Fig, Arugula, Goat Cheese and Prosciutto Pizza

Fresh pizza dough
Goat Cheese
Prosciutto
Bocconcini (halved, optional)
Arugula

Fig Paste:
1 red onion, thinly sliced
2 tablespoons olive oil
sugar, to taste (optional)
3 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
1 small sprig fresh rosemary, chopped
4 large dried figs
pinch of salt

In a sauce pan, cook red onion in olive oil for a few minutes, until soft. Add the remainder of the ingredients and let simmer uncovered for about 15-20 minutes. Remove some liquid if it looks soupy. Blend in a food processor or using an emulsion blender "wand" until still a bit chunky.

After stretching out the pizzo dough, spread on a thick layer of fig paste. Top pizza as normal, reserving some arugula to add after baking. Bake at 375 deg F for 20 to 25 minutes.

DIY Bracelets

Craft time!

We used some instructions off the Honestly WTF website (see it here). Really easy and they look good!

"Houses" by Coco Rosie

Beautiful but grim music video animated by Andrew Gibbs.


more of Gibbs' stuff on his blog (here) and on his vimeo feed (here).

Avocado from pit and first sign of a pomegranate on the tree

The two avocados were grown from seed using a method I found on this website. It says:

Wash avocado seed to remove any pulp. Using a very sharp knife you can cut off a thin slice of the top and bottom of the seed, this speeds up the germination. Wrap in very damp paper towel. Place in a covered dish and put it in a dark place for 2-4 weeks. Check in now and then to see if anything is happening. The taproot is generally the first growth to merge from the seed. Once the root is around 3 inches long plant your avocado following the potting method.

Pot the seedling when the root system has become well developed; the roots should be at least 2 to 3 inches long. Plant the white taproot in dirt leaving the top "red sprout" and 1/3 of the upper seed exposed. Position the seed in the center of the pot. A 6" plastic or clay pot is suitable and please put some gravel in the bottom of the pot for drainage.

Repotting: Once the plants filled their pots up with healthy roots, they should be potted in larger ones. Repotting should be done in the spring.

and the pomegranate tree was grown from a kit...

Of Tolerance and the Lessons We've Learned

Yesterday, I watched the film Arranged(2007), written by Stefan Schaefer, co-directed by Stefan Schaefer and Diane Crespo, and inspired by the experiences of Yuta Silverman, an Orthodox Jewish woman. An Orthodox Jewish woman and a muslim woman are two teachers in the same class in a school in Brooklyn. They become close friends, strengthened by their parallel experiences of discrimination and challenges of arranged marriages (see the trailer below, read more on the website here).




I had not expected my own prejudices surface in the form of the misinformed principal of the school, who seeks to "free" the girls of their religious cages. My questions of how and whether gender equality exists in these longstanding religions arose and I began to feel torn, how to come to terms with something that one does not understand.

I talked a while with my boyfriend about it at night and it became clear that these tight-knit communities had clear positives and negatives, and that, so long as one felt that the negatives did not outweigh the positives, then a lot could be gained by being part of these communities.

As someone agnostic, I can see the personal wholeness that some gain from religion, that sometimes, otherewise, all the gains and losses are internalized and can create a stormy navigation of the world. I also recognize some of the fundamental morality in religions to hold high standards, to expect people to be good in a sense higher than the governing laws, albeit sometimes lacking for the current times. In these generalizations, I felt I was losing myself in circles and so this morning I decided to read some ethical essays on the topic, both from the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences Equity Matters blog (see it here).


On tolerance, the ethos of intolerance, and intellectual courage
(read it here)
by Frank Furedi, Kent University-Canterbury

Here, Furedi argues that intolerance is not a virtue that should be celebrated and that to be intolerant is to be an intelectual coward. He says of John Stuart Mill and pseudoscience:

In 1836, he wrote about a ‘flowering of quackery and ephemeral literature’, all manipulated by the new ‘arts for attracting public attention’. Mill was no less hostile to the confusions sown by quacks and by ‘mock science’ than genuine scientists are today. But what distinguished Mill from someone like Beddington was his view on how to deal with erroneous ‘science’.

Mill adopted a consistent and courageous orientation towards tolerance, for many reasons. One reason was his sensitivity to the fact that uncertainty had become a condition of life in the modern world. Mill believed that, aside from the need to uphold freedom of speech and belief, uncertainty demanded tolerance. It is precisely because we cannot be certain of truth that we must allow for great openness and give people the right to express their beliefs and opinions. Uncertainty demands that people should be free to pursue their quest for truth.

Further, he says that "Mill believed that the ‘evil of silencing the expression of opinion’ is that it robs society, and future generations, of the potential insights that can emerge from a clash of views."

He finishes the article with:

There are many reasons for this defensive moralistic turn in sections of the scientific community. The principal driver of the re-emergence of intolerance as a moral virtue is Western culture’s aversion to engaging with uncertainty. This is best captured by that unattractive term ‘zero tolerance’ – a concept which presents the world in the language of black-and-white and either/or. It spares the intolerant the trouble of having to fight for their views. It is far easier to resolve disagreement and confusion through shutting down discussion than to practise true tolerance.

Tolerance demands courage – intolerance, the outlook of the intellectual coward, merely requires a censor’s pen.

Reflections on culture, identity and human dignity
(read it here)
by Kwame Anthony Appiah, Princeton University

Here Appiah reminds us of the diversities that exist within and between cultural groups. That one must remember that each individual has their own identity, their own agency within a group.
Appiah says:

It comes down to this: When the state stops you from engaging in practices rooted in your identity, it shouldn’t be because it has contempt for who you are. Jehovah’s Witnesses think that getting a blood transfusion will condemn you to everlasting damnation. Should the government let a 14-year-old die because she needs a transfusion and her parents object on those religious grounds? Certainly not, but everyone has to be clear that it’s not because we’ve got a grudge against Jehovah’s Witnesses.

and

If cultural difference isn’t the heart of the problem, then teaching people to respect other cultures won’t be the solution. What will be? Creating an overlay of a common culture – a civic culture – where everyone recognizes that people are entitled to respect whatever their gender or sexuality, their race or religion, and wherever they came from.

and further:

So let’s retire a rhetoric that makes it sound as if culture, all by itself, justifies and legitimates whatever it is that people do. An old exchange from colonial India makes the point clearly, if a little crudely: An Indian defending suttee tells the British official who tries to stop the fiery proceedings, “But it’s our custom to burn widows.” To which the official gives the perfectly reasonable rejoinder, “And it’s our custom to hang murderers.”

The Good Bike Project

I saw one of these painted bikes locked to a post the other day and my friend told me that they're all over the city and that each one represents something different. Seemed something of a nice idea, but I did wonder why they were not putting the bikes to more practical use...



Anyway, this morning I read a little more about it in the Torontoist (read it here). See their map of the bikes above. They said:

The bikes are now colour-coded according to six categories, chosen primarily to reflect the visual arts community and urban issues:

orange is for locations supporting emerging artists,
hot pink designates venues of historical artistic significance,
blue represents strong community builders,
yellow marks community hubs and hot spots (like Honest Ed's in the Annex),
green flags the victories and failures of Jane Jacobs's urban theories, and
rose bikes commemorate a personal memory from a Torontonian 

The project was started by Caroline Macfarlane and Vanessa Nicholas, making abandoned bikes on the street into public art. Their first subject was ticketed and removed. And so, with a little lobbying from a couple city councillors, they convinced the City of Toronto to donate confiscated bikes to their public art project. You can read more about it and see some pictures on their blog (see it here).

Seems it's going well and they're certainly nicer, and more thoughtful, than Moose in the City.



Bike logo and pink bike photo from the Good Bike Project blog.

Elitist Markets and Everyone Else

Markets are facinating places. Around the world, one goes out of their way to visit the local markets, to get a feel for the richness they bring, the vibrant colours, the loud noises, the bartering, the bargaining.

Open Air Market, India,
Photograph by William Albert Allard, National Geographic

What I wonder is what people think when they visit our markets. What have cities like Toronto done to the fundamental beauty that is a market. Sure, there's the Saint Lawrence market, a pretty nice place for some quite expensive meat, cheese or olives...

Animals for sale at the Jatinegara market in Jakarta, Indonesia,
Photograph by Mark Leong, National Geographic

But are markets here only for special occasions? Do they not create links between farmers and eaters? Create bridges between rural and urban? How can we make them more affordable? More accessible? Is it possible that the food bank is the new farmers market? What does this tell us about us? What does this tell us about poverty, about ever-growing income disparities?

Fish Vendor Stalls
Photograph by James L. Stanfield, National Geographic

These thoughts are spurred from numerous frustrating visits to the expensive markets in my neighbourhood, that have lovely things that are not worth the price. It also comes from an article I read on the Atlantic blog, called "How $8-a-Dozen Eggs Threaten Real Food Reforms" (see it here) by Jane Black. This then triggered a response on Mother Jones called "The Deal With $8 Eggs" (see it here) by Tom Philpott.

Marrakech Market at Night
Photograph by Ben Carron, National Geographic

Troubled by the thought that the only way to get good food is to pay more, Philbott suggests making agriculture pay the cost of its own devastative practices. He says:

But if you made the giant hog factories deal properly with the vast amount of toxic waste they produce, the price difference reverses. In other words, a Walmart value-pack of pork chops would cost significantly more per pound than the pasture-raised ones that give you sticker shock at the farmers market.

And untreated toxic waste is only one so-called externality, or unpaid cost, of factory hog farming. Another major one is the rising menace of antibiotic-resistant pathogens, which flourish when you stuff hogs together by the thousands and feed them daily "subtherapeutic" antibiotic doses. Pew reckons that the antibiotic resistance problem adds between $16.6 billion to $26 billion in extra costs to the nation’s annual health care bill. How much more would those Walmart pork chops be if the hog industry had to pay its share of that bill?

Full Moon

Neighbourhood Raccoons

Life of a Pigeonling

Pretty Jar Lids

Rainy days are good craft days when you're not too busy.

I had been meaning to do this craft for a long time. I saw it on The Sweet Spot a while back (see their guide here).

It's pretty easy.









First you make a circle about 1 centimeter larger than the base of the lid. You make little cuts into it, all around, that you will use as tabs to hold it onto the jar lid.

Then you glue the circle to the bottom using white, school glue.

Then you glue along the edge, trying not to put all the glue in the little crack, otherwise it won't help you later on.

Then you start to bend the little tabs in. As your going, I found it easier to start glazing the tabs with a paintbrush (with about 2:1 water to glue) just to make them stick to eachother. It's a little finicky because it turns into a sticky mess!

Then I glaze the top, just to make it uniform.

And there you have it! Let it dry and test them out!

Greek Mint Potato Salad

For a change, this week we bought one of those "variety" packs of coloured potatoes. I know, talk about living on the wild side.. but seriously, it is weird to dig your fork into a vibrantly blue potato. -- apparently they contain lots of Anthocyanins, the blue pigments which have antioxidant properties when digested and circulated into the blood stream -- Anyway, it was only a small pack and I put half of them in this next recipe, based on a few recipes on the web.

Dressing
1/4 cup of olive oil
2 Tbs of white wine vinegar
1 Tbs of dijon mustard
sprinkle of salt, pepper and oregano
70g or so of crumbled feta
1/4 cup of red onion, chopped (ours had also soaked overnight in lemon juice to soften and sweeten the taste)

Salad
1/2 bag of baby potatoes boiled and cut into small cubes, cooled
1 large sweet potato boiled and cut into small cubes, cooled
1/2 english cucumber, cubed
1 red pepper
1/2 jar of kalamata olives, halved
2-4 Tbs of fresh mint, chopped

Cook potatoes and yam, let cool.

Combine dressing.

Combine all ingredients and serve!


Potato facts and picture from Wiki.

Making Earrings Part 1

Yesterday, I got together with my sister and her friend to make earrings. My sister brought a thin slab of wood (the kind you use for making models and such) and I brought over some scraps of paper from the japanese paper store.

We cut out pieces of paper and glued them on to cut pieces of wood. I only managed to make one (third pic) but my sister was on a role (first and forth and a couple others)! Her friend made the second pair. These are my favourites.

Part 2 - So now all we have left is to find a way to poke a hole without breaking them, glaze them and attach hooks. What fun!