Xty's Lighthouse

Food has been much on my mind lately, as I seem to be dwindling away. It used to be that I had to be careful not to swell like a giant pumpkin, and adding pounds was as easy as looking at cheese. But these days the pounds aren’t sticking, and I have reverted to eating lots of carbs in the hopes I can join the Sumo wrestling team once again. Why we eat what we eat is not nearly as obvious as it can appear, and the history of food is fascinating (unless you read The History and Social Influence of the Potato, which my father-in-law has nominated for most boring book ever, which I question, having attempted to read Ospreys: A Natural and Unnatural History), and not just a question of taste. Public policy has come to play a remarkable and not so benign role in our diets, as we get nonsensical food pyramids thrust at a diverse ethnic population, and grow fat and diabetic listening to the advice of the “experts” who are frequently compromised greatly by their funding and academic in-fighting. At least according to the very convincing Gary Taubes and his excellent work Good Calories, Bad Calories: Fats, Carbs, and the Controversial Science of Diet and Health, which is a better title than his more recent Why We Get Fat: And What to Do About It, and also considerably longer.

It was the inestimable Russ Roberts who lead me to Gary Taubes, and he has just interviewed the author of Cuisine and Empire: Cooking in World History:

Rachel Laudan, visiting scholar at the University of Texas and author of Cuisine and Empire, talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about the history of food. Topics covered include the importance of grain, the spread of various styles of cooking, why French cooking has elite status, and the reach of McDonald’s. The conversation concludes with a discussion of the appeal of local food and other recent food passions.

Most enjoyable, and as you root around like a pig eating potatoes, you will at least understand why. Bon Appetit.

One of my favourite cartoons:

Which in a round about way leads me to this, also one of my favourite cartoons, from Randall Munroe:

That really sums up my experience at the Swamp. I still have trouble with insomnia, but somehow I am have been able to let fools rest. But this is not to say I have a problem with stirring up the soup, primordial or otherwise, as long as one uses a long enough pole. I just haven’t found one yet that is longer than thirty-nine and a half feet.

And speaking of insomnia, one of my favourite podcasts, by the fellow who played the PC in those memorable MAC versus PC ads,

now has a feature called “Someone on the internet is right” where he deals with the pedants who correct his grammar so helpfully after his show airs. [In my quest for aural entertainment I have actually gone back and listened to all the episodes, from the beginning, because it all makes more sense that way.]

But to add meaning to this little consideration, why can people not admit they were wrong? I have really changed my views politically over the past thirty years and yet we seem to expect some sort of robotic consistency from our putative leaders. Ah ha! we cry: “You said something different ten years ago! Waffler.” Hmnnn. Are there other adults in whom we prize inflexibility and rigidity of thought? Scientists? Doctors? Engineers? Teachers? Au contraire, a flexible and open mind is far preferable in any so-called expert, and why public policy should differ eludes me.

Now please excuse me while I go and reform some opinions. And eat a banana. Have a wonderful Wednesday if possible, unless, to paraphrase my dearly departed father when told to have a nice day, you have made other plans.

It has been a whirlwind indeed, and I have not had time to sort my thoughts, let alone my pictures, such as they are. We are (or probably were by the time anyone is reading this [anyone? At least realism is setting in, ed.] back in Ottawa, eldest offspring in tow, and now boat to be in tow as she and hubby are off to fetch the tow truck … as in the truck that will do the towing. We hope no tow trucks are involved as we take our caravan to the cottage, van with kids and dog, truck with parents and boat, but I did renew our CAA membership before hand, including long distance towing, just to frustrate the gods in their choices of ways to toy with their peeps.

But to tide you over until we get to Sunday at the cottage when the 60th wedding anniversary is over, and I can chill for two seconds, here is a picture of my favourite Quebec place name which also gives you a pretty good idea of yesterday:

And just so you will know I am still alive, me in the morning yesterday, leaning over to help include Mouse, at Les Jardins de La Republique provincial park in New Brunswick:

But now back to the races, or in my case the hobbles … and hope to be Bacq soon. I miss myself.

I hope you have a fruitful Friday …

A bit like the Queen’s birthday [Queen Victoria, that is, no getting all modern around here!] which we celebrate on a day that is specifically, by statute, never her actual birthday, May 24th, Canada day is a holiday dedicated to outdoor eating and drinking. Fireworks, yes, but mostly drinking and eating. Like July 4th, but with hesitant polite patriots. And a lovely neighbour, who hails from the U.S., who has managed to fill in enough paperwork again to get us barricades so we can block off our block, almost legally.

Setting the ambience for this public display of eating and drinking, much waving and wearing of the Liberal Party colours will be evident here in Ottawa, the nation’s capital, ostensibly picked by said Queen because that is where her finger landed on the map … not really, just a bad Ottawa joke … there are three rivers that intersect here that were of significant navigational and economic import at the time. And speaking of said Queen, I just have to add, she seems to have enjoyed her eating and drinking, as they can date her underpants by their waistband, having what one might call an expansive photographic record of their owner’s expanding waist: Queen Victoria’s ‘big pants’ to be sold at auction in Wiltshire:

The liberal government of the day cleverly remade our national flag into essentially a Liberal Party sign, removing any trace of blue, the colour associated with conservatism here, and any symbols other than the maple leaf, during one of our spasmodic attempts to reinvent our past and create a national story by destroying all remnants of our colonial history. But I am proud of our slow shedding of our colonial yoke and the use of argument over weapons and will raise a glass of not Canadian wine in thanks for wonder at being born at all, let alone into such a magically lucky setting.

^{Replacing the flag at the cottage, May 2013}

Bonne Fête, Canada, and Santé, which we could all use a little bit of, to go with our dwindling sanity.

It was a sweet send off and now …

we rest in peace.

I couldn’t seem to comment even on my own blog! I have banned myself without knowing it. But here was yesterday, and it went surprisingly well.

And here she is, from the patio of the club house.

What a nice change. In many ways.