Grill of my dreams

One of the frustrating things about summer in the city for me is my inability, as an apartment dweller, to get my grill on. Without a balcony or a yard, I’m missing out on one of the best things about summer: cooking with fire.

Stop for salad

D. has recently started volunteering at The Stop Community Food Centre, one of North America’s first food banks and a vibrant community centre that comes complete with kitchen space and a good-sized working greenhouse.

The Stop’s mission is to use food as a gateway to address issues like poverty, the environment, social isolation, and health in one of Toronto’s lowest-income neighbourhoods. D.’s work with the afterschool program sees her helping kids between 8 and 12 learn about cooking, how to read food labels, with a dash of food politics thrown in. It sounds like a lot of fun, and it’s the kind of gig where I don’t mind if she brings work home with her. This salad she made with the kids on her first day, for example, was a big hit there and at home.

Handle the heat

Sometimes when I cook — usually when I’m making a big meal for company — I wonder to myself  “could I do this for a living?”

I’m sure that’s a question any enthusiastic amateur chef has pondered at one point or another; for me, it comes at a stage in my life where I wouldn’t say no to a new career path. And what finer thing than to do that which you love?

Well, lots of reasons. Professional cooking is a meat grinder. After seeing this I don’t know why anyone does it. Still, there’s got to be a way to make a living in food that won’t end with one demoralized, drug-addled or dead. But then I’ll have a cooking experience in my own kitchen that's so transcendent, it gets me thinking.

Meat me downstairs

You descend slowly into the dampness of the basement, the creak of the stairs beneath your feet giving way to the crunch of gravel. You are enveloped by darkness and the palpable sense that you are not alone. There, to the left; a small crack bleeds a sick glow into the black. Behind it, you feel a presence. "Is someone there?" you call, but no voice answers. You move closer as cobwebs brush your face like a dead lover's caress. Hours - or is it days? - seem to pass as you draw closer to the light. A trembling hand finds the edge where the light leaks out; a push and a door swings open and you gasp at the twin shapes that hang bound and shrouded in the middle of the room. And from the corner behind you, a dry voice is heard...
"The cure...the cure..."
You turn as the light vanishes and the voice speaks again.
"Meat."

Comes the hour, comes the ham

"Homer: Wait a minute wait a minute wait a minute: Lisa honey, are you saying you're never going to eat any animal again? What about bacon?
Lisa: No.
Homer: Ham?
Lisa: No.
Homer: Pork chops?
Lisa: Dad! Those all come from the same animal!
Homer: Yeah, right Lisa. A wonderful, magical animal."
-The Simpsons "Lisa the Vegetarian" (Season 5, Episode 7)