Can you find me in this picture?
Have I told you lately that I love you? I mean, wow. How lucky can a girl be to have friends like you? You guys are just too awesome for words. Truly. I don’t even know what to say. Can I have you all over for dinner? (Actually, I have a plan for that. But I’ll tell you tomorrow.)
I couldn’t keep myself from popping to A) say thanks, you made me feel exactly like this photo, only more teary, B) I can’t believe how many F-bombs have been dropped here in the past 12 hours – it’s kind of like hearing your mom swear for the first time, and getting all giggly over it. Also, C) I want to share the news of a new project that has evolved since this morning into something real and exciting, thanks to you: you’ve inspired me to get over my damn self and go do something positive, to (at the risk of sounding syrupy and cliché) spread the love you’ve spread all over this blog like a thick layer of Nutella. (As someone put it via email: don’t let the poobumbottoms get you down! Mike and I have been walking around saying that all night. It may just be my new mantra.)
I stepped back and shuffled things into perspective, and channeled my energies toward doing something to help those in need in Haiti.
The alarm went off at 7 this morning, just in time for the world news. I lay there, puffy-eyed from the night before, listening to the latest on what’s going on. It’s one of those awful situations made even more frustrating by the helplessness of it all – to be so far away, unable to just go and dig through the rubble. The options seem limited to financial support via various organizations, which is fine, but I want to do more. Do something. It occurred to me that I should what I know, and draw on the resources I know. (I always remember Scott Thompson from Kids in the Hall dressed as the Queen, advising some other character in whatever sketch it was to write what you know! And so when I think of this advice it’s always in a high-pitched Scott Thompson voice with a bad British accent.) I know food, and recipes, and cookbooks. I know fantastic food writers and bloggers all over the world, I know food media, and I have a wonderful, supportive, uplifting audience. I could act as a sort of catalyst and mobilize a larger group, drawing on their talents to make a bigger impact. I could do that. And I know how many people out there are as frustrated as I am, wanting to do something but not knowing what.
So remember Band Aid? I’m launching Blog Aid. By 7:30 this morning I had registered the domain www.blogaid.org, and here’s my plan: I’m connecting with my favorite food writers and bloggers to gather recipes and photos to compile in a cookbook to actually publish and sell, with 100% of proceeds going to Haitian relief.
I have graphic designer and editor friends who have volunteered their time and are standing by to get to work, and I’ll be hunting down a printer or printers to donate (or at least slash prices on) their services. (Know anyone?) I emailed Chef Michael Smith right away with a rambling note summing up the above, and (not surprisingly) before noon he called me back and left a long message saying yes, absolutely, he’s one-hundred-percent on board with this in any way I need him to be, despite the fact that he’s already doing a Haitian fundraising dinner this Monday before he leaves for Whistler to prep for the Olympics. What a guy.
Since then I’ve had equally earnest replies from Shauna and Danny of Gluten-free Girl and the Chef, Matt of Matt Bites, Helen of Tartelette, Melissa of The Travelers’ Lunchbox, Catharine of Weelicious, Tara of Seven Spoons, Tea of Tea & Cookies, Jess of Sweet Amandine, Brooke of Tongue-n-Cheeky, Pierre of Kitchen Scraps and Aimée of Under the High Chair among others, all saying the same: absolutely! what can I do? Yet more evidence of how much good there is in people. So now I have to get moving on it. Fast.
Of course the Canadian government has promised to match all donations made by Canadians to the Red Cross and other relief efforts, so we’ll be able to double what we raise. Just think: if we together (not just here – don’t worry – but through our collective blogs, Twitter and Facebook) sold a thousand books at $25 each, that’s $25,000 – which would then be doubled to $50,000, all going to Haiti via the Red Cross. I wonder if Mike realizes he’s going to be shipping all these books?
My hope is that by next week we’ll all have buttons up on our blogs linked to a PayPal site where people can actually order the book, with the caveat that it will get shipped just as soon as they come off the printer.
So there you go. Thank you for fortifying me.
And sorry, I’ve derailed from delivering you any sort of food news and recipes, haven’t I? Just pull that frozen pizza out and pop it in the oven – go ahead, I give you a free pass.
January 14 2010 | leftovers | 99 Comments »
I have a hard time writing about anything other than what’s going in Haiti today, but I know you’re all waiting for an update on A. B. So I’ll go ahead and fill you in on the nitty and the gritty.
Wardrobe issues aside, it went well. I didn’t throw up, nor pass out. I did forget some of my best jokes, but that tends to happen when you’re standing alone on stage in front of 2000 people (chefs and foodies and friends and peers – people in Calgary whose opinion I care about) and on top of it Mr. Anthony Bourdain is watching you from stage right.
But here, let me backtrack and spin you the whole tale.
Before the show I went for dinner with Greg van Poppel, the executive chef from the Fairmont Palliser hotel, and his wife Sarah, who were completely fantastic. They were the winning bidders on the package we auctioned off on CBC before Christmas, and they donated a pile of dineros to the Calgary Inter-faith Food Bank. (Thanks guys.) Dinner was donated by BLVD Lounge, although my stomach felt like it was trying to exit through my mouth, I managed to share some small plates – falafel-battered wild prawns with tahini aioli, tempura Hotchkiss green beans, Alberta braised bison short ribs on golden beet gnocchi, a charcuterie platter – but I had to ditch them early to get down to the Epcor Centre by 7, so missed out on the tower of beef and lobster and parade of other treats they reported to be equally fantastic.
Honestly, I have no idea why BLVD isn’t more recognized for their food – they serve consistently delicious stuff at the events I’ve seen them at (they won best overall at the Lawson Lundell Celebrity Hors d’Oeuvres competition two years ago), they make all their breads, pastas and desserts in-house, and have a great list of local and organic suppliers. Bonus: their prices aren’t insane. (They also have a great wine list and on Wine Wednesdays you can get $5 wines by the glass and live entertainment.)
So my half a glass of red sufficiently warmed my face and fuzzed my mind, which had until that point been playing my little speech on a loop all day long. You know how when you repeat the same word over and over it starts to sound all distorted and wrong? Yeah. I think I may have worked myself up just a little bit. I arrived at the Epcor Centre all flushed and with a heart rate approaching that I’d normally reach after half an hour on the elliptical trainer, and they showed me to… wait for it… my dressing room. I know! And guess who was right next door? Huzzah.
The organizers brought me over for a quick meet, and I asked Anthony if I could ask him to sign my chest (upper – not in a nasty way, just funny rock-star way) onstage as he came on, thinking it would be funny but not wanting to put him on the spot. He laughed very nicely said he’d better not – Twitter and all that – and of course he’s married now with an almost 3 year old daughter. We parted ways and I went back to my room to get changed.
The Outfit. It wasn’t as fabulous as I hoped – I know this by the complete lack of comments on anything but my boots (which he signed, by the way). Two people asked if I had gone shopping for new clothes to wear that night. When I told them I had, each replied in a manner begetting one who has been taught that if they don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all – “oh good! Well I really like the boots!” The jacket might have been a mistake. At the store my Mom (who has great taste, I hasten to add) oohed and aahed and told me it hung just right over the places I carry my fuel reserves. I thought it was a little too much fabric with the skirt, but it was comfortable. And it did look kinda cool from the front, especially with the skirt/boots combo, so I went with it. At quarter to eight I stepped out of my dressing room and headed over to the stage to try to steady myself. As I passed Anthony’s open door and saw him pacing the empty room he asked, “are you nervous?”
“Yes,” I said. “You?”
“Oh yeah.” I went inside his dressing room, empty except for a couch, chairs and closed piano. He was just hanging out, standing there in black jeans, shirt and jacket, drinking a cold Red Stripe beer out of a stubby. He is a big guy – a good head taller than me, and very slim. And he was nervous. Anthony Bourdain was nervous. In a completely charming, real, honest way that put me instantly at ease. (Well, not completely – I was hanging out alone with A.B., and almost forgot how to speak.) We chatted about shows and crowds and being on or off – some days, he said, he’s had enough sleep, he’s well rested, he’s had a good meal, and still he’s off his game for some reason – no idea why. Other days he’s exhausted and burnt out and he nails it.
“When you step out in front of that audience it’s like the gates open and you come flying down the chute,” he laughed. He talked to me as if I was the same caliber as he – like I could relate. But in many ways, I could. He was a real, good guy, and he was nervous about putting himself out there. Thinking of words to describe him I keep coming back to the plainest: nice. Good. Edgy, yes – macho – sure, but also sweetness and sincerity. He held doors open for me. He paid attention to everything I said (not that I can remember any of it) and looked right into my eyes as I spoke. At one point I was saying something relatively unimportant (as my brain yelled at me, IT’S ANTHONY BOURDAIN YOU IDIOT! SAY SOMETHING WITTY! TELL HIM AN IDEA! LEAVE YOUR MARK!) and someone came in to tell us something or other, breaking up the conversation. When they left he turned to me and asked me to pick up where I had left off, reminding me the last of what I had said before our interruption. Genuine, with no trace of asshole. I offered to leave him be for his last few minutes to psych himself up and he said no, you don’t need to go.
And then it was time to go on. We went to the stage and he got miked up, and we ran through how the Q&A would go (he gets so involved in answering questions that he finds it difficult to keep track of who is lining up at which microphone, and there were 8 of them scattered around the darkened 4-tiered concert hall, so he asked me to come out and help him point out who’s next) and talked about his daughter, who is almost 3. I shared a Willemism with him – the meat one – thinking it would be right up his alley, and he laughed. Then I went on stage.
And he had put me at ease, which is not to say I was relaxed or not at all nervous, but perhaps a little more eager to put him at ease, being the first one out of the gate. I wanted to show him what a great crowd I knew it would be, to try to loosen them up – which in retrospect seems quite ridiculous. He had no trouble at all connecting with the crowd, let me tell you. He’s a pro. Witty, quick, and quite hilarious. But I wanted to show him, by sound, before he came onstage what a friendly and responsive crowd he had to work with. You draw so much energy from the audience – there’s an intimacy to the relationship; like you’re in a mosh pit, trusting them to hold you up and not let you fall. Which depends of course entirely on you not sucking.
It’s tougher when they’re there – watching you. Nevermind that 100,000 or so people listen on CBC every morning – it’s easy in the studio with friends and buddies in the control booth. I thought of your comments and pretended that the audience was you – every seat filled with a friend. This, in retrospect, may also have been a mistake.
So I joked around, as I do when I’m nervous, and fed on the laughter that came from such a large audience. Although there was a podium on stage for Anthony they put me in front of a music stand, which did nothing to hide the extra layer of shortbread weight I was carrying. I took a photo of the audience with my Blackberry. I had fun.
My only real regret was the ass grab – when I got to the introduction part and he came onstage I went in for a hug and gave a squeeze, just for laughs, but reaching around I grabbed his microphone pack by mistake. So I had to do a double take on the other cheek, which caused him to give an overly surprised look and in the end probably came across as awkward and gratuitous groping as the audience wouldn’t have known about the microphone, but rather saw me make an awkward dive for both cheeks.
I always said if I could have one superhero power it would be a rewind button. Would it get used.
I ducked into the wings and sat on a stool feeling foolish, sure that he would be mad at me. But when we came offstage (after he spoke for an extra half an hour and extended his Q&A from 20 minutes to 50) I instantly told him I was sorry for grabbing his butt and he laughed and said it was OK. Phew.
And then we went to the VIP reception and he signed books and took photos with people and went back to his hotel room to get some sleep before a 5am flight to California. And we ate profiteroles filled with fois gras ice cream and drizzled with caramel from the Cookbook Company, and drank wines from Willow Park Wines (although Anthony stuck to his Red Stripe stubbies). And that was it.
I came back to reality with a thud when I landed in the dentist’s chair at 8am this morning, where I spent over an hour having my teeth scraped and gums prodded with a metal pick. (Honestly – with all the advances in science and technology, a metal pick is still the best they can do?) During this long hour, trapped in the chair inside my own head, I winced over memories of my sausage and muffin-top jokes and obsessed over the sudden realization that I introduced Anthony Bourdain looking like I just came from Fraggle Rock. (All to the E-Z listening sounds of Peaceful, Easy Feeling and La Bamba.)
I Heart Anthony Bourdain, Part 2.
It came to be last night that this story got divided into two parts; I had written up to this point yesterday afternoon when I came across a conversation thread on a message board tearing me to bits for the into I just told you about. Meanly.
Which, of course, is what I was so scared of. In general, but particularly on this day.
This hasn’t happened before, but has always been the risk that comes with putting yourself out there in the way that I do, the unnerving part of being in the public eye, so to speak. I understand now the reason so many TV personalities have an on-air persona – a sort of airbag that separates the professional criticism from something penetratingly personal. All those things I’m afraid of possibly being true about myself gauge higher emotionally and so they stick much more quickly and are longer-lasting than any compliment; it reinforces that negative voice in my head-strengthens it.
It’s why when I melted into a sobbing, snotty puddle and crawled under the covers, prompting W to become concerned and ask what had happened to me, Mike said, “Mommy’s getting a job at Tim Horton’s!” (to which W became excited and thought he might get free toasted cinnamon-raisin bagels for life). This is his response every time I come home from a show or an event at which I imagine I haven’t done well, haven’t caused people to like me or portrayed the message I want to portray. Mike poo-poos my worried overanalysis, telling me I’m crazy and no one really thinks that, and I should really not do TV and radio if I’m going to get so worked up about it. But this time he was wrong – other people were thinking it. And worse.
And truly, only in the deepest recesses of my fear would I have dreamed I’d inspire such nastiness.
It seems to be an acceptable thing; there’s an unwritten open invitation to criticize anyone who sets foot in the public eye – to make fun of their weight or stance or speech or delivery. You’re welcome – encouraged, even – to love them or hate them, make fun of them and share it with everyone.
It happens to be something I’ve been struggling with lately, as people start recognizing me in public places (which I LOVE, by the way, please don’t think I’m ungrateful or in any way annoyed by that), and referring to my “brand” (a concept I completely understand and accept but nonetheless cringe at); but it’s a new concept to reconcile my idea of myself with other peoples’ idea of me. Which is why it’s one and the same, and I’ve ignored meandering thoughts of what I think other people expect me to be and just gone ahead and carried on being me. (And really, this is something everyone struggles with to some degree, right?) I waver sometimes over what should be made public or left private, but otherwise there’s no put-on. I don’t see the point.
But it seems I do need to sort out the different versions of me – me on my blog, me on CBC, me
on TV, me in Parents Canada, me in front of a concert hall audience introducing Anthony Bourdain. That’s why there are editors, directors, producers, official styles and pronunciations, all but here filtering me into something that’s acceptable for that particular audience. I haven’t reached the status yet where there’s no overlap; where Anthony was (rightly) praised for being real and honest and himself, I was harshly criticized for the same. Which can be interpreted in only one way: they didn’t like me.
I remember my Dad telling me when I was a kid that not everyone will like you, and it caused as much upset and horror as when I realized there was no Santa and everyone dies. But why wouldn’t they like me? I’m nice! I didn’t do anything! He didn’t explain why, just said that that’s the way it was, and you can’t please everyone. I went through the next few years wondering if every new person I met would be The One Who Didn’t Like Me, and fretted over how I could change their minds if this was in fact the case.
I sent the link to friends, sobbing, needing them to tell me they’re just stupidheads anyway who clearly don’t know what they’re talking about. And I cried most of the afternoon and into the evening; over this, and Haiti, and the friends of friends who have died suddenly in recent weeks, and another in the ICU with surgery scars and acute renal failure, all who demonstrate fully that disappointment and pride are not worth tears. But then sometimes they are.
My sister showed up after work with two pints of Häagen-Dazs – one coffee and one chocolate-raspberry, which we ate lying on the bed with W between us in his PJs, which were eventually covered in chocolate. Ali (OK, she has a name now – I have two sisters and so referring her simply as such is a little vague) is a teacher, and good at psychoanalysis. To address W’s concern she said this: it’s hard to be proud of yourself. You have to work really hard at something or accomplish a lot to allow yourself to take pride in what you’ve done. But when you make a mistake it’s easy to be disappointed in yourself, to allow yourself to be swallowed up by that disappointment even, and let it prevent you from doing things you might otherwise do. And it’s even harder when others are disappointed in you.
So I guess there’s nothing to do but keep on keeping on, attempt to either pry it off or accept that my dad was right, and not let it affect what I do in the future. And try not to let that destructive voice in my head gain strength in numbers.
January 14 2010 | leftovers | 77 Comments »
Have you ever panicked that there is just so much food and so little time? I do. Frequently.
I remember the first time I felt a pang of THERE IS JUST SO MUCH TO EAT AND ONLY SO MANY DAYS IN A WEEK AND HOURS IN A DAY! AND MONTHS IN A YEAR! EVERY DAY I HAVE TO DECIDE! I’M NOT GOING TO HAVE TIME TO EAT IT ALL! THE MATH JUST DOESN’T ADD UP! – it was triggered by a coconut cream pie. So now every time I get overwhelmed by the food possibilities out there (eating in and out), or unreasonably angry that I’ve wasted valuable space and calories on something that was not all it should be, I think of coconut cream pie. OK, not really every time. But sometimes I have my coconut cream pie moments.
I get this feeling a lot when I get sucked into the vortex of food blogs – skipping from one to the next, bookmarking stuff and taking mental notes that invariably more mental notes get loaded on top of until I go a little bit mental. Once in awhile something I see jumps the queue – this was one of them. And I had a bag of the daintiest little Canadian du puy lentils that remind me of smooth, speckled green river stones that I was dying to use.
A Gourmet recipe, it was originally titled “Fried Eggs Over Warm Lentil Salad with Lardons”, which sounds appealingly rustic and British, but of course we don’t generally use the term lardon to describe the bacon in our skillets, and because I’m trying to be a little bit less lardon I poached my eggs instead of frying them. Every little bit helps.
This was actually lunch and dinner; at 6pm I tossed the leftover lentil salad back into the skillet I had just cooked plain old pork chops in, tossing them around to warm them and get some of those flavourful bits. It made a great accompaniment; ditto pork tenderloin or roast, I’d imagine.
Poached Eggs Over Warm Lentil Salad with Bacon
Thanks again, Gourmet. (This of course has been adapted – I also tossed the spinach right in and wilted it, rather than scattering it overtop the eggs as per their instruction.) If you want to throw a peeled clove of garlic into the pot of lentils while they simmer, go right ahead.
3/4 cup dried lentils (I used little green du Puy lentils)
4 slices bacon, chopped
2 leeks (white and pale green parts only), finely chopped
2 celery ribs, finely chopped
1 carrot, finely chopped
2 Tbsp. red wine vinegar, or to taste
1 cup baby spinach
1 Tbsp. finely chopped fresh tarragon (optional)
salt & pepper
4-8 large eggs
In a small saucepan, cover lentils with about twice as much water, bring to a simmer and cook uncovered for about 30 minutes, or until just tender. (You can do this ahead of time and keep them in the fridge until you’re ready for them.)
While the lentils are simmering, cook the bacon until crisp in a large, heavy skillet; transfer with a slotted spoon to a plate, leaving the drippings in the skillet. (If you like, pour them out and add a drizzle of canola or olive oil.) Add the leeks, celery, and carrot and cook, stirring often, for about 5 minutes. Add vinegar and cook until it’s mostly evaporated. Drain the lentils well and add them to the skillet along with the spinach and tarragon; cook, stirring, until heated through and the spinach wilts. Season with salt and pepper and stir in the bacon.
Meanwhile, poach your eggs. Divide the warm lentil salad among 4 plates and top with the eggs. Serves 4.
One Year Ago: Roast Chicken and Hummus Wraps and Mandarin Milkshakes
January 11 2010 | beans and eggs and one dish and vegetarian | 29 Comments »
