NOvember™ Update

There’s just a little under a week left of NOvember™ and I’ve managed to stick to the rules I set out for myself. At this point it’s not going to be any great feat to finish up the month. In fact, it’s already getting hard to imagine where I was eating all that bread and sugar originally. It seems absurd. I even feel like I’ve forgotten how to prepare a meal that is anything but a simple clumping together of vegetables, rice and some form of protein.

If I were going to stick to this strict diet, I’d clearly have to look at some cookbooks and get some ideas for incorporating a little more variety into the week’s menu plan. Last night, out of desperation, I put curry on mashed potatoes just so I wouldn’t be eating rice. It’s delicious, by the way.

I will say this about NOvember™, it’s sapped the spice from my life. Not being able to indulge in a piece of chocolate at lunch, a pint of ale after work, an americano on the weekend… it all adds up to a rather dampened existence. It’s also interesting that I seem to have taken to eating far too many servings of fruit and nuts per day.

I seem to be able to find dietary loopholes and I substitute one form of unbalanced eating for another. I’ve averaged about six clementines a day on top of various servings of other fruits and berries. I clearly like “sweet” whether it’s Halloween candy or Christmas oranges. And I think if I observe NOvember™ next year, I’ll have to include peanuts on the list. It’s amazing I’ve managed to lose weight instead of gain.

Which was part of the impetus for taking NOvember™ on. Quality Street season is about to swing into action and I’m ready to meet it head on.

Things you see on the escalator

The old man at the foot of the escalator gripped the moving handrail. He’d take a step, move his hand up and it would slide down with the backward movement of the black rubber. As his feet took a step up and forward, the metal stairs would move down and backward. He was remaining absolutely stationary while climbing the escalator the wrong direction.

People were craning their necks to watch him, muttering to each other speculations of whether he was confused or crazy. He had a look of determined concentration which lead me to believe his action  was intended. He was using the escalator as a Stair-Master. He was not confused or senile, but people might have been correct to speculate he was a bit crazy.

Just before getting on the train, I looked back to check on his progress. He was still in the same spot but an audience had formed a circle around him.

Dundas Dining: Fatima’s Cafe & Bistro

It was brunch on Halloween and we needed somewhere to get in out of the chilly wind and Fatima’s Cafe & Bistro was, frankly, closest.

For some reason we’d been putting off Fatima’s. Something about the wording on the arched windows lead us to believe the menu was limited to coffee and panini. I’m a big fan of the panini so I’m not sure why I’d been steering us away from a visit. Perhaps the placement of the counter in the window gives the impression the space is somewhat cramped. It’s not. Nor is the menu limited.

The atmosphere is cozy and chic in red-brick and dark wood. The menu travels from France to Italy and stops at all places in between, but the fusion of flavours feels more rooted in the gallic than the mediteranian—something else we weren’t anticipating from the exterior.

Mandi’s unexpectedly spicy mussels came with pommes frites. Something I thought was odd given the generally classy tone fo the joint but she explained they come that way in France. Not being a shellfish fan, I of course didn’t discover this when I was in France. I asked if the spiciness of the mussels was a good thing, she said, “Yes. But it didn’t say anything about spicy on the menu and might be a shock for someone.” Then she said they were a little tough over all. I didn’t know shellfish could be anything other than tough and disgusting, but apparently they can be good. These were merely ”okay” it seems. The pommes frites, though, were delightful. Golden, crisp and served in an attractive conical bowl.

If Mandi’s mussels were a slight disappointment, my prosciutto, spicy Genoa salami and provolone panini was anything but. It was a sheer delight. It could have, perhaps, been taken to another level with the addition of pesto, but it was by no means anything other than the best sandwich I’ve had in the Junction. Bar none. The plate was nicely dressed as well.

My americano was second only to Pascal’s, but only a grade slightly below. Easily some of the best coffee in the area.

Other than the wait staff being slightly inattentive—but not so much we were unduly annoyed and not so much as some other places we’ve visited—the general experience was good and reasonably priced. The friendly but  lackadaisical attitude of our server gave us the opportunity to play “spot the weekend dad” which is our favourite game to play when waiting for the bill. I theorized the guy beside us eating brunch with his young daughter was not actually a weekend dad but a widower dad. He just had that look.

4.75 cafes out of 5 bistros. 
(I felt I had to deduct marks for Mandi’s mussels though the panini itself was worth a solid 5 rating.)

Just say NOvember™

Between Thanksgiving and Halloween my eating habits spiralled out of control. Not terribly (if you don’t count the 700g bag of Rockets), but enough to not be comfortable with. So I am invoking NOvember™ to detox from all the tricks, treats, turkey and tippling. Until my birthday at the end of the month I will consume:

» NO sugar. My general rule (part of the Mr. Dapper’s No Crap-Foods Live-it™) for the last few years has been to not eat refined sugar. But over time this rule has become rather lax—culminating in the aforementioned 700g bag of Rockets.

» NO bread. Given the opportunity I will eat a loaf of bread at every meal. Especially with cheese or peanut butter or jam or garlic butter. So I’d cut out yeast breads from my general diet a few years ago (again, part of Mr. Dapper’s No Crap-Foods Live-it™). For NOvember™ I’m expanding this to include flatbread and wraps as well. My starches will come in rice and potato form.

» NO dairy. Cheese leads to bread leads to cheese leads to bread leads to cheese… Due to my innate desire for the substance, cheese was cut out of my diet long ago (yes, Mr. Dapper’s No Crap-Foods Live-it™). It seems to have wedged its way back into my life lately though. Usually on the back of a piece of bread.

» NO alcohol. I haven’t actually been drinking an unhealthy amount but this ties in with the no sugar/no yeast thing.

» NO deep-fried foods. This mostly applies to those potatoes which will be replacing tortilla wraps as a staple of my diet.

» NO caffeine. At all. I’d already quit drinking coffee and tea Sunday-Fridays, but on Saturday mornings I’ve indulged in an Americano. The problem is my body now has such a low tolerance for the drug I’ve been up until 3am bugging out on Saturday nights.

» NO snacks in the evening. I’ve somehow gotten into the habit of snacking in the evening—mostly on the aforementioned 700g bag of Rockets—and this has caused some sleep issues as well.

Sometimes I suspect I place these dietary rules on myself more for the enjoyment of following a strict discipline than purely for healthy-living reasons. Everyone loves a challenge. I was considering including in NOvember™ non-dietary considerations such as NO ordering off Amazon and NO using Twitter at work. But the point of NOvember™ is to improve your life, not make it suck.

I encourage you to invoke NOvember™ in your own life. Just say NO to whatever you feel you’re indulging in too much, dietary or otherwise,  for the rest of the month.

What’s up with Mr. Dapper?

Mr. Dapper, yours truly, has been writing at some other places of late. Which is why it might seem this blog has been neglected. Mr. Dapper hasn’t been neglectful so much as spread-thin writing-wise. We’re due for some more Dundas Dining soon too. So stay tuned for that.

Also, I’ve started doing micro-fiction on Mr. Dapper’s Tweets of Wisdom. On Monday’s I start a five-part piece of short fiction which concludes on Friday’s. You can see the results in the window to the right as well.

I’m doing my music writing at Simply Read on the Simply Syndicated site. Right now I’m doing a project where I roll 2d10 (that’s two ten-sided dice commonly used in role-playing games for you non-nerds) to select a CD from my collection for review. I call it Bone Rolling Reviews. Total music nerdery.

And just in time for Halloween, I’ve also posted an essay on zombies at The Hurdled Nerd, the companion blog for our Nerd Hurdles podcast.

Canzine 2009

Mandi and I will be manning the Ampersand Publishing table at Canzine 2009. We’ll be selling Ampersand mini-books and handing out Nerd Hurdles stuff. If you’re in the Toronto area, drop by and say hello! We’ll probably be tired because it’s the day after Halloween. You’ll probably be tired too.

Things you see exiting the subway station

I rounded the corner, pulling my jacket tighter around me in the grey cold of the frosty morning light and there, right there, was a swarm of pigeons.

I thought to myself, “Jesus, someone’s left these vermin a pile of breadcrumbs. Now we all have to walk around the little bastards.”

As I passed the writhing, almost cannibalistic, scrum I saw it wasn’t a pile of breadcrumbs they were fighting each other for the right to devour. It was a puddle of vomit. It was frozen and looked like it might have been a meal of french fries, probably from the nearby Wendy’s.

Someone’s exciting night had become the pigeons’  exciting breakfast.

Aubade, oh good

There’s a few nice reviews (I haven’t been able to Google any not nice ones) of Moonwood’s CD/DVD Aubade posted around the internet these days. The first was from the Fatal Interview blog. The second was from the Geogia Straight’s website. Now I should probably start sending these things out to various media before the new year creeps around the corner. Things move slowly at Ampersand Publishing and Productions.

Things you see in Thunder Bay

About a month ago, late in the afternoon, while we sat around drinking beer, L’s mother J gave us an impromptu psychological test. If you could answer the following question correctly, you were a sociopath.

Or at least you could think like one. Apparently it’s used in screening suspects. Or was it training FBI agents? I’m not sure if either is true but the question was this:

A woman goes to her grandmother’s funeral and meets a tall, dark, handsome stranger. They hit it off immediately, finishing each other’s sentences and laughing at each other’s jokes. It’s practically love at first sight. Due some circumstance she doesn’t learn his last name or exchange any contact information. A month later she’s arrested for killing  her sister. Why?

Mandi and L offered a few theories based on motives revolving around revenge and monetary gain. It took me a minute or two but the answer was clear. She had killed her sibling hoping the handsome stranger might come to her sister’s funeral as he had her grandmother’s. I felt silly it had taken me so long to get it.

Mandi said, “Oh right. You’d told me before you felt a kinship with Dexter,” and tried not to look worried. At this point she decided we needed to drink a third pint.

We went to dinner at a local steak house with another couple more friends of Mandi and L for a little of the Thunder Bay flavour. The brick-walled restaurant had amazingly delicious buns at the salad bar but was otherwise fairly ordinary. They did have Stella on tap though and so I had my fourth pint of the afternoon because one wouldn’t want to seem unsociable when out to dinner with people one hardly knows and may suspect one of being a sociopath.

Dinner was progressing well. I was gnawing on my Pioneer Bones “for the Fred Flintstone type” (which really were just a pile of bones) in a beatific beer-induced haze when I became vaguely aware Mandi suddenly on the other side of the table and was cradling L’s mom’s head in her arms saying her name repeatedly.

L was sitting across from me  in frozen, wide-eyed panic saying words like, “She said she felt funny.” I looked to J whose eyes were open and unfocused above her slack, expressionless face. At first she appeared to be unconscious but then it was clear she was awake but vacant and non-responsive and disoriented.

As if from a seat in a theatre watching a performance, I watched Mandi instruct L to take her mother’s hand and talk to her. The look of distilled anxiety in L’s eyes made her suddenly appear years younger; a child frightened by noises in the dark. “Why can’t I do anything?” she said. Unable to offer any answer to the pleading in her eyes, I turned my attention back to her mother’s dead, expressionless gaze.

It was chilling and sobering to see a woman I hardly knew in the throes of what appeared to be a stroke, so I took another swig from my glass. The beer had lost its ability to intoxicate me though so I had to face the situation with an acute, irrational dread I’d be called upon to act in some way. This seemed unlikely since someone else had already managed to have our server call the paramedics and Mandi was describing over the phone the symptoms she was witnessing.

I glanced across to our other dinner companions who looked completely stunned. Turning around I saw none of the other restaurant patrons seemed to have noticed anything as amiss at our table. It added a little more of a surreal flavour to the situation.

Mandi asked J if she knew where she was. The answer was a very slight, unconvincing nod which concluded with the unfocused eyes drifting down towards the table. She asked her if she could stick her tongue out which was also greeted with a nod but a refusal to do so.  I was impressed and proud with the way Mandi took control of the situation. Something far beyond my abilities.

Then, almost as quickly as it had rolled in, the fog seemed to lift. Soon J was joking with the girls about looking forward to the hot paramedic who was bound to show up. It seemed like I didn’t even have time to take another sip of beer when the paramedics arrived. And indeed one of them actually was the stereotypical pin-up fireman calendar hottie. As he ran J through the paces, asking her about her symptoms, his older and much less attractive partner cracked jokes. Since the crisis seemed to have passed, I shrugged and tackled my Pioneer Bones with renewed vigour.

“Look at this guy eating and making me hungry,” joked the older paramedic. I looked around and saw that everyone else at the table had clearly lost their appetite and had pushed their plates away. Was it bad form to continue eating? I had the sinking feeling it was inappropriate to be gnawing on ribs when a member of the party was being examined by paramedics.

“Well, I already failed the psychological exam portion of  evening,” I said, forcing a laugh which was not picked up by anyone else. The paramedic deflected attention from this awkwardness by trying to convince J to visit the hospital. She refused by promised to see the doctor at her work the following Monday. She had to compete in a boat race the next day.

Dundas Dining: Pascal’s Baguette and Bagels

It struck us both as odd we’d been unconsciously avoiding Pascal’s Baguette and Bagels. Mandi thinks this might be due to, from the outside, it appears to have a lot less seating than there actually is. Myself, I was turned off by the font on the windows. Even if Pascal’s does know how to use an apostrophe to indicate the possessive tense. Perhaps it’s simply because the cheesy gold art deco font on the window is at odds with the awesome, rustic carved wooden signage above. Though, now that I look at the photo, the sign actually reads, “Pascal’s and Bagels… Baguette.”  Which doesn’t make a  lot of sense.

After some deliberation, we decided our hesitation was more to do with it being unclear, despite the name stating “baguette” and “bagels”, whether there’d be much in the way of “food” available. We’d sort of written it off as a breakfast place where you’d get a coffee and a croissant.

But no. There’s quite a varied menu which includes hot sandwiches, quiche, a beefy (pardon the metaphor) looking vegetarian pizza plus the titular baguette sandwiches and bagels. Oh, and coffee and croissants too. The chocolate croissants were calling to me. As were some decadent looking chocolate tart thing-a-ma-jigs on the counter. We don’t know what they were but they looked like orgasms in caloric form.

To experience the spectrum, I ordered a roast beef baguette and Mandi the peanut butter and banana bagel. Both the baguette and bagel appeared to be home-baked—if not at the establishment itself, then fresh from a bakery near-by. Mandi’s bagel was “possibly the best bagel I’ve ever eaten.” My baguette sandwich was light on the roast beef but generous with the cheese. Not an unpleasant reversal of common sandwich making custom. Though not “the best I’ve ever eaten” definitely worth a return. Especially since the menu is reasonably priced. The croissants are still calling to me. Even after I’ve just eaten a brownie.

Our Americanos were good. A decent head of schiuma. Not as delightful as Madison’s Creperie, but as I have mentioned previously, such comparisons are unfair.

There was one detractor. A high-pitched, incessant, mechanical whine bored into our skulls the entire visit. Next time we’ll sit at the outdoor tables.

4.5 baguettes out of 5 bagels.