spokes & segments

Some folks like #DaddyYu only know their birthday according to the Lunar calendar. He was born in China two days after #LunarNewYear in 1950. When he immigrated to Canada in 1966, (with just $800 to share with his eldest sister), he only knew to fill out his birth date in relation to that year’s #ChineseNewYear. Sure, it’s very possible to back-track, calculate, and then fix upon a Gregorian date; to set apart as “stable” without accounting for the movements of ☀️ 🌙 ⭐️ - posited and prized as reliably repetitive. Still such conversions from Lunar to Gregorian, from then to now, from there to here, even seemingly direct conversions (as scientists and even his kin have tried) could only go amiss through transliteration. Anyway, the #CollisionOfCalendars this #longweekend (including #FamilyDay) resulted in a mass of family & food! . . . #diaspora #ImmigrantStories #ChineseCanadian #ChineseFood Last (for now) @kendalhillsgamefarm chicken #YesBloodInsideBonesOK #FamilyOfChefs #FamilyDinners #TheFolksAreVisiting

An Ontario specialty mushroom & heritage poultry farmer, two of Toronto's best #farmersmarket managers, and a "city-caterer" meet in a field... 💕 📷: @mia.mioc 🦃🐓🍄 . . . . . . . . #localfood #congratsDaveandEmily!!#kendallhillsgamefarm #greatfoodpals #openfarmsunday #goodthingsgrowinontario #openfarm #diversedignifieddelicious #meetyourfarmer #caterToronto (at Kendal Hills Game Farm)

My predictions of the newer hybrids that are targeting foodies who are irregular and (/or?) desperate cooks "Grocerant" = Fast casual restaurant + grocery store - nouveau corner store / deli - expensive and rare and/or regular and reasonably priced shelf stable items - fresh ingredients will be expensive (really more visible storage than merchandising), and - recycled into "fresh" ready-to-eat with high mark-up "Deluxivery*" = Speciality grocers + tiny-to-small restaurants + food delivery - marketing platforms for both grocers and restos, to push ready-made items - meagre-to-decent margins to be made up in scale. - again, grocery items will be rarely purchased unless on sale due to price sensitivity Of both, large-enough grocers will push private (store) label and "exclusive-collab" items to entice customers with the hope to make-up sales

.. including pistachios! = 開心果 in Cantonese, word-for-word translation is 'open heart fruit' - to me, when said aloud, sounds like 'happy fruit.' in fact, until seeing the characters written, I thought that it was, and wrote about how my dad looked like his favourite nut when he found out eating them wouldn't dent it his cholesterol - 😅

I have to admit, from a Canadian perspective where we rarely find a $2 burger (or even $3 with exchange), I don’t think the solution is cheaper congee. Especially not lovingly made bowls with healthful ingredients. Rather, better education and income solutions are more likely to bring long term change. I mean, who’s changing their mind when both the cheeseburger and congee $2?

Everything will Fall into Ruins <p>“The sky is studded with stars while some new stars are expanding and some white dwarfs have already been destroyed. In the boundless universe, all kinds of “ruins” abound. Although our brief existence is accompanied by decay, the silent ruins may be symbol of the constant birth and death process in nature. Too much commemoration and reconstruction will distort the lesson hidden within. If we can understand this, ruins are no longer just ruins but an essential experience in life. <br> With this realization, maybe we should think of life and death, or any kind of architecture that is bound to perish in the course of time, as “dreams and illusions,” and all material existence as “dewdrops and lightning,” as the Diamond Sutra says. A star, a grain of sand, a temple or a ruin - everything is just an idea and a thought that reflects a secret landscape deep in people’s heart.” - From ‘Everything will fall into Ruins’,’ 2006 by Yao Jui-Chung - Taiwan In 2014, I happened on la Biennale di Venezia. Before arriving in Venice, had not a clue about this city-wide event attracting designers & artists from around the globe. Honestly, I cannot remember the theme that year. Though my guess based on the works I remember still have to do with temporality and space. Yao Jui-Chung’s piece was haunting from a future of our present, to me then and even now at least. At the time, I didn’t think of it in relation to my work with people & food systems, and it was just beginning to become en vogue to think of food waste. Now, I’m trying to clear out stuff I “don’t need” from my residence (I want to keep it alllll). Reviewing the poster and quote, I wonder: Really, is it that people have lost their connection to food, when we frequently eat 3x a day? Or maybe it’s that we’ve lost a sense of the circuitous connections, even as, or perhaps as a result of, the expansion of our food systems.

Love this candid image because we're all so enraptured by Ellen's story, and still rolling away at Mary's dumplings. Many generations of women in this picture. 📸: @hirondelleduprintemps. #LeanInLadies #dumplings #storytelling #foodstories #seniors #youth #elders #culturalfood #tangyuan #intergenerational #dessertdumplings #glutenfreedumplings #mochi #ChineseCanadian @dumplingdiplomacy

c'est quoi?! #OtherWorlds exhibit at #QueensPark #OCADU #multimediaart #TorontoArt #studentsartwork #vomitingvag (at Queen's Park - Ontario Provincial Legislature)

"...That rickshaw driver may not have the vote, but his children may well attend university. The progress is unarguable. Yet HUMAN DIGNITY DEMANDS NOT JUST RICE, BUT ALSO RIGHTS. The great Chinese writer Lu Xun once wrote, about an earlier massacre: “Lies written in ink cannot disguise facts written in blood.”" There's another saying; roughly that: we must know our history to prevent reoccurrences of tragedy in the future. And yet I find there are so few that know about or acknowledge the events surrounding the massacre at Tiananmen Square in 1989. Reasons go beyond simply the availability of education materials. Attempts to "move forward" must also go beyond education and eats that merely feed into a narrative awarding individualistic meritocracy. As another saying goes: we're only as strong as the weakest link. But I challenge you to reconsider the framing of strength and weakness - who defines and benefits as versions of these labels are maintained, and what do they know and DO about it?

Back home in Toronto from Nova Scotia. Worked & laughed a lot. Much to catch-up on too. Picked up a few relevant lessons along the way, including learning something new that concerns me deeply: Where as #hospitalfood budgets are understood to be too low ($7-13 per patient day including 2 snacks & 3 meals in Ontario), there is a retirement home management company providing $5 ALL DAY meal budget planning to expand to GTA. To be sure, this is a mega corporation that already exists across North America. But I've noticed that many new products and models are tested in Atlantic Canada before rolling out elsewhere. There's various reasons for this, including a long history of income, job, and food insecurity, along with racism, poverty, and nepotism. Proportionately, the East Coast has more health problems and seniors among its population. I'm not sure if this meal model will be applied outside of Nova Scotia as an exact replication. But I think so. I am worried as a sometimes resident of both places, who perhaps disproportionately cares about our elders everywhere. What can be done? For a start, we need local solutions that prioritize people and food. The nutritional numbers cannot be the only focus, lest we mistake the quantity of plastic bags of slop for the quality of our seniors' lives.

#DaddyYu & Beatrice, THE fastest #eggroll spinner ever, discussing our needs for the last 5 days as the longest running single owned & operated restaurant in Canada. #ChineseCanadian #CanadianHistory #CulinaryHistory #ProudDaughter #RestaurantFamily #ChineseRestaurant (at Mings)

c. ITS OWN would have us believe that companies are Canadian owned. However, in this case and many others, French's is not.

Give them a try and if you plan to do something different, please share! 

CambridgeJournals & #DuBoisReview offer #openaccessarticles to celebrate WEBDuBois' BDay - 3/30 journals.cambridge.org/action/display… #Race #SocialScience

Pretty. Important. Rights. Right?! The month of March marks several important dates: March 3rd - International #SexWorkers' Rights Day March 8th - International Women's Day #IWD March 13th - Daylight Savings Time begins March 15th - International Day Against #PoliceBrutality Marcy 18th - My favourite little brother's birthday March 20th #SpringEquinox March 21st #HumanRightsDay (in South Africa) March 23rd - #FullMoon March 25th - #GoodFriday March 27th - #EasterSunday March 28th - #EasterMonday March 31st #CesarChavezDay (in Texas & California) Starting in March - #ArborDay (China, Holland, The Island Territory of St. Maarten, Spain). **The majority of the content (e.g. text & image) in this post from wonderfully informative #certainDAYS: the 2016 freedom for #PoliticalPrisoners calendar. Learn more here: www.certaindays.org.** Image Artist: #MelanieCervantes, a Xicana activist working to translate hopes & dreams of justice movements into images that are life-affirming & inspire action. Melanie is co-founder of #DignidadRebelde, a collaborative graphic arts project that translates stories of struggle & resistance into artwork that can be put back into hands of communities who inspire it. Carved Earring (1 of 2): Turkish mythology of the "2-headed" eagle or falcon, #Oksoko or #Zuzulo, exaggerated the symbol which actually a pair of birds. Perhaps confused due to representations of the extreme closeness of the birds. Together in purpose & desire, they're able to arise in luck & happiness. (Sounds much like various East Asian symbolisms of male & female #phoenix) Also in March: #AliMustafa, Toronto-based freelance photojournalist, activist, & writer who was killed along with 7 others on March 9, 2014, in Aleppo, Syria in a bombing by Assad government. His work exposed depths of human tragedy that he felt the world could no longer afford to ignore. Learn more at: rememberingalimustafa.org #solidarity #solidaridad #dignity #socialjustice #internationalism #eastwest #northsouth #globalism #ActivistArt

- parallels to the beautiful, but oddly funded, marketing of our liquor stores in Canada.  

“The basis for all agriculture is good soil, but while it can take decades to create 2.5 cms of topsoil, that 2.5 cms, and many more, can be lost in hours, due to erosion, flooding or dust‐storms, and in a little longer time because of land clearing, deforestation and mismanaged agriculture, and the expansion of human habitat, such as for highways, airports, suburbs and industry.”