tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-90524622914753299012023-11-15T08:23:11.677-08:00Viva Community Voicethe interactivistsANNESU DE VOShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00888752639981732920noreply@blogger.comBlogger13125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9052462291475329901.post-67527152874249979752012-04-20T17:43:00.009-07:002012-04-20T20:06:08.158-07:00Take Back The Rainbow!The mayor of Sodom, Ontario shocked the gay rights lobby last summer by failing to show up at the inauguration of that year's Pride festivities. It is unheard of for the Mayor not to attend this event which brings huge annual tourist revenues to Toronto. Predictably, those who support the Mayor's right to spend the summer holidays as he sees fit, were called "bigots" and worse by political opponents.<br />
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The <a href="http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2011/06/28/jonathan-kay-why-isnt-ford-going-to-gay-pride-heres-a-photographic-clue/">National Post </a>states the matter of why Mr Ford might not want to go there, quite plainly - there are buck naked men in the streets and the event is not suited to the dignity of city dignitaries any more than it is appropriate for one's kids to see.<br />
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Speculation is rife as to the reasons why the mayor apparently prefers the peace and quiet of the family cottage to the biggest street party of the year in what is arguably the gayest city on the planet. Gomorrah, New York is not a patch on Sodom, Ontario: a johnny-come-lately in matters of "marriage equality," Gomorrah must needs look to Sodom for guidance on how to go about this business of breaking God's laws with - why do I have to apologize for this? - gay abandon. <br />
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Councillor Frances Nunziata, a Catholic city councillor, took Mayor Ford's place at the event. It is not inconsistent with the goals and aims of the gay rights movement that someone in a dress should utter the words "I, Rob Ford ..." but, Ms Nunziata's efforts to channel a sort of mayor-in-drag sensibility were not quite successful. She was heckled, and some burly gay men shouted "forget it, Frances! Where's the mayor?" She was then supported by a friendly, protective lesbian who put her arm around Ms Nunziata's shoulders and told those nasty gay boys to <i>stop it</i>. All this was front page news in the Toronto Star. The mayor not showing up and going to his cottage instead, is a matter of boldly going where no mayor has gone before in the history of this well-publicized event.<br />
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Mayor Mel Lastman was known to be profoundly uncomfortable with this particular mayoral duty but he did not have the courage to abstain from it as Rob Ford, who has always been known to be somewhat of a street fighter, clearly does. Lastman now claims something to the effect that even if he were the last man on the planet he still would insist he had a grand old time at the pride parades of yore and he is urging Rob Ford to go to the parade and be "proud" of this madness as well. Just for fun and good measure I will remind Mr Lastman that we have not forgotten that remark about getting boiled in a pot of hot water with reference to visiting my continent of origin. African leaders as a rule have no fear of being called homophobic. What a tasty chicken Mr Lastman would make, with or without wings!<br />
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The mayor should not be forced to attend a party he is uncomfortable with. Several mayors who might not have been comfortable with it, put up with it, and I say bravo to Mr Ford for drawing the line and showing that he will not follow suit. The mayor is obviously a straight man who is not comfortable with the idea of pretending to be "gay for a day" just to humour an increasingly obnoxious and self-righteous political pressure group. <br />
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What really bothers me about this whole Pride thing is the fact that Pride is marketed as a "kid-friendly" event which it is not. Every year the Toronto District School Board calls upon its parents to attend the event with their families. They not only have a float in the event but also a school bus taking people to the event.<br />
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Ever since gay marriage became legal in this country, the Toronto District School Board has led the charge to introduce a particularly pernicious form of social engineering to our public schools. As we know, non-Catholic public schools are not allowed to teach religion - yet there are written policy documents instructing teachers to discuss religion, and telling them how to discuss it, in cases where a child's religion conflicts with the school board's homosexist propaganda. <br />
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Every informed parent knows that TDSB is dominated by a bunch of sourpuss feminazi dominatrixes, but no-one would dare to say it out loud. I bet you they have scary boots and whips in their bedrooms but the Lord knows this is not something anyone should see on an empty stomach first thing on a summer morning, least of all the kids. I just got queasy in the stomach even from writing about it.<br />
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Countless parents have told me they are horrified, nauseated, frightened and repelled by the homosexist propaganda their kids are subjected to in TDSB schools. Not only the Somali cab driver who visibly cringed as he said they are teaching his son in school that "man marries man," but many other Islamic parents and also Buddhist parents I spoke to, told me in no uncertain terms that these teachings are a total violation of their cultural and family values. <br />
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Being from Tibet, my Buddhist friends know an oppressive regime when they see one, and they told me they are too frightened to speak. Even the Toronto Star once wrote that TDSB has a "culture of fear" - the only people who challenge their PC doctrines successfully from within the system are Jehovah's Witnesses and they only succeed in that because they are an organized group. Witnesses have been successful in negotiating exemptions for their children from classes where family values are discussed in certain ways, but it is a continuing struggle. <br />
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Many Christian parents have said the same things to me and no, we have never yet seen such a thing as a gay Hindu flower ceremony either. I have never heard a Desi person - other than Golden Eagle in <a href="http://www.freshhellseries.com/home/category/video">Episode 5 of Season 2 of Fresh Hell</a> (he is not your standard issue Desi person!) - express approval of gay pride or marriage equality. Orthodox rabbis as well as every imam and every priest in town and every Protestant vicar - with the exception of the limp-wristed half of the Anglican church and of course the United Church - would agree or at least admit that their holy books have very specific instructions on this topic. Hebrew scripture as well as Quran have explanations as to the reason why this is not something one actively cultivates or promotes in oneself or in others, especially the young. <br />
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If homosexuality is to be viewed as a disorder, I would fight for a person's right to refuse "treatment" as vociferously as I would fight for the right of Jehovah's Witnesses to refuse blood transfusions. But, to go and indoctrinate people at a young and receptive age on topics most parents would not dream of discussing at junior kindergarten level which is actually where the concerted effort at indoctrination begins in terms of school board policy documents that are published by the Board - that is a form of psychological violence that has no place in our schools. The social engineering that goes on is absolutely out of control and it is time for parents to stand up and fight this despicable trend in our society.<br />
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We are fortunate enough to have Catholic school boards in Ontario as well, where none of this indoctrination occurs. We are allowed to talk about God and Christ at school only because we are fortunate enough to be Catholic. The Toronto Catholic District School Board has opened its doors to people of other faiths who would prefer not to endure the godless assault of TDSB upon their cultural and spiritual values. Our Catholic board allows gay-positive clubs at high school level where students reach out to those who may be bullied or discriminated against on account of sexual orientation, but it certainly stops short of actively promoting that orientation. <br />
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In the meantime, TDSB continues carrying bus loads of innocent students to the Gay Pride festivities every year. If I were the mayor, I would boycott Gay Pride for that reason alone. And I would bluntly state that that is the reason why I am boycotting it. I would also not ask a Catholic councillor to stand in for me - I would offer the assignment to someone who is sympathetic to the lobby, a gay councillor perhaps. This habit of dragging (!) members of the straight community to the gay parade against their inclination and better judgement, also has to stop because that is a form of bullying too.<br />
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It started out as Gay Pride Day and no-one even thought of objecting to it, at least not in polite society - everyone has to have at least one day a year to be proud of their accomplishments, we all thought. Then it became Gay Pride Week and we said well, what the hey, what is a day or a week among friends? <br />
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Speaking of friends, I hosted a gay couple from Vancouver who came to Toronto for the said proud week some years ago. They stayed for free of course, according to the South African tradition of hospitality, because one of the partners in that (now former) couple happens to be one of my dearest friends from university who was like a brother to me in the days of struggle when we all belonged to the same protest movement - the one that replaced the apartheid government. <br />
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I have since been disowned by that friend for having certain opinions on certain issues - alas unfortunately freedom of speech was a one-way street in which he felt free to say whatever he wanted about my and everyone else's religious beliefs, but one could not say a word of criticism about the gay rights lobby, for then one would be called a "regse vullis" - this translates clumsily but rather entertainingly as "a right-wing filth." Being called this name was a very odd experience for someone who was accustomed to being called a left-wing <i>vullis </i>or something to that effect by other political opponents who opposed me for other reasons - this whole wing thing makes me feel like a female version of Icarus. For the record: DJ Gigi does not have wings. And yes, if we are to refer to Oprah's recent life lesson thing here in Toronto - this also means she ain't no chicken.<br />
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I have a habit of extending kindness to marginalized groups and people who are socially discriminated against, which resulted in my opening the door to some Jehovah's Witnesses one day, simply because I realized everyone else on the street probably slammed the doors in their faces. I found them to be interesting, thoughtful and very rigorous in their beliefs, and I listened to their thoughts on God and Jesus very carefully. <br />
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My gay friend expressed the opinion that the Witnesses should be banned from going door to door, and he had some other creative ideas too as to how to limit their freedom to spread their ideas. After that, we stopped hearing from each other. I tried to call many times but he did not seem to want to speak to me anymore. I am sad because I miss him. He was funny and entertaining. I allowed him to speak freely and never rejected him because of his ideas or orientation - but, I defended the right of the Witnesses to speak their truth in conversation with him. Many Witnesses (or Bible Students as they were previously known) were incarcerated along with God's people in the Nazi death camps by reason of their refusal to renounce their beliefs in the same God who made the laws the Jewish people adhere to, and I passionately defended their right to go door to door to teach others their faithful adherence to those laws, and their love of God.<br />
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It is my habit to defend the marginalized, it comes naturally to me - so, back in the days when CNN used to come to our campus for exciting footage of us waving our fists in the air and singing Nkosi Sikelel'iAfrika while the riot police glared at us from behind their masks and shields before yelling "disperse" and letting loose the dogs of war and the teargas canisters, I in fact joined the Wits Gay Movement as a straight member to help protect the rights of a group we thought could face threats to their freedom. There was a particularly nasty right wing religious movement who were lobbying for forcible "treatment" to somehow recondition people who expressed their sexuality in this way, in South Africa at the time. Fortunately that proposal went nowhere, and I was accordingly a very lackadaisical member of that particular student movement (I never showed up for any of the meetings) but at least the thought counted, and my signature was there on the petition against that nasty right wing religious movement. <br />
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An early indicator of future political differences with my gay student friends was a debate in Senate House Concourse at Wits U where I expressed my horror at the thought that there was some scientific research by which the male physical body could be altered to become pregnant. (The research was subsequently abandoned when it was proven that such pregnancies would be too high risk to the host.) Some gay students said they thought it was a great idea and I and some others said we thought it an extremely irresponsible experiment, especially in light of the fact that basic medical services were not being delivered to people across Africa. To spend any kind of research or medical service budget on messing with nature in this way while simple delivery of a saline solution could save a person from starvation in extreme cases in Africa, not to mention the challenges posed by AIDS and other epidemics - we just could not see eye to eye on these priorities. The gay students in the group became extremely angry with us for wanting to "deny" them this hypothetical "right" to have their lovers' babies! We felt very embarrassed and intimidated by the amount of anger we seemed to draw with our simple-minded views on medical research.<br />
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Freedom is a sacred principle and must not be violated on account of any particular interest group's beliefs as opposed to another. Should people be free though to do things that are so far out that it isn't worth the drive to the gamma quadrant, even if such excursions occur at the expense of taxpayers who could pay for the immediate needs of those closer to our doorstep? Should researchers be allowed to spend tax dollars or university research budgets on things like that? Should Ontario finance 'gender reassignment surgery' while it refuses to finance non-emergency dental procedures affecting the health of people of all orientations? It depends on your guiding principles, and this is something our self-centered society with the me-me-me culture will not accept: in our Western culture there seems to be no such thing to our minds as a greater common good than that which seems to be dictated by our own desires, however twisted they may be.<br />
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The idea of infringing on anyone's individual freedom is profoundly repulsive to me - I regularly went to campus in running shoes in my old country during apartheid, and had no fear of Alsatians, tear gas or bullies with rifles or steel-toed boots. It was easy in that context to know the difference between right and wrong - however, in the free world, whose freedom are we talking about, and on whose terms? There is no such thing as absolute freedom in a material, physical world. Everything is relative to everything else. <br />
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Right-wingers in the United States freely use the term "freedom" to denote all kinds of invasive military actions that they would endorse in other countries and other cultures; they say that these things ought to be done in the name of freedom. One person's "freedom" is another one's horror - illustrated clearly by the example of the students who wanted to be "free" to become pregnant as men, as opposed to our visceral reaction of revulsion at such an unnatural thought. Does our certainty of our understanding of the meaning of the term 'freedom' entitle us to invade other countries with religious beliefs that may contradict our notions of freedom? Ironically enough, these very same right wingers may find in those invaded countries folks who share their family values ...<br />
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Who is right in these debates? We can only agree on them if we all adhere to the same higher principle which would guide our sense of aesthetics, our taste, our sense of what is appropriate or inappropriate - in short, if we shared the same spiritual values. There are things that militate against godliness and if we actively cultivate sensibilities that do so, we will find ourselves with a confusing moral relativism and no clear guidelines as to right and wrong, which is exactly what we have at the moment. This gives rise to disagreements among cultures and ultimately to armed conflict which we fail to mediate appropriately for lack of understanding of the guiding principles involved. <br />
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While we feared for the rights of a marginal group in the African context (witness the plight of gays in Zimbabwe and other African countries even today) here in Canada the steel-toed boot at present seems to be on the other foot. <br />
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To say that this issue is not simple, is the understatement of the year. I am reminded of Brent Spiner's adage for Star Trek fans (whom he regards, on the whole, as a particularly intelligent group of people): "seek simplicity, but mistrust it." The Lord knows, I seek simplicity with all my heart - but, do I trust what passes for simplicity in this world? Hell no, of course not! So, he is right. None of these issues are simple, clear-cut or easy to define. <br />
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I am prepared to say that I would vociferously defend the right of a gay person to identify as gay and to be left in peace to do whatever it is gay people do to other gay people, and not to be bullied because of it. You know how Voltaire said that thing about how he may disagree with someone but would defend their right to say whatever it is they are saying ... likewise, people have the right to be whatever they want to be if they believe that it makes them happy. However, if I were to trust the simplistic oversimplication of the gay rights issue in its current form as espoused especially by our public school boards and various feminazi pressure groups, I should have to consider myself a simpleton.<br />
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At the moment the gay pride event in Toronto is ten days of non-stop in-your-face as-gay-as-it-gets action in the streets, and I started wondering if it is going to be a fortnight soon. After that, a month and before you know it, it will be gay pride year from January to December and there will not be a single day left for straight folks to be proud of themselves. I mean, we already don't have any particular day to be proud of ourselves - should we start considering one? Most straight girls would not go for that, because if we danced buck naked in the streets and started engaging in outrageous heterosexual behaviour such as threatening to go down on our boyfriends and husbands or doing the reverse cowgirl and other things such as the ones Dakota taught us in <i>Fresh Hell </i>- things that we never even heard of before - if we did all those things on Straight Pride Day in the streets, we think we might get in big trouble. We might even get accused of reverse sexual harassment! <br />
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As for the men, we would not want to see our husbands and boyfriends spend any particular night in the slammer when they could be spending it with us instead. We fear that Straight Pride Day may have disastrous consequences if we should organize such a day, and so none of us feel entitled to do so. I would not even dream of it if I were a man. In the Toronto Star we have seen an article where a man is accused of having taken a "swipe" at a woman's breast. She of course takes the matter to human rights and anybody who will listen, and the Toronto Star always listens with pointy ears at these appalling injustices. This was not a matter of accidentally brushing against her breast, you understand: "it was a swipe!" she exclaims to the paper and I can just see her at the human rights board and in Court too, tearfully: "it was a swipe, your honour" (*strategic sniffle*) ...<br />
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Swipes are not the only Incidents that can get you in trouble if you are a straight man who should accidentally commit the Fatal Error of being attracted to an attractive woman who might even feel the same about you. Even looks can do it. I distinctly remember my first year in this city, about a quarter century ago, fresh from my four-year immersion course in student radicalism and steeped in Marxist-Feminist analysis (just so y'all know I have in fact been taught how to analyze things and it is not for lack of education that I flirt with being called "bigoted") when there was the case of The Professor Who Looked. <br />
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A respected U of T professor was disgraced by a female student who had brought charges against him for "looking" at her in the university swimming pool. The fact that she was wearing next to nothing in the swimming pool counted for nothing. The professor was forever to be known for the fact that he had committed a Fatal Error: he <i>looked</i>. <br />
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I realized right away that there was something profoundly wrong with this new society I found myself in, but I was not sure exactly what the cause of it was. I wanted to live in Pierre Trudeau's "Just Society" but there was nothing just about the hostility towards the male of the species that manifested in so many areas of life. Others feel it too - particularly men. In fact, some men from my old country eventually went back to the old country where men are still men and sheep are ... real sheep, not cloned ones as far as we know. They said some eloquent things. One of the things involves the hostility of many women here and a saying about a bucket full of rusty nails that I will not repeat here again ... ask the people of Cape Town about that ... Oh allright, I'll repeat it for those who have not seen it before: it's that the men of certain parts of the Cape would rather immerse a certain part of their anatomy in a bucket of rusty nails than (circum)venturing in the immersion of that same part of the anatomy in certain females who share certain characteristics with the vast majority of our grrl-powered women here ... let's just say Mean Girls do not do as well in my country of origin as they seem to do here.<br />
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Many men, both locally raised and imported ones, do not find much empathy in the local females; yet the more we espouse 'Girl Power' at the expense of, and to the detriment of men, the more single women complain of being unable to find a partner anywhere in the GTA, let alone the City of Toronto itself. I now know that the thing that creeped me out in my first year here and still does, is a matter of PC Gone Haywire ... no, not your Personal Computer but the other PC that is much more dangerous if it goes haywire: Political Correctness.<br />
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There is a definite connection in my view between the effects of dogmatic radical feminism and the apparent prevalence of homosexuality in this culture. A NOW magazine survey on sexuality in the City of Toronto a few years ago already showed a disproportionate and apparently inexplicable increase in the numbers of men who identify as gay. Coincidence? I think not. <br />
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In the immediate wake of 9/11, several prominent female journalists in Toronto, notably without boyfriends, salivated publicly in their columns at the thought of firefighters because they were suddenly imbued with a new aura of coolness. Real men. The kind who would clean up Ground Zero, buy us roses, and not be a cotton' pickin' little bit proud of anything in particular on Gay Pride Day ... or week, or fortnight ... Coincidence? I think not.ANNESU DE VOShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00888752639981732920noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9052462291475329901.post-70289384974281491832012-04-12T01:17:00.000-07:002012-04-12T01:17:43.059-07:00<b>upon arrival</b><br />
<br />
and always she feared<br />
her God would<br />
be cruel, but<br />
when she got to heaven<br />
she saw Him<br />
in full glory,<br />
not growling at her<br />
after all<br />
<br />
'Annemie, here you are now'<br />
He smiles at her<br />
'yes, I am the Lord<br />
your God<br />
the One whom you hunted<br />
down with a vexed heart<br />
of whom you have read<br />
in the sacred text<br />
<br />
'please get yourself<br />
a cup of tea<br />
and have some cake<br />
and eat it too'<br />
<br />
she could not believe her eyes<br />
but it was Him, and it was true<br />
<br />
'Yes, I am still who I am<br />
and you are still you, too'<br />
<br />
in tears transcendent<br />
she went to embrace him<br />
and He took her hand,<br />
gently suggesting that<br />
'we still have a whole eternity<br />
in which to chat'<br />
<br />
- Annesu de Vos<br />
12 April 2012<br />
Occasional poem for my mother's funeralANNESU DE VOShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00888752639981732920noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9052462291475329901.post-43048782127772822922012-04-12T00:19:00.000-07:002012-04-12T00:19:36.309-07:00Poem for my mother's funeral (Afrikaans version)<b>met die intrapslag</b><br />
<br />
en altyd was sy bang<br />
haar God sou wreed<br />
wees, maar<br />
toe sy in die hemel kom<br />
sien sy vir Hom<br />
in al sy glorie,<br />
grom Hy toe<br />
hoegenaamd nie vir haar nie<br />
<br />
'Annemie, hier is jy nou'<br />
glimlag Hy vir haar<br />
'ja, Ek is die Here<br />
jou God<br />
die Een wie jy so gesoek het<br />
met 'n seer siel<br />
en van wie jy gelees het<br />
in die heilige boek<br />
<br />
'kry gerus vir jou<br />
'n koppie tee<br />
en eet daarmee saam<br />
'n stukkie koek'<br />
<br />
sy kon haar oē nie glo nie<br />
maar dit was wel waaragtig Hy<br />
<br />
'ja, Ek is nog Ek<br />
en jy is nog jy'<br />
<br />
met trane van blydskap<br />
wou sy vir Hom omhels<br />
en Hy het haar hand gevat,<br />
sagkens vir haar beduie<br />
'ons het nog 'n hele ewigheid<br />
om te kan gesels'<br />
<br />
- Annesu de Vos<br />
12 April 2012<br />
Geleentheidsgedig by haar ma se begrafnisANNESU DE VOShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00888752639981732920noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9052462291475329901.post-35315588609069986992011-07-20T23:48:00.000-07:002011-07-20T23:49:56.418-07:00Beach Jazz Festival This Weekend!The annual <a href="http://www.beachesjazz.com">Beach Jazz Festival </a>is considered the best street party in Toronto, and it is one of the top 10 jazz festivals in the world. The street party is this weekend, starting tonight - July 21 through Sunday July 24. Queen Street is cordoned off for this event and the bands play at various venues down the road. This festival is a great Beach tradition which residents of the area are very proud of. I lived in the Beach for years, and like many who have lived in this beautiful part of Toronto, still consider it my favourite area of the city. Viva will be experiencing this exciting event this year with renewed <i>joie de vivre </i>... and we hope that everybody enjoys it as much as we will.<br />
<br />
- DJ GigiANNESU DE VOShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00888752639981732920noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9052462291475329901.post-57553607246408138982011-07-16T09:24:00.000-07:002011-07-16T12:24:05.435-07:00Live Green Toronto!Every year, the City of Toronto has environment days on Saturdays hosted by Toronto City Councillors taking turns to invite the entire neighbourhood to an environment-themed party. This is an annual tradition that continues for the entire summer. Having a green street festival is a logical development for the city that prides itself on being the greenest in North America. <br />
<br />
Mayor Miller, who was very supportive of green initiatives for the duration of his term leading the City, started a friendly competition with Chicago to see which city could be the most environment-friendly. Gigi has never been to Chicago, but I can certainly vouch for Toronto as far as environmental track record is concerned. There is always room for improvement, but Toronto tries really hard to make sure we live as responsibly as possible. <br />
<br />
Today we are visitng the <a href="http://www.toronto.ca/greentorontofestival">Live Green Toronto </a>street party showcasing more than 100 environment-friendly vendors and also some of Canada's great bands - see the Crash Test Dummies and other performers on the Canadian Tire main stage, free of charge! Yonge Street will be cordoned off between Queen and Dundas for the festival, directly next to the Eaton Centre. Come along and join the fun!ANNESU DE VOShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00888752639981732920noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9052462291475329901.post-29755195163553188472011-07-05T21:23:00.000-07:002011-07-05T23:15:58.769-07:00Welcoming Annarosa Berman - New Addition to Viva Staff!Viva Community Voice is delighted to announce the addition of Annarosa Berman as content contributor. Her area of specialization is art music and she is also a committed animal rights activist and vegetarian, currently working on her third book which is due to appear in about six months. Annarosa will bring fresh content to our site in the areas of music, food, animal rights and other topics of interest. We greatly look forward to what she has in store for us.<br />
<br />
<b>Publishing History</b><br />
<br />
Annarosa Berman is a writer and music journalist. After a career as features editor on newspapers in South Africa and New Zealand, she was appointed editor of Fine Music, Sydney’s classical music magazine and guide to radio station 2MBS-FM. After leaving Fine Music she undertook a career as writer and freelance journalist. Annarosa has written on classical music for a wide range of publications and has interviewed local and international musical luminaries across the classical spectrum. She collaborated with Bridget Elliot on The Company We Keep, a behind-the-scenes look at Opera Australia, which was published by Currency Press in 2006. In the same year, her memoir, Sex at 6pm: A personal journey through IVF, was published by New Holland. <br />
<br />
Annarosa currently works as writer for Opera Australia.ANNESU DE VOShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00888752639981732920noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9052462291475329901.post-70848716619308947142011-07-04T09:27:00.000-07:002011-07-04T09:35:21.320-07:00Aubergine ParmigianaI promised my wonderful husband this recipe for our July 4 celebration dinner, and I really have to commend him for staying up all night with me and listening to my chatter as I cooked. We listened to music too - click the music tab on our new web site and let me know if you like it! - and we had a great time together while preparing this meal to share with you.<br />
<br />
Here is my other signature dish - aubergines of course are also known as eggplants or brinjals; now we all may know what to do with those odd purple things. I have been serving it for more than a quarter century ever since I found it, and you will be amazed at how it was found ... it was declared ultra yummy even by a guest who had told me that he was not fond of aubergines - that was before he ate this. <br />
<br />
Eggplant Parmigiana is an Italian classic, and the Mediterranean flavours in this dish are truly stunning - this version is a little bit decadent because the eggplant slices are fried rather than grilled before they are baked, but since we do not eat much saturated fat as vegetarians and extra virgin olive oil is extraordinarily good for you, the extra calories can be happily forgiven on a festive occasion such as this.<br />
<br />
2 large firm aubergines (or 4 small to medium ones)<br />
extra virgin olive oil<br />
6 cloves garlic, crushed<br />
1 tsp dried oregano<br />
1 tsp dried basil<br />
1 medium sized can of tomato puree (1 - 2 small cans of tomato paste can be substituted since tomato puree is harder to find; adjust the quantities by adding more wine to the sauce if you use the more concentrated form)<br />
salt to taste and freshly ground black pepper<br />
.5 - 1 cup red wine<br />
3 cups freshly grated Parmesan cheese<br />
1.5 cup dried breadcrumbs<br />
2 organic free-range eggs<br />
1 cup all-purpose flour<br />
1 tbsp organic milk<br />
250g grated rennet-free organic mozzarella cheese<br />
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Note: soy parmesan works just as well if you are vegan, but make sure it is organic soy if you opt for the vegan version (same goes for your mozzarella) because you do not want GMOs; now we see how hard it is to be truly vegetarian and GMO-free all at the same time. <br />
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Soy is a wonderfully versatile commodity but the crop is at present somewhat exploited by global overproduction and it actually can be harmful if eaten in excessive quantities, for reasons too complex to elucidate here. I will admit that rennet-free parmesan is a tall order but if we eat cheese with rennet in it, we might as well eat milk-fed veal; it defeats the point of going vegetarian. One has to become a bit of a "foodie" and learn to hunt down trustworthy and educated suppliers who can provide quality products. Yes they are expensive; we pay for our principles in this life, sometimes dearly. (Have you hugged a local organic farmer today?)<br />
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1. Slice the aubergines into 5 mm thin slices.<br />
2. Beat the eggs with the milk to a smooth mixture.<br />
3. Coat the aubergine slices with flour.<br />
4. Dip the slices in the egg mixture; coat them evenly, you do not want any dry patches of flour on them.<br />
5. Coat the slices evenly in bread crumbs - avoid clumps; this is tricky. At the end of the coating process you will have a huge sticky mess everywhere, but it is fun to do if you have someone adorable to help you. This dish takes a while to do and it is nice if you can talk and drink wine and listen to music while you do the prep work together.<br />
6. Heat the olive oil in a pan and fry the slices on both sides to an even golden brown consistency.<br />
7. Layer the slices in a casserole dish.<br />
8. Mix the tomato puree, the garlic, dried basil and oregano, salt, pepper and wine in a bowl until it is evenly blended to form a smooth sauce, not too runny.<br />
9. Sprinkle the mozzarella cheese evenly over the eggplant slices.<br />
10. Drizzle the sauce over the mozzarella cheese evenly on all sides.<br />
11. Sprinkle the grated parmesan cheese over the top of the sauce.<br />
12. Preheat oven to 190°C/375°F/gas 5 and bake for 30 - 45 mins.<br />
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Serve with Bocconcini Sidekick salad - a simple Italian salad consisting of mixed greens, sliced tomatoes or whole cherry tomatoes, black olives and sliced bocconcini cheese. Toss with a pinch of kosher salt and fresh ground black pepper, a splash of balsamic vinegar and a splash of extra virgin olive oil.<br />
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This recipe was adapted from an ancient treasure found on the label of an All Gold tomato puree can in South Africa more than a quarter century ago. Like the chowder, it has been with me ever since and it tastes slightly different every time, depending on the exact balance of the ingredients used. It is always delicious and satisfying - I told my husband it is better than pizza. I once served sizeable quantities of it to a huge party of wonderful people during my student radical days in which I was, as I am now, a committed vegetarian.<br />
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My philosophy teacher from Wits U, Vincent Maphai, who later became the head of SABC (South African Broadcasting Corporation, the state television service) was at that party - he taught philosophical logic, a subject I love and which has helped me more in life than any other subject I can think of - and so was my favourite theologian, Jeff Zerbst who wrote the horseracing column in the Weekly Mail as Thomas Equinus. Jeff described himself as agnostic and taught all the coffee and cigarette addicts in Senate House Concourse about the difference between atheism and consistent scientific agnosticism: a lesson I would never forget. <br />
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Atheism, he explained, is a form of religion in that it is based on an article of faith: the statement that God does not exist. Atheists believe themselves to know this for sure without any actual evidence to prove the non-existence of God; therefore atheism conforms to the definition of a religion - unlike, for example, existentialism or Buddhism (in translation Buddh means "good" so it can be translated simply as "goodism") which are philosophies rather than religions.<br />
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I was agnostic myself at the time, simply because I thought that if God had anything to do with apartheid He either could not exist or something else was wrong with what I had been taught. I strongly suspected it was the latter rather than the former, so I could describe my student self as a somewhat reverent agnostic, although we all routinely, and rather irreverently indulged in the habit of mocking all the religions on the face of the planet. We used to sing "Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Hare Rama Rama Soft" in the Concourse - a brand of margarine in SA was called Rama Soft and for some reason this gave infinite rise to hilarity. You had to have been there. We were never above accepting free vegetarian food from orange-clad visitors to campus though, and I was fascinated by the free copy of Bhagavad-Gita that was handed to me in the process ...<br />
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The Dutch Reformed church (the institution bearing responsibility in my book for my childish confusion) subsequently discovered to its apparent collective amazement that God never did "vote Nat" as they said. The things that are ascribed to God by human beings are sometimes so outrageous that if I were God, I definitely would pretend not to exist just so I can have a good laugh at their expense instead of having them laugh at me all the time in my apparent absence from their poorly defined excuse for an existence.<br />
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I believe that we humans owe God a massive apology for all the garbage in our history and in our oceans and lakes, and that when we eat, the best way to say grace is to think about the wonder of the biodiversity that is still on this planet despite the destructive impact of humans upon it, and to thank God for the versatile soybean, the powerhouse tomato, the awesome aubergine and everything else created for our benefit and enjoyment. <br />
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Let's face it: despite the efforts of the Monsanto madmen to "patent" the genetic sequences of our food after messing with the natural patterns in dangerous ways, we humans did not create our food and we have no copyrights to its building blocks; we found it here - it was conveniently here for our consumption before we understood any part of its DNA, almost as if a thoughtful parent had left it here for us to eat. <br />
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Halaal food is blessed by saying "Allah uAkbar" (God is gracious) and kosher food is defined by a set of intricate dietary laws that are remarkably scientific in their foundations when we consider that the ancients supposedly did not know any of the things we know about food today, for example the fact that pork carries a very dangerous parasite that is capable of destroying the human brain. Pigs are genetically so close to humans that pork is dangerous for similar reasons as to why we do not eat our colleagues and friends - brain damage is a well-known consequence of that habit. Islamic law forbids pork for the same reason; how did both religious traditions become informed about these things in the absence of the scientific knowledge that is at our disposal today, and what is the source of their information? Of course all meat is dangerous and likely to cause degenerative brain conditions (what passes for "Alzheimer's" in today's medical language is very often the human version of mad cow disease, but big agribusiness does not want you to know that, and for some reason the medical establishment cooperates with other powerful establishments - Gigi does not know why!) ... and so how can a merciful God "allow" such conditions to plague the human race? Why, because it is a lawless race: the consumption of meat causes us to break a fundamental universal spiritual law - "thou shalt not kill." The Bible teaches that the consequence of such lawlessness is physical mortality - but, for those who do not understand or respect spiritual laws it is all a big mystery. <br />
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I used to say during my student days that I was vegetarian strictly for compassionate reasons - nothing in particular to do with health. However, health and compassion go hand in hand, and compassion includes passion rather than excluding it as falsely taught by many ascetics who believe in self-denial as a path to understanding. <br />
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Gigi does not believe in self-denial or in the virtue of suffering; I believe in embracing the gifts God gave us and achieving understanding by seeking pleasure in a gracious way. Our enjoyment of the things that are given to us by a loving Creator is in fact key to the Creator's own happiness. And there you have it: the meaning of life! (Did I hear someone say like Monsieur Creosote in that meaningful movie ... f* off, I'm full? Gigi giggles ...)<br />
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- DJ GigiANNESU DE VOShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00888752639981732920noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9052462291475329901.post-32558023477478331332011-07-04T03:38:00.000-07:002011-07-04T05:06:57.688-07:00Tomato Corn Chowder3 large potatoes, finely diced<br />
3 leeks, thinly sliced and finely chopped<br />
3 large carrots, finely diced<br />
3 sticks celery, finely diced<br />
6 cloves garlic, finely chopped<br />
Kernels of 6 fresh cobs of corn - remove kernels by slicing off sides<br />
* If using frozen corn, use entire package of up to 1 kg - alternatively, use 3 - 6 cans. Do not drain the can; include the corn water for nutrients but do not use creamed version as we want the kernels to be light and slightly crunchy.<br />
6 medium sized tomatoes - choose heirloom, organic or hothouse<br />
1 tbsp organic extra virgin olive oil<br />
French vegetable stock - use entire quantity as per previous recipe<br />
500 ml organic half & half (cream with 10% milkfat content)<br />
Kosher salt to taste<br />
Cayenne (red) pepper to taste<br />
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1. Saute all the vegetables except the tomatoes and the corn,<br />
together in the olive oil in a large soup stock pot or Dutch oven for about 20 minutes until golden brown. If you do not have leeks, onions will work just fine. Use 1 large onion or up to 3 small to medium ones as onions tend to "disappear" in the cooking process. You can also do both for a slight flavour variation. Leeks look and taste beautiful in the soup though, so do try to find them if at all possible.<br />
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2. During step 1, prepare the tomatoes as follows. Fill a stainless steel bowl or pot with boiled water and let the tomatoes sit in them until their peels start falling off. Then lift them carefully out of the hot water and let them cool down. Peel the skins off the tomatoes. I have been known to skip this step and simply to chop the tomatoes, which works fine but some people object to the tomato skins so the correct way is to remove the skins by blanching as described. Do not let them sit for too long though or they will get soggy. After they are blanched, chop them into small pieces. The original recipe said to remove the pulp as well for similar reasons since some folks object to the seeds - I do not do that as the pulp is nutritious and there is no need to discard it in fact; it gets absorbed in the soup and no-one notices the seeds.<br />
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3. Add the stock, chopped tomatoes and corn kernels and bring to a boil. Simmer on medium heat for about half an hour. <br />
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4. Add the cream and adjust the seasoning to taste. Cayenne pepper is very hot - use only a small pinch for flavour. The original recipe said to use white pepper; I use cayenne (red) because it goes beautifully with cream and has a unique flavour. Also, freshly ground black pepper works just as well, so just use what you have or experiment with different flavours. <br />
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You can add about 1 tbsp of kosher salt for such a large pot of soup, but be sure to measure conservatively and adjust very carefully by adding very small amounts at a time if you increase the amount. Also bear in mind the quantity of salt you have in your stock when you season your soup.<br />
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Serve with fresh home-baked bread and organic butter - no margarine if you can help it; that stuff is just plain evil. Gigi will tell you about that another day - the things they do to canola should not be done to canola or any other self-respecting crop. (Good luck finding margarine made from non-GMO canola or soy - if you know of a brand, please let me know.) Olivina is made (partially) with olive oil so go for that if you must. Read ingredient lists. Not only vegetarians but all consumers are well advised to be aware of the things that are in our food. It seems redundant to say this, but a lot of people trust the things we purchase in supermarkets and we really should not trust big agribusiness at all. Gigi would feel bad if you invested all the time and energy to make a beautiful organic meal like this, having taken the trouble to purchase all your veggies at the organic market and then had it ruined with GM canola in the margarine on your bread - it is worth doing every part of it right. <br />
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To me, if I am going to put it in my mouth it had better be good - as a fairly advanced almost-yogi I am virtually capable of existing without food, so if I do eat, I believe that I should honour my body by what I eat. We only have one body each, and one planet to live on. <br />
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The tomato corn chowder keeps really well - keep it in the fridge of course, unless you are like another environmentalist I know, who does not believe in fridges and uses snow instead ... I would put a smiley but you know we are very serious here, kidding you not - this would only be possible in Canada and not in the summer for most of us! At our farmhouse on the moon we have no problem because it is usually quite chilly outside anyway, on the moon. (It is not for naught that our main family vehicle is called The Iceman.) The soup will last even for a week and the flavour only improves as it sits. You can also freeze it if you want to keep some to hand for special occasions; it freezes well and tastes fine on the re-heat. This is one of the great advantages of vegetarian food; it is economical to make and it keeps much longer than meat-based recipes. <br />
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- DJ GigiANNESU DE VOShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00888752639981732920noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9052462291475329901.post-12694256122727625632011-07-04T01:40:00.000-07:002011-07-04T01:53:22.019-07:00French Vegetable Stock1 large onion, chopped <br />
6 cloves of garlic<br />
1 large turnip, cubed<br />
3 large carrots, sliced<br />
3 large potatoes, cubed<br />
6 celery sticks with leaves, chopped<br />
6 sprigs parsley<br />
6 dried laurel leaves<br />
Kosher salt to taste<br />
Black pepper corns (whole)<br />
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil<br />
Bouquet garni - a little bag of herbs which is like a tea bag with herbs inside<br />
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Note: If you do not have a bouquet garni, you can add any combination of the standard herbs to taste, either fresh or dried. I add about a teaspoonful of each, but it really is up to you. You can subtly alter the flavour of the soup by changing the combination of herbs depending on what you have available. The chowder always tastes delicious, and always slightly different depending how you flavoured it. <br />
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If you add the dried herbs instead of the bouquet, the stock will be delicately flecked with little bits of greenery but that in no wise detracts from the pretty result at the end. If they are fresh herbs you can throw in the sprigs whole because the nutrients are extracted through cooking and it is probably better not to chop them. The more we chop and process foods the more nutrients are removed in the process, so for the stock part you can chop the veggies in bite-sized pieces, they do not have to be finely diced or sliced. Also bear in mind that it gets poured through a colander in the end to separate the veggies from the stock water, so the herbs will slip through but not much else.<br />
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You can really use any of your favourite dried herbs, but I tend to avoid strongly flavoured ones such as fennel. All of the following work well, and do not worry if you do not have them all. The outcome is always good with this stock. Good choices:<br />
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Origanum<br />
Basil<br />
Rosemary<br />
Thyme<br />
Sage<br />
Dried parsley (especially if you do not have fresh parsley sprigs)<br />
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1. In a large soup stock pot or Dutch oven as they are sometimes called, heat the olive oil (careful not to overheat) and add the garlic and onions first, sautéing them until lightly browned. <br />
2. Add the chopped carrots, turnips, potatoes and celery. Save the celery leaves to add at the same time as the parsley sprigs and herbs. <br />
3. Sautée the vegetables for about 15 - 20 minutes until lightly browned. I sometimes use leeks instead of onions, or I use them both if I have extra leeks. Leeks are schleppy because they have to be washed very carefully, they tend to hide bits of earth between their layers of leaves but they are a very nice onion alternative and they also double up their flavours as they are one of the ingredients in the chowder itself. <br />
4. Fill the pot all the way to the top with cold water - please use filtered water, it is worth it. Leave about 2 inches’ worth of room at the top, because when the stock goes to a rolling boil it will splatter over the top if the pot is too full.<br />
5. Add the parsley sprigs, celery and laurel leaves, bouquet of herbs, salt and peppercorns. It is not necessary to add a lot of salt as you will adjust the seasoning of the soup itself at the end of the process. Adding salt helps bring water to a boil faster, and I find that about a tablespoon of salt is enough in a stock pot this size. It is always better to start with too little salt than with too much.<br />
6. Turn to high heat and bring the stock to a rolling boil.<br />
7. When it reaches boiling point the stock will bubble vigorously, so turn back to medium heat and let it simmer evenly for 2 - 3 hours. The heat should not be too low; you should still see small bubbles.<br />
8. When done, let the stock cool down completely before separating the vegetables. The flavours and nutrients will continue to be absorbed in the water and it is safer for the cook to work with tepid or cold stock during the pouring process separating the veggies from the stock water. If you are making your soup the following day, the stock can happily sit in the fridge overnight with the vegetables still inside.<br />
9. When cooled down, take a second stock pot of equal size and pour the stock through a colander into the pot, catching the vegetables in the colander. The original recipe says "discard the vegetables" but please do not throw them in the garbage - compost them instead, the earth loves them but the garbage does not. <br />
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Environmental Note: Food waste should never be put in the garbage but always composted; this is by reason of the fact that food waste in landfills causes a terrible amount of methane which is more damaging to the earth’s ozone layer than even the output of cars. This environmental fact makes it very difficult to live in an earth-friendly fashion if you eat meat at all, because of course meat and bones cannot be composted unless your city has a sophisticated organic waste recycling program such as the one we have in Toronto - and even that program has problems because we produce more than we have the capacity to compost with the facilities we have. <br />
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Some people say the stock veggies are still good enough to be eaten even though we know that this length of boiling takes most of the nutrients out of the veggies and into the water. The British, and also our grandmothers in South Africa, used to cook veggies for a very long time - this has no point as the water takes out almost all the nutrients from most veggies if you boil them for longer than 20 minutes. Same goes for flavour. Your stock will be extremely nutritious and flavourful but the veggies not so much, although they always still look good. If someone thinks of something brilliant to do with them, please let me know. I just don't like the word "discard" where it pertains to food, and many people who have seen the stock veggies have remarked that they still look good enough to eat. We do not use them in the soup itself, because we use fresh finely chopped veggies duplicating some of what we used in the stock, instead and we cook them only for a short time before adding them to the soup. This makes for a magnificent concentrated flavour and maximizes the nutritional value. <br />
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Now your stock is ready to make a stunning array of amazing soups from scratch; not only the corn chowder but many other soups. You can make just about any soup with this. Where recipes say use chicken stock for a vegetable soup, you can always use this magnificent stock for a vegetarian version of the same recipe. Vegetarians should be very careful in restaurants about ordering vegetable soup because 99% of the time it is made with chicken stock; I always ask the restaurant what kind of stock they have used, even for the mushroom soup. Most of the time they tell me the truth. (I can tell when people are lying, but that is not a skill that is easy to cultivate.) The veggie stock can of course also replace meat stock in vegetarian versions of any number of recipes other than soup. And I daresay you can float matzoh balls in it.<br />
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I shall post the corn chowder recipe right after these messages.<br />
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- DJ GigiANNESU DE VOShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00888752639981732920noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9052462291475329901.post-64378331791340499142011-07-03T17:50:00.000-07:002011-07-03T17:50:31.702-07:00Gigi Dishes on DishesHome cooking is very important to me and my husband. Because we are veggie and we know that most restaurants do not source ingredients carefully enough to guarantee vegetarians a meal in good conscience, I prepare most of our meals myself in the kitchen next to the music studio. I love to cook while listening to music and I have some signature dishes which I am sharing with you tonight. <br />
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The Spiners are very environmentally aware as our tweetership knows. We try to be as green as possible - nothing to do with the green-eyed monster and everything to do with loving the planet and treating Mother Earth as she deserves to be treated: with respect and due consideration. We light candles for a romantic meal and I even hand wash our dishes to save energy. <br />
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My husband has the most gorgeous hands in creation - I probably should not mention this because now all his groupies are going to notice that again and start freaking out about it and wanting his hands on their bodies too (which he won’t do - they can carry on dreaming and as we always say, there is no profit in destroying anyone’s fantasies) but, it is a fact. He wants to help me with the dishes but I hide them from him because I just can’t bear to see those sexy hands of his in dish water. Call me a tradishionalist if you wish - that is just how I am: to me, dishes are not for superheroes and even though it is superheroic of my husband to insist on helping out, it is my habit to close the kitchen door discreetly after a romantic meal, and to sneak back into it in the early hours of the morning when I am sure he is soundly asleep. You never know, he might be pretending to be asleep too, but it works for us - he lets me be a control freak about certain things without officially noticing that I am one. I have always been a night owl, and dishes are a great way to get drowsy. He is the only man who has never scolded me about keeping musician time. He knows I do the oddest things at the oddest hours and it makes me happy to be like that because that is just how I am. He lets me be myself and that is one of the great reasons why I love him so much, other than the fact that he is the sexiest husband in the Universe.<br />
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My signature first course is my tomato corn chowder which I, after much agonizing, have decided to share with our loyal tweetership, fans and friends. As for my enemies, this is not the kind of soup you can slap together in a few minutes or pretend to serve by opening a can, and besides, they prefer junk food, so I do not believe there is any danger that they will try to copy my soup. Besides, if they do, it would be a good thing because they might actually manage to find someone of their own to eat with, thereby leaving me and my husband in peace. If they could actually learn to put a decent meal together, their chances of finding the man of their own dreams instead of dreaming in perpetuity about my man, would increase exponentially. <br />
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The tomato corn chowder is originally from the Sunset Vegetarian recipe book - Gigi always gives credit where credit is due - and I have adapted it slightly over the years. I have it memorized and it has been my signature soup since my student days. This soup is very nutritious and satisfying even by itself, especially with home-baked bread (yes, I do that too) and as a first course when I combine it with my other signature dish, the aubergine parmigiana, even meat eaters who do not usually look twice at an eggplant have said that they did not miss the meat course at all. The ingredients are in season for the summer right up to harvest time so they can be sourced locally and of course it stands to reason that I buy organic.<br />
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The tomato corn chowder and all my other soups are made with a French vegetable stock. The secret of the soup is that the flavours from the stock double up with the tiny cubes of fresh hand-cut veggies and corn kernels - I do not use cans or frozen corn unless I am in a really big hurry. <br />
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First of all, I will share with you the stock which forms the basis of the soup, and then the soup recipe itself, followed by the main course and side salad for my festive meal. The stock alone takes about three hours to prepare as there is a lot of cutting and chopping involved, and then it cooks for about two hours to extract all the flavours and nutrients, so this is the kind of meal you could spend a whole weekend preparing while chatting to your lover and doing the food prep together - yes, that part is allowed for the handsome hands to do, but I am even happier if he just holds my back and breathes on my shoulder.<br />
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The stock and the soup both benefit from being kept overnight as this gives an opportunity for the flavours to blend magnificently and for the soup to become even tastier. I usually make a huge pot of this soup and it makes for many tasty lunches to share with our helpers at the studio as well. Yes, when you work for us, we feed you home-cooked food. Some have been known to love working on these musical adventures so much that they have refused to go home at the end of the business day and I have to reassure them that there will be more work - and more soup - the following day. We know this is totally not how it’s done here, but a) it works for us and b) who says we are here? We are everywhere and always with you.<br />
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- DJ GigiANNESU DE VOShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00888752639981732920noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9052462291475329901.post-12910479250904277072011-06-14T15:37:00.000-07:002011-06-14T15:44:54.348-07:00Spumoni CityWho has the best spumoni in Toronto? This is the type of question that fascinates food writers and is of profound interest to owners of such places, not to mention customers and potential customers, so while we will not pronounce on it unless we have tasted it in person, we are happy to start out with a list of potential candidates. <br />
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Toronto is world famous for its Italian ice cream. We only highlight a few places in this article, and we apologize in advance if you own a traditional ice cream shop in the city and we have accidentally left you out. This can be rectified easily by giving us a shout at vivacommunityvoice@gmail.com - if you want to be featured here, let us know about your venture and we would be happy to write about you. <br />
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The Martini district happens to intersect with one of the two areas known as Little Italy: College Street has several very trendy places for both these things.<br />
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We start out with an established family business, <a href="http://sicilianicecream.com">The Sicilian Ice Cream Company</a> at 710 College St. They make their own ice cream, and the <a href="http://sicilianicecream.com/html/sicilian_ice_cream_-_sidewalk_.html">Sicilian Sidewalk Cafe </a>at 712 College has received favourable reviews from established papers who have asked themselves the same question about ice cream in the city. <br />
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<a href="http://www.dolcegelato.net">Dolce Gelato </a>has more than one location and a likewise eye-catching menu. To Gigi, fancy ice cream is not just about taste but also about the "look and feel" - if it looks good, it tastes even better.<br />
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An interesting twist on the Sicilian theme is offered at <a href="http://www.spotlighttoronto.com/site/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3810%3Asureshdoss-heatfixicecreamsandwiches&catid=103%3Acat-writers-sureshdoss&Itemid=225&lang=en">Xococava</a> where you can get your favourite flavour in a brioche sandwich.<br />
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<a href="http://edsrealscoop.com/default.aspx">Ed's Real Scoop</a> is one of the best ice cream shops in Toronto with two locations, one in the Beach and one in the film district (Leslieville). Gigi has tasted their ice cream and it is truly magnificent. They do gelato as well, and it is all handmade from natural ingredients.<br />
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<a href="http://www.blogto.com/restaurants/mad-italian-gelato-toronto">The Mad Italian </a>gets favourable reviews from connoisseurs, and it has an interesting-looking franchise opportunity for entrepreneurs who want to try entering this market without attempting to reinvent the wheel themselves. The owners are from Rome and they have three decades' worth of expertise, so you cannot go wrong if you are an enterprising shop wanting to serve the real deal without making it from scratch yourself.<br />
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For a lovely Italian meal with spumoni as one of the options for dessert, visit one of Toronto's most established restaurants, <a href="http://www.oldspaghettifactory.ca">The Old Spaghetti Factory</a> on the Esplanade. Gigi attended a birthday party there some years ago, and it was lovely. By all accounts it is as good as ever, so it is a reliable place to go for a fun meal.ANNESU DE VOShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00888752639981732920noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9052462291475329901.post-87867025970999372092011-06-09T20:01:00.000-07:002011-06-09T20:49:30.525-07:00Local Tourist AttractionsGigi's getaway suggestions for visitors to beautiful Canada are here!<br />
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For theatre lovers, there is an enticing combination package of theatre and hotel stays that take you out of the city to places of cultural interest in <a href="http://www.ontariotravel.net/TCISSegmentsWeb/gc/TH?language=en&p=1.1.4&_nfpb=true&_nfls=false">Ontario</a>.<br />
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Within <a href="http://www.toronto-theatre.com/">Toronto</a> itself, there are always excellent theatre productions. We will feature some of the best shows in individual postings.<br />
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Gustav likes to keep late hours too when he hangs with us, so we were delighted to see in <a href="http://www.torontolife.com/guide/arts-and-entertainment/classical/">Toronto Life </a>magazine that the Mahler 5 is playing, among other things.<br />
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In addition to the fact that the Toronto International Film Festival has year-round events planned at the new Bell Lightbox and other venues, there is an astonishing number of exciting film events in the city. For a list, see the helpful <a href="http://www.toronto.ca/tfto/festivals.htm">City of Toronto </a>guide.<br />
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Toronto is restaurant city. It is impossible to publish any definitive exhaustive list of all the beautiful choices in this city for interesting, healthy and exotic things to eat, so we are just putting an appetizer list here, for starters. Some of the better known star attractions are listed on the <a href="http://www.toprestaurants.com/Toronto/Toronto.htm">Top Restaurants </a>site. <br />
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The City of Toronto web site has a well organized list of <a href="http://www.toronto.ca/links.htm#attractions">attractions</a> and genereal information of interest about the city.<br />
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Peter Ustinov once called Toronto "New York Run by the Swiss." This is a very accurate description of a well managed, clean, well organized, safe and healthy city. <br />
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For places to stay, there are wonderful options other than <a href="http://luxury.booking.com/city/ca/toronto.en.html?aid=340631;label=city-toronto-Ba6LbdQ5z8iTLW2_yNsmUAS12424040385;ws=">hotels</a> - Toronto has some very nice <a href="http://www.bbcanada.com/ontario/greater_toronto_area/toronto">bed and breakfast </a>locations within the city itself, as well as <a href="http://www.delsuites.com/index.php?gclid=CKe84JuqqqkCFYS8KgodRzT7KQ">furnished apartments </a>at competitive rates. We will list more of these in separate postings.<br />
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These are the basic facts about Toronto, but to get more out of the city one should know that there are many hidden attractions known to residents that are not regularly featured as tourist attractions, such as extraordinary parks and recreation facilities, culture-specific neighbourhoods with very diverse dining choices, North America's best loved and most frequently used library network, a vast array of community centres in all neighbourhoods, and events of socio-political and cultural interest. The city welcomes entrepreneurs and especially the entertainment industry, with open arms. Toronto is actively seeking new partnerships in the film and television industry and there are excellent tax incentives for filmmakers, both local and international. <br />
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Fun facts about the city include the fact that it is the most multicultural city on the planet: more than 50% of its residents are from other countries and more than 100 languages are spoken in the city on a regular basis. That is why it is so nice to be from elsewhere when you are here, because the fact is, most of us are.ANNESU DE VOShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00888752639981732920noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9052462291475329901.post-801972830861211352011-06-07T17:04:00.000-07:002011-06-09T20:40:55.845-07:00The Grande Bold TestWe are pleased to report that we have found two Starbucks locations in Toronto so far, where they actually leave room for cream. The Grande Bold Test was administered at the Starbucks across from City Hall, which is located right inside the TD Bank with a pavement patio on Bay St. Not only did the barista not ask whether we wanted room for cream, she voluntarily left at least 2 centimetres' worth of room. We were able to add cream with no difficulties, and the grande bold was quite pleasant, not excessively strong for our wake-up requirements.<br />
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At 250 Queen St West, across from City TV - an excellent location for a Starbucks - we likewise were given room for cream no questions asked, but there were a couple of other issues which were of interest to us. There is a nice patio outside, and we went to do the Grande Bold Test on a Sunday evening. We took care to ensure that the store hours were as advertised on the web (closing 11 p.m.) by actually calling to confirm this as we know full well that not everything you see on the web is always as you find it IRL. The barista confirmed an 11 p.m. closing time and DJ Gigi, who is notorious for keeping musician time and who likes to stay up late, was delighted with this ostensibly unTorontonian hour. To her amazement, the barista started closing the shop at 10 p.m., and when reminded that we had actually taken the trouble to call and verify the web hours, she insisted that she had told us it was 10 p.m. She said, "it is on our door" and we did not bother to explain to her that one's virtual door should, if at all possible, show the same information as one's actual door if one wants one's coffee-wired customers from the Internet world to be happy at all times. We do not like to tell you this, but she was quite rude to Gigi who always, in these situations, looks like a deer caught in the headlights of a streetcar.<br />
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To make matters more interesting, Gigi had to go to the Second Cup across the road earlier - a great coffee shop by the way, try it any time when you are in Toronto! - to visit the powder room, because Starbucks, to our astonishment, had an "out of service" note on theirs, and upon enquiry the barista told us that it would be fixed only two days later. A grande bold has a way of liquidating itself rather quickly, so Gigi had no choice but to leave her coffee on the table and to step across the road. The Second Cup compassionately gave Gigi the key and asked no questions even though their washroom door clearly states that it is for Second Cup customers only. (Well of course, Gigi is a Second Cup customer too, and they can consider themselves favourably reviewed for these purposes.) That is what is called "goodwill" in business. Be nice to Gigi, and she will write something nice about you. <br />
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Gigi then went back to Starbucks to finish the grande bold, which stood under guard from those sexy American satellites. We have to note also, for the sake of loyalty to the truth even though we want to be nice to all coffee shops if at all possible, that the Starbucks in question, while leaving room for cream, only had half-and-half available on the display stand at the time. With that amount of room for cream, full cream is probably a better idea and one should give the customers options at all times, but it still tasted fine. <br />
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Toronto is a great city to visit and Gigi wishes to ensure that all our coffee shops are polite to all their customers at all times. We sometimes get very, very important visitors from other cities, and even other countries. You just never know who you might be serving, or worse: whose *wife* you may be serving, and women talk a lot more than men, so ladies, be nice, especially to other ladies. They could be musicians who double up as writers in their spare time. You just never know. Could be married to a ruler from a foreign country for all you know. You just must not assume that just because they look like a deer caught in the headlights who could not say "boo" to a goose, that you might not wake up in the middle of the night dreaming that you are a goose and that someone just said, "boo." The moral of the story: do not be loosie-goosie with your cloakroom facilities and never, ever speak in a bossy, disrespectful tone to a customer, or be argumentative, whether you believe you are right, or not. Remember the old adage: "the customer is always right." I said 11, she says she said 10 on the phone - now what if I had said to an extremely important man to meet me there *between* 10 and 11? What then?<br />
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We shall agree to disagree, but she could still have said it in an agreeable way instead of the typical high-handed and unfriendly manner I have seen so often in this great world-class city. If we claim to be friendly, polite people here in Canada, we should live up to the claim. The rest of Canada gets really annoyed with Toronto because of this, and they tell me that this is the reason why Toronto is called "hogtown" by some. I say aww, but isn't it also Toronto the Good? I have spoken to people from New Brunswick and Newfoundland and Halifax for example, and also out west, who say no, this is the very reason why it is still called hogtown, because a lot of folks here have the manners of hogs.<br />
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Hey Toronto: be the best Toronto you can be. Yes it is true that we specialized in the bacon trade in our past history, but we can put this behind us and choose instead to be Toronto the Good. You are what you eat: go easy on the bacon and to paraphrase Wil Wheaton, "do not be a hog." He says something else instead of hog, but Gigi is a lady and she tries to speak in a manner that befits the beardless sex. (Well, most of the time.)<br />
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Furthermore, if you are a franchise in a demand location with only one washroom and your washroom breaks down, do not put a note on the door saying "out of service" and then tell the customers that it will be fixed two days later. This is Toronto, and we are a world class city, remember? <br />
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Starbucks, it was not our intention to diss-cover these inconvenient truths when we came to administer the simple Grande Bold Test. We just want to help you give the same great service at all your locations. So just to show you that we are nice, helpful people, Gigi took the trouble to look up a service for you that you could use, next time your bathroom facilities go "out of service" for reasons unknown to the unsuspecting customer. We take it for granted for these purposes that it was a real plumbing breakdown requiring the expertise of a professional, and not just a matter of your own staff not getting around to it in a timely fashion.<br />
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Roto Rooter - please see <a href="http://bit.ly/jFiylZ ">http://bit.ly/jFiylZ </a>- is a 24 hour plumbing service in Toronto. According to my research, they are extremely efficient and there is no extra charge for them to show up after hours or weekends. They can reinstate the service quickly in commercial as well as residential "out of service" washrooms, so you will never have to tell your customer again, "it will be fixed in two days." The correct answer is, "it will be fixed in two hours." (Say that anyway, just so your customer can believe in you, whether you have actually booked the plumber or not.) DJ Gigi did this research for you, as a matter of goodwill.<br />
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We shall keep you posted on the results of the ongoing Grande Bold Test from time to time.<br />
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- by DJ GigiANNESU DE VOShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00888752639981732920noreply@blogger.com0