deep breath and scream:
"A$%^#&E!
Then I notice everyone on the street has stopped walking. They are all looking at me.
A few seconds later, I figure out that I have totally lost it.
But hey, after quitting cold Thursday, I still haven't had a cigarette.
--------------------------------------------------------

This story is a great litmus test. Depending on what your reaction was to this (and mine was to laugh out loud at my desk at work) you might have "the rage" too. Or at least be sympathetic to those who have it. It's people with "the rage" who keep societal etiquette in check. "The rage" doesn't apply to people who rage for no reason, or who kill or crazy shit like that. Just ordinary people whose frustration is constantly being tested. Granted, David here is quitting smoking so these are extraordinary circumstances but I like to think that you'd have to have some kernel of rage already for it to blow up like that. We've all wanted to do that at some point right? Sometimes rage is a great thing.

An Olympic makeover

2008-01-27T10:43:00.001-08:00

No matter what you may think of Victoria Beckham (aka Posh Spice) one thing we can all agree on is this: she's certainly taken her image in hand. The girls works it out every second she's awake and I'm sure, even in her dreams she's vamping down a runway in her five inch heels. She knows people are watching and she makes sure they're watching.

Anyway, I bring this up because I've been watching the Canadian figureskating championships (there's not a lot on TV this morning!) and as I blog, I'm watching Vancouver's Mira Leung perform. And every time I see her skate, all I can think is she is in desperate need of her own inner Posh Spice.

Who's picking her outfits?? Who's doing her makeup and hair?? Choosing her music?? Yeesh!!

Girlfriend, I want to see you succeed! What could be better than a young, Chinese Canadian winning a gold medal at the Vancouver Olympics? But seriously, stop letting your mom or whoever do you hair and do the following:

-PLUCK THOSE EYEBROWS. You're not a Chinese wise man. The long, bushy look is NOT hot.
-hire a make up/hair person, at least for competition days. The whole country is watching. Would it kill you to pay the $50 to put your hair up professionally instead of putting up a haphazard ponytail? And don't tie loose shit in it thinking it looks good! It looks sloppy.
-Pick better music.
-It wouldn't kill you to actually look like you're enjoying yourself. A little confidence goes a long way.
-as an athlete, it would be good for you to tone up your muscles more. Not that you're not muscular, but the toning...maybe Pilates?
-Play up your status!! You're a successful Chinese skater in Canada!! You could be our Michelle Kwan! And our country could really use some internationally recognizable celebrities that HAVEN'T moved to LA or NY.

Maybe we could call on our man from Scarborough, Jay Manuel, to head on over and give girlfriend some much needed grooming. We need to hype our own...let's help her live up to it first!

Joan

2008-01-14T13:02:00.001-08:00

I've been working on this story about an international club of women named Lois. That's the premise of the club. Your name has to be Lois.

These "Loises" allege that no one can a)sayor b)spell their name. That's part of the appeal of the club, that everyone knows your pain. They say "Lois" has gone out of style. No one is named Lois anymore.

Au contraire, darlings. I have a name that is WAY more outdated than Lois. I never heard anyone confuse "Lois" with any other word. It's a pretty common name. Not like "Jennifer", but at least on the level of a "Betty" where no one really has the name but everyone knows of it. Superman has Lois Lane. Even the wife on Family Guy's name is Lois.

But there ain't NO ONE relevant named Joan.

Yes, I would nominate my name for the "more outdated than Lois" award, if there were such a thing. "Joan" is a name only British/black ladies have. Whenever I tell people my name, they go, "oh, my aunt's name is Joan!" or something like that. And they're usually British or black. And when your relatives are all Chinese and Brazilian (in-laws) absolutely NO ONE can say your name. I don't even want to get into all the variations I've gotten. And I HATE to be called "Joanne".

I've even gotten in trouble for having my name start with "J". Supposedly, the "J" means you're judgemental. Well, they're right about that at least.

Yeah, sure, there are some famous Joans. Joan of Arc, Joan Rivers, Joan Fontaine...but look at the list!! Joan of Arc, martyr. Joan Rivers...*shudder*. And Joan Fontaine was a maniac. Are THESE my choices of future?? Yeah, there's Joan Cusack...but...meh. And Joan Baez and Joan Jett are too far into left field for my purposes.

Ironically, at my past AND current job (at CTV and CBC Radio) two of the big bosses were named Joan. So that's good right? It looks like Joans do well in broadcast journalism. I just hope I don't end up on a religious crusade or in movies.

Come back, TV, come back...

2008-01-13T12:07:00.000-08:00

With the writer's strike going for so long, we in the current affairs biz have been trying to think of ways to get at this. It's not easy considering a) we're in Vancouver and not Los Angeles, b) we can't advertise for competing channels and c) it's "just" tv and not health care and therefore presumably no one dies if this keeps going on.

If you want to know who is dying to have TV back on, you're reading her words right now. Why is TV so damn important to me?

I have spent a huge part of my life in front of a TV. That sounds sad but I consider it to be a form of education. TV brings us thoughts and expressions from all around the world, be it fictional or actual news. If I didn't believe this I wouldn't be working in broadcast. And yes, I admit a lot of it is frivolous. But this is also how I entertain myself a lot of the time.

Watching TV, for those of us who do it with some regularity, is an investment. When you start religiously following a show you WANT to know what happens next. You've become attached to characters. It's like reading a book. I always hate it when a book I'm really into ends...it would be nice if they could go on forever. But then, they wouldn't be the fabulous books they are. Case in point, Star Trek: TNG ended just in time, leaving us wanting more. The Simpsons, on the other hand, needs to die. Quickly.

I can't wait for Pam, Jim, Michael, Dwight and all the rest of them come back. Will Angela be pregnant, as has been hinted at? Who's baby is it? And will Pam and Jim's relationship move beyond the romantic pablum we've seen and enter into some conflict?

And what about the seventh season of 24, which I've been so eagerly anticipating? The last season was crap! They owe me something great! And it looks like they've got just the right hook, in the form of Tony Almeida reincarnated. I thought it was a preposterously stupid idea until I saw the trailer...and gasped for a minute straight. I'm a sucker for any member of the original cast who isn't dead yet. Which isn't a lot of people. They postponed airing the show until they can show all of them. Because they want to torture me and this is a great way of doing it.

Come ON...let's get this thing over with...give the writers what they want and let's get on with it!

Great era for cinema

2008-01-05T01:11:00.000-08:00

Is it just me, or have there been a lot of great movies out lately? No Country For Old Men, Juno, The Assassination of Jesse James, The Savages, I could go on and on. It's been a long time since I've seen a string of movies come out that are so remarkable. The cinematography, story telling, pacing, acting, it's all there...and none of them starred Tom Cruise. Ahh.

I've also noticed a lot of these movies are based on books. They work, to varying degrees of success. Here's a tip for Atonement fans; stick with the book. Although James McAvoy does get the blood going!

Since I've been watching about one movie a week I feel I'm well qualified to give my opinion on film, so here are some suggestions for those looking for a great flick:

The Orphanage: I'm here to tell you that even the horror movie genre is going up in quality. It scared the bejeezus out of me. Geraldine Chaplin (whom I last saw in Doctor Zhivago years ago) is terrifying in it. And nothing is scarier than children haunting you.

Persepolis: Marjane Satrapi's wonderful graphic novels have been turned into what I anticipate to be a fantastic film. It's black and white, just like the novels, with actors like Chiara Mastroianni and Catherine Deneuve.

When in doubt, consider how much marketing the film has. If the movie's being pimped out at McDonald's or is featured on Oprah, chances are it's crap. Very seldom am I wrong about that. VERY seldom. Try actually reading movie reviews and you'll find quite a few gems. And stay away from anything featuring Tom Cruise. God that guy is insufferable.

City of Men: sounds like a gay porn, so sorry to disappoint those of you who thought it was. Fernando Mereilles' follow up to City of God, it's yet another story about young black men in the slums of what I can only imagine is Rio. Sadly, these types of stories are so common in Brazil, especially in Rio. It's funny because when you actually go there you realize everyone who lives there is numb to it.

Happy Holidays!

2007-12-28T13:39:00.000-08:00

I spent some time bugging people on Robson today about what their New Year's resolutions are. I would say that generally I'm pretty satisfied with how my life is going, but I did manage to come up with a few:

never skimp when it comes to buying food. Cheap food is really the worst. Unless it's supposed to be cheap, like bananas or bread or something. Because a $10 loaf of bread really IS THE worst.
stop having faith in people. I find the more I hold out hoping that the world is not as bad as I think, it actually is worse.
have more faith in people. Because if I continue to follow the above resolution I will become nothing but a cynical tumor of a human being. Moreso.
Pace myself. I tend to either work way too hard and burn myself out or get lazy and do nothing. See? Pacing goes both ways.
Enjoy myself more on a daily basis. I try to save the fun stuff for the weekends because it gives me something to look forward to but then I just end up exhausted.
find a job back east. Just kidding.
read more. There are so many books I want to read! They should declare a moratorium on book writing so I can catch up.
Find out who "they" are. See above. Because "they" are clearly the "it" people and I should figure out how to become one of them.
consider whether or not I have a shot at writing comedy. Seriously. I watch TV like the unemployed and have for my whole life, with a particular focus on sitcoms, standup, sketch comedy, improv, etc. I think I could have a shot! lol although I don't know how I would start. Hmm...perhaps once I become one of "them"....

Anyway, Happy New Year everyone! I'm heading off to the Harrison Hot Springs soon. Will write all about it later.

A Chang-Carneiro Christmas

2007-12-18T16:31:00.000-08:00

Growing older, getting married and moving out to another city necessitates that one start one's own holiday traditions. Last year, I made a horrible turkey and we drove up to Cypress Mountain on Christmas Day and made a snowman. We documented the whole thing, it's uploaded to my Facebook page if you want to check it out. He had a nose and hair and everything. I can't even remember what we did for New Year's. Watch other people celebrate on TV, I think.

Also, when you move away you realize holidays are a time to get your shit together fast because you gotta mail that shit! Like, a week in advance at least! And mailing stuff ain't cheap! Today I unloaded all my packages/letters through the post box. Please get there by Dec. 24, please please please!

Anyway, THIS year we get to add onto that rather meagre celebration. This year, we'll be eating at least half decent turkey, I'll make sure of it! Also, we'll be heading to a co-worker's friend's B&B on Salt Spring Island close to New Years, which is SUPER exciting. If that could become a tradition that would be fabulous. I think we're also going out for New Year's Eve, which will be awesome! This year's round of Christmas parties has made me realize I miss dressing up and going out. I mean, I'm only 24. I should probably do it a lot more before I hit my thirties and have to be responsible and stuff. lol Although I have to say I do consider myself quite a responsible 24-year-old. But I don't always want to be!!

I also have to mourn the loss of my old family traditions. Everyone, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, even grandKIDS now (good lord how fast time is moving) get together in Toronto. We do dinner Chinese-Canadian style: turkey with Peking Duck wrapping, jellyfish, and other delicious not-really-Christmas-related food. We open presents ever so slowly, one person at a time. Then we end up watching the Food Network, playing video games, playing "head ball" or some other weird thing until the wee hours. Now I'm over here, they're over there. It still makes me sad. And when I eventually go home, it won't be the same. But I'll have some new traditions of my own, to make my future Christmases special.

LIARS!

2007-12-12T16:07:00.000-08:00

I get home one day and there's a piece of paper someone shoved under our door. It's a letter notifying us that the company that was managing our gym, Lifeworks, will no longer be managing said gym starting in the new year. We were stunned, since we go to the gym just about every day and chat with the manager all the time. He never mentioned it.

So the next time we saw him I immediately pounced (I hate not knowing stuff I want to know about) and asked him what happened. Basically they're all being laid off, all the gym staff. They told him that the only reason we get charged a $15/month fee to use the gym is because of the gym staff. So they got rid of them to make the gym free for us.

That SOUNDS good, except they're filthy, whoreanus liars. Because in the letter they jammed under our door, it EXPLICITY says, and I quote: "Membership fees will remain at their current level of $15.00 per person, per month. The Landlord may elect to amend the fee level from time to time at their discretion upon 90 days notice to existing members.". You'll note that in the quote not only does it say they will CONTINUE to charge us $15/month but they retain the option to up that amount to whatever they want, as long as they give us three months notice. A million bucks says they up it almost immediately.

I'm emailing them to complain as soon as I'm done here. This is outrageous. If you're going to lie, at least go the extra mile to make sure it's not so freakin' easy to catch you lying!! What, are we THAT stupid that we wouldn't figure it out? I'm not taking it sitting down. Time to bust this wide open.

It's the good ol' hockey game

2007-12-08T22:49:00.001-08:00

I know little to nothing about hockey but I DO know this: a box seat at a Canucks game, the first time Sidney Crosby is in Vancouver, is a big deal. And guess who got just that tonight??

We were not only in a box, but in THE GM box. How did we get in? I am an excellent pickpocket. Just kidding. We were invited by GM's PR folks. Considering the arena is called "GM Place" you KNOW that box has gotta be good. And it was. We ate a lot of food, had wine, beer, ice cream...

Now, I come from Scarborough...and in Toronto if you get in to see the Leafs at all you're pretty lucky/rich...so getting to sit in a box seat was not only amazing but also a little nerve wracking. I felt like some interloper crashing some rich person's party. It was weird. I feel like that a lot in Vancouver. I think that's why I feel like I don't blend in. It's partly my own insecurity and partly that there is a lot of pretension that goes on in this city. But I digress.

It also turned out to be one amazing game. It was a tie game and in overtime Sidney Crosby took a penalty shot against Vancouver's own star goalie, Roberto Luongo. And Crosby got stopped cold. Woo hoo! It went to a shoot out. Unfortunately we lost it, the final score 2 to 1. However, it was, I am told, a kick ass game =)

It was actually my first NHL game EVER. One of the people at the game was shocked that we hadn't been to a Canucks game before. Hello, lady? You work for GM! Of course you've been to games!! Neither of us has corporate connections OR the time OR the money to chase the tickets. We're not huge huge hockey fans either.

And Sidney Crosby is one adorable boy. When he finally lives on his own (does he still live with Lemieux?) he's going to be ass deep in whores. If you think that's crass...well...hockey players aren't exactly suave. That much I know. If I were Crosby I would totally live it up right now. Good on him for being so talented at such a young age.

I have to say, watching the game made me want to know more about hockey. And that's never happened before, because honestly, I could usually care less about professional sports. But it was different this time. I felt like Roman royalty watching the games at the Coliseum. Only this time the competitors were not slaves but extremely well paid, highly trained athletes. It was so much fun on so many levels. So if you ask me if I'm a hockey fan now, I'd tell you that yes, given the right box seat and the right amount of booze and food, I am indeed one huge hockey fan.

P.S. Big props to GM for letting us watch the game and feeding us while doing it...there was only one big snafu to their evening. They handed out a goodie bag at the end containing Nalgene bottles. Astute news readers will know that Mountain Equipment Co-op has taken their Nalegene bottles off the shelves due to concerns that the plastic contains bisphenol-a, which apparently can disrupt the hormonal system. In other words, bad medicine. So, thanks GM, but I will NOT be using your Nalgene bottle.

Tribute to Canadian celebs...and no, it's not an oxymoron

2007-12-06T16:47:00.000-08:00

Being in current affairs you get access to the mid-level Canadian celebs...pretty much all the hosts in radio and particularly on TV get revered like you would not believe. Or perhaps you are one of these worshippers, in which case, you would. I myself am a Wendy Mesley groupie so I can understand adoration at this level.

And then there is the mid level Canadian celeb who is relatively unknown. They have their own TV show, but it's on CTV or CBC and so nobody really knows your name. They might recognize your face from a promo but that's about it. I always feel like Canadian talent gets shafted because I'm a huge fan of (the older cast) This Hour Has 22 Minutes. They crack me up. Something about the Newfoundland accent and extremely sarcastic delivery. Canadians do saucy humour like no one else! Not even the Brits.

Anyway, so today I had to set up an interview with Colin Mochrie (I hope it comes through, I LOVE him) and there's this contact at the top. I give him a call, he seems like a very nice guy, is doing his best to help me out. I then read the WHOLE press release and realized he's one of the performers at this improv event. I then Googled him and recognized him in about half a second.
He's on at LEAST one Canadian comedy show that I've seem promos for. If I know what he looks like, he's a pretty big name.

I don't want to say who because I am quite sad. Sad because here's this mid-level Canadian celeb who, because he is not as famous as Colin Mochrie, is now Colin Mochrie's PR bitch. At least, for this one event. Which sucks because I am asking a mid-level Canadian celeb for access to a top level Canadian celeb! Without even realizing that he himself has some claim to fame! He must be sitting there going, "bitch, people KNOW me...why you wanna talk to THAT guy?" Just kidding. He's too nice to ever say that. Unless it was part of a sketch.

Worst part...he emails me back to say he hasn't heard back from Colin. Even the faux PR person/mid-level celeb cannot get a hold of this uber-famous celeb. Sob. And he offers me up other mid-level Canadian celebs (presumably also himself) in Colin's stead but "I understand if not I just thought I'd through it out there." Double sob. Poor guy. It's not up to me!! It's up to my producer!!

It's not your fault Canadian celebs are not respected. It's our collective fault. Us. Canadians. We've failed our celebs and put them in a position where even CBCers, generally better with the whole mid-level Canadian celeb thing than others, do not know who you are. I wish people would stop talking about Paris Hilton, Rumer Willis et al. I don't know why they're famous either.

I apologize for us all. You deserve to be famous. You ARE famous...we just don't know it yet.

The gift for the person who has everything

2007-12-02T20:34:00.001-08:00

I originally posted this on Facebook and decided it was blogworthy, so here it is...the latest in deadly law enforcement tools that are supposedly "non lethal". About as non lethal as a knife to the groin, but anyway...

YES! The Taser company saw all the deaths their products caused and thought to themselves, now how should we handle this major PR kerfuffle? I KNOW! DEADLIER TASERS. These new wireless tasers will kill at further distances with NO inconvenience to the murderer...I mean...enforcer.

I can understand. They're running a business, they are responding to the demand of their customers. And what their customers are saying is, this thing doesn't kill nearly fast enough and is causing me to have to stand way too close to my victims. I want it to, like, be LIKE a gun, fire projectiles like a gun, but still be able to call it a non-lethal weapon.

And the Taser people answered the call. God bless them.

Check out the awesome quote by one of the company's folks: "Here's someone you just don't want to get anywhere near," he says. Fuckin' EH!

Tasers: the next generation
Alarmed by recent incidents? Wait'll you see what the company is planning for 2008
Dec 02, 2007 04:30 AM
Andrew Chung
Staff Reporter

The Taser is going wireless.
Until now, the electric-shock gun consisted of two barbed darts attached to wires that shoot out and strike the victim, immobilizing the person with 50,000 volts of electricity, causing severe pain and intense muscle contraction.
But the wires could only extend a few metres. With the new "extended range electronic projectile," or XREP, the Taser has been turned into a kind of self-contained shotgun shell and can be fired, wire-free, from a standard shotgun, which police typically have in their arsenal already.
The first electrode hooks on to the target, the second electrode falls and makes contact elsewhere on the body, completing the circuit and activating the shock. It can blast someone as far as 30 metres away, and, unlike the current stun guns, whose shock lasts five seconds, the XREP lasts 20 seconds, enough time to "take the offender into custody without risking injury to officers."
Taser International spokesperson Steve Tuttle says the XREP would be perfect in a standoff. "Here's someone you just don't want to get anywhere near," he says.
The XREP is one of two major new applications the Scottsdale, Ariz., company is preparing to field test, a prospect that makes Taser's critics anxious. They say more study is needed of the old products, let alone the new.
Tasers are sparking all sorts of questions and concerns these days.
Like death after Tasing. Polish immigrant Robert Dziekanski died after the RCMP Tased him when he'd become agitated after spending 10 hours inside the secure area at the Vancouver airport.
Or questionable Tasing. University of Florida student Andrew Meyer was Tased even though a handful of officers had already piled on top of him after he refused to stop asking former presidential candidate John Kerry questions at the microphone. (He's the one who uttered that now infamous plea that has spawned bumper stickers and T-shirts: "Don't Tase me, bro!")
Tasers are now used by more than 11,000 law enforcement agencies in 44 countries. There are more than 428,000 Tasers in the field, not to mention the tens of thousands of Tasers that have been sold to civilians.
And the innovations keep coming.
Besides the XREP, the company has developed a device meant to keep someone from approaching a certain area – a tactic called "area denial." "What if you could drop everyone in a given area to the ground with the simple push of a button?" asks a dramatic promotional video for the "Shockwave."
Taser has turned its weapon into a connected series of six darts arranged in an arc. The company says the device can be extended in a chain or stacked "like Lego," depending on the needs of the user.
So an army platoon, for instance, could use it to prevent unwanted people from approaching their camp, and not have to risk getting close to their targets.
Amnesty International, which has raised concerns for years, says the Shockwave poses serious risks of inappropriate use. When you target an entire area, or a crowd, you can't distinguish between the individuals you're trying to restrain, says Hilary Homes, a security and human rights campaigner for Amnesty International Canada.
"It targets everybody to the same intensity or effect," Homes says. "With materials like that, you worry about ...arbitrary and indiscriminate use."
Tuttle says the technology will be used for military applications, "not for a riot in Toronto."
Amnesty says that between 2001 and Sept. 30, 2007, there were more than 290 deaths of individuals struck by police Tasers in North America, including 16 in Canada. It reports that only 25 of those electroshocked were armed, and none with firearms. It's calling for a moratorium on their use by police until a full, independent inquiry is held.
Homes says the new shotgun-style Taser doesn't pose any risks that aren't already there with the older weapon, except that "this allows more things to be done from a greater distance."
Mostly, it's the concern over the expansion of this technology even as there is heated debate over the devices' safety. "We'd prefer there weren't new variations until a study of the central technology was done," she says.
The safety concerns revolve around the growing number of deaths following Tasering and the increasing use of the term "excited delirium" by the company and other experts to explain the deaths, while denying the weapon any culpability.
Excited delirium is a catchall phrase to describe symptoms of extreme stress, such as disorientation, profuse sweating, paranoia, and superhuman strength.
When someone is in such a condition – heart racing, blood pressure bursting, fight-or-flight hormones like adrenalin coursing through their body – wouldn't a giant electrical jolt just make things worse?
"Show me the medical and mechanical reasons why it would make it worse when doctors are telling us, when someone is in that situation you should treat it as a medical emergency and get that person to a medical trauma centre in the quickest way," Tuttle says. "With no Taser, he's impervious to pain, agitated, slippery with sweat – you won't get control in five seconds. Maybe you'll use batons, which won't work, pepper spray, which is much more stressful, a bean-bag round, maybe deadly force because the situation spins out of control?"
Dr. David Evans, the Toronto regional supervising coroner for investigations, says that while there's no proof to say the shock could make things worse, "I agree potentially it could." But, he adds, "why aren't they dropping dead immediately?"
Evans says that it doesn't seem to make sense that the Taser is at fault in the deaths, because the deaths have not been instantaneous. "Normally you'd expect that if someone was going to die from electrocution related to electrical discharge, they'd die right there and then, within a few seconds," he says.
Tasering doesn't cause changes in the heart rhythm, or arrhythmia, which leads to death, he says.
It's a view that Ontario's deputy coroner, Dr. Jim Cairns, has used to help shape the Toronto Police Services Board policy toward allowing Toronto police to use Tasers. Cairns also spoke at a Taser tactical conference in Chicago last July about excited delirium.
Taser points out that the weapon has not been implicated in any of the deaths in Canada. "We're just repeating what the medical examiners are saying," says Tuttle. "The vast majority of those cases have been excited delirium or (drug) overdose."
Even though "excited delirium" isn't an accepted medical diagnosis, it may be listed as a "contributory factor" in police-custody deaths, Evans says, but not as the primary cause.
Taser isn't the only company developing electrical stun weapons. Indiana-based Xtreme Alternative Defense Systems has, in a prototype phase, a futuristic weapon that sends out a streak of lightning, apparently by projecting an ionized gas or ionizing the air itself with a laser, which conducts the electricity forward. The technology could potentially also be used to disable vehicles and, in the future, to help militaries neutralize incoming rocket propelled grenades.
Taser expects its new products to be available by mid-2008.

Do you see the difference?

2007-11-27T15:25:00.000-08:00

They unveiled the new 2010 Olympic mascots today. I am highly invested in this because I've now done TWO rounds of streeters on this. And people have a lot to say.

I ALSO have a lot to say, and here it is:

-they're so wretchedly cute I can't stand it. Yes, I'm like that. I have three dwarf hamsters -- my second set of three furry balls of fury. So I really really like cute furry things.

-the animals they chose to combine make SOME sense, the way they combined them does not. Par example, MIGA is supposed to be a "sea bear", combination killer whale/spirit bear. Does he look remotely like either? Apart from a suspiciously erect cowlick on his head, not really.

-maybe I haven't been in BC long enough, but since when is the sasquatch a Canadian animal? Shouldn't the representative of Vancouver be, like, REAL? But people love the sasquatch. Hence it is there.

-SUMI was conceived while high. Seriously. A thunderbird wearing an orca hat? That must've been some good stuff. He's cute...but...could we simplify it a little? I mean, I don't think their target market (which is apparently children) will "get" all this back history. Then again, Sailormoon is damn confusing and kids seem to get that...

Also, has anyone noticed the HUGE discrepany in size between the animated mascots and the real life, cloth made ones on the right here? Like, the sasquatch is the same size as the sea bear but in the drawings sea bear is like, half sasquatch's size. What's up with that? Gotta keep that consistent! Or we'll confuse the hell out of the kiddies...

And, because every script I've written about mascots says this at the end, what do YOU think about the mascots? Call our talkback line at...oh wait...umm...just email or Facebook me I guess =)

The learning curve lengthens...and other ramblings

2007-11-23T14:56:00.000-08:00

So I think I'm finally comfortable speaking live on air...and that took a long time and also me scripting everything in point form notes. It's a HUGE leap to go from full script to point form...for me anyway! This week I encountered all sorts of new challenges to keep me from getting too comfortable =P but I'm really enjoying myself now. And I have one more week as the reporter for the Early Edition to enjoy myself...and then, back to enjoying doing something else.

What else happened this week? Hmm..I've discovered my home life has settled into an exhausted routine. I go home, make dinner, watch some TV, work out, read and go to bed. I don't know who these people are who have the energy to party all the time. I mean, I'm only 24 but hell...some mornings I can't make it out of bed with 8 hours sleep! These people must be on cocaine or something. Because none of my full-time working friends can manage a crazy party schedule. I will admit that I did recently get totally smashed out of my mind on a Thursday night and the next morning was TERRIBLE. I put on my clothes and I had to sit down afterwards. It was that kind of day.

I feel like I'm growing up, which sounds weird coming from me, but do you ever get the feeling that things have shifted? For the good? I guess it's coming to an acceptance that at this point you either make the most of what's ahead of you or drift into a pattern of not-quite-an-adult-not-a-student-anymore-itis. And I sorely hate to dilly dally. Ahh...the dance of life goes on.

2007-11-20T18:25:00.000-08:00

I just spent almost my whole day of work on the Downtown Eastside today. Without a doubt, it was the most challenging, furthest out of my comfort zone, most rewarding work I've done so far.

Here's how my day went. I had to go downtown to find residents of the DTES to read a list of Pickton's victims. I thought I'd go the community services route, but they sucked at getting back to me. So I decided to walk around and see what happened. I went into the Sun Yat Sen gardens and found Dan Thompson, or as he's also known, the "fire guy", burning patterns into driftwood with a piece of a projector from the '30's. As you can tell by the details, we got to talking and I tapped into the non-junkie community of the DTES. Thank god. He took me to the Carnegie Centre to see if we could find more people to talk to. I had to go back later in the day to find more people, but thanks to him, I actually knew my way around there! I knew where the Senior's centre was and where the cafeteria was. So thanks Dan for all your help.

Then I had to interview an actual homeless person (Dan isn't homeless, he has a place on the DTES) to talk about the cold. Cough. A bit of a cliche in my opinion, but I guess I'm the only young journalist in Vancouver who HASN'T done this story so it's my initiation into the Vancouver journalism scene. I chatted up two buddies in Pigeon Park, possibly the only two who WEREN'T homeless, who hooked me up with Bernadette, who does live on the street and is a crack dealer/addict. She had gorgeous teeth. Seriously. And she talked to me for a while, very kindly.

This day took a whole lot out of me. I'm totally worn out. But I will look back on the day with fondness that I accomplished something I didn't think I could do. I'm proud of myself. And I'm glad that I did it.

Guilty pleasure Sundays

2007-11-18T13:28:00.001-08:00

I love Sundays...Fernando works so I spend the day at home spending quality time with myself. Here's a little sample of what makes me happy:

-doing laundry and having the satisfaction of warm, clean, good-smelling clothes
-giving myself a mani-pedi
-watching guilty pleasure tv. Perfect example: OC reruns on MuchMusic. Why this show had to crash and burn (it REALLY did too) is a real shame.
-spending an hour on the phone with my mom and catching up on family shenanigans. And hours on the phone with friends/sister but they never seem to be home when I am!
-spending time watching and playing with my hamsters. They're so cute!
-downloading new music for my iPod
-reading food/movie reviews on the Star website

Just a sampling of things that make my weekend complete. Now I gotta wear myself out by 9:30 because come tomorrow morning I gotta be on my jack in studio at 6:40 am!

DON'T LISTEN TO ME! Yet...

2007-11-14T16:36:00.000-08:00

I'm probably not doing my career any favours by writing this, but I've discovered I really hate hearing myself talk. Not so much when I'm actually talking, more like listening to playbacks of "professional Joan" trying to be professional. I recorded my first 690-2-Go, which is just this thing telling people about some event and giving away tickets for it. I recorded myself at least three times and every time I felt like I was listening to someone who was half dead. I feel like I'm ok if I'm reading straight news but when it comes to putting "personality" into it, as they say, I haven't got the hang of it. Yet. I would like to be more comfortable. Maybe all I need is more sugar or something to pep myself up. If anyone has any tips, I'd like to hear them. I don't want my on air career to be over before it even heats up!

Walking the Line

2007-11-13T22:24:00.001-08:00

I'm having a great time at work right now and my personal life is great too. I would never really have described myself as confident but over the past few months I have been feeling more and more so. I'm constantly worried that I may cross the line into arrogant as opposed to simply self-confident. To me, the difference between the two is once you start acting like an asshole you've become arrogant. And I like to think I know when I'm being an asshole, but then, I'm not as sensitive as I could be sometimes =P I've seen lots of people cross that line...and it's not pretty. So here's my pledge, that no matter what, even if I somehow miraculously recreate Wendy Mesley's career (*if you don't know who she is for the love of god google her), I will never be an asshole. Because once I start rolling my eyes at myself, no es bueno. I will, however, remain cynical and sarcastic and a complete TV nerd. Because, hey, let's face it, that's what REALLY makes me who I am!

The good old days

2007-11-12T18:11:00.001-08:00

I'm supposedly too young to have any recollection of any "good old days" but watching old episodes of the Simpsons (anything before season 9) reminds me of the good old days when it was still funny. The dialogue was sharp and parodied the current trends in media as opposed to simply repeating them (i.e. McBain. "My eyes...the goggles do nothing!") Today's episode on CBC was the one where Homer becomes the head of the nuclear plant union and Lisa gets braces. Ralph gets shown the "Big Book of British Smiles". McBain breaks out of an ice sculpture and says, "ICE to see you" before blowing everyone away. LMAO. Pure gold.

Seems like ever since Ian Maxtone-Graham came into his own, the show has been going downhill. I hope they shut it down soon. I have no idea what the appeal is nowadays. Why waste so many great celebrity cameos? Remember when Meryl Streep was Jessica Lovejoy and Sting played himself as the put-upon Sting alongside a sheepish Krusty the Clown?

So if you despute that I couldn't possibly be old enough to know the "good old days" just watch the episode where Ronaldo randomly flies out of his 30 second cameo and tell me those weren't the good old days.

Recommendations for the heart, mind and stomach

2007-11-11T18:02:00.000-08:00

I've developed my first crush on a mugshot. Shia Labeouf was arrested last week, something about drinking blah blah blah, apparently he was very nice...but his mugshot! He has this look of absolute, pure joy on his face. It's ADORABLE. I'm too lazy to post it, but just Google it. Everyone's crushing on this shot. He couldn't be any cuter, so he has the distinction of now being my second biggest Hollywood crush after Kiefer Sutherland. And that's a big deal. I don't really have Hollywood crushes. He's also the first "younger" guy I've ever crushed on. And since Kiefer keeps committing DUIs I guess Shia might have to become number one. I can't crush on a guy who's locked up =P

I also have to rave about "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford". It's one of THE greatest movies I've ever seen. The minimalist style forces you to watch the acting, and frankly, nowadays there aren't a lot of movies that focus on acting. Every twitch, every facial expression, every word, every silence has a meaning. It's genius. And Casey Affleck is amazing as the creepy loser Robert Ford. It should be required watching for anyone who wants to go into acting. It would make perfect theatre. I just got the novel, which is supposedly even more brilliant, and I plan to tear into it tomorrow (thank god for long weekends at the CBC =P gotta love the Corp).

One last thing: if you're in the West End of Vancouver, head to the Ukranian restaurant on Denman (sorry, can't remember the intersection but there's only one). We had the Russian borscht (there's a Ukranian one on the menu) and I FINALLY got to try pelmeni after being tortured with the delicious details by Anthony Bourdain. It was fantastic. I've been dreaming about the borscht in particular ever since. Like I needed another cuisine to keep me hungry!

It's a good week

2007-11-06T22:30:00.000-08:00

It's a good week. Why? For several reasons.

I am back at The Early Edition after a three-week period of agonizing nothingness. I probably shouldn't say that since I DID finally get a news story on air. But...I have to say I am so happy to be back! Even though I've had to do streeters for the past two days. I kicked those streeters in the butt, which is to say I totally killed it! And no, this is not bragging exactly. Anyone who's ever done streeters knows the pain of streeters. Yesterday a wonderful soccer mom drove me around to her kids schools and got tons of kids for me to talk to about how much they love Beckham, and today I walked around Marpole for two hours chatting with the locals. Marpole, by my account, is a very friendly place, just so you know.

Also, and this is minor but delightful, Facebook finally has an application that I love! That would be the Schrute bucks app! You have no idea what this is unless you watch The Office, and if you're NOT watching it for some reason, you should be. Really. Here's a little background on the Schrute buck:

Dwight: When you have done something good, you will receive one Schrute buck. One thousand Schrute bucks equals an extra five minutes for lunch.

Dwight: Don’t you want to earn Schrute bucks?
Stanley: No. In fact, I’ll give you a billion Stanley nickels if you never talk to me again.
Dwight: What’s the ratio of Stanley nickels to Schrute bucks?
Stanley: Same as the ratio of unicorns to leprechauns.

I can't 'find the exact quotes but someone (I think it's Pam) asks Dwight what the ratio of dollars to Schrute bucks is and he says 10,000 to 1. LMAO. I love Dwight. It sounds stupid to be happy about a Facebook app but I really geniunely hate most of them. Especially the ones that let other people post stupid stuff on your page. And Schrute bucks are totally meaningless, making it a true waste of time. Yeah for that. lol

I feel very good about my week so far, and I'm pretty sure this is going to carry for a while. Yea! Finally a good week!

Culinary shock

2007-11-03T00:17:00.000-07:00

The Vancouver Sun has an exclusive: Rob Feenie, world class, critically acclaimed, one of Canada's top chefs, is no longer executive chef of his two home bases, Lumiere and Feenie's. He quit officially today. He says the owners brought in a new hotshot as executive chef and basically pushed him out. They say they were trying to negotiate an arrangement and he up and quit. Either way, it's an incredibly sad and shocking event in Canadian food circles.

Vancouver is a major culinary centre and for Feenie to be homeless is incredible. I can just imagine how many restaurants will be trying to snap him up now. His name carries a huge amount of cache. If a restaurant was smart, they'd get him NOW at any price and market the hell out of it. If I had the money, that's what I would do.

This is the man who beat an Iron Chef, albeit on the American one. He's the only chef I haven't seen lose his shit at his staff, which is amazing and possibly one of the reasons why he let himself be pushed out.

Fernando and I got engaged at Lumiere in February 2006 and it was a fabulous experience. I am so sad that someone who worked so hard, someone with such skill, is "homeless". He'll bounce back though. I can't wait to see where he goes with his career now. Good luck Rob, whatever you decide to do.

I love The Office

2007-11-02T14:50:00.000-07:00

As anyone who has known me for more than two hours knows, I love watching TV. I particularly love The Office right now, it's the only show I'm really following besides 24 when it comes back on the air in January. And it BETTER have improved this season or I will be mightily tempted to turn it off...but I'll leave that subject for when it actually comes back on the air.

Anyway, back to The Office. This season has really not lived up to its potential. Last season, we were left with the exhilirating prospect of Jim and Pam living happily ever after. However, the reality turned out to be kind of boring. And maybe that was to be expected, after all, sexual tension is always better viewing that sappy happy couples. But still, I really was looking forward to seeing them together.

However, the past two episodes really helped jack up the season I thought. The hour long episodes were trying to jam too much plot development together and the characters weren't themselves:

-Andy: isn't annoying enough this season. I can't believe I'd ever say that. He's all eager to be liked and stuff. And it's coming out in annoying ways, but not good annoying. Not funny annoying.
-Angela: WHY are you dating Andy???????????
-Dwight: too too sad. Not nearly the same Dwight from past seasons. What happened to the guy who pepper sprayed Roy? What happened to the guy who was 99.9% sure that wasn't the REAL Ben Franklin? Even the Schrute B&B wasn't as funny as it could have been. The crying was creepy though.
-Jim: MORE PRANKS. What happened to the pranks on Dwight?
-Jan: What happened to her? She was the level headed one and now she's this unemployed overinflated bimbo.
-why is Darryl always interacting with the office peeps? I thought the warehouse workers were "the others". Stay downstairs Darryl! It will make it all the funnier when you do come upstairs.

Here's what I want more of:

-more Dwight and Jim interaction. That's what a lot of the subplot rests on.
-more akwardness between the characters. It's nice that they're all so close that they can interact well, but the akwardness was what was so funny about all of them in the first place.
-more Creed. That should up the akwardness quotient right up...and the creepy quotient...let's finally see one of those 'Creed Thoughts' blog entries. LMAO
-finally seeing Ryan cut down to size. God, I'm really starting to hate that guy. I think maybe Jan should get a hold of some stupid memo or something and let him have it.
-what happened to Bob Vance? I'm not super attached to him but I'm just asking.
-I would actually like to see a little LESS Michael. Or at least, Michael just doing things that are a pretty weird, not INSANE weird. Since when does Michael destroy property? How about just he tries to throw another party and it goes painfully akwardly awry, as usual?

Anyway, those are my suggestions. If by some chance they come to the attention of the writers I would be happy to suggest further ideas =) but seriously, LOVE THE SHOW. If you think it's not as good as the British one, I say there's no comparison. Its it's own animal and worth every second of time you spend on it. Here are some of my favourite quotes just to get you warmed up:

Dwight Schrute: Would I ever leave this company? Look, I'm all about loyalty. In fact, I feel like part of what I'm being paid for here is my loyalty. But if there were somewhere else that valued loyalty more highly, I'm going wherever they value loyalty the most.

Michael Scott: When people hear the term 'big brother' they immediately think it's bad or scary. I don't. I think, 'Wow, I love my big brother.'

Ryan: Last year Creed asked me how to set up a blog. Wanting to protect the world from being exposed to Creed's brain, I opened up a Word document on his computer and put an address at the top. I've read some of it. Even for the intranet, it's... pretty shocking.

Dwight Schrute: I have been Michael's number two guy for about five years, and we make a great team. We're like one of those classic famous teams. He's like Mozart and I'm like Mozart's friend. No, I'm like Butch Cassidy and Michael is like Mozart. You try and hurt Mozart, you're gonna get a bullet in your head, courtesy of Butch Cassidy.

SEE????????

Nightmare, plus well-placed advert

2007-10-29T15:14:00.000-07:00

So I had yet another dream last night, well, more like a horrible nightmare, that also had some sort of subliminal ad implanted in it. I think it may be an indication that I shop too much.

The nightmare was terrifying, at least, at the time it was. Now it just sounds ridiculous. But here it is anyway:

So I was at the food court of any mall, Canada, and I went off to get something while everyone else started eating. It was some weird place that sold seafood as well as everything else. I went in to order pad thai I think and the guy in front of me orders a calzone...and here's where it gets REALLY weird...the woman puts a severed head in it. Well, somehow, in the nature of dreams I figure out the guy killed his person, cut off his/her head and had it stuffed into the calzone in order to scare the bejeezus out of somebody. So I'm standing there watching this guy ensure the head is fully encased in this calzone...I get my food, run back to where my friends are only to discover they are all gone. Only my best friend is sitting there waiting for me. I start freaking out immediately and tell her all about it. She's very concerned for my sanity...I don't think she didn't believe me, she just wanted me to calm down. For some reason it didn't dawn on either of us to call the police.

Anyway, she ends up taking me to Sephora (and here's where the product placement comes in) in order to calm me down because I love Sephora. And even though I just watched a possible murderer have his victim's head stuffed in a lunch dish, I proceed to look for things in the store I've been wanting to get.

Then a cashier at the desk calls me up, she says my husband is on the phone. Now how would she know to put me in touch with him? Somehow she overheard my conversation in the food court about somebody being murdered. I think my husband thought that I had been murdered and this woman somehow put us together...anyway. So I'm completely freaked out on the phone with him, and I kept asking him, "why did you leave me"? because apparently he was at the food court at some point and left.

And then I started getting REALLY paranoid, thinking, did everyone else at my table leave because they were in on this? Was I the next victim? Was this Sephora woman in on it too? And how did my husband hear about it, was HE in on it too??

I woke up completely freaked. It was one of those dreams that I got totally caught up in, and because I had a hard time waking up from it (my bed is really cozy =P) it made it worse. Plus all my nightmares seem to be about people abandoning me and/or persecuting me. Yeah. I know. I should probably get some help.

Anyway, have fun analysing that one.