The Last Exile

I fully understand the societal concern and worry over what is in the foods we eat and the liquids we drink. Its a concern I actually share. In fact, its lead me to institute a number of changes in the groceries and produce I buy for my own family. I try never to buy fruit or vegetables out of season mostly because the produce offered when ‘out of season’ is often very bland and tasteless. I attempt to keep only the most minimal amount of so-called process foods on hand in my home. This means I spend more time cooking compared to the average working parent. No frozen pizzas, lasagnas, tv dinners, breads, canned soups or a variety of other more commonplace pre-made/packaged foods.

I do it all myself. I didn’t start off as a food ‘purist’. It started with baby foods. It just seemed far more economical than the canned jars of food. Actually the labels frightened me and fed my newborn mother paranoia. When a jar of pureed sweet potatoes contains a long list of ingredients other than ’sweet potatoes’ something is wrong and it can’t be good. Consequently, I started doing things myself. Later, when I found myself as a single parent on a very limited budget it just made more sense to make more and more of my own food.

I suppose I was luckily than most in that I learned to cook in my grandmother’s kitchen so homemade soups, stock base, sauces, quick breads/pastries were not unfamiliar concepts to me. One thing lead to another. Now am I at the point where my family prefers the bread I make to the bread one can buy. I try to bake 6 to 8 loaves of bread at a time. Its not that hard but it does consume time in awkward intervals. I usually start the yeast in the morning. It takes 15 minutes to raise, another 10 minutes to mix, then I sit the dough off to a warm corner to rise for another few hours, dump the dough out on the table kneed it for another ten minutes and stick it back in the corner to rise again for another two hours. Then I kneed it and put it into bread pans to rise for another ½ hour and start the baking process. I put multiple loaves in the oven anywhere from 30-40 minutes at a time.

What I am trying to explain is that while the process of making bread is spread out through the course of the day but the actual hands-on time required is probably the equivalent time it takes to prep for a meal. While my bread is rising, I am doing other things. I am not chained to the bowl while the bread rises. But the real difference comes in taste and quality. Even if you are eating store bought whole wheat bread with vitamins added I suspect even my white bread is healthier. There is a far more limited amount of salt than is found it your store bought bread and while there maybe honey added to sweeten my bread it is far more healthier than your corn syrup used in yours. Not to mention a whole list of scary chemicals necessary to add to store bought bread which are not found in mine. If making your own bread and leaving the vast array of chemicals from store bought version isn’t enough of a motivator; keep in mind the only recent change in my diet in the last five months is that I have only consumed the bread I a make but I still managed to magically drop six pounds. This isn’t unique and I have experienced this before back in the day when I use to commute regularly to Jamaica. I would always leave 5-6 pounds lighter than when I arrived and yet I ate constantly from the moment I got up in the morning till I went to bed at night. Dumplings, fried food, thick soups or stews and yet very little of it was store bought or processed to live years on a store shelf.

To make a commitment to eating healthier doesn’t mean tasteless. Its very doable but what it really takes is planning and time management skills. But its not just bread which needs planning and time management skills. People need to learn to take 15 minutes a week to sit down and actually plan out your meals then shop accordingly. One trick you can do is when you buy meat is immediately season it when you bring it home. Re-bag it and then freeze it so when you take it out to defrost it will be ready to use once the meat has thawed. Same goes for all non-root vegetables. Open the fridge and have all your peppers, onions, mushrooms – whatever all ready there – peeled, cut and waiting for you to prepare your culinary high dance. This takes some of the every day drudgery out of cooking. I’ll admit having a food processor helps and cuts down even further on the prep time.

I realize change is best made in small steps so if you have not canned tomatoes in season and want the best tomato sauce money can buy out of a can; buy plain old unseasoned stewed tomatoes. Dump the can into the food processor until its completely pureed, empty it in a pot, add six teaspoons of unsalted butter, add half a teaspoon of salt and one whole onion peeled but uncut. Cover the pot and simmer it for a minimum of 45 minutes and serve over your favourite pasta. You’ll be amazed at how good this simple sauce tastes and it will be far better than anything you can buy on the shelves of a grocery store. The most expensive ingredient happens to be the six tablespoons of unsalted butter and yet it is still has less salt than can be found in either a can or jar of sauce. Simple, but oh so elegant.

Want to thicken your sauce? No need for paste out of a can. Well mix one half cup of ice cold water with a tablespoon of flour then stir well into your pot and cook for another ten minutes. Or maybe you just want to add the most perfect mince meat to your sauce? When you bring home hamburger fry it with one whole onion, two cloves of garlic, one green pepper -all finely chopped. Brown it, then add a pinch of salt and a cup of water. Simmer it slowly until all the water has boiled away. Cool it and then freeze it for future use. You can even take your frozen minced and dump it in your basic sauce on low and simmer for another 30 minutes. The meat will be tender and flavourful.

When you learn to cook everyday foods yourself you don’t have to worry what a chef uses in the meals you eat out of the home (unless your eating out every day). Of course, if your sons refuse to learn to cook like mine do then it means it will be far harder for them to adjust to married life with a more ‘modern’ type of you woman. I am not big on the kind of social engineering New York state legislators are proposing. Banning the amount of salt chefs use in their kitchen seems counter-intuitive and could only be proposed by people who lack an understanding of all things culinary – let alone comprehend the principle of cooking for more than a few people at one time. We live in a time and a land of abundance and yet we pour more toxic chemicals into our body then we ever had and most of us live in ignorance of what the ingredients listed on the labels actually mean and what the short or long term ramifications of consuming vast quantities mean for our overall health. The real danger is not what is found on the menu in a restaurant but what is bought off the shelves in our local grocery store.

Its really time for a ‘whole’ food revolution and a get back to basics kind of eating. Previous generations ate real cream, cheese, butter and whole milk, consumed gravies, meat and potatoes. They didn’t worry about the quantity of fat consumed because dangerous additives weren’t in their food supply. Sugar was something added a little at a time or in one’s coffee. Even peanut butter would not rot your teeth unlike the vast quantities of sugar and salt found in the modern popular store front versions.

Me, now that I have mastered bread, I have a hankering to master making my own yogurt. Greek women do it as easily as breathing; so why can’t I? Dinner tonight for the boys – homemade panzerotti stuffed with veggies and a Greek salad on the side. Total prep and cooking time – 30 minutes.

The reason there are really not any new posts of earth shattering importance is simply this – I ran out of time. I got up this morning at 4am and turned on the coffeepot. Feed the cat and had a shower. When I was dried off and as respectable as I can be without coffee I recited my tehillim. Finally I poured my first cup of coffee and drank it while I cut up vegetables and meat for a stew for dinner to tonight.

Then I finished cutting out a pattern for a dress I am going to sew this weekend and put it away. It was at this point I saw that it was 5:30am and time was running from me and started making brown sugar cinnamon whole wheat muffins so when the boys got up they would have something quick and easy to bolt down before running out the door for school. I made a lunch and filled my thermos with coffee saving just enough in the coffee pot for later. While the muffins were baking I did my hair and make-up. Finally, the muffins were done so I poured my second cup of coffee and turned on the computer and started to go through my reader totally ignoring the email. I realized I only had ten minutes left to post before I had to leave for work for my 8am start.

So go vote to keep Joe Settler posting at the Muqata and while you are there take a long at the kind of damage those harmless rocks cause when thrown my Palestinian teenagers.

I have decided I have a soft spot for scientists who toil away in their labs seeking either a better understanding of our physical world or improvements for the quality of human life. Where would we be without them? I shudder to think. I may enjoy reading and learning about life without modern science but it doesn’t mean I want to live in a world without the benefits of modern science. Anyway, I found this article and sent it to my daughter to inspire her… Ars Technica

New research shows that ingesting oxygen-enriched alcoholic beverages can help the body metabolize them faster than normal drinks, without affecting how well or quickly the body absorbs the drink in the first place.

The current drawback:

While the process might produce a less-intense hangover, oxygenated drinks that dissipate more rapidly won’t exactly help customers get their money’s worth.

If these scientists actually find a solution and a ratio mix which satisfies all drinkers; I think they are far more worthy of a Nobel than the Viagra guys but if it isn’t too much trouble can we have a solution before the next Purim?

Please.

So its a holiday in Ontario – ‘Family Day’ to be specific but the reason I am not blogging is because I am busying sewing for Purim. These are for my youngest, Isaiah Sender, who believes boxers should always make some kind of statement….

I have hardly read the news or blogged this week. Life keeps interfering. I had every intention of making it up for it last night. I got home from work and spoke to the Last Amazon on Skype while dinner cooked. Just seconds after I hung up on my daughter my father called. He was in Toronto and his meeting unexpectedly got cancelled and wanted to know if the me and the boys wanted to meet him out for dinner. I turned off the stove and gathered the boys. When we arrived at the restaurant my father rushed out of the chair and nearly crushed me when he hugged me. I have waited 41 years for my father to hug me like that and it may have been a long time coming but its just as sweet as how I imagined it would be at 6 when he left me behind.

If there is one thing I have learned it is this; once a Daddy’s girl, always a Daddy’s girl and there is always a lingering sadness to a Daddy’s girl who is forced to live her without her father. I have mine now and despite the rivers which run under our bridges, I’d rather have him than not.

Yahoo Finance runs an article on the 13 careers for the next decade and I am left to marvel at the luck of the Last Amazon in choosing a field which not only engages her intellectually but offers only growth and financial opportunities well into the next decade.

• Neurophysics: Understanding the physics of depression, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, schizophrenia, retardation and so on.

Now, if she will only forgive me for refusing to send her to ballet classes as a child.

In my other blog incarnation, I refused to weigh into the abortion debate. It always seems like such a lose-lose scenario, and rather pointless to wade in the fray – since there are no possible words to change any one’s point of view. This is one of the few issues which can only be definitively decided on an individual basis and meditated by one’s life experience.

I was pro-choice long before there was any choice, but what a great many on the ‘pro-life’ side forget to address is this; there more than one alleged right to life they should be busy defending. Get as fetists as you want in the posters, get graphic, hand out bloody dolls, coins, or whatever – but understand this – all you have accomplished is to turn any sane or reasonably minded individual against your point of view. Beating up clerks or doctors just paints you as thugs…and bombing clinics and murdering doctors is an unforgivable act of urban terrorism and put you squarely on the same side as the Taliban.

On the other hand, it was not until I had carried a fetus to full-term and given birth that I was able to succinctly answer the question; when does life begin? Now I know but even being able to answer it seems like a useless kind of thing to know. While I may appreciate the fact that life begins at conception; whose right’s trumps whose body? Here is the thing – while I can appreciate the miracle of being – I would not willingly force or compel any female to carry a fetus to term against her will since the physical well-being of that fetus is entirely dependent on the level of physical care exercised by the host-female. A woman is more than a womb.

Years ago, a Toronto Star columnist, (I believe it was Rosie Di-Manno) wrote a column lamenting the fact a woman had 17 abortions and counting. Di-Manno is probably as pro-choice as one could get, but even for her, this woman’s actions were well over the bounds of civilized behaviour. I always thought she had it wrong. The more willingly a woman is to use abortion as a form of birth control shows absolutely her general unfitness for even being a surrogate motherhood to a child who would, in the best case scenario, be destined to be discarded at birth.

And in the pro-life camp, I would like to ask; how far are you willing to go to restrain me from having an abortion if I deemed it is necessary? Will you bind my hands and feet to keep me from reaching for a coat hanger or a knitting needle? Does that sound too extreme? I would remind you of the time when the law of the land criminalized abortion and literally thousands of women preferred to risk jail and gamble on death rather than give birth.

Ask yourself – how far will are you really prepared to go? Will you be satisfied if you jail and make me a criminal because I refuse to become a host for another human? This is the path of the Handmaiden’s Tale and I will not let you lead me, my daughter, or even her daughter, there without a fight. Know this, I am not shy to shed much blood protecting my right to my own person or my liberty. Instead, I suggest you content yourself with imagining me and my sisterhood’s eternal damnation in the world to come.

When I first heard the Order of Canada was to be bestowed upon Dr. Henry Morgentaler, I was shocked, and thought – egad an abortionist has been awarded the Order of Canada. Why would the committee award the honour to someone who divides us??? Since then, I have a chance to read the papers and both pro & choice blogs, but mostly, it has caused me to reflect what life was like before Dr. Morgentaler fought the government and won. Well, he might divide us, but no woman in this country is driven in despair to reach for a coat-hanger or knitting needle and risk death or jail, and in my mind, for that fact alone, he deserves it, and my freedom demands it.

And for those of you who think a woman cannot be trusted to make the right decision, a decision which is in her own best interests, I ask you this; why does the expression and fulfillment of your value system demand a ‘woman’ give way to the despair of the coat hanger?

I cannot be the keeper of anyone’s conscience, and instead, I will trust women to be their own keepers.

I cannot think of a more beloved Canadian children’s author than Robert Munsch. Go all Lucy Maude Montgomery (if you must) but realize there are literally thousands of modern teens who cannot relate to or even like Anne of Green Gables…but Robert Munsch. Well, Munsch tells so many stories in so many different ways that there is always something for every child to love.

I believe one of the earliest memories of bedtime for my own children revolved around reading Robert Munsch stories till they fell asleep. Each had their special favourite but the Robert Munsch story memory which sticks out most clearly in my mind was Isaiah Sender’s special favourite – “Love you, Forever”.

My children are all relatively close in age and there were only a handful of times growing up when they didn’t do things together and as a group. Although, there were exceptions; like the summer when my youngest, Isaiah Sender, turned 3. That summer was entirely out of the norm, and unfortunately, a traumatic experience for him. You see, it was really the first time he had been separated from his siblings. His older sister and brother left home to spend the summer with their grandparents – faraway and without us.

It was also the summer where he got to pick and choose exclusively what bedtime story would be read every night for two whole months. No taking turns that summer although it didn’t seem much like a ‘fair trade’ for being ‘left behind’. He made me read “Love you Forever” over, and over again. Not just every night, but literally two or three times every night. He got to know the story so well, that he would follow along repeating the words under his breathe to each picture as I turned the pages and read the story out loud. Isaiah Sender was nothing, if not consistent.

Every night, half-way through the book in the first reading, he would also stop me and ask me the same two questions; is this story true and will you love me forever? Yes, yes, and double yesses’ – I would answer. Afterward, he’d hunker down even closer to me and follow along the pictures until he finally felt safe and secure enough to fall asleep.

So why the trip down memory lane? A new Robert Munsch tale about a little girl who smuggles dolls onto an airplane got ‘delayed’ for publication. The Toronto Star.

A tale by the renowned Canadian children’s author about a child sneaking dolls on a plane has been put on hold given the heightened security at airports after the attempted Christmas bombing of a plane in the United States.

Since then, airports have implemented a number of measures, from forcing travellers to undergo physical pat-downs or even body scans to a ban on carry-on luggage.

“We were going to do a story on a little girl who smuggles all these dolls onto a plane, but then that thing happened in Detroit,” said Munsch. “Scholastic calls me up in a panic saying, ‘Hold everything, that kid couldn’t smuggle anything onto the plane, she’s lucky to get onto the plane herself.’ ”

Munsch said he had no problem with the change, and even chuckled about the coincidence of a story of his clashing with a real-life situation. He is now in talks with the publisher on his next project. Diane Kerner, director of publishing for Scholastic Canada, said the book will be postponed for “a bit.” “A lot of kids can’t take a bag on an airplane right now,” she said.

This cracks me up – a doll can’t make it pass airport security so therefore a doll tale can’t be published. Yeah, sure, sure, don’t we all feel safer now that our children fly without their comfort objects and tall tales?

It’s the first day back with my nose-to-the-grindstone and I discovered I no longer have a groove for managing blogging/working. It’s amazing how just a few days not working easily messes up my routine. What took just minutes then; now takes 10-20 minutes. I suspect will eventually get back whatever groove I had but until then – see yeah.

I have been offline since Thursday and normally I would still be keeping up with the news but I haven’t. I was given December 24th through to January 4th off from work, and being that I am a single working parent with a house once again filled with teenagers – means a full round of trips to the meat market, the vegetable market, the cheese and grocery stores was in order.

Normally, I would have broken the grocery excursions to one store every night after work until I had all that I needed. I didn’t this time because I knew I would have a full extra day to myself before the big two day shut-down. What better way to start my grocery shopping than first thing in the am of December 24th? There are no words to adequately convey what a horrendous ordeal these excursions amounted to. Don’t ask why but I really assume all those who were celebrating Christmas on the 24th in a big way would have far more things to do than last minute grocery shopping. WAS I EVER WRONG! In fact, the experience was so traumatizing that at the end of the day I could not bear one more line up so the liquor store was ruled out. So yes, feel for me – as I had to recover from this ordeal without medicinal alcohol.

Yesterday was a big movie day for the tribe and me. I managed to stay awake for the first movie ‘It’s Complicated’ probably because we began at 10:30am to catch the cheap seats in the theatre and I had a humongous-sized caffeinated beverage in hand. It is a cute movie in full-tilt ‘chick flick’ mode but deadly to anyone whose body is still producing testosterone. I didn’t make Avatar or Sherlock & Watson – (over whatever they are now calling it) and I don’t have a clue whether the movies are any good or not but I did catch up on my napping in time for an evening meal of Chinese food.

Isaiah Sender left the house to join his friends for a 4am vigil outside of Best Buy today. Oh to be 15th and be pumped for an electronics blow sale. The only thing I am good for at 4am, even when well rested, is to feed the cat and pour a coffee cup. I will be blogging later but what does a 4am trip vigil to an electronics blow-out sale demand he needs to wake me up? In retrospect, the one with the real brains in the house is my seventeen year old son. He loaded his younger brother up with cash and a wish list for purchasing. He is still sleeping peacefully. I may blog later if I can ever catch up on my napping or the news.