BRUCE CAKE!

WHAT! Magic's popping up everywhere! It must be the season! Or people's "awesomety" in general. But first, a little perspective. Weeks ago, a friend and I, after meander the streets of the tri-city area in search of a little entertainment and culinary delight, unfortunately came up short, Kitchener-Waterloo generally having ABSOLUTELY no nightlife after 10 p.m. Unless you count bars of course - but I don't. EVER! We had both been hoping to wander into some obscure little joint called Saigon by Night, but, like the rest of this tame city, it was closed. A bar. Closed after 10. So, after that, and after peeking into the City's only karaoke bar (why so many bar's?), and soon running out from embarassment, we settled, much to our apathetic dismay for one of the more generic coffee shops in town - which would stay open, at least until 1. At least there's somewhat of a nightlife - for strung out university students, and pretentious fatheads who enjoy discussing Hemmingway's biting criticisms of F.Scott Fitzgerald's small penis.
So, feeling really terrible for my friend, who was the driver, and taking part in my wild, "let's-go-to-this-place" goose chase, I thought the best way to make it up to her was to buy her a slice of whatever cake the corporate coffee cash cow held behind its counter. Chocolate, generic (again) and kkkiiinnnnda decadent. And being the polite individual she is, she demanded I help her eat it - either that or she knew how terrible it actually tasted and couldn't muster up enough to get through it all alone. Hell, the both of us couldn't. And we left much of the chocolate fondant buried in a pool of table sugar, some shitty rasberry sauce, and pepper. We were bored. And she was an artist. I don't know what abstractions were at mind's work, but somehow, out of the muck, she (and I, I guess) managed to create a delicacy of post culinary delight. Short and to the point it was a portrait of a cockatoo. And if we weren't already strung out on sugar, it might have seemed delicious.
Afterwards, on our way out, having left our work on the table, we tried, as best we could, to decide on a reasonable name. We went through a myriad of possibilities, eventually settling on the powerful name of Bruce Willis, us both being a fan of The Fifth Element, she because of the story, me because of Bruce Willis' beautiful, bleached blonde, receding, yet faded at the side, haircut. We left it at that. We took some pictures, we went home, we went to sleep, we carried on.

Now, about two weeks later, this same friend, having missed Bruce dearly, and consequently me, came for another visit, with the surprise of non-other than an homage to our deceased keeki friend. She could rebuild him, she had the technology. And she did, with more than stellar results. I asked if she went to some kind of pastry academy, she said she thought about it. I said it was marvelous. But what is it I'm talking about?


Why, a cake, of course! A full cake, not just one slice of cake, or mashed up cake on a plate painted into the picture of a tropical bird - oh no, a whole cake, icing and all, made in the image of a cockatoo with great plumage! The cake's side beautifully scripted with none other than the name BRUCE WILLIS written the whole way round, multiple, multiple times. It was dazzling, and delicious. Custards, jellies, spongy goodness, a beautiful portraiture. If only you could see the textures! I mean, really SEE them! I almost regretted cutting it! How on earth did I become so lucky as to know all these magnificent kinds of people? First egg tarts, now this? If only Bruce Willis himself were there to share it with us. Someday, dear reader, someday.

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Quel Surprise

My friend, probably the best friend ever, took the selfless initiative to bring home one of my favourite desserts: egg tarts. They could easily be thought of as the equivalent, or distant cousin to Portuguese custards, made with more or less the same ingredients, but baked differently: custards are caramelized on the top usually with a blow torch, whereas eggtarts are usually baked in a bath and have a milder, sweet flavour with a hint of eggy taste. I'm not kidding. For that reason, the unaccustomed may not like them too much and favour custards more. However, I, being an embassador for all foods favour our eggy overlords and all the deliciousness they come in. These particular beauties come from Queen's Patisserie, who's address escapes me simply because the box only contains a phone number. but I can tell you this: it's located in that Asian influenced, overtly sprawled place known as Richmond Hill/Markham, Ontario. For me, those two places are one and the same - they're my China away from China (not that I've ever been), where stripmalls are full of nothing else but food holes and the occassional "Pacific Mall," which itself is stuffed with even more food holes and hot merchandise. One wonders how on earth that little economy stays afloat, not everyone can own a restaurant, unless they all pay to be fed by eachother - I suppose it's possible. Poorly planned? Not in the least, I just think whomever those city planners were, they were either very hungry, or too busy to make their own meals, which seems feasible; anyone can find any place to eat there. Suburbs, food. This foodie's playground. It's a shame Waterloo doesn't have an Asian oriented bakery. Looks like I'll have to muster up the guts to start one myself, and find someone to teach me to make egg tarts. Oh well, that's what the Hill's for. A beautiful place where I hope to live and eat someday (even if for a little), all while wearing Bape merchandise. But, Waterloo has it's own character to deal with, and I'm sure a myriad of bakeries worthy enough for this mouth. But until then, I've got some eating to do.



Queen's Patisserie

Hotline: 416-497-0098

*why the boxes have HOTLINEs on them, I'll never know; but no worries dear reader, when I visit that magical place, I'll be sure to get the address on here asap.
*oh, and Queen's Patisserie is all over the Greater Toronto area, so if you ever see one, check it out. Love yoooouuuuuuu.

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"Budoh"

Last night I finally got the guts to go to Mommy and Uncle's Temple. It had taken me a solid three months of driving there, wandering around the parameters, putting my hands on the entrance doors' handles, taking them off, looking at the doorbell, peering in the windows and having the alter's multiple statues of the Siddharta staring back out at me with complacent smiles and sleepy eyes. And by multiple I mean hundreds. There were hundreds of buddhist statues, big small, jade, wood, gold, fake gold, they ran the whole gammit, the smallest being no taller than my index finger, the largest being as tall as me (if it were to stand). It probably weighed more too.
Anyway, after debating with Mommy how I should go in (many a time), and after Mommy telling me to just go in (many a time), I decided the best option, like most decided options in my life, was to, instead of meeting someone face to face first, or by phone, was to e-mail them, and let them know that I was coming. So, about three days later, after many e-mails returned around 12 a.m., and many emails typed in broken English, I finally legitimized any reasons for going, which were to either meditate, pray, or burn whatever incense the place had inside.
So, around 5 o'clock in the evening, arriving later than I said I would, feeling like the most ungrateful falang frequenting Kitchener's only Laos temple alone, I arrived, hesitant and feeling that I had no right, whatsoever, to enter those doors. I don't know what's been wrong with me lately, I may have been reading too much Jamaica Kinkaid, but I felt as if that space was no place for a man like me. I wasn't, after all, Laos in the least, or Thai for that matter. This was a place for religious recluse; refuge from the world (of the white man) quite frankly, and as much as I felt I needed it, or as much as I felt I needed to entertain my own exotic curiosities, I had no right in the least to be there. I didn't even know what to do. Sure, I knew how to pray, and I know all the prayers supplanted in my mind that still enable me to have incovenient Christian underpinnings, but what would I do when I got in? I'd passed this dilemma onto the opinion of a friend who assured me that I was being an idiot - that any culture which comes to a multi-cultural place wouldn't box themselves up from the world, but instead welcome anyone, or not come at all. But let's be reasonable, why set a temple up then, if not to feel safe and connected to something you may have left behind or defines your perception of the world? But I digress, this isn't a disertation, or an argument on the politics on religion and space (though that'd be a pretty interesting read). So I entered.
Through the doors, and kicking myself for having not brought slippers, I stood in the dark entrance until I heard a "hello" from the silouette of someone who looked like they were melting (monks and robes). The place bore a welcomed odour for a cook's nose, but may have been something smelt as strange and unappealing to someone who was otherwise ("otherwise," being not a cook in an Asian restaurant, not a monk in the temple, and not a person who frequented it). I was curious where it came from, but was shaken out of it when the monk approached, after having turned all the lights on. I told him who I was, and he said I had probably spoke to someone else who wasn't there at the moment, but that I was expected. He turned to leave into another room while I was still asking some questions, so I cut myself off and just stared, politely, going through what I could possibly ask in my mind.
I shouted back if I could go up to the alter. The monk, who's name I didn't even ask, and whom I didn't even bother to tell my name to, didn't object. So I went, and I sat, and I thought: man, I wish I had my camera.

Sitting and having a long staring contest with the biggest Buddha in the room, I was forced to throw the fight when I heard the quiet russles of the same monk in his robes behind me, coming up, and sitting next to me. A younger monk followed behind him, getting some water and setting it down beside me. I thought briefly that the younger monk must have been who the older monk went to the other room for, just in case this crazy falang had an itch to steal whatever fake gold that may have ordained the place. It was expected; shit, I've never even gone into an Asian grocery store without getting the stink eye at least once; at least until they realized I'm a regular, but even that takes time. I'm sure the monks were nothing like that, but if worse came to worse, maybe they would bust out huge scabberds and crunchy kung fu moves. If only.

Our consciousness' must have been attuned when I asked the next question:

Monk: you know meditatAaation? Me: How do you meditate?

a beat.

I had a pretty good idea, but thought it was necessary to fill up all the awkward whiteness in the room.
The monk spoke strangely similar to Uncle in his explanation of things: same attitude, same mindfulness, same cheery "huuuuuus" in his voice and laughs. He was pushing hard against whatever abstractions prevented him from thinking in Laos to speaking in English. It was broken, but understood - by me, anyway.

Monk: When wuee meditate, wuuee burreeed in fo times. In anda out. You tink. You tink of bureeding. So you reelacs bawdee.

Me: Do I have to sit any particular way? (why I used "particular"?)

Monk: You sit enywuAY comfertable. You put ahms in furont like dhis. Bureed in, bureed out. Foget all. Den, aftah fo time to reelacs, wuee bureed in and say, Buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu long and suLOWly; aftah bureed out, go Doooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooohhhhhh.

Me: hmm. That's sounds tough.

Monk: You try. You try!

Me: Okay, I'm gonna try. Okay, here I go.

It was nice to legitimately not have to think about the things I have to think about. Usually people say they can't meditate because then they think of all the things they have to do. Personally, I think they haven't thought long enough otherwise. Only then can you find a kind of ease in being able to just forget about burdens. Because man can they be a bother. Believe you me, it's nice, especially when you think as long, and obsessivly about things as I do. So long in fact that you're constantly irritated, tired, anxious, or whatever. Maybe you understand, maybe you don't. Maybe it doesn't matter. But I did it. I tried to "did" it.

It was hard the whole way through and I knew it would be. I was constantly distracted by my own physical pains of sitting, the chimes of electronic Christmas music heard from the outdoor pagoda the monks had strung lights around, and my own sufficating, uncontrolled breathing. I needed to practise more kung fu. I tried and I tried and I tried and I tried, and I wondered if the monk was watching me, or meditating himself. I opened my left eye, forgetting the monk was sitting on my right, and wandered onto the Buddha, onto the burnt incense, onto a dish full of steamed food - that's where the smell came from. I wondered if it was Mommy's.

Monk: Heeheehee; how you do? Good?

Me: It's hard.

Monk: when you meditate, you try tink of aeah (air) going in nose, to STOmack, and you bureed out, and tink of aeah come out. Dat waaiee, you foget.

Me: what do you say again? Budoh?

Monk: Budoh. You bureed in, Buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu, and out dddoooooooooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

I tried breathing in while saying Bu, sounding obviously squeaky and obnoxiously loud; the monk on the other hand, held perfect pitch, and his voice wasn't at all high and whispey like mine. It was incredible. That that kind of range existed at all.

Monk: if too haahd, you bureed in and tink - tink of Buuuuuuuuuuuuuu. Bureed out, say, ddddddoooooooooooooooooooohhhhhhhhh. you do.

Me: *Buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu* Doooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

Time passed.

Monk: Okay?

Me: I have to stretch, I'm so stiff. My legs hurt!

I thought I was good at kung fu, AND flexible, but apparently I needed work sitting still and eating more bitter.

Monk: eets hahd! When you meditate and you tink, when you feel, you focas on place. So you tink of nose, den you feel pain on leg, you tink tink tink about leg. Tink tink tink. pain GONE! Take long tiiiimmmee. but you do! Some time, bug walk on you - deedeedeedee - you feel on ahm, o face. you want to take off. No, you let go. Go away, some time you open eye to see if bug dare, but it gone! Still feel it! Turick! Just focas, til it go way! That meditation! First you do ten minutes, and den fifteen! Den HOUR! If you do hour! You gurate! Take puractise!

I imagined all the fat heads who might have tried meditation before me because their book club, or first wives club or whatever said the View said it was awesome and great. I also wondered how long they lasted. Why all this xenocentrism? I'll never know.

Monk: Buddha say, have turee baskets, one basket fo bawdee. Need to understand dhis first. Buddha say know bawdee to know self, to understand awders. When we know how bawdee works, what painful, we understand awders. Have compassion fo awders. We know Bawdee, we know self. understand self befo awders. Know pain, know pain awders have. Be mind full.

Me: Can I come back?

Monk: YAH!

From there I left for work, making it just under the wire. Kids were crowding the hall, shouting, "WEEZEE!!! You're late! We were waiting for you!!" That was that. I went to work, inconvieneced some Mandarin speakers by eating at their restaurant too late, went to a staff party, was threatened by some black guy for hitting on his girlfriend, and drove some people home. Budoh.

Mommy is very involved in her husband's Buddhist community, though she isn't Buddhist herself. I remember the odd nights in the summer when monks would come into the kitchen to say hello, and me always wishing they'd give me a bracelet they strung together themselves. I still wish for one. I think, as much as she can, Mommy goes to temple, or calls temple, or brings food to temple whenever she can, though she'd never admit it. I'm not fanatically religious myself, but there are times I find myself looking for some anthropomorphic god where I want one to be. It's good to feel connected. Always, and to something. Mommy once told me, that when it came to her and religion, or a way of life, or Buddhism, that sometimes it's good to have those things, even if they're not real. It's good to have someone to talk to, somewhere to think, somewhere to be. "I don't believe it," she would say, "But I believe it. Y'know, Skinny boi?"

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Beer's the most androgynous thing I've ever seen in a chef's hat. Or, at least, that's what I thought when I first met her. But it's those peculiarities in life that make it so dazzling. That a young woman no older than me could have a face as round and as bright as the sun (and some newly ordained Bhikkhu, consequently) one minute, but become as strong, and defined with cheekbones reminiscent of some African Queen from the deep jungles of the Congo AND with hair as black as that queen's black skin that it's almost purple - just as soon as she takes off her chef hat - isn't really beyond me at this point. However, what is, is her warm heart and nurturing nature. Chalk it up to the Buddha, or gender roles in an Asian demographic that hasn't completely amalgamatted with the West, or some Asian girl's general disposition to love Caucasian males for whatever post-colonial reason (which I seem to be touching on quite a bit lately), or whatever you will, but one thing's for sure: Beer's the best thing to come out of Laos in a long time. It seems no one bad comes into that kitchen; and that all those women wear hats because their hair is so dark it would absorb all the light used to light the place if they ever took their hats, or hair nets, off for more than a minute. All the light, or the entire universe. Maybe that's it: some karmic Buddhist ability - hair so dark, it absorbs all negative energy, neutralized by their own positive dispositions. Okay, maybe that's not it, but I couldn't think of a more magical reason why Beer's so pleasant; I certainly could think of another reason however. Simply put, because she's a good person, with the heart of a Buddha, and the skill of some kind of cosmic cook who makes delicious coconut drinks for Weezee, knowing on some level of consciousness that they bring me from being just there, to actually BEING there.

Not too long ago Beer bought the kitchen some elbow length mucking gloves from the Korean store she, and I, conveniently, both frequent; gloves so long you either look like a married korean woman making huge tubs of kimchi with all the friends she plays two-suited mahjong with on Sundays, or a nuclear technician, attempting to open a jar of kimchi. Now, gloves may not sound like much, and no one but Beer and I may use them, but that she brought them in at all must be testament to her boundless generousity. But it doesn't stop there dear reader; in fact, it brings me to the point of this entry, and why I'm writing it: because Beer is good, and she makes me feel good. About work, about people, about decision, about life, about the cold weather that makes me want to quit my job and role under the covers and sleep until at least autumn. Sirrah.
That said, I came to work today in a funk. In a funk because I've been overwhelmed with decision, underwhelmed by direction, and overtly-whelmed by inadequacy. Grad school is rearing it's ugly head again. I feel terrible about having been in a less than stellar mood, and what's more was Beer's good intention to give me one of her generic smoothie drinks. I tried to decline, accepted, and then tried to pretend I forgot, but she forced it on me. I had no qualms about it being delicious, and touched by Beer's maternal instinct, but I just didn't have the guts to take it; why did a jerk like me deserve something like that from someone like her anyway. I felt unworthy, and without connection to these people I had genuinely come to care about.

Watching Uncle's metal steamer tonight, I came to a sad, if not dissapointing conundrum: that even though I was excited about what he was cooking, and that cooking and learning how to cook in a particularly Asian space gave me a sense of satisfaction and fulfillment, I could never fully connect to any of it, or the people there. I don't speak their language, I didn't grow up in their spaces - I'm trying desperately to learn languages, and now it seems I know why. To connect. Only connect. Because their lives are something I'd like to be a part of. Their's are spaces I think I'd like to exist in. E.M. Forster had the right idea. And I think the Buddha did too. Because when Uncle makes me food, or Beer brings me a drink, it's not because they have to, but because they want to. And when I accept those things from them, it not about the food, but about what it means.

There may be hope for this kuso cook yet.

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