Rice and beans around the world!
I had this post on my list of things to write about for some time in the future. But last week I received an email from my old friend Lucy, in Australia, saying:
Not sure if you will get this in time but I have a hankering for that bean and rice dish we had while you were here, but I can’t remember the details.
Even though Lucy and I are not in regular contact, we are those kinds of old friends who can pick up the thread of conversation as if we only saw one another yesterday – even if it has actually been a year or more since we were last in touch. She was one of my first room-mates when I moved to Australia in the late 1980s. My last visit that she is remembering was back in 2008.
But I’d already been thinking about that rice and beans dish, and how intertwined it is with many of my friends around the world. I first learned the recipe back in 2005 or so, when I was staying with a friend of a friend in San José, Costa Rica.
Gallo pinto (which literally means something like “painted rooster” or “speckled hen,” in reference to the speckled nature of the black beans mixed with the white rice) is standard breakfast food in Costa Rica. Rice and beans are served with most dinners there. In the morning, Read more…
What I am made of
I’ve always loved gardening. But it is only in the last few years that I have realized why. Gardening, especially vegetable gardening, is much more than a “hobby.” The act of gardening is a connection.
<–[my spinach]
The sun is beaming in my office window here and, when I finish writing this post, I am going to head outside and plunge my hands into the earth. I have eggplants that I want to plant today. And I expect that the beans that I sowed last week will just be curling up from under the earth. I need to go out to protect them from the blue jays, who love to pull them up just as they emerge.
[my first little broccoli of the year]–>
Gardening – producing my own food, is a way of connecting myself to this planet: by the direct connection of my hands in the soil, and also by the food that I eat. (It’s barely June – but in the last week I have harvested asparagus, spinach, arugula, lettuce, bok choy, and more… the earth in my yard literally becomes me!)
Gardening is also a connection to the seasons, this perpetual cycle of change that repeats as a result of our planet whirling about the sun. I’ve been growing veggies since Read more…
On knowledge versus action
This week, an article in The Guardian (referring to unpublished data from the International Energy Agency) indicated that our greenhouse gas emissions in 2010 were the highest on record – ever. This, in spite of the fact that we all “know” that human-caused global warming is real, that we should “do” something about it, and that many countries have set official targets that they are not taking appropriate steps to meet. (I am not going to address the climate-change deniers here. They ignore the data yet get far too much media attention – but I’ll talk about that in a future post).
This disconnect, between our knowledge and our actions, is really difficult for me to understand. To my way of thinking, when you see something that can go wrong in the future, you act to prevent it.
I finished my PhD in 1992, nearly 20 years ago. That same year, a group of 1700 of the world’s leading scientists published a letter warning humanity that we must change how we live if we are to avert disaster. That letter began: Read more…
Breaking a connection: Goodbye, Tofino
I’m sad that my first post on “Connections,” after my long hiatus from blogging, is actually about breaking a connection: My connection with my community, Tofino.
Tofino is a funny town. There is a reason that it was, and still is, known as “Tough City.” It’s a paradise for tourists – but it is tough to live in. It has a core community of about 1650 “residents” – and you’d think that that would give it a really nice small-town feel and sense of community.
But Tough City is tough in a number of ways. We receive about one million tourists per year. That is great for bringing jobs into the town – but it means that most of those jobs are low-paying and seasonal (waiting on tables, cleaning hotel rooms, tour-guiding), and also that the town has become very expensive to live in. It is not the kind of town that most people can make their career in. Rather, it is a place where people come to work for a few years: earn some money; enjoy the natural beauty and outdoor activities that Tofino has to offer; and then move on.
This creates what I call Read more…
When “Community” stops being connected to “Place”
We live in a very strange time.
For most of human history, the world around us has changed very, very slowly.
It’s a bit hard to define exactly when humans first appeared on this planet, because there is no exact date; rather, it was a gradual evolution over many millions of years. But, for the sake of this discussion, let’s call it 200,000 years of human history, which is about how long anatomically modern humans have walked this Earth.
For most of that history, our ancestors existed mainly as nomadic hunters and gatherers, walking in small family bands (or societies) through small territories in which they collected their food. Communities were oriented around “place” – they didn’t have any travel options anyway, right? – and their knowledge of that place: seasonal changes, plant growth, wildlife movements, was key to their success in finding food… and, Read more…
Connections: off to a new start
Finally, the long-promised revamped blog! I’m coming full-circle from where I began, and tying it all together.
I started this blog over a year ago – just because having a blog seems to be the thing for a writer to do. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to write about. The only thing I was sure of was I knew what I did not want to write about:
- No open-the-soul-to-the-world diary stuff (I’ll leave that for my fiction!).
- And no writing-about-writing. I’m amazed how many writers blog about writing! And I do enjoy reading those blogs – but, for me, writing is what I do, not what I want to write about.
So I just started to write about whatever interested me. It’s ended up being an unexpected journey of self-discovery. To my surprise, the majority of my posts have been about Read more…
Canadian rice-growing, a technical success
Well, as I prepare to relaunch my blog in two days, I figured I’d better update you all on the Canadian rice-growing experiment – before I start to streamline the content of this site. (Especially seeing as “growing rice in Canada” is the most common search term that leads people here).
Well, it was a technical success. My harvest (pictured) wouldn’t have quite sustained me through the winter. Yup, that’s the whole thing.
But at least I got a harvest! I wonder if this is perhaps the first rice ever grown on Vancouver Island (I actually haven’t even heard of it being grown in British Columbia – although someone must have tried). I am quite sure it’s the first rice ever grown and harvested in Tofino! Read more…
Relaunch of my blog: August 3rd
Sorry for the lack of continuity here, folks…
Well, it is summer. But in spite of the waves of warm and sunny weather that have hit Tofino (some years it never gets hot here!) I have still been writing a lot. Just not on this blog.
That’s because I’ve been thinking a lot about this whole social media experiment. It is over a year, now, since I launched myself on both Twitter (@jwindh) and out here in the blogosphere. And there really is a learning curve with all of that; there’s much more to social media than just understanding the technology, how to Tweet and Retweet, how to Read more…
Does this warm your heart?
I can’t help acting when I see something is wrong, or could be done better.
I’ve firmly come to believe that some people are just genetically wired that way. That’s why we can’t help becoming activists – we are genetically programmed such that we just cannot stop and do nothing when we see something is wrong.
But it is hard to live with, when you feel compelled to act on everything you see that could be better. Partly because it distracts you from other things that also should matter in your life (like earning an income, or personal relationships). And partly because it is frustrating when you hit roadblocks, and can’t influence or exact the changes you see are needed… Read more…
Help! How’s my blog working?
As I approach the big 10,000 views to this website, I am starting to get worried. I’ve been pretty active on Twitter and in the blogosphere for over a year now (not just writing – also reading and commenting).
I keep seeing the same advice: Build your brand. And that is fine if you are only interested in, or only working in, one thing.
But I am interested in everything. To some people, that might look like I am all over the place. (Which, in a way, I am, I admit… )
But the thing is: everything is connected. And that’s what I am most interested in – the connections. So this is what I write about Read more…
Jacqueline Windh 