The luck of having talent is not enough; one must also have a talent for luck. -Hector Berlioz, composer (1803-1869)
You can always tell when people on The Gulf Islands get bored!
Hi Pat and Corinne. This being the Islands, it will be no ordinary festive season. I happen to know what's up. I will just go along with whatever i am told to do. In a dream last night is was ALL revealed! There will be a winter solstice out at Beaver Point. A divine circle of Priestesses will be chanting by the shore, (between passing ferries), and if the timing is right, a pod of orcas should appear through clouds of incense.
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| Art: Leah Palmer Preiss |
Hi Pat, Yes, i got the card and thanks. I wondered how i would be able to respond digitally, that is. I sent you an ample description of the forthcoming Winter Equinox festivities, but have no idea how to recreate it all in Adobe Flash.
I am having lunch with Virginia soon. Have to get some presents for our Anna von Van Technical too – doesn't that nick name sound so molto Patrizio? Enjoy the coming festivities, bob
Hi Again, Never responded to this message. The dinner evening should be fun. Saw this show on Sunday. It was a quick view as i was mainly there sketching one item. It was connected to an urban sketching meet up . Look forward to going back for a more leisurely visit, given that i have an annual membership. Did Clara and Dusty enjoy it? bobHi again, h(ee) h(ee) bob!
Chortled, without stop, reading your wonderful description of the Winter Solstice Ceremony. Do you have clearance from the Stonehenge Druids? Which item were you sketching at FC? Fondestos from Coramandel. Cheers, Patrizzio!
I'm banished to our bedroom at moment. Strata Council is meeting here. Flamin' is Chair, Cora Lee Treasurer. We'll have a late dinner once building politicians have exhausted themselves or the wine bottles are empty. Probably the latter! Trust your various social engagements went well. Cheers, Patrizzio!
PS: have you been sending messages without your reading glasses, LL? Font makes it easy to read across the room!
David Kessler Picture worth a thousand words? — with Nancy Mennel at chez nous.
Patrick James Dunn Can't help but notice the empty wine glass in the background. Is this the cause for domestic discord? Berkeley Gothic?
Sarah Trejo Patrick that is hilarious!!!!
Patrick James Dunn The facts, M'am. Just the facts!
David Kessler Here we are....in the early 1980s — with Nancy Mennel in New York, New York
- Patrick James Dunn We met not long after!
Hi Jugos Dom Pedro: At the risk of offending The Molly Maids, the 11th of February sounds terrific. Perhaps we can celebrate Louis Riel Day, Monday, 16th, with bridge, if your friends are Canadian. If not, we can ply them with rye and make them honourary citizens. 7NT! I only have 5 points but I'm sure you can make contract! Cheers, ever Optimistic, if Sometimes Foolish, Patrizzio!
Hello to All the Great Unread! My choice is Alan Doyle's Where I Belong. Best wishes for a Happy Christmas, (to those who celebrate this Christian holiday), Seasons Greetings, otherwise, and best wishes for a Healthy New Year, from Cora Lee, Chloë and Patrizzio!
Hi Colin! Friend of mine is going to Salt Spring, in a few days, and sent the following, (see above). Cheers, Patrizzio!
Light Up the Rio Theatre for Christmas!
We need $15,000 to restore the sign to its original glory and
convert to LED lights that are more environmentally friendly and energy
efficient. Let's
break it down: If 500 people donate $30 per bulb (including the neon),
we can achieve our goal.
David Kessler Feeding our neighboring llamas...
-
Patrick James Dunn I spit on llamas. I just want sandwiches!
Buy a bulb for $30 - or donate more! Our
options include a variety of perks, such as Rio passes (good for any
Rio-produced event), passes for any event hosted at The Rio, t-shirts,
VIP
guest list treatment, private screenings for you and your friends, plus
six months
of big screen ads for businesses.
Chloe Alexis Dunn via The Rio TheatreWell
this is cool had not heard about it but they need to reach their
goal.....come on East Siders lets do this!!!! Actually West Siders too
you have more money I'm sure.
-
Patrick James Dunn Maybe you'll find a Rio bulb in your stocking!
-
Chloe Alexis Dunn I hope so, I was thinking of getting you one!!
-
Patrick James Dunn I'd like five!
Hi Pat, Never heard of the Stonehenge Druids. I vaguely recall in the dream that
the clearance was couched in oracular statements and divine directives
originating with a local group called the Mysterious Sisters of the
Southend.
David Kessler with Nancy Mennel.
-
Patrick James Dunn Idylls of Vicente!
They might sound harmless enough, but you wouldn't to cross
those wenches of wizardry. Imagine being subjected to an inquisition of
sorts, by having a blinding light refracted into your eyes, by way of a
giant crystal, that they claim will really make you see the truth? Well,
enough of that! Glad we can mine a little humour of the repartee.
Hi Bob! Curious how we all seem to be connected in one way or
another! Fondestos and
Cheers, Patrizzio!
-
Patrick James Dunn He who laughs last, laughs longer and louder. The Canucks are returning in February!
David Kessler with Nancy Mennel
-
Patrick James Dunn Cactus knows something that Donna Florida doesn't!
From The Third Plate: Field Notes on the Future of Food by Dan Barber. Dan Barber, who helped originate the concept of farm-to-table restaurants in 2004, now wants to push his reconception of American eating habits further:
"Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture, along with the restaurant Blue Hill at Stone Barns, opened in the spring of 2004. ... [We] take the harvests from the Stone Barns fields just outside the kitchen window, or from farms within a radius of a hundred or so miles, and incorporate them into the menu. How much more farm-to-table can you get? "But during that summer evening, the shortsightedness of the system -- and perhaps the reason farm-to-table has failed to transform the way most of our food is grown in this country -- suddenly seemed obvious. In just the first few minutes of a busy dinner service, we had already sold out of a new entree of grass-fed lamb chops. ...
"The night of the lamb-chop sellout, I began to think that the hole in our doughnut was the menu itself, or our Western conception of it, which still obeyed the conventions of a protein-centric diet. Sure, our meat was grass-fed (and our chicken free-range, and our fish line-caught) and our vegetables local and, for the most part, organic. But we were still trying to fit into an established system of eating, based on the hegemony of the choicest cuts.
By cooking with grass-fed lamb and by supporting local farmers, we were opting out of the conventional food chain, shortening food miles, and working with more flavorful food. But we weren't addressing the larger problem.
Nancy with a painting of her grandmother — with Nancy Mennel.
-
Patrick James Dunn Didn't I see this clip on PBS?
The larger problem, as I came to see it, is that farm-to-table allows, even celebrates, a kind of cherry-picking of ingredients that are often ecologically demanding and expensive to grow. Farm-to-table chefs may claim to base their cooking on whatever the farmer's picked that day (and I should know, since I do it often), but whatever the farmer has picked that day is really about an expectation of what will be purchased that day.
David Kessler with Nancy Mennel.
-
Patrick James Dunn He who laughs last, laughs longer and louder. The Canucks are returning in February!
Which is really about an expected way of eating. It forces farmers into growing crops like zucchini and tomatoes (requiring lots of real estate and soil nutrients) or into raising enough lambs to sell mostly just the chops, because if they don't, the chef, or even the enlightened shopper, will simply buy from another farmer. "Farm-to-table may sound right -- it's direct and connected -- but really the farmer ends up servicing the table, not the other way around. It makes good agriculture difficult to sustain.
David Kessler with Nancy Mennel
Patrick James Dunn Cactus knows something that Donna Florida doesn't!
"We did away with the menus a year later. Instead diners were presented with a list of ingredients. Some vegetables, like peas, made multiple appearances throughout the meal. Others, like rare varieties of lettuce, became part of a shared course for the table. Lamb rack for a six-top; lamb brain and belly for a table of two. No obligations. No prescribed protein-to-vegetable ratios. We merely outlined the possibilities. The list was evidence that the farmers dictated the menu. I was thrilled.
"And then, after several years of experimenting, I wasn't. My cooking did not amount to any radical paradigm shift. I was still sketching out ideas for dishes first and figuring out what farmers could supply us with later, checking off ingredients as if shopping at a grocery store. ..."The very best cuisines -- French,
Italian, Indian, and Chinese, among others -- were built around this
idea. In most cases, the limited offerings of peasant farming meant that
grains or vegetables assumed center stage, with a smattering of meat,
most often
lesser cuts such as neck or shank. Classic dishes emerged -- pot-au-feu
in French cuisine, polenta in Italian, paella in Spanish to take
advantage of (read: make delicious) what the land could supply.
"The melting pot of American cuisine did not evolve out of this
philosophy. Despite the natural abundance -- or, rather, as many
historians argue, because of the abundance -- we were never forced into a
more enlightened way of eating. Colonial agriculture took
root in the philosophy of extraction. Conquer and tame nature rather
than work in concert with nature. The exploitative relationship was made
possible by the availability of large quantities of enormously
productive land. ...
"With few ingrained food habits, Americans are among the least
tradition-bound of food cultures, easily swayed by fashions and
influences from other countries.
That's been a blessing, in some ways:
we are freer to try new tastes and invent new styles and methods
of cooking. The curse is that, without a golden age in farming, and with
a history that lacks a strong model for good eating, the values of true
sustainability don't penetrate our food culture. Today's chefs create
and follow rules that are so flexible they're
really more like traffic signals -- there to be observed but just as
easily ignored. Which is why it's difficult to imagine farm-to-table
cooking shaping the kind of food system we want for the future. ...
"Not long ago ... a food magazine asked a group of chefs, editors, and
artists to imagine what we'll be eating in thirty-five years. The
request was to sketch just one plate of food and make it illustrative of
the future.
"It brought out dystopian visions. Most predicted landscapes so denuded
that we will be forced to eat down the food chain -- all the way down,
to insects, seaweed, and even pharmaceutical pills. I found myself
sketching out something more hopeful.
"[I imagined a] plate that kept with the [conventional American]
steak-dinner analogy -- only this time, the proportions were reversed.
In place of a hulking piece of protein, I imagined a carrot steak
dominating the plate, with a sauce of braised second cuts
of beef.
"The point wasn't to suggest that we'll be reduced to eating meat only
in sauces, or that vegetable steaks are the future of food. It was to
predict that the future of cuisine will represent a paradigm shift, a
new way of thinking about cooking and eating that
defies Americans' ingrained expectations. I was looking toward a new
cuisine, one that goes beyond raising awareness about the provenance of
ingredients and -- like all great cuisines -- begins to reflect what the
landscape can provide."
The Third Plate: Field Notes on the Future of Food, Dan Barber, The Penguin Press HC, 2014
Judith Neamtan? She worked at the VCC Langara Library when i was still
at that campusl. Once the institional divorce proceedings began i
immigrated to another campus. Sounds like an enjoyable party. I look forward to more of the VAG, when i get back to town. bob
Light Up the Rio Theatre for Christmas!
We need $15,000 to restore the sign to its original glory and convert to LED lights that are more environmentally friendly and energy efficient. Let's break it down: If 500 people donate $30 per bulb (including the neon), we can achieve our goal.
David Kessler Feeding our neighboring llamas...
- Patrick James Dunn I spit on llamas. I just want sandwiches!
- Patrick James Dunn Maybe you'll find a Rio bulb in your stocking!
- Chloe Alexis Dunn I hope so, I was thinking of getting you one!!
- Patrick James Dunn I'd like five!
David Kessler with Nancy Mennel.
- Patrick James Dunn Idylls of Vicente!
Hi Bob! Curious how we all seem to be connected in one way or another! Fondestos and Cheers, Patrizzio!
- Patrick James Dunn He who laughs last, laughs longer and louder. The Canucks are returning in February!David Kessler with Nancy Mennel
- Patrick James Dunn Cactus knows something that Donna Florida doesn't!From The Third Plate: Field Notes on the Future of Food by Dan Barber. Dan Barber, who helped originate the concept of farm-to-table restaurants in 2004, now wants to push his reconception of American eating habits further:
"Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture, along with the restaurant Blue Hill at Stone Barns, opened in the spring of 2004. ... [We] take the harvests from the Stone Barns fields just outside the kitchen window, or from farms within a radius of a hundred or so miles, and incorporate them into the menu. How much more farm-to-table can you get? "But during that summer evening, the shortsightedness of the system -- and perhaps the reason farm-to-table has failed to transform the way most of our food is grown in this country -- suddenly seemed obvious. In just the first few minutes of a busy dinner service, we had already sold out of a new entree of grass-fed lamb chops. ...
"The night of the lamb-chop sellout, I began to think that the hole in our doughnut was the menu itself, or our Western conception of it, which still obeyed the conventions of a protein-centric diet. Sure, our meat was grass-fed (and our chicken free-range, and our fish line-caught) and our vegetables local and, for the most part, organic. But we were still trying to fit into an established system of eating, based on the hegemony of the choicest cuts.By cooking with grass-fed lamb and by supporting local farmers, we were opting out of the conventional food chain, shortening food miles, and working with more flavorful food. But we weren't addressing the larger problem.
Nancy with a painting of her grandmother — with Nancy Mennel.
- Patrick James Dunn Didn't I see this clip on PBS?
The larger problem, as I came to see it, is that farm-to-table allows, even celebrates, a kind of cherry-picking of ingredients that are often ecologically demanding and expensive to grow. Farm-to-table chefs may claim to base their cooking on whatever the farmer's picked that day (and I should know, since I do it often), but whatever the farmer has picked that day is really about an expectation of what will be purchased that day.David Kessler with Nancy Mennel.
- Patrick James Dunn He who laughs last, laughs longer and louder. The Canucks are returning in February!
Which is really about an expected way of eating. It forces farmers into growing crops like zucchini and tomatoes (requiring lots of real estate and soil nutrients) or into raising enough lambs to sell mostly just the chops, because if they don't, the chef, or even the enlightened shopper, will simply buy from another farmer. "Farm-to-table may sound right -- it's direct and connected -- but really the farmer ends up servicing the table, not the other way around. It makes good agriculture difficult to sustain.
David Kessler with Nancy Mennel
Patrick James Dunn Cactus knows something that Donna Florida doesn't!
"We did away with the menus a year later. Instead diners were presented with a list of ingredients. Some vegetables, like peas, made multiple appearances throughout the meal. Others, like rare varieties of lettuce, became part of a shared course for the table. Lamb rack for a six-top; lamb brain and belly for a table of two. No obligations. No prescribed protein-to-vegetable ratios. We merely outlined the possibilities. The list was evidence that the farmers dictated the menu. I was thrilled. "And then, after several years of experimenting, I wasn't. My cooking did not amount to any radical paradigm shift. I was still sketching out ideas for dishes first and figuring out what farmers could supply us with later, checking off ingredients as if shopping at a grocery store. ..."The very best cuisines -- French,
Italian, Indian, and Chinese, among others -- were built around this
idea. In most cases, the limited offerings of peasant farming meant that
grains or vegetables assumed center stage, with a smattering of meat,
most often
lesser cuts such as neck or shank. Classic dishes emerged -- pot-au-feu
in French cuisine, polenta in Italian, paella in Spanish to take
advantage of (read: make delicious) what the land could supply.
"The melting pot of American cuisine did not evolve out of this
philosophy. Despite the natural abundance -- or, rather, as many
historians argue, because of the abundance -- we were never forced into a
more enlightened way of eating. Colonial agriculture took
root in the philosophy of extraction. Conquer and tame nature rather
than work in concert with nature. The exploitative relationship was made
possible by the availability of large quantities of enormously
productive land. ...
"With few ingrained food habits, Americans are among the least tradition-bound of food cultures, easily swayed by fashions and influences from other countries.That's been a blessing, in some ways:
we are freer to try new tastes and invent new styles and methods
of cooking. The curse is that, without a golden age in farming, and with
a history that lacks a strong model for good eating, the values of true
sustainability don't penetrate our food culture. Today's chefs create
and follow rules that are so flexible they're
really more like traffic signals -- there to be observed but just as
easily ignored. Which is why it's difficult to imagine farm-to-table
cooking shaping the kind of food system we want for the future. ...
"Not long ago ... a food magazine asked a group of chefs, editors, and artists to imagine what we'll be eating in thirty-five years. The request was to sketch just one plate of food and make it illustrative of the future."It brought out dystopian visions. Most predicted landscapes so denuded
that we will be forced to eat down the food chain -- all the way down,
to insects, seaweed, and even pharmaceutical pills. I found myself
sketching out something more hopeful.
"[I imagined a] plate that kept with the [conventional American] steak-dinner analogy -- only this time, the proportions were reversed. In place of a hulking piece of protein, I imagined a carrot steak dominating the plate, with a sauce of braised second cuts of beef.
"The point wasn't to suggest that we'll be reduced to eating meat only
in sauces, or that vegetable steaks are the future of food. It was to
predict that the future of cuisine will represent a paradigm shift, a
new way of thinking about cooking and eating that
defies Americans' ingrained expectations. I was looking toward a new
cuisine, one that goes beyond raising awareness about the provenance of
ingredients and -- like all great cuisines -- begins to reflect what the
landscape can provide."The Third Plate: Field Notes on the Future of Food, Dan Barber, The Penguin Press HC, 2014
Allison Buchanan Thanks Chloe Alexis Dunn and John Palliser. We learned so much about trees ... it's all about needle retention!- Chloe Alexis Dunn A liter a day keeps the needles at bay!!
- Patrick James Dunn Great work Needle Retention Elves!
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