The Flying Walrus

THE FLYING WALRUS

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CRACKING THE SHELL OF FOOD TABOO

by Blair Beauchesne

My mother always told me that I
couldn’t drink pop before lunch. Some-
how after 12:01 pm all the sugar
and artificial flavours became less un-
healthy. One of the benefits of grow-
ing up and moving out is our duty to
question the old rules we were raised
on and create new habits to work with
or replace those ones that no longer
make sense. So why hold onto food
taboos? After all the angle of the sun
doesn’t change the food in my fridge.
One of the taboos I’ve left behind
was combining foods. I was told cer-
tain foods just shouldn’t be eaten with
other foods. Phooey! The body needs
a wide variety of nutrition, and often
need multiple co-factors to absorb any
given nutrient properly, for instance
calcium requires vitamin D for efficient
absorption (luckily most milk products
and supplements include vitamin D).
Some of my experiments have led to
less than successful combinations, but
others have opened up new culinary
avenues! Who knew pickles in a bur-
rito would be so good, or that burg-
ers wrapped in lettuce instead of buns
would be as fresh as it was. You really
don’t know until you try. The perk of
cooking for yourself is that you will
rarely end up with something down-
right revolting. Else you wouldn’t have
used those ingredients in the first
place. Some things just don’t enhance
each other, but were still worth that
experiment. So get into that kitchen,
crack a few taboos your mother told
you not to do, and see what you come
up with. It might be good.

2
 TITILLATING TUCKER FOR THE
TABLE OF
IMPASSIONED INFATUATE
CONTENTS by Maria Golikova
“No food is eaten that can prompt mankind sea excite us due to the concordance
CRACKING THE SHELL OF to lascivious acts more than at that time.”-- of their pungent odours with certain,
Rabelais,Gargantua and Pantagruel ahem, bodily excretions. The oyster,
FOOD TABOO 2
famed for its aphrodisiac qualities, is
TITILLATING TUCKER FOR THE
If you are a keen to stoke the fire in shape, texture, and smell compared
IMPASSIONED INFATUATE 3
of the loins with the cosmic nourish- to (and I hope you will pardon me for
A TASTEFUL PHILOSOPHY 5 ment of the Mother Goddess, listen being so graphic) the vulva and tes-
EAT, SHIT AND DIE 6 closely. This humble scholar of the ticle. Aye, and choose your seasonings
THE MODERN TOILET 7 ancient texts will reveal to you the wisely!
MY FATHER’S RECIPE 8 secrets to the most provocative, pru- Indian legend has it that garlic
EAT YOUR VEGETABLES 9 rient of provisions, hitherto kept con- plants came from the blood of a de-
USUALLY PANCAKES 10 cealed in the deepest, dankest sepul- mon who was beheaded for disguis-
CRAIGLIST MISSED chres across the lands. ing himself as a god and attempting
CONNECTIONS 10 Patience, novice! You must un- to drink the nectar of immortality. Be
derstand that the ancients would not careful, for it contains both demonic
SMILE 10
have used the wondrous powers of blood and the elixir of eternal life. Im-
LICK THE BOWL /
aphrodisiac fodder simply for the sake bue yourself with brute strength, like
CHICKEN LITTLE 11 of livening lagging libidos! Nay, they the Greeks and Egyptians would have,
FOOD CHAIN 11 were the key to potency, to fecun- when you begin to lag like a weakened
THE SOUND OF FOOD OR dity-- blast, how else can I put it? So galley slave. Pull yourself together!
ONOMATOCOPEIA 12 that one might successfully contribute Do you not know that the same sub-
EATING TOGETHER 12 to human reproduction! Food was then stance, garlic, was rubbed upon the
IN/OUT 13 tied to nutrition and strength, in turn gums of the infant Henry IV to in-
OIL EATERS 14 tied to the ability to procreate. Is not crease his potential potency?
BREAKFAST HAIKU 15 the fertility of a kingdom’s lands de- If your lusty tooth is also a sweet
pendent on the vigour of the king? one, have a go at honey. The Perfumed
BRINGING BUTTER BACK 15
Not anymore? The Holy Grail thing fall Garden, the Islam’s coital compendium,
TO EAT OR NOT TO EAT: LIFE
out of fashion? Anyway, it isn’t just prescribes to the good husband the
AND DEATH AIN’T NOTHIN’
BUT FOOD AND WASTE 16 a Western incarnation, you know. The following simple recipe to keep his
idea goes back as far as the ancient impassioned wife satisfied: twenty al-
P.L.O. STYLE 17 monds, followed by one hundred pine
Sumerians and Egyptians.
FUDE COMIX 18
What do you call this preamble? nuts, rounded off with one glass of
VENTURING INTO VEGANISM Foreplay? Well then, the word ‘aph- thick honey. Repeat for three succes-
19 rodisiac’ comes from Aphrodite, the sive days.
VEGAN TIPS FROM AN Greek goddess of love and sexuality, Scoff not! You may be surprised,
OMNIVORE 20 who (as you no doubt know) arose but baked goods have been associated
AMERICAN CHEESE 21 out of the foam surrounding the sev- with erotic enhancement too. TheKama
ARGUMENTUM AD ered genitals of Uranus, cast upon the Sutraoffers a man more than just the
LAZARUM 21 waters by his Titan son Kronos. Ac- ability to produce a bun in the oven:
CHEESE: HOLES OF cording to one Orphic Ode, she was “Crush sweet potatoes in cow’s milk,
ATTRACTION 22 the “patroness of feasts which last for together with swayamgupta seeds
THE SOUP-AND-SANDWICH nights.” Besides emerging from Aph- [Mucuna pruriens, a tropical legume
rodite’s birthplace, the fruits of the otherwise known as velvet bean], sug-
SPECIAL 23

3
 ar, honey and clarified butter. Use it to
make biscuits with wheat flour .... By
constantly eating these biscuits, one’s
sperm acquires so much force that it
is possible to sleep with thousands of
women who, in the end, will ask for
pity.” If you be a lovesick woman, seek
out a crone; she will create a powerful
dough, lace it with ginger, and sculpt
it into the man of your wild desires.
When he eats it, his heart (and nether
regions) will be yours to command. At
your wedding, you will feed each other
cake.
Now, if you be a truly commit-
ted and serious scholar, then you must
submit to the Law of Similars, which
stipulates that one must consume that
which produces potency in animals--
certain portions of their flesh and, of
course, their sex organs--in order to
appropriate that potency for oneself.
Once again, theKama Sutrawill not lead
you astray: “Ram’s or he-goat’s tes-
ticles boiled in sugared milk increase
sexual prowess.” Resemblance is a key
factor as well, extending into the do-
main of plants and fungi: mushrooms,
eggplants-- I am sure you can think of
any manner of foods resembling the
phallus or orifice, my perverse pupil! A
good friend of mine has always said it
is improper for a lady to eat a banana
in public. Permit me to say of rasp-
berries and strawberries that they are
not only nature’s candy, but nature’s
nipples!
Galloping giblets, I’ve almost for-
gotten! What will you swill with this
fantastic fare? Why not wash down
your ram’s testicles with a brimming
goblet of red wine. As used in the or-
giastic Dionysian rites, wine eliminates
inhibitions and allows you, my appre-
hensive apprentice, to experience the
most ecstatic intoxication! The medi-
eval masters and Renaissance revellers
drank Hypocras, combining Burgundy
wine, sugar, and a variety of stimulat-
ing spices like ginger, cinnamon, cloves,
and cardamom. Similar to a what? A
hot toddy? I’ve never heard of such
nonsense! Be careful, convert; while
the right amount of alcohol will relax
and promote the heavenliest of intoxi-
cation, drinking beyond that point will
make for a pitifully poor performance.
Now you must excuse me, I can sense
someone burning for me at the door!

Images overrun the world. Toons filled with

rage and hate hunger for life. A war between
simulations and humans. People besieged in a
castle of dreams. A mysterious knight shifts be-
tween worlds, holding the secret that could save
all. Orphaned children lead him to the whirlwind,
the terrible faceless source.

B.W. Powe’s stunning fable erases the lines

between illusion and reality. B.W. Powe is a vi-
sionary, novelist, essayist, poet, and professor at
York.

These Shadows Remain is available at all ma-

jor booksellers, Amazon, and the York University
Book Store.

4
A TASTEFUL PHILOSOPHY
by Ted Killin
In the Eudaimonian Ethics, Aristot-
le remarks that gluttons indulge in the
sheer volume of foods, and that these
brutes prefer the active sensations of
swallowing to the intricacies of taste
(Aristotle in Korsmeyer, 23). I am not
an Aristotelian brute that prays for
the gullet of a crane to sustain the
indulgences of the throat, but I am a
glutton for taste and I seek the means
to extend its pleasures. I pray for a
long tongue and a nasal passage that
rises above the tallest clouds. My long
tongue will curl around dripping mor-
sels and wring out their sapid fluids.
Before food drops down my throat on
its gastronomic journey through my
bowels, its gases will rise up into my
body and I will extract the perfumes of
my meal for days on end.
Taste and smell are known as
chemical senses because they operate
through a process that begins in the
mouth: a substance dissolves and en-
counters the organs of taste, reacting
within their membrane. Although this is
an intimate process, the experience of
eating does not consign the sense of
taste to a subjective, isolated encoun-
ter with a substance. Any scientific
test of taste administered with a swab
is an attempt to isolate the tongue
as the only taste organ; purposefully
divorced from the experience of the
table, this inquiry does not offer a
contextual analysis of the significance
of food. When I move through my en-
vironment, my nose rides perfumes
floating through the air and draws my
attention towards a sapid substance
in the world. I ascertain that this sub-
stance will supply me with a measure
of pleasure and nutrition,and I follow
its scent in order to place it into my
mouth. The full experience overwhelms
my senses when the food passes over
my tongue to the back of my mouth,
where the gases that emanate from
the morsel rise through the chimney
of my nasal passage and flood my en-
tire sense organ with its aroma.
“If taste, whose purpose is to en-
able a man to exist, is indisputably one
of his senses, then how much more
reasonable it is to call a sense that
part of him destined to make mankind
itself survive” (Brillat-Savarin, 37-38).
There is no sensation more prized
among gourmands than the excitation
of the mouth that demonstrates the
ability of the chef and expresses the
value of the sapid bodies we ingest
that “result in a man’s growth and
development, in his self-preservation,
and in the general repairs to his body
of the losses caused by elimination
and evaporation” (Brillat-Savarin, 44).
The gourmand must ultimately reject
the rhetoric of early Greek
philosophers that appeared under the
guise of a legitimate theory, for both
Plato and Aristotle thoroughly enjoyed
denigrating taste and smell. Both men
heavily favoured vision, which they en-
dorsed as a pure sense that allows
the mind to extend beyond the body
and consider objects at an appropriate
distance from the diversions of corpo-
real pleasure. Their notion of the body
as a burden is in effect because of
Socrates.
Socrates died with such grace upon
drinking hemlock that his disciples did
not bother to consider the quality of
the drink he was given as his final gas-
tronomical experience. The taste and
smell of his fate must have been quite
agreeable, because he would not have
been able to die with such poise if
were he exposed to one of the more
disagreeable lethal substances: Sarin.
Initially, Socrates would have had dif-
ficulty breathing and would cease to
speak due to nausea and drooling. As
the toxin spread through his body he
would begin to lose control of his ba-
sic functions and would vomit, shit and
piss all over his prison cell. Soon after,
Socrates would have twitched until he
suffocated in a series of convulsive
spasms, covered in his own excre-
ment. If this were the case, perhaps
Socrates would have communicated
his first non-verbal message to Plato
and his contemporaries about the ef-
fect of substances on the body. As a
result, these men may have cultivated
a more positive message for posterity
on the importance of ingesting plea-
surable substances.
“[Gastronomy] rules over our
whole life; for the cries of the newborn
babe begs for his wet nurse’s breast;
and the dying man still receives with
some pleasure his final
portion which, alas, it is too late for
him ever to digest!”(Brillat-Savarin,
61).
But since the tongue finds even
the zestiest conversation tasteless
(Serres, 153), at this point I recom-
mend the reader fetch a snack to ac-
company these odorless pages
in order to purge listless Greek con-
jectures from their minds. After all, a
tongue can become artificial through
its role in speech, but can never de-
ceive the eater in the muscular move-
ments that accompany the pleasures
of cuisine.
For citations, please visit our website:
www.yorku.ca/walrus/
5
 EAT, SHIT AND DIE
by Tamara Tanurdzic

6
THE MODERN TOILET
by Joanne Chung
Warm air oozed its way through
the streets of Hong Kong. Sweat gath-
ered on my forehead, my nose and
on the nape of my neck as I walked
up the streets of Wong Kok, towards
The Modern Toilet, a restaurant I had
been meaning to try for some time. I
realized long ago that eating in Hong
Kong is like exploring new types of art.
Food is creativity. Not in the sense
that they fry worms or boil monkey
brains, but through the way the food
is presented, and how they play with
different combinations of taste.
With my practiced step, I tunneled
my way through the crowd. I scurried
across
t h e
street
through
r o w s
of traf-
fic, not
bother-
ing with
the pe-
destrian
lights
which
were only a few feet away. I arrived
at the door of The Modern Toilet, a
narrow dining room decorated with an
array of funky coloured tiles. I stepped
boldly into the restaurant, excited at
the prospect of eating out of a toi-
let.
The waitress led me to a tiny table
in the corner. I seated myself on one
of the toilet chairs, fascinated by the
design and structure of it. The chair
looked exactly like my toilet back in
Toronto, except for the posh leopard
print splashed across the cover of it.
I skimmed over the menu under the
dim rays of lamps shaped like feces.
Distracted by the amount of choices
on the menu, I took a glimpse at the
table in front of me. Miniature toilets
and bathtub-shaped plates were brim-
ming with food. Despite the dishes,
the food looked surprisingly delecta-
ble. I thought to myself, “Do I want to
get a toilet bowl or a bathtub bowl?”
I decided it was more fun to eat out
of a toilet than a bathtub and ordered
the Modern Toilet Beef Curry, a house
special.
When the food arrived, I had al-
ready taken a fair amount of photos
with me plopped on a toilet seat with
ten different facial expressions; defi-
nitely something I wanted to share
with the family back home. I looked
at the food in front of me. The beef
was swimming in a pool of curry, and a
small bowl of rice was set aside at the
feet of the miniature toilet bowl. I won-
dered what my eating utensils would
look like, a plunger? Unfortunately, I
was handed a pair of everyday chop-
sticks and spoon. The curry itself was
like any other curry I’ve tasted, with a
tinge of mild spice and beef that was
slightly overcooked, which made for a
tougher chew.
Although I had a hard time finding
the real toilet at the end of the meal,
because the whole restaurant looked
like a giant public washroom, I still felt
a deep sense of satisfaction as I paid
the overpriced bill. I wasn’t just paying
for food,
but for
some-
one’s
creative
genius,
and that
is some-
thing we
could all
digest.
7
 MY FATHER’S RECIPE
by Elise Haskell
Crust vourite kitchen supply store – Williams He told me that he was mailing me
Pre-heat over to 170 degrees Celsius. & Sonoma. I became obsessed with the recipe along with key ingredients:
this place after I moved out of my vanilla sugar, cheesecake mix, lemon
I e-mailed my father for his Ger- mom’s and her now-husband Wally’s flavouring.
man cheesecake recipe. house. I needed kitchen stuff, and I It’s strange the things that will
This is the first time I’ve ever e- inherited my mother’s elitist tastes. move us, because after I left my com-
mailed my father and it’s a big deal. I My father is cheap. puter and thought about it for a mo-
never try to speak with, write or call I bet the pan I just bought cost ment, I started crying.
him – I haven’t even called him since I more than his entire set of pots. My father is relentlessly selfish.
lived with him (the last memory I have Going out of his way to help me was
of calling him was after kicking a boy Filling odd. It was unexpected.
in the head at school. “Why’d you do Separate 4 medium eggs. Egg whites in This did not annoy me.
that?” He asked. “He dared me too.” a small bowl with 1/3 cup of sugar, set
My father laughed. “What an idiot.”). aside. Mix with hand mixer. Put in ¼ liter milk
After more than nine years away and entire contents of cheesecake package.
from him, I am making an effort to My father taught me how to sepa- Continue to mix.
contact him because… he makes the rate eggs. As I write this, it makes me
best cheesecake in the world. realize that he’s actually taught me Hand mixer at W&S: $99.95.
things in my life. Mostly painful things, Everything he sent me was in Ger-
In a mixing bowl, with your hands mix to- but this one is helpful. man, which is odd seeing he lives in
gether 1 ¼ cup flour, 1 tsp baking powder, I was going to buy an egg sepa- Mellville Saskatchewan, which he does
½ cup sugar, 1 egg and one package of rator at W&S, but couldn’t find one because a) it’s next to a train station
vanilla sugar. and I had places to be and people to (his first love) and b) it is cheap.
----, so I crack the egg open with one This mysterious cheesecake pack-
Sunday was dessert day, and the hand and separate the yokes from the age has me confused though. I think
only dessert that I can actually re- whites using only the shell. it’s just gelatin, I feel like the German’s
member having is cheesecake. It’s the Can you inherit baking ability? Or are conspiring to rip me off (or would
strongest good memory I have of my does it have to be taught? I don’t be if I had in fact bought it) by mak-
father, because it spans over years of know, but either way I know my baking ing me get special German cheesecake
memories. ability came from my dad. gelatin.
I don’t know when I started miss- That annoys me – which is some- Ah, paranoia, that I got from my
ing my father’s homemade cheese- thing else he gave me: my temper. mother.
cake, but cheesecake at restaurants
never tasted as good, and I would Egg yokes go in with 750g of cream cheese Take the egg whites and beat them until
think back to my father baking for us, in a mixing bowl, add 1/3 cup of sugar stiff (starts to foam). Then fold into mix
and it actually made me miss him. along with one package of vanilla sugar, (use hand mixer at very low speed).
That annoyed me. and three drops of lemon flavouring.
After he was done mixing he
Once mixed, spread it at the bottom of a Lemon flavouring, that was the would let my little sister Krista and I
spring-form pan. Cover the entire bottom first thing he would let us do when he lick the whisks. I remember waiting in
and go 3 cm up on the side. was making the cheesecake, add three the kitchen for him to be done mixing
little drops out of a glass vial into the it just so we could taste the cheese-
A spring-form pan? I had to buy cheesecake mix. It was wonderful. cake a little sooner.
one of those, bringing me to my fa- My father replied to my e-mail. I have four other siblings, but Kris-

8
 EAT YOUR VEGETABLES
by Deena Jacobs
ta and I were the only ones who got this, because
we were the youngest.

Put filling in spring form pan. Place in oven. Wait 60-70

minutes.

Krista and I also became the only two of my

father’s children to visit him with any regularity,
because we got a free train ride (a love of trains
cannot be genetic, this trait must have just rubbed
off on me) but mostly because we were too young
to say no.
We made the best of it, whenever we visited
we made him make us cheesecake, and for the
whole trip we would be happy.

Take out of oven, remove sides of spring-form pan, let

cool for at least 30 minutess. Place cooling rack on top of
cheesecake and then turn upside down. Carefully remove
bottom of spring form pan. Wait 30-60 minutes.

The cooling rack he used left a spiral impres-

sion on the top of the cheesecake, being obsessive
compulsive (hm, which parent do I blame that one
on?) I would use those lines to dictate where I
would dig in my fork for my bite of cheesecake.
It’s the cheapest thing I buy at Williams & So-
noma, but it is my favourite.
I feel good about this essay. I decided not
to mention my bad memories of my father, the
barrage of screaming, crying, lies and abuse that
comes to mind when thinking about him, and I
didn’t.
Oh! I just had the most titillating thought: I am
about to have my cake, and eat it too.

Turn right-side up again. Cover and place in fridge. Eat.

I take a bite out of the cheesecake and am

relieved… and am sad.
There isn’t a single thing left that I need from
my father.
I can completely erase him.

9
 USUALLY PANCAKES
by Kira Lancaster
There was a dance craze in eighty
eight. We’d go to the bars in faded
jeans and grey tanks—all arms and
ass. We leaned against the counter
with bottled beer and waited for faded
dames to catch our gaze. A good date
was lazy about it, letting you wade
through the rattle of raised drink trays
and dazed patrons to say hey. If she
CRAIGLIST MISSED CONNECTIONS
by Thelonious Bajcar
Maybe it was the whiskey...
But god damn honey you’er so
perfect and fine. The afternoon started
with a typical Wednesday of a lonely
shift of boring work with a paper hat
and an aluminum tie.
Thought I’d end it with a game of pool
and a cold glass of rye.
Was a couple of shots too many
in when then and right there you came
(and so did I).
Shining like starlight through the
dense pub doors, it was colder then
a senator’s heart outside and it was
just you in a blouse and mini skirt.
Tossing your cigarette to the street
telling mother nature to get a sex toy
like everyone else. Long golden hair,
sleek and slender figure and somehow
SMILE
by Rachel Dass
Bruised a shade of peach,
In the shape of your grip
10
took the bait you had a mate for the
night, and if you were real careful with
her she’d think it was fate, which could
break a mattress if you gave the right
weight to it. Fate was by far the best
lay.
They’d make breakfast some
days, usually pancakes—yellow egg
batter stacked high with pats of but-
your diamond-glowing eyes magne-
tized with mine. Following a Hollywood
style slow motion b-line you came
straight through to my personal space
and graced me with your sweet breath
and those harmonious sounds of “how
about buying me a whiskey?”
Well to make this Shakespeherian
Rag short we spent the evening over
30 shots of JD, 5 plates of bar fries
and sharing our love for George Car-
lin, ABBA and AC/DC. It was then and
right there where my heart not only
skipped a beat, but threw its metro-
nome out the door when you sheep-
ishly offered me to join you at your
estate above the franchised sushi bar
down the street.
I wouldn’t dare to brag about the
But I knew
You’d lick my lavender wounds
With your feather tongue
ter. I’d splatter some on my shirt and
yell “now I’ll remember you” over the
clatter of the dishwasher.
Those mornings left me fatter,
tilting my balance on the dance floor.
Faded blubber shifts against a blad-
der that can barely flatter a beer. But
I was here in eighty eight, and that
matters.
details publicly, all I will say is that
only the sensible and logical would
commit suicide knowing there would
never be such a great feeling such of
an experience that you have given me
that night.
I guess it was about noon time
when I came to in your bed, only to
find that either ninjas or the govern-
ment had taken you away and replaced
you with either a gorilla or a hideous
zorba monster. I’m not entirely sure,
but it’s which ever eats more zucchini
bathed in gravy watching jersey girls
first.
Please find me soon and save me.
It’s trying to get me to move in.
Desperately awaiting your reply,
Thelonious Bajcar
So I let my ribs dangle
From your long, rotting, fangs
LICK THE BOWL / CHICKEN LITTLE
by Brennan Maynard

Sidelong stilted bone crunch cringe smeared forearms that sticky fingered
just before the snap and recognition killing
of the twice torn limb
interrupts the smacking conversation sex and sweet lounging laid back
of oh, oh, oh fly open flight denied
pickin’ them page-white guillotines
gulp and oh, oh
gulp
gullet kicks in and– we’re so damn proud of these bones–
bones
commit to aviary avarice

FOOD CHAIN
by Armin Pourghazi

I have always drank the wine of the poor, And so in turn, as she tries desperately
but never asked for seconds. to have a taste of my youth, to have a sample of atten-
I took the hand of the weak, tion,
but their help never beckoned. I will starve her until she falls down the food chain
It was always understood, in the hands of the repressed, oppressed, and average.
that my masculine stench roamed,
through the radiology waves, So I wake up in the morning,
that invaded mother’s womb. you know, eggs and bacon.
So I was safe when assumed, The day don’t start
I have the right to patronize, till my head and legs are baked.
I have the right to rip your flesh to feed my unborn child. With my lung full of smoke.
and stomach growling for the prey,
Cause my Gender and my Race, I descend upon the city.
my Physique and my Religion,
in time will crush your beta existence. The ones at the bottom must be avoided.
The taste for fine dining prohibits this predator to indulge
I am the sexavore of the habitat that feeds me their in:
young; dysfunction.
That grooms and tenderizes that which it vows to pro- It is a strict diet of:
tect. ones who are about to make it,
Fathers, those disadvantaged at birth with inferiority,
I have fed off your virgins, and my damaged protocols.
I have bathed in your mistakes.
I have devoured every penny of allowance that meant to When I floss my teeth at night,
feed your child the love that she never got. imperfection stains my mirror.

11
 “THE SOUND OF FOOD OR ONOMATOCOPEIA”
by Blair Beauchesne
Taste, scent and texture are the main three senses
we use to gauge the quality of our food, and sight plays
a large role in choosing foods. Our brains are programmed
to recognize bright colours indicating one of two things,
nutrition or poison. Unfortunately we often overlook the
auditory qualities of our food, but sound helps craft our ex-
perience with food just as much a the other four senses.
We mostly associate sound with food during the pro-
cess of cooking. The the globs of a boiling pot. The pop
of popcorn in the microwave. The shake of salt and spice
being distributed. You can use sound cues from meals-in-
process to know what’s doing what when. A frying pan
is ready when it starts to sizzle, kettles are boiling when
they whistle, pots are boiling over when a rushing sound
erupts from a water-quenched red-hot element. I love these
sounds and have come to rely on them while I am compos-
ing in the kitchen.
But the sounds I can’t stand are those associated with
mastication. Try this: Watch an hour of television, any
EATING TOGETHER
by Mike Jolly
show you like (including commercials), and count how many
times food is consumed. During these scenes pay close
attention to the audio. Very few shows depict the audio
of a meal realistically. The tinks and scrapes of cutlery on
dinnerware are often removed, the slamming of glasses on
tabletops absent. Yet the gasps after a sip, the smack of
lips, the crunch of a potato chip and the slurping of a cof-
fee are over emphasized. Unfortunately for people like me,
our manners have begun to emulate these performances. It
seems like most of our food is chewed outside the mouth;
chips are snapped in half, gum is mashed over and over,
and not only coffees but all drinks are slurped over the
rims of cups. We have begun to associate these cues with
ingestion and some people require them to fully enjoy their
meal.
So next time you come over for dinner, don’t mind me
when I eat my dinner in the kitchen with the dog. At least
he doesn’t know any better.
 I /O
N UT
In
by Farrah
Abdel-Latif
gest
eat
all the time
I eat
bored hungry sad
eating for the fuck of it
eating because it’s that time of month
eating so you can forget (remember?) sex with your wife
eating just to throw it up again eating to be beautiful eating to be skinny
while
bloated
bellies
burst

from starvation
I eat. When we’re stuffed we stop, don’t want the rest, tilt greasy red
trays into get glad garbage bags like the ones in hungry children’s dreams,
we finish food. Throw it out as easily as you put it in your mouth and let it
fall down your throat into your stomach is getting bigger bigger bigger big
then intestines, the maze movement of digestion and shit gathering
like packing snow so you put it in just as easily as you
throw
it
out
 OIL EATERS
by Blair Beauchesne
You’re consuming petroleum even
if you don’t own a car, even if you
never take a bus or any other vehicle
that burns fossil fuels. Petroleum prod-
ucts are used in nearly every industry
these days. It seems just like high fruc-
tose corn syrup, oil has been put into
manufacturing processes where it’s
not necessary. Try to think of as many
products you use that don’t include
substances derived from oil. There are
some, but they make up such a small
slice of the market that their impact
is minimal. Today the trend is, if you
use it, oil was used to make it. And
when you factor in shipping, unless
they were brought into the market by
ox-cart, gasoline and many other pe-
troleum products are used to deliver it
to you.
But so what? These products are
cheap and do the job. Well for now
they’re cheap. Remember the price of
gas when you were young? No mat-
ter your age there’s one thing we all
know, gas has gotten more expensive.
And it’s not just gasoline that’s get-
ting more expensive, all petroleum
products are. This is simply because
of supply and demand. Because oil is
a finite resource supplies are disap-
pearing, while demand is still increas-
ing. Which means prices will increase
unless we change our habits of con-
sumption.
But if you don’t drive, why should
you care? Well since big business likes
to make a profit, and their costs are
increasing, they are passing that extra
cost off on you, the consumer. Prices
are inflating. You might be able to sur-
vive without a bunch of the crap that
comes wrapped in oil derived plastic
packaging, that we only shuck and
14
toss away, but you can’t live without
food. And as long as we rely on fac-
tory farming and oil, food prices are
going to go up.
So what can we do? One thing,
stop eating oil and start eating local.
Eating local minimizes the kilometers
between the farm and your face. Less
kilometers equals less oil used. But it
also means fresher food, and fresher
food is more nutritious. Remember
food is living, even after we pick stuff
off the tree or stalk it’s still alive for
a while. Everything that was living be-
gins to decay immediately. During it’s
afterlife food looses nutrients, and the
longer before it’s eaten the more it
loses. Think of all those wasted vita-
mins lost on a dark truck somewhere.
Most cities and towns have farmer’s
markets every weekend where fresh,
nutritious food is available with mini-
mized oil consumption.
But eating local is only a slight
change in a big problem since some
of these local farmers rely on methods
of factory farming, which is one of the
largest oil consuming processes. Large
machines take a lot of resources to
build, maintain, and operate. Therefore
new systems need to be adopted to
replace the oil hungry ones we current-
ly rely on. Would you believe that we
could generate all the food we need to
feed every mouth on this planet with
very minimal or no usage of oil? The
solution is called permaculture, and
it utilizes designed ecosystems that
mimic the relationships found in nature.
Why use large oil hungry machines to
spray oil derived pesticides on plants,
when you can bring in a flock of ducks
or geese to maintain pest populations?
These tightly tuned systems can yield
amazing amounts of food including
fruits, berries, vegetables, meat, and
more, without disturbing the landscape
like vast factory farmed fields do. It’s
farming without the farm.
But even if food grown on a per-
maculture farm isn’t available in your
area, there are small things you can
do. Want more bang for your bite? Eat
some of your veggies raw. Heating up
food makes it softer, but also breaks
down more than just the fibrous cell
walls that makes veggies stiff. The
cooking process also melts away nu-
trients. With more nutrient rich foods,
not only will you feel better, you will
need to consume less. Additionally you
can cut a ton of carbon out of the
production of your food by growing
it yourself. You don’t need a whole
garden, if have a porch, patio or bright
window sill you have enough room to
grow your own food. There are many
hardy plants such as beans or kale
that are packed full of nutrition and
can survive indoors.
So next time you buy a prepack-
aged salad, instead of dressing pre-
tend your pouring a big vat of motor
oil all over it, for all the oil that was
consumed to get that food in front
you of. Damn appetizing. Remember
you are what you eat.
It doesn’t have to be black...
Commonly used products derived
from oil:
Gasoline
Kerosene
Engine lubricants
Asphalt
Tar
Paraffin wax
Plastics... (including but not only)
Polyethylene
Bisphenol A
Polypropylene
Benzene (used as an industrial grade
solvent) BREAKFAST AIKU H
Ethylene glycol used in antifreeze Synthetic rubbers by N. Alexander Armstrong
Polyester Acetone
PVC piping Polystyrene Butter is better.
Rubbing alcohol Nylon There are no bitter regrets
Acrylic paint and more. slathered on brown bread.

BRINGING BUTTER BACK

by Milena Petrovic
In the last 30 years fat has be-
come a meal’s villain. Our grocery aisles
have become saturated with half-fat,
low-fat and no-fat labels. Meanwhile,
cookbooks preach vegetarianism, veg-
anism and minimal fat intake-ism that
encourages our fat phobic mentality.
Our world is in a diet craze that has
forgotten how to cook, eat and enjoy.
Jennifer McLagan, a chef, food critic
and award-winning author, has written
a controversial cookbook, Fat, that glo-
rifies butter, cracklings, duck fat, caul
fat, leaf lard, bacon, ghee, suet, and
schmaltz down to the last drip. She
has taken the fear out of fat—calling
it the underappreciated, “misunder-
stood ingredient”—by featuring it as
a staple to each one of her recipes.
McLagan says, “This is definitely not
a diet book, it is a book about our
diet.”
Since the 1970s, our society has
worked hard to make our chickens
leaner and our milk skim in order to
make our lives healthier—meanwhile
obesity rates are consistently on the
rise. McLagan notes that at the turn of
the 20th century butter consumption
in North America dropped from about
18 pounds per person to a mere 4.5
pounds today. While cutting the fat,
we’ve increased our daily dosages of
sugar and carbs that has given us the
extra pounds. McLagan has brought
the beauty back into butter with her
artisan butters, bacon baklava, and
brown butter ice cream recipes. The
pictures of fat we typically see repulse
us as we watch trainers like Jillian Mi-
chaels from The Biggest Loser ransack-
ing fridges and cupboards announcing
the fat grams of each food item be-
fore tossing it out. In Fat, McLagan
has photographs of fat that are aes-
thetically tasteful, even mouth-water-
ing. Her cookbook provides a historical
analysis of fats with sidebars that are
peppered with quotes, cultural facts,
and tips highlighting her admiration for
the misunderstood ingredient.
Butter is full of vitamins A, D, E and
K plus zinc, copper, chromium, seleni-
um, iodine and lecithin. “At the turn of
the last century, lard was the No. 1 fat
in the kitchen,” McLagan says, “now
it’s vegetable oils, and most such oils
are very high in omega-6.” Vegetable
oils are promoted as the healthier op-
tion although in reality replacing fats
with vegetable oils can pose problems.
Nutritionists recommend that we con-
sume twice the amount of omega-6
compared to omega-3. However, veg-
etable oils make us consume about
20 times more omega-6 fats than we
should. No matter how much we try
to avoid butter by using butter substi-
tutes, it just can’t be replaced.
Fat has revolutionized the idea of
the skinny salad with McLagan’s sinful
Double Butter Salad recipe that teach-
es you how to make a seasoned brown
butter dressing to be drizzled on top
of buttery Boston lettuce. Fat is the
flavour in her Fat-Fat Cooked Fries
recipe that redefines the standard
deep fried French fry by using duck fat
for frying. McLagan believes that Ansel
Keys, an American nutritionist who has
studied the links between animal fats
and cardiovascular disease, has helped
shape the negative images associated
with fat from her studies that prompt-
ed the U.S. congress to declare animal
fats as harmful back in 1977. This ini-
tiated the switch from fats to fat-like
ingredients like vegetable shortenings
and margarines. While some may be-
lieve that Fat is a giant recipe for car-
diovascular disease and obesity, McLa-
gan argues that there is a reason for
that the French and Inuit diet is high
animal fats, but those cultures suffer
the least heart disease.
It is evident that portions should
be controlled when indulging in irre-
sistibly delectable and fattening meals.
McLagan says, “…we are not just
frightened of fat, but we are also fear-
ful of pleasure.” She believes that
one’s bread should be buttered for life
because butter simply makes life bet-
ter; making lives healthier and meals
tastier. So forget your Silhouette yo-
gurts, skinny lattes and Lean Cuisines.
Toss out your Becel and bring butter
back into your belly.

15
 TO EAT OR NOT TO EAT: LIFE AND DEATH AIN’T
NOTHIN’ BUT FOOD AND WASTE
by Roland Singer
Eating is the meaning of life. No,
I’m not a chef, a connoisseur, a farmer,
or even a simple glutton. I just mean
that eating food, the consumption and
use —or more precisely, the redistribu-
tion— of energy, is all that life is really
meant to do. Grab a snack and I’ll ex-
plain.
I don’t want to start on terms that
are too grand here, but my basic hy-
pothesis is that the entire universe is
just one giant dynamo constantly spin-
ning energy into a multitude of balances
—both galactically large and atomically
small— for some reason that science
or religion hasn’t really pegged yet, and
probably never will.
Energy is restless, transient, always
in motion and decay; it’s got ADHD,
anti-social tendencies, and wanderlust.
It doesn’t want to remain herded to-
gether, and it doesn’t want to remain
at rest for very long. No one knows
why energy works this way, and I’m not
about to begin speculating here. All we
know for sure is that energy is always in
motion, yet always seeking a balance as
well, whichever balance will best keep it
in motion.
For example: you leave a hot roast
out, and its warmth (thermal energy)
dissipates into the cooler air until the
temperature of your dinner balances
with that of the room.
Open a can of pop and the pres-
sure inside rushes out into the world.
Start a universe with a big bang and it
will expand for billions of years trying in
vain to fill the blackness of space. Even
our planetary orbit is just the sun’s
gravitational pull balancing out Earth’s
kinetic energy (movement) that would
otherwise send us hurtling towards the
edge of the galaxy and beyond.
Simply put, everything in the uni-
16
verse is trying to reach some equilibrium
through the path of least resistance.
For the sake of this article, balance is
the first rule of the universe, the first
rule of energy, the first rule of life, and
the first rule of food. I’m not leading
up to a “balanced diet and exercise”
spiel; I’m insisting that all that life does
is maintain a balance, and at the risk
of offending the religious or narcissistic,
balance is all that life is meant to do,
period. Life is a balancing act of energy
in all of its material configurations (ele-
ments, molecules, compounds, etc) on
our planet, and on any other where the
conditions demand it.
If we accept that life was born in
the oceans, it’s not too hard to imagine
what happened in that watery cradle of
long ago. Of course the specifics are
as yet unclear, but at some point, the
build up of oxygen, energy (sunlight),
and “edible” compounds in the oceans
generated an unbalanced aquatic envi-
ronment; these resources had nowhere
to go and weren’t breaking down fast
enough. Just as naturally as one ele-
ment reacts with another when the
amounts of each and the external con-
ditions are conducive to this relation-
ship, specific concentrations and config-
urations of molecules (groupings we call
cells) formed underwater and “reacted”
with the oxygen and other fundamental
foodstuffs with which the oceans were
saturated. These cells made use of the
oxygen and other over-abundant mol-
ecules and converted them into bio-en-
ergy and waste, in what was essentially
the first act of “feeding”. They began
balancing out and redistributing the en-
ergy in their immediate environment,
and this was the grand opening of the
24-7 global buffet we’ve come to call
the biosphere.
However, these first living cells were
themselves disproportionate concentra-
tions of energy, and so sooner or later
something formed that ate them, which
further balanced out the accumulating
chemical energy. Larger things kept
forming, and they kept eating smaller
things to redistribute the constant in-
come of solar energy that to this day
stocks the bottom shelf and works its
way up the chain. Nothing stepped out
of balance, nothing jumped the line.
If there was too much of one kind of
food, something developed or adapted
to eat it; not enough, and some things
had to die off.
And aAs another fail-safe for the
cosmic balance, all living things have an
expiry date and die even if they aren’t
eaten, so their energy will be absorbed
back into various element cycles, and
the new generations born in their place
will adapt to thrive in the constantly
changing yet delicately balanced envi-
ronment.
Survival drives adaptation and mu-
tation, but what drives survival? I don’t
believe it’s some religious imperative
or moral battle between good and evil,
life and death. Rather, it’s just the
universe’s tendency to encourage and
perpetuate balance, and life is essential
to the balance of energy on our quirky
little planet. It wasn’t long before plants
began to use the energy in soil and
sunlight to perform the balancing act
on land, and of course the rest is his-
tory...
But then humans came along. We
stepped out of balance pretty quickly.
Through the serendipitous “gift” of
sentience and intelligence, we’ve been
able to prioritize our individual survival
to the point where it’s actually threat-
ening the survival of all terrestrial life as
we know it. When there wasn’t enough
food, we grew it, or hunted it. When
an environment wasn’t suitable for our
survival, we built houses. The ways in
which we’ve overstepped life’s purpose
and manipulated the scales of survival
are abundantly clear. We use too much
energy, make too much waste, eat too
much food, and provide for nothing but
ourselves. I think subconsciously we’re
all aware of this, and the fact that con-
temporary human existence is out of
synch with the very force that spawned
P.L.O. STYLE
by Ali Hersi
When “the deterioration of civil
society” becomes a common phrase in
news media throughout the world, pre-
ceding the feelings of anxiety and dis-
comfort one quickly becomes gripped
by is followed immediately by a nag-
ging and understandably awkward idea
of trying to make sense of wondering
why this is.
I’m referring specifically to the
recent events that have been occur-
ring in North Africa and the Mid East.
With the toppling of a 3 decade old
brutal and totalitarian regime in Egypt,
sprung on by the prior self-immolation
(setting oneself on fire, often as a
form of protest or for the purposes of
martyrdom or suicide) of a 26 year old
Tunisian student who sold fruit due to
the lack of employment, leading even-
tually to the beginning demonstrations
that would destabilize most of the re-
gion.
It is un-comically and tragically
ironic that these recent events were
started by a produce dealer unable to
find sustenance or success due the
lack of opportunity and equal wealth
distribution in a corrupt nation already
life in the first place is the wellspring
of a lot of mankind’s internal suffer-
ing and existential woe. We explore the
alienation of man from himself, from na-
ture, from society, etc, how about the
alienation of man from the origin of life
itself?
Mankind as a sentient species has
forever consumed its way towards
“Koyaanisqatsi”, into a “life out of bal-
ance”, and if life began for no reason
other than balance itself, it’s no wonder
man has such trouble coming to terms
familiar with food riots, occurring regu-
larly for the past 2 years in most of
the region.
Embracing this revolutionary fer-
vor, the people of many of the world’s
most dictatorial nations have been fol-
lowing suit staging uprisings that have
been led by out of work youth tired
of the “Islamic” Kingdom system of
government responsible for the poor
living conditions of most of the popu-
lation in the affected areas.
The death tolls have been high,
with peaceful demonstrators meeting
security forces firing live ammunition,
artillery fire and in some instances
air raids in densely populated civilian
areas, the arms obviously being sup-
plied by the US and Europe in order to
protect their Middle Eastern interests,
primarily oil and other foreign policy
key notes like Israel. The generosity
ends with a full recognition of support
of almost all of the regimes, including
Bahrain, were reports of high civilian
deaths were shrugged off in Washing-
ton with quick and meaningless sound
bites from leading bureaucrats.
The coverage of the uprisings
with life, death, and everything in be-
tween or beyond. Of course that’s just
my take on it...
So eat up, drink up, burn the fuel
and breathe deep; it’s what life on this
planet was meant to do. And suppos-
ing we bring ourselves to a premature
end, and 99% of the human population
dies off in one of endless imaginable
apocalypses, well, that would just about
balance things out, wouldn’t it? Maybe
we can all find some comfort in that.
here have been interesting, coinciding
for most with a brief one month long
preview of leading network Al Jazeera
for most cable subscribers. When com-
paring the different viewpoints and
perspectives put together by many
of the news outlets, peculiar styles of
language developed according to the
political perspective of the network.
On BBC and most American networks
the protesters in Bahrain and other
places were referred to as “rebels”,
technically correct but a very strong
and aggressive word meant to draw
out the same strong emotional feel-
ings. On other more reliable networks
they were “peaceful protesters” or
simply “citizens”, providing us with a
very wide field of perspective.
The prospects of a democratic
Middle east seems like what most of
the people want, and happen to be
lead by (in Egypt’s case) by the more
reasonable minds in the land, backed,
hopefully, by a very popular military.
Ultimately, tho, the much of the
region is going to shits, and I hope
that things don’t start blowing up ev-
erywhere.
17
 by C.S. Folkers
VENTURING INTO VEGANISM
by Morrisa Silvert
Have you ever wondered what it would
be like to be a vegetarian or vegan? If
you’ve decided that it’s a step you’d
like to take, you need to know what
you are getting yourself into. Some
people instantly try to cut all meat
and/or dairy products out of their
diet. That has never worked for me;
becoming a vegan or vegetarian takes
careful planning. Most people who
rush into vegetarianism or veganism
turn into what I like to call the “fries
and salad” vegan, because those are
the most accessible animal-free foods.
Luckily, nature has provided us with
a wealth of protein and nutrient rich
foods. Here are some tips to transition
from herbivore to vegan, whether your
intention is to eat less meat and/or
dairy or to eliminate them from your
diet altogether:
1. Break your transition into steps.
You need time to say goodbye to
foods that have been a part of your
diet all your life. Organize foods into
different groupings (e.g. favourite
foods), or categorize them specifically
(e.g. beef, cheese), and set goal dates
to give up the category. A slow transi-
tion will give you time to adjust, and
will lessen your chance of going back
to animal products.
2. Change the kind of animal prod-
ucts that you eat. If you’re not ready
to call it quits altogether, try eating
free-range animal products. Even if
you cannot taste the difference, eat-
ing products from animals that were
treated respectfully throughout the
course (and at the end) of their lives
will actually make a huge nutritional
difference. If you aren’t necessarily
concerned with that aspect of veg-
anism, you should know that animals
that have happy lives are better for
you to consume. An animal’s natural
hormones will affect your own endo-
crine system; if its stress hormones
were increased, your own stress levels
will be amplified.
3. Before you begin your transition,
do some research on what nutrients
your body needs in specific. There are
many vegan foods that provide you
with important nutrients traditionally
found in animal products. The best
meal tip I can give to anyone who
wants to eat less meat or dairy is to
eat lots of quinoa and hemp. They
are two of the only complete proteins
found in nature. Hemp is easy to bake
with-- think flax seeds. Quinoa looks
like couscous and has a similar tex-
ture, and can be used as a side dish
or as the feature of any meal. Think
quinoa shepherd’s pie!
4. Be adventurous. There are many
cultures that enjoy a mostly vegetar-
ian or vegan diet. If you rule out a
type of food, a certain spice or flavor
pallet, without giving it a fair chance,
you could be missing out on nutritious
and surprisingly delicious foods.
The most important thing to keep in
mind is your own reason for changing
your diet. Whatever that is, it’s impor-
tant enough just to explore new and
unfamiliar foods. You will be sure to
discover new favorites that are better
for you and for the planet!
 VEGAN TIPS FROM AN OMNIVORE
by Esther Isabel Munits
When I was a little girl, my favorite
book was “The Berenstain Bears: Too
Much Junk Food.” This particular Be-
renstain Bears book dealt with Mamma
Bear trying to change her cubs’ di-
ets. She realized that Brother, Sister,
and Papa Bear were simply eating too
much crap and decided to whip them
into shape. At first this proved dif-
ficult, for her efforts were met with
much skepticism and a hefty lack of
enthusiasm. Her new laws were em-
braced eventually, after she managed
to prove that healthy food can be just
as delicious as junk.
This book planted a seed in my
brain that was reactivated 13 years
later when I realized that it was nec-
essary for me, just like the Berenstain
Bears, to change my diet.
Heart disease runs in both sides
of my family. My beloved grandmother
underwent a triple bypass in 2007, and
prior to this my paternal grandfather
also underwent heart surgery. I am so
gratefult that these procedures saved
my grandparents’ lives, but I realized
that they could have prevented these
difficult surgeries simply by changing
the kinds of food that they ate and
how they prepared it. I realized that
in order for me to avoid heart disease
in the future, I only have to take a
few simple steps and invest in a kind
of routine that would greatly benefit
my health.
This set off my interest in vegan-
ism which, unfortunately, led to wak-
ing up on the first of many months
and exclaiming “today is the first day
of the rest of my vegan life!” only to
find myself craving burgers and pizza
two weeks later. I realized that all of
my favorite foods, like pizza, burgers,
20
and cheese, need not be given up. No,
they just need to be kept in check.
I told myself that I would do a “cru-
elty-free” day once a week and eat a
handful of greens and an assortment
of vegetables along with every meal,
even breakfast. This was an easy way
of continuing to eat the same foods
but supplementing them with the es-
sential nutrients that aid in digestion
and health.
Eventually these simple steps
made their way into more conscious
and informed meal ideas that gradually
phased out (though not completely)
my daily dose of “meat and pota-
toes.” I ditched dairy beverages such
as lattes and frappuccinos and opted
instead for green, herbal, and white
teas, as well as smoothies. Cookies
were switched to dark chocolate and
nuts. In this way, the practices of a
vegan lifestyle were altered to suit my
own purposes and integrated with my
existing routine and diet to improve
it.
The interesting thing about vegan
food is that it is not a heritage cuisine.
Unlike almost every type of food which
exists, it does not stem from a history
of tradition and familial descent. It is
as much a culture as it is a cuisine,
by virtue of it being born out of an
alternative sensibility and philosophical
outlook. It breaks from the past and
treads new ground, starting new tradi-
tions and thinking about food in a way
that is conscious as well as indulgent.
Sometimes people adopt drastic
changes in their diet in hopes of “sav-
ing the animals” or “losing weight”.
For me, it was more about changing
my life so as to save myself from leth-
argy and heart disease. I was raised
in a family where food played a major
part of growing up. Therefore reconfig-
uring the way I thought about and in-
teracted with food was not so simple,
but proved to be incredibly rewarding.
I am no longer so lethargic, but most
importantly I am aware of a healthy
way of eating. Now I won’t have to be
faced with the giant task of “changing
my diet” when I’m a senior, a task I
have witnessed to be almost impossi-
ble to accomplish for people who have
ate and prepared food the same way
for over 60 years. I encourage anyone
who feels the need to add healthier,
more nutritious food into their lives
to give this a shot--maybe just one
day of the week--and see if it works
for you. If you’re like me, and you’re
unwilling to give up pizza or other
awesome omnivore foods for good, at
least you’ll gain some tips in prepar-
ing vegetables and healthy food that
you can incorporate into your every-
day life.
Tip: No matter what, I always
start my day off with a kale and fruit
smoothie. This is a really easy way to
ensure that I get what I need early in
the day, so I don’t have to worry too
much about eating so much greens
later (especially if I’m at school the
whole day). Just add a few leaves of
kale or spinach (or both!) in with any
fruit you like and blend with either
green tea, juice or milk. Trust me, you
can’t taste the greens, but you can
definitely feel their benefits!
Also, This change in diet forced
me to cook a lot of my own food ev-
ery day. With a properly arranged meal
plan, a lot of the foods end up being
“whole” by default, which means you
have to cook them yourself. I draw
inspiration from the online vegan com-
munity, which is so tightly knit and
amazingly creative! Here are some of
my favorite recourses:
www.pakupaku.info*** If you are to
check out only one, check this site
AMERICAN CHEESE
by karen correia da silva
gonna unwrap me a square of
american cheese all plastic sealed for
individual freshness, sign of the times
and for my convenience, hormonal
byproduct of cracked-out american
mad cows all drugged up on natural
gas fumes, toothless on timed milk-
ing machines dreaming something
beautiful and pastoral for their babies
growing all monstrous and blind!
gotta unwrap me a square of that
land where the free people take what
a free god gave ‘em at the hands of
righteous stewardship, just read the
ARGUMENTUM AD LAZARUM
by Giorgio Berbatiotis
America is a nation that gorges itself on
deep fried gravy products. Its heart is
ineffectual as it has been clogged by its
body’s legacy of excess.
America is in need of nothing but
yearns for all things. Like a void in
space-time it consumes all around it
without regard for the accepted laws
of nature and without any satiation of
its desire. The food chain is a pyramid,
but with America on top the capstone
becomes heavy. All beneath it are
burdened by the excess demands of an
imperfectly designed world structure.
You see America is like a cheap
buffet; It will fill you at low-cost but
the food is shit. Rather, it’s like a truck
stop in the middle of the Nevada desert;
out! Kittee’s awesome and she makes
a zine of the same name.
www.kitteekake.blogspot.com - The
same girl who writes paku paku.
www.theppk.com - An amazing wealth
of information from a really rad chick
bible! where everything comes with
mayo and buckets of fried chicken
are cheaper than malformed veg-
etables, strawberries fist sized, but
it’s all for the taste! truckloads of
american cheese crossing the bor-
der and criss-crossing our soils on
road veins straight to our hearts in
a mad cholesterol frenzy, packing in
pounds of tartrate and iodized salt
and leaving with all that blood money
the banks tried so hard to regulate,
but oh! gotta get me a piece of that
american dream of convenience! and
exploiting the fact there is nowhere else
to eat. In Pax-America you have two op-
tions, eat or be eaten. If you don’t like
it than you can leave the comfort of the
capstone and get back to stomping mud
and making bricks for it under the whip.
The American political class is the
lapdog (i.e. Bitch) of the affluent who
are in turn the driving force behind the
insatiable hunger of the nation’s culture.
The paradox is thus; they need you to
stay hungry so they themselves can
feast. They gulp from the cup of pros-
perity while the rest anxiously await the
golden shower of Reaganomics. The phal-
lus in the face of the base that “trick-
les down” what wealth the submissive
is allowed to enjoy (when it begs for
who helped bring veganism to the
masses
Heavy Metal Vegan Cooking - Funny
webisodes
The Vegetarian Librarian - Funny On-
line Cooking Show. Zombie- inspired.
progress! and a chocolate president
so sweet his face is on all of our
t-shirts we just want to take a big
bite out of his sweet chocolate face
until we realize he’s whiter than rice
and yellower than kim jong-il but
he tastes so good! sounds so good
wrapped up just for me by some
loving machine designed just for me,
and this is all just for me and the
taste and the betterment of every-
one forever and ever!
it). If you think this system has sexual
undertones you are correct, and they are
getting off on it.
Power justifies itself. It survives by
incrementally nibbling away at the liberty
and prosperity of the tired, poor huddled
masses yearning to be free. As the
capstone fattens itself on the wealth
of the world, slowly digesting it over a
thousand years, it must fatten its base
to keep from toppling over. I believe the
pyramid of society should be like the one
on the dollar bill. No more capstone, just
an enlightened eye watching over the
body. AURI SACRA FAMES!
21
 CHEESE: HOLES OF ATTRACTION
by Lori-Ann Russell
Cheese slices, cheese strings,
cheez whiz, and anything else that’s
cheesy would be a great addition to
this column. From pizza, to cheese-
burgers, to macaroni, our affection
towards cheese is mysterious. The
sweet taste of pure dairy can seduce
anyone into its luring marble trap and
no one knows the reason why we are
so attracted to this orange delicacy.
Since the invention of butter and
milk, cheese has dominated the world
in a way that no other food has. It
also has transformed to accommo-
date any culture that encounters
its beauty. In North America, cheese
is used mostly for junk food: poutine,
burgers, nachos, and the like, but it
can also be served at art galleries
and prestigious banquets in cubed
form. Cheese, unlike any other food,
caters to both the highest classes
possible and the average civilian. Per-
haps we should look into its history
to unwrap the reason for our cheesy
fancy.
Cheese has been around for more
than 4000 years and is produced
from cows, goats, sheep’s, buffalos,
horses or camels. There are various
types (cheddar, mozzarella, parmesan,
brie) and textures (hard, pressed,
semi-hard, semi-soft, soft, and spot-
ted). It is made in over 45 countries
and it also caters to vegetarians.
Sadly, cheese might be more like
a nightmare than a delicious taste of
heaven for the lactose intolerant, but
then again, one bite couldn’t hurt,
could it?
A few cheese recipes are offered
22
below, to create a memorable party
or social call:
The Cheese Spread is the most
popular amongst cheese lovers and
it’s also a great starter for any party:
Serves : 2 cups
Ingredients :
1\2 lb. sharp cheddar
1\3 lb. med. cheddar
4 chopped scallions (white & green parts)
1\4 t cayenne pepper
4-5 T mayonnaise
strawberry jam or preseves
1\4 t dry mustard
Ritz or Townhouse crackers
Steps :
Grate cheese. Place in food proces-
sor. Add cayenne, scallions, dry
mustard, and mayonnaise. Process
until smooth. Add more mayonnaise if
needed. Mound on serving plate.
For those with a taste for cheese
but a lack for meat, the Tricolour
Salad should be divine.
Serves : 2
Ingredients :
150 g / 5 oz mozarella di bufala, thinly
sliced
4 large plum tomatoes, sliced
sea salt flakes, to season
1 large avocado
12 basil leaves
parsley leaves
45 - 60 ml extra virgin olive oil
ground black pepper
Steps :
1. Take two salad plates and put to-
matoes and the sliced cheese. Crush
over a few good pinches of sea salt
flakes. Set aside in a cool place ta
marinate for about 30
minutes. 2. Cut the avocado in half,
lift out the stone and remove the
peel. 3. Place the avocado on the
salad, and sprinkle with the basil or
parsley leaves. Add the olive oil, salt
and some black pepper. 4. Serve it
with Italian ciabata bread.
As for the main meal, the Port
Hueneme Quesadillas should do the
trick!
Serves : 2
Ingredients :
6 large flour tortillas
1 can refried beans, heated through
Fresh salsa rojo or salsa verde
Shredded cheddar cheese
Butter
Steps :
Heat a griddle or large iron skillet to
medium high heat. Lightly butter one
side of a tortilla and place buttered
side down on griddle. Add 2 oz of
cheese, top with 11/2 tbl
of salsa, then top with another but-
tered tortilla, buttered side up. When
bottom tortilla is brown flip to brown
the other side. As the bottom tort
browns spread 2 tbl of refried beans
on the top of the quesadilla. Slice
and serve with sour cream, salsa, and
guac.
THE SOUP-AND-SANDWICH SPECIAL
by Jack Howitzer
Nick pulled into the town just
after three and stopped at the first
restaurant he saw. The place looked
something like a Denny’s gone small-
town native. He parked the Mustang
outside and walked in, passing through
a tiny antechamber hung with pictures
of the town’s past. The restaurant it-
self was a tent city of cheap wooden
chairs and tables sunk into the auto-
shop grey floor. The walls were light
purple and some squandered talent
had painted a passable fireplace in the
corner. Four old people ate silently in
the slatted light through the blinds,
watching each other’s flanks. A wait-
ress lounged behind a counter that
carved out a chunk of floor space and
held back the clatter of the kitchen.
After a second he seated himself and
tried to rub the road out of his eyes.
No one came for some time and he
spent the minutes counting kilometres
back to Ontario—to Julia and the real
world. He could still turn back now, if
he wanted.
A small sign announced a deal on
omelettes, showing a picture of an
omelette that could not have been
prepared in this town, much less this
kitchen. The colours had faded and
now it looked like a relic of the eight-
ies, lost in time in a forgotten spec in
the wheat fields of Manitoba. The air
smelt of canned gravy and mashed po-
tatoes. He envisioned a surly, middle-
aged woman appearing on red heels
with swollen ankles and a gravelly
“Whaddya want?” but was pleasantly
surprised by the young woman with
spacers who approached him, wearing
a bleach-stained navy shirt with the
name of the restaurant embroidered
on it. She still had a real smile in her
eyes.
“Hi,” she said, sliding a worn card-
board menu in front of him, “can I get
you something to drink?”
“Uh, how about a glass of milk?”
“White?”
“Yeah.” She turned as he added
“Thank you” and either didn’t hear
or didn’t acknowledge. He wished he
were younger so he could flirt with her
and not seem creepy. Old people could
do it, and people her age, but he was
probably ten years older at least and
would probably just terrify the poor
thing. He spun the spoon on its bowl,
watching the arm go round until his
milk arrived. She put it down with a
smile, one that could be mistaken for
the real thing.
“Oh, the straw!”
“Don’t worry about it,” he said.
“You sure?”
He would have none of her embar-
rassment and took a swig from the
glass to show his conviction. He smiled
through his new moustache and she
laughed.
“Okay. Are you ready to order?”
“Oh, uh,” he flipped the menu and
ran through the listed items; nothing
more interesting than an ambiguous
pasta. “I’ll have the soup and sand-
wich. Whole wheat, please.”
She jotted something in her note-
book. Girl was making a career out of
this. “Anything else?”
He suddenly envisioned order-
ing her phone number as well and
caught himself with surprise. What
kind of weirdo was he? He censored
the thought and said no, thank you
instead. She nodded and disappeared
back into the kitchen. Nick laughed at
himself. You’re just fresh to death—
next you’ll be showing her your abs. It
was the freedom causing it— he was
anybody and he was nobody—sudden-
ly out in the world with no responsi-
bilities, no cause, nothing to lose. He
smiled and thought of fucking this hot
young babe and then skipping town,
leaving like a legend whose name she
could whisper to herself as other mor-
tal men lay on top of her and grunted.
He bit his lip and corralled his imagina-
tion. You’re free, he thought, but let’s
not get reckless. You’re as likely to
end up in jail as in her.
The food came with another smile
indistinguishable from delight and he
clamped down on himself and his lust
but could not help holding her eyes
when she spoke. The look lasted too
long and she finally glanced down then
away and turned to disappear back
into her other world. He ate the me-
diocre food with a smile and declined
dessert. Then he rose from the chair
and paid at the countertop till, run
by an older woman with smoker’s skin
that might have been her mother. He
left a considerable tip and strolled out
into the shade of gathering cumulus.
Towers were already spiking up to the
west, early turrets of castles in the
making. He looked west toward them
and fingered his keys for a moment,
staring. Then he unlocked the door
and sparked the Mustang, pulling brisk-
ly into the street. A green blur flit-
ting behind slatted windows, rumbling
thunder fading into the distance.
23