Recipes for Trouble

According to cultural theorist Mikhael Bakhtin, a carnival allows the rules and norms of a culture to be suspended, temporarily. What’s ugly is beautiful, what’s down is up.

Bakhtin created the term carnivalesque to describe art that does just that. Stories that glorify and give dignity to the non-normal, or what Bakhtin called (in a non-critical way), the grotesque.

Those stories get rarer and rarer these days. But we do still have Halloween, Mardi Gras, and the summer fair, or as we call it here in Toronto. “The Ex.”

The Ex’s best expression of the carnivalesque is, in my mind, the food. People go to the Ex to eat junk food, and eat a lot of it. Stuffing your face, proudly, is the temporary normal.

Thus, we began our sojourn at Canada’s largest fair with mini-donuts. Tiny, cakey and cinnamon-sugar dusted, they prepared our palates for the grease-fest to come.

The Ex was once an agricultural fair. It began in 1879 and some classic Victorian buildings from that era still stand. It soon became a site of militaristic and nationalistic propaganda. Historical pageants whipped up fervour for war (the costly and polluting CNE airshow now takes on that role), and exhibits of newly invented automobiles, radios and televisions boasted a nation’s progress.

But the fun fair, or the midway, was where the real carnival was. Freak shows, wax works, and burlesque were once its mainstays.

As I munched on my second food item (chicken on a stick), I mused upon the traces of the freak show that remain. The inexplicably popular booth where you pay $10 to have someone guess your weight and age; the Super Dogs show where highly trained canines do rediculous things. And, of course, the food hall.

Food is now the main freak of the Exhibition. From foot long hot dogs to deep fried mac ‘n cheese, food maintains its staunch, starchy allegiance to the grotesque.

Which is where I foundered. Instead of pickle-on-a-stick, poutine with bacon, candied apple or hot waffle ice cream sandwich, I went all ethnic and had a delicious pork adobe skewer with rice noodles and egg roll. It was lovely but it filled me up and prevented me from eating anything more than a few licks of my buddy’s soft ice cream.

We watched food shows and mop demos, a bluegrass band, and crazy antics on ice. We strolled the midway as the sun was setting, and went home in a street car full of exhausted, jubilant kids and their near-comatose parents, as the neon lights of the ferris wheel filled the night sky.

This time of year, the colours at a farmers’ market are over-the-top vibrant, like the slutty girl in highschool with her blue eyeshadow and tight red top.

The Edmonton Farmers’ Market is a rich melange of organic farmers, Mennonite and Ukrainian or Polish farmers, and craftspeople. These plaid-shirted organic farmer girls had an especially charming booth.

Let there be cabbage rolls, mushroom soup, sorrel soup, and lots and lots of salad.

So. What. Will. You. Eat. asks my neighbour rather anxiously as she drives me to the Remote Island’s ferry on my way to a 3-day kayaking excursion.

She knows how I am about food. How I arrive on this island with a small suitcase of food supplies then head into town the next day to top it off with fresh shrimp and artisan cheese.

Will. You. Eat. Dried. Food. From. Pouches. she continues. She thinks it’s like spaceship travel.

No, and, Hell no.

First of all, I am kayaking with G and J, a lovely couple I’ve known for years. We agree on many things but perhaps most importantly we are in accord that the deep hatches of kayaks, not to mention their pointy noses, can and must hold all manner of delicious food.

The three days unfold, a gift to all our senses. The waters of Sechelt Inlet welcome us with glassy stillness as we pull out. Blue hills and green mountains unfold like one of those children’s pop-up books. Crossing the inlet to our marine campground, we encounter swelling waves in a sudden wind. I am momentarily terrified.

J shows me how to brace my legs against the inside of the kayak. I keep paddling, and the steady push-pull movement of doing so calms me and finally, brings me to shore.

It’s my night to cook. After we set up camp I lead my good-natured friends on a short walk through shallow water to a rocky outcropping with a view of the other side of the point we’re on. We eat Saltspring Island goat cheese with truffles, and Saturna Island wine (from plastic pink teacups no less).

Back at the camp kitchen that J has outfitted with her usual elegance I make a quick stew of sidestripe shrimp with cherry tomatoes, onions, corn fresh from the cob, garlic, oregano and lemon, basmati rice to go with. It’s nothing fancy (you could do it yourself with all manner of variation) except that the shrimp are fresh, plump, and juicy as fruit.

My friends shiver with delight and I’m proud to feed these folk who have hosted me so often in their oceanside home.

Dinner the next day is J’s creation: two vegetarian curries from the Hollyhock cookbook, naan bread on the side. How could they possibly be so delicious, these curries?

And then of course there is the kayaking, in all of its meditative monotony and unspeakable beauty, the Robinson Crusoe-esque solitude of our campground, and seals that cavort before us like circus performers.

Besides the food and the kayaking, it’s the sunrises that impress me the most, a reminder of both the strength and fragility of this planet we’re on, and its delicate daily movements in the universe.

Neither body nor soul went hungry.

I’ve been thinking about neighbourliness. It’s a cumbersome word for what goes on on this island.

My first day here, J, gruff yet kind-hearted neighbour from across the way, appears on the porch as P and I drink wine, recovering from the trip from Vancouver. He never drops by, but he saw the lights on and came over to check. People keep an eye on things here, quietly.

As the light starts to fade and the cedars breathe out their mysterious evening perfume, J lowers himself into a deck chair with the reluctance of the very shy. In his low, halting voice he fills us in on island doings in the past year, who’s moved away, how the winter went, and the latest gossip on the melancholic dude who runs the General Store, the only commercial establishment on the island.

I mention wanting to be able to eat outdoors this summer (there is barely any patio furniture here). He asks us if we have eggs.

The next day, a table arrives for the deck, and local free-range eggs have been placed in my fridge.

It’s been like that all month long, the length of time I am staying here on Remote West Coast Island.

While I’m out walking, G. my next door neighbour brings over her unimaginably tasty garden lettuce, carefully washed and layered in paper towels. As doors remain unlocked here, she leaves them on the kitchen counter. (We ate them last night, dressed only with kosher salt, a splash of balsamic, two splashes of olive oil. They tasted alive, like no storebought greens ever will).

I walk over with fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies to pass onto her grandsons visiting this weekend.

When 13 year old B was visiting me with her mom, G gifted B with some prints she’s had made, beautiful images of orangutans.

Beloved books with little yellow post-it notes attached get passed from hand to hand.

I call it the eternal potlatch.

This is a large-ish island with a small population. You have to know how to be alone (those long, dark, rainy winters!) and you have to know how to get along. The combination of those two factors, a kind of bitter and a kind of sweet, make being here a uniquely civil and oddly joyous experience. After three years of coming here, I finally get how special this place is.

I never know if I’ll be able to come back, if my academic or research schedule will permit it, if the place will be available next year, if I’ll have the chutzpah to lug books and laptop and clothes and food to a remote island for a month, just to write (and what if I don’t write, or the writing is not good enough to justify the large effort on its behalf?)

But I will carry the shape and spirit of these days and this island inside me for many months after I leave. And that, I’m starting to realize, is the real reason I’m here.