Four times to the opera in a week

For a period of time when I was a child, my father and I would set out on our bicycles on Saturday afternoons to tour various used book and antique shops—or junk stores as they were then called—in the Glebe and Centre Town neighborhoods of Ottawa.

One of my favourite shops was an antique store on Third Avenue, just west of Bank Street, called The Gay Blade.

At the time, the term “gay blade” referred to a dashing young man. I don't recall if the proprietor of the shop fit that bill.

I’d paw through the odds and ends in The Gay Blade with the sound of grand opera blaring, broadcast, then as now, on the CBC FM radio show Saturday Afternoon at the Opera.


One weekend we arrived and the shop was silent. My father asked the owner why he wasn't listening to opera.

The owner explained that CBC was broadcasting an Italian opera. Being German-Canadian, he did not think it worth listening to, in fact, he didn't even consider it to be opera.

I was reminded of that incident this week after attending the dress rehearsals of Richard Wagner’s four-part German 19th-century epic Ring Cycle at the new Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts in Toronto.

Sitting through 15 hours of opera in one week seemed a daunting prospect at first, but I wasn’t bored once.


The singing, music, sets and costumes combined to create a spectacular experience. Of the minor characters, I particularly liked the forest bird who helped Siegfried.

It’s been a long time since I’ve sat through rehearsals.

A photographer snapped hundreds of pictures during the performances. I took mainly photos without flash when the lights were up in the house. I didn't risk it during the performances.

During one intermission, I rode the elevator to the top level and walked down floor by floor.

The upper floors are edged with perilous, low glass half-walls which give gut-churning views of the front-of-house foyer on the orchestra level.


Vertigo kicked in on the top floor. Sickened by the altitude, I got down on my hands and knees and crawled to the edge of the precipice to take photos of the view through the glass wall.

A storey lower, on the fourth level, I was told by an usher not to take photos because, she said: "the theatre is under copyright" ~

Stewing over Canadian cooking

My mother is renowned for her creative cooking. This year, during the dog days of summer, she served up a spectacular two-layer blueberry-raspberry shortcake.

I wondered how a British-born-and-bred woman came to make shortcake of any kind, let alone such a splendid variation on the classic North American strawberry dessert.

I asked her if it was a dessert she had made in England before she migrated to Canada in the 1960s.

“I didn’t make it in England because I’d never heard of it,” she explained. “The first time I had it was at a party in Toronto.”

PROFESSIONAL LIFE

My mother moved to London by herself from a small village at the age of 14 during the Second World War. She worked as a nanny and then became a cook.


She looked after a boy in Chepstow Villas in Notting Hill for several years, but one of her most memorable employers was Bill Linnet, a theatre producer who lived in Westminster behind the Abbey. He always ensured that she and her friends got tickets to see the plays he produced in the West End. His chauffeur taught her to drive.

She joined the Women's Royal Naval Service to become a Wren because she wanted to learn to drive a truck. She was trained in Reading and then--the same day the Queen was married on November 20, 1947--she was sent to Greenwich where she was stationed as an officer's steward.


She met my Canadian-born father in London in the mid-1950s when he was working as a journalist on the old Nordesk for Reuters on Fleet Street.

He had lived in a house in Bayswater where she lived and went to collect his mail. He invited her out.

She first moved to Canada some years after she married him. Before she moved to Toronto they socialized with his Canadian friends and colleagues in London.

"Canadians in London went on about the awful food in Britain," she said, which led her to expect excellent cuisine in Canada. She was sorely disappointed.

INTRODUCTION TO CANADIAN FOOD

The first Canadian food she ate was a sandwich she bought on the train from Montreal to Toronto after disembarking from the Italian-owned ship, the Homeric, which had a Greek crew.

“It was revolting,” she said. “I had a roast beef sandwich because everyone had gone on about it, and it stuck to the roof of my mouth.”

She described the party she attended upon her arrival in Toronto where she first ate strawberry shortcake as typically “suburban Canadian.”

“It was the worst night of my life,” she said. “I walked in and there were about 50—all blond—women.”

The dessert was a frozen pound cake with frozen crushed strawberries and fake whipping cream on it.

FAMILY

My mother grew up in a village in the south of England during the Great Depression.


My grandmother worked as a cook in big houses. One of them was called Hillview. It was owned by Cecil Wray, the former governor of the Malay States. The Wrays had made their fortune from rubber in Malay and Kenya.

She worked also for the Ash family who made their money from the cotton industry in Manchester.


My grandfather served in the Royal Navy on HMS Barham and fought in the 1916 Battle of Jutland in the First World War.


He became a gardener after he was forced to retire from service in 1936 after 24-and-a-half years because of a serious knee injury. He had signed up for 25 years of service at 17.


My mother's brother, my uncle, who was 10 years older than her, served on a tank crew in the British eighth army and fought in the North African and Italian campaigns of the Second World War. After the war he worked for the post office and played accordion in a band.


LIVING WITH RATIONS

Food was rationed during and after the war. Meat, butter and eggs were rationed. Everyone grew his or her own vegetables.

“Our Sunday joint was just a few ounces,” my mother said.

My grandparents kept chickens and rabbits. People in the village registered with them to get rationed eisenglass eggs, which were a type of pickled egg. When the chickens got too old to lay eggs they were used for eating.

My grandfather had a goose named Pickles that was given to him by Commander Wrightson, a man for whom he worked at Dower House.

Wrightson helped him get a decent pension from the Navy.

"People shared food," my mother said. "If there were a lot of eggs, people got lots of eggs."

One of their neighbours in the village had throat cancer and everyone gave him bananas when they got them because he couldn’t eat much. They didn’t get much fruit.

My grandmother made dandelion wine and cheese.

Although the war ended in 1945, it wasn’t until the Queen’s coronation in 1953 that rations came off candy.

ADJUSTING TO CANADA

My mother hated Toronto the first time she lived there, but my paternal grandmother, with whom she and my father lived, was very empathetic.


My mother said it was because my grandmother, who was originally from Shediac, New Brunswick and married a Baptist minister, understood what it was like to relocate with children. She lived in several places in the Maritimes and Ontario with my grandfather who served at five different churches in five different cities during his lifetime.


“She came from the Maritimes to Ottawa and it was a big shock to the system,” my mother said. “She left her family behind.”

As to why she started making strawberry shortcake, my mother said: “I don’t know why I made it, it was something all Canadians had. “ ~

OTHER CREATIONS

Blue budgie found in back garden

When I spotted three dead animals on my way to work yesterday it felt like an omen.

I rode my bike along the usual route, but I saw a dead mouse in the gutter on the corner. Next I passed a flattened pigeon. Then I found a mauled and bloodied sparrow.

It's not unusual to pass a dead squirrel on the road in the fall or a dead bird throughout the summer months, but never have I seen three dead animals in a row.

Tonight I was eating supper with my parents in the back garden when a blue budgie landed on the birdbath alongside some sparrows.


At first I thought it was fantastic that the budgie was free, but then realized there are many threats out of doors for a tame bird.

I telephoned the Toronto Humane Society and was told to call animal control. The Humane Society also suggested I post a "found" ad on their Website, which I did.

Animal control said to call back in the morning if the budgie were still there, which of course it was not.

My father found a cage I had turned into a prop for a Fringe Festival play and suspended it from a hook near the cedar tree where the bird was roosting. He left its door open so the budgie could fly inside for safety.

My mother remembered that when she was a girl she and her brother John had two budgies that lived by the grandfather clock in her cottage in the English village where she grew up. One day she came home and the budgies were gone.

She thinks her mother gave them away because they were so messy.

My parents reported no further sightings of the blue budgie the following day, but left the cage out just in case it returns ~

AIDS rally champions rights of women

About 600 people, many of them wearing canary-yellow T-shirts with the slogan “Time to Deliver” printed on the front, rallied outside Toronto’s Metro Hall on Monday to protest the plight of women infected with HIV/AIDS.

Organizers held the rally in conjunction with the 16th International AIDS Conference to demand action against the spread of the disease among women and girls. The focus of the conference is on unfulfilled promises made by governments that would help make AIDS treatments available worldwide.

The rally echoed the theme of the conference, but with a feminist twist.

More than 20 million people have died from the disease in the 25 years since the U.S. Centers for disease Control and Prevention reported the first cases in 1981.

“This pandemic is being driven by gender inequality, and the only thing more intractable than the virus itself is gender inequality,” said speaker Stephen Lewis, UN special envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa.


There are 17.5 million women and 19 million men over the age of 15 infected with the disease worldwide, according to UNAIDS.

More than three quarters, or just over 13 million, of those infected worldwide are women living in sub-Saharan Africa. Women are disproportionately infected, making up almost 60 percent of all HIV-positive adults in the region.

“Many things have changed over the last four to five years in the response to the pandemic,” Lewis said. “But the one thing that has not changed is the heartbreaking and grotesque vulnerability of the women of Africa to the virus.

“It remains an unconscionable indictment of the way in which international society responds to the needs and rights of women.”

The worst hit region is sub-Saharan Africa where in 2005 there were 24.5 million, or 64 percent, of HIV-positive people living.

Almost 90 percent of the 2.3 million HIV-positive children worldwide live in sub-Saharan Africa. Of those children, fewer than one in 10 receive basic support services, according to UNAIDS. Almost 12 million, or about 10 percent, of children in the region have lost at least one parent to AIDS.

At least 4.7 million people, or 72 percent, of all people who need antiretroviral treatment live in sub-Saharan Africa and only 17 percent were receiving it in 2005, according to UNAIDS.

The situation in southern Africa, where one third of AIDS deaths worldwide occurred in 2005, is also grim. A third of people with HIV worldwide live in the region, as do 52 percent of all HIV-positive women and about 43 percent of HIV-positive children under the age of 15.

The rally, like the conference, attracted people involved in the fight against the disease from all over the world.

Trade unionists Maria de Conceica and Regina Fernando from Maputo, Mozambique were there with Jessie Wanyeki Forsyth, a CUSO union campaign advisor in Mozambique.


In Mozambique, national adult HIV prevalence is estimated at just over 16 percent and almost two million people were living with the disease in 2005, according to UNAIDS.

Conceica and Fernando run a campaign for HIV/AIDS and gender rights in Maputo.

"There must be equality between men and women," Conceica said. "Men must no longer feel that they are the only bosses of the family, women must be able to feel free to negotiate safe sex."

They want to ensure that agreements over medications to treat the virus made between governments and pharmaceutical companies are upheld.

“We came so that our own voices join with the voices of people from all around the world to ensure that we must end AIDS, and to ensure there is genuine solidarity between all different people to end the pandemic,” said Fernando ~



TWO SPEAKERS OF NOTE

U.S. Congresswoman Barbara Lee, D-CA, spoke of the legislation she introduced in June to reduce the vulnerability of women and girls to the disease. The Protection Against Transmission of HIV for Women and Youth Act, would require President George W. Bush to address 12 key issues that contribute to gender disparities in the rate of HIV infection.


AIDS is the leading cause of death for African-American women between the ages of 25 to 34 years in the U.S., according to UNAIDS statistics.

The act would address social and cultural factors contributing to women’s vulnerability, such as lack of access to prevention methods, the stigma attached to HIV, as well as discrimination against women and lack of education, according to a press handout on Lee's Website.

The bill would amend an act from 2003, which focuses on "abstinence-until-marriage" programs. Proposals include increasing access to female condoms, reducing violence against women, coordinating HIV prevention services with existing health care services, promoting gender equality and encouraging the creation and enforcement of equal rights for women.

Mary Robinson, president of Realizing Rights, spoke about the need to unite women fighting against AIDS with women involved in the feminist movement to create powerful leadership that could generate effective change.


Robinson served as UN high commissioner for human rights from 1997 to 2002 and as president of Ireland from 1990 to 1997.

"What I have learned is that women are giving leadership, they're fighting back, they're doing it in very difficult circumstances, in poverty, with many barriers, and their courage and their resilience is truly remarkable," Robinson said. "The problem is that they are not the decision makers on the legislation, on the policies, on the programs." ~

Popularity of Poutini cocktail surges

A Poutini cocktail craze seems to be taking off amid buzz over the projected launch of a chain of poutine and chicken restaurants in the United States this fall.

Poutine Queen, a reader of this blog, submitted the photo of the Poutini shown above.

"I took Bob the Bartender’s advice and here is my latest version of the classic Poutini," she said, referring to an online chat with the bartender about the challenges she faced while mixing the drink, which is made of beef-flavoured vodka, gravy schnapps and Irish-potato liqueur.

"I garnished mine with crispy fries instead of a cheese curd. You can see that I did NOT overblend," Poutine Queen said.

Their conversation is documented in comments below the blog entry titled "Recipe reveals secrets of the Poutini."

Poutine Queen did not stop with the Classic Poutini, but also created a more tropical variation of the cocktail.

"We were finding that the poutini was a bit heavy in this hot weather so we developed a summer version," she said.


"We replaced the beef-flavoured vodka with a more refreshing Stolichnaya potato-lemon vodka, the gravy schnapps with Crème Hollandaise and the potato liqueur with the D’Abruzzo Bocconcini liqueur.

"We’ve garnished the drink with small bocconcini, a variety of summer berries and floated the traditional cheese curds on top."

CURDS 'N' BIRDS

A friend in Washington, D.C. says the first Curds 'n' Birds restaurant is set to open at the intersection of Wisconsin and M Streets in the upscale neighbourhood of Georgetown.

"We’re trying to get Celine Dion and William Shatner to come for the grand opening," he said in an instant message this week. "We’re after people who can eat a bite of poutine."

Rumour has it that former Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chrétien may cut the ribbon at the opening ceremony.



POUTINE PITFALLS

In 2000, George W. Bush, at the time a U.S. presidential candidate, was duped into answering questions on camera about Prime Minister "Jean Poutine" by Rick Mercer, a Canadian comedian.

Mercer used the footage for the weekly "Talking to Americans" segment of his program "This Hour Has 22 Minutes." The segment mocked Americans by making them look ignorant about Canada.

Bush was asked by Mercer to comment on an endorsement by Canadian Prime Minister "Jean Poutine," as well as the "traditional visit to the U.S." of the "King of Canada," Lucien Bonhomme (a.k.a Lucien Bouchard, former premier of Quebec), according to Wikipedia.

Bush told Mercer that he looked forward to working with Chrétien and to the king's visit, the online encyclopedia says.

On his first official visit to Canada in 2004, Bush quipped: "There's a prominent citizen who endorsed me in the 2000 election, and I wanted a chance to finally thank him for that endorsement. I was hoping to meet Jean Poutine."


As he plans the opening festivities, my friend is also mulling over the feasibility of opening a small offshoot Birds 'n' Curds poutine stand where Avon Place and Cambridge Place meet near the intersection of 30th and R Streets in leafy Georgetown.

"You could get carry-out and take it over to eat at the Oak Hill Cemetery on a nice afternoon," he said ~

Recipe reveals secrets of the Poutini

Today my entrepreneurial friend in Washington, D.C. sent me the following Poutini cocktail recipe in an email message.

He tells me he's starting up a poutine and chicken restaurant called Curds 'n' Birds at the intersection of Wisconsin and M Streets in the upscale neighbourhood of leafy Georgetown.

"I had the bartender at Curds 'n' Birds whip up his signature drink--the Poutini--for your blog readers," he said of the photo of the muddy concoction, which is shown above.

Poutini Recipe

4 oz (118 ml) Smirnoff's beef-flavoured vodka
2 oz (60 ml) DeKuyper Gravy Schnapps
1/2 oz (15 ml) Bailey's Irish Potato Liqueur

Mix well in shaker, pour into a chilled Martini glass, and garnish with a generous cheese curd.

"Of course, the real purists put in a generous amount of shredded beef, firmly believing that it's not really a Poutini unless you need to chew it," he explained.

"And I'm sure you're aware that for drinkers who prefer seafood to beef, we offer the Sardiney Poutini -- uses a fish-flavoured liqueur."

He promises to share the bartender's recipe for the Vegan Poutini at a later date ~

Curds 'n' Birds & Byzantine poutine

Construction of a specialty poutine and chicken restaurant in Washington D.C. called Curds 'n' Birds is well underway, witness reports indicate.

The brains behind the operation gave me a recent update about what's going on at the site, which is in upscale Georgetown at the intersection of M and Wisconsin Streets.

"Off to meet the decorator," he said in an instant message on Saturday. "Today we choose the colour scheme for the restaurant. Very important. Colour-wise, we're going with something called 'poutine green' with highlights and trim in 'gravy brown'."

He expects a poutine craze to take off and balloon into a chain of restaurants across the United States.

There's already buzz in the U.S. midwest over the prospect of ready-to-go poutine.

"Why is poutine not available in Wisconsin?" queried a resident of the Cheese State. "Given the standard Wisconsin diet is french fries and cheese curds, you'd figure they would have adopted poutine by now! Idiots. Tell your friend to open up his first stand in Racine. He'll make millions."


Research into the history of poutine in Canada shows that there is a wide variety of recipes beyond the standard medley of fries, gravy and cheese curds served up in restaurants of such urban centres as Toronto, Montreal and Quebec City.

Some poutine recipes are said to have originated among French-speaking Acadians of Atlantic Canada. Acadia was first settled as a French colonial territory in the 1600s on the east coast of Canada and the United States.

For example, poutine râpée is a ball made of a mixture of grated raw and mashed potatoes.

Sometimes poutines râpées, which are boiled in water or stewed for a few hours before being squeezed dry in a cloth bag, are stuffed with chopped salt pork.

An online source describes a variation known as poutine en sac as an “old European pudding steamed in a cloth bag.”

Poutine à la vapeur is made of lard, sugar, eggs, flour, milk and baking powder. Dried or fresh fruit is added to the mixture and it is made into a large ball, placed in a cotton bag and steamed for a couple of hours. It can be served with cream, brown sugar, or slices of fried pork. This variation is also known as son-of-a-bitch-in-a-sack, bugger-in-a-bag, cloutie and figgy duff.

Poutine à la mélasse is a pie and poutine au pain is bread pudding.

Then there is the American Poutini, the vodka and potato schnapps cocktail with cheese curds floating in it created by my friend in leafy Georgetown especially for his Birds 'n' Curds chain.

"Those drinks are wicked," he said. "The gravy and frying oil help carry the alcohol right to the bloodstream." ~


For more about poutine, please click on the blog entry entitled "An obsession with poutine cuisine."

Milwaukee museum targets racism

It's a small museum with a big mandate.

America’s Black Holocaust Museum in Milwaukee is far from the South where lynching and slavery were most common, but physical distance does not dilute the powerful message against racism presented by this small centre.

James Cameron, who founded the museum, was the only known survivor of a lynching in the United States until his death on June 11 at the age of 92. He fought against black oppression on a variety of fronts throughout his life and memorialized his experiences in the museum he started in the basement of his home in 1988.

In 1930, Cameron and two friends were falsely accused and jailed for murder of a white man in Marion, Ind.

A mob of thousands gathered around the jail and the three were dragged outside. Cameron's two black acquaintances were hanged, and when a noose was placed around his neck he thought his fate was also sealed.

However, someone in the mob declared Cameron’s innocence and he survived to serve a four-year jail term for accessory before the fact to manslaughter. After he was freed, he worked at various jobs, went to trade school to become an engineer and became politically involved in the civil rights movement. He became recognized for his lifelong efforts to defeat racism.

“It took 63 years for the State of Indiana to pardon him,” said Bethany Criss, community partnership coordinator at the museum, during an interview. “They pardoned him because it was a bogus charge. It was something that was a completely unrealistic charge, something that couldn’t be validated in modern understandings of the law.”

Cameron's museum proposes that the black holocaust began with the capture of Africans and their enslavement in the U.S. and that it still exists to this day.

“A holocaust is a genocide and genocide is a destruction of a people, not just through murder but through cultural destruction and intellectual destruction,” Criss said.

“As long as there’s racism in society then this holocaust is going to continue and that’s why we’re here. We want to educate people about the evils of racism.”

Almost four million people were freed when slavery was abolished in the United States in 1865, but being legally free was not the same as being released from the shackles of racism.

In the south, whites instituted “Jim Crow” policies in 1877 to strip blacks of rights gained during the 12-year Reconstruction period at the end of the Civil War. These laws governing segregation came into effect to keep blacks and whites separate. Taxes and literacy tests were used to discourage blacks from voting. The Ku Klux Klan, a white supremacist group, terrorized and intimidated blacks.

Almost 3,500 blacks and 1,300 non-blacks were lynched between 1882 and 1968. Lynchings were recorded in all but six states, with the majority occurring in the South.

The museum takes a broad perspective on racism.

“Racism is not just a problem localized in the South,” Criss says. “Racism is a problem that’s concentrated throughout the entire world. To think that it’s localized in one region, well, that’s part of the problem that we want to address.”

The museum includes exhibits on African culture, slave ships, slavery, lynching and the history of the civil rights movement in Milwaukee.

A touring exhibition focusing on the Jim Crow era of segregation from the Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia in Big Rapids, Michigan, entitled “Hateful Things” is on show until August 26, 2006.

The character “Jim Crow” was created in the early 1830s by a white actor named Thomas Rice. "Daddy Rice" performed a song-and-dance routine in blackface with the lyrics “Jump Jim Crow.” The expression became a racist term used to refer to African Americans.

The items in the exhibit, which date from the late 19th century to the present, made it seem socially acceptable to mock black America, Criss said.

“Lots of those same images were around at the time that those lynchings were occurring, so you see they are directly connected to this concept of black America as less than human, something less than equal.”

The exhibit includes images of Aunt Jemima pancake flour. Aunt Jemima represents the stereotypical “mammy caricature” of black women: an asexual, ignorant caretaker whose only role in life is to serve others, Criss explained. Although Aunt Jemima’s appearance has undergone changes over the years in an effort to make her seem more politically correct, she remains a caricature, Criss said.


“The overall problem is the ideology behind the creation and the use of marketing a black image in such a fashion. No matter how they change Aunt Jemima’s image, it’s based in racism. It’s based in a racist depiction of black people and that’s why it’s in the 'Hateful Things' exhibit."

Artifacts celebrating Cameron’s personal achievements are also on view in the museum. His pardons from Marion and the State of Indiana and his honourary doctorate from the University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee for his work on race and racism are also displayed.

For Criss, the most important item from Cameron’s mementos is an enlarged replica of the June 2005, apology made by the U.S. Senate for never passing an anti-lynching law. Cameron, along with 200 relatives of lynching victims, was in Washington, D.C. to receive the apology.

If someone were to be lynched now it would most likely be prosecuted as a hate crime, Criss said.

“Even though there are no anti-lynching laws today, the significance does not die. It’s still important that on some level, the government acknowledged that they were somewhat, partially culpable in not having protected its citizens. That’s the huge importance of that apology.”

As for the future of the museum, Criss has no doubt that it will continue to be a focal point in the historic neighbourhood of Bronzeville, which was once the hub of black life and culture in Milwaukee. The museum plans to broaden its scope "to be more inclusive for all generations so all generations can reflect on this history.” ~

Donkey, can you spare a dime?

American Democrats living outside the United States now have the option of joining the DexPat Leadership Council to help spur their party to election victory.

It costs between US$2,500 and $26,700 to join depending on membership level.

The U.S. Democratic Party recently formed the council “to provide resources that will help Democrats win elections and get our country back on track, not least to regain its standing in the global community,” says a handout on the party’s website.

Members will receive emails, participate in global conference calls and attend an annual dinner in Washington, D.C. , the website says. They will also attend exclusive dinners and other events with top-level democrats.

So far, there are only 25 members, none of whom live in Canada, according to a DexPat insider who said he attended a dinner at which he spoke to President Bill Clinton.

“We’re just fortunate that we can afford the $5,000 to join,” the insider said.

Democrats Abroad, another organization for politically active Americans living outside the U.S., says on its website that it represents more than six million people.

Windproof flag makes flapless debut

A flag is generally a rectangular piece of decorative cloth attached to a pole. It's at its best when it’s fluttering in a breeze or flapping in a gale.

Or so you would think.

But for my father, who hangs a 1.5 metre-long (five foot) government-issue maple-leaf flag each Canada Day from the second storey of his house, the fluttering and flapping generates problems.

At times, his flag flies so fast in the wind that it wraps itself tightly around its horizontal flagstaff and remains there.

He tried weighting the flag by attaching large metal washers with safety pins to its corners to keep it free, but the wind was so sharp it knocked them off.

In frustration, he decided to make a windproof flag out of a brick he found in an alley. It seemed a suitable shape for a flag, he said.

“I don’t have to worry about it wrapping itself around the flagstaff because it sits on its flagstaff,” he said. “The only thing I have to worry about is a raccoon knocking it off and smashing it.” ~


More to come on this topic later~