Three Things from Edmonton podcast - episode 107: print, dolphins, crunch

 

We managed to get out downtown last week, and stayed in, too. Here are three things that left behind tracks of gratitude and happiness.

Three Things, episode 107: 

                           

1. Print 

The big five Asian cuisines are Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Thai and Vietnamese, which means Filipino is not quite in the gang, yet. Our friend Ariel knows that’s not fair. Ariel runs Filistix, the wonderful Filipino restaurant on 100 Avenue downtown, which is where we were last week for a unique sit-down dining event called Rice and Mysticism. Six courses of pre-colonial and early contact Filipino food researched and prepared by Chef Earl Briones, who narrated the evening, telling stories from island history and culture as he introduced each dish of plated art.

Shelagh was where she’s meant to be: at a table with food and words. That night was Edmonton’s version of the evening she spent at The Cloisters in New York listening to Ottolenghi exhume the culture and cuisine of Colmar in France and its Jewish community decimated by the Black Plague. In the air at Filistix that evening was the sense of having passed through a storm and, now, together, working to chart a simpler path ahead. It felt like we were moving in a lit ship through the night. Or maybe that was the Filipino style Ginger Mule talking.

Chef Earl explained that his ancestors, belonging to an oral culture, did not leave printed records of their cuisine. Instead, the story of the time was recorded and passed down thanks or no thanks to the conquering Spanish and their conquering print culture. The saying "quod non est in actis non est in mundo"—that which is not in the documents is not in the world—is attributed to King Philip II of Spain, whose name is imprinted on the islands. Chef Earl played with this idea of what print and documents are and do.

“So, this is a love letter in the sense that a love letter is what you write to someone when you’re longing, and you want to reconnect back with them, so, this is pretty much the same thing as that,” he said. 

It was a metaphor in six courses written out on a memorable night at Filistix in Edmonton.

2. Dolphins 

The sweep of the coloured lights over the tide of fans in front of the stage below gave me the sense of being a kid at the glass of a giant aquarium tank. Or maybe it was the rum and Coke talking. We were at a table with friends Aimée and Steve at the former Station on Jasper. Scarlet and Laura were there. Hawksley Workman was singing You and the Candles. What a spellbinding creature from the blue and pink and purple deep Hawksley Workman is.

I like watching people watching artists. For me, watching Shelagh laugh at comedians is better than watching comedians. As he was bringing one song to shore, Workman, who was solo on stage, slowed down, drew out the chords and pantomimed the parts of percussion players on timpani, snare and bass as if they were on stage with him. Not missing a beat, Steve remarked: “He actually hears those drums.” That struck me. Steve’s observation gave me a new way (an ancient way, really) to think of the artist— as a clever, playful, mischievous being with a superior sense of hearing, endangered, too, a joy to behold and a friend to the traveller. 

As a dolphin.

That’s how a bit of Greek mythology snuck back up on me as we sat at a table on the mezzanine at the Station on Jasper listening to Hawskley Workman while, outside, the windrows were waves waiting to break.

3. Crunch 

I have nothing against Rice Bowl on 149 Street by our place. The staff are friendly, the food is good, prices are reasonable. They’ve got a memorable saying printed on the wall—Eat Rice, Live Forever. The Gangnam chicken rice bowl is my fave. It’s good fast-ish food, especially on nights when we’re low on time or energy or provisions to make supper the old fashioned way, by making supper. It’s a bit of Manhattan to walk across the street for takeout.

These days, under Shelagh’s guidance, though, I am perfecting my own version of the dish. At home. In our own galley. I’ve gotten more comfortable with higher heat to brown the chicken pieces (a touch over 7 instead of 6), gotten better at using my hearing to judge the temperature of the frying pan and not just my eyes to read a dial. Gotten better at cutting the chicken into pieces, gotten more confident with a little extra cornstarch for texture, gotten some joy by punctuating the dish with sesame seeds. So, no, nothing against Rice Bowl, thanks to Rice Bowl, actually, for the idea, but there’s just not as much to get better at by thinking about going across the street every time there’s a time crunch. Making chicken crunch myself, that’s the recipe. 

Thanks for being out there, friends.