Colleen Anderson's Blog, page 31

The Skinny On Models

In the fashion industry, this is a normal size. Creative Commons: scrapetv.com

I've talked about this before, but it bears repeating. Back many years ago when I was in the throes of my eating disorder, classified as bulimia, I attended some group counseling sessions. Now my bulimia was not the normal one, where you gorge and vomit. I didn't vomit. I starved myself, then gorged and then my bodily functions did a bit of a natural purge, but it was an uncontrolled desperate, self-hating way of eating and never on healthy foods. People with eating disorders never gorge on carrots or celery.

Now this counseling group was in the evenings at the psychiatrist's home. I was the ugly duckling amongst the swans, but those swans were emaciated, walking sticks. Pretty much all of them were models dealing with anorexia. I remember the doctor asking once, "How many people have known someone who died from an eating disorder?" I didn't but probably 80% of those models had known someone who starved themselves to death. The video below shows Isabelle Caro who died a few years after this was made at the age of 28. She looks 60.

And yet, twenty years later, we still see that the modeling, acting, dancing  and gymnastic sports industries have a prevalence toward the ultra thin person. Ultra thin to the point of sickeningly unhealthy. When I hear that models are considered plus size from size 8 and up I get angry. What does plus mean with sizing? Well, it means more than normal or average. Plus sizing when I was a kid was for truly large ladies, like sizes 18 and up.

What astounds me is that this woman, by her dress, feels she's still beautiful. Creative Commons: evolutionarypsychiatry.blogspot.com

Being classified as a plus size 8 means that you're going to think you're bigger than average, that there's something wrong and abnormal about you. The fashion industry is probably the worst, with the movie industry coming in second. Seriously, these people should be smacked severely for causing needless deaths and psychoses. When children of six are worrying about their weight or being too fat, there is a lot wrong with the world. Albeit, as a pudgy child I didn't have it easy and children are notoriously cruel, but our culture shapes what they consider aberrant.

I have Amazonian friends. They're nearly six feet tall. Some are slimmer than others, because nature makes us differently, but none are fat. You can bet that by height alone they're all going to be over 150 pounds and they're going to be considered plus size. For that matter, maybe all of my friends (except one who is tiny and has size 5 feet but still has a bit of a tummy) would be plus size by modeling standards.

Hanging clothes on living skeletons who are lit and pomaded to look partially healthy gives no one the hope of looking the same in such an outfit. The pictures here are the extremes but models are often far underweight and on their way to an early death. Actors are told they'll be fired from their roles if they put on so much as 10 lbs. Unless you're a comedian; they're allowed to be fat because fat is funny. And these supposedly normal size models…they stand a high chance of suffering throughout their lives, should they live that long. They're not just missing fat, they're missing muscle mass, not to mention nutrition to run a healthy body. Telling someone they're fat doesn't make them healthier if they starve themselves into nonexistence.

From Plus Model Magazine: Katya Zharkova next to the fashion industry's ideal.

There is  the beginning of a backlash in the fashion industry but obviously it's slow when Twiggy (who was 110 lbs) would now be considered plus size. The clothing store Le Chateau perpetuates the skinny myth, where you'll be hard pressed to find L, but you'll find S, XS, XXS and XXXS. Shame on you, Le Chateau.  Plus Model Magazine embraces lush, curvy models, and the magazine looks a lot at unhealthy body image. This last image indicates the difference between the skeletal model preferred by the fashion industry and the body ideal that is more common for all women. There are very few women, a small percentage, who could be healthy and skinny enough to be a model without starving themselves.

So, don't believe what you see in fashion and in the movies. Those aren't real people sizes. If you're wearing a size 12, that's not a plus size. That's average. And, mothers, don't let your daughters grow up to be models.

Filed under: Culture, fashion, health Tagged: anorexia, average build, body image, eating disorders, fashion, Le Chateau, modeling, Plus Model Magazine, plus size, size myth, starvation

Apocalypse Diet Summary: Days 12-15

Zombies might like them, but you won't catch me eating any organs. Creative Commons Elisabeth Feldman

Apocalypse Diet (AD) Day 12:

Today was another quinoa and  mole (molay not moles) day. There was only about 1/2 cup of mole and likewise for the quinoa so I was pretty hungry by the time I got home, almost hungry enough to eat brains! Actually, if my freezer was filled with nothing but kidneys, brains, tripe, heart, tongue and all those other organ meats I would rather go outside, gnaw trees and take my chances with the zombies. They can have the organs. Blech!

For dinner I used up the rest of the quinoa with some steamed broccoli, carrot and garlic, and the last tablespoon of the earlier curry sauce. I finished off the last of a jar of Indian pickle. This stuff is extremely salty and I overdid it, making my meal very so-so. My stomach actually was growling at me (mistaking me for a zombie meal) when I went to bed.

Apocalypse Diet (AD) Day 13:

Breakfast was  handful of hazelnuts and about 1/4 cup of pomegranate juice. The juice keeps quite well and I'll be able to drink it for a while for fruity goodness. I took some homemade frozen gumbo out of the freezer for lunch. It's a year-old batch and nearly the last. Gumbo is a Louisiana dish, made with a roux, which is  flour and oil stirred over a medium heat until it turns peanut butter color. Then you add your vegetables (tomato, onion, peppers, green beans, carrots, garlic, okra, etc.) and shrimp and sausage. I used turkey sausage. Some gumbos are more like soup and some like stew. With the red and white rice I added, it became more stewlike. Very filling and not low calorie. I'll have to find a low fat version in the future.

My fridge is a type that sucks the moisture out of the air so vegetables can indeed keep for several months without going bad. Often jars of pickles and jams will start to lose their labels because the air is so dry in the fridge, and that's saying something in the Pacific NW where there is often a lot of rain.

What will you be eating during the Apocalypse? Creative Commons: Tokyo Genso pinktentacle.com

For dinner, I did notice the baby bok choy starting to turn so I stir fried it with enoki mushrooms, lotus root, carrots garlic, onion, fish sauce, soy sauce with scallops on rice. At the local watering hole tonight there was evidence of zombie activity. Glassy eyed beings stumbling and slurring. They seemed to be out in full force. I managed not to get infected and made it home in the light smattering of snow. Zombies probably like colder weather since it preserves their body parts better.

Apocalypse Diet (AD) Day 14:

Breakfast was about two tablespoons of leftover rice, with a tablespoon of peanut butter and chocolate chips. Think of it as a variation on rice pudding. The hard part was when I went to work out, I also walked up to the Drive to window shop. I often go shopping for food on Saturdays, and maybe snacks and because I hadn't yet eaten lunch it was very hard to not go and pick up some food. But so far, I've bought no food to bring home.

I had the last of my stir fry veggies with scallops for lunch. Dinner was at a friend's involving cheese, crackers, meats and lots of garlic. I came home with a bag of roasted garlic.

Apocalypse Diet (AD) Day 15:

Breakfast, something I'm never good at, didn't really happen because I slept in. So for lunch I found some perogies in the freezer and fried them up with mushrooms, onion, chive tops, garlic and sun-dried tomatoes in oil. Dinner consisted of some of the frozen shepherd's pie from before.

I do worry that my starch intake is higher than it would be on my normal eating pattern. This makes me think about how poor people are often overweight, because their diets are low priced and carbohydrate heavy to fill them up. While vegetables are relatively cheap, they don't necessarily fill you up the same way.

For those just popping in, the apocalypse happened on January, 1, 2012, just in time for people to freak out about the Mayan calendar. Of course, since the Mayan calendar actually shows the ending of one age and the beginning of another, maybe it's now the Zombie Age (we've already had the consumer age).

I'm pretending that an apocalypse takes place (maybe it's a supervirus, massive alien abductions or an evil plot), which stops the supply lines (but for the sake of staying healthy and clean, the hydro-electric power and water are still working). I am documenting how long I can live on the food in my place, without shopping. Here are my rules:

I cannot buy any food at all.
If going out for dinner, it's a bubble outside of the experiment. I will not be going out for dinner often.
When I start to run out of proper nutritionally balanced foods I will take vitamins.
When I become bored or am on to only condiments and alcohol, I will call my experiment  ended.
I believe I'll be able to eat relatively healthy at least until March.


Filed under: Culture

Apocalypse Diet Summary: Days 8-11

Apocalypse Diet (AD) Day 8:

It's Sunday today and I worked out, finding few zombies on the streets. Perhaps they gorged themselves on downtown club goers last night. At least the workout was relatively safe. Then I came home and had leftover turkey curry. And of course, the now ubiquitous chocolates. I wonder, if I run out of vegetables and proteins, can I count chocolate as both? The amount of veg curry with maybe 2 oz. of turkey was about two cups worth. I made it fairly low on fats, just the 2 tbsp. of margarine and that's it for three servings. It should hold me till later.

La Costena's mole sauce. Enough for a whole chicken.

I have two whole chickens in the freezer. I thawed one and with a jar of mole sauce that's been in the cupboard for a long long time, I tossed it in the slow cooker with an onion, garlic, two carrots and celery and several cups of water. That should be ready tomorrow and good for quite a few days if I cook up some rice or quinoa with it.

The freezer is actually well-stocked but I had to make room so I can actually use some of the stocks to make more soups. This will tide me over between the meals. To tell the truth, if this was a real apocalypse I would probably be eating half of what I am. I have to go and take some rosemary from my neighbor's bush. This would be allowed because no one could take all of it and it would exist, come contagion or zombies.

Apocalypse Diet (AD) Day 9:

Lunch was, yes, leftover veggie-turkey curry. I could barely sleep due to the slow cooker wafting out aromas of pollo en mole. Mole is a chocolate and chile based sauce but not sweet. It seems my slow cooker worked over time and the chicken fell off the bone. In fact it was nearly so overcooked that the bones were soft and the cartilage bits very jellylike (yuck!). Always, when I cook a chicken or a turkey, I make soup stock of the bones. These bones were sucked pretty clean of all nutrients so no soup stock.

The mole was okay. When I've made it in the past I've used the store-bought La Costena sauce as a base and added extra pasilla and ancho chiles and other spices. In this case I added a few red pepper flakes and one dried habanero, making it slightly hot (in my books). I cooked up some red and brown rice and had it for dinner. There was a natural carbonated juice drink thing in the fridge (left behind during the holidays) so, while I don't like carbonated drinks in general, I drank this mango fizz for the fruitiness.

Apocalypse Diet (AD) Day 10:

Mexican dishes often have sauces and that's what mole (mo lay) means. Because I cooked the chicken in it, it's more of a stew. I had the same for lunch today and then packed away containers of the mole with rice and some just of the sauce. There's quite a bit and it's fairly filling so now my freezer is very very full. The next while will be alternating this frozen food with the hardier vegetables still in the fridge.

I was at a friend's tonight so it was a hearty vegetable soup, with a piece of bread, some humous and chips, and a couple of chocolatey biscuits. And a bit of wine.

Apocalypse Diet (AD) Day 11:

What would you eat at the end of the world? Creative Commons: sheetalmalik.blogspot.com

The zombies were knocking about the other night, some trying to claw their way in but can anyone explain why a moldering undead thing should have a superior sense of smell, according to Walking Dead, when parts of them seem to be rotting? In any case, it's cool enough that the sweatiness of humans isn't drawing them quickly.

Today's lunch was canned tuna, with some of the leftover curry sauce, and half a flour tortilla. My cat loves it when I have tuna. I also grabbed the last of the peppery Chinese leaf vegetable as it's starting to turn.

Tonight's unevent (I was supposed to go for dinner with a friend) will be the last of the unfrozen mole, sprinkled with sesame seeds, and with quinoa and extra hot sauce. Yeah yeah, and a couple of chocolates. My intake in that department is about 100 calories a day.

This is getting long so I'm stopping it here.

For those just popping in, the apocalypse happened on January, 1, 2012, just in time for people to freak out about the Mayan calendar. Of course, since the Mayan calendar actually shows the ending of one age and the beginning of another, maybe it's now the Zombie Age (we've already had the consumer age).

I'm pretending that an apocalypse takes place (maybe it's a supervirus, massive alien abductions or an evil plot), which stops the supply lines (but for the sake of staying healthy and clean, the hydro-electric power and water are still working). I am documenting how long I can live on the food in my place, without shopping. Here are my rules:

I cannot buy any food at all.
If going out for dinner, it's a bubble outside of the experiment. I will not be going out for dinner often.
When I start to run out of proper nutritionally balanced foods I will take vitamins.
When I become bored or am on to only condiments and alcohol, I will call my experiment  ended.
I believe I'll be able to eat relatively healthy at least until March.


Filed under: Culture, food, health, humor Tagged: apocalypse diet, diets, eating, end of the world, food, food storage, freezing food, health, Mole, shopping, super virus, zombies

Apocalypse Diet Summary: Days 5-7

Explanation is at the end of just what the Apocalypse Diet is.

Apocalypse Diet (AD) Day 5:

I was not sad to see the last of the egg nog. Creative Commons: jeffreymorgenthaler.com

If the Apocalypse, zombies or a highly contagious virus had wiped out a fair number of humanity and made the rest afraid, you can bet that there would be raids and mass buying of food in the stores. People might hunker down and hide from the zombies, but the fewer numbers of eating humanity would mean more food though less suppliers. If it were summer, I'd start planting or hightail it to a farm where there would be lots of fresh food.

The interesting thing that I'm noticing about my Apocalypse Diet, and presuming that in a world where supply lines were cut so fresh produce and meats would disappear first, is that I'm trying to extend my proteins and vegetables. This means I'm actually making more dishes with carbohydrates in them. On average I don't eat pasta, bread, potatoes or rice more than a couple of times a week. I've made shepherd's pie, pasta, and stir fry with rice noodles so far. Those starches fill one up and bulk up the meal.

Because of this my lunches, which usually are only meat and vegetables, now include the last night's leftovers. So today's meal was pasta made with canned tomatoes (already opened or I would save this till the other vegetables ran out), mushrooms, carrots, onions, garlic, weird Chinese leaf that I don't know the name of, and shrimp.

For dinner I decided I needed to finish off the egg nog and realized I've been dosing it with rum because it is thick and so sweet. It turns out there was only a cup left so I swished out the container with water and thinned it down. It was fairly strong, rumwise, so I was rather relaxed. Normally I don't drink more than two days a week so it's interesting that the nog has upped my rum intake (or finishing off the other rather sweet fruit juice). I had about four crackers with cheese. Later on, when the nog wore off I was digging in the fridge and found a full zucchini, and some swiss chard. I had to cook up the chard as half of it was a runny green mess. And I had to throw out the feta, which was turning purple and yellow. Wasting food–bad. The chard went with a carrot, some chopped onion and a few cheese gratings.

I hate wasting food, especially with an apocalypse on, but I don't want to make myself ill either. It's imperative that I keep an eye on the greens and use them in order of shelf life. The zucchini wasn't moldering but being a fairly soft vegetable I'll have to use it in the next week. There are no more green beans or chard, but there are still enough veggies for a few more weeks.

ApocalypseDiet (AD) Day 6:

Zombies might be clamoring for food, but it isn't vegetables. Creative Commons: scrapetv.com

Pasta for lunch again today. Thankfully no more nog. Did I mention that I've had chocolates every day? Sob, my name is Colleen and I'm a chocaholic. But then, it's the only way I get my caffeine since I don't drink coffee or tea. I'm good for weeks to go yet but I only have a few a day.

Tonight I was working on writing and then went out dancing. In all of that I seem to have forgotten to eat, except for a few crackers. So of course when I got home at 3 am, with a friend who couldn't catch her bus, we gnawed on crackers and cheese, finishing off one of the two cheeses I shouldn't be eating anyway.

Apocalypse Diet (AD) Day 7:

Being a Saturday, I tend to sleep in and eat less formal lunches. So it consisted of two chocolates (yes, still) and a handful of these Chinese coated peanuts. Some are sesame, some wasabi, some seaweed. A small handful is about 100 calories. I also have a jar of artichokes and although I should be saving the preserved foods for later I had one of these.

By evening I was actually hungry so I cooked up a sweet potato, celery, carrot, onion, zucchini and mushrooms. I made a curry sauce. Normally I have a jar and toss in a few spoonfuls but I only had powder and I've found that just too harsh on its own. So it was kind of a curry gravy; margarine, flower, garlic, curry powder, jalapeno, paprika and fennel. Turned out tasty enough, with leftovers of course. I put in the 4-6 oz. of frozen turkey still left form Christmas. The fridge is starting to empty.

For those just popping in, the apocalypse happened on January, 1, 2012, just in time for people to freak out about the Mayan calendar. Of course, since the Mayan calendar actually shows the ending of one age and the beginning of another, maybe it's now the Zombie Age (we've already had the consumer age).

I'm pretending that an apocalypse takes place (maybe it's a supervirus, massive alien abductions or an evil plot), which stops the supply lines (but for the sake of staying healthy and clean, the hydro-electric power and water are still working). I am documenting how long I can live on the food in my place, without shopping. Here are my rules:

I cannot buy any food at all.
If going out for dinner, it's a bubble outside of the experiment. I will not be going out for dinner often.
When I start to run out of proper nutritionally balanced foods I will take vitamins.
When I become bored or am on to only condiments and alcohol, I will call my experiment  ended.
I believe I'll be able to eat relatively healthy at least until March.


Filed under: consumer affairs, Culture, food, health, humor Tagged: apocalypse diet, Culture, dieting, eating, end of the world, food, food supplies, health, starvation

Movie Review: The Woman

I'm not a big gore and horror film watcher, which you might find surprising because I write a lot of darkly disturbing fiction. But I find often in movies, they're going for the shock factor and splatter more gore than an abattoir. They're disgusting but not necessarily penetrating, nor disturbing because of the story they tell. Maybe this is why zombies have become so popular. You can heap on the gore, entrails and gnashing of human flesh without much conscience. After all, they're just undead, mindless animals and the real world has horrors greater than a shambling (or even fast running) zombie.

Pollyanna McIntosh stars in the disturbing movie, The Woman

When I watched The Woman directed by Lucky McKee, written by horror writer Jack Ketchum, and McKee, I didn't even know it was horror. I'd borrowed some movies from my neighbor and was just clicking through the unfamiliar ones. Right away I'm thrust into a situation that's not what I'd call your every day world. Sure it looks like it. Streams, woods and sun filtered through the leaves. Except there's a filthy feral woman, in tattered rags. These rags cover the essentials and she carries a knife so you know she's been around civilization at some point.

The official site has the following description of the film: Family man and lawyer Christoper Cleek (Sean Bridgers) must do what he can to protect his family when he comes into contact with a feral woman (Pollyana McIntosh) living in the woods near his isolated country home. Through a series of harrowing encounters Cleek and his family quickly discover there is more to this woman than anyone would suspect and that sometimes the devil wears a handsome face.

This is actually an intentionally misleading write-up. I'll be giving spoilers so if you want to watch this without prejudice skip to the last paragraph. From the beginning you see this very smiley family man but there is something wrong with the family. At the jarring switch from feral country scene to garden party you see a girl who ignores the boys flirting with her and looks back at another man. You see a man whose subservient wife gets him his drinks. His wife seems timid, his daughter cowed. But you don't know the situation yet. As the story progresses you get the sense that there is something extremely wrong, yet Cleek seems a reasonable guy who loves his three children, who helps people out and believes in democratic decision making in his family. That is, until they disagree with him. When he goes hunting he finds the feral woman and decides to bag her.

While one could think he wants to help and humanize her his first thought is to keep her captive and of course chain

Zach Rand as the emotionally broken Brian Cleek

her, hand and foot. Well, we've been shown she is an animal and will kill anything to survive…anything. But never is there any thought to calling some city service to help this injured and degenerate being. Cleek's methods of cleaning her are already brutal, cold and suspect and when his wife questions keeping her he casually backhands her. Intimations of incest are also evident and his son shows a cauterised emotional state that reflects the father's ideals. There are dogs locked away in the barn, never let out and a growing sense that even the son is damaged.

The males become obsessed with the feral woman. She's beaten, tortured and raped, and she is unrepentantly hostile. Pollyanna McIntosh's portrayal is stunning. She is so animalistic that the best acted zombie cannot compare. But she is a thinking intelligent if wild human in this film Her acting was all the more stunning because the actor/model is stunning in real life.

The movie slowly, horrifically spirals into more nastiness, with reveals of just how deep the depravity really goes. The depravity isn't the feral woman, it is of course the smiling, reasonable Cleek who is really a subjugator of women, a rapist, and more depraved than a beast could ever be. The movie ends with mayhem, murder and some gore. One reviewer said they would have liked it bloodier but I think this made it more realistic.

There were a few things that didn't ring quite true for me. The feral woman has bangs and if she was cutting her own hair with a knife they should have been more jagged. Otherwise McIntosh is more than convincing as uncivilized. Sean Bridgers as the father is convincing except possibly at the end when a few lines rang as untrue. The concerned school teacher is naively trying to help in the disastrous situation and when she is victimized I felt she gave in too easily and did not fight back when it was her life about to end.

Overall, this was a truly disturbing film that piled one horror on another. There is a comeuppance at the end for those who are the perpetrators and those too weak to stand up to them. This movie caused some outbursts and outrage at the Sundance Festival. But then, that is the sign of a horror film doing what it should. Often they're filled with gratuitous violence and gore, and far too many women always the victims. The Woman turned the tables on that trope though it starts out that way. It definitely makes you think and shudder.  Yes, there was a bit of gratuitous violence and blood but actually fairly restrained. I'd give it seven blood splats out of ten.

Filed under: Culture, entertainment, horror, movies Tagged: feral people, film, horror, Horror film, Jack Ketchum, Lucky McKee, movie review, murder, Pollyanna McIntosh, rape, Sean Bridgers, sexual abuse, Sundance Film Festival, The Woman, wolf boy, woman

Apocalypse Diet Summary: Days 2-4

For those just popping in, the apocalypse happened on January, 1, 2012, just in time for people to freak out about the Mayan calendar. Of course, since the Mayan calendar actually shows the ending of one age and the beginning of another, maybe it's now the Zombie Age (we've already had the consumer age).

Pretending that an apocalypse happens that cuts the supply lines (but for the sake of staying healthy and clean, the hydro-electric power and water are still working), I'm experimenting to see how long I can live on the food in my place, without shopping. Here are my rules:

I cannot buy any food at all.
If going out for dinner, it's a bubble outside of the experiment. I will not be going out for dinner often.
When I start to run out of proper nutritionally balanced foods I will take vitamins.
When I become bored or am on to only condiments and alcohol, I will call my experiment  ended.
I believe I'll be able to eat relatively healthy at least until March.

What zombies eat Creative Commons: geekstir.com

Apocalypse Diet (AD) Day 2:

Yesterday I reported my discovery of the virus and concluded I will need to eat frugally and not waste any food. (I did go for dinner last night so that is exempt). The only thing I added last night from my staples was a drink of absinthe consisting of about two ounces absinthe, water and two sugar cubes.

Today I had another glass of egg nog and a good dose of rum in it for one cannot live on egg nog alone. I had about four crackers and four chocolates. Because of the holidays I still have a goodly amount of chocolate left and predict I might be eating chocolate still at the end of March.

My fridge is well stocked with vegetables and some of them need to be used before they start to turn. Every chopped off end is put into the freezer to make future stocks when the food runs low. For supper I made a concoction (which is how I normally cook) of the Chinese variety. I stir fried the following:

2 tbsp. olive oil
2 chive top stems
pepper & 1 tsp. jalapeno
2 tbsp. soy sauce
2 cloves of garlic (I'll really miss this when it's gone)
1 slice of yellow onion
1 small slice of ginger
1 small carrot
1 c. broccoli
2. c. mixed seafood (mussels, shrimp, squid, oysters, clams)
the last of a bottle of bean sauce rinsed out with vegetable stock
2 c. gai lan or another type of Chinese leafy vegetable
1 c. of a leafy green plant, slightly bitter
1/2 c. enoki mushrooms
1.5 c. rice noodles

I think the virus is still taking hold. There's not a lot of stirring yet and only some moaning.

Apocalypse Diet (AD) Day 3:

Today's lunch was yesterday's dinner and highly mediocre. I don't like mussels that much and rice noodles are surprisingly slimy if you forget they're in there. Noticed a few more zombies today, doing a few odd things on the road. Yesterday and today they were driving very slowly. That's not like Vancouver's normally crazed drivers. (Could also be leftover turkey endorphins).

Breakfast was a German shortbready cookie thing, and dinner was nearly meatless shepherd's pie. I used some of the turkey stock with bits of turkey in it, along with leftover gravy (created more) mushrooms, broccoli (I'm going to miss this vegetable first) celery, carrots, green beans going zombie bad, garlic, onion, and potatoes mashed with leftover almond milk. I skimped on the potatoes since they'll run out soon enough but I kept the potato water for later meals. No point in wasting any nutrients. The good thing is this shepherd's pie is tasty and filling and will give me at least another 4-6 meals. The freezer is rather burdened (in a no electricity scenario I'd be eating the freezer foods first, trying to salt my meats and storing them in the mild wintry weather outside) so I'll probably try to extend the green vegetable life by interspersing with some soups. I'm lucky that my fridge is one of those low humidity types that can extend the life of veggies for months.

Fruit will disappear first but I found six blackberries left in the fridge by a friend who turned into a zombie and is in Germany spreading the virus. I have some pomegranate lime juice that won't last so I'm sure some vodka or rum will extend it some. (Okay, yes, I'm having a bit more alcohol than is the norm but I'm still getting over the shock of the holidays and the zombies.)

Apocalypse Diet (AD) Day 4:

Creative Commons: kazuki89 deviantArt

I had the last of these Chinese pancakes that were in my freezer, with a bit of hot sauce and soy, for breakfast. I'm not much of a breakfast person so that's fine for me. Lunch was the shepherd's pie.Tonight is pasta with veggies of course, left over canned tomatoes, and a bit of cheese. Still good on the veggie front for a couple of weeks. No sign of zombie infestation except a few creaking gates.

But what's scarier than a zombie? It could be a mugger, a rapist, a cannibal (I guess a zombie fits in there but with less discriminate taste) and a disease. I watched the movie Contagion last night. It plays on our modern fears and suspicions of cover-ups, looting, hoarding, death, brutality and disease-spreading. The looting of stores and supplies could be a real threat and my Apocalypse Diet would fit such a scenario.

Filed under: consumer affairs, Culture, food, life, myth

How I First Learned About Money

Creative Commons by cupwire.ca

CBC Radio One was talking about allowances today and whether they're good or bad, or should be allowed. As a child, I was one of four to a working class family. We didn't have a ton of money, or at least that was the way it always came across. I wasn't given money that I can remember and maybe as a small child I was, so that I could learn how to spend it and count it out. Or maybe I learned about it in grade school. I actually can't remember any specific lessons about money.

But…by the time I was six or seven I had my first job. It wasn't a paper route but it was selling Regal Cards, a mail order company for Christmas and birthday cards, door to door. They're still going strong Probably the cuteness of being a little child helped me sell those cards but I was working early on. My mother didn't believe in letting us shirk any duties and she'd grown up a Depression Era child so making your own way was part of the game. We may have been lower middle class but my siblings and I were richer in goods than my mother had been at that age.

After Regal Cards, came babysiting, when I was old enough. I babysat for the people across the street and for a while had a job babysitting on Saturdays for a woman who worked. A full day of entertaining a two-year-old who wouldn't sleep if the didn't have his bottle (and threw it over the balcony one day) was more than I could take and I eventually quit. But the fact is I was familiar with working and being paid for it probably since I was seven. I opened a savings account between the ages of 12-14, where my mother had to come with me because they weren't used to kids with bank accounts at that age. Now, every kid can get a bank account. I had a chequing account just a few years later.

In between all this I asked my mother, probably around the age of 13 or 14 if I could receive an allowance. By this time my two older siblings were out of the house and it was just my brother and me. We already had chores to do, such as vacuuming, mowing lawns, shoveling walks, washing dishes so it's not like the bribe of money made us do the chores. The threat of grounding or being spanked made us do the chores. However, my mother had started working so she was less diligent about such things. But when I asked for that allowance I was pretty much told it wouldn't be fair to give it to one and not the other, and because my brother never did his chores I was punished for his chaos.

By the time I was sixteen I was working in a movie theater, my first real job with a regular paycheck. I had that job for a

Ju Jubes from charlieschocolatefactory.ca

couple of years, until art college. It was a great job for a teenager. We could sneak in to watch some shows at the slow time. My girlfriend also worked there with me and we'd pick out the choicest popcorn to eat. Sometimes we'd order a pizza slice or two from Stromboli's next door and dip the thick puffy crusts in some butter we had poured off. We'd count the ju-jube bags and buy the ones with the most red or black ones and we'd buy the Twizzler bags that had the highest count. Something only teenagers could get away with.

I was definitely buying most of my own clothes by the time I was 16, with little if no cash from my mother. So I learned the value of money from a very young age and I learned how to save. After all, I put myself through college, no savings from relatives. But back in those early days, yeah, an allowance would have been nice.

Filed under: consumer affairs, Culture, family, memories, security Tagged: allowance, babysitting, candy, chores, first jobs, Money management, movies, rewards, working

The Apocalypse Begins

Apocalypse Chow is a book on preparing for outages from hurricanes to earthquakes http://www.flickr.com/photos/earthwor...

In the late hours of 2011 the world came to an end. Or maybe it was the New Year's virus leaving people feeling slightly comatose, half alive and glazed for January 1. It might be that misreading of the Mayan calendar, or it could be the zombie virus, a contagion that wipes out the majority of thinking humanity; in fact, come morning traffic you'll notice many looking glazed and unthinking as they commute to jobs that are as numbing as their minds feel. There are many reasons that the apocalypse could have come about: massive abductions by aliens, the rapture taking more than its fair share, a meteorite hitting the earth, earthquakes, hungry carnivorous beetles, you name it.

For my Apocalypse I'm going with the zombies, something that wiped out a lot of humanity, leaving infrastructure in place but stopping supply lines for food. For the sake of this scenario I"m going with electricity still working and running water available. After all, I'm only doing make-believe on the Apocalypse Diet and still have to work in the world. Going smelly and unwashed and drinking out of rain puddles would not be that healthy for me. Likewise, if I start to run low on certain nutrients I'll be taking supplements and if there is really nothing left to eat, I'll quit the diet.

So the Apocalypse Diet begins today. How long can I live on the food in my house without buying anything? How long before I'm bored or eating condiments and drinking alcohol? I'll do weekly posts here summing up what I've been eating and what trials I've had.

Right now, I'm in pretty good shape. Best to start your Apocalypse Diet after the holidays when you might have a lot of leftovers. My fridge is stocked with vegetables, my freezer (only the one in the fridge) with some meats and frozen soups. I have potatoes, rice, quinoa, flour and crackers. I have eggs. The fresh foods will be the ones to go first, so stay tuned.

Today, realizing that zombies were out there, ready to eat my brains while the living have raided any stores I had a meager meal. But then I wasn't that hungry. A large glass of egg nog, with rum, is quite filling and that nog won't last long so it's got to go. I had about three slices of cheese, four crackers, three olives, and two chocolates that have liqueur in them. I'm actually allergic to dairy but I can't let anything go to waste. I'll need all the food until civilization is restored.

In the meantime, I'm going out for dinner tonight with a friend. And since forays to restaurants don't count on the Apocalypse Diet, this won't either. Don't expect to see me going to restaurants five times a week to avoid my apocalypse. I can't afford that and have some December bills to pay off. So, no shopping for food for weeks and weeks. Does anyone care to bet how long it will take for me to break this and buy food?

In the meantime the new set of knives will come in handy, especially if the zombies break through. I wonder if zombie stew is any good. And since it's Canada, I have no gun. Until the end of the week when I post my first summary on the Apocalypse Diet, I hope you all had a great New Year's Eve and that zombies didn't eat your brains. Let's hope for a healthy, happy and peaceful new year.

Filed under: Culture, entertainment, food, health, humor, shopping Tagged: apocalypse diet, cooking, dieting, disasters, eating, food, staples, supply lines, zombies

Traveling in Europe: Den Bosch Part II–Cathedrals and Culture

Europe 2011: Den Bosch

Click on the top picture if you wish to see more of Den Bosch.

The interior has many sculptures of the saints.

I spent two days hanging around Den Bosch, and really I could have spent longer. It's a beautiful pastoral town with many interesting shops, a town market square and the best gothic cathedral (in Brabantian style) I saw in Holland. St. John's Cathedral (Sint Jan's Kathedraal) began its life in 1220, and unlike the churches of northern Holland, it never fell under the hand of the Protestant Reformation. Thus it is covered in statuary on the exterior, as well as a plethora of saints on the inside.

I was told I was lucky because the church had been under scaffolding for the last ten years as they did major repairs. There was an educational display inside that depicted some of the restoration techniques used to preserve and shore up the water porous stone. These endeavors are extremely expensive, can take years of work and will be needed again in decades to come. I'm sure it's not the biggest cathedral in Europe by St. John's was picturesque.

Angel with a cell phone

The exterior is festooned in angels, gargoyles and workers. Each flying buttress has  craftsmen sitting on the struts all the way up. Every pinnacle has a saint or an angel and one angel, replacing one of a few that fell to disrepair, is, when you look closely, standing in pants with a pouch/purse on her hip. She is holding something to her ear and I was told that they asked permission of the bishop to put up a modern angel. She holds a cell phone, but there is only one number because it's a direct line to heaven.

The interior has some very good triptychs, and some are unusual in that they are part panel paintings and part carved panels. The stained glass sheds rainbows of light on the interior walls and many of those are still painted in frescos. Others have been renovated to bear the painting of centuries past and the use of color on the stone walls is something I had never considered in a cathedral before. The effect is quite stunning.

A Boschian delight on the canal

Besides the cathedral, which is well worth a few visits, I went to the Hieronymus Bosch museum. it's in a church that I think was designed in the 1800s but was never completed due to lack of funding. It was taken over to house information and displays on Den Bosch's most famous son. His "Garden of Earthly Delights" is probably one of the more bizarre paintings of the Middle Ages. Bosch was fervently religious but his creatures and depictions of events and sins were right out of a drugged up fever dream. What an imagination. Interestingly, there is not one Bosch painting in Holland. They all reside in Spain. At the time Holland (or that part that has Bosch's paintings) was under Spanish occupation and the Spanish loved his works well enough to transport them back to the homeland. Therefore there are replicas of his paintings but with informative displays as well as the sculptures.

Inside the Hieronymus Bosch museum

I also realize now that I lost some pictures because there was an art show on the main floor by a contemporary artist inspired by Bosch. In the basement was a setup of what the artist's life might have been like, along with displays and mannequins. There were interesting shops and lovely cobblestoned streets. The market on the weekend was jam packed with goods to buy from food to clothing. It was hard to walk through because there were so many people and it was a lovely day. I can see why people would get away to Den Bosch and if I'm in Holland again, I'm definitely coming back.

Filed under: Culture Tagged: 's-Hertogenbosch, Brabant architecture, cobblestones, cutlure. North Brabant, Den Bosch, flying buttresses, gothic arches, gothic cathedral, town square, travel

Traveling in Europe: Den Bosch Part I–Canals & Countryside

Den Bosch's ramparts and river served as a nearly impregnable fortress.

My last stop of four cities in Holland was Den Bosch. The full name is 's-Hertogenbosch and I think you have to be Dutch to pronounce it. Most people call it Den Bosch now and pronunciation seemed to differ between "den bos" and "den bosh". Den Bosch is south of Utrecht and north of Eindhoven. It's not large but considered a place to get away "to". I probably would have missed it completely if it wasn't that speculative writer and editor Jetse de Vries lives there and I emailed him to meet up.

Boschenballen; worthy of making a stop in Den Bosch

Once I started reading about Den Bosch it sounded interesting enough that I stayed for two nights, couch surfing with Will. Jetse and I played a bit of tag at the train station, trying to find each other. Once we met I put my luggage in a locker and off we went to a cafe where Jetse introduced me to Den Bosch's own claim to fame, the Boschenballen. If you've ever seen a profiterole (cream puff), imagine one bigger than your fist, covered in yummy dark chocolate and inflated with creamy goodness.  I wasn't sure I could eat the whole thing (and shhh, but I'm allergic to dairy) but I took a bite and another and somehow managed to polish it off. I certainly didn't need lunch till much later.

A very larg cannon is housed in the structure atop the walls built in the 15th century.

By the 1500s it turns out Den Bosch was once the true mercantile center of Holland, with three rivers (Dommel, Aa and Maas) converging nearby. The Dutch are also masters of the water ways and trade came and went by land and water. It was second in population only to Utrecht. 'S-Hertogenbosch means Duke's Forest and the original Duke was Henry I, Duke of Brabant. Over the centuries, with fortifications increasing, Den Bosch was considered impregnable and nicknamed the Marsh Dragon. They had built a moat from the rivers and water ways; if invading forces came near, they flooded the lands around. Too deep to walk through and too shallow to put a ship on, the city's defense's held strong.

To get over one of the many bodies of water, there is a hand crank raft to take people across.

That is, until 1629 when Frederik Hendrik of Orange, using Dutch ingenuity and a goodly portion of purloined coins from a Spanish armada, built a dyke around the city with windmills and then pumped out all of the water. He managed to break through the one weak spot in the wall's defenses and then rebuilt that section making it stronger. The ramparts still stand and are integral to holding back the waters. Den Bosch is considered one of the better fortress cities in Holland. A nature reserve now borders one side of the town, giving great pastoral views and nature walks.

The underground canal tours are lovely and a great way to see the city.

Jetse had booked a canal tour and Den Bosch's canals are unique in Holland because they're mostly covered, unlike the open canals elsewhere. While the tour was in Dutch, Jetse was able to tell me much about the rich history of this small town. It seems people were not allowed to build outside the wall and as the city became more crowded they actually built over the canals. At one point the city was going to pave over the canals but instead the government made it a protected townscape, preserving the historical ramparts and the canals.

Boschian fun on the canal.

The weather was perfect in late September, around 25-27 degrees Celsius. The tour went under the city and then outside around the ramparts. It ended with ducking into a darkened alcove where they showed a short film on Hieronymus Bosch, the city's most famous painted. The water level was relatively high so we really did have to duck. And along the canals were large sculptures of some of Bosch's strange creations.

Den Bosch's canals were very beautiful.

Even without understanding Dutch the tour was worth it for the sheer beauty and scenery. The following day I took a walk outside the city walls and got to see Den Bosch from afar. Of the cities I visited Den Bosch definitely felt the most pastoral, because of the flat fields and the winding river around it. In my next post I'll talk more about the cathedral and other aspects but it was definitely worth the visit. I'll also have the full album posted once Picassa stops being persnickety.

Filed under: art, Culture, food, history, nature, travel Tagged: 's-Hertogenbosch, Canal, canals, Den Bosch, Dommel River, Duke's Forest, fortress, Frederik Hendrik, Henry I, Holland, Jetse De Vries, moat, ramparts, the Netherlands, travel