For those who know me, you’ll also know I volunteer a great deal of my time to various non-profit and charity organizations around the city, as a driver, photographer, webmaster, fundraiser, etc. When I lived in Vancouver I also volunteered delivering meals to AIDS patients, as an info desk volunteer for Hostelling International, collecting donations in the Pride Parade, event planner, and as a walking companion for senior citizens in the West End. Volunteering has been a big part of my life for many years.

I recently participated in a survey about volunteerism, and asked if I could post it on my website so others could participate, too. It’s pretty short — it took me about 15 minutes, even with lots of responses. There is also an option to add your name to a draw for an iPad2. Why not?

(I’m not sure if the study is open to all countries, best to ask first at the email address below.)

Here’s the scoop:

We are researchers at the Social Economy Centre at the University of Toronto and we are conducting a study of volunteering from the volunteer’s perspective. We are hoping you would be willing to fill in our quick survey. Participation is voluntary and survey information is kept confidential. Results are not linked to any particular volunteer agency, and you don’t need to identify where you are volunteering. There is no disadvantage or risk to anyone by participating. Potential benefits include the satisfaction of contributing your voice and perspective to the research, and optional entry into a draw to win a free iPad 2 upon completion of the survey.

The survey is available at the following link:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/utvolunteer

Or, if you would prefer to have one of our student research assistants call you and administer the survey to you over the phone, we are happy to do so! In that case, please reply to elyse.peasley@utoronto.ca with your name, phone number and a few times that you are available to receive a call that will take about 10 minutes to complete (weekdays, evenings, or weekends are all perfectly fine).

If you are interested in learning more about what we do at The Social Economy Centre, please feel free to contact me via email, or visit our website at www.socialeconomycentre.ca.

Thanks so much!!

~Elyse

******************************************
Elyse Peasley, M.A.
PhD Candidate,
University of Toronto
elyse.peasley@utoronto.ca
*******************************************

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kids drawing an ocean on the sidewalk

I got wind of a community art project last Friday that could use some photos, so I headed over to Brockton Village (Dundas West) on Saturday to see what I could shoot for an hour. There I found artists chalking up the sidewalks, making pedestrians and cars take pause or slow down to look down. It’s the joint effort of local residents who wanted to animate their neighbourhood, which was part of a Jane’s Walk on Sunday.

I love community art. Just as it’s mentioned in the article, it helps neighbours get to know each other, especially people who would otherwise not meet. In a city of millions, it’s common not to know your neighbour, which is why events such as this are important for building community spirit.

Dundas West has some excellent murals

In the media: http://www.insidetoronto.com/news/local/article/1348105–brockton-village-chalking-it-up-to-experience

The group’s Facebook pages:
https://www.facebook.com/events/332809053452954/
https://www.facebook.com/BlockChalked

The thing about chalk art graffiti is that it’s at the mercy of the weather, and although the weather was gorgeous on the weekend, I knew it wouldn’t last. That’s where I step in, as I’m used to doing for weddings, where it is my job to photograph the work of makeup artists, hairstylists, bakers, and chefs who put their heart and soul into creating works of art which last only one day. After a wedding, only the pictures remain. Chalk art is just as ephemeral. This is something I find incredibly exciting about photography — that I am able to preserve art to be enjoyed long after it’s destroyed or fades away.

stop and read

The other thing about chalk art graffiti is that most of the chalk used at Chalk The Block is very light, which means I had to use HDR techniques to show the art properly. I’ve probably mentioned before that I’m not much of a fan of HDR, but can see its usefulness. I’ve applied the technique rather liberally to Saturday’s pictures.

Chalk The Block event photos are best viewed as a full-screen slideshow, thumbnails, or view smaller in the slideshow below.

I also took some non-chalk-art photos that day, some of my favourites are here:

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tofu, or as my friend calls it, "edible plastic"

Let’s face it, fat tastes good. This is a problem, because if you take the fat out of your food, it just doesn’t taste the same. Take butter, for example. Is there any real substitute? I think not.

I’m a fan of tofu, but I forget most of the time that it exists. It’s usually tucked away somewhere in a corner of the grocery fridge so I walk right by it. But it pays to enjoy tofu, not just for economic reasons (how can you beat $1.49 for about half a kilo?). Tofu is also a decent meat substitute if you want to pad your dish with protein that’s low in calories, high in calcium, low in fat and has zero cholesterol.

“Tofu tastes like plastic,” my friend opines. But I cooked him up a tofu stir fry one night with red thai curry paste and he actually liked it. “See? You just need to experiment.”

I can't seem to cook without onions. Sorry, Helma!

spice up your life

Well, I tried an experiment with some tikka masala spices I’d bought, but this experiment fell a little flat. The spices were good, but I ran out of tomatoes, I had to sub the lemon juice for some leftover calamansi powder from my cookie-making spree, I had no cilantro, I’m out of cream, and my natural yoghurt is from skim milk, not full fat. It’s not really tikka masala without tomatoes, but the one thing I feel makes a huge difference is cilantro. If you’re a cilantro person (there are only two kinds of people in this world, people who love cilantro and people who hate it), you’ll know what I’m talking about.

Can’t blame the tofu this time. Next time: cilantro, tomatoes, ultra-natural yoghurt.

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This month’s One-of-a-Kind-Dinner was themed “The Count of Monte Cristo”, which brings to mind one thing for me: swashbuckling pirates. But this isn’t “Pirates of the Caribbean” the movie, this is a 19th century adventure novel by Alexander Dumas, and it is Chef Clint Rampold’s favourite book, he says.

We were not without swashbuckling pirates, of course.

From Wikipedia:

The story takes place in France, Italy, islands in the Mediterranean and the Levant during the historical events of 1815–1838 (from just before the Hundred Days through to the reign of Louis-Philippe of France). The historical setting is a fundamental element of the book. An adventure story primarily concerned with themes of hope, justice, vengeance, mercy and forgiveness, it focuses on a man who is wrongfully imprisoned, escapes from jail, acquires a fortune and sets about getting revenge on those responsible for his imprisonment. However, his plans have devastating consequences for the innocent as well as the guilty.

Creating a multi-course dinner around the storyline of “The Count of Monte Cristo” is a rather tall culinary order, but Clint rose to the challenge. Here’s the menu:

And, the plates in all their glory. (I will add the course descriptions once I get the list.)

Amuse-Bouche: Haydee, a Turkish Rose

Soup: Isle of Monte Cristo

Appetizer: Napoleon's Letter

Main: Betrayal in Marseilles

Imprisoned In The Chateau D'If

The One-of-a-Kind-Dinners are known for more than originality, they are a celebration of the arts, including dance, theatre, and music.

Maria Z

Maria Z

Sasha Z

Equus Q

Andrew Lopatin

This is by no means all the pictures of the evening — check out the photo album as a full-screen slideshow or click through to view the smaller slideshow autoplay below:

full-screen slideshow
thumbnails

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Map: World Food Statistics

Part of the Food for 9 Billion project

This map of World Food Statistics compiled by the Center For Investigative Reporting, the U.S.’s oldest non-profit investigative news organization, is the most fascinating set of visually-presented data I’ve seen in recent memory. You can compile this information yourself as the sources are all publicly available, but this javascript map does the work for you in a simple way, allowing you to compare countries with a mouse hover rather than scrolling through tables of data. Roll over any country for a snapshot of its food situation. Compare countries by using the drop-down menu.

As you can see by the screencap of Canada’s stats, it includes other data such as water resources (ours is HUGE) and CO2 emissions. We are among the top 10 emitters of greenhouse gases per capita.

Another interesting statistic to compare is percent of income spent on food. The USA spends a relatively small percentage of income on food (6.4%, less than any other country on this map), yet three-quarters of Americans are overweight, one-third are obese, and 8% have diabetes. There is obviously something very wrong with not making food a priority, especially because it affects health directly.

I love statistics, but even if the mere idea of stats puts you to sleep, the information provided in this map may surprise you. Check it out.

via The Better U Foundation

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Tonight I went to my neighbourhood non-profit cinema* and watched Pina tonight in 2D, although it was filmed in 3D. It may actually be the first film I’ll consider watching in 3D. It completely drew me in.

IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1440266/

I went to the film knowing little about it, other than it was a film by German director Wim Wenders and it was about a choreographer named Pina Bausch. I knew it was about dance. Pina died suddenly, two days before the shooting of the film in 2009. All this I learned only from listening to Wender’s CBC Radio interview with Jian Ghomeshi one morning on Q (full interview on YouTube). The interview itself was very interesting — I found Wenders an intriguing person and something told me I would like his film.

After the film, I went to The Local (next door) for food and drinks so now I’m too sleepy to write anything more than a bunch of bullet points versus a thoughtful critique. Here goes:

• Don’t expect it to be a documentary. It’s a rather misleading category. It’s a tribute to Pina Bausch, not a biographical story about her life or her work.
• If modern dance is not your thing, be patient through the opening scene because it gets more interesting after that.
• I like the way the film concentrated on the way Pina’s dancers’ remembered her and described her (1).
• I liked that the dancers spoke mostly in their native tongues (there were many nationalities) and were subtitled.
• I did not mind that there was next to no dialogue. It’s a film about dance, that’s the lingua franca.
• My favourite dance sequence is Ditta’s. (I haven’t found a clip of it yet.)
• I appreciated that the dancers were all different ages, shapes, and sizes.
• … more (after a well-deserved sleep)

 
(1) This is the best description of a person than anything else. The stats don’t matter (age, education, marital status), it is how you live, how you affect others, that will be “you” after you are gone.

* Another reason why I love my neighbourhood — I can see a film at short notice and walk there.

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My friend Jan of Red Gecko Productions just released his parody music video of the Pet Shop Boys’ “West End Girls” by local comedy troupe Plum Thunder, and it is funny! I don’t know why, but the scene with the slide is so pathetic I had to watch it a few times It’s probably funnier if you live in Toronto because there are lots of reference jokes, but I’m sure you’ll get most of them whether you live here or not.

Check out http://www.plumthunder.ca and http://www.red-gecko-productions.com

STARRING
Bryan Paccagnella
Troy Martin
Cara Stephenson

SHOT & EDITED BY
Jan Keck

MUSIC BY
Bryan Paccagnella

SOUND RECORDING BY
Ugo Troccoli

PRODUCTION ASSISTANT
Natalia Kantor

SET PHOTOGRAPHY
Quirien Wijnberg

PRODUCED BY
Red Gecko Productions

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My website has been pretty food-centric lately, hasn’t it? It goes hand-in-hand with travel and culture, so it should come as no surprise that I’d like to plug a food and travel adventure series that just wrapped up its first season last night. It’s on Travel & Escape in Canada, and it’s in the process of being distributed to other countries, which means the shows on the web can only stream to a Canadian audience for now.

What’s it about? Three young chefs from Winnipeg make a journey through Southeast Asia and bring along a videocamera and microphone, learning how to cook regional dishes from the locals while teaching themselves the ins-and-outs of shooting and editing footage. (It’s not a reality show, it only became a show once the chefs completed their journey and pitched their ideas and edited footage to producers.) They toured from Indonesia to China, and the final show in the videoclip above wraps up their Chinese experience and thoughts about the whole trip.

This show is not for the squeamish: they’re eating everything the locals are eating, including duck necks, beating cobra hearts, and watching fish getting filleted while still alive. But it’s authentic and the guys learn to communicate in a variety of ways to get past the language barriers and cultural differences.

In the final minute of the video (9:00) when they’re interviewed at Pho Hung here in Toronto, they mentioned a couple of things I consider very important while travelling: keep an open mind and maintain the attitude that they are there to learn. Those two qualities beat any advice you’ll find in a guidebook, and I’m sure will serve them well in Season 2.

Check them out online, on Facebook, and Twitter:

http://www.withoutborderschefs.com/
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Chefs-Run-Wild/181185462032
http://twitter.com/chefsrunwild/

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This weekend I shoot my first unconference, which surprisingly should’ve happened a long time ago considering how much I love nerding out the commingling of art and science. But I’d only heard of this conference from a Couchsurfing friend who introduced me to the event, and the organizers of Subtle Technologies who needed a photographer.

I love shooting events, especially the ones that raise my nerd cred. Fashion shows? Meh. Give me theatre, opera, a kids’ concert, anything else before a fashion show, unless it’s centred around recycled materials or maybe space. Someone asked me once many moons ago what I’d love to do or be if I’d excelled in another area of study. My answer was I’d be a scientist. Biology, chemistry, physics — I’m fascinated by the esoteric nature of science. I just chose a different path, away from academia. It was no coincidence that at the time (January 2002) we were standing at the top of the Griffiths Observatory in Los Angeles.

But what is ArtScienceCamp?

ArtScienceCamp (#artscicamp) is an intense but informal gathering of artists, scientists, students, engineers, architects, designers, and many others. A Friday-night party is the venue for collaboratively creating a program of events to take place the next day. Everyone is encouraged to bring a crazy idea, a work in progress, or a vital topic for discussion, and to organize a session around it.

ArtScienceCamp is based on an unconference model that has taken off around the world, with events like DemoCamp, SciBarCamp, and many more. Successful Camp events bring together people who would not normally have conversations with each other, and create a space for surprising, serendipitous connections.

Friday 7:00pm – 10:00pm: planning session & party
Saturday 10:00am – 5:00pm: unconference events

ArtScienceCamp1 presentations included:

• Mass Collaboration in Science
• Scientific Imagery in Life & Art
• Design Charrette: Models for Community Art
• Rebranding Science
• Science Tarot
• Proteins Are Beautiful

This event is brought to you by Subtle Technologies and Hart House. Join the Subtle Tech mailing list to hear about our other activities.

So stay tuned for some interesting event photos — I’ve been told there will be structures created with marshmallows!

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I actually made the cookie dough on Saturday, but I’ve only been baking it in batches because I like cookies fresh out of the oven. Also, this was the first time I tried this recipe and it didn’t turn out well…

I made a double batch, and WHOA! THE GARLIC! Can you see the amount down below? A tablespoon of fresh garlic in a single batch? I followed that part a bit dubiously, doubling it for the double batch, and the garlic ended up being overpowering. I love garlic, but man, the fresh garlic was beyond pungent.

The other problem was that I skimmed the lines too quickly and read a tablespoon instead of a teaspoon of rosemary. WHOA ROSEMARY! I chopped up two tablespoons — again, rather dubiously — but didn’t check it over and the cookies had a second overwhelming flavour.

It’s not a complete loss, however. I didn’t throw the dough away because the goat cheese was expensive and I wondered if letting the dough sit for a couple of days would make a difference. It sort of did — tonight’s third and final batch wasn’t nearly the garlic-and-rosemary-fest that batch one and two were, but still, I would probably either tweak this recipe or try another before I take these cookies anywhere.

Source: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/foodwine/2013380803_xmascheesecookies10.html

Makes about 40 cookies

1/2 cup (about 4 ounces) fresh goat cheese (chèvre)
1 tablespoon minced fresh garlic
1 tablespoon minced lemon zest
1 teaspoon very finely minced fresh rosemary
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon coarse-ground black pepper
1/4 cup salted butter, softened
1 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 cup (about 2 1/2 ounces) chopped walnuts
Garnish: 2 tablespoons additional goat cheese

1. With an electric mixer, cream 1/2 cup cheese, garlic, lemon zest, rosemary, salt and pepper together in a mixing bowl. Add the butter and mix in well. Add the flour and mix the dough for about 30 seconds. Add the nuts and mix until ingredients are just evenly combined.
2. Divide the dough in half and shape into logs, about 6 inches long and 1 1/2 inches in diameter. Wrap tightly in plastic wrap, twisting the ends, to help firm the dough. Chill in the refrigerator for 2 hours or in the freezer for about 30 minutes to further firm the dough. (The dough can be kept frozen for up to one month; remove from the freezer to temper overnight in the refrigerator before slicing.)
3. Preheat oven to 350 degrees at least 20 minutes before baking.
4. Line baking sheets with parchment paper or lightly spray pans with cooking spray.
5. Cut the dough into 1/4-inch-thick rounds and place about 2 inches apart on the baking sheets. Divide additional goat cheese, crumbled among cookie tops. Bake until lightly golden at the edges, about 14 to 16 minutes. Cool on the pan.

Copyright 2010 by Kathy Casey Food Studios® Liquid Kitchen™ (www.kathycasey.com)

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