We arrived on a dark, stormy afternoon, to spectacular waves slamming against dark rocks. Small trips are what we can do right now. My mother steels herself against the small discomforts of travelling and takes pleasure in everything else. The beauty of the Pacific Rim is wild and pervasive. Expressive waves, the air itself…

Funny what happens when you don’t have time to consult Chowhound. Things work out, somehow. I had worked night and day to carve out time to get to Eugene for the Console-ing Passions Conference. I had to rely on local knowledge, and the culinary sensibilities of fellow-academics. The first evening of the conference, I…

Granola, like the music of Bruce Cockburn and the seductive subliminal possibilities of The Vegetarian Epicure Cookbook, was my ticket out. Out of the suburbs, out of childhood, out of normativity. Granola. It was so hard to get, when you lived on Featherston Drive in Ottawa in 1975. I had to smuggle it past…