Eating with Uncle

I think I eat anything. When my uncle asks me if I eat something I usually say I do, and my cousin blithey interrupts, 'Weezee eats everything.' And I agree with her. That is, I assume I eat everything without ever really considering if I eat everything. Sometimes I never give things the attention they deserve. I mean, there are things I don't like to eat, and probably won't even bother trying for whatever gastronomic prejudice, and when I say I eat anything, I guess I don't really pay attention to those kinds of things. So when my uncle positioned half the skull of a goat in front of me, it was one of those times when I thought to myself, 'Hmph, I guess I don't eat everything.' Or want to. Out of respect for my uncle however, I chose to be a little liberal- a tiny bit liberal, because when I plucked a piece of brain from the shell of that thing it took a lot of teasing for me to give way. So much so in fact, that if my uncle hadn't teased that he thought I said I ate everything, I probably wouldn't have tried the mush. If he hadn't spun a fork in front of me like a gun with one bullet in its chamber I probably wouldn't have had the urge to play chicken and save a little face.

So there it was; in my mouth. Pressed between my jaws and smoothed out into a paste with my tongue. I tried to chew it. It was certainly soft enough, but at that moment it was hard not to gag. I've read enough to know that being disgusted by what I was eating is a little juvenile and bougie (though that word in this context is itself a paradox); but for whatever reason I couldn't help it. It may have been because I likened the flavour to fish that went sour.

I thought I was done, but after having gathered my things to leave and happily putting my fork in the sink, wondering how in the world something so gross is considered a delicacy- sweet breads, you know?-, my uncle pointed to the mouth of the thing and told me that, there was the tongue and you've eaten beef tongue before so you can eat this. I was backed into a corner yet again, and before I could say anything, I had a piece of the organ thrust between my fore finger and thumb by the knife that had scraped it out of the thing's dead jaw. If it reminded me of anything, it was the texture of a well stewed chicken; and the flavour wasn't too bad, like an off beef. A lot of off stuff today.

But it was neither of those two characteristics that made me rush to the back and hide behind the counter pretending to chew it and spitting as much of it as I could into the garbage. No, no. It was the teeth that somehow found their way onto that piece of tongue and into my mouth. I remembered Guenther's stories about his exploits with his father in the African bush and how they were constantly treated to boiled ox skull, shards of whatever being in the meat. My meal, I thought, was much more glamorous, and probably tasted somewhat better. But I'll never know. I also imagined that this was right up their with being a serial killer- for some brief moment, I thought that's must be what it felt like. Then again, I wouldn't know. I did know one thing, however; eating with my uncle is always an adventure, and it's these things that bring me back to kitchens time and time again, because it certainly isn't the pay.

-w

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Resident Psychic

I won't beat around the bush. There is no moot point. I can earnestly say I came for the coffee, and all I got was a lousy reading. No, no. Not true; I hadn't been to a psychic in a solid 7 years, and the last one I recall being an ex-priest who was homosexual and blind. He read these things that looked like tongue depressors. Anyway, another time, dear readers. Because now I was well on my way to seeing if coffee beans could very well tell the future, or, at least, if I'd let them. Hey, for a cup of properly brewed Turkish coffee, I'd do it. I'm no expert, if I could practically chalk up the amount of time I've personally attributed to Turkish coffee tasting, it'd be a solid 5 minutes and 37 seconds. My first encounter came at the residence of a professor in which I was thoroughly surprised and elated at the concept of an oily black liquid in a demitasse that was sweet and sludgy; the second, no less than 3 months ago at a local festival, where I had bought a cup and been disappointed substantially by something otherwise watery, scolding and lacking any appeasing flavour. In that past moment I had wondered if my recollection of the small cup almost a year ago was so good because I had accompanied it with a solid amount of port and tiramisu (made by yours truly). Fortunately, I can say it was a bad cup of coffee.

My psychic seeking side kick and I were ushered onto the balcony of a small apartment and told to have a seat while we waited for the crude to brew. There, as we did on the ride up, we wondered what, if anything, we could properly ask. When seeing a psychic it is best to be very articulate and smart with words. I liken it to being in the presence of a genie. Popularly, you only have 3 wishes, so choose wisely. Like we did in the car we thought about what we could ask, and what we would want to know. I had assumed that when having our fortunes read we would simply ask questions and have them answered based on what was left on the sludgy bottoms of our cups. But, like the poor saps that we are, we settled for the most generalized questions in career, travel and love; though in retrospect I should have asked why I had no direction in this life. But that's enough emotional pandering.

Haven gotten my things ready (pen and paper), the old woman stiffly pulled herself through the open door and gave us our respective cups. She said to take our time, in which I humbly obliged. I reckoned I wouldn't get a chance to learn how to make good Turkish coffee any time soon, nor would I find a coffee shop that sells it, and in trying to ask her where she bought the stuff only wondered how on earth I was going to understand the broken English that relayed my reading if I very well couldn't understand the broken English that was trying to give me directions to the store that sold it. It didn't matter though, because I was drinking something pleasantly creamy, pleasantly gritty, sweet on the tip of my tongue and chalky in the back of my throat. Perhaps a metaphor for life, though I'm never one to believe such trite cynicism. It is the tough people that outlast the tough situations after all.

As my company and I neared the end of our small, small cups we were interrupted from drinking anymore, our resident psychic telling us to leave the sludge; which for me, was a shame, because it was the sludge i enjoyed smoothing over my tongue like fresh concrete at the end of every past cup. If I could liken it to anything, I would liken it to just that: stone. Patchouli may be a more palatable analogy, but I could liken the flavour of the cup's sludge to nothing other than the smell of the air when rain hits the hot sidewalk, or when, as a child, my friends and I would see just how many stones we could put down our throats without swallowing them. Hey, some kids eat dirt, I sucked on stones.

Respecting the privacy of each reading, our old resident psychic escorted me off the balcony and into her dining room wherein which I was given the luxury of watching Turkish soap operas on satellite TV. She apologized that there were no other channels, but I took it in stride. Having grown up a devoted fan of Passions, I thought I could certainly get into a soap opera with a plot that revolved around a wedding celebration, Turkish women that were, to use the street vernacular: 'fine huneyz', and jealous men with large mustaches pulling guns on loved ones only to be shot in the back by hilariously stereotyped, old Turkish women. that really did happen. Man pulls gone, shoots man, long, long pause, points gun to fine huney, camera shows each back and forth from shoulders up, gun shot sounds, long, long pause, man drops, old woman in shawl and giant framed glasses stands over his limp body with glock (that means gun). Now, it was hard to catch up to the next show that followed, especially having never watched it before, but I'm pretty sure a black smith welded a woman's wedding dress. That's the impression I got when I saw him working in his studio and visited by some young woman after which he went into a back room and pulled out a box with a wedding dress. Did I mention how gorgeous the women were? Don't believe me? well here's the show. The Internet's a big place, and I can find anything if I try.

Now, I don't know if it was the soap operas or my recollection of the coffee, its sediment settling on my tongue as I drudged through it sweet creaminess, but I was getting excited. Maybe knowing coffee was in my future, maybe love, maybe money, maybe everything a psychic likes to humour customers with.

By the time I was glazed over my friend had finished her reading and I was on my way to the balcony. Having finished my coffee before all the crazy soaps I was given the specific instructions to place the saucer over the top of the demitasse and hold the cup with both hands, fingers over the saucer's now flipped bottom, and thumbs under the demitasse's bottom (or was it the other way around?). After, I was to flip the cup over and let the sludge, and the rest of my future settle. I was asked my birth date and to give my left palm, stretch it out, and wait for the resident psychic to pair my hand up with the diagrams in what looked like an old worn out paperback. Guess what came next? I was really hoping for something dope to happen; unfortunately, I was saddened by the news that I would have 2 kids in the future (though after noticing the grimace on my, the psychic comforted me by letting me know that I don't have to have the kids, but will have the kids. Dang). I would have a long healthy life (dang), and was with four women, 2 really breaking my heart in the past, and for that reason am very adverse to loving anyone else- ever. Spot on psychic lady, spot on.

She had informed me that I had grown up being afraid of heights, and though accepting her claim having no real experience with the stuff, I recalled while driving home that I did in fact hate the idea of heights, always refusing to clean the eavestroughs at home and never accepting the invite to climb the roof for fear of falling. I traveled short distances recently, I don't like big cities and one of my friends continuously beats me with a stick. She even showed the figure with the stick in the residue on the inside of the cup. I've been a dropout in the past, and present (which confused me) until I also realized last night I had given up on school in the new year. Damn, she was good. Aside from that, I'd have a wonderful career, but in order to succeed need patience, which I do not have. I am, according to her, very stubborn. I'd also live near the water, but with real estate prices, I don't know how that could possibly work out. Seriously.

She said she saw me at a gathering (strictly metaphor) and that everyone was watching. Many people, she said, are jealous of me. I couldn't understand why. I didn't see it, and when I doubted it, she showed the cup yet again, and aside from the thick sludge on the bottom that she said was my neurotic worrying, she showed me a part on the canvas of the inside that looked like peeks and valleys with dots in each one- people with eyes, she said. Watching me. Always watching me. I'm smart but have terrible esteem and feel myself weak though I am very strong. She kept coming to this point throughout, as if it really irritated her. She couldn't understand why someone like me was. I was flattered. Then again, it could have been the coffee. Somewhere along the line she asked me who 'D' was, and I couldn't for the life of me figure it out. I still can't. She also saw a woman- not tall or short, and with sandy coloured hair who 'like' likes me. Whoa. Unfortunately, according to her, I don't like her. Alas.

The culmination of all this love talk led to her grabbing my right index finger and telling me to wipe a specific spot on the cup and show me my smudged, coffee beaned index. She asked me who a woman named 'C' was. Again, I had no idea. I didn't know any. And if I did I was confident I weirded them out. We would, she so bluntly put it, fall in love. That's right folks, big victories in love soon enough. I also had to learn to say 'no.' Because it had been a personal vocation of mine to always say 'yes' to people, though I always act as if I'm refusing, which explains my poor progress in life. Maybe the saddest part of the reading was that I was too trusting and that I shouldn't, she informed me, ever trust people. And with that, I wondered how I would ever fall in love? And one last time, I was berated with why I was so down on myself. She assured me that if I was positive, if I believed in myself, in a couple months' time things would change. My life would change, everything would change. And that if anything ever brought me down, to write it down and throw it in a river. I tell you this, dear readers, I would like her to be right, but there are the generalizations I'm leaving out, and my friend feeding her a lot of my life before I went in for my reading (which is no fault of her own, the poor jeunesse thing). We had a lot of the same things said, and I could have very well taken it as hocus pocus, or mumbo jumbo; but I could also take it as being two sides of the same coin, and if I'm to start believing in myself, I should start with that.

We thanked her, paid what we owed and left, but not without remembering to look for a place that sold Turkish coffee by the bag.

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Places Justin Bieber Won't Eat

I’m not a political eater. I save that sort of thing for zombies who have a taste for presidents. And a group of close ‘comida-ing’ compatriots who have allowed me an ethnographic window into the realm of urbane coffee connoisseurship. It’s made me somewhat skeptical about what good coffee is, because aside from not knowing, nor having the cultivation, or a democratic cup from which to measure all quality of coffee, I don’t think you can really come to any logical conclusion. Besides, I have what all good food pundits have: perspective. If I’m satisfied with the flavor of something, I reckon, assuming I paid for its preparation, that it was money well spent. I dare not try one thing and say nothing is better having not tried everything. Nor do I try some, come to a conclusion about one thing from one group and then never venture out in search of other, potentially better opuses. If I did that, would I write about sushi place after sushi place? Or vegan place after vegan place? Of course I wouldn’t. You’re a lucky bunch of readers. Or maybe it’s me who’s lucky for having such patient, understanding listeners.

	Damn.

My hankerings for coffee knowledge led me to Café Pyrus; a site that brews, I was told, pretty decent coffee. But I couldn’t really tell you about it in this review, because although they had a cool espresso machine with levers covered by rubber snake puppets and octopus tentacles, organic and fair trade coffee, and organic fair trade coffee, I paid the common cup no mind, immediately diverted by the fact that Café Pyrus is a vegan café (cue dramatic movie sound effect). Surely, the space itself was a dead giveaway: recycled furniture, plywood used as canvases for graffiti art, plastic plants, an array of board games, reggae music, novelty skull containers, tattoos. You know, the kind of edginess that makes veganism paradoxically dangerous and therefore appealing to those railing against some kind of parental authority. How else can you start a movement with a foundation based on the idea of healthy eating, essentially underpinned by the inner dialogues of our parents who force fed us health food as children and therefore made the idea seem anti-youth and un-cool because there were no trans-fats and designer pizzas? And why would I have even given it a second glance having judged it so well? Why would I see the sly idea of an iced Americano on the chalk board menu (yeah, chalkboard) and think to myself, “I have to try this because I’ve never seen anyone else do it- sure it’s novel, but whatever.” Maybe because I’m a fool. Maybe because Café Pyrus could very well be the deliverer of all vegan restaurants I’ve been to. It was cheap, it had good options. Salads with tempeh and chard, quesadillas, burritos, avocado sandwiches (an ingredient doing poorly in the place this summer because it was never ripe- so the attendant told me) and novelties like the Justin Bieber: a grilled cheese with cheesiness I suspect so overwhelming it borrowed the poor kid’s name. Not to mention the coffee, and obvious addendum to such in such a place: baked goods. From muffins to scones to gluten free cookies. Uh oh, gluten.

Sorely disappointed by the avocado shortage, I gave choice to the black bean burrito, stuffed with basmati rice, onions (red, white and green), cumin and red pepper, and adorned with pickle and micro greens. But I wasn’t done there, I asked for that iced Americano hoping for something unexpected, and gave a fair try to the baked goods: one mint vanilla cupcake, one gluten-free peanut butter cookie and one ‘Samoas’ cookie bigger than my already tiny palms.


If there was anything obvious about my burrito it was the taste of white onion and cumin, an expected characteristic of something otherwise so well known. The basmati rice allowed for a nice level of nuttiness but fell short of being cooked properly (so my two years of boiling rice in a Thai restaurant has taught me). I’m not a fan of bite in rice; however, that said, rice being cooked to a point of stodginess isn’t something I accept either. It’s a hard food to navigate. And if I wasn’t so well versed in eating I might have confused the grains of vegan cheese for the white grains themselves, the poor cheese not having enough time to melt in the plentiful wrap.

A vegan sour cream was given to moderate any dryness the burrito might have had, though that wasn’t a problem. The cream’s grainy, saltless disposition gave nothing to the dish. The flavor of cumin only seemed redundant and the lack of salt in my dipping sauce and burrito lead me to wonder if the mythos of healthiness that permeated vegan cuisine resulted in a crusade against salt. Either that or I’ve been cooking under the tutelage of my uncle for so long that I’ve come to also believe in the trinity of Romano, salt and cured meat.

I’m bold enough to say that Café Pyrus’ pastries are its dark horse. I was a cynic ordering them in the first place, disqualifying them as probably dry and cardboard passing as rolled oats. But I was wrong. Though the vanilla cupcake was expectedly dry, its vegan butter-cream frosting, infused with vanilla beans and mint leaves was full of flavor. Sure, oils oozed out which made it seem a little slimy, and the mint, ground into its cream, turned black, but its taste, surprisingly, wasn’t compromised. And not only were the cookies saddled with ingredients, but they maintained a caliber of chewiness. If I had known vegan baking could be so delicious, I would have disqualified butter and eggs a long time ago.

Could it be that healthy food can be fun and good for you? I’ve never left a vegan spot and thought about coming back, surely Café Pyrus is the vicar of vegan cuisine.

Cafe Pyrus
(519) 954 7705
16 Charles Street,
Kitchener, ON n2g 1h2

Mon: 8:00 am - 7:00 pm
Tues - Fri: 8:00 am - 8:00 pm Sat: 9:00 am - 7:00 pm Sun: 10:30 am - 6:30 pm

All methods of payment 

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The Other Other Third Place

I recalled the words of my aesthetician: 'look for apartments with blue doors . . . you keep going down the road and you see them.' There is no doubt, dear readers, this will most likely be the most expensive cup of coffee I ever buy. Turkish coffee, anyway. I'm saving my most expensive cup for civet coffee. Starbuck's most expensive cup depends on who's there. Who has an extensive economic knowledge of each ingredient and how willing they are to blend it all together and charge you. I remember the day I did that. It cost near eight dollars. It was mid-November. I was reading up on the banquets of some Italian duke who thought food should tell a story and meals served should resemble epoch moments in literature. Speaking of which, isn't food dazzling? Aside from eating it and a myriad of other talents, it also has the capacity to relay the future to those who choose to eat and read its left overs. Thus my current objective. There's a reason I'm telling you about ambiguous blue doors and my aesthetician, aside from wanting you to know I care about how well groomed I am. For beyond the blue awnings there is, I'm told, an old Turkish woman who reads the ground beans left over from the sludgy coffee she makes. Though skeptical, I'm more than interested in being able to eat and get a bargain on the side. As far as I'm concerned, it's the coffee I'm paying for, not the reading. Hence, my justification. I reckon the lady's been doing this for a long time, she must know what good coffee is, and if not, good fortune. Regardless, we will see, young masters, we will see. -Weezee

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Definitive Thoughts on Wine

I’ve been privileged enough to eat lunch with my uncle this past while, and while doing so have taken up the snobbish characteristic of having, at each meal, at least a half a glass of wine, for fear of disrespect for allowing my uncle to drink alone, because, as it goes, no man should ever, unless alone, drink alone.

Now, I’ve heard, throughout my juvenile life in gastronomica that wine should always be paired with food- though I’ve no semblance of what that means. I might assume it means particular wines are made to go with particular flavours, but this holds no truck with me. Because, as I’ve been drinking different wines I’ve realized that they do a better job of juxtaposing the dishes I eat them with. Maybe I’ve been drinking wrongfully, but I think it works in my favour. The meals I eat, or am fed, are so decadent and rich, that to drink something of the same quality seems, at least for me, too overbearing. In fact, I’ve come to the realization that it’s better to drink wine that cleanses the palette, or gives the diner some perspective. That is, when you eat a meal and drink your wine, the wine should allow you a short break from the punch in the face that is your meal- it should give you some perspective, it should allow you to distance yourself from your food so you may not be too overwhelmed and over-satiated by the things you are eating, which can be very very rich (like goat’s brains, or onions in a Gorgonzola sauce). Wine itself can be a potent thing, astringent and lip puckering at times, but I find that balance is welcomed when I eat something so savoury and salty. I’m reminded in these instances of Chinese culinary theory, when balance in all flavours is necessary for every dish, or sought after, anyway. Wine does this for me. If I can continue the metaphor, I would dare liken it to eating a piece of pickled ginger between pieces of sashimi to get the full effect of each piece of fish, and not be distracted by whatever previous flavours linger on the tongue. So too with wine. Wine may linger, but when I put food to my mouth, it goes mute. Contrarily, when I drink a glass of wine, it quenches whatever overbearing flavour I just saturated my poor palette with, like a friend giving you a slap in the face to snap you out of some kind of love sickness. I don’t think this is how wine is conventionally drank, but I like to drink it this way. It works for me. I don’t want earthy lamb with earthy wine. I’m not a hamster, I can’t eat the same thing all the time. It’s too much, I’m too spoiled by my culinary researches. But I ain’t sayin’ I’m right. What does it matter anyway? What good is wine for a fella if it don’t get him laid, am I right? Why all this smug connoisseurship if not to keep others out of some charmed circle that elevates a chosen few to a level of social sophistication that arbitrarily makes them seem that they are, by some act of providence, better than the rest? Boy, howdy, I tell ya.

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