What a day, what a day.

My worst nightmare in school has occurred. Glad to have that out of the way.

This week we had a writing workshop with Corby Kummer, a well-known food writer in the US and editor of The Atlantic’s Food Channel. He asked us to write a three-page piece about a food producer and have it ready for critique.

On the second day he discussed our pieces, citing them either for the excellent qualities they possessed or as examples of What Not to Do.

With regards to some writing that fell into the latter category, he declared to the class that it sounded “like it was written for a magazine for women in their twenties and is full of clichés.” He then read the article’s opening paragraph aloud, and I realized with horror that it was my opening paragraph, they were my words. It was happening, that thing I most feared – criticism in a public setting, and not being good at something I so badly wanted to be. My cheeks burned hot, then cold, and breakfast threatened to come up.

Resisting the urge to crawl under my desk and assume the fetal position, I waited for my ‘one-on-one with Corby time’ and began writing this blog. As soon as it happened, I for some reason had the incredible urge to share my humiliation with the entire world (or rather, my parents and small circle of friends who read this). I was finally called in for my chat. I walked into the room and managed, with difficulty, to hold back tears as he talked. I listened to what he said, wrote it all down, then relaxed ever so slightly when he found the paragraph – the one paragraph – that made him say “I know you can write. So why aren't you writing like this?”

Failure. Why must it exist? To make me better, I know, and that is why I’m here. I came to school to be criticized, hear harsh words, and see if I still have it within myself to keep on writing.

Fortunately, I do. My innately stubborn side rose up and went to battle, fuelling an intense and terrifying re-write; before lunch I marched back to Corby and asked him what he thought of my new intro.

It went well. I was OK as soon as I lost the “perky narrator’s voice” I had adopted, and I realized I had written for Corby the way I thought I was supposed to, rather than in a way that felt natural. I have by no means found my way as a writer yet, but in the last 48 hours I’ve learned far more about writing – and myself – than I ever expected.

Another thing I learned is that my classmates are writers. Exceptional writers. I have always known they are intelligent, well-read, and talented people, but nothing could have prepared me for the things I heard as Corby read their pieces. They were witty, eloquent, and made me dizzy with awe. They are also kind souls. A friend of mine declared her faith in my writing the moment it was shot down, then gave me one of the warmest hugs I have ever received after Corby read my piece again, this time in praise.

It is for this, and not my writing trauma, that I will allow myself to cry.

It's Never Really About the Movie.

Last night we saw the un-subtitled, original version of Eat, Pray, Love at a small theatre in Parma. It was the first time I'd been to the movies since leaving Canada, and the experience was just what I'd been craving. This was for several reasons, though none of which was the actual movie. Sorry Julia.

Firstly, I was with great people.

Secondly, the theatre was quaint, the tickets cheap, and the seats red and plush, the kind that swallow you up when you sit down and start assembling the many many.....

SNACKS that you've brought. So very many snacks. What else did I expect from a group of UNISG students? Between the six of us we collected an embarrassing bounty of salted caramels, oreos, nacho chips, chocolate covered digestive biscuits, peanut M&Ms and pretzel M&Ms (hey-yo Shannon's mom!), and popcorn.

But Emily didn't just make any old popcorn. This was popcorn drizzled with lots of butter and salt, then tossed with a generous handful of finely grated parmigiano cheese. I am telling you, if you need a little pick-me-up in your life, then MAKE THIS. That giant hunk of parm in my fridge doesn't stand a chance; I am utterly and hopelessly hooked.

You could also add freshly ground black pepper, sautee your butter with rosemary before pouring it on, and/or toss some lemon zest in there too. Try using grana padano instead of parmigiano, which works just as well and is kinder on the wallet. Once you've made your bowl:

EAT it all up.

PRAY that no one asks to share with you, and

LOVE every bite. I promise you will.

Boulders and BASE-jumping.

I’m feeling out of place. I’ve come to Lysebotn, a small village that sit on the Lysefjord, about a 3 hour boat-ride from Stavanger in Norway. I came here to hike to the Kjerag boulder, and expected the hostel to be full of people doing the same. It is, however, full of people that hike up to the boulder, continue past it to the cliffs, then hurl themselves off them. They're BASE-jumpers. I’ve arrived at their southern Norwegian epicenter, and they are everywhere.

In the past 24 hours I’ve had a crash course in all things BASE-jumping, not that I am any closer to understanding their conversations. They speak in a language more foreign to me than Norwegian, but every once in awhile they’ll courteously turn to explain what this means or why that type of jump is bad. Last night the conversation included casual talk of the Russian guy who died jumping here three weeks ago, and another guy’s plans to go up Everest next year. To BASE-jump you have to have a minimum of 250 sky-dives under your belt, but many that I've talked to have done at least 300-500, “just to be prepared.” I hiked up to the cliffs they take off from yesterday, and what prepares a person to go over the edge of one of them is beyond me.

It’s all about perspective, however. Most of the world thinks BASE-jumpers are crazy, but when you’re submersed in a group of them it becomes the most normal thing in the world. It’s just what they do, what they love; everyone says I should take up the hobby too, casually suggesting it as they would scrap-booking or model airplane-making. Telling them you’ve bungee-jumped is like announcing to a room full of Michelin-star chefs that you once made Kraft Dinner.

This morning I was told to go down to the dock, look for “Ryan from Canada,” and go with him on the boat to the landing site for the jumpers.  So I did, and I ended up atop a big boulder, watching as over twenty of them rained down two or three at a time. I squinted hard to spot their tiny bodies buzzing through the air before their chutes went up and a few of them wore wingsuits, making them look like flying squirrels. And they do actually fly, higher and for longer than I thought possible for a person that hasn’t jumped out of a plane.

They're not crazy; they are extremely confident, ambitious, and outgoing souls whose lust for life I admire. There's no frigging way I'm taking up BASE-jumping, though.

It's OK, it's Gonna be OK.

I don't know why I'm on such a fish-kick at the moment, but I recently watched The End of the Line, a documentary about how industrial fishing is about as much help to the ocean as industrial farming is to soil (the implication here being not helpful, in case you haven't had your morning coffee ). The film is interesting, informative, if not a touch over-dramatic in its portrayal of fishermen, and though it doesn't outright state that we're screwed, the film essentially leaves you not wanting to eat fish ever again. With the exception of freshwater ling-cod, of course.

So this left me in a bit of a pickle, because tomorrow I head to Norway and have been told by people that while I'm there I must eat FISH FISH FISH. In an attempt to relieve my conscience I googled "Sustainable Fishing Norway," and good news people! Norway has been ranked number one in sustainable fishing by the University of British Columbia and the WWF. Pheeeew, she says, wiping the sweat from her brow.

That's a green light for my conscience and my stomach. Thank you Norway! I can't wait to come to your clean, organized, and humidity free country.

Canadians Catching Skookum Lingcod.

Why start a blog? Well, it’s an excellent forum in which to prove you ARE NOT NUTS to your fellow-classmates. Case in point:

A few months ago, we had an entire school day devoted to fish; a fish expert and her Michelin-star chef husband came in with a large box of swimmers and taught us all sorts of fishy things.

At one point in the lesson our teacher held up a salt-water ling-cod, prompting me to raise my hand and ask:

“Are there ling-cod in freshwater? No? Well that’s strange, because my Dad and I used to go fishing at a lake in northern BC and he’d set night lines for ling-cod, then when we caught one he’d nail it by its head to a tree.”

This statement, unsurprisingly, got a reaction from the class and from it I learned that:

a) What we caught, according to her, weren't ling-cod.

b) I didn’t actually know why my Dad nailed the fish to a tree. As a child, apparently there were certain things I accepted without question.

c) I am, short of living in an igloo, everything my classmates and their cliché-ed view of Canadians expect me to be. Where do I spend my summers? In the woods with plaid-wearing treeplanters. Are there moose where I live? Of course, they always used to be in our backyard before my dad put a fence up. Have I eaten moose? Yes, because my neighbour hunts them. Does it get freezing cold in the winter? In Prince George, absolutely. Do I say eh? ALL THE TIME.

The point of this story is that not only am I one big walking Canuck, but it turns out there is such a thing as a freshwater ling-cod (though that’s a BC nickname for them and their real name is Burbot). You have to set nightlines for them because they are bottom-feeders, and my Dad explained to me that nailing them to a tree makes them easier to skin. So I’m not nuts, I was just using BC vocabulary in Italy, which also turns out to be a problem when employing the adjective ‘skookum.’

I’d like to tell my dad that camping each summer in the middle of Carp Lake was one of the greatest highlights of my childhood. I don’t really think a kid needs Disneyland when they’ve got a lake and an island to themselves for entertainment. I also think that if you nailed anything to a tree at Disneyland, there would be problems.

Thanks Dad.

Bread Watermelon Summer.

My friends Aviv and Michal are the coolest. Aviv's passion in life is artisanal bread baking, so several years ago as a way to practise he began selling bread, delivering them on his bike each week and donating the money to a charity in Malawi. His girlfriend Michal is a self-taught filmmaker who has now funded and filmed 3 independent movies. In February they quit their day-jobs and went all the way to Nepal to pursue bread and film together. At the highest bakery in the world he baked and she filmed, then they moved onto Paris where Aviv apprenticed with Jean-Luc Poujauran and Michal ate croissants. Just kidding, she ate croissants AND filmed. Please read more about their adventures here, because I just think they are incredible.

Also, I'd like to share one of my favourite pictures from two summers ago. It popped into my head a few weeks ago in class when we were discussing food photography techniques, such as the close-up food-porn money shot that dominates all the magazines. Every once in awhile, however, food manages to sneak it's way quietly into a shot and hold it's own even without a close-up. Find the super-pink watermelon with a knife stuck in it and you'll see what I mean - I didn't even notice it for ages, but once I did it actually screamed SUMMMMMER to me!!



Speaking of summer, ours just officially started. My parents arrive on Sunday for a two week visit, then I'm off to Norway to hike some fjords, eat some whale meat, and hopefully for once be an anomaly as a brunette. EXCITED.

L'école de la Bière.

When I think beer, I think monks. Wait a minute, I don’t. Because that’s crazy, right? Beer production and Catholicism? A recent trip to Belgium taught me otherwise.

Several weeks ago, I set forth on the path to brewing enlightenment and now hold this golden beverage in much higher esteem than before. The path began with several in-class (morning!) beer tastings; our professor Mirco lectured us on beer’s history, it’s production methods, and the cultivation of hops. We then sampled beers from Germany, the Czech Republic, England, Scotland, the US, and Italy - even some of Mirco’s own home-brew! Which was su-perb.* We held back from Belgian beers, since the next week we’d be hopping** on a bus and driving all the way to Brussels, our home-base for the week.

During our trip we visited many different places and producers, but the things that stuck out for me were:

a) the abbeys we visited that make beer, and
b) the fact that no one seemed to want to emphasize the fact that the abbeys we visited make beer.

Call me old-fashioned, but I’ve always had this vision of monks as strictly celibate, conservative, and pleasure-forbidding beings who’d frown upon the consumption of alcohol, let alone make it. I am apparently a terribly ignorant soul; trappist monks, such as those at the Monastery of Westvleteren where we visited, have been brewing beer since the middle ages. Originally this was done in order to ‘feed’ the monastery and local community (beer was often safer than water to drink and provided nutrients), but the practise is kept up today in order to fund the monasteries and provide money for charities. At each abbey we visited, our guides were quick to point out that monks are first and foremost devotees to God, not brewers; the beer is produced out of tradition and to provide monetary security.

Unfortunately, we never got to talk with any monks, but we were greeted by one when an outstandingly eccentric hops-grower (who’d forgotten we were coming and was very surprised to see our bus pull up to his house) attempted to get us in through the ‘back door’ for a look at the brewery. It didn’t work, and we had to settle for an ‘mock-cloisters’ tour and talk like everyone else. During this talk, however, we were told that members of the monastery still consume their own beer and have taken to using the internet, so now I am legitimately able to picture a monk drinking a pint and surfing the web.

That the monks aren’t after fame and profits is significant, because it seems that this is the key to producing an outstanding product. Trappist beers have been touted as some of the best in the world, so I purchased a hearty amount and backpacked them home to drink with my dad when he and my mom arrive next week for a visit. Holy beer, I am a good daughter.


*Mirco will shortly be emailed the link to this site. Let the extra credits start a-rolling in. But truly, his beer was delicious.
**Accidental pun. The best kind.


Hops!






At the Brurie Chocolatiers






The hops grower!


A happy goat


Herve cheese


At Van Hoos restaurant in Halle, where our Belgian classmate Jules worked for 2 years


Mussels and Fries (Moules and Frites) at Van Hoos


Stairway leading up from the Veuve-Cliquot champagne cellars in Reim