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Relationship Edition
Business Law Wills & Estates Mediation Burlington Law Office Are you a small business owner facing big decisions? Richard Burgess helps navigate the complexities of business law with straight forward, non-complicated legal advice. With a history as a local small business owner himself, Rick is both accessible and can identify your issues. Talk with Rick today about taking the risk out of your business.
Brant Street, not Bay Street. Address: Suite 27, 460 Brant Street Burlington, ON L7R 4B6 Phone: (905) 632-9474 Email: info@burgesslawoffice.com
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Andersons your design partner Visit our Showroom Anderson’s 686 Guelph Line, Burlington, Ontario (905) 639-0666 info@andersoncarpetandhome.com
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BIG QUESTION Is online dating the future of relationships? Tell us your opinion at: www.bcitymagazine.com
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Fall 2015 Relationship Edition Director and Publisher Leah Flippance leah@flipsidemediagroup.com Editor and Creative Director Louise Sherwood louise@bcitymagazine.com Associate Editor Camille Llosa camille@bcitymagazine.com Contributing Food and Drink Editor Alex Bielak Graphic Designer Ashley Giannice Advertising Designer Andres Esis Photography Maria Gagliardi Mary Pics Photography Shutterstock.com Contributors
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nline dating has been around for almost as long as the Internet, but back in the early days not many people would admit to using the ease of the Internet to find a partner, but, oh how the times have changed. No longer is online dating a thing to be kept secret, or to be ashamed of, online dating is the new norm. The online dating industry rakes in upwards of 1.7 billion dollars annually, and in the last year alone 17 per cent of marriages originated from an online match. However, inherent with all Internet profiles is the capacity for fudging the truth. On their online dating profiles, men typically lie about age, height and income and women tend to lie about weight, physical build and age. So how can you be sure of how honest the person is you are interested in? People often cite their busy lives with the inability to connect with a partner and find the ease of a dating site more suited to modern romance. We want to know what you think, is online dating the future of relationships? Tell us your opinion at www.bcitymagazine.com
2 BCity Fall 2015
David Almdal Garbrielle Almdal Jim Anderson Lauren Arkell Catherine Barrell Rick Burgess Burlington Public Library Lynda Carpenter Terryl Coombes Laura Conciatori Shannon Gilles Marguerite Harrison Dan Lawrie Leo Miault Linda Maguire Brian Maguire Paul Millar Jamesin Rossborough Don Smith Caroline Wallace To advertise in B City Magazine contact us at: info@bcitymagazine.com 289.684.2482 B City Magazine is published by: Flipside Media Group Stoney Creek, ON www.flipsidemediagroup.com
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B U R L I N G T O N
Why do people fool around?
25
CO For the
love
of TASTE
46
Uncovering the TRUTH about
cheating 38
In Search of
taste
52
The facts influencing MODERN DATING
33
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4 BCity Fall 2015
ONTENTS 10 On the Bookshelf Four good books to read and relate with
13 B City People Seven of our city’s citizens share their ideals and how they use them in relating with others 22 It’s Graphic! Crazy courtship rituals 25 Why do people fool around? Expert insight into how to be wise and stop being fooled 29 Politics How do we collectively relate with politics and how does this influence our choices in the polls and in elections? 30 People share their unique perspectives on their relationships with food trucks and meat processing. 33 Feature A deep look into the facts influencing modern dating and the way men and women are relating 38 Uncovering the truth about cheating Investigating the process of private investigations with a local PI 40 How to prepare yourself for a “fair split” from your spouse 41 B City social media followers share what’s needed for a good relationship 42 Relating at Anderson’s Carpet and Home
“ This edition is full of insight relating to problems and solutions to deal with our most valuable experiences: relationships.”
46 For the Love of Taste How our love of the six basic taste drives our love of food 50 What’s new in the B City Restaurant Scene 52 In Search of Taste Finding the six tastes in and around Burlington 56 The Last Word Burlington’s own star of feature film - My EX EX BCity Fall 2015 5
Publisher’s Letter W
ell, we are back to publishing another Relationship Edition. Feels like just yesterday we had our last one! Time flies when your having fun! This edition focuses on relationships, where to find them, how to nurture them, what to do if you don’t trust them and so much more. We’ve highlighted some of our most amazing friends in our profiles, and I think you will find this edition so inspiring – I am looking forward to, and hoping for your feedback. As publisher of B City, I’ve put my heart and soul into this publication – the whole team has - and we value each and every piece of feedback we have been given, and use it to improve our publication. Thank you all so much for your continued support and feedback. Leah Flippance Publisher
Photo by: Maria Gagliardi Marypics.ca
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Editor’s Letter T
his edition of B City Magazine delves into the changes we experience in our relationships through the many seasons of life, and provides inspiration for how to move forward from endings to fresh beginnings, as we evolve and grow through this wonderful and often challenging experience of getting along with others, and our romantic partners. A significant change we have experience in our western culture in the past half a century is the dramatic decline in marriage. In the book The Science of Happily Ever After, published in 2014, psychologist Ty Tashiro concludes that only three out of every 10 people who unite in marriage find lasting love in their relationship. The remaining people, uncouple and divorce and eventually decide to look for a new partner. Couples have changed the way they connect and relate with each other dramatically. With so many single people there is an increase of online meet-ups with no commitment. With things like Plenty of Fish at one’s beck and call it is no surprise that there is dramatic decline in people choosing to marrying and/or remaining married. Our feature story by Jamesin Rossborough looks into the challenges and changes that are occurring in romantic relationships as well as where to go in B City to have the best chance of finding a meaningful relationship if you are looking for one. With so many flavours of food to savour and enjoy, we can always count on enjoying a great relationship with food. Our Food and Drink Alex Bielak teamed up with our Associate Editor Camille Llosa to create two complimentary and tasty articles that share the science of why we love the food we do. As the old saying goes, “People come into our life for a reason, a season or a lifetime.” I joined the B City Magazine team and it was for a good reason and for a few seasons and I have no doubt my relationships with the team will last a lifetime, especially with Leah Flippance our publisher who I have loved partnering with to create this magazine. Leah and I shared a goal and darn it all - we’ve done it! I believe that essentially working to achieve a worthwhile goal together is what creates good, and long lasting relationships whether personal or professional. Change is inevitable. Relationships we relish are the result of sharing goals and focusing on achieving these goals together. Enjoy this edition. Thank you for picking up and reading! Wishing you well always, Louise Sherwood Editor
Photo by: Maria Gagliardi Marypics.ca
On the bookshelf Relationships come in all forms. From our relationships with the environment, our friends, coworkers and loved ones, each poses its own select rewards and challenges. In this installment of ‘On the bookshelf’ we look at four books that illustrate the unique properties of different relationships in our lives: from plants, to math, unlikely professional collusions and legendary loves. Camille Llosa
The Botany of Desire Michael Pollan
T
his book by food expert and journalist Michael Pollan takes a plants eye view of the relationship between four different ‘domesticated’ crops and their relationship with us humans. Here he posits that it is not us that domesticated these select plants, but rather the plants unique properties found a niche within specific human desires and used this as an evolutionary advantage to propagate themselves. Linking our base human desires for sweetness, beauty, intoxications and control he tells the stories of the apple, the tulip, marijuana and the humble potato in a truly new light making one wonder, who is the dominant in these eons long relationships. Using his signature investigatory journalism style, historic context, modern interviews and wit, Pollan weaves an expert tale of our relationships with our favoured crops.
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The Professor and the Madman Simon Winchester
O
ne may think that the story telling the decades long writing of the first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary may well be a tad dry. You would be dead wrong. This book tells the story of not only how this gargantuan feat was accomplished, but of the relationship between its editor Professor James Murray and one of the dictionary’s most prodigious contributor of definitions, Dr. W.C. Minor, an inmate at an asylum for the criminally insane. From professional relationship, to one of mutual respect, to a true and lasting friendship, these two disparately different yet similar men faced challenges, set backs, insanity and eventually triumph in creating one of the greatest tombs of literary work. Murder, mayhem, mutilations and masterpiece, this is a must read.
The Mathematics of Love Dr. Hannah Fry
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ath and love may not seem like a natural pairing. One is governed by order and logic, the other by emotions and interactions. However, in this amusing TED Original, Dr. Hannah Fry, mathematician at the UCL Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis, uses her expertise to tease out the patterns of human behavior in the context of love. In no way is this a relationship advice book, but what it does is uses some compelling arguments using mass data – and yes, some equations – to help navigate the realm of romantic entanglement. From online dating, to wedding seat planning, Dr. Fry points out the patterns in the seeming chaos, and helps to give a generalized representation of human interaction. Dr. Fry concedes that it is in some way her hope to link the seemingly opposed subjects of math and love, to get you the reader to love math, just a little more.
Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald Therese Anne Fowler
I
f you are a lover of the works of F. Scott Fitzgerald, you are undoubtedly aware of the influence his wife Zelda had on his literary output and his life. Over time their tumultuous relationship has been cast in many different lights, some blaming Zelda for ruining Scott, others blaming Scott for pushing Zelda into madness. This fictitious imaging of their life together from Zelda’s point of view takes a more sympathetic view of Zelda and a more villainous view of Scott. From their early and promising courtship, to his literary fame, travels to Europe and Africa and the life-long influence on their relationship of Scott’s longtime friend Ernest Hemmingway Z not only tells the story of their mutual ruination, but illustrates the era in which they lived. Booze fueled, awash with contemporary literary legends, emotional and physical abuse to ultimate madness, Zelda Fitzgerald lived a life out of a novel, just as Scott was apt to making her his muse and lifting passages straight from her diary for his own work.
BCity Fall 2015 11
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PEOPLE
H
ere we’ve profiled a few spectacular Burlington citizens who talk about their ideals and principles and how they share them with others to build great relationships in the community and beyond.
Burlington Central Public Library Jim Anderson, Don Smith, Lynda Carpenter, Rick Burgess and Paul Millar. Creative Director: Louise Sherwood Associate Editor: Camille Llosa Photos By: Mary Gagliardi – marypics.ca
BCity Fall 2015 13
Caroline Wallace C
aroline was born in Etobicoke and has been a Burlington resident since 1987. A graduate of the University of Guelph she is employed by the children’s charity Easter Seals Ontario in the role of Senior Development Officer for Halton Region. A proud mother of two beautiful daughters – Ashley and Lindsay, she celebrated 28 years of marriage this past summer to her wonderful husband Mike.
1. What are your core values and/or principles that guide what you do? I am truly honoured to be selected to be profiled in this edition of B City Magazine with an incredible group of Burlingtonians. I have never really thought too much about this question before but I just do what comes naturally. I just try to be inclusive and set a good example in both my professional life and personal life as a wife, mother and friend. I value all my relationships and feel so fortunate to have them. I set realistic goals and deliver on my commitments. It is effortless for me to help others and coach people along to improve their quality of life or to assist with decisions. Always try to be a good neighbour is my favourite motto.
PEOPLE 14 BCity Fall 2015
2. How do you apply these core values and principles to your professional and personal life, and in relationship with others? I feel grateful every day to live in such a great community and to be a part of a wonderful group of family and friends. In my professional life as a development officer, I am raising funds for physically disabled children so their needs motivate me to achieve the goals I have set so these children can live more independent lives. I work with a lot of volunteers or as a volunteer myself. So in both of these instances realistic and achievable goals are paramount to create success at the end of the day and deliver on our commitments. Working as a team I respect each person’s unique qualities and what they can offer. This brings out the best in everyone so that the end result is usually very positive. The work of a volunteer can sometimes be thankless so it is always so very important to celebrate success and show appreciation to each volunteer for providing their valuable time and efforts. At the end of the day we all seem to live very hectic lives and balance is vital to keeping yourself organized and levelheaded. In my family life I feel I have set a good example in sharing my core values with my two daughters and they are now two strong and confident young women. I find in my daily life that treating people with kindness and a smile can go a long way.
Caroline Wallace photographed by Maria Gagliardi in The Mattamy Children’s Library. Older youth can find resources to help with homework, novels in many formats (DAISY books for young people with print disabilities, MP3, audiobooks), and graphic novels and comic books.
PEOPLE
Dan Lawrie D
an Lawrie is best known as the CEO of Dan Lawrie Insurance, Dan has recently been the recipient of the Burlington Chamber of Commerce Distinguished Entrepreneur award. In addition, Dan is involved in a great deal of philanthropy supporting many local charities, including: United Way of Burlington-Hamilton, Women’s Insurance Cancer Crusade. A strong supporter of the arts Dan has established the Dan Lawrie Family Foundation to provide people the opportunity to connect with visual arts. 1. What are your core values and/or principles that guide what you do? Honesty, respect for people and integrity. Belief and faith in the goodness in people. Tolerance and compassion for those less fortunate. 2. How do you apply these core values and principles to your profession/life, and in relationship with others? In business I act professionally at all times, placing our clients’ interests first and always trying to do what is right. I believe in fairness when dealing or interacting with others in both my personal and business life. I always look for the good in people and enjoy helping them be the best they can be. I give back to the community through personal involvement and philanthropy.
Dan Lawrie photographed by Maria Gagliardi in The Great Hall. At the Central The Great Hall houses adult non-fiction collection, and speciality collections such as world languages and ESL/literacy. BCity Fall 2015 15
PEOPLE
Don Smith 16 BCity Fall 2015
D
on Smith is a third generation funeral director who owns and operates Smith’s Funeral Homes, established by his father in 1938. He has been the recipient of several awards for philanthropy and humanitarian work. 1. What are your core values and/or principles that guide what you do? All these years, my parents helped me answer the big, “why” I do what I do here in Burlington and elsewhere. They set an example for my brother, me and our colleagues for what a life of service above self can and should be like. For them, there were no 40 hour weeks, no statutory holidays, no work-to-rule concepts. For them, there was an unspoken rule that our family business and what we stood for came first. 2. How do you apply these core values and principles to your professional and personal life, and in relationship with others? I fell blessed and thankful for their legacy and for the opportunity they gave me…in spite of all the grey hair I gave them. But the story doesn’t end there. Whenever I became self-absorbed or short-sighted, they both reminded me of one of life’s universal truisms…one can say great things about being blessed and thankful, but the real test of a blessing is not in the words alone but in the actions one takes to demonstrate thanksgiving. That’s what my parents lived and breathed! That’s what they taught me…The Golden Rule! Thank you, Mom and Dad.
Don Smith photographed by Maria Gagliardi within The Burlington History Room containing a treasure trove of local history resources for anyone interested in Burlington’s past. From high school yearbooks and historical photos, postcards, and maps to old phone and city directories, newspapers, and unique memorabilia, it’s the first place to start your local history and genealogy research. BCity Fall 2015 17
PEOPLE
Rick Burgess
Rick Burgess photographed by Maria Gagliardi in The Longos Media Area. With a library card people can borrow video games, popular and classic movies and television series, music CDs, and sheet music.
R
ick Burgess practises business and estates law at the Burgess Law Office, opened in 2004, having previously practised in Toronto for 10 years. He provides business law solutions to owners and operators of small and medium size businesses, and helps with wills and estate administration. Rick is actively involved in community service, serving on the Boards and as Chair of several local agencies. 1. What are your core values and/or principles that guide what you do? Honesty, integrity, compassion and loyalty are essential to advance and protect my clients’ interests. It is important to delve deep into a client’s business to be properly positioned to provide optimum service. 18 BCity Fall 2015
2. How do you apply these core values and principles to your profession/life, and in relationship with others? I have brought these values to my law practice, to protect and advance the interests of my clients. I also ensure that they form part of my work with the community agencies I serve and have served, as a Board member or Chair including Chair of The Burlington Performing Arts Centre. At the Burlington Community Foundation, my values were important in helping with grants made to charitable agencies. And I have made a practice of remaining connected to organizations I’ve served, long after my official connection has ended. Hence years after leaving the Community Foundation Board, I joined the Flood Relief Claims Settlement Committee last fall.
Lynda Carpenter I
n 2001, Lynda was asked to join the Carpenter Hospice Board of Directors, as the Carpenter family representative. With her signature determination, passion and creativity, she committed herself to the Hospice, spearheading the annual Hospice Gala in 2002 (still going strong 15 years later) and was Board Chair in 2007. Throughout the past 10 years, Lynda has served on other community Boards and organizations and has been recognized for her core values of integrity, respect, compassion, determination and creativity. She was named ‘Woman of the Year’ and received a Paul Harris Fellow award in 2006 for her commitment to the community. 1. What are your core values and/or principles that guide what you do? My core values are: trust, integrity, compassion, kindness, respect, determination and last, but not least, fun. These values have served me well, resulting in a life rich with family, friendships, experiences and gratitude.
2. How do you apply these core values and principles to your profession/life, and in relationship with others? I now run my own Event Planning business, organizing many fabulous events from elegant weddings, large corporate events and conferences to smaller private parties. Events are all about the people involved – whether for business, friends and family or coming together to support a valued community organization I use my core values to guide my decisions. My many years of chairing the Hospice gala and volunteering for the Hospice, provided me the opportunity to engage and work with other dedicated volunteers and stakeholders in the Burlington community, developing key relationships and making friends along the way. The Carpenter Hospice is a true success story and has become one of the most respected and best loved organizations in Burlington.
Lynda Carpenter photographed by Maria Gagliardiat the library’s newest (ad)venture – a “Maker Space” for all ages. Combing art and science, the new maker space is a place to learn how things work and a place to invent, design, and create by hand. Watch for the grand opening of the space in late November!
PEOPLE
PEOPLE
Paul Millar P
aul works in the area of Community Development, building and strengthening community residents and leaders by creating spaces for people to connect, build supportive relationships, learn, grow and give back. In particular, Paul oversees Next Door Social Space; a gathering space for learning, growing and serving, and Rolling Horse Community Cycle; a not for profit bicycle shop. Both sponsored by ForestView Church. 1. What are your core values and/or principles that guide what you do? Anticipation – a belief that as we enter community good things already exist and the task is to identify and affirm what is going on, while giving support for its growth. Hospitality – to borrow from Christine Pohl, this is a moral act expressing kindness, neighbourliness and mutual aid. Participation – that as we enter community we do not do for, but with, community, recognizing the gifts and talents of others with whom we reside. 20 BCity Fall 2015
2. How do you apply these core values and principles to your professional and personal life, and in relationship with others? The values and principles guide all of our activities. For example, when participants gather together in the Community Kitchen program we anticipate that community members will be co-participants, as they share their skills and experiences. At the end of teaching cooking session hospitality is extended as the community gives thanks and sits down together in a shared meal. At the community bike shop members participate together, sharing their skills and knowledge, expressing hospitality through the kindness of repairing a child’s bike, or teaching a youth new skills. We anticipate these wonderful connections each time we gather.
Paul Millar photographed by Maria Gagliardi in The Mattamy Children’s Library at Central. This is a kid-sized place to snuggle with a good book, play in the Discovery Centre, make crafts—dream, imagine, explore...
Jim Anderson J
im is a local business owner of Andersons Carpet and Home. He is involved in Youth for Christ in Waterdown, which sees the hope and potential in every young person. He believes that our youth are struggling with social pressures, bullying, drugs alcohol, fatherless homes and suicide. Jim and Youth for Christ strives to be there for youth, give them a safe place where they are loved and accepted. Suicide intervention has played heavy on his heart and he is currently facilitating a two-day workshop on Suicide Intervention. 1. What are your core values and/or principles that guide what you do?
2. How do you apply these core values and principles to your professional life and personal life, and in relationship with others? I have always said God is the CEO. He gives me a blueprint on how to serve in my business. He has elected me to be the COOChief Operating Officer. Steering Andersons and the people who work here to become true trusted advisors in the home decorating business. True servanthood in my opinion is the key to success in both business and my personal life. Whether it’s with my clients, my family or my friends answering to a higher power keeps me on the right track in a world that has gone so off track in so many ways.
That’s easy – servanthood. Being a Christian we are to serve others. If you are hungry feed someone, if your thirsty, give someone a drink.
Jim Anderson photographed by Maria Gagliardi in The Cumis Teen Area that is geared to young adults. A space for teens to linger. There’s an open invitation for creative teens to post poetry, make crafts, and have their artwork displayed.
PEOPLE BCity Fall 2015 21
WHAT WE WILL When you actually sit down and think about it, a lot of the rituals and traditions we have to celebrate love and courtship can seem a bit silly. Here we look at some of the reasoning behind our rituals, and some interesting ones from around the world and throughout history. Have you ever wondered why wedding rings are worn on the left hand ring finger? It’s because of an ancient belief that there was a vein connects from that finger, directly to the heart, called the ‘Vena Amoris’
Victorian women used their fans to indicate their romantic interest. If she was fanning herself slowly, she was already taken. Fanning quickly meant she was on the market. If she rested her fan on her right cheek, she was interested in the approaching suitor, but resting it on the left cheek meant she was not.
White is synonymous with wedding gowns, but it was not always the case. White wedding dresses did not become popular until the 1840 wedding of Queen Victoria, who chose white to be easily spotted in the throng of her wedding procession. The photo of her white dress circled the globe making white a popular choice for brides. 22 BCity Fall 2015
L DO FOR LOVE In rural Austria in the 19th century girls would keep apple slices in their armpits as they danced. At the end of the dance, the girl would present the sweaty slice to the boy of her choice. If he liked her he would eat the apple.
In Cambodia, fathers in the Kreung tribe build their daughters ‘love huts’ where the young woman can entertain young men at night – as many as she wants - until she finds her match. This tribe values long marriages, so they want the daughters to be selective and aware of all aspects of an impending nuptial.
An old Nordic tradition was for a single, available woman to wear an empty knife sheath on her belt. An interested man would put his knife in her sheath. If she kept it, they were betrothed, if she returned it, she was not interested.
In puritan America young women received a thimble as a sign of betrothal. She would use this thimble to make things for her new home, and upon the wedding day, the bottom would be cut off to be worn as a ring. BCity Fall 2015 23
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The Infidelity Equation Jamesin Rossborough
M
illions of people are reeling in the aftermath of infidelity, following the hacking of AshleyMadison.com in August. Cheating spouses were exposed from a pool of more than 39,645,000 members on the site, leaving people everywhere wondering; what makes so many people cheat? According to Burlington psychologist and marriage counselor Dr. Albert W. Silver, there are many reasons people have affairs, and it doesn’t necessarily mean that they don’t love their spouses. “An affair can be a disguised plea for help,” says Siver, “Meaning that there is something missing in the marriage that people are looking elsewhere for.” A 2011 survey by the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction, showed that 25.1 per cent of almost 1,000 married people admitted to infidelity in their current relationships. Of course, there is some debate about what exactly constitutes infidelity. Physical intimacy, emotional affairs, and even online flirting with someone other than your spouse, all have compelling arguments. According to an article by clinical psychologist Seth Meyers on psychologytoday.com, “What often gets lost in the discussion of infidelity is attention to emotional infidelity, and the ugly ways in which it can plant seeds of doubt and dismantle a relationship.” Emotional affairs may be the result of a lack of intimacy in a marriage, or simply a friendship that becomes more, and begins to stifle the emotional commitment between partners. It does not mean that married people cannot have friends of the opposite sex, but that the friendship must not weaken the emotional bond between the spouses. The book The Emotional Affair: How to Recognize Emotional Infidelity And What To Do About It, defines an emotional affair as a, “Non-sexual relationship that diminishes at least one persons emotional connection with his or her committed partner.” The authors, Ronald and Patricia Potter-Efron, liken the emotional affair to a farmer; “If a farmer chooses to mostly water one field, than there won’t be enough for another. And, if the farmer becomes so excited about a new field that he or she forgets all about irrigating the other field, the crops in that field will wither and die.” The difference between an emotional and a physical affair is hazy, at best. Physical needs are often to blame for affairs where the marBCity Fall 2015 25
riage is lacking passion, but often people engaging in physical affairs are actually more interested in another type of intimacy, such as conversation, and find themselves resorting to something sexual. And sometimes affairs that never become physical were actually driven by physical attraction. “It is a complicated issue, with no simple answers, but the one that stands out on top is honest and effective communication,” says Silver. “And to do that, one must be in touch with ones feelings.” Open communication is extremely important in a relationship to maintain intimacy,
but being open about needs and desires can be difficult. Many of us struggle with and feelings of fear and vulnerability, while for others the challenge is sorting through all of the psychological clutter to understand what those feelings are. Dr. Silver, who has helped many couples work through infidelity, recommends therapy, which encourages communication in a mutually safe environment. “People are complex, but there are solutions if they are willing to search for them, “ says Silver. Dr.’s John and Julie Gottman are leading experts in the field of marriage and relation-
ships. Together they founded the Gottman Institute, where their forty years of research and clinical experience is applied by helping couples, and training mental health professionals. They are especially famous for their relationship advice called “The Four Horsemen Of The Apocalypse”. The idea is that there are four negative communication styles that destroy relationships. The first is criticism. The difference between criticism and complaint is a complaint points out problematic behavior, whereas criticism is an attack on personality, and may also add character flaws. For example, a complaint may be “I don’t like when you leave your shoes in the hall,” whereas criticism may sound more like “You always leave your shoes out, you are so careless.” The second is contempt, which involves treating someone as if they are inferior, and according to the Gottman Institute website is the greatest predictor of divorce. MerriamWebster dictionary defines it as, “The act of despising,” and can include everything from eye rolling to name-calling. The third is defensiveness. It is a form of self-protection, and may show itself through blame, or avoiding responsibility. Partners who are very defensive see themselves as victims. They make excuses, or meet their partner’s complaints with another complaint to try and shift the blame. According to the Gottman Institute, accepting some responsibility, no matter how small, is the cure. For example, instead of, “I didn’t leave the milk out, I wasn’t even in the kitchen,” one could try, “I don’t even remember going in the kitchen, sorry I will be more careful next time.” The fourth horseman is stonewalling. This is when one partner goes silent, completely
shutting the other out, and refusing to communicate. It is emotional abandonment. And because it is basically a non-event, it makes the recipient of this loud silence seem like they are overreacting when they are left with feelings of anger and resentment. These partners may find themselves yelling, “say something!� There is hope for a marriage that has experienced infidelity, but according to Dr. Silver, it may depend on how partners react to the situation. It is understandable to react with anger, as people often do when they are hurt. The cheater and the cheated may both feel the other is to blame for the direction in which the marriage has gone. But if they are really interested in reconstructing the marriage, Silver says it is important not to run to lawyers or start threatening with divorce. “For better or for worse, for good or for bad, people need to be committed to the relationship,� says Silver. “Even if they feel like there is no love there, the love can be recovered.�
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28 BCity Fall 2015 Between
Our Relationship with Politics and Politicians
Passionate, Fleeting, Contemptuous, or Co-dependent? Shannon Gillies
H
ere’s something all effective salespeople know: People buy something not because they need it or it’s the best product or service available for the price, but because of how it makes them feel. Perhaps the same lesson applies to our relationship with politics. Look at the Donald Trump fiasco. Republican voters in the US can’t possibly be buying what he’s selling because they think he’s the most qualified candidate, or the most well versed in issues of foreign policy and economics. They’re supporting him because he validates their beliefs and values. He makes them feel heard. He shares and reflects back to them their distaste for “political correctness” and slick politicians who allow corporate donors to dictate their views. How does this idea play out closer to home with our own Federal Election in October? Kathleen Khoorshed, a local freelance media buyer and mother of two, says she feels both frustrated and conflicted about the federal leaders and how they spend so much time bashing each other rather than discussing what they’ll do for the country. “I agree and disagree with each party on various issues. I wish there were one party that has everything that I agree with but there isn’t. I guess I just have to make a list of what’s most important to me and my family and decide, based on that list, who I’m voting for.” In Burlington, two of the candidates are representative, in several ways, of their parties’ leaders. Karina Gould, the Liberal candidate for the Burlington riding, is a very young, politically inexperienced, enthusiastic fresh face—much like Justin Trudeau. Conservative candidate Mike Wallace, on the other hand, is well-known and long serving—as is Prime Minister Harper. Will younger voters put an X next to Ms. Gould’s name because of where she and Trudeau stands on the economy, the environment, the budget, and national security, or will they vote for her and Trudeau because they want to feel like they’re part of a bigger movement of young people shaking up the country? Will some voters vote for Mr. Wallace because their families always voted Conservative and they think he’s done a good job, because they like and approve of Stephen Harper, or will they actually be voting more against Trudeau’s youth and inexperience?
Shutterstock - copyright: Drop of Light
Shutterstock - copyright: A Katz
Even at the municipal level, our psychological relationship to the candidates, and our feelings about them come into play at election time. Lou Holtz, an oft-quoted American football coach, once said there are three things everybody wants to know about you, and it applies especially to leaders: Do you care about me? Can I trust you? Are you committed to excellence? It’s important to vote on issues, but sometimes, there really aren’t that many pressing concerns to get us riled up during a municipal election. Taxes can go up or down a bit, too much money gets spent on a few big projects, bus routes might be added or cut, bike lanes will be discussed, the word “intensification” gets thrown around, but in general, Burlingtonians are a pretty content bunch. When there are no major issues to vote on, who gets elected? Is it the candidate who made you feel your voice would make a difference in your community, or the one who assured you there would be no new drastic changes to your neighbourhood. or to your tax bill? Maybe a candidate came to your door more than once to provide you with an
answer to a concern, and you felt acknowledged. Did you vote on the issues, or on how your chosen candidate made you feel? Warm and fuzzy feelings about our politicians are rare and there’s no shortage of cynicism and vitriol on social media, even at the municipal level, but not everyone has such a negative attitude about our local representatives. Rob Mayor runs a Burlington business called soFX which coaches and mentors local musicians. He feels there’s no point in having a negative or sceptical relationship with local politicians. Why not work with them for mutual benefit? Mayor has worked with councillors Blair Lancaster and Paul Sharman to make Burlington’s Car-Free Street Festivals a success. To him it’s a win-win situation for his business, the musicians, and the politicians. Have you considered how your feelings about candidates affect your vote and your relationship to politics in general? B City wants to hear from you. In the federal election will you be voting on the issues, the candidates, or a combination of both? BCity Fall 2015 29
BCITY VIEWS
Every day approximately 50 eighteen-wheel trucks enter Burlingtoneach truck full of approximately 200 pigs destined to be processed at Sofina Foods at the corner of Appleby Line and Harvester Road, millions and millions of pounds of meat per year. In Burlington many people have strong and differing opinions about the food trucks and the people who surround the trucks in what are being called vigils. All Photos By: Anita Krajnc The food on the trucks has not yet been processed. Volunteers come to bear witness to the life of the animals on their first and final drive before being transformed into pork products.
Reader comments Attending a vigil is quite an experience if one dares to do it. The vigil is not intended for one to look away from reality, but to see and to feel what pigs experience before becoming food. The experience compelled me to face my feelings and to look inside after years of looking away. I found myself saying softly and sadly under my breath, “I am sorry, sweet babies,” just before the pigs turn into the processing plant. It was a profound, disturbing and deeply compassionate experience to really empathize and really relate with these animals. Anonymous
B City Magazine received messages from people who have shared their opinion about witnessing the vigils attended by volunteers from Ontario Pig Save, the organization that brings people together to bear witness to the pigs on the trucks.
This comment was submitted to B City Magazine’s Facebook page:
I attended a Toronto Pig Save Vigil in late May 2015 to report on the experience. I did note that the people witnessing the pigs had only photos of healthy pigs. The people also were consistently respectful and law abiding even though the Halton Region Police came out to talk with the group. (For no apparent reason as no laws were being broken). The information representatives offered was educational and tastefully produced and only given to people that welcomed it. Many people were yelling from cars toward me and others attending the vigil: “Kill the pigs,” “I love bacon,” and “mmm Bacon!” It was actually quite disturbing when I saw local people I know and they didn’t recognize me as they drove by and expressed their views about the vigil and the pigs. Take a look at the photos. Now others can bear witness. The photos are of healthy pigs.
I believe everyone has a right to an opinion on things that happen in this world. However, I have to drive through this intersection daily to get to work. These people aren’t just standing holding signs, feeding water to pigs and impeding traffic - none of those things bother me. What bothers me is during the summer my 5-year-old daughter comes to work with me and she sees signs with slaughtered pigs covered in blood on them - I can censor TV, radio, reading material - I can’t censor those people - I have to play the “look over there” game. What else bothers me is that they feel it’s ok to lean into vehicles with open windows asking if you would like flyers and lemonade - get out of my car! First of all it’s not safe for them - what if I decide to follow traffic and drive away? They’re about to have a major pain in the neck. Also it’s my personal property, get off/out of it!!! They had a protest booth at ribfest as well... hundreds of kids walked past signs with pictures of bloody pigs. I made a comment out loud to my group of people and basically made it obvious that I felt the signs were unnecessary. The woman in front of me said, “It’s their right to have an opinion.” I responded, “I have a right to an opinion as well and mine is that those photos are inappropriate to have at a family-friendly festival.” She muttered something under her breath and walked away to find her ribs. I respect their opinions and views... But not some of the ways they go about doing it.
Editor of B City Magazine Louise Sherwood
Submitted to B City Facebook Page by Kristen Leveille
Vania Davidovic sent a letter to B City Magazine earlier this year to express her thoughts after driving by the Pig Vigil. Driving to work this morning, I have seen two young people on Appleby and Harvester trying to raise awareness of the cruelty towards animals that end up being meat on our plates. They were standing by the busy street holding pictures of the young pigs, soon to be slaughtered for meat production... drivers looking, slowing down to see... Most likely, they were purposely standing just around the corner from Maple Leafs. Mistreatment of animals, caging, horrible stories of inhumane conditions, slaughtering stories that are beyond imagination are something we all hear more about lately, in part thanks
to the social media, promotions of healthier and friendlier choices, health awareness articles, media in general. On a more personal level, I have been paying more attention to the arguments of my vegetarian, vegan and ethical-vegans friends. Having said that, my family likes their meat! Still, the disturbing stories have made their way to our table, and made us re-assess some of our choices. We buy much less red meat, and when purchasing it we reach out to organic store and to the local butcher which supplies their meat from local certified farms. Yes, it is more expensive, but it actually makes us eat meat less times a week/month and substituting with other foods. Do we want to continue buying meats sourced from mega-chains and megaslaughterhouses that clearly do not show even
minimal compassion or humanity towards these animals? The two pictures young woman was holding are still with me. I know there are countless stories and evidence of cruelty towards the farm animals so we maybe need to admit it, stop turning our heads the other way and face the fact that somewhere something is very wrong in the ways we are treating the animals that feed us and our families...And we do not necessarily have to be committed vegetarians or vegans to do so either! We love our pets, would we want anyone to handle them the same way? Maybe it is time to consider- pigs, lambs, cows- they all can make wonderful companions, too. As for me, I could not eat my meat chili for lunch today. Vania Davidovic, Oakville
People do have many different views on their relationship with food. If you have seen something interesting in Burlington and you want to share your views send your views to louise@bcitymagazine.com Please note: your views may be published in tor in social media.
BCity Fall 2015 31
Thirty is the new twenty Jamesin Rossborough
T
he dating scene is getting old. Not old as in boring or tiresome, but actually older. It is a relatively new phenomenon, where people are remaining single until later in life, and according to experts it is linked to two key factors. Melanie Notkin, author of Otherhood says, “The women of my mother’s generation weren’t born with the social economic and political equalities that feminism later provided. So the landscape has changed. Women who have more education are more likely to marry later, and to have children later.” According to Statistics Canada, in 1990 only 14 per cent of women aged 25 to 54 had a university degree. By 2009 this number doubled to 28 per cent. To give you an even better idea of what this means, in 2008, 62 per cent of university graduates were women. The stats aren’t out for 2015, but as of 2009 women were trending upward, surpassing men in the number of undergraduate degrees, Masters and PhDs. If you do the math, it takes eight to twelve years to get a PhD, which means many women are in school anywhere from four to twelve years longer than they were twenty years ago. For those who are then determined to establish themselves in the work force, this can push marriage and family forward even further. Women are moving up the ladder and breaking glass ceilings, and although it is no secret that women are still experiencing adversity, the gap is shrinking. In 1971 women earned 58 per cent of what men earned. By 2011, they earned seventy-four cents for every dollar earned by men. It is not equal, but it is increasing, which suggests that many people are working hard for change. In 1990, 35 per cent of all births were by mothers older than 30 years of age. In 2010, that number was 56.2 per cent. Notkin, however, believes that this isn’t necessarily a choice that modern women are making for themselves. “There has been this odd assumption that women have chosen not to find love [...] and motherhood,” says Notkin. “In fact the U.S census called it, in 2012, the delayer boom.” She explains that a woman in her thirties, if she is unmarried and childless, is now called a, “career woman,” and it is assumed that she is only focused on a career. But she says that the real issue for many women is that they are holding out for the right partner, and although
they want to have children, only want them with someone they truly love. She points out that this is something men have always done, and they were never considered to be, “career men.” “A generation ago a woman couldn’t wait for love, she had to move out of her parent’s place,” says Notkin. “And her income wasn’t sufficient enough to take care of herself until she found the right relationship. Although it might feel passive to wait for love, it is not an
easy thing to do, and yet it is a choice most women today make.” So what challenges are singles facing today when it comes to finding love? Today’s women might pick up the tab, ask for the date, make the first call, and even make the first move, while others may still want to be courted the old fashioned way. Men, on the other hand, may still want to pay, chase, and have their conquests, or may also enjoy being met halfway. What has changed because
of the women’s movement is not necessarily one new way of doing things, but rather the option of doing things many different ways. According to Notkin, this can be confusing for both sexes. “Women were taught, and socialized to understand, that if you want to be equal to men they you have to be like a man,” says Notkin, “So we start to behave on dates like men do.” She also points out that we learn how to treat each other in relationships by watching our parents, and with times changing so rapidly this can get confusing. In David M. Buss’s The Evolution of Desire: Strategies of Human Mating, he writes; “The great initial parental investment of women makes them a valuable, but limited resource. Gestating, bearing, nursing, nurturing and protecting a child are exceptional reproductive resources that cannot be allocated indiscriminately. Nor can one woman dispense them to many men. Those who hold valuable resources do not give them away cheaply or unselectively.” It is true most women have many criteria when selecting a husband, from a range of physical qualities, to personality traits and values, and even things they may not realize they are attracted to - or repulsed by. Buss’s book discusses the many studies that he and his colleagues performed, and delves into the roots of human desires. He builds on Darwin’s theories of sexual selection, which is the evolution of characteristics based on their reproductive benefits instead of survival benefits. For example, in the past men could have a casual sexual encounter with a woman and walk away without it affecting his reproductive cycle. But the woman, after the same event, may become pregnant and be removed from the mating scene for months or years. From an evolutionary standpoint, it makes sense that women are likely to be very selec-
34 BCity Fall 2015
tive. Another example is when women chose men who were unreliable, (“flighty, impulsive, and philandering,” as Buss puts it). They may have ended up raising their children alone. But a woman who favoured a stable man had the help and protection he provided, and was more likely to have children who would survive and thrive. Thus, over time, women evolved the desire for monogamous and stable male counterparts. Even emotions are an evolutionary trait. Anger for example, has a biological reason for existing; it causes a surge in the hormone cortisol, which we use for fight or flight. But sexual selection is not solely based on reproductive ability, or survival of our species, it has developed to include strategies for mat-
ing problems. An example that many people are familiar with is the uncanny ability of a spouse to detect infidelity. The criteria of both sexes are created similar to the way our economy progresses - consumer demand. Does this mean there will be a shift taking place from men trying to be better bread winners to something a modern woman needs more than money? There are far more men taking paternity leaves than ever before, is this strictly due to finances now that women may be earning more than their husbands, or is it because the modern woman chooses a mate who is more nurturing to the children? And are women making a shift to something more desirable to the modern man? Kat Spiwak, a Dating and Relationship coach says, “More older women are dating younger men, and it is more socially acceptable to be just interested in sex. Culture is promoting it to some extent, through different websites.” Spiwak has been a Dating and Relationship Coach in Toronto for more than a decade. She has a degree in Psychology from Waterloo, Life Skills Coach certification from George Brown, two other human resources certifications, and she also met her husband online. “The biggest change in modern dating is that people are meeting online more than they are in real life,” says Spiwak. This easy access to people outside of our social circles, our towns, or even our country, has led to many happy couples, but is the second key event leading to older singles. “A highly desirable guy, with a nice, outgoing personality, intelligence, sense of humor, and good earning potential, usually doesn’t have any difficulty meeting women,” says Spiwak. “But there aren’t that many available, because younger men are finding that they have so many options, especially because of online dating, that they want to take longer to settle down.”
Zoosk, Match, eHarmony, and Plenty of Fish are just a few of the top dating sites in Canada. Plenty of Fish (or POF.com) had 25 million users in 2010. By 2013 that number had risen to 60 million, and they now have 100 million users. With all of these eligible people available with the push of a button, it
can lead to a lot of window-shopping. “It is kind of like being a kid in a candy store, there is so much choice that it is overwhelming,” says Spiwak. Many of these sites allow the user to screen for known desires and aversions, such as height and weight, a variety of interests,
smokers and non-smokers. It makes it easy to eliminate potential obstacles to long-term relationships. This can also lead to very high expectations. “It suggests to people that there is always somebody better out there,” says Spiwak. “It creates really unrealistic expectations, because it creates a sense that you can just click and there is a better looking guy, or a better looking woman, or somebody who is more desirable to you in a particular way, and that you should just keep going.” Spiwak also says that she believes it is making people much more superficial, much more selective, and much more dismissive of the people they are meeting. “And of course because of all the additional devices, more communication is taking place via texting than face-to-face contact or even phone calls,” says Spiwak. This type of communication has been changing the way people treat each other. Most people these days would probably agree that they have either sent or received a text or email conveying a message that they wouldn’t be comfortable saying (or in some cases, showing) in person. “It maintains a distance, a separation, and a lack of real connection,” Says Spiwak, “It is a virtual connection. [People] don’t have the same filters.” However for many people, including Spiwak, Internet dating has resulted in relationships, love and marriage, and those who are most likely to have luck online are doing
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BCity Fall 2015 35
three essential things. The first is picking the right site. “I am still advocating using traditional dating sites like OkCupid or Match,” says Spiwak. “It takes a lot more effort. There is an investment in time, a longer profile, communication, it is not just a quick connection.” She explains that although many people don’t like having to put the initial time in, it makes them less dismissive of each other, as they feel that they have made an investment. The second thing she recommends is a thoughtfully written profile. “People are much more individualistic now, they are sharing quirkier things about themselves, more interesting things about themselves,
and that is important to do so that people can get a sense of your personality,” says Spiwak. The third thing is choosing great photos of yourself playing sports, hanging out with friends, travelling, and most of all smiling. She also warns against selfies. “Guys are less critical of women posting selfies,” says Spiwak. She explains that where men may just think a woman looks hot, women tend to look at it differently, wondering about his social life, why he doesn’t have friends in his photos, and what his hobbies are. “It has a whole different feeling.” She says. While that online profile sits like a fishing line at the end of the dock, you could be out there mingling at a party, bar, or local bookstore. And like Spiwak said of profile writing: show your personality, quirks and all. The book Getting Older Better, By Pamela Blair, PhD, says, “The deeper you dig within yourself, and the more you expose, the more you connect with the rest of the world.”
Jamesin Rossborough is interested in politics, health, and animal welfare. She enjoys continuous learning, and in her spare time takes various educational courses, and volunteers at a wildlife hospital and rehabilitation centre.
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COMPARING SOME OF THE MOST POPULAR DATING WEBSITES According to Dating and Relationship Coach Kat Spiwak, investing a little more time and energy may mean better results when seeking a committed relationship on a dating site. Here, we have compared a few of the most popular sites by time, and financial commitments. Name
*Minium Cost For One Month
Time Invested Getting Started
Investment
eHarmony
$59.95
+++
Plenty of Fish
FREE
+
Match.com
$36.99
++
OkCupid
FREE
+
Zoosk
$29.95
++
*Regular price, not including promotional rates
†Overall
†Combined investment of time and money
EHarmony costs more than most, and works like a cable plan; the longer you commit to signing up for, the lower the monthly fee. It also has a long process for getting started that consists of hundreds of questions designed to identify traits and characteristsics for matching you with a partner. The commitment level is high, but then, so may be the commitment level of the people you are meeting. Plenty of Fish is free, and quick to get started. It requires little to no commitment, and there are millions of members. Match has membership options like eHarmony, is a little less expensive and takes less time to get started. OkCupid is free, and is quick and easy to get started. Zoosk is a little cheaper than the other paid sites, and you can register and browse members fairly quickly. BCity Fall 2015 37
Finding the Truth about Cheating Louise Sherwood
A November 16th 2012 Forum Poll revealed that 12 per cent of a random sampling of Canadians had cheated on their spouse or common law partner. Of the random sampling, 11 per cent of people declined to answer - not surprising.
T
he position of many a cheating spouse is, “Deny, deny, deny.” One who cheats whether it is on a test at school, in a sports competition or in a committed relationship, deceives to gain an unfair advantage and avoid the consequences of their actions while having others believe they are playing by the rules. Today there are many ways to find the truth about a cheater and get peace of mind. Ron Gooding is the president of Burlington-based Bay Area Investigations & Protection Services Ltd, that in addition to conducting employee background checks, specializes in investigations for people who suspect their significant others of infidelity. Gooding says, “Women especially have this intuition, this gut feeling. There are a lot of red flags that are common when someone suspects cheating. They know something is not right and will begin to question. Their significant other will say it is all in their mind and that they are going crazy. To achieve peace of mind people hire my company to investigate. Very seldom do our investigations show that suspicions are unfounded.” The process of retaining a private investigator is quite simple: if you have a gut feeling that something is not right, you can call for a free consultation to discuss your suspicions and arrange for a meeting at Bay Area Investigations. Following the free consultation a confidential meeting is arranged where the client and a Bay Area Investigations Investigator discuss the process step-by-step and a budget for the investigation is discussed in detail. “Our budget depends on the circumstances and where their significant other travels and meets others. Our budget includes costs for disbursements for travel costs, video surveillance transfers and does include a retainer for our services. An average budget to investigate suspicions of cheating is approximately $1,500 to $2,000,” says Gooding. The meeting room that greets clients at Bay Area Investigations is classy and comforting with deep leather, chocolate coloured sofas. 38 BCity Fall 2015
One painting hangs on the wall of a single sailboat peacefully gliding into the mystic. A full audio video system is in view from where a client sits. A lone box of tissue sits on the table. One can only imagine the people that have sat here and had the true news of their loved ones infidelity presented to them in full colour video on the large flat screen TV. This is what people have come for though, to find out if their loved one is in fact a cheater. Bay Area Investigations provides an invaluable service for truth seekers. The truth can
be painful, but it does not have to be costly depending on the circumstances. And what price can one put on peace of mind? For those suspecting that their spouse is a cheater, Gooding advises people to, “Come in and talk with me. Also back off your own investigation for a while, while we are conducting our professional investigation. Often if a person thinks you suspect them of cheating they will get better at hiding activities. Such activities as starting to lock a cell phone and computer are common signs that someone is
up to something they do not want you to see.” On the flipside what if you hired an investigator and after a time of surveillance it is shown that they are not cheating? Do you tell your loved one you checked them out? Will you be truthful or will you hide the truth, just like you suspected your supposed cheating spouse of hiding the truth from you? Not everyone suspected of cheating is guilty. Sometimes people have jealousy or may even have a personality disorder they are in denial of that can cause people to be possessive, clingy and deeply fearful of abandonment. A professional investigation can help discover the truth regardless. If you find that after hiring a private investigator there is no evidence to confirm your suspicions, then it may be time to get a different kind of professional help. In the end, investigating facts with professional support is of great value and it will ultimately uncover the truthwhatever it may be. As the old adage goes, ‘The truth will set you free.’
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Divorce Myth:
“The Woman gets it All” Tatiana Terekhova
T
here is a general public misconception that during the divorce process, women get it all. Though I can’t speak for every single case, I would like to share my professional experience and personal observations. The financial aspect of divorce comes down to the following three major issues: financial well being of the children, spousal support and property division. Financial Well Being of the Children In the past, women (mothers) used to get full custody and primary parenting status. Men (fathers) would only have visitation rights. This would entitle women to 100 per cent of the child support, the full amount of child tax benefits and all available tax deductions and credits. Today, shared parenting is becoming more and more popular. As a result, child support is payable by both parents to each other, and all tax benefits are split. You can refer to the Government of Canada website for a quick and easy illustration. http://www. justice.gc.ca/eng/fl-df/child-enfant/look-rech.asp Spousal Support Traditionally, women were homemakers (excellent ones!) and men were the income earners. In this scenario, a woman would often be entitled to receive spousal support. In order to get an idea on how much you would be entitled to, I recommend www.mysupportcalculator.com. However the issue of spousal support entitlement is very complex and legal advice is highly recommended. As times have changed, so have women’s roles in the workforce. Many women are employed out of the home and may not be entitled to receive spousal support. In fact, many women find themselves in the position of having to pay support to their less financially successful husbands. Property Division Often people believe that everything will be split equally. This is not necessarily the case. Pensions, inheritances, some insurance settlements may be excluded from division altogether. Since many assets can’t be physically divided, there are trade offs, offsets, direct rollovers and buyouts to make it more practical and economical. It’s not unusual to have one spouse keep the matrimonial home, and the other receive a cash settlement for his/her share. The irony is often all friends and neighbors see is that “she got the house and the car, instead of the real picture – the bigger mortgage and smaller RRSPs.
If you and your partner are divorcing, don’t get confused by the myths out there. Get yourself organized, run many financial scenarios and avoid costly financial mistakes. Tatiana Terekhova is well respected in her industry for helping couples through the transition of divorce while saving them money. Money sense has quoted her as an expert.
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Shana Dubrofsky Machmer Trust
Marcie Costello True friendship
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Barbara Derewonko Trust
Noggenfogged @dial_out Tacos. Or.. Communication. Eating tacos while communicating? Communitacos. #communication
Relating at Home at Andersons Carpet & Home! What does great relating look like? Eye contact, smiling, communication and relaxation –enjoying the moment together! All Photos By: Maria Gagliardi of Marypics Photography marypics.com
We enjoy discussing design with fine wine! Leah Flippance, Marguerite Harrison, Jim Anderson and Louise Sherwood Thank you to Jim and Marguerite for being such great hosts for this photo shoot and being so much fun to relate with. 42 BCity Fall 2015
Linda and Brian Maguire Favorite way to spend time relating? Reading by the fire. While Brian enjoys a single malt scotch and Linda loves a spicy Caesar. Both enjoy snacking on popcorn.
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Leon Miault and Terryl Coombes: Favorite past time: Time together, watching their son Mason’s soccer games, and watching their daughter Maddison’s soccer and rep basketball games. They both enjoy relating over Spanish coffee and popcorn. 44 BCity Fall 2015
David and Gabrielle Almdal: Aside from the obvious of enjoying being in the bed together, this married couple with children enjoys getting the kids to bed, and then cooking a late night dinner while hanging out and enjoying a vodka cocktail together.
For the love of taste Camille Llosa
It was hot, more so than usual for Bali. The sun and surf had left us exhausted and hungry. Anything would have done to satiate our appetite, but that early evening dinner of smoked marlin, one I’ve never forgotten, is possibly the best meal of my life so far. It arrived on a simple square, white plate: a dozen thin slices of perfectly rose-coloured marlin. I hungrily raised a piece to my mouth with chopsticks: That taste, that impeccablymelting texture, stopped me in my tracks. It savored like a bonfire on a beach: smoky, marine, meaty and a tad sweet. Every bite outdid the next, and I’ll remember that meal for many years. Like a stolen kiss or a hug from your mother, the sensory impact of taste has the power to imprint itself on your memory forever. But what made that simple dish so memorable? Why did I like it so much? Sure, the scenery and company influenced the potency of this taste-memory, but there has to be more, a reason behind why we love the foods we do. 46 BCity Fall 2015
Unlike sound or touch, our sense of taste tends to impress on us an emotional response, a relationship, if you will, with the humble act of eating. Lets face it, we all need to eat, but our oh-so-human pursuit to eat things that are delicious makes our quest to satisfy our sense of taste not only a survival mechanism but also an industry, a hobby and a profession. So what exactly is taste? Of course we know it is one of the five basic senses. Along with sight, sound, touch and smell it makes us sensory beings. But we often conflate the sense of taste with the senses of smell and touch when we experience the flavour of a food. Simply put, tasting with your mouth is called gustation. Food comes in contact with your tongue and through taste receptors or ion channels sends signals to your brain. When you put a food in your mouth and chew, or sip, or slurp, the molecules in the food mix with air and volatize, releasing aroma, which you then smell as you taste, a function called
olfaction. When you pair gustation and olfaction with texture, say the creaminess of a soup or the crunch of a crisp carrot, the combined sensory input gives you the flavour of the food. Right now, research posits six basic profiles that we can taste through gustation: salty, sweet, sour, bitter, umami and oleogustus. Recent research (and culinary professionals) has marked out fat or oleogustus as the newest discovered taste. When many people think of the concept of taste, they think of that illustration of a tongue, showing the geography of where we taste each taste: sweet up front, sour on the sides. This, however, is misleading. You can actually taste all of the basic tastes on your entire tongue; they will just be more intense in certain areas. Your taste buds are simply bundles of specialized receptors perched atop the raised papillae on the tongue, waiting to be tickled by taste.
Did you know? Some researchers believe that a craving for salt may actually be a craving for calcium? There are two forms of calcium in the body: free and bound. Sodium helps free the bound calcium, making it more readily available to the body to use.
The Six Tastes Salt The role of salt, or more specifically, sodium chloride, in food is elegantly simple. We crave it because sodium is crucial in sustaining life. It works to maintain blood pressure, blood volume and ensures that muscles and nerves function efficiently. Sodium is an electrolyte that conducts electricity in our fluids and tissues. The problem with sodium is that we are constantly losing it through sweat and urine and we cannot store reserves of it in our bodies, so we seek it out in our foods. The curious thing about salt is researchers aren’t completely sure as to how we taste it. The tastes of salty and sour are sensed differently. Whereas the tastes sweet, bitter, umami and fat are sensed through a hand-in-glove mechanism, as in: taste molecule, meet appropriate taste receptor, voila, sweet! Salt and sour are sensed through ion channels. This means that the ion channel (basically a pore in the membrane of a cell) allows and controls the passage of ions through the cell membrane. This can help to explain why it is so difficult to come up with a salt-substitute. Sugar substitutes are plentiful, as it is easier to confuse the taste receptors than it is to trick the ion channels that detect salt.
Did you know? Children ages 5-9 have the highest tolerance for sour foods? Just take a look at the candy marketed for this age group, Sour Kids, Sour Keys, Warheads and Tearjerkers, just to name a few.
Sweet For those who have a sweet tooth, the craving for sugar is a real thing, and these cravings have a basis in biology. The taste of sweet and bitter are the two tastes that newborn babies are most acutely attuned to. Sweet signals calories, an absolutely essential need for growing babies. Evolutionarily speaking, the taste of sweet helped our ancestors to also identify quick and easy sources
of calories like ripe fruit, which is easily and readily consumable. When you eat something sweet, insulin levels in your body rise, and the brain assumes, from the sweet taste in your mouth that carbohydrates are incoming and gears up the stomach for digestion. We love the taste of sweet, in all of its forms, because it tells our bodies we are about to fuel-up.
Did you know?
our early ancestors. Where we have a few receptors for sweet we have dozens for bitter, to be able to instantly identify a potentially harmful substance. But some of our most favourite vices are bitter. Coffee, tea, dark chocolate and alcohol are all high in bitter taste, but we tend to love them, and sometimes overindulge. Bitter foods can also be good for us. Think of dark leafy greens, pomegranates and cranberries. Their bitterness signals high levels of phytonutrients, polyphenols and flavonoids, which have been shown to combat certain ailments, like cardiovascular disease and cancer.
Human salt receptors are not mature at birth; they don’t mature until about four-months-old.
Did you know? Sour Like salt, the taste of sour is detected through ion-channels. This may explain why many people can confuse the two tastes. Think of a dill pickle. Do you taste salt, or sour, or an indeterminate blend of the two? Sourness in food is measured in pH levels, a standard measurement of the acidity or alkalinity of a substance. The lower the pH the higher the sourness. For example, lemon juice has a pH of 2, whereas milk has a pH 8. But why do we like sour? Some research suggests that perhaps it’s not a ‘like’ of sour, but more of a detection system. Our ability to taste sour enabled our ancestors to avoid sour, unripe fruits and wait to eat them until they were fully ripe and therefore at peak nutrition. Whether we are disinclined or not to ‘like’ sour, we humans sure do appreciate it. The taste of sour is a key component to fermented food and high levels of acid in foods can help in preservation. A deft use of sour can help to balance or brighten the flavours of a dish.
Did you know? Food actually does taste better when you are hungry. The hunger hormone ghrelin causes you to sniff more, enabling you to inhale more aroma molecules and enhancing the flavour experience.
Bitter Along with sweet, bitter is one of our earliest identifiable tastes, and with good reason. The bitter compounds found in foods can suggest toxicity or poison, so quick and early detection of a bitter substance was crucial for
Human breast milk is high in umami, and amniotic fluid contains glutamates.
Umami Relatively new in western thinking, umami is often described as having a meaty, brothy or savoury flavour. Dr. Kikunae Ikeda of Tokyo Imperial University first proposed Umami as a taste in 1908. He discovered that we have a taste receptor for glutamate, a compound found in certain in foods and this is what gives these foods a ‘savoury’ flavour. He coined the term umami from the Japanese words umai ‘delicious’ and mi ‘taste.’ So what is glutamate you ask? Simply put it is a type of amino acid. The umami taste is also given by the nucleotide inosinate (found in meat and fish) and guanylate (found in mushrooms). It is thought that the taste of umami signals the presence of protein, which can help to explain why we crave it. Umami can be found most purely in monosodium glutamate, or MSG. Although many demonize MSG and associate it with a headache and food ‘hangover’ there is no conclusive evidence to prove these ill effects. In fact MSG occurs naturally in many foods, like aged meat, cheese, tomatoes and mushrooms. Although umami is a Japanese word, its impact on our understanding of taste is global. Umami-rich foods can be found in kitchen pantries worldwide. Parmesan cheese contains some of the highest measurements of umami, as do tomatoes, mushrooms, soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce, vegemite and Maggi. Even though we didn’t have a word for it, people around the globe have always had a taste for umami. Oleogustus The most recent addition to the taste family
is ‘oleogustus,’ or more plainly, fat. Research as recent as this year from Purdue University has shown that we are able to identify fatty acids as a distinct taste. What must be noted is that the taste of oleogustus refers to just that, the taste, not the texture or mouth feel which is what most people think of when they think of fat. The basic taste of oleogustus is not a pleasant one. Many refer to it as bitter or rancid. Researchers at Purdue note that oleogustus works in much the same way as bitter, in that it functions as an early warning system to avoid spoiled foods. They also note that like
bitter, small amounts of oleogustus can work to enhance the overall flavours of some foods. Still wondering what this new taste savours like? Think of fresh olive oil (the bitter kind), some vegetable oils and nut oils. Our relationship with food is essential. We like the foods we do because they all carry within them the elements of taste that are vestiges of survival. We needed calories so we like sweet. We can’t store our own sodium, so we seek out salty foods. We need to be
able to identify spoiled or toxic food so we are endowed with the ability to taste fat and bitter. What may have started off as a purely utilitarian relationship with taste and food has developed into a long, beautiful love affair with our sense of taste. With time, geography, experimentation and millennia of practice we have been able to refine our foods from essential and necessary building blocks of our survival, to sensory experiences that we share, love and build lasting memories around.
Why isn’t spicy a taste? Although it seems like the kick of a capsaicin-rich chili pepper would qualify as a taste, it does not. The spice in peppers, ginger, cinnamon or the tingle of carbonation and cooling of menthol are actually stimulants that trigger the trigeminal nerve that carries tactile information to the brain.
48 BCity Fall 2015
Day tripping from
Story and Photos by Laura Conciatori
The jar is always half full at 541 Eatery & Exchange. Literally. Looking on the brighter side of things is how one of Hamilton’s newest restaurants keeps the people in faith. The restaurant benefits the community in a very unique and special way – by turning buttons into real money.
A
short trip from Burlington by car or bus is 541 Eatery & Exchange, a wonderful place to have your cup of coffee and enjoy a nutritious meal, all while giving back to the community. At 541 they collect an assortment of buttons whether it be really big buttons from an old winter coat or super small buttons from a dress shirt collar; each and every button is equal to one dollar. These buttons can be purchased by customers from the cashier where they are than placed into a jar, used by those who are short–changed or cannot afford a nutritious meal or coffee. 541 Eatery & Exchange has
an affordable menu that ranges from $3 to $6 where any customer in need may use up to six buttons to purchase themselves a delicious, healthy breakfast, lunch, dinner or a coffee. With all proceeds from food sales, 541 will be promoting educational workshops within Mohawk College and a youth employment program. Although this restaurant has only been open since June 20, Hamilton has made it a hotspot in the neighborhood. The interior of 541 has church pews and tables that you can share with other customers, creating a cozy atmosphere where no one is judged and everyone is welcome. The free-spirited hub is
Exterior of 541 Barton
A bunch of 541 Barton Buttons located at the corner of Westinghouse Avenue at 541 Barton St. E., which once used to be a Bank of Montreal branch in 1907. Located right off of Burlington Street, 541 is only a fifteen-minute drive from Burlington. The location also benefits from free parking and walking distance to many shops and stores. What 541 Eatery & Exchange has that distinguishes them from other restaurants is a chance to make a difference in the community. Who knew that having a bite and enjoying a fresh cup of coffee could be the best choice you’ve made all day. Visit the website at Fivefortyone.ca
Grilled Vegetarian Burger BCity Fall 2015 49
What’s UP in
What’s New in the B City Restaurant Scene
We love dining out in Burlington, because of the variety, from casual sports bars to fine dining. This fall a few favorite restaurants closed, classic establishments like Jake’s and new upstarts like Barra Fion and Test Kitchen continue to serve up food and drink we love.
Now there are twins! Although not identical. Downtown innovative upstart Test Kitchen has grown uptown with a new location at Appleby and highway 5. For those who love the downtown locations innovative and delicious $10 lunch menu (including a glass of wine or beer) and $20 dinner menu in a elegant atmosphere, the uptown location has the same menu, with the added bonus of free parking and more spacious seating and overall square footage. For now you may not need a reservation at the uptown location, as is recommended always for dining at Test Kitchen downtown. www.testkitchen.ca Joe Dog’s famous downtown patio has closed for the season. The downtown gas bar serves up an enticing entertainment schedule this fall and winter. $5 saturdays “all you can
eat” spaghetti and Meatballs. $0.69 wings after 10pm everyday Jakes Grill & Oyster House Here are some of the highlights: Every meal at Jake’s Grill & Oyster House is a celebration. This year is a big one. Jake’s is celebrating their thirtieth year in B City! Serving up fresh fish, fine shellfish, market fresh oysters and pasta with an extensive wine list since 1985. Go in and share in the celebration because it is all about the loyal following of Jake’s that they continue to thrive in the challenging restaurant market that has seen so many come and go. Jake’s is here to stay. Jakesgrill.ca Barra Fion – Tapas and Barrel The newest hot spot in Burlington this
CHESTCO www.chestco.com
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classy wine, beer and tapas bar serving up some exciting new dishes. This sexy establishment is specializing in small plated dishes, with a robust flavour. Check out there menu at barrafion.ca Pluckers Lovers – Sad to say there will not be an additional location on Brant Street downtown serving up well-seasoned seafood and other delectable dishes and drinks. Stay tuned for news of what will be going in the previous Rude Native location at Brant Street. With the only roof top patio bars in downtown Burlington many are sad to see this building be vacant for so long. Let’s hope by next summer a new hot spot is up and operating in this landmark location. On a recent drive by of the Plucker’s at Upper Middle and Walkers Line seems to have clucked it’s last call.
Eatalia has officially closed as of late September 2015. The old circular bank building located on Brant Street has been home to many fine times. It is rumoured that the first owner of Eatalia sold the restaurant to the current owner for $1.00 (not including the rent for the building.) A real good deal for a restaurant that already had a good reputation, coupled with good classic Mediterranean food. With high quality food and drink at very reasonable prices one could wonder is there just too many restaurants in downtown Burlington and not enough customers? Or does the old bank building have a curse on it? Just kidding on the latter.
Wendel Clarks expands its strong downtown Burlington presence in the historic Landmark Hotel Building with the opening of a new spacious sport bar and dining establishment at a downtown Hamilton location at James Street. Check out the website at wendelclarks.com for more delicious details and sports events this fall including these menu highlights:
Friday: $21.99 house Wine Bottle Saturday: Mixed Drinks $4.50. Sunday: $5.00 Caesars | Vodka or Gin (1 oz) Know what’s up, and have the scoop on the B City Restaurant Scene? Keep me posted with an email at louise@bcitymagazine.com
Monday: Buckets of Sol (4 Bottles for $20) | $5 Mojitos Tuesday: $5 Craft Beer Tuesday (bottle) Wednesday: $3.99 Canadian or Coors Thursdays: Rickard’s Red and White $4.99
Barra Fion
Barra Fion
Now has two locations
DOWNTOWN 455 Brant Street UPTOWN 2000 Appleby Line $10.00 Lunch
7 days a week, From 11:30-4:00 pm
$20.00 Dinner
7 days a week, From 4:00 – 5:30 pm Apply Now
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Dinner menu 4:00-10:00pm All specials include a 4oz glass of wine or bottle of beer, tax included www.testkitchenrestaurants.com BCity Fall 2015 51
In Search of Taste Alex Bielak, Contributing Food and Drink Editor
Sour Salt
Salty butter
Tamarind in HP Sauce
Umami/Oleogustus Cheddar and Brie
Sweet
Tomato Ketchup
Bitter Kale
Photo by Alex Bielak
W
e live in an age where an advertising maxim, “Bet you can’t eat just one,” has become self-fulfilling prophesy. It’s one where some food producers may be capitalizing on the phenomenon of “Hedonic hyperphagia,” or eating for pleasure rather than to satisfy hunger, to flog more chips and other addictive snack foods. So we love the things we love, and, as the trend to obesity in North America demonstrates, that can be a very bad thing for society. But in moderation, can there be anything that pleasures our taste buds more than a 52 BCity Fall 2015
morsel of bitter dark chocolate accompanied by a complementary red wine? Or a small sweet treat that triggers a treasured childhood memory? In her companion piece, “For the Love of Taste,” B City’s Associate Editor, Camille Llosa, talks about the basis for the flavours that dominate our senses: sweet, salty, sour, bitter, earthy umami and recently-posited by researchers at Purdue University sixth taste, oleogustus, aka fat. We asked some individuals with strong food and drink connections to the region what
culinary indulgences tickled their palates, and where they go to get a hit. We then went to the source to share it with readers. The responses take us on an inter-connected journey within, and beyond, Burlington and show that there is no ‘right’ answer. One day we might crave salt, another sweet, or perhaps both at the same time. The beauty of it is, on any given day, the taste of my salty caramel or your plump, briny oyster are perhaps just mirrored reflections of the best of all our worlds.
Since she got us onto this topic, I asked Llosa which of the tastes excited her most. “To me, umami is the master taste. Umami-rich foods, like meat, cheese, fish and vegetables are the ones we as humans crave on a primal level. My favourite umami vehicle is cheese. I haven’t met a cheese I don’t like,” she says. “The classic comfort food of a grilled cheese sandwich with a spot of ketchup is an umami bomb. The high levels of glutamate in both the cheese and the tomato ketchup make this paring a perennial classic.” Llosa likes to use Upper Canada Cheese Company’s, Niagara Gold, mixed with cheddar in her grilled cheese sandwiches. According to the company website, the cheese has a washed rind, is semi-firm with nutty, earthy overtones and mellow, buttery flavours, and is fashioned after recipes developed by the Trappist Monks of the Loire Valley. It can be found at Longo’s and Sobey’s stores: however readers may enjoy the pleasant excursion to the Upper Canada Cheese Co. headquarters in Jordan Station to sample some of their other wonderful offerings. A Burlington-based dentist by day, Dr. Chris von Rosenbach has a particular viewpoint on what goes on in our mouth. Doubly so, as his alter ego is sommelier for a men’s cooking club, for which he writes up witty tasting notes on pairings. He says, “In the old days,” when his classic training dealt with taste buds, neither umami nor oleogustus were part of the curriculum. He shares Llosa’s love of cheese, but for the qualities fat brings to the party. “There’s a definite human tendency to love fat, but too much fat flavour can be a bit cloying,” he notes, alluding perhaps to Llosa’s observations on some of the less appealing aspects of oleogustus. Rosenbach adds he loves cheese any way it comes, but finds, “On a cracker with salty rosemary,” an unbeatable match. We tell him to skip the cracker and just try a Cabra al Romero goat cheese from Spain, available from Mickey McGuire’s in Dundas. It’s covered in rosemary and as it ages, takes on a lovely subtle taste. Early during our interview I sense von Rosenbach wishes spicy was a taste rather than a flavour, musing on the qualities of ginger, chillies and Australian Pepperberry, before waxing eloquent on horseradish to cut the fat when added to a walnut-breadcrumbcilantro crusting for a lovely piece of salmon. He appreciates the extra layer of taste and mouth feel the fat in the walnuts provides, and finds the extra cost of the premium organic Atlantic salmon he gets at Fortino’s (imported fresh from Ireland, Scotland or Norway, and certified organic by EcoCert Canada) well worth it, for its, “Good fat and superior flavour.” Especially when it’s paired with one of his beloved Alsatian or Italian wines. His reverie continues, and his Baltic roots show as he describes another dish he loves: herring with sour cream with an ice cold shot of vodka to cut the fat.
Salted Honey Tarts Photo Courtesy of Springridge Farm According to her email signature, Linda Cvetanovic is Tourism Burlington’s go-to person for “Marketing/Leisure/Media/Events/ EMarketing/Meetings/Culinary”. That’s quite the mouthful, but to us at B City she’s perhaps best-known as the organizer of the highlysuccessful Taste of Burlington promotion showcasing local restaurants. When we asked her to participate, she replied punnily, “Oh that will be a piece of cake,” before reflecting further and plumping for salty as her taste of choice. When she really thought about it, she said she realized her tastes are very mood driven and probably, “Like most, seasonal as well.” When she’s feeling the need to be decadent, or craving something, it is usually salty. She’s not sure if it’s because she tends to avoid highly salted foods in her day-to-day life, or maybe, “It’s the fond memories of all the high school lunches that consisted of a plate of fries doused in salt that make this my go-to taste.”
She admits, “These days, I am partial to pairing salty and sweet, think salted caramel anything! My preferred salty food is still fries, or as many restaurants call them these days – ‘frites’. My personal preference is nice thin or shoestring fries with a generous sprinkling of salt, no other condiments required.” Based in Downtown Burlington, she’s spoiled for choice, but her current favourites for such treats are the offerings at Pepperwood Bistro and Martini House. She adds a sweet and salty coda: “If you are looking for a salty/sweet combination then it’s either a stop at Springridge Farm for their salted honey tart - there are no words to describe its goodness - or Christie’s Gourmet Gifts for their salted caramel chocolates.” After a stint in Ancaster, Chef Michael Stauffer is glad to be back at the helm of popular Italian eatery, Celli’s Osteria. Toward the end of lunch service at this perennial Taste of Burlington participant, he was quick to volunteer to talk about his taste of choice; bitter. BCity Fall 2015 53
“When most of us were children, bitter flavors were always a turn off. I hated coffee unless it was hammered with cream and sugar. Now I drink the darkest roasts I can get from two of Hamilton’s best coffee roasters: Roger at Coffecology, and Jesselyn at Vintage Roasters. I drink it straight, strong and black now, as although there may be some bitter notes to it that my palate has now gotten used to, you can also begin to appreciate the deeper first and second flavour notes, the mild tannins and slight acidity present in expertly roasted, high quality coffee.” Classically trained in French and Italian cooking it’s not surprising Stauffer also loves bitter greens. “Rapini also comes to mind when talking about bitter flavors. I can’t think of eating any sort of big, rich, fatty steak without my side of chili and toasted garlic rapini,” he says, adding that in this, his go-to combo. “The sharp bitterness slices right through the mouth-blanketing fat of a dry aged ribeye. Served alongside a big red wine…my happy place.” While he’ll use what he can find at the supermarket, he underscores the importance of local food. And for him there’s nothing more local than his parents amazingly-productive garden in Greensville, where he helps harvest prodigious quantities of the heritage rapini, and other bitter greens, that his parents grow on their plot.
trained chef, Jesse Lauzon is the Food Manager at Springridge Farm, and former President of the Ontario Farm Fresh Marketing Association. For him knowing that products are made by, “Great people, with great care means a lot.” He told us the salted honey tarts that Cvetanovic favours so much have been a runaway success since they were introduced for the 2015 season. The recipe for this new bakery staple, “Is adapted from the original Salted Honey Pie made famous by the genius folks at The Four and Twenty Blackbirds Bakery in Brooklyn, New York,” he explained. The farm’s version, made daily by the hundreds by their bakers, uses Springridge’s unpasteurized honey and Maldon sea salt – two of Lauzon’s all-time favourite ingredients.
Lauzon’s colleague and Springridge Manager Niki Hilton, chimes into the discussion of sweet treats, recommending, “The gorgeous and delicious,” macarons from Molly Cake in Burlington. She says these “Light, airy, sweet and colourful,” confections, comprised of almond flour, egg whites and sugar, enhanced with buttercream and real fruits and flavours, are very special to her as she is going to be featuring a macaron tree at the dance party during her wedding in August. Her favourite flavours are the raspberry, and the salted caramel. She calls them respectively, “A great taste for summer,” and a, “Very trendy taste right now in sweets. All the different colours of macarons set up on the tree represent good times and fun for me!”
In her capacity as Community Manager for the Ontario Culinary Tourism Alliance (OCTA), as well as Feast ON: A Certified Taste of Ontario, Agatha Podgorski has been a judge at Taste of Burlington on no less than six occasions. When we asked her to participate, she easily gravitated to sour, thinking instantly of sour keys, which she loves above all other sweet treats, so much so, that she receives them in lieu of chocolates come Valentine’s Day. Thinking a bit, she then gushed about Pristine Gourmet, a family farm and artisanal condiment company from Norfolk County. They’re also a Feast ON Preferred Purveyor who are big supporters of what OCTA does, and supply many of the Feast ON Restaurants. “They make the best blueberry and raspberry vinegars with local fruit and Baco noir from Niagara. They’re fruity, tangy and complex. Perfect for salad dressings or making mayonnaise. You can buy them online through FoodiePages, a great little food distribution company focusing on Canadian Artisanal products.” Podgorski has also mixed the vinegars with spirits and soda to make shrubs in the summer. She explains that she’s not talking about small woody plants: “A shrub is also called a ‘drinking vinegar.’ It’s an old world term, but with the revival of classic cocktails they’ve really come back. It’s a way of preserving fruit for the long haul. You mix them with spirits and soda to make refreshing, tart drinks - kind of like lemonade, but no lemons.” Finally, what’s not to love about sweet, the taste rounding out all the best parties? A 54 BCity Fall 2015
Fruit Vinegars Photo Courtesy of Pristine Gourmet
Check out the websites of the various groups mentioned in the article: Celli’s Osteria www.cellisosteria.com Christie’s Gourmet Gifts, Burlington www.christysgourmetgifts.com (Also featured in the Gift Giving Edition of BCity, December 2014) Coffeecology, Hamilton www.coffeecology.com Foodie Pages www.foodiepages.ca Fortino’s www.fortinos.com Longo’s www.longos.com and Sobey’s www.sobeys.com (Various locations) Mickey McGuire’s Cheese, Dundas www.mickeymcguirescheese.ca Molly Cake www.mollycakeonline.com OCTA and Feast ON www.ontarioculinary.com Pepperwood Bistro, Burlington www.pepperwood.on.ca Pristine Gourmet Waterford www.pristinegourmet.com Springridge Farm, Milton www.springridgefarm.com Taste of Burlington www.tasteofburlington.ca The Martini House, Burlington www.martinihouse.ca The Ontario Culinary Tourism Alliance www.ontarioculinary.com Upper Canada Cheese Company, Jordan Station http://www.uppercanadacheese.com/our-cheeses Vintage Coffee Roasters, Hamilton www.vintagecoffeeroasters.ca Read more about the Purdue University Study on Oleogustus: www.purdue.edu/newsroom/releases/2015/Q3/research-confirms-fat-issixth-taste-names-it-oleogustus.html
Alex Bielak is Contributing Food and Drink Editor to B City Magazine. A passionate cook, epicure and storyteller, his engaging writing and photos have appeared in various Canadian and international media, including a regular online column in The Hamiltonian. Follow him on Twitter: @AlexBielak
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The last word
Katherine Barrell
When Katherine Barrell was little, dreams for her future were split between being a star basketball player in the WNBA and being, “The voice of the Disney characters.” After a terrible bout of heat stroke while at sports training camp she decided on the latter. Barrell grew up in Burlington and is an actor, director and producer. She has appeared in numerous television shows, most notably Murdoch Mysteries (CBC), Saving Hope (CTV) and Reign (CW). Barrel’s newest love is directing, finding it the perfect marriage between her acting roots and business brain. She directed her first short film, Cannonball, at the beginning of 2015 and in is preproduction for her next project, Gerald and Susan Drink Tea, which films in August 2015.She has produced six short films and has two feature films in development, one of which she aims to shoot in Burlington in 2017. Being in Burlington growing up how did your relationship with acting begin? I was able to act in plays all throughout elementary school and high school. In Grade 11 and 12 I was given the opportunity to put on a play, which I wrote and directed, Everybody’s Foreign, and the following year I directed my school’s production of The Wizard of Oz, both at Assumption High School. I was also a member of Burlington Student Theatre for two years, which really solidified my decision to pursue a career in the arts professionally. Did you have a relationship with a mentor that encouraged and inspired you? My Aunt Martina has been my mentor for years. She runs her own company and sits on the Alumni board at York University’s School of Business. She always sneaks me into York’s business seminars and gives me advice on how to run my production company (Kit Media). For years we’ve been having hourlong chats as we drive home to Toronto from visiting family in Niagara. How important do you think it is to have encouraging relationships to help you succeed in achieving your goals as an actor and director? It is everything. My business is all about whom you know and convincing people to give you a shot – whether it’s funding your first film or agreeing to distribute your work. I am now at a place where I am starting to get hired a second and third time by the same producer or director – that’s a huge compliment!
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Photo by: Michael Helmer In the film My Ex-Ex you have very close relationships with your girlfriends who have an influence on your choices. Do you have a group of friends in your real life that are close and influential? I actually don’t have a group of close friends like Mary does in the movie, ones who she sees several times a week and they are always hanging out together. My friends come from so many different backgrounds so I only get to see them every few months depending on which country and city I am in, but that’s what I love about my friendships – because of what we do we spend lots of time apart but always pick up where we left off. I still get together with my Burlington El-
ementary school friends every six months – we’ve known each other since kindergarten. The character, Mary you play in My Ex-Ex, unlike her two girlfriends is focused on getting married.As a young professional woman focused on achieving your goals what are your views on love and marriage? It is not necessary to be married to live your life with your partner – but to me, marriage symbolizes the creation of a new family, not only for the couple but their extended family as well. Most Importantly, if a marriage or relationship in general deters your from focusing on your goals in any way its not the right one.
It is said truth is stranger than fiction. The actor that plays your stereotypical narcissistic ex in the film who you decided not to marry, is not your ex, or narcissistic in real life. My boyfriend Ray and I met on the set of My Ex-Ex when we played an engaged couple that didn’t get along at all! In real life Ray is my biggest supporter and wonderful partner – whenever we go to an industry party he is always plugging my work and telling people “She’s going to be an amazing director. She shines in My Ex-Ex”. He is always going to bat for me when I’d be too shy to talk about myself. Every time I’m having a frustrating day, when I get a project rejected from a festival or funder or don’t book a part, Ray points in the direction of the jammed highway and says “Katherine you can either get on that highway and drive to the same office everyday and do some mind-numbing job you hate, or you can do this – which would you rather?” It puts things into perspective pretty quickly! Where can people see My ExEx? You can rent or buy My Ex-Ex starting September 22 on the following platforms: iTunes, Rogers on Demand, Google Play, Sony and Xbox. Are there perhaps real wedding plans in the future with you two? We shall see! We are living between the US and Canada and I am hoping to do a director’s residency program next spring/summer, so there’s a lot going on! I want us to be in a place where we’d be able to enjoy it, not just squeeze it in.
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Behind every changed life is someone who made it happen Together, we are possibility. Please give generously. #WeArePossibility