When thinking outside the box just isn't enough
Café Le Cagibi has long held down the fort as a sort of (meta)physical gateway to Mile End at the corner of St-Laurent and St-Viateur. Yet after more than a decade—and amidst a strip dizzyingly gentrifying—the iconic café and show venue is moving on up. Faced with—among other things—rent spikes north of 200%, Le Cagibi […]
To think, we had our chance. A luscious one at that: green, fatty and garlicky smooth. Yet we didn’t let it sink in properly up here. That heralding moment we called #GuacGate. The absurd #gate to end all #gates, it seemed to finally provoke laughs and calm South of the border, marking the death of the slowly decaying storm of […]
What do the 2016 US Presidential candidates eat? What do their gastronomic ways say about their presidential personality? Though it only lasted five months, our own federal election in Canada gave us enough time to find out what out candidates ate, and what it said (or didn’t say) about their leadership style. Bernie Sanders Sanders […]
Where do the Republican front-running prez brigade stand on food policy? What do the Democratic presidential candidates say when it comes to important food issues? More than most other issues, food remains foundational to the wider platforms of the GOP & Democratic 2016 primary candidates. It’s reach relates to the deeper economic, environmental, foreign policy, health and labour platforms on offer. […]
We tend not to see food security in the headlines. Yet sustainable food systems underlie nearly every hot issue—from economy to foreign policy to health. Save for passing mentions at rhetoric-heavy Climate Change conferences, food systems remain in the shadows when it comes to everyday news. Yet to many food advocates, researchers, farmers and workers, two hard numbers […]
Thanks to the confluence of fracturing geopolitics and disenchantment with all things Capital, the blizzardy state of Iowa is something of a hot treat for us Canucks. We’ve won cushy first row seats, been served a thrilling crescendo to the presidential Primaries, eleven months in the making, now just hours to first eruption. Northern Naivété The treat, I argue, lies not despite, rather in […]
It’s taken decades for dumpster diving to nudge from the fringes to the mainstream. Hell, ten years ago, it wasn’t even the explicit goal of the practice. When it was mentioned in the media, dumpster diving has always been something of a caricature: a bit part in stories of folk on society’s edge: the homeless, the penniless student, or the militant environmentalist. Well, like […]
Last month, Harper’s commissioned something unusual. Unusual in the context of our tight-pursed digital world. Less unusual, perhaps, in the heady (nearly bygone?) literary indulgence from which the magazine sprung. Harper’s, based in New York City, flew a British writer across the Atlantic and, once in The Big Apple, covered her sprawling tab at New York’s most elite restaurants. Then they cut her a […]
It’s a phrase we hear often these days: eating is political. In other words: we’re actors in food systems. Our decisions carry vast implications—the ethics of the brand we support, say, or the type of living beings we decide to ingest. Yet now that elections are looming, it’s worth considering the literal sense of the phrase. George Washington, after all, […]
Have “foodies” lost the plot? It would seem at face value the answer is yes. That is, if we judge based on public response to an innocuous New York Times guacamole recipe posted earlier this week. Add green peas to your guacamole. Trust us. http://t.co/7imMY9c2ph pic.twitter.com/oeOMt2qgmh — The New York Times (@nytimes) July 1, 2015 This reposted recipe […]
Oh, supermarkets, what are we going to do with you? It seems you’re embroiled in a certain love-hate relationship with many of us. Think of those farmers: they stock many of your vast shelves, yet often remain resentful for being squeezed. Or the upwardly-mobile, who slag you off in public, all while filling your coffers. Even food waste activists, perhaps your most virulent critics, have also […]
Back in January, I speculated that Canada’s world-leading habit of food waste might soon become too embarrassing to ignore. Following the (real) experts, I pointed towards supermarket waste reform in particular as a key to stemming this horrid tide. It seems that last week, one food giant stepped up to the plate. Well, sorta. Though it didn’t […]
It’s once again time to roam the frozen streets in search of performative emancipation. To keep you energized, here’s a randomized list of edibles available between 7 pm to 3 am. Spontaneity is key here – so when it comes to Nuit Blanche food in 2015, pick what you like in the heat of the moment. In no order whatsoever […]
In the past months, awareness has spread across the nation as Canadians slowly wake up to the severity of obstacles faced by Nunavummiut in reliably accessing healthy food.
From Lausanne to Lanaudière, the 2015 Montréal en Lumière gastronomy program is worth saving up a few bucks for.
Another year, another round of increasing challenges–and opportunities–when it comes to feeding the world. Closer to home, we can see many of our most salient national issues (healthcare, climate change, aboriginal rights) refracted through the eye of a handful of food questions. Food is just that: a flashpoint around which all else swirls. Here are […]
