Vancouver oh Vancouver

Last night I had pretty much the complete big city experience.


The Stroll

After finishing a long day of work at 6 I was met by my friend Kendra. A perfect night as it was cold but not raining. I led her throughon a walk through a dark warehouse area and then up onto the Cambie Street bridge. For once I wasn't concerned about the impending west coast earthquake and was able to enjoy the view of dozens of parked police cars and even the Incident Command Centre parked in the secure lot far below.

Once we crossed over into downtown I led us towards our culinary destination (would the French call this our destination culinaire? It sounds much better). The place that I had in mind was a Lebanese falafel house near the leftist bookstore on Hastings. Apparently not only is their remarkable, but as an embodiment of their commitment to the Palestinians they use the reputable and expensive olive oil produced by their cooperatives. This I had to try.

The Dinner

On arrival though we find it closed due to some kind of plumbing problem. Come back tomorrow they say. Disappointed we head further along Hastings, me acting as tour guide for Kendra who knows much less of the perhaps few charms of this city than I.

Having no idea where we will eat (and neither of us have much money to throw around or throw away) Kendra realizes that we are standing in fromt of a promising place, the Baghdad Cafe, which despite the name is primarily a Turkish place. T. and I had eaten lunch there once before in the summer and were extremely impressed, especially with the better than memorable baba ganoush. Of course we didn't pass up this chance.

On entering we were the only customers and my body quickly slipped into an unfamiliar feeling of relaxation tinged, more than tinged with a welling up anticipation of the lovely oily eggplant dish. Without further ado I'll cut to the chase: they must have been out of eggplant, I made the window fall out of the bathroom door, a whole bunch of people arrived to sit at the long empty table next to us and a young woman who was likely an addict came in and made a scene when she was denied use of the washroom. Despite these small setbacks dinner was enjoyable and I still anticipate the baba ganoush at some future point. And the window didn't break either.

More Strolling

What to do after dinner with several hours to pass until out film? Well we walked more of course. This time down West Georgia to do a little flanuer-ing along the row of exclusive shops clustered around the Fairmont and to A.Gregoriani, the men's clothier where I recently had a wonderful experience in choosing a shirt and tie. They were all closed but that wasn't the point anyways. After more yuppie and hootchy-mama watching along Robson we made our way to the repertory cinema for the main event of the evening.

The Cinema

Finally we settled into a decidedly uncrowded theatre to watch Shohei Imamura's 1970 documentary A History of Post-war Japan as Told By a Bar Hostess. Not much I can say about this except that it is fascinating, contains golden rare footage of Japanese left-wing demonstrations and riots and repression and is an unparalled document presenting a Japanese mama-san's take on her country's social history and her own professional, sexualand family life. am not setting out to write a review here (either of restaurant or film). Anyways, well worth the evening this was.

Evidence That My Cynicism and Survivialism is Justified

As we both live in different directions and as it was now late we decided that we would walk together into Chinatown and I thought that I would wait with Kendra at the bus-stop on Main and then walk on home alone through the Downtown Eastside. Everything is a normal. We talk about the movie, about Kendra's beau, etc. and then as we wait on Main Kendra comments that there are no other women about. True enough, although there are likely some prostitutes and addicts milling about a couple of blocks away on Hastings. And probably some street social workers. As we are standing around there are two guys lingering nearby and Kendra notices that one has taken off his belt. I figure he is going to use it to shoot heroin but then on closer look I see that he is wrapping it around his fist, "give me your money or I'll fuck you up" style. Or maybe I'll fuck you up and take your money style. After getting over a very brief appearance from my ego (in the form of "screw them I'm not backing off"playing through my mind) we turned and walked away and apart from an intense spike of adrenaline we came out unscathed. Once I got Kendra on the bus, and after refusing her offer to pay for my train fare (I'm not just tight-fisted with my own money) I was faced with the prospect of walking through the rest of the downtown eastside alone and a little overdressed. So I just started doing it, knowing that bosy language is everything, clutching my umbrella and reciting an inspired and make-shift mantra:

As I walk through the valley of death
I shall fear no evil
'Cause I'm the baddest motherfucker in the valley.

my unmanageable reading pile

Well I was getting things under control with the smallest bookpile (usually kept under the bedside table but also on my desk) I've had in at least 6 or 8 months:

-Proust, Swann's Way which is going so slowly though I get much pleasure from this

-Karsten Heuer's Being Caribou which is fascinating and compelling and I think makes T. want to run off to somewhere really remote

-Some silly book about financial planning (yes I'm getting a little concerned for the future)

-Poliakoff, Combat Sports in the Ancient World (meaning, in this case, Greeks and Romans)

-A book on Xingyiquan (asa way to get my head around solo training exercises for internal martial arts)

-Rushdie, The Satanic Verses (all the way up to page 11)

-Angela Carter, Burning Your Boats

-Tony May's Italian Cuisine

And that was about it once I finished Anthony Bourdain. Totally unmanageable but not the least bit intimidating.

Now though, after sending T. a list of books recommended by Bourdain at the end of Kitchen Confidential she brings me home

-Down and Out in Paris and London

- An American edition of Escoffier's Guide Culinaire

-and Joseph Mitchell's Up in the Old Hotel

with more books coming shortly! I am not ungrateful in the least, I want to read all of these and I want to read them now, but things are now gettng out of hand, spinning out of control, taking on a life of their own.

And still, I can hardly wait 'til the rest arrive. Marco Pierre White (whom Bourdain characterises as one of the Young Turks and whom I am acquainted with through reading Bill Buford's Heat) pretty much tops the list. I'll have to spend a lot less time reading my friends blogs or otherwise doing "research" on the internet.

Speaking of, I fortuitously discovered the blog of a long lost friend and her new husband a few days ago and it is certainly the

website of the week!!!

Please pay a visit to endlessbanquet.blogspot.com to see why.


Hey, I'd love to hear what you all are reading.

Ice Skating Tonight

I just got back from ice-skating tonight. My friend Andrea is taking lessons (she started last night) and we dragged Ann-Marie with us.

As an idea it seemed great but as we neared the arena I could feel the tension building. I am hardly a proto-typical Canadian guy as I have been skating only about 5 times and I do well not to split my head open or break my finger on the ice.

What's with the tension though? While on the ice I had some kind of childhood memory of dragging myself along the ice of the Bow River, crying or whining and hating every minute of skating. I guess this kind of thing stays with us, and it was a challenge to relax and to stay that way.

I didn't fall at all, and walking home I felt a little bit proud of myself, while remembering the Eleanor Roosevelt bumper sticker that I saw this summer: "Do something that you're afraid of everyday."

A rather small victory over fear, but my only one of the day.

Thanks to T. for the Website of the Week:

http://thesartorialist.blogspot.com


The truly hip may already know this site.

My homeboy Max comments (and I have to agree with him):



"FASHION CHANGES BY REPEATING ITSELF.

I like the 1940's Italian movie star look best "

Bourdain's provocation

Anthony Bourdain:

"Vegetarians, and their Hezbollah-like splinter faction, the vegans, are a persistent irritant to any chef worth a damn. To me, life without veal stock, pork fat, sausage, organ meat, demiglace, or even stinky cheese is a life not worth living." From Kitchen Confidential, page 70.


So, I think I've mentioned here that my pastime-of-the-moment has become cookery. Up to this point my main consideration in choosing food has been it's relationship to ethics and health. Due to lack of effort, lack of inspiration, and whatever else, I have cooked and consumed boring mealing for a significant number of years.

In fact, just last week I ran into an old roomate form several years back (from the days that I was a Chinatown dweller). He now lives in Quebec and works in a co-operative restaurant. I was sitting in a coffeeshop reading Nigel Slater's Appetite and I turned the conversation in the direction of food. He remembered my meals as being particularly peasant-like and even more bland than his own. I still feel some embarassment (tinged with regret?) at this.

Now the last thing that I want to do is to read a bunch of books on "vegan" and "vegetarian" cookery, despite the fact that I function as a sort of strange hybrid of fish-eating vegetarian with vegan tendencies. I am looking for pleasure in eating (and cooking) after all. So I've been reading books in which almost every recipe drips with butter and probably centres on lamb, chicken, beef, prosciutto... you get the point.

Apart from the questionable health, ethical, and ecological issues which this stirs up in me, I also need to keep in mind that my waistline just fits into my Armani. And I ain't buying another.

Anyway, aren't hobbies supposed to be simple and without philosophical dilemma? Mine seems to boil down to pleasure versus ideology and I do hope to discover a different interesting pastime soon.