Still life with Fruit and Vegetables from Granville Market
Having a farmer’s market nearby (in our case, Granville Island) means that we not only get pretty ’still life’ pictures like this one, but some days are particularly good, food-wise.
Breakfast today was a big bowl of fresh peaches, raspberries, blueberries and strawberries, toast, and scrambled organic eggs. Lunch was mixed greens and the last of those cherry tomatoes, brie, butterkäse, country paté and french bread. For dinner, we had locally grown roasted potatoes and rosemary, steamed patty-pan squash with carrots and pork chops with sautéed onions, fresh chopped sage and olives. Not too shabby.
Followup:
The next day wasn’t bad either, especially dinner: Filets of Sole with lemon, butter and parsley, Couscous with shredded parmesan and fresh Swiss Chard (from the farmer himself this morning - Thursday is when the truck market sets up just outside Granville Market and you get to meet and deal with the farmers face-to-face. I make it a point to make it to Granville Island that day - it reminds me of the wonderful Farmer’s markets we used to go to in Waitsfield, Vermont.)
I’ve been getting out and meeting new friends. There are the Webloggers Meet-Ups, where I recently met Jan Karlsbjerg (who was kind enough to blog about me), Heather, and Will Pate, as well as Ianiv Schweber and his fiance, Arieanna. I’ve also met several people though the BC Gamelan, as well as the VanUE (Vancouver User Experience group), who also hold monthly meetings, beginning this month. Pam continues to meet people through the STC (Society for Technical Communications).
My general impression is that there are lots of newcomers to Vancouver — a good sign, I think. When people want to move to a place, for whatever reason, it usually means that it’s a good place to be. We always felt that way when we were in Vermont (I remember our times in Waitsfield, where we were surprised when we actually did meet a native Vermonter). For Canada, it has such a high rate of immigration that there’s actually a magazine for new immigrants to Canada (mostly from Asia, as one would expect, but also from Africa, Europe and Australia).
When there are lots of people moving to a place, people and organizations (and even public venues) tend to be a bit better about not assuming you know what to do or where to go. In Boston, signage was seen as a silly add-on, or maybe even an admission of weakness. After all, why point out what everybody should already know, haven’t you been here long enough? Or as they say in the vernacular, ‘Whaddaya retAHded?‘ Here in Vancouver, one not only has signs and maps, but also orientation guides, brochures and tons of information booths and people offering help and directions (the bus drivers are even polite about offering advice about where to transfer to get to a certain area!). Maybe it takes a critical mass of newbies to make society in general aware that not everyone knows everything about where you live and how to get from point A to point B. I’ve taken some pleasure in giving out directions to a few people. Must mean I don’t look like I’m a fish out of water here, if ever I did.
After that political cartoon, I was interested to find this juxtaposition of Grover Norquist’s quote about shrinking the Federal Government with a photo of the New Orleans disaster. It shows just what happens if you start dismantling the infrastructure you may need some day to protect and help your population. Sooner or later, it catches up with you. Bush and his people made two gambles. One was in the first summer of his first term regarding whether or not he should pay attention to reports that read ‘Bin Laden Determined to Attack the US’. The other gamble was that he ignore similar warnings regarding the vulnerability of the US coastline along the Gulf of Mexico to Hurricanes. As we all can see, both of those gambles didn’t pay off.
One thing we’ve learned about Canada is something I’ve felt in my gut, but now can tell in my wallet and everyday life. Just like anything else, Government follows the general principal that ‘You get what you pay for.’ Sure, taxes are higher here. In fact, they’re painfully high at times. I keep having to remind myself when we eat out, that besides the tip, there’s PST and GST (Provincial Sales Tax and Goods and Services Tax) to the bill that often pushes it far higher than I’d have expected. But, there are many things you get for those high taxes; Everybody gets health care at a fraction the cost of the US. There’s good mass transit. There are well-maintained public parks, roads and bridges.Kids get schools, no matter where they are. There’s no budget deficit. And this past week there’s been a fire in a bog to the south of here, and smoke has been clouding the skies on a daily basis, but there’s been no disaster, because prompt and well-managed teams of firefighters and helicopters have been battling the fire back. No fiasco, no recriminations, no ‘blame game’, etc. Just competence, and our tax dollars insuring that the government is doing what it’s supposed to do first and foremost, keep us safe. I won’t say that everything is perfect here, but we sure aren’t seeing the same level of neglect, and I, unlike Mr. Norquist, want my government larger than a hamster or kitten.
A Nation Secure…
Originally uploaded by andyi.
My friend Andy back in Boston got this from a Sun-Times political cartoonist.
I fear that if Bush and Cheney are in charge for 3 more years, there won’t be a US to the south of us any more. Pam and I escaped, but what is going to happen to everybody down there?
So sad about New Orleans. I never did get to visit there, despite talking about it several times. Now it’s gone. Probably for good.
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