My conversation with an Olympic athlete

I will never cease to be amazed by the wonders of modern technology, which has put me in contact with so many friends, both old and new. I connected with Katya Antaniuk via research on the internet, then email, and finally a conversation on Skype. She is an amazing woman with an incredible story.

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Imagine a place covered with snow for eight months of the year, and you’ll have the Russia of Katya Antaniuk’s childhood. “I was five years old when I first put on skis,” she says. “At ten, I started to train in cross-country skiing.”

She became a member of the regional team and participated in various competitions, at the local and then at the national level. After high school she was offered the chance to either join the Russian national ski team, or to study elsewhere. Antaniuk opted to go to university in Belarus, and joined the national team there.

It was about this time, when life was going very well for her and she thought she didn’t need anything else, that Antaniuk had her first encounter with the Bible.

“I visited another skier, and saw that she had a Bible. Coming from a Communist background, I had never seen one before. We were taught in school that the Bible contained only myths. She offered to lend it me. I was skeptical, so I said no.”

After about a year, she started to train with the same girl. “I visited her at Christmas, and she invited me to church. I was surprised to find that there were more than just old ladies…there were all kinds of people. Men, women, children. Young people. And they didn’t look crazy. They looked normal.”

She agreed to attend a Bible study. “It was very strange at first to hear all this talk about Jesus. There were many people, and I was straining to hear the pastor. The next time, I came early. I listened, and I started to realize that the Bible is not something out of this world. It’s a story about people who existed here on earth, and about a God who is real.

“It was so touching to me, this new discovery. I started to read the Bible and other books. I had no chance to go to church – the team was travelling all the time – so it was just me and the Bible, and God leading me. My life, my priorities started to change. I started to see the world from a different perspective.”

The Bible opened her not only to God, but also to history, archaeology, and other cultures and languages. “When you are in sports, you need to stay so focused on one area, with no time to explore other things,” she notes. “Reading the Bible inspired me to learn and study more.” In addition to her degree in physical education, Antaniuk did a major in English and a minor in religion at a theological seminary. Later she completed a Master of Arts in theology at a Christian college in England.

A special moment for Antaniuk during the 2002 Nagano Olympics was encountering the world of sports ministry. For her, it was another first.

“I didn’t know that sports chaplains existed. Some teams, like the Americans, even bring their own chaplains," she says, noting that the care of a ‘spiritual coach’ is just as important and necessary as that of a medical doctor or physical trainer. "For the first time I saw that it was possible to combine my athletic abilities with my faith.”

When the Olympics came to Turin in 2006, Antaniuk was there as a sports chaplain. 2010 will find her in Vancouver, not to compete, but to minister and counsel as she did in Turin, as part of a multilingual pastoral team at the service of all the athletes.

Being a sports chaplain is an experience Antaniuk says she finds very rewarding and fulfilling. “I can help the other athletes because I understand them, I can speak their language, and I know the pressures and difficulties they are going through, so I can share their worries. I help them to trust, and to pray.

“And when things are going well, success can open another door to have a conversation with athletes,” she notes. “I congratulate them, tell them I’m happy for them, that I prayed for them.”

One other thing Antaniuk will be praying for during this Olympiad is the weather. “I visited in Vancouver three years ago, and it rained all the time!” she says with a laugh. A nice balance of sun and snow? Amen to that.

(This story ran in the February 1, 2010 issue of the BC Catholic.) 


My conversation with an Olympic athlete




The Original "Fear Factor"

I wrote this a few years ago, so some of my readers might already be familiar with it. Let it be noted that I'm posting it here at the request of my mom, who has such a great sense of humour that she enjoys a good laugh even if the joke is on her.

***

A few weeks ago I read that putting iodine and alcohol on cuts and scrapes is a home remedy that doesn't actually work. In fact, these substances can be quite caustic on raw, broken skin and nerves, and therefore shouldn't be used on wounds at all.

This major scientific discovery has come a few years too late for me. My mother used both alcohol and iodine in equal and copious amounts on my four siblings and me in our time. But I couldn't resist showing the article to my mother, who sniffed and said, "So? You're still alive, aren't you?"

I thought back to the time when I was four years old, playing in the backyard while my pet rooster Charlie pecked busily nearby. Despite repeated warnings from my nanny, I tried to get Charlie to eat grain from my hand. Now I know that roosters can be quite aggressive – another discovery that came too late. But you have to understand: Charlie was my pet. I had watched him grow from a fluffy yellow ball of feathers to a handsome young rooster. We had always had an amicable relationship. So I was totally unprepared for the hissing, angry beast that suddenly flew into my face, clawing and scratching.

I don't remember the actual attack. I do remember my nanny shrieking curses at Charlie and my mother scolding and dragging me into the house. I had my eyes shut tight, a reflex which had probably saved them, but which also prevented me from seeing my mother brandishing the iodine until I felt her dousing my face with it. I don't think I started crying until then. At one point I finally opened my eyes and saw myself in the mirror. My face was covered with blood and iodine.

I thought I was going to die.

So, in response to Mom's question: yes, I'm still alive. So are all my brothers and sisters, but it's a miracle we've lived to tell the tale of our childhood. We all learned how to treat our own cuts and scrapes fairly early in life, how to clean up our own blood quickly and quietly, without fussing, crying, or getting squeamish. We knew that at the first whiff of blood, Mom would appear, vampire-like, with either the dreaded green bottle (alcohol) or the dreaded brown bottle (iodine). What Mom didn't know wouldn't hurt her, and more important, it wouldn't hurt us. That is, unless we died of gangrene or blood poisoning. But we figured that if infection resulting from our inept first-aid measures didn't kill us, the pain from Mom's vigorous scrubbing of the wound with her favourite antiseptics would, and we all agreed that blood poisoning was the easier way to go.

Sometimes when I'm at the pharmacy I find myself looking wistfully at all the fancy first-aid products that have been invented. Kids these days definitely have it easy. The no-sting antiseptics, soothing ointments and multi-coloured bandages that are available today seem to come with the moms to match. You know the type. "Come on honey, take this itty-bitty pill for Mommy," they coax.

My mother would stand over you and say just two words. "SWALLOW IT." And you would. You wouldn't dare gag, either.

She took the same no-nonsense approach when it came to toothpaste. Now that I'm an adult, I rather like the sharp, stinging sensation of minty-fresh toothpaste in my mouth, but it's not so pleasant when you're a kid. Candy-flavoured toothpaste had been invented by then, but my mother saw no reason to buy two kinds of toothpaste. In this situation, one word sufficed. "BRUSH."

And brush we did.

The truth is, my childhood was the original "Fear Factor." The only difference was that there was no prize money waiting at the end. If there were, I'd be a millionaire by now, because there were challenges to be met at every turn.

Take dinner for example – for most people, a nice, relaxing meal. But if you've ever had a Filipino friend, chances are you know that we eat some pretty weird food. Most foods that I disliked as a child I've actually grown to enjoy, but to a little kid, Filipino dishes can be intimidating, to say the least. (You try choking down blood stew, or whole fish with all the bones still in it, or squid cooked in its own ink.)

But even more intimidating was – you guessed it – my mother, looking at you across the table. She didn't have to say a word in this case, but you knew what she was thinking. "EAT IT OR ELSE."

Did I eat it? You bet I did.

Just like the contestants on Fear Factor, I also had to deal with gross and slimy animals - and I'm no longer talking about the ones that sometimes ended up on my dinner plate. I'm talking about toads. Live toads. I hate them and they are one thing I have not learned to like. Behind our house was a grassy field where toads abounded. At night they came hopping out onto our street – you could see entire families of them in the pools of light from the street lamps. I never went outside at night –except when we were coming home late from a party or from my grandmother's, and I was the one who had to get out of the car to open the gate so my dad could drive in. I felt faint and sick every time I did it. If I hadn't been so scared and disgusted I'd have noticed that the horrible creatures hopped away from and not towards me as I approached. Anyway, my biggest fear – that one would hop onto me – never did materialize. Still, I would rather have gotten out of the car to face a pride of lions than those toads.

I may not have won any prize money for facing up to these challenges, but I have realized a few things that will probably go a longer way than any amount of riches.

First, what doesn't kill you does indeed make you strong. My mom learned her mothering techniques from her mother, and they are the strongest women I know. I don't know if I'm as strong as they are, but I do know that if I have to do something difficult, all I have to do is imagine my mom saying "DO IT" – and I take a deep breath and go for it.

Second, my mom's love may be tough at times, but it is real. If she is hard on me it's only because she loves me and believes in me. I'm sure this is true for all mothers. So the next time your mom pushes you, don't fight her, because chances are she is pushing you in the right direction.

Third, I've learned that all things eventually come full circle. Mom cut her hand while working in the garden the other day, and she asked me to help her clean it up. I went for the no-sting antiseptic – yes, this is what we use now. It lives in the medicine cabinet right beside the bottle of alcohol. Although she hardly uses alcohol anymore, I guess Mom thinks her household wouldn't be complete without it.

I couldn't resist saying, "I'll get the alcohol."

Mom said, "No! This….isn't a wound for alcohol."

I raised an eyebrow. "What exactly is the kind of wound for alcohol?"

She smirked. "Your wounds."

Today we're changing her dressings, and I say to her, "You know, if I were really evil, I'd have replaced this no-sting stuff with alcohol."

"You wouldn't," she says, pretending to be horrified. She's right, I wouldn't, no matter how sweet the revenge would be.

Then I start grinning. At least I can enjoy the idea for a while.




The Original "Fear Factor"




Warning: this is cheesy

Every cook has a favourite ingredient always kept on hand and in good supply. This is mine - a wedge of good parmigiano reggiano. It keeps for weeks in the fridge, and can be enjoyed in countless ways: in pasta, risotto, and salads; biscuits, savoury scones and cheese bread; or simply by itself, in small chunks, broken off and nibbled slowly, perhaps with a glass of red wine.

I broke open a new wedge of parmigiano reggiano today and served it at Sunday lunch, in shavings over this arugula and prosciutto salad, with lemon juice and cracked black pepper to finish it off. Delicious. I first had this salad while having dinner with friends of my brother-in-law's in Florence, and every time I have it, my taste buds and I go back in time to the meal Auntie Gretchen served us...this salad, followed by a heavenly mushroom and cheese lasagne which I have never been able to duplicate, and for dessert, lemon pie made with freshly squeezed Italian lemons and heaped with snowy piles of meringue. I remember the alabaster lamp hanging over the table in the dining room, and myself walking in to find the cat helping himself to the prosciutto. No matter - there was enough for everybody.




Warning: this is cheesy




The way to a person's heart

Saturday evening is the time I usually get to talk to my sister, who lives in a predominantly Caucasian neighbourhood in the American Midwest. In the middle of our conversation tonight, my nearly-six-year-old nephew comes on the phone to say goodnight, and I send a noisy kiss down the wire. When he’s gone to bed, my sister tells me that on the way home from school yesterday, she asked him how he had liked the lunch she packed for him that day. “It was really good, Mommy,” he said. There was a pause, then he added in a small voice, “But Jeremy (not his real name) said it was gross. He always asks what I have for lunch, and he always says it’s gross.” My sister twisted around in the driver’s seat to see tears rolling down his cheeks.

When told this story, my mother asked, “What did you give him for lunch anyway?”

Just leftovers, my sister told her. Sliced sirloin steak with a balsamic vinegar reduction, and roasted broccoli with pine nuts and parmesan cheese.

“Well, that explains it,” my mom said. “This Jeremy kid is just jealous.”

There is one thing you have to understand about my family. We are Filipinos, which means we enjoy our food more than most people. Two Japanese friends of mine had lunch at Cucina Manila recently. They arrived at one thirty and lingered over their meal for over two hours, pleasantly surprised that the restaurant did not close down for the afternoon lull, because there was none. Even way past lunch-time, there was still a constant flow of customers, they reported to me with some astonishment. I explained to them that for Filipinos, any time is a good time to eat.

Not only do we enjoy our food…for us Filipinos, and especially in my family, cooking a meal, and consuming it with appreciation, is the highest expression of love. This is why the first question you’re asked when you walk in the door of any Filipino household is, “Kumain ka na?” (Have you eaten yet?) This is why my siblings and I were never packed off to school with nothing more than a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. (“That’s not lunch,” my mother would have said in horrified tones.) And this is why my nephew, bless his dear heart, cries when some kid tells him his lunch is gross. Little as he is, he knows that a lot of love goes into the food his mommy prepares for him.

And besides, he genuinely likes his steak and broccoli. To the Filipino, you truly are what you eat. So if you tell us our food is gross, we’ll take that as a personal insult to ourselves and to the person who made the food in the first place.

But let’s be fair. Maybe Jeremy comes from the kind of family that thinks PBJs are a good enough lunch. Maybe my mom is right and Jeremy is jealous. Which means that maybe the best solution to this conflict would be for my nephew to offer him a bite next time. Filipinos do love to share their food after all. And then maybe Jeremy will learn what my nephew seems to know by instinct: that the way to a person’s heart really does pass through the stomach. 


The way to a person's heart




Thoughts on The Bridge of San Luis Rey

I've just finished reading Thornton Wilder's The Bridge of San Luis Rey. In a thoughtful essay on the Haiti earthquake, Michael Cook refers to the book's disaster, which took the lives of five people, and concludes that suffering is not meaningless if we consider that every life - even if suddenly and tragically ended - can be considered "a perfect whole."

Intrigued and moved by these musings, and never having read The Bridge of San Luis Rey before, I went to the public library in search of it. It took me about three days to finish. Once I got to the end, I went back to the beginning and read it again. It is one of those many-layered books that will surprise you with new meaning each time you read it.

Wilder's writing style reminds me of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, except that it is not quite as confusing or ambiguous. (Nor does Wilder ramble on for hundreds of tedious pages. When I found The Bridge, I was surprised by its slimness, less than 150 pages in all.) The story reads like a fable, replete with hyperbole and irony, and crowded with whimsical and colourful characters: an eccentric old woman penning endless letters to her daughter; not one but two scornful and beautiful women; not one but two handsome young men; a poor and lonely little girl; a poor and lonely little boy; a wise and mysterious old man; an Abbess who goes about tirelessly doing good; a sea captain who roams the world; and the saintly and simple monk who serves as their biographer. However, in their passions and affections they are all too human. Each one hungers for a love that for some reason or another is beyond reach.

Five of these characters are plunged to their deaths with the breaking of the bridge. Most of the book deals with the paths each of these characters took that led him or her to the bridge at that precise moment in time when it collapsed. But to me, the most beautiful part of the book comes at the end, where we see how those left behind try and come to terms with love and chances lost forever, and discover to their astonishment that in spite of everything, they still get a second shot at redeeming grace.

"In love," the Abbess tells the remorseful Condesa, "our very mistakes don't seem to be able to last long." This is the very heart of the book. At face value, each life researched by Brother Juniper was a long string of mistakes: greed, pride, selfishness, the folly of yearning for the impossible. But in the end, it can truly be said that every person is more than just the sum of his mistakes; we are all made "perfect wholes" by love. 


Thoughts on The Bridge of San Luis Rey




The best things in life take time

A friend of mine is fond of reminding me that "good things come to those who wait." I'm realizing anew that this is oh, so true as I make pomodori al forno - plum tomatoes roasted ever so slowly in barely bubbling, golden olive oil until they're tender and a rich, dark red, then packed in garlic and herbs and left to sit overnight. When finally ready to eat, they truly are a heavenly reward.

Make these when you have a good chunk of time: an entire morning, afternoon, or evening. The procedure requires about forty-five minutes to an hour at the beginning, to slice and seed the tomatoes. Once they start roasting and the rest of the ingredients are prepped, you can putter around, do other chores, read a book or watch a DVD - whatever you're doing, just be prepared to hit pause at least twice to turn the tomatoes.

Warning: don't get too attached to your tomatoes as they will magically disappear once you serve them. My sister served these as an appy for Christmas lunch, and now I can appreciate the time and effort that she put it into what took us only minutes to devour. These pommes d'amour are aptly named - they truly are a labour of love.

OVEN ROASTED TOMATOES

adapted from a recipe published in the September 2008 edition of Buon Appetit

4 large (796-ml) cans plum tomatoes, sliced in half and seeded
2 cups olive oil

1 cup minced Italian (flat-leaf) parsley
Half a head of garlic, minced
1 tablespoon dried oregano
Salt and sugar

Preheat your oven to 250 degrees.

Take two large, glass baking dishes and pour in about half a cup of olive oil into each so that the bottoms are covered. Lay a single layer of tomato halves in each, cut side up. Drizzle the remaining oil over each and place the dishes in the oven. Roast for one hour.

At the end of the first hour, gently turn the tomato halves over. Return to the oven for another hour.

At the end of the second hour, turn the tomatoes again, and continue roasting until they are tender and deep red, up to another hour.

Place the tomatoes in layers in a large glass dish. Sprinkle each layer with the parsley, garlic and oregano, and a dash of sugar and salt. Pour in the olive oil from the dish until just covered. Reserve the tomato-infused oil for use in pasta dishes.

Let the tomatoes sit at room temperature overnight. They are ready to eat the next day, and will keep in the fridge for up to two weeks - if they last that long! Just bring them back to room temperature before serving - preferably on warm baguette slices spread with goat cheese.




The best things in life take time




"The Magic of Images": comment

Author Camille Paglia vividly describes, and makes the case for, three areas of disconnect in the modern visual environment, and the generation growing up in it: between contemporary culture and history; between image and language; and between the multiplicity of images and the ability to really see them.

“Young people today,” she says, “are flooded with disconnected images but lack a sympathetic instrument to analyze them as well as a historical frame of reference in which to situate them.”

The solution she proposes is the historical and cultural grounding of the basic education of today’s students, whom she portrays in bold strokes as “unmoored from the mother ship of culture” and “riding the tail of a comet in a media starscape of explosive but evanescent images.” Truly an artist with words, Paglia advocates the use of “exemplary images” from the canon of Western art to help students develop their visual, analytical, and verbal skills, which she says have been degraded by their usage of modern media, in particular the television and computer.

It is interesting to note that half a century ago, the German philosopher Josef Pieper already observed that “man’s ability to see is in decline.” In “Learning to See Again,” an essay he wrote in 1952, he notes, “The average person of our time loses the ability to see because there is too much to see…(the) visual noise of daily inanities makes clear perception impossible.”

Paglia's concluding paragraph, however, gives me pause - particularly her last sentence: "The only antidote to the magic of images is the magic of words." I agree with her on the importance of having solid cultural and educational formation so that we are able to analyze data, think critically, form our own ideas, and articulate them effectively. I find it ironic, though, that she devotes a good part of the article on the merits – indeed, the necessity – of educating students on Western art, then wraps up by saying that that images need an “antidote.” Why would they need an antidote? Isn’t it true that even in – especially in - today’s fragmented world, there are still some things that just cannot be expressed in words? To turn again to another of Pieper’s essays (“Thoughts on Music,” 1952) we can name certain constants of the human condition: joy, hope, yearning, grief, despair… “To articulate such intimate realities,” Pieper says, “the dynamism of human existence itself, the spoken word proves utterly inadequate. Such realities, by their very nature (and also because of the spirit’s nature) exist before as well as beyond all speech.” These intimate and inexpressible realities are precisely why we can and do find pleasure and catharsis in music and visual art. A logical argument, a well-organized essay, a finely crafted piece of literature – all of these of have their own undeniable value. But there are moments when a picture is still worth a thousand words. 


"The Magic of Images": comment




Embracing the Seasons

In 2009 I reconnected with a friend who, living in a tropical country, is fascinated by everything that has to do with the changing seasons. Fortuitously, at around the same time I also acquired a good camera. Seeing my surroundings through my friend's eyes, as well as through the camera lens, opened my own eyes to so many beautiful things that I had never noticed before. I would stand for long moments gazing fixedly at nothing, but actually I was watching leaves turn, snow melt, and skies change colour.

I started out thinking I was showing my friend something, but the past few months I've spent watching the seasons taught me a lot too, mostly about learning when to wait, and when to capture the moment, and never never to take little things for granted.



Embracing the Seasons




The man in the wheelchair

Every evening as I leave the office I walk by a little man sitting in a wheelchair parked on the sidewalk, just out of the way of passersby. He has long scraggly hair, a long scraggly beard, and only one leg. It's hard to tell his age - he's no longer young, but he's not terribly old either. What seems obvious is that he's not altogether there, as he sits, cap in hand, turning his head from side to side, muttering to no one in particular and looking no one in the eye.

At least, that's what I thought, until one day I stopped to offer him a blueberry muffin, and I looked into his face. He seemed startled, maybe because for once someone looked at him and saw a person. I know I was startled, because looking into his eyes I saw a soul.

He took the muffin, nodded and said, "Thank you, dear." He has deep-set, dark blue eyes. I smiled into them for a moment longer and moved on. From that day I've tried to catch his eye every time I pass. One time he recognized me and said, "Nice to see you, ma'am." Most times he's too busy turning his head this way and that - a funny habit of his.

I started to wish that there was something more I could do to help him. And then today as I passed by him I noticed his glove had fallen onto the sidewalk by his wheelchair. I stepped near to him and stooped to pick it up. Again that startled expression, followed by a quick little nod and a thank you.

And it was then that it struck me. As much as we would like to get rid of all the suffering in the world, often this is all we can do for each other. A little treat. A smile. A small act of service. A prayer that the other person has a warm place to go at night. Or - the simplest and yet probably the most important thing - just looking into people's eyes to let them know that you see them, that you know they exist, and are glad that they do. 


The man in the wheelchair




Excerpt from "The Blessing of Christmas" by J. Ratzinger

Why do we bake and give away sweets at Christmas? "In that day, the mountains will drip sweetness, and the rivers will flow with milk and honey" (An Old Testament verse that is part of the Advent liturgy). People of old found in such words the embodiment of their hopes for a world redeemed. They celebrated Christmas as the day on which God truly came. When he comes at Christmas, he distributes his honey.. truly, the earth must flow with honey on that day: where he is present, all bitterness disappears, and there is harmony between heaven and earth, between God and man. The honey and the sweets are a sign of this peace, of concord and of joy.

This is why Christmas has become the feast of when we give presents, when we imitate the God who has given us his own self and has thereby given us once again that life which truly becomes a gift only when the "milk" of our existence is sweetened by the "honey" of being loved. And this love is not threatened by any death, any infidelity, or any meaninglessness.

Ultimately, all this finds its unity in the joy that God has become a child who encourages us to trust as children trust, and to give and receive gifts...Perhaps the right way to celebrate Advent is to let the signs of God's love that we receive in this period penetrate our soul, without resistance, without questions and quibbling.




Excerpt from "The Blessing of Christmas" by J. Ratzinger




Remembering Lola Alice

My grandmother holding her first grandchild. We were supposed to have the same birthday, but I finally arrived half an hour afer midnight.

Today I'm thinking of my grandmother. Strong, beautiful, spirited and gracious, she was everything I hope I will grow old to be.

Our birthdays come so close together, mine now feels a little incomplete without her around. I've always felt, too, that our birthdays come at a special time of year - maybe because they always fall somewhere around the start of Advent, when what seems like an ending is really a beginning, and light steals softly, quietly back into the world just when it seems most dark.

I've slowly learned that thinking about death on a birthday can bring more peace and joy than sadness, and everything does come full circle, in a cycle of love and faith and hope. It is at this time of year when I most strongly believe that love really is stronger than death, and people we think we've lost are still there for us somehow when we need them most.




Remembering Lola Alice




Blue Remembered Hills

I'm reading Blue Remembered Hills, Rosemary Sutcliff's memoir of her childhood, and just had to share some of her delicious, wickedly funny quotes, starting with this one:

My mother was the perfect Spartan mother. I have always been able to imagine her telling her sons to return from battle "with their shields or on them." She did actually try it on my father at the start of the Second World War. He didn't take it kindly.

On childhood playmates and pranks:

There was Sheila Walker who was six, and who, I am ashamed to say, Jean and I used to terrorize. She did ask for it - she grizzled and told tales - but still, we should not have fed her on dandelion leaves and then told her they were deadly poison. I see that now. At the time, it seemed like a good idea.

On etiquette:

I was in disgrace (because) I had refused to eat my pudding, on the grounds that it both looked and tasted pale grey. I had not meant to be rude; the pudding did look and taste pale grey, and I was simply giving her the true and valid reason for my refusal to eat it. But social lessons had to be learned; one cannot go through life telling one's hostess that her pudding is pale grey, even when it is.

On good behaviour:

(At school) We wore panama hats with red-and-white ribbon round them, and were expected to behave ourselves in the street in a way which would not bring dishonour upon the school, the United Kingdom including Church and Crown, or the British Empire. 


Blue Remembered Hills




Sizzling Beef

Who says you have to stick to turkey for Thanksgiving? I know that in North America, the following remark will amount to heresy, but turkey is bland and boring, no matter how you dress it up. It also makes everyone sleepy and lazy after eating. Not to mention the everlasting leftovers you are forced to consume.

This is one of the dishes I served for yesterday's dinner, the first-ever Thanksgiving I hosted. The other dish I made earlier in the week, and simply froze it, then put it in the oven to heat up. My aunt brought the carbs - pansit palabok - a family favourite. So I was free to prepare this dish freestyle, making it up as I went along, which is the cooking method I most enjoy. Serving it in a sizzling cast iron pan was a definite wow factor, and guess what? No leftovers.

2 pounds beef short ribs
1/2 cup hoisin sauce
1 tbsp soy sauce
1/2 tsp sesame oil
2 tsp cooking oil
2 cups shitake mushrooms, sliced
4 green onions, sliced into 4-inch pieces
Sesame seeds

Combine the hoisin sauce, soy sauce, sesame oil and cooking oil. Mix into the beef and marinate for about an hour.

Heat up a cast iron pan until smoking. Add the beef and cook until crisp. Remove from the pan and set aside. Add the mushrooms and cook until just tender. Remove from the pan and set aside. Last, add the green onions and cook until limp and starting to turn brown in spots. Remove from the pan.

When ready to serve, put the beef back into the hot pan, top with the mushrooms and finally the green onions. Sprinkle sesame seeds over all. Don't forget to put a trivet on the table!




Sizzling Beef




Harvest Salad

This salad combines autumn flavours with the ease and lightness of a meal you would normally serve in hot weather. Perfect for these Indian summer evenings we've been lucky to have lately!



For the Salad:
200 grams smoked chicken or turkey, shredded
4 cups baby spinach
handful of dried cranberries
handful of chopped pecans, roasted and sprinkled with a little salt
1 small Granny Smith apple, diced
1 small carrot, grated
1 small avocado, peeled and diced
1/4 red onion, thinly sliced and soaked in cold water for 10 minutes

Balsamic Vinaigrette
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
3/4 cup olive oil
2 tsp brown sugar
1 clove garlic, crushed
salt and pepper

Combine all the salad ingredients in a large bowl or in individual dishes.
Place all the vinaigrette ingredients in a clean glass jar, put the lid on and give it a good shake. Drizzle over the salad, toss and serve. 


Harvest Salad




It's peach time

Mimi came home from Chilliwack last weekend with big juicy peaches, which I turned into Sunday dessert - fresh peach cobbler.

This recipe will make a mini peach cobbler for two. You'll need a small glass oven-proof dish that fits into your toaster oven.

Preheat the toaster oven to 425 degrees.

For the filling:
4 large peaches, ripe but firm (so you can use a vegetable peeler to peel them; if they are soft, you'll need to blanch them in boiling water for 30 seconds then plunge them into ice water to remove the skins)
1/8 cup sugar
1/2 tsp. cornstarch
2 tsps. lemon juice
pinch of salt

Peel the peaches, split each and remove the pit. Quarter each section and put all the pieces in a bowl. Sprinkle the sugar over all and toss gently. Leave for 30 minutes, tossing once in a while. Empty the pieces into a colander and let the peach juice drain into a bowl. Save 1/8 cup of the juice (discard the rest) and whisk in the cornstarch, lemon juice and salt. Add the peaches and toss to coat evenly. Put the peaches into the glass dish and bake until bubbling gently around the edges, about 10 minutes.

While the peaches are baking, assemble the topping:
1 cup Bisquick mix
4 1/2 tsps. sugar
5 tbsps. cold butter, cut into small pieces
1/3 cup plain yogurt
pinch of salt

Stir the sugar and salt into the Bisquick. Use a whisk to mix well. Add the butter and rub into the Bisquick mixture with your fingers until it resembles coarse meal. With a rubber spatula, stir in the yogurt until the dough sticks together. (Do not overwork the dough or the biscuits will be tough. All it needs is a few gentle pats and turns with the spatula.)

When the peaches are bubbling, remove from the toaster oven and spoon the biscuit mixture on top into separate mounds about 1/2 inch apart. The mounds must not touch each other. Put the whole thing back into the toaster oven and bake for 15 minutes more, or until the fruit is bubbling and the biscuits are golden brown on top. Serve warm with ice cream or whipped cream. 


It's peach time




Let's bring back the family dinner!

When my mom and her sisters were growing up, my grandmother always insisted they eat at least one meal a day all together. Since my grandfather often had business functions to attend in the evening, for them the family meal was breakfast. Not only did her own children benefit from this healthy, happy tradition, so did we of the next generation. Many of my happy memories of home take place around the dining table. Thanks, Mom and Pops, for working hard to put great food on the table, and even more important, for showing us that you really enjoyed your children's company, that you looked forward to us coming home for dinner, and were interested in everything we had to say.

Sitting down to supper together
Father Raymond J. de Souza, National Post
Published: Thursday, September 17, 2009

It's been a couple of years since I last wrote about "National Family Dinner Night." Tonight is the fifth annual occurrence of the venture launched by MacVoisin, proprietor of M&M Meat Shops, to encourage families to sit down and have dinner together. No TV, no cellphones, no text messaging, no BlackBerrys, no iPhones -- just family dinner. Food to eat and conversations to be had. You don't have to eat M&M products to have a family dinner, of course, but if you register your participation with M&M they make a contribution to the Crohn's and Colitis Foundation of Canada. The family dinner promotion has contributed to the more than $18-million which M&M has raised for the charity.

I have returned to this subject more than once because I think the regular family dinner is a powerful support to family unity and the successful raising of children. Last week I wrote in this space about my own parents as an example of a successful immigrant family. Regular family dinner and family prayer were key parts of that. The old saying went that the family that prays together stays together. The family that doesn't eat together likely won't get a chance to pray together either.

It's easy enough to bang on about how things were better when life was simpler, so I was pleased to read in a Toronto newspaper this past weekend about recent studies that appear to link family dining to better brain development in teens.

Adolescence is a time of significant brain development and integration, especially for boys. Dr. Tomas Paus, a neuroscientist working in the Saguenay region of Quebec, has done brain scans and interviews with some 600 teenage volunteers. His studies have examined the impact on brain development of "positive youth development." He summarizes that in terms of five Cs: connectedness with friends and families, character, caring, competence and confidence. Dr. Paus' team thinks that family meals together can boost all five Cs and lead to better brain development, more successful teenage outcomes and fewer psychiatric problems.

It's always good to find experimental science confirming what common sense and traditional wisdom hold, if only because common sense is not all that common, and traditions of all kinds are weakening. You shouldn't need a neuroscientist to convince you to have dinner regularly with your kids, but if it helps, no harm is done.

Children today are in an unusual state. Fewer and fewer of them are ever allowed to do anything truly independent, like walk to school or take a bus across town with their friends. Their parents, motivated as parents are by the best of intentions, hover over them at all times. Few children have any extended periods of unsupervised play. Yet at the same time, studies tell us that parents and children spend remarkably little time actually talking to each other. The child often gets the worst of both worlds -- his parents are always around, but he doesn't actually converse with them.

The family dinner can correct something of that. Obviously Mom can't ask Junior about what he did during the day if she has been driving him everywhere, but the kitchen table can be a place where children are not so much supervised as they are encouraged to be contributing participants. The family dinner is a remarkably egalitarian institution; it permits the young ones to tell their stories to adults who listen, and teaches children (not without difficulties!) to listen to each other. The family dinner, presided over by cheerful but firm parents, also channels one of nature's primal urges -- the desire to eat -- into a social grace, complete with manners and courtesy.

Family dinner can also be a regular teacher of how everyone should contribute to the family. Even little children can help set the table, and older ones can take their turns doing the dishes, taking out the garbage or cleaning up the kitchen. With the range of easy-to-prepare meals available, teenagers can even help with the cooking, such as it is.

But talking about family dinner in terms of character development and brain chemistry is to put secondary things first. Family dinner, with parents and children (grandma too in our family's case), and friends on occasion, is for the happy family simple, inexpensive, wholesome, good fun. And what family could not use more of that? 


Let's bring back the family dinner!




Chicken with Beer

A friend of mine who knew me when I was a sweet little girl of seventeen is surprised to learn I now drink beer. This is thanks to another friend who on learning I didn't like beer, suggested I just hadn't found the right one. After many experimental sips I found a few beers that actually did the trick for me: from cool, pale Stella Artois and Grolsch, to caramelly Sleeman's Honey Lager, to rich dark Guinness, served double-cold.

Before I ever started drinking beer though, I was cooking with it. Chicken with beer is a recipe I adapted years ago from James Barber's Urban Peasant series. Yesterday I made it for dinner. My roomie was intrigued as she watched me pour Stella over the chicken browning in the pan, and I was gratified when she kept dipping into the dish for "just one more."

1 pound chicken wings
2 tbsp butter
1 large shallot, minced
1 clove garlic, minced
355 ml (1 can) beer (any kind will do)
1 tbsp soy sauce, preferably Tamari
Dash of sesame oil
Salt and pepper to taste
2 tbsps sesame seeds, toasted

In a heavy-bottomed skillet, heat the butter until it stops sizzling and turns golden brown. Add the minced shallot and garlic and saute until soft and semi-transparent. Add the chicken, toss evenly to coat with the butter, and cook until starting to turn golden. Pour the beer over all. Lower the heat and simmer until the liquid starts to thicken. Add the soy sauce, sesame oil, salt and pepper. If serving over rice, remove from the heat while the sauce is still a bit runny. If serving as a finger food, cook until the beer caramelizes completely and each piece is sticky and dark golden brown. Sprinkle with sesame seeds before serving. 


Chicken with Beer




Preserving lemons

It's August now and after a prolonged heatwave in July, the weather has suddenly turned cool and nippy. Night is falling remorselessly earlier every day, and the first leaves are starting to turn. But instead of mourning summer, I've decided to try and capture a little bit of its sunshine...by making preserved lemons.

Nothing says summer to me more than a bowlful of lemons sitting on the kitchen counter, right beside an icy pitcher of lemonade. Even if lemons (and many other produce) are available all year round, there is nothing so delicious as fruits and vegetables harvested, prepared, and eaten at the peak of their proper season. Tomatoes that actually taste like tomatoes...freshly picked berries...peaches, corn, and of course, lemons.

Preserving summer lemons ensures that you have a way to add a bright note to many meals well into the fall and winter. As the weeks go by, the yellow colour deepens, so that the jar looks like it's full of congealed sunshine. And when you open the jar, you get a whiff of concentrated lemon fragrance, combined with a certain sweet saltiness, which to me is the very essence of summer.

Preserved lemons

I've had this magazine clipping on preserved lemons for years. Unfortunately I didn't keep the publication info. I'm hoping this method is universal enough that it doesn't need attribution.

• 1 quart Mason jar
• 6-8 organic lemons, plus a few more for juice; washed thoroughly
  
• 1 cup coarse Kosher or sea salt

1. Sterilize the jar or run it through a complete dishwasher cycle. Make sure the inside is thoroughly dry before starting.
2. Place enough salt in the jar to cover the bottom.
3. Remove the stem from each lemon and slice into quarters, but don't go all the way through the stem end. Leave about 1/4 inch uncut.
4. Holding the lemon over a bowl, pry it open gently and pack the inside with salt. Rub salt over the outside as well. Put each lemon into the jar as soon as it has been salted.
5. Pack the lemons tightly into the jar so that the juice runs out. Add more juice if necessary, covering the lemons completely.
6. Seal the jar and let it stand at room temperature for a couple of days, then transfer to the refrigerator for about 3 weeks, turning it upside down from time to time.
7. When the lemons are ready to use, remove from the jar as needed with a wooden spoon, chopstick or skewer. Wash before using and remove seeds. The entire lemon - rind and pulp - can be used. It will have a salty, sweet, sour flavour. Chop into stuffings for roasts, or add to salads, rice, couscous, vegetable dishes...the list goes on and on!
8. As long as you are careful not to introduce any bacteria into the jar, the lemons will keep six months or more in the fridge. Just make sure they are always covered with lemon juice. Top up as needed.
   




Preserving lemons




The delights of anticipation

Last summer Mimi and I almost killed this blueberry bush out of neglect. In fact, we had already given it up for dead. But lo and behold, this spring it put out leaves...then flowers...then finally, fruit!!! There is nothing so mouthwatering as watching these green globules ripen to a dusky purple, day by summer day. When they were finally ripe, we went out with a small bowl to take in our precious harvest. The next day we enjoyed the blueberries on top of vanilla icecream, drizzled with a bit of white balsamic vinegar syrup. Perhaps if we all learned to grow at least some of our own vegetables and fruit, we would learn a lot about patience, the delights of anticipation, and the satisfaction of attaining something that we have worked for, taken care of, and finally gives itself to us in its proper time and due season. What a contrast to instant, empty gratification!




The delights of anticipation




Who says you can't have a feast for a midweek office lunch?

Next time you find yourself in the situation I was in today - no dinner leftovers to brown-bag for tomorrow's lunch - skip the food court and go to the nearest deli or grocery store instead. Lots of simple, tasty, heart-healthy choices. I went to the downtown IGA and picked up juicy ripe tomatoes, olives, roasted marinated eggplant, and a package of proscuitto di San Daniele (hey, it's a feast day). Perfect with your choice of a cold San Pelligrino beverage - I like the limonata. Sit in the sun, have a picnic, and enjoy a few minutes of la dolce vita without leaving town. If you can't go to Italy, this is the next best thing.




Who says you can't have a feast for a midweek office lunch?




Cold noodles, anyone?

My roomie has introduced me to the simple and delicious joys of Japanese home cooking. This past winter we warmed up our cold hungry tummies with hot-pot and soups. But on this July day, Mimi-san made us some cold noodles for dinner. I must admit I had my doubts at first - cold noodles did not sound very appetizing - but they turned out to be light and refreshing. Served alongside a variety of cold meat and pickled veggies, they make the perfect, no-fuss summer meal.

Use soba (brown or white) - prepare according to package directions, then plunge into ice water.

Mince some peeled ginger and green onions very finely. Also slice up some cold roast pork - we used Chinese barbecued pork that Mimi's mom made last weekend.

Set out pickled eggplant and garlic in small serving bowls. (I love garlic pickled in red miso - although unsuspecting people will doubtless be aghast to see me popping the whole cloves. Not to worry - pickling makes garlic sweet, crisp and nutty. No garlic breath afterwards, either.)

Also a note about the pickled eggplant - if you go looking for them in a Japanese store, you'll find that they are small, round and blue. Don't ask me what makes them blue. I just know they look weird but taste great.

Grab some dried seaweed and hydrate in a cup of water, then splash on some citrus or basil-infused soy sauce.

The noodles are served in a bowl with a sauce made of soy sauce, broth, and mirin. (We used a pre-made sauce that comes in a bottle. It's like a syrup that needs to be diluted with water.) Throw on some of the minced ginger and onion and stir it all up with your chopsticks.

Itadakimasu!




Cold noodles, anyone?




A tribute to cherry blossoms and Easter

It was winter when my family and I first arrived in Canada. Our friends and family in Manila thought we were crazy to make the move in the winter time. “Wait until the summer, when the weather’s warmer,” they urged us. But my mother wanted to spend Christmas with her parents and sisters, who were waiting for us in Vancouver. So on December 10, 1992, after interminable delays due to bad weather, and the final, bumpy flight in an airbus from Seattle, we seven Olagueras landed on Canadian soil.

I don’t know if you remember the winter of 1992. By December 10, it had already snowed, and it continued to snow into the new year. One morning, early, just a few days after we arrived, my father gently shook me awake and led me to the window, and together we watched our first snowfall. I was astonished and delighted to see that the sky was pink, and the thick, feathery flakes turned gold in the light of the street lamps.

For the most part, though, that was a miserable time. In early January, we moved from the comfort and familiarity of my aunt’s house and into a rental in South Burnaby. The house was clean and spacious, but unfurnished, the rooms echoing with emptiness. Our furniture, books and paintings had followed us out from the Philippines by ship and were not due to arrive for another month. The day after we moved in, there was another huge dump of snow which made it impossible for anyone to come out and visit us. But it was a Sunday, and my father and younger sister and I decided we had to try and make it to Mass. I remember standing at the bus stop in the whirling snow, wondering, “What am I doing here?” and feeling colder than I had ever been in my life – both inside and out.

Finally it stopped snowing, but it was still cold and I was stuck with the feeling of not belonging anywhere. Home, to me, was still the white stucco house back in Manila, with its red tile roof, eucalyptus trees and ginger flowers in the garden, and one of my best friends living across the park. But that house was no longer ours and I knew I could never go back. On the other hand, to call this empty rental house “home” was a joke.

I found a job and started working, telling myself that at least, unlike many immigrants, I already spoke English. But I found that nobody could understand me, as I struggled to get the accent and colloquialisms of Canadian English just right. New friends were few and far between, and I was terribly lonely. But I didn’t want to unburden my woes on my parents, who already had enough to worry about, or my sister, who had started at the local secondary school and had major adjustments of her own to cope with. My other siblings were too young to be confidantes. Besides, they seemed to have taken to our new life with no problems whatsoever. They thought playing in the snow was fun, for heaven’s sake – while I had to trudge up a steep and icy hill to the bus stop and was already thinking of it peevishly as that “d---ed” white stuff. The children’s innocent enjoyment seemed an affront to my misery.

So things sort of limped along – and then, spring came. Miraculously, the snow melted, the sun shone. Best of all, the cherry blossoms appeared. I had never seen cherry blossoms before. Our neighbourhood streets were lined with cherry trees, and walking to the bus stop was no longer penance but pleasure. To this day, the sight of cherry blossoms, pink and white against a blue sky, lifts my heart and my spirit.

By this time, the shipment from Manila had finally arrived. My mother was happily arranging our belongings, and the house looked better everyday. But there were delights outside as well. Whoever had lived here before us had been an avid gardener. As the months progressed, the garden was constantly surprising us with all sorts of unfamiliar but wonderful flowers. Later, I looked in garden books and found out that they were crocuses, daffodils and tulips. I stuck dandelions in the buttonholes of my jacket, not knowing they were weeds. We had apple trees by the back porch, all adrift in white, as if there had been another snowfall, and in the vegetable patch, my youngest sister discovered strawberries.

It was truly for me a time of new beginnings. Easter Sunday that year was a beautiful sunny day, warm enough for the children to paint Easter eggs on the back porch and have an egg hunt in the garden. Watching them, I found myself smiling, widely and openly, for the first time in months. I had been, both literally and figuratively, in a cold, gray limbo. But spring sunshine and Easter joy are a powerful combination. Suddenly, I was filled with hope for the future, and with the unshakable conviction that I was exactly where God wanted me to be. I was home.

Happy Easter season, everyone!




A tribute to cherry blossoms and Easter




Learning to be human from The Little Mermaid

The Little Mermaid at Stanley Park

The Little Mermaid by Hans Christian Andersen was my favourite fairy tale as a child. For reasons I could not then name, I found it deeply satisfying, even if the little mermaid didn't end up with the prince. Revisiting it as an adult, I see now how marvellously rich and complex a story it is. Andersen's lush descriptions and enchanting plot fully capture a child's imagination. At the same time, the story easily resonates with adults because it grapples with the deepest longings of the human heart.

"Far out to sea…" The opening lines of the story sweeps us away with the swiftness of a speedboat to a magical, underwater kingdom inhabited by the mythical mermen. The heroine of the story is the sea-king's daughter. The youngest and fairest of six girls, her fascination with the world above the surface sets her apart from her sisters. Her love for the human prince ultimately causes her to leave her home and loved ones for a painful and uncertain future. Andersen manages to imbue the little mermaid’s alienation with real and intense emotion, translating into her character his own feelings of being an outsider (see Bredsdorff’s excellent biography, Hans Christian Andersen: The Story of His Life and Work).

Andersen also makes the little mermaid a true protagonist, in charge of her own destiny. She is not your usual fairytale princess, the kind that waits for the prince to kiss her awake or for her turn to try on the glass slipper.

First of all, and quite remarkably, the little mermaid saves the prince’s life, rescuing him from a shipwreck. In a valiant attempt to win his love and an immortal soul, she then visits the sea-witch, who strikes a terrible bargain: in exchange for a pair of legs, the little mermaid must give up her voice.

The witch also warns her that the transformation of her tail into legs will feel like being torn into two with a sharp sword, and every step on dry land will be as if she were walking on sharp knives. Even more painful will be the separation from her home and loved ones: never again will she live underwater, and if she fails in her attempt to win the prince, she will turn into sea-foam. The little mermaid agrees to everything, and with characteristic fairytale violence, the witch cuts out her tongue.

The prince of the story, on the other hand, is practically unconscious. He has no idea that the little mermaid was the one who really saved him from drowning. He treats her like a beloved pet, “but to make her his queen did not occur to him at all”.

However, the little mermaid remains faithful and devoted to him to the end. Even after he falls in love with and marries another, she refuses to take advantage of an enchanted knife, kindly provided by the sea-witch, which if plunged into the prince’s heart would cause his blood to splash onto her legs and turn them into a fish-tail once more. The little mermaid would rather face “an endless night without thought or dreams” than kill her love.

The little mermaid doesn’t end up with her prince, but she doesn’t turn into sea-foam either. It is neither a fairy-tale ending nor a tragedy, and features another unique twist: the little mermaid apparently has turned into an angel-like spirit, with a chance to win immortality. Ultimately, it is the only fitting reward for her tremendous love, courage, and selflessness. 


Learning to be human from The Little Mermaid




The Meaning of Home

Last November my parents made what is hopefully the last big move of their married life, and left Vancouver for Montreal.

After a tearful goodbye at the airport, I got on the bus that would take me to a Skytrain station, and so on to Surrey, where I had been living for the past year – during the week, anyway. I still went “home” to Aldergrove most weekends – even if they consisted mostly of cleaning up and clearing out while the realtor brought around prospective buyers. As long as my parents still lived in Aldergrove, that was home to me, no matter where I laid my head during the week.

Don’t get me wrong. I will be eternally grateful to this good friend of mine who had offered me not only the extra bedroom and bathroom in her spacious townhouse, but also the space on the landing for my reading lamp, chair, and books; half her linen closet and kitchen storage; and the entire back end of her garage for all my extra stuff. Not to mention the fact that she herself is quiet, orderly, undemanding, and eats anything I cook for her (even the weirdest Pinoy food). I knew that when I got back to “our place” all would be clean, tidy, and peaceful. But as I made my way back to Surrey on that November day, feeling like an abandoned orphan, I was amazed to find that I was also homesick. I wanted to get on the bus that would take me over Langley's long green hills to Aldergrove. I wanted to walk down the street from the bus stop and see the yellow siding and gray shingle roof peeking through the trees that separated our yard from the neighbour’s. I wanted to open the front door and find everything and everyone still there where they belonged – including the dog (and she had been dead for a year).

When you live someplace for a long time, you tend to put down roots, and it’s a wrench to pull them back up. Or worse, leave them behind: the neighbours whose children grew up along with your siblings, all the wonderful folks at church, the cashiers at the supermarket who know you by name, your fellow regulars at the gym, the waitress at the corner Japanese restaurant who doesn't have to give you a menu because she already knows exactly what you’re going to order. The roses and peonies you set out in the garden; the cotoneaster, now running riot, that started out as seven small plants; the lilac bush that over the years became a tree. In the garden outside and in the empty rooms within are the ghosts of small children now grown up and gone, laughter over long-forgotten jokes, and echoes of conversations around a dining table that’s been packed up and moved away.

You know you will always remember them, and wonder if they will remember you.

And after a while you realize that the only cure for homesickness is to put down new roots and start being happy where you are.

To me, the word home will always bring to mind a picture of our happy little yellow house. Fortunately, my parents gave me the blueprints and tools to duplicate it, wherever I happen to be. 


The Meaning of Home




My 15 Favourite Books of All Time

In no particular order.

1) Gone With the Wind
For all the great lines:
"After all, tomorrow is another day."
"As God is my witness, I'll never be hungry again."
"Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn."
First read this when I was 9, and even then I thought Ashley was a twit.
Also, Scarlett may have had some major faults, but she was tenacious, practical, loyal to her parents, and unafraid of doing a man's work in an era when women were supposed to sit at home and look pretty.  Which just goes to show that nobody's all bad.

2) A Wrinkle in Time and sequels
The first book that made me look at reality differently...made me realize there's more to it than meets the eye.

3) Wuthering Heights
The only book I know that can be described as both "horrible" and "wonderful."

4) The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
Made me laugh, cry, shudder, and hope. What more can you ask from a book?
For a Mercatornet review of this book, click here.

5) Wives and Daughters
A big, fat, satisfying wedge of a book - if you overlook the fact that it isn't quite finished! But you can watch the BBC movie to see how they ended it, based on letters and notes written by Elizabeth Gaskell before she died.

6) The Shell Seekers
Rosamunde Pilcher has a marvellous way of making ordinary things sound beautiful, and simple food sound delicious. Her language is simple and elegant. And I love how this story switches back and forth in time so effortlessly.

7) The Canterville Ghost
Witty and hauntingly beautiful (pun intended).

8) The Phantom Lover
Just because it can still make me laugh out loud. A particularly well-written Regency romance, which I'm amazed to find still in print!

9) Cheaper By the Dozen
Same reason as #8.

10) Eleni
True story about a very brave woman, written by her son, after a lifetime of searching for the truth.

11) Letters to a Young Catholic
George Weigel is my favourite journalist. He can explain the most profound realities in the simplest language, without stripping them of truth or splendour.

12) The Nurse Kathy books I read in grade school.
I enjoyed reading about Kathy because she loved nursing and made it sound so interesting, exciting and noble. Also because she dated Steve the hunky fireman.

13) A World of Folk Tales
Mom and Papa gave me this beautifully illustrated book of magical tales from around the world for my 8th birthday. I still have it.

14) Merlin's Mistake
I must have checked this book out of the school library at least half a dozen times. So happy when I found it years later on Amazon Marketplace.  A clever story with a neat twist and a particularly satisfying ending.

15) The Hunchback of Notre Dame
So tragically lovely. The classic love triangle with the ultimate anti-hero. A book that taught me not to be fooled by appearances.




My 15 Favourite Books of All Time




Middlemarch

I’ve just finished reading Middlemarch by George Eliot – a big thick wedge of a book, and one of the most satisfying novels I’ve ever read. It feels and reads like an epic, even though it contains no heroes in the traditional sense of the word, is not set in the context of any great historical conflict, and does not span a long period of time.

Instead, it contains characters marvellous for their ordinariness – people even we moderns can recognize and identify with. Eliot was a genius in character study, and she brilliantly portrays this or that aspect of human nature in a few skillful strokes, and captures a character’s predominant fault or virtue with a simple gesture, facial expression, or a few words of dialogue. The lives of her characters in Middlemarch make up three main story lines, which mingle, separate, and twine together again like the branches of a vine. From the very start we are drawn into their joys, loves, sorrows and concerns. Perhaps Eliot realizes this, for she begins the epilogue by saying, Who can quit young lives after being long in company of them, and not desire to know what befell them in their after-years?

I would recommend this book to young men and women, especially those in a relationship and may be thinking of getting married. I would also recommend it to almost-grown-up children who are just beginning to realize that their parents are not perfect beings. The book offers many insights about friendships, relationships, marriage and family life: how very easily we can fall in love with the idea we have formed about a person, instead of seeing who the person really is; how parents, while capable of many mistakes, are still deserving of all our affection and respect; how married couples can survive any difficulty if they remain united and are able to laugh together.

I leave it to you to discover for yourself these and many other lessons from Middlemarch. But I cannot resist sharing with you two of my favourite quotes from the book:

The first was uttered by one of my favourite characters, Mary Garth: I consider my father and mother the best part of myself.

And this, the concluding sentence of the book, which I think expresses wonderfully the value and beauty of the extraordinary good we can do with ordinary lives well-lived: …the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs. 


Middlemarch




How we beat the heat

We're in the middle of a heat wave. Today was the hottest day yet...it hit over 35 degrees in the Valley. Even the cows are fainting (I'm not kidding).

I think the heat addled our brains a bit. Today, of all days, Mom roasted the boiled pork belly she's been air-drying for days, to make lechon with a nice, crisp, crackling, golden-brown rind. And Sashi decided to make cupcakes.

So the kitchen was boiling for most of the afternoon, but we had a great dinner. We ate outside on the patio and feasted on the roast pork, Thai noodle salad, and ice-cold Guinness. For dessert, Sashi made individual-sized trifles with crumbled white cake (made from the leftover cupcake batter), berries, and vanilla icecream, drizzled with white balsamic vinegar syrup. 


How we beat the heat




Once, they had a secret love

Sorting through some papers after my grandmother died, my mother found her parents' marriage certificate. But there were a few strange details about it. First of all, it had been torn down the middle and then taped back together. And the date of the marriage was November 29, 1952: two years and a day before the date the family had always celebrated as my grandparents' wedding anniversary. It had always been easy to remember, because that day, November 30, was also my grandmother's birthday.

Understandably, my mother proceeded to have a small crisis. What did this certificate mean? When did her parents actually get married? If the wedding date was wrong, did that mean her birthdate was wrong, too???

Only one person knew the answer. When confronted with the certificate, my grandfather smiled. "I was wondering when you'd find that." Then he sat my mother down and told her the whole story - a story that he and my grandmother had kept secret for more than fifty years.

My grandparents had known each other since their early high school years. My grandfather's younger sister and my grandmother went to the same school, and my grandfather was the handsome older boy whose picture was sighed over by the other girls in their class. They each dated other people, but by the time they were in university, they had fallen deeply in love and knew they wanted to be married.

However, my grandmother's father was very strict, and they were afraid that if he discovered their attachment, he would never allow them to marry, and even try to keep them apart.

So, aided and abetted by a priest my grandfather knew, who performed the ceremony, and by my grandmother's best friend and my grandfather's young uncle, who acted as witnesses, they married in secret on November 29, 1952, one day shy of my grandmother's 20th birthday.

They tore their marriage certificate straight down the middle, and each kept one half. It was their insurance against the negative reaction they expected from my grandmother's father, in case he found out about their union before my grandfather was in a better position to formally ask for my grandmother's hand in marriage.

Fortunately, the next two years went according to plan. My grandparents both graduated from university, and my grandfather found a steady job. At last he was able to make his intentions known to my great-grandfather. That formidable gentleman was not pleased, but - amazingly - did nothing to stop them from being married.

Why was another church wedding necessary? Why not just reveal the original marriage certificate?

My grandfather explained, "We didn't want to hurt our parents. Besides, our families were well-known in the community. Imagine the scandal! How could we have explained it? Married in secret, but without being together as man and wife for two years? Who would have believed us?"

Who, indeed? Who would have believed that a young man and woman, very much in love, and with every right to be together as husband and wife, could wait for two whole years before consummating their marriage? Was it possible? Was it even necessary?

"Absolutely necessary," my grandfather said. "If she had gotten pregnant..."

Of course. An even bigger scandal would have ensued. They both wanted to "do things right" - to save their families a lot of heartache, and above all, to do nothing that might risk losing each other.

"So you mean I was really born on my birthdate?" my mother said in relief. "I'm really the age I am now? I'm not....older?"

My grandfather laughed. "Yes! You were born a year after our big church wedding." He shook his head, remembering. "All that fuss...the guests....and everything." And then he smiled. "Every year Mama and I would have a quiet little celebration...just the two of us...on November 29."

November 29, 2010

There's a little postscript to this story. For as long as I could remember, my grandmother's wedding dress was kept in a big old carved trunk. Before my grandfather moved to Montreal with my parents, we opened the trunk, and for the first time I got to examine every item in detail. The lace and beads on the dress, the yellowed lace. The tiny silk flowers on the head piece that held the veil. They were pale pink, cream, and pale blue....but there was one rosette nestled among them that was a deeper blue than the rest. It seemed out of place until we realized that it had served as her "something blue."

Sadly the dress had to be burned because most of it was stained beyond repair. But I did get to keep the silk flowers. And her gloves. Her hands weren't that much bigger than mine, but her arms were so slender, the gloves unbelievably narrow.

Oh, and I inherited her engagement ring. My grandfather had to save up for a year to buy it. I wear it every day, as a reminder of that faithful and generous love - their most important legacy to all of us.




Once, they had a secret love




Four Generations

I found this old photo the other day. From left to right, meet Agnes (my mom), Ana (my great-grandmother), Alicia (my grandmother) and Maria (yours truly). I think it was taken when I was around fifteen or sixteen.
It's not often a woman can literally see the generations of women who went before her. I've been keeping this photo close by these past few days, reflecting a lot on each woman in turn, and seeing all sorts of interesting parallels between us that I never saw before.
Lola Anita, as we called my great-grandmother, was an only child. My grandmother is the oldest of three daughters. So is my mother. So am I. We're a family of women, of first-born girls who had a lot of family responsibility put on their shoulders.
Another thing I've realized anew is how extremely blessed I was to be able to know my great-grandmother personally. I remember family visits to Lola Anita, with all of us crowded into her room because she couldn't easily come down the stairs. I remember sitting on her bed, touching her fluffy white hair and her papery soft skin, catching glimpses of her gold teeth when she laughed, and trying to imagine her as the young woman she had been, elegant and dressy, with a different outfit for every day of the year.
Even as a child I was never bored in the company of older people. I would sit for hours and listen to them telling stories.
Lola Anita and my grandmother had especially interesting stories about living in occupied Manila during World War II. Their house was used as a conduit for supplies being brought into the city by guerrillas. One day their house was searched by Japanese soldiers. Only that morning, their garage had been packed to the rafters with bags of rice, which had been taken away in the wee hours. Had the rice still been there, the family would likely have been killed. As it was, Lola Anita found herself stuck with a box of matches the guerrillas had given her. The box was decorated with an image of MacArthur and his famous line, "I shall return." With the Japanese soldiers on her doorstep, not knowing where to hide the matches, she ate them - down to the last stick.
My grandmother was about nine years old then. Her memories of the occupation included unravelling socks for thread ... lying on the roof with her sisters and her father at night to watch war plane dogfights overhead (with Lola Anita trying in vain to make them come down - "You'll all be killed!") ... refusing to eat the pet chicken that had been slaughtered for a special meal, even though she was sick of the cabbage, rice and salted black beans they had to eat every day ... and, in the end, dodging bullets, cannon fire, and dead bodies as the family fled across the city before the advancing American forces.
In my next post...memories of my grandmother, and the love story we never found out about until after she died. 


Four Generations




Hiking in the rain

Thanks to my intrepid buddies Kristi and Betty, our hiking trip last Saturday went through despite the rainy weather.
We drove up to Brandywine Falls (on the Sea to Sky Highway, between Squamish and Whistler), had a car picnic, then started our adventure with an inspiring view of Brandywine Falls. Then we hiked for 2 hours on a trail quite unlike anything we had ever seen before in BC. Instead of the typical towering cedars and forest floor covered with brown mulch, there were lava beds, hardened now to stone, on which Douglas fir and pine trees had managed to seed, take root and grow. The ground under the trees was covered with lichen in shades of brilliant green, and here and there were ponds dotted with lily pads.
There was no one else on the trail, although we did bump into one guy going the opposite way on the BC Rail tracks that we followed on the hike back to the car. He was looking for the suspension bridge, which unfortunately we did not have time to visit that afternoon, deciding instead to leave it for another day.
Following the railroad tracks was quite an adventure, going through canyons and over gullies. For a while I pretended I was Natty Gann (remember that Disney movie?) walking along the tracks and jumping trains all the way north to find her father.
On the way back to Vancouver we stopped at Timmy's in Squamish for hot chocolate. The Squamish Rock, usually an awesome sight, was shrouded in fog, which was too bad because we had wanted to show it to Betty. Another thing we had to leave for next time.
I guess I'm going to have to get some proper hiking shoes! 


Hiking in the rain




The joys of a spring garden

The lilac tree bloomed just in time for Mother's Day! These photos were taken by Angela.

Early yesterday morning I went out into the garden and surprised a black squirrel, a robin and a chickadee going about their business.

We have 2 chickadee families living in our refurbished chickadee townhomes (the two birdhouses hanging off the tool shed). Hopefully they will start patronizing the newly stocked supermarket (the birdfeeder). The pool (the birdbath) is not yet open for business, but hopefully will be cleaned and ready in time for the summer.

The pansy bed is a riot of purple and the rose bushes and the jasmine vine are bursting with shoots.

Spring is here at last!




The joys of a spring garden




Till We Have Faces

I requested C.S. Lewis's Till We Have Faces from the library some time ago after a friend told me about it, and finally got to read it last weekend. I was amazed and delighted by it, in ways I'm still trying to find the words to explain. The language is elegantly simple, the plot well-paced and exciting enough to keep a child entertained, and yet the ideas are so complex, multi-faceted and multi-layered. It has much to say about beauty, love, truth, freedom, sacrifice, and faith. It definitely merits a second, third, fourth reading...several readings spread over the course of one's life. As you change, so will the book.

Favourite passage, about Psyche: “She made bright all the corners of the room in which she lay. Always laughing, making all others laugh, merry, truthful, obedient, virtuous, spirited, compassionate, selfless...what every woman…ought to have been and meant to be.” 


Till We Have Faces




It's So You!

A couple of weeks ago my mom, my sister Angela and I started reading It's So You! by Mary Sheehan Warren. The result was a weekend-long purging of all three of our closets. First we spent almost an entire morning in the bathroom, where there is a lot of natural light, and helped determine each other's skin tone. I had gone for years believing that I was an "autumn" after reading Color Me Beautiful by Carole Jackson. Turns out that I actually have a "light cool" skin tone, which translates into a "summer" in the Color Me Beautiful scheme. Mom and Angela are both "cool" or "winter." Armed with this information, we hauled out all our clothes, and the fun began. We traded shirts, blouses, sweaters and scarves. Anything that was a few years old and in the wrong colour was put into a large giveway bag.

So the bad news is I can't wear orange, which I love. But the good news is that I can wear the entire spectrum of pinks, purples, and blues, which I also enjoy. And who says I can't still use my bright orange umbrella?

I would totally recommend this book to all women who want to look their best without blowing their budgets. Get a group of good friends together - you know, the kind who will tell you what you need to hear, in the nicest possible way. As in, "Honey, that shade of green makes you look like you have the flu." Also they have to be the kind of friend with whom you won't mind sharing your vital statistics - you'll see why in a second. Work together to find out what your skin tones are, and don't forget to also check out the section on Body Types. Then...happy trading!




It's So You!




Paleolithic Art

Just learned something interesting in my art history course.

Women were being depicted nude, often with exaggerated breasts, hips and abdomens, in painting and sculpture as early as the Paleolithic period (i.e. 30,000 years ago).

It's amazing that the fascination with and appreciation for the female form and fertility is so deeply rooted in the human psyche.

"The genius of woman," a wise person has said, "is her natural receptivity to life, which is revealed in the very structure of her body."




Paleolithic Art