Juno Awards : Tegan and Sara: Let's Get Physical

I am sitting at my computer watching the Juno Awards and the first award for best single goes to Tegan and Sara Quinn. Back in the 1990's, I developed the broadcasting program at Crescent Heights High School and two twin girls named Tegan and Sara attended my broadcasting classes as grade 10 and grade 11 broadcasting students. I remember these two girls because they were identical twins and difficult to tell apart when they were separate.  Sara was a little lighter in build and Tegan was a little chubbier in her facial features.  Both girls has full length hair that descended below their waste. They loved wearing baggy blue jeans, loose fitting flannel shirts and big belts with chains attached.  One day Tegan brought an acoustic guitar into the classroom and began strumming and Sara began to sing to the melody. I asked them who wrote the song and Tegan said she made up the melody and Sara made up the lyrics. It was something they did for fun.  Both girls were typical adolescents with mood swings and crushes on different boys.  These two girls were free spirits who at the time did not know what they would do in life, they just lived for the weekend with their group of friends.  I cannot remember the name of their first song that they sang for me but what I remembered was that their voices harmonized beautifully and they sang their lyrics with emotion.   The two girls prided themselves on writing their own original music and did not like doing cover songs.  I told the two girls that they should start going to coffee shops that have an open mic and start playing at coffee shops.  The girls asked me "What if the people at the coffee shops refuse to let us play?"  I told them to keep going to different coffee shops and offer to play for free and give them a short sample of what you play and if they refuse come back next week and keep bothering them until they finally agree to let you play. The whole broadcasting class that these girls attended for two years were all a bunch of free spirits and I gave them freedom to create because this was a locally developed course that I had created at the school that had developed into a full time program in three years.  One day the two girls came to see me and were so exited because they were now performing in coffee shops and you have to remember they were only grade 10 students.  In Grade 12 they won a battle of the bands contest in Calgary and ended up opening as an act with Sara MacGlauchan  at Lilith Fair and their career as musicians was on its way.  About five years later, Tegan and Sara were doing the University Campus's and I saw them perform at McKewan Hall at the U. of C. campus and saw them afterwards as they were selling their CD's.  Sara and Tegan were thrilled to see me and they had not changed a bit, they were still those two enthusiastic performers.  Watching them accept their Juno Award tonight, I can see they have remained the same--Sara is the spokesperson and Tegan lets Sara take the lead.  Tegan and Sara always prided themselves in saying that they were not main stream performers but with their original music today they have kept redefining themselves and now they are main stream but Tegan and Sara it does not matter, you are still the same little girls I used to teach. I am so proud of you for following a dream and finding success.

March Snow Fall In Spring

Today is Sunday March 30 and it is still snowing. Last week on Saturday, March 22 it was snowing and temperature was dropping to around  minus 9 Celcius when I went out to my greenhouse around 4 pm in the afternoon to discover my breaker had blown because of a short circuit in my greenhouse. One of my power bars connecting the fish tanks with electricity had blown and fused one of the electrical plugs to the power bar that caused the breaker to blow. I went downstairs to the breaker box and found that breaker had been tripped but it would not reset. The breaker was broken. For over an hour I tried to reset the breaker with no success. I finally phoned a friend who came over and rewired a wire into an empty breaker.  In two hours the temperature in the greenhouse had dropped to 2 Celcius.  With the breaker fixed and reset, the furnace in the greenhouse kicked in and the temperature rose to 10 degrees above Celcius.  I was fortunate not to have lost all the tropical fish, a the orchids, fig trees, house plants and bedding plants to the cold.  The next day, I had someone come and change the default breaker to avoid a future short in the box.  I took  a short video of the greenhouse to take inventory of what was saved in the greenhouse.  As you can see although it is still winter outside, spring has begun in the greenhouse and the fig trees are beginning to leaf out.

Dome Productions

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4X96Jp2nnqM

On this link is a video of Dome Productions new regional office in Calgary to store their mobile television stations when not in use or in need of repair. Dome has 15 of these mobile trucks in operation around North America to cover sporting events or other major events with the main production studio being in the Sky Dome in Toronto.  My cousin Chris set up the Calgary Regional Office that services and stores Dome Production Mobile Units that are not in use between sporting events. He called me up so I could view one of the mobile units that came in while the Sochi Olympics were being televised in Russia, there was a little down time in North American sporting events.

Chinese Cooking: Steam Cooking : Steamed Pork or Substituted Meats

STEAM COOKING

Steam cooking is used with rice, meat, poultry, buns, dumplings, pastries and custards as well as keeping fish moist and tender. Steamed dishes are cooked in their serving dishes and go directly table steeped in their natural juices and flavours.  Direct steaming calls for live steam to rise from the boiling water to circulate and cook the food by direct contact. Steaming can be on a rack, pot containing boiling water or a steamer. In rack steaming the rack stands two or three inches above the water. The ingredients are placed in shallow dish and set on the rack.  The pot within a pot places a bowl on the bottom of the pan surrounded by boiling water and is used for large cuts of meat.  I prefer using a enclosed steamer with water in the bottom, two trays and a covered top. Ingredient steaming may take 15 minutes to several hours.  One must periodically check the level of water and replenish the boiling water lost to evaporation.

(Paraphrased from: Gloria Bley-Miiler. (1994) The Thousand Recipe Chinese Cookbook. New York: Simon & Shuster.)

CHINESE STEAMED PORK   by Ron Lee

INGREDIENTS:

Steamed pork only   or substitute (beef, moose or elk burgher only)

One pound minced pork (elk burgher or moose burgher should be mixed with 50% pork)

2         tablespoons of cornstarch

1     EGG

Water chestnuts (sliced in strips)

Black mushrooms (diced)

Baby corn (diced)

Bamboo shoots (sliced in strips)

1/2 cup of water

2 tablespoons of light soy sauce

UTINSELS:    Steamer,   dish to hold chopped meat pattie

PREPARATION:

1. The traditional Chinese method to make the diced pork meat was to use two meat cleavers and slice the meat into small strips and then use the two cleavers in both your right and left hands  and begin chopping the meat into a finely ground mass. (Using a Cuisinart makes the meat stringy)

2. Once the meat is chopped you would add the diced black mushrooms, water chestnuts, bamboo shoots and mix together.

3. In a measuring cup you would place one beaten egg with a half a cup of water.

4.  Take the meat mixture and slowly partially cook the meat mixture in a wok with oil in the bottom of the wok.

5. Add the mushrooms, baby corn, and bamboo shoots.  (You can add what you like) Grandpa would sometimes add minced ginger root with the egg water mixture into the meat mixture.

6.  Place the half cooked meat mixture into glass bowl or glass pie plate and place in the steamer. Flatten the meat mixture into a nice big fat meat pattie.

7. Place the two tablespoons of soy sauce on top of meat pattie.

8. Place the meat plate into your steamer.

9.  Steam the meat mixture at the lowest possible steam temperature.  The longer /slower steaming time will produce a more tender meat dish.

10. Steam for at least 20 minutes.

 

Note:   For just the steamed pork:  One stirs the two tablespoons of cornstarch into a half cup of water that is added to the half-cooked meat mixture and follow the same procedure for steaming.

I believe this is one of Lee Duck's original recipes that he taught my grandmother and his children. My mother showed me how to make this recipe. The dish is quick and easy to prepare and it is quite tasty when served with steamed rice. This a dish native to Toisan Province in Guangdong Province.

 

Chinese Cooking: Cantonese stir-fry

The Essence of Chinese Stir-Fry

The aesthetics of Chinese cooking is designed to please all the senses. Foods are combined to blend fragrances into memorable aromas. Color is important. The Chinese love the clear gold of chicken broth, the whiteness of rice and the green of vegetables. There is the play of textures by combining crunchiness and smoothness such as the crispness of celery and the creaminess of bean curd. Exquisite smooth sauces stimulate the senses with contrasting tastes.  There is a contrast and variety in dishes by playing hot dishes against cold, small ingredients against large, dry dishes against gravies, sweet with salty, bland against highly seasoned. There is no one main dish in a Chinese dinner but several dishes. Chinese cooking calls for maximum preparation and minimum cooking. The starting point is the ingredient, not the cooking. Ingredients are combined and not cooked alone. It is the cook that seasons the food and the cook who cuts the food and not the diner. The civilized person who partakes in the dinner needs only a pair of chopsticks and a soup spoon.

The Cantonese style enhances the original taste of each ingredient and blends natural flavours. A few  seasonings  are needed such as ginger root, garlic, soy sauce and wine.  The quick method of stir-frying

is the  characteristic of Cantonese cooking.

The following dish is a variation of a vegetable and pork stir-frying dish that I created. Chinese cooking is noted for what is available and what happens to be in season.

Stir-Fried Asparagus, Peppers. And Pork  ( 4 to 5 servings)

Ingredients:

3 peppers ---red , green, orange

2 bunches of asparagus

2  large pork chops or pork loin ( 1 lb.)

4 slices of ginger root

3 cloves garlic

½ tsp of black pepper

½ cup of black bean

3 tablespoons light soy sauce

Olive oil

Utensils:

Cutting knife

Cutting board

Spatula

Wok

 

Preparation:

Cutting is important in Cantonese Chinese cooking when stir-frying. Ingredients cut into small pieces can be stirred easily, cooked quickly and eaten with chopsticks. In cutting the ingredient consideration is given to the nature of the ingredient, how it is to be cooked and the combination of ingredients. Cutting improves the flavor by exposing a large surface area for seasoning. Chinese cutting includes : slicing, dicing, shredding and mincing.

1.       Slice the peppers using a straight cut. Core the pepper and cut the peppers into vertical strips.

2.       Slice the asparagus using a diagonal cut.  The asparagus should be uniform in size to the peppers strips.

3.       Straight cut four slices of ginger root and then mince the slices.

4.       Place the cut peppers, asparagus and minced ginger into a bowl of cold water.

5.       Straight cut pork chops into thin strips along the grain of the meat. Cut the strips into one or two inch lengths and ½ inch widths.

6.       Mince the garlic cloves and sprinkle minced garlic over pork strips

Stir- Frying

1.       Place the wok on the stove and pour two or three tablespoons of olive oil into wok.

2.       Turn the stove on high heat and heat wok until oil is hot.

3.       Stir- Fry the vegetables first.  Add one or two handfuls of peppers, and asparagus and quickly turn for one to two minutes and place in a bowl. Vegetables will still be crispy.

4.       Add more oil to the wok and under high heat begin to stir fry the pork in small handfuls. Remove to a bowl. Make sure pork is well done and no pink coloring.

5.       Add another tablespoon of oil to the wok and return the pork strips to the wok. Sprinkle in the pepper and add the half cup of black bean sauce.  Sprinkle in the light soy sauce. Be sure to be turning all the ingredients.

6.       Add the vegetables to the meat mixture and reduce heat to low to keep warm.  Stir-frying should not take longer than 4 or 5 minutes.

Greenhouses for sale

My good friend Dave Hartley is selling greenhouses that will be arriving May 1st. If anyone is interested in purchasing a greenhouse, let me know I will put you in contact with him. Dave has already sold and installed two greenhouses in Southern Alberta and they have survived this winter's cold weather and gale force winds with flying colors.  The greenhouses have an aluminum frame and hard corrugated plastic walls.  The dimensions of the greenhouse is 7 feet high, 8 feet wide and 12 foot long.   The cost for .one greenhouse is $1400. Dave will install the greenhouse with  a wooden base made of treated timbers and a gravel base for another $1,000 for a total cost of $2,400.

Medical Malady: Survival In A Minefield Of Medical Mistakes

In the third week of February I was running a booth for Merit Travel at the Calgary Teachers' Convention when I happened to meet Prad Chadhuri.  I had taught Prad's son Bobby twenty five years ago who was one of my star debater's when I was an English teacher at Western Canada. Bobby's promising medical career was abruptly cut short when he suffered anaphylactic shock by unwittingly consuming food laced with peanuts that would cause him to be placed into a coma with devastating results .  Prad Chauduri has recently published a book documenting the medical tragedy of Bobby's treatment and the medical malpractice that is not as uncommon as one thinks.  The book is called:   Medical Malady Survival In A Minefield Of Medical Mistakes. ISBN 978-0-9919404-1-7
I read the book in one evening and it is written from the point of view of  Bobby's father who through thorough investigation has shown the backroom politics of the medical profession in collusion with legal professionals whose main goal is to profit from medical malpractice where the victim is further victimized.   I read the book and knowing all the major players in this story was shocked of how our legal and medical system has failed Bobby.   Am I surprised? No.  I saw Bobby after the convention who was speaking at the Convention about his condition. Although now confined to a wheel chair, he was in good spirits. The lesson, I learned from this book, is that if you ever become a victim of medical malpractice don't trust the doctors who do not want to pay civil damages and who will quickly get a lawyer. And finally, get yourself a reputable lawyer with integrity or you will get sold down the river.   Justice is achieved by  those who have the most money and can afford the best legal counsel.