Wednesday, June 8, 2011

On Meat...

I read an article recently, at the prompting of a colleague I met recently, by Mark Bittman, food writer for the New York Times. It concerns meat, and how we, as the West, and now, increasingly, the developing world, eat meat. How much of it we eat, primarily.
This follows close on the heals of a post I read on of Serious Eats, which also concerned meat, more specifically the killing of it by those who intend to eat it, as opposed to the killing of it by professionals bent on profit. In truth, what I know about the meat packing industry might suggest that they are not all professionals, but I can't swear to it without more research. I think this idea originates with Fast Food Nation, now surely some years out of date.
Much of this is also related to Mark Zuckerberg's recent declaration that he kills his own meat.
In any case, I also happened to have a lovely lunch at a vegan restaurant this afternoon, The Green Panther, close on the heels of another pleasurable vegan meal, and some astounding 'milk'shakes, at Strongheart's, in Syracuse, NY. A meat-free lenten fast also helped clarify the vegetarian lifestyle, or a reasonable facsimile thereof.
All told, it means I'm slowly beginning to think through the implications of my own diet choices, which, as I am often fond of saying, could be described as ideologically carnivorous. Another of my favorite food writers, Michael Pollan, in his Omnivore's Dilemma, argues convincingly for meat eating, at least in the case of food one has killed oneself. Recent debates with friends and colleagues suggest that meat itself is not an issue so much as the industrial production of meat in North America, which I understand can be  unsettling.
My own philosophy has not yet been successfully hammered out. I have, in the past, hunted, and likely will again in the future. I am unlikely to give up meat all together, but I have made attempts in the past few years to reduce my consumption. Days at the Rodeo are an exception, obviously.

Sunday, June 5, 2011

Out and about... Granville Island style

I'm recently back from a leisurely trip to the west coast. Vancouver, to be exact. While there, I fell in love with the English Bay, a very nice little bay indeed. I may not compete, as far as overall fondness is concerned, with the bay on Le Fleuve, which my ancestral home overlooks. But English Bay, with its mist and it mountains, and the anchored container ships waiting like slumbering beasts, great hulking marine beasts, waiting for the run into the harbour, is surely well up on the list. Said the Whale has a really nice tune about it, as well.
My first day in Vancouver, my family (a sizable chunk of it, anyway) and I decided to check out the public market on Granville Island, reachable most easily via pedestrian ferry.
My lifelong love of boats and I were most impressed, and my new-found love of Sperry Topsiders was not to be disappointed, either, although I had left mine safe at home, preferring to risk my beater boat shoes to the perils of the road.

More photos (and Topsiders!) inside the Hall...