Posts (page 2)
Haven't posted much about food lately. I'm such a foodie. This diet is killing me. Sigh. So I've been both bad and good this weekend.
Bad: Pizza from Magic Oven. OK so not "bad", actually so very very good. This one is the Gourmet Meaty Pizza (proscuitto and some other stuff, artichoke hearts, garlic spinach, two kind of cheese) and I had them add roasted red peppers. Mmmm ...
Between the beer, pizza and GlenLivet ... I was up three pounds the next day. Damn. :-)
Good: Sunday a.m. Breakfast.
Two eggs scrambled with cottage and mozzarella cheese, spinach, red peppers, mushrooms and onions. Sliced fresh tomato with fresh basil, kosher salt and drizzled with aged Italian balsamic. Guatamalan fair trade organic coffee with stevia (the other white powder from Columbia) and hazelnut "real" cream.
Until mid-July, I'm working three days a week for a client situated in the MaRS building, downtown Toronto. The project I'm working on won't set the world on fire but, in my own little way, I'm having a blast. Here are a few vignettes from my time so far ...
The building in question - the "facade" is a heritage building, one of the original University of Toronto buildings. The interior and towers are have all been modernized. The south and west towers are under construction.
They just built the desk I'm sitting at about 10 days ago. To my immediate left is a wall and, on the other side of that wall, is a multi-storey construction zone. Pretty noisy over there, thus I wear my iPod while working. A lot. Playlists have suddenly become important to me.
This is my first foray into biotechnology. I'm working for an organization that has within it some of the smartest people on the planet, all working towards curing cancer. Or finding multiple cures for the myriad different kinds of cancer. Very very big brains. Next week, I get to interview the senior guy in charge of cancer genomics. Whoa.
I feel pretty humbled and privileged just to be there. This is one of the most high-profile projects in Toronto, the "Discovery District", which is at the intersection, appropriately, of the medical/hospital zone, legislative zone, and the university zone. The kitchen area on the floor where I work overlooks Queen's Park, our provincial assembly. The MaRS building itself is host to multiple biotech organizations, some private sector, some public/private. The idea is to put all the smart people together and hope something good happens. It is possible that I am oversimplifying.
MaRS hosts events often, conferences and such. It is a terrific space for such things, except for the ongoing construction. Mesh was just there and it was supremely ironic that I was too busy with my client stuff to attend. At least once per week, usually around lunchtime, the front steps are covered in red carpet and there is a limo or some fancy pants car out front.
On one such day, I was just returning from the gym, a few blocks away. I can get away a couple times a week to go to a modified circuit at the Y around lunch time. I had my iPod on shuffle and, as I was approaching the building, some majestic choral piece came on. The red carpet was out and there was a black stretch SUV out front. It all felt extremely important, although people (normal people like me) were coming and going via the front door as per usual. Someone was eating their lunch while perched on the stonework out front. So I proceeded towards the door as per usual, sweeping waves of choral music adding a certain je ne sais quois to the moment. I was feeling sort of full of myself as I got closer to the door. Suddenly, just as I got to the door, one of the metal railings seemed to reach out and grab my iPod headset cord from my side, yanking the headset askew on my head, and shutting down the choral climax pretty quickly. I tried to disentangle myself as quickly and inconspicuously as possible - which became impossible as I then proceeded to stumble over the red carpet and fall against the glass doors at the front.
I tend to favour the side door now.
I'm pretty sure I'm working at the only quasi-medical facility in Toronto that comes equipped with its own grand piano in the lobby. Yamaha, for those who care about such things.
In addition to being extremely smart, the people who work here are really nice and kinda quirky, which I'm enjoying immensely. I walked by one fellow's office several times and snickered every time as, in addition to the posters regarding upcoming Important Conferences and Announcements, he also has this:
About two weeks ago, I had to go interview people on a floor that I hadn't been to yet. Once I got past the access door, I found myself in a hallway where, clearly, labs containing Real Science were located. White lab coats, microscopes and test tubes behind glass. As I tried to find my interview subjects, I walked by something labeled "Genome Sequencer". It looked like a really big bread maker. I heard a stern voice in my head say, "Just don't touch anything!"
I shared with one of the other non-scientists on that floor, in a hushed voice, that just being there made me feel all tingly. She smiled, leaned over and quietly said, "I know - me too!"
I'll be sad when my project is over in a few weeks - but so chuffed that I got to contribute, in a tiny way, to the work that goes on here. It is a remarkable place, and a remarkable idea, and a use of my tax dollars that engenders not one ounce of cynicism in me, which is refreshing indeed.
Dos Fallopia explains it all.
If this diet adventure has taught me anything, it is that I sure do like my carbs. As I review my food diary over the months, it is clear that I have the hardest time sticking to the extremely low carb amounts that are recommended.
I should be more specific as "carbs" are found, of course, in fruits and vegetables too - but that isn't what I'm talking about. If I were as addicted to fruits and veggies as I am to Ace Bakery Baguettes, then I wouldn't be so overweight, now, would I? No - what I'm talking about is the fabulous four of bread, rice, pasta and potatoes. BRPP for those of us who are fond of acronyms. Turns straight into sugar and gets applied directly to the thighs.
Carbs also mean alcohol and sugary baked goods, but I don't have so much of an issue avoiding these, except for the carrot cake at the downtown Y. I indulge here about once every two weeks. It calls to me after my workout, as it sits there in its little hand-wrapped portions with the yummy cream cheese icing. I picture that it is made by some little old lady who uses only organic ingredients and donates her baked goods to the Y. It is probably made by some multi-national conglomerate and I'm just trying to rationalize my diet deviance.
The occasional glass of wine hasn't been an issue. Neither, surprisingly, was the over-consumption of rum and tequila a few weeks ago. I have studiously avoided beer, much to the amusement of my hockey buds, since June 2007. Again, not so much of an issue as I've found beer to be an acquired taste anyway. Popcorn, which forms an entire food group for me, also hasn't held me back and I still make popcorn, with oil, and butter, two or three times a week. Admittedly, I'm making half as much as I used to, so maybe that has something to do with it.
Nope - for me, it is BRPP. Potatoes have been the easiest to take off this list. I don't make them much at home, and the double issue of fats + carbs presented by french fries really does take them right off the list of possibilities when I'm eating out. Although, when a basket of fries presents itself after hockey, I have been known to indulge.
Rice is a mystery to me. How is it that a staple eaten by so many cultures in such quantities can give a white chick like me such trouble? I'm told it has something to do with genetics and metabolism. I do believe this, but I wonder why it doesn't work out that, given my British/German DNA, I can't drink all the beer I can handle without packing on the poundage. In any case, I love rice. The thing is, I love rice because it does such a good job at soaking up things like, oh, butter chicken sauce. Fried rice cake is the foundation of sushi pizza and soaks up gallons of soya sauce, which is SO good and SO out of bounds for me. Bad rice. The rice of temptation. Wicked.
Pasta is something I would eat daily if I could get away with it. I make the BEST meat sauce and there is nothing like pasta (usually spaghettini or linguine) and my sauce with a dollop of cottage cheese and a sprinkle of romano. Oh, and a drizzle of olive oil. I have managed to work this in occasionally, through the magic of portion control, and I'm not doing too badly here. I go through phases with pasta. We are arm's length friends at the moment.
Bread is the biggie. Where I'd eat pasta daily and happily, I'd have bread every meal if I could. WITH pasta. Some people do this ... cereal or english muffin or toast for breakfast ... sandwich for lunch ... bread at dinner. Assorted muffins and croissants for snacks. I simply can't eat like that anymore, ever again. The treat I miss the most, and I whine about this to my friends so regularly, is the Ace Bakery Baguette and crumbly old cheese. A few (high fat) olives perhaps. And, of course, a glass of wine. Civilized, yes. Supportive of weight loss, no.
Bread sneaks in where it shouldn't. An English muffin here, an 10" wrap there ... and suddenly I look at my food diary and I've tripled my daily bread allotment without even thinking.
So here is my experiment for the day. I'm going to try "No Carb Tuesday". I had my breakfast without bread or cereal of any kind and I survived, and I've now managed lunch without carbs of any description. I can't do this every day, but I wonder if I could do it, say, twice a week?
Could you?
Addendum: According to my weigh-in last week, and again Monday, I maintained the 52 lbs lost (yay)! Not only that, I'm the first client of the location that I go to who has lost 50+ lbs. They want to put my picture on the wall. I've said I'll think about it. I'd refer that my picture go on the wall when I hit my target loss of 90 lbs. So ... we'll see. :-)
So, after the butter chicken / saag paneer / shrimp madras feast last night, Miriam and I swung by those two convenience stores on Gerrard that seem to be highly competitive regarding plants this time of year. When I drive by this corner, I hear Dueling Banjos in my head. Two Asian owners trying to out supply the neighbourhood in greenery.
They were the only places I could think of that might have a decent plant/flower at 8:30 p.m. on a Saturday. One of them was open and I was utterly charmed by a yellow flower in a pot.
Me to Store Owner: This is really lovely - what kind of plant is it?
Store Owner, smiling broadly and helpfully: I have no idea! (laughter)
OK. Even though I'm the worst indoor or outdoor gardener in the world, as evidenced by the fact that I killed two of Martina's plants since she moved to Chicago, I've changed my plans because I'm quite smitten with this little plant. At first, I thought, well, I'll plant it here on the grounds of the building, somewhere inconspicuous. I looked around and didn't see a spot where someone wouldn't come along and point and say, "Contravenes our rules!" and yank it out. Then I thought, ok, I'll put it here in my window box. Then I looked at the window box and realized it needs more maintenance than I have the time or patience for today. Then, finally, I have decided to put it in one of the pots recently vacated by one of Martina's sorry bits of greenery. She was reasonably forgiving of me last weekend, but I doubt she'll leave anything green in my care again.
Like a lover who has jumped in bed before a suitable introduction, I am now staring shyly at this thing and wondering if it has a name. Instructions for care and feeding? A temperament to be considered? (Danica? Help!)
I'm trying to remember what I did on Mother's Day, 10 years ago, but I just can't pull up the specifics. I know I did *something*, probably some combination of card / flowers / dinner / visit. I remember clearly that I spoke with Mom a few weeks later, on Wednesday, June 3, 1998, in the evening. We talked every Sunday and every Wednesday. On that particular Wednesday, she was excited about being almost ready to go back to bowling, having almost fully recovered from carpal tunnel surgery on her wrists. She had survived two rounds with cancer, both treated surgically, and a chronic lung issue, probably emphysema, that was never properly treated. But what she was most excited about was getting movement back in her wrists and being "allowed" to return to bowling. She'd been to her GP that day, in fact, and, in addition to getting some prescriptions renewed, she got the a-ok for bowling, starting the following week.
My brother Ben jumped in on that call for a few minutes, as per usual, just to check in.
I was excited myself as my partner at the time, J, and I were flying out the next day for a four day getaway to Halifax, a city I'd visited briefly and really liked but hadn't explored much. We also had an overnight booked in Lunenberg that I was really looking forward to. I'm sure I rushed through this call with some impatience as I wasn't entirely packed and ready for an early flight the next day.
We closed with loving words, I recall. Rushed, but loving - as per usual.
Our dog, Freddie, was about seven months old and was staying with Dennis the dogwalker and Dennis' dog, Hennessy. Dennis had our trip itinerary, contact info and so on. No one else did - it was only four days after all.
Our flight was delayed for at least two hours on the tarmac @ Pearson. When we finally arrived in Halifax, it was go go go to explore and check it all out. On the Saturday night, our last night in Halifax before heading to Lunenberg, we landed at a lovely seafood place on the water. I had lobster and wine. I think the meal started with a bisque. I had an objective of eating as much lobster as possible on this trip. :-) We then proceeded (waddled) from the restaurant to a dessert place, the one down on the waterfront or close to it, for something yummy. Then to a nearby Irish pub and indulged in beer and singing and, well, carousing. Lots of singing. I loved it.
It just occurred to me that I have no photos of that trip at all.
Got back to our hotel room at about 12:30 or 1:00 a.m. There was a light flashing on the hotel phone and I knew immediately that something was very wrong. There were two messages to call home and the voices, my sister-in-law Sue and my brother David, were very distressed. I called David and learned that Mom had died, suddenly, in her rhubarb patch around dinner time the night before, on Friday. She wasn't found until the next morning by a neighbour who was quite traumatized by this. She had gone out to fetch rhubarb make her grandson, Alex, a pie for the next day. She apparently was lying there quite peacefully, with some rhubarb stalks in one hand and a plastic bag and a knife in the other. There was clearly no attempt on her part to rise - she was dead when she hit the ground, apparently.
Died, June 5, 1998 in the evening. However, the coroner issued the death certificate for June 6, 1998 as that is when she was found.
Stunning news to receive in a hotel room in Halifax after a raucous pub night. I went immediately into a state of functional shock. What has to be done? (emergency airline tickets back ...) Who has to be called? (the b & b in Lunenberg ...) Air Canada was actually quite gracious and granted us compassionate seating at a reduced fare.
I remember lying awake staring at the ceiling all night. Still had alcohol from our night out in my body and the news was just too sudden to comprehend.
Things had been quite frantic back in Ontario as the family tried to track me down. Not only was Dennis the only one in Toronto who had our itinerary and contact info, he didn't live in the neighbourhood and only one other neighbour, @ #5, was connected to him in any way. In desperation, late on Saturday a.m., my friend Angela's brother, Greg, started knocking on doors at #1 to ask if anyone had our travel itinerary. Ed and Louise - neighbours who first introduced us to Dennis - knew how to reach him.
We know now that Mom had an aortic aneurysm. Ben has had one, and survived luckily, in 2005. Our maternal Grandma died suddenly too, at age 93, in front of her beloved 100 Huntley St. - we suspect aneurysm. I'm having some test done every few years to check the walls of the aorta but I don't have the stress of aging (not being 93 yet) or 40 years of smoking. I'm trying to remove the stress of extra weight.
I learned two things from this experience. Probably more, but two come to mind:
a) Leave contact information with more than one person. E-mail makes this easy. Create a distribution list of half a dozen people who might need to reach you for some reason. Fire off flight and hotel/accommodation info. Dates, etc. Be reachable.
b) Tell the people you love that you love them. I miss my Mom, no question. I must mention this, especially to the people who knew her, frequently. She'd be insanely excited at how my life has turned out, the things I've done and the kind of work I've been able to do. She was pretty proud of me and never let me forget it and, you know, sometimes a girl just needs her cheering section. :)
What I do not have are regrets. Mom and I went through quite a long process regarding my lesbianism. She wound up with a comfort level that impressed me - she sure didn't start that way. She got there on her own, it seems. She was always loving and welcoming to my partners - but we were never allowed to sleep in the same bed in her house. Ever. I think she would have got there, eventually. She was on her way.
About five years before she died, I wrote her a one page letter, three paragraphs only I recall, thanking her for being such a great Mom. I heard my friends complaining about varying kinds of abuse, about being tossed out of their families for various reasons, about being left out of wills ... and I looked back on my childhood, my relationship with my Mom and felt profoundly, deeply lucky. She did everything she could to give me a rich and complex life. Anything I indicated an interest in, or a passion for, she made it happen. Music, sports, theatre ... she would drive me anywhere to do anything. Swimming, hockey, fastball, rehearsals ... all pretty amazing given that we lived well away from town where most of this happened. I used to wonder if my Mom had a life. She did, she would say ... me. How great, and humbling, is that?
It was my job to go through her papers after she died and that letter was on top of everything, on her dresser. She had a filing thing for papers, bills, important stuff, and that letter sat on top of it all. I'm told she showed it to every one of her friends after she received it. I think she looked at it a lot.
Note: If you decide to do this, and you are writing to someone over 60, write it, print it, sign it, snail mail it. Give them something tangible they can take to the coffee shop and show around.
So, as much as I miss my bi-weekly calls with Mom, and occasional visits, and making mental note of "Oh, I must tell Mom about this ..." when interesting things happen ... I don't feel that she and I had tons of unfinished business or baggage. It feels ... clean. It's ok.
I'm going to mark Mother's Day this year by planting a flower in Freddie's favourite park, surreptitiously. :-) Perhaps over in a corner somewhere. We can go visit it when we walk there.
I need to be reminded that when people are important to me, whether they carry the title of Mom or Mentor or Good Friend, I need to reach out and tell them that. It is important. They might not know if you don't tell them.
52 lbs. Gone. Whoosh ... :-) ... can I celebrate with a cheeseburger?
Smiling, well-meaning elderly lady at the park: Oh, look! You and your dog have the same colour hair!
Me, forcing a smile: Yes, yes we do!
Rahim and Nazifa Shahghasy left Afghanistan 20 years ago to escape violence and unrest, and to give their kids a better life. It is a cruel irony that they were cut down in a Brampton parking lot in a random attack, leaving their nearly grown kids to cope with an enormous financial burden, and no resources to speak of.
I am reminded, strongly, of the students that I meet in my college classroom, and my heart goes out to them. Perhaps yours will, too.
To: The Guy On The Elliptical Machine Next To Me
Date: Yesterday
I admire your determination and focus. You look very purposeful. Bravo!
Just for the record, I have a 20-30% hearing loss across certain frequency ranges. Can't hear conversation, which is annoying. Like you and many others, I like using my iPod as an exercise aid. It is possible that my iPod is slightly louder than other people's iPods, I'll grant you that.
However, I need to say that, given my hearing loss AND the noise from my own raucous iPod tunes ... I should NOT be able to hear the guitar rifts and lyrics from your iPod.
I'm jus sayin' ...
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