ReallyGoodWriter | Food • Writing • Poetry Iambic Cafe

food & poetry, but mostly the poetry of food

Food • Writing • Poetry

What can one say but congratulations to my new MP, Randall Garrison, who will shortly be joining lots of other new NDPs in Ottawa; and congratulations to Elizabeth May, who will be there too, waving a big green flag for that most undiscussed election issue.

Last Friday it were poetry, poetry, poetry as Cynthia Woodman Kerkham – who tonight reads the poem that won the Malahat Review’s Open Season competition – launched her first collection. Good Holding Ground, at Planet Earth Poetry. Place was packed to the rafters, and a jolly and generous crowd it was.

It never hurts a literary event to add a superb chocolate cake; like this one from Wildfire Bakery:

While I cannot promise such a cake this Friday, I am delighted to be launching a chapbook of food poems, The Earth’s Kitchen, also at Planet Earth Poetry, in the excellent company of Yvonne Blomer and Pamela Porter.

Interesting to see the party that didn’t respond to pre-election questions posed by The Writers’ Union of Canada…

Party Responses to TWUC Election Questions-1

The Clink is an interesting restaurant in Britain which is run by inmates of HM Prison High Down (this article about it by an expert in prison food is worth reading too). Envisioned by its Michelin-starred chef-founder as a way to train chefs and restaurant staff, it took seven years to get off the ground, but now produces both good food and employable inmates. It’s not open to all diners – you have to have a good reason for going there and/or be employed by a government or prison office, or with a nonprofit (presumably one with compatible aims to the program which is also a registered charity). I suspect the project may have taken some inspiration from another such ristorante in Italia: the maximum security prison at Volterra in Tuscany.

Another odd and slightly Italian-flavoured item that has crossed my inbox is news of this study that’s found another use for oregano: when cows eat it, it keeps them from burping methane (apparently it is burps rather than farts which emit the greenhouse gas) and ups their milk yields. The study doesn’t say whether the milk picks up any flavour from the herb – but if it does, it might make for some interesting cheeses. And perhaps offer some other health benefits for humans. I have been plied with oregano oil at various points in recent years, by persons neither belching nor lactating, who swear by its curative powers, particularly for preventing colds. Definitely something to plant in my garden this year.

Before I return to grey, damp Victoria as it is just now, I want to say thanks to the prairie sun gods who have smiled so warmly on my visit to Saskatchewan.

Not quite the prayer that the people of Saskatchewan are saying I’m sure, as the fine weather brings with it more snowmelt, into the saturated fields — in fact, some folks are still looking for their driveways….

— and the overburdened waterways, like Regina’s Wascana Creek

which at present runs through rather than past Rotary Park

from Wascana Lake.. which is bigger than it used to be.

It gives the redwing blackbird something to sing about.

Anyway, it’s been a fine day for an Easter stroll, as I prepare for tonight’s reading at The Chimney Restaurant and Lounge here in Regina, with Betty Jane Hegerat and Steven Ross Smith.

Saskatchewan, the beautiful.

It’s been quite a spring for some farmers here; signs suggest they won’t be suffering from drought this year… So sayeth the cows in a field near Muenster:

I had a very pleasant afternoon yesterday with the creative writing students at Humboldt Collegiate, who garnished our discussions of food poems with cookies and jello.

A display of my oeuvre at Humboldt’s Reid Thompson Public Library:

Returned to Saskatoon in fair weather indeed:

Hopeful signs abound, including rhubarb buds in Mari-Lou’s garden: