Culture Security

We talk a lot about food security these days and it struck me that we could apply the same kind of concept to culture. When cuts threaten the cultural infrastructure, basically it can create a loss, a disconnect, an erosion of our quality of life. What can we do to preserve culture the way we preserve food? Support local artists. Form collectives. We need to strategize. Again.

Good Food Day

I finally made it out to UBC Farm again today for their last market. I bought some greens and some honey crisp apples from a farm in Summerland. I took lots of photos of the pumpkins and squash and was wishing I had a car to haul some home.

Later, I was talking to a staff person at Trafalgars and was impressed that they have a staff CSA with Cherry Lane Farm in Richmond who is supplying some of their produce. That is way cool. It just makes so much sense.

Today J gave us a canning workshop with her new pressure cooker and she made some amazing baked beans. There was lots left over so we get to eat some for dinner. Yay! She served us rooibus chai and salmon she had canned herself with her own dill pickles. She is the canning queen. I am so impressed. Photos to follow. I also liked the way she made notes about the process, breaking down the cost of ingredients and the capacity of the canner.

Ules has been watching Good Eats DVDs with Alton Brown. He's actually great for this age group because of his wacky presentation and obsession with the science and history of food. He's also good for the students to watch so they can get some ideas for producing their own cooking show.

I wish all of you a good food day.

Pumpkin Overload

My body is achin' today from carting around a giant pumpkin yesterday as a teaching aid. We went to the school garden, cleaned it out and harvested the basil. Then we made pumpkin seed pesto and roasted pumpkin seeds for a snack. It was a BLAST. Then I carted that damned pumpkin home again, roasted it and froze the pulp to do a cooking lesson with them at another date.

Meanwhile I have made pumpkin pies, pumpkin kofta and a South Indian pumpkin dessert. It's a veritable pumpkin orgy around here. So Hawker's again for dinner. Cheap and cheerful go to meal when I am overtired. A good day of productive meetings with elegant solutions proposed by co-conspirators. I can't find the cable to connect my laptop to the date projector for tomorrow's lesson so I am putting that out there into the universe so that either Peter or I dream about where it is in this house, post renovations.

I did a big clean up this past weekend and chucked a good number of my diaries into the recycling. They were full of boring observations and lists of errands. Hah! It's all a part of the process. I wish I would have made more notes about the weather. My grandma's diaries are full of observations about the weather--so important on the prairies where farmers live or die by it. Here it's more a matter of "Which Lululemon outfit will I wear today?"

CBC 1 has a very good podcast of an interview with Steig Larsson's wife. I think she's amazing. http://www.cbc.ca/thecurrent/2010/10/oct-1310-pt-1-eva-gabrielsson.html

Oliver's Twist

Spent the day bonding with Ules over vintage Jamie Oliver videos. I roasted a pumpkin to make a pie for Sunday and ate the roasted seeds while watching Inspector Frost DVD's. Heaven.

Day is Done

Grant is done.
Meeting is done.
Homework is done.

I was at the library today and I don't know what it is about that building, but if I spend more than half an hour there I get hit with a tsunami of exhaustion and suddenly I just want to be at home in bed. Somehow I managed to get home and crash before picking myself up and finishing the day.

Dishes are not done.
Renovations will never be done.
Good night.

Pruning Hops

Since I'm worried the weather might get rainy again I spent a couple of hours pruning our hops and climbing hydrangea. You are supposed to prune hops after the first frost, but ours is so vigorous, it could use a bit of taming down. I have to figure out how to reach the vines that climbed up and onto the power line. We are going to use these prunings for our All Soul's Shrine. Today we had a meeting to work on the design and I am very excited about it. I've put the hops fruit in the back porch to dry out, along with my lemon verbena clippings and fennel seed heads. The porch smells great!

The weather has turned cool again and I am craving the comfort food of Thanksgiving. I really want turkey!!!!!!

Happy Little Kids

It was a good mood kind of day today. I noticed lots of toddlers having fun in the sun with their mothers or caregivers. There's nothing more cheerful than a giggling toddler or two and I am glad to see them getting along with their nannies because I have seen so many children who seem miserable with their caregivers. Sometimes the feeling seems to be mutual.

Also, a day of seeing really ugly little snarky dogs and beautiful pups and puppies. Why people choose to cling to those yappy little pissers with runny eyes is beyond me. Chacun a leur chien.