Chatelaine - May/June 2022

I wrote an addiction memoir.

THEN I RELAPSED P 58

What the heck to

WEAR THIS SPRING P 26

Mmm, muffins!

6 DELISH NEW RECIPES P 82

Peach Perfect A Mother’s Day brunch that’s a breeze to make P 74

make life beautiful

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FAST DRYING, FAMILY SIZE

Contents Take a hike!

(Found: five perfect trails.)

P 10 chatelaine.com

May/June Home 30 Notes We put five countertop composters to the test.

Volume 95, Issue #03

These eye-catching earrings are made from recycled resin. P 26

31 On the road Three women on the ups and downs of living the #vanlife.

Health

72 Our food is bookworthy When I couldn’t find a Sri Lankan cookbook published in Canada, I wrote one myself.

42 Notes How to breathe better.

74 Brunch club

44 A world of hurt

Homemade bagels for Mom? Couldn’t be easier.

My introduction to the world of chronic pain.

82 Muffins are everything Six new recipes prove it.

49 Fair care Midwives can do more.

Why won’t we let them?

Life

88 Spring stems Rainbow chard puts colour and crunch on your plate.

94 Dinner plan

94 Notebook 9 Agenda Books, TV, movies and more to enjoy this month.

Every one of our recipes is tested multiple times to make sure it’s delicious and foolproof.

Style 16 Notes

CHECK THIS OUT We’ve added icons to indicate products from brands that are Canadian and/or owned by Black people, Indigenous people or people of colour (BIPOC).

CANADIAN

BIPOC-OWNED

Slip into a pair of clogs, figure out what to wear to work right now and more.

52 Incest survivors need their #MeToo moment A lot has changed in the way we talk about sexual assault, with one big exception.

In every issue 6 Editor’s letter

58 I wrote an addiction memoir, and then I relapsed

8 You tell us

Living up to the hype of the book was almost as harmful as the addiction itself.

98 Humour A year in recipe review(s).

62 Michelle Rempel Garner doesn’t care if you like her The Calgary MP is willing to make herself an outsider for the kind of conservatism she believes Canada needs.

18 I would have done anything to get my hair back

Food

What I learned from my experience with alopecia areata.

68 Notes DIY plant-based milks.

26 Colour code 25 feel-good pieces, all by Canadian brands.

Five easy weeknight meals.

70 Let’s have a drink A tangy riff on the highball.

ON THE COVER Photography by Christie Vuong; creative direction by Sun Ngo; food styling by Eshun Mott; prop styling by Christine Hanlon.

MAY/JUNE 2022 • CHATELAINE

3

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MAUREEN HALUSHAK EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

SUN NGO CREATIVE DIRECTOR

Deputy Editor, Digital GILLIAN GRACE Deputy Editor, Features ERICA LENTI Senior Editor CHANTAL BRAGANZA Senior Editor, Style and Beauty ANDRÉANNE DION Associate Editor RADIYAH CHOWDHURY CHATELAINE KITCHEN Food Content Director IRENE NGO ART Art Director STEPHANIE HAN KIM Deputy Art Director AIMEE NISHITOBA PRODUCTION In-House Photographers ERIK PUTZ, CHRISTIE VUONG Digital Colour Specialist NICOLE DUPLANTIS Production Manager JOYCELYN TRAN CONTRIBUTORS ALLISON + CAM, RYAN BARCLAY, NICOLE BILLARK, DONNA BOROOAH, JOWITA BYDLOWSKA, CARMEN CHEUNG, LEEANDRA CIANCI, CARLA CICCONE, JEN CUTTS, EMILY ELISE DAKIN, SAGE DAKOTA, FLANNERY DEAN, JESSICA DEEKS, ROSE DERAMO, GABRIELLE DROLET, RIA ELCIARIO, CHLOË ELLINGSON, REBECCA GAO, ZEKE GOODWIN, CHRISTINE HANLON, MONICA HEISEY, MADELEINE JOHARI, PATRICIA KAROUNOS, BRONWYN KELLY, EMMA KNIGHT, STACY LEE KONG, JULIE S. LALONDE, DÉJÀ LEONARD, CRYSTAL LUXMORE, KATE TAYLOR MARTIN, NATALIE MICHIE, TINA ANSON MINE, VICKY MOCHAMA, ESHUN MOTT, MORGAN MULLIN, DEVON MURPHY, ALETHEA NG, CAROL EUGENE PARK, ZEAHAA REHMAN, RUWANMALI SAMARAKOON-AMUNUGAMA, MARYAM SIDDIQI, CHRISTINE SISMONDO, HOLLY STAPLETON, SÉBASTIEN THIBAULT, CESSI TREÑAS, ROBERT WEIR, ASHLEY WITTIG, VIDAL WU

ST. JOSEPH COMMUNICATIONS INC. Chairman & CEO TONY GAGLIANO Vice-Chairman JOHN GAGLIANO President & Publisher KEN HUNT Senior Vice-President, Content & Creative MARYAM SANATI Managing Director, Consumer Revenue ALLAN YUE Managing Director, Research & Consumer Insights CLARENCE POIRIER Director, Customer Success TERRY SMITH Director, Production MARIA MENDES Vice-President of Marketing and Branded Content SASHA EMMONS Vice-President of Digital Solutions and Business Development JASON MAGHANOY Director, Marketing Sponsorships JESSIKA FINK SUBSCRIBER SERVICES Website chatelaine.com/service Email service@chatelaine.com Mail Chatelaine Subscriber Services, Box 460, Station Main, Alliston, Ontario L9R 1V7

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MAY/JUNE 2022 • CHATELAINE

5

letter from the editor

Also in this issue

Highs and lows Take a deep breath We’re not saying you’re doing it wrong, but you just might benefit from breathing . . . better. Here’s how (page 42).

“It’s a personal cost” Conservative MP Michelle Rempel Garner on going her own way—and what she’s learned from her mistakes (page 62).

Dopamine dressing Brighten your outlook with one of these colourful picks, all from Canadian brands (page 26).

Maureen Halushak @maureenhalushak letters@chatelaine.com

Falling out Chatelaine editor Andréanne Dion on the mental health toll of hair loss (page 18).

6

CHATELAINE • MAY/JUNE 2022

HALUSHAK PHOTO, CHRISTIE VUONG. MAKEUP & HAIR, ROBERT WEIR FOR P1M.CA.

I DON’T KNOW ABOUT YOU, but I feel like we’re living through a very bizarre time right now. In March, here in Ontario at least, life seemed to be getting back to normal—and I have to say, I was ready for it. Dining indoors at restaurants? You had me at indoors. Inviting people over? Yes, please. It felt novel to return to the office for a few meetings, and fantastic to see many members of Team Chats for the first time in 2022. Even riding the subway again was exciting.

Of course, while all of this was happening, Ontario’s COVID numbers started skyrocketing. As I’m writing this, I’m just getting over a COVID infection. If I had known at this time last year that I’d get sick despite being fully vaxxed and boosted, I would have laugh-cried for a week straight. But here we are! I know my three shots are the reason my symptoms are incredibly mild and, more importantly, that they’ve helped keep other people safe. That said, I’m honestly glad that I had no idea just how long this pandemic was going to last.

In spite of these ups and downs, it does seem like we’re inching toward some sort of normal—and the arrival of spring definitely helps. In this issue, we’re welcoming the season with a fresh batch of recipes for rainbow chard (p. 88), the most delicious muffins (p. 82), and a Mother’s Day bagel spread that’s a breeze to pull together. (I especially love our brunch shoot, on page 74, because it features our senior editor, Chantal Braganza, and her adorable son.)

We also have a thought-provoking slate of features, including an essay by Jowita Bydlowska. You might remember Jowita as the author of the bestselling memoir Drunk Mom, in which she shared her secret battle with addiction as a young mother, as well as how she eventually got sober. As is the case for most of us, Jowita’s story isn’t a straight line. A few years after her memoir was published, as she writes on page 58, she started drinking again. I really admire Jowita’s candour, and I think her essay is a perfect example of the stories we want to tell in Chatelaine: honest examinations of what it’s like to be a woman in the world. I hope you enjoy it, too.

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you tell us

LETTERS

in plastic! Chatelaine is one of the last print subscriptions that I savour. With a climate crisis in progress, this practice is [out of touch].

—Dawn Kiddell, Lancaster, Ont.

Thank you for raising your concerns about polybagging.

Please know that I share them. I’ve asked our sales department to explore alternatives.

—Maureen Halushak, editor-in-chief On a high note On Twitter, readers also enjoyed their trip through Amanda Scriver’s feature on psychedelics and mental health.

Truth to power Our March/April 2022 issue featured Amber Bracken’s essay (“There’s no reconciliation without truth”) on covering stories of Indigenous resistance from the front lines. Readers lauded Bracken’s work.

Thanks for sharing Amber Bracken’s story. It was very powerful and made me furious. As many of us “settlers” become aware and are outraged by the stories of how our ancestors treated Indigenous peoples, we are ignorant of what is continuing to happen in the present.

Our leaders claim to embrace reconciliation with Indigenous peoples and are happy to pose for photo ops whenever they can. They loudly condemn the atrocities that Putin’s regime is committing in Ukraine, which

they should. Yet they are eerily silent when Indigenous people are arrested and treated despicably by RCMP forces for trying to defend their land. So thank you for sharing this truth.

—Marian Booy, Toronto Bravo to Amber Bracken for refusing to be silenced and for highlighting the gross injustices that continue to be perpetrated against Indigenous Nations and journalists in Canada. I am immensely grateful for your sacrifices and am in support of your calls for transformative governance.

—Anna Maria Husband, Tlell, Haida Gwaii, B.C.

Going green As some subscribers pointed out, our Green Issue arrived in mailboxes packaged in a plastic polybag.

As a subscriber for several years, I usually enjoy the content diversity that Chatelaine offers every month. This month, though, I’m struggling to be engaged.

I just received the latest issue and I am truly appalled—it is packaged in plastic!

I feel that this is greenwashing at its finest. You have articles on minimally packaged skincare, sustainable beef and even a zero-waste cocktail—the irony!

How many subscriptions do you have? Where do you think every single piece of this plastic will go? Chatelaine, you need to look in the mirror and do better.

—Kari Renaud, Tecumseh, Ont. It is ironic that the Green Issue came wrapped in plastic. Please, please, do not bundle the magazine’s third-party advertising

It’s not something I’m personally ready to partake in, but I find it fascinating and I think it’s important for us to be openminded. I’m so glad you got a chance to write about it. @theonlykendra I love @Chatelaine and to see an article on psychedelics in the magazine makes me love it even more. Excellent work. @SabrinaRamkell

We need to clarify a few things from our last issue . . .

Our interview about Sarah Polley’s new book, Run Towards the Danger, contained an error.

To confirm, Polley had a violent sexual encounter with Jian Ghomeshi when she was 16.

We also forgot to credit illustrator Rhea Leibel with the whimsical leaf illustrations on our cover.

Chatelaine sincerely apologizes for these errors.

We love hearing your feedback on the magazine—please keep it coming.

Send your thoughts to letters@chatelaine.com.

8

CHATELAINE • MAY/JUNE 2022

8 THINGS TO DO RIGHT NOW

ALEGRÍA PHOTO, COURTESY OF CIRQUE DU SOLEIL. PERFORMER, OYUN-ERDENE SENGE; HAND BALANCING & CONTORTION. PHOTO, MATT BEARD. COSTUME, DOMINIQUE LEMIEUX.

1 [ O N TO U R ]

Return to the circus

Mongolian contortionist Oyun-Erdene “Oyuna” Senge performs her act on top of four hand balancing canes in Alegría.

After a two-year hiatus, Cirque du Soleil has finally come back to Canada with three exquisite shows that feature complex and dynamic characters. Toronto’s Kurios follows an ambitious inventor who defies the laws of time, space and dimension in order to redefine everything around him using imagination. Montreal’s Kooza combines acrobatic performance and the art of clowning while examining themes of fear, identity, recognition and power. If you’re on the West Coast, catch Alegría in Vancouver. The show is an all-time Cirque du Soleil classic—a story of a kingdom in decay and the ensuing power struggle between old and new— reimagined for a new generation.

Kurios runs April 14 to July 17, Kooza from May 12 to August 14 and Alegría from March 25 to June 5. — Déjà Leonard

MAY/JUNE 2022 • CHATELAINE

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agenda 2 [ S TAY T U N E D ]

Celebrate Asian Heritage Month Ms. Marvel Intended to be part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, this new six-episode series follows Kamala Khan, a 16-year-old Pakistani-American Avengers superfan who struggles to fit in with her peers—that is, until she gains superhero status. While Khan grapples with her new identity at home and at school, she realizes life isn’t necessarily better with superpowers.

Premieres June 8 on Disney+.

Abroad It’s not easy settling in a foreign country with brutally cold winters.

Abroad, a new sketch-comedy series in English and Tagalog by queer Filipina comedian Isabel Kanaan, is a 12-part show based on Kanaan’s experience immigrating to Canada from the Philippines.

With her patented comedic flair, the sketches show the realities of being an immigrant—like culture shock and language barriers—while challenging misconceptions.

Coming soon on Omni TV.

Run the Burbs This CBC sitcom comes from Andrew Phung, who played Kimchee on Kim’s Convenience, and filmmaker Scott Townend. It’s not a sequel to Kim’s, but the show follows a similar theme, exploring what happens when children of immigrants start families of their own. The Phams are a mixed-culture family—with a stay-at-home Vietnamese-Canadian dad (played by Phung), a South Asian entrepreneur mom and two kids—that challenges contemporary family values and suburban living. With Season 2 coming out in late 2022, it’s worth a watch.

Season 1 streaming on CBC Gem now.

We Are Lady Parts What could possibly happen when an all-woman, Muslim punk band recruits a microbiology PhD student to be their lead guitarist? A dramatic and comical friendship, that’s what. Created

by British writer and director Nida Manzoor, this highly praised sitcom has been renewed for a second season and explores the peaks and valleys of the punk-music scene, female camaraderie and romantic relationships. It also challenges stereotypes about South Asian, Black and Arab Muslim women.

Available on StackTV and Global.

3 [ S T E P BY S T E P ]

Take a hike Found: five perfect trails to explore this spring

Written by REBECCA GAO Illustrations by BRONWYN KELLY

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CHATELAINE • MAY/JUNE 2022

Western Canada

Central Canada

Troll Falls, Alberta

Millennium Trail, Manitoba

Degree of difficulty: Easy What it’s like: This short, familyfriendly trail has two end points: one leading to the bottom of Troll Falls and the other to a creek above the falls.

Degree of difficulty: Easy What it’s like: Millennium Trail takes hikers all the way around Thompson, Man. It winds through the boreal forest and down city sidewalks for a unique adventure.

MS. MARVEL PHOTO, COURTESY OF DISNEY CANADA. RUN THE BURBS PHOTO, COURTESY OF CBC. WE ARE LADY PARTS PHOTO, COURTESY OF PEACOCK. ABROAD PHOTO COURTESY OF OMNI TV.

Asian creators have contributed so much to arts and culture. Here are just four shows that exemplify their excellence Written by CAROL EUGENE PARK

agenda 4 Poly Styrene was

women from Tina Turner to Debbie Harry to Courtney Love were expanding and innopunk musician vating sub-genres across rock’s spectrum. who introduced The contributions of women in rock muthe world to a new sic, as in most media, have been long oversound of rebellion. looked. A trio of recent releases, however, is helping to change that.

This Woman’s Work: Essays on Music was edited by Kim Gordon, bassist of the seminal Gen X band Sonic Youth, and music journalist Sinéad Gleeson. Out May 3, the collection sees 16 lauded writers discuss the female artists across genres that matter most to them—while also reliving their own music memories.

Punks everywhere ought to know the name Poly Styrene, front person of the band X-Ray Spex and godmother to the Afropunk and riot grrrl movements. With the musician’s 1970s discography mostly missing from stream[ H A L L O F FA M E ] ing platforms, her significance might have gone unnoticed, but the documentary Poly Styrene: I Am a Cliché dropped in February.

Women have always been at the forefront of rock music, Available to rent on all platforms, the flick— filled with unseen archival footage and rare and these books and films set the record straight diary entries, and narrated by Oscar nominee Ruth Negga—traces Styrene’s legacy.

WITHOUT WOMEN, rock music would’ve never got rolling. The Music journalist, critic and former Pitchfork editor Jessica genre’s earliest seedlings—and the foundations of its guitar style— Hopper’s 2021 updated re-release of her instant-classic book The aren’t thanks to Buddy Holly or Elvis. Rather, it was two women, First Collection of Criticism by a Living Female Rock Critic sees Sister Rosetta Tharpe and Memphis Minnie, who set the stage. (The one of the best music writers of all time poking at the antiwoman latter has been covered by Led Zeppelin, while the former is credvein in emo music and delivering the oral history of bands like ited with the first rock recording.) Genre giants the Rolling Stones Hole and Sleater-Kinney. It’s a 400-page nightstand mainstay make no secret of having taken inspiration from the Motown girl for anyone who listens to rock music or wants to understand its groups who were their 1960s chart rivals. By the 1970s and ’80s, value. — Morgan Mullin an English-Somali

POLY STYRENE: I AM A CLICHÉ PHOTO, KINO_LIBRARY.

Rock ’n’ roll with these legends

Eastern Canada

Territories

Atlantic Canada

Bruce Trail, Ontario

Ovayok Trail, Nunavut

Franey Mountain Trail, Nova Scotia

Degree of difficulty: Varies What it’s like: Spanning 900 kilometres from Queenston to Tobermory, Ont., the Bruce Trail is one of Canada’s oldest and longest marked footpaths.

Degree of difficulty: Moderate What it’s like: This five-and-a-halfkilometre stretch of back trail near Cambridge Bay, Nunavut, offers a unique chance to see wildlife in the Canadian North.

Degree of difficulty: Hard What it’s like: A steep incline leads to a summit 430 metres above sea level in this two-and-a-half-hour hike. Your reward? A sweeping panoramic view of the Atlantic coastline.

MAY/JUNE 2022 • CHATELAINE

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agenda 6 5 [ SHORT AND SWEET ]

Rediscover an icon CALLING ALL FANS of Anne with an E and beyond: A new posthumous collection of rare short stories from Lucy Maud Montgomery will soon be available. The book will feature 17 pieces from the famed P.E.I. author’s archives that were published between 1895 and 1935.

Around the Hearth: Tales of Home and Family, May 30. — Morgan Mullin

[ WATC H A N D L E A R N ]

YOU BE THE JUDGE Is the book really better than its onscreen adaptation? Decide for yourself this spring with five riveting new shows based on these popular novels Written by PATRICIA KAROUNOS

Pachinko (out now, Apple TV+) Bestselling author Min Jin Lee’s historical epic follows four generations of a Korean family and the triumphs and challenges they face upon immigrating to Japan amid political and cultural turmoil. The TV version, which is just as moving and stunning as the book, stars newcomers Yu-na Jeon, Minha Kim and Oscar winner Youn Yuh-jung as fierce heroine Sunja at different ages.

Anatomy of a Scandal (out now, Netflix)

[ W O R D P L AY ]

Heal through verse One a.m.

I am a red ember my rage glowing in the dark long after everyone has turned off lamps The world tossing turning me sun-deprived skin slick with mad sweat body simmering in forty-odd years of bullshit.

Novelist and psychotherapist Farzana Doctor compiled her debut poetry collection in her 40s, a time of breakups and learning, to better understand old trauma and loss—all while going through perimenopause. Her poems are intimate and vivid, using wit and humour to delve deep into the unexpected turns of healing.

You Still Look the Same, May 1.

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CHATELAINE • MAY/JUNE 2022

Roar (out now, Apple TV+) Irish novelist Cecelia Ahern is perhaps best known for making readers cry with her women-centric stories, like PS, I Love You. The adaptation of her 2018 collection of short stories, Roar, brings together A-listers like Nicole Kidman, Issa Rae and Cynthia Erivo.

Each episode focuses on a different woman, blending magical realism with dark comedy.

The Time Traveler’s Wife (May, Crave) This is the second screen adaptation of Audrey Niffenegger’s award-winning sci-fi romance novel from 2003. Lovers Henry and Clare must navigate the complexities that arise due to a condition that causes Henry to randomly time travel. The HBO series affords more space to let the chemistry between stars Theo James and Rose Leslie simmer.

Conversations with Friends (May 15, Amazon Prime) It was only a matter of time before Sally Rooney’s debut book, Conversations with Friends, made its way to our screens. Luckily, much of the same creative team from Normal People is back for the highly anticipated series, which follows two college-aged friends whose lives become entangled with a married couple’s, disrupting their profound bond.

PACHINKO AND ROAR PHOTOS, COURTESY OF APPLE CANADA. ANATOMY OF A SCANDAL PHOTO, COURTESY OF NETFLIX CANADA. THE TIME TRAVELER’S WIFE PHOTO, COURTESY OF BELL MEDIA. CONVERSATIONS WITH FRIENDS PHOTO, COURTESY OF HULU.

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Adapted from Sarah Vaughan’s novel of the same name, this show tells the story of Sophie (Sienna Miller), whose life is upended when her politician husband (Rupert Friend) confesses to having an affair and is then accused of much worse. Add in a lawyer (Michelle Dockery) determined to get justice and you have perfect Friday-night plans.

agenda EXTRACT OF THE VIRTUAL EXPOSITION. DETAILS OF THE OFFERINGS, 2017, FROM KARA BLAKE. DONNING A BLACK HAT & MASK, GENEROUSLY SUPPORTED BY THE SUSAN JOAN GREENBERG FUND / REPRODUCED BY PERMISSION OF THE ARTIST. PHOTO © ROYAL ONTARIO MUSEUM. TURBAN AND TRIPLE SNAP MASK ENSEMBLE, © ROYAL ONTARIO MUSEUM. ART GALLERY OF NOVA SCOTIA PHOTO, RAW PHOTOGRAPHY. ADRIANA KUIPER AND RYAN SUTER, COVER (2018), IMAGE COURTESY OF THE ARTISTS AND CONTEMPORARY CALGARY.

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Head to the museum Celebrating International Museum Day—which happens May 18—but don’t know where to start? We’ve got you covered Written by ZEAHAA REHMAN

I’D PREFER TO WATCH A VIRTUAL EXHIBIT.

Try the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal’s “A Crack in Everything,” which examines contemporary art through themes present in the work of Canadian singer-writer Leonard Cohen.

Interested in natural history?

Bring on the fossils and skeletons.

Halifax

START HERE

I LIVE NEAR...

Vancouver

Calgary

Sure?

“Unmasking the Pandemic” is on at the Royal Ontario Museum until September 5.

“The Very Mention of Home”— featuring 22 vibrant and colourful hooked rugs that depict Maritime geography and architecture from celebrated rug hooker Deanne Fitzpatrick—is on at the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia.

How about a pandemicrelated exhibit?

I’ve had enough pandemic to last a lifetime.

Yes.

Want to learn the history of Vancouver through neon signs?

They hurt my eyes. Maybe something else?

I’m more of a textile person.

Nova Scotia’s Museum of Natural History is open for visits.

Catch the “Neon Vancouver Ugly Vancouver” exhibit at the Museum of Vancouver before it leaves in July.

Want to check out a former planetarium and explore some modern art?

Yes!

See “Xicanx,” an exhibit by Mexican-American dreamers and change makers, at UBC’s Museum of Anthropology.

Toronto Anything else?

Curious about Ukrainian heritage in Canada?

The Ontario branch of the Ukrainian Museum of Canada is open for visits.

Contemporary Calgary is a visual arts destination for local, national and international contemporary and modern art.

Check out the Calgary Chinese Cultural Centre Museum’s permanent exhibit, “Our Chosen Land,” which showcases 100-plus years of development in the Chinese community in Canada.

MAY/JUNE 2022 • CHATELAINE

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CREATED FOR LANCÔME

How a New Triple Action Anti-Aging Serum Improved My Skin After vowing to take better care of her health and skin, lifestyle influencer Amal Amamou tests Lancôme’s new Rénergie Triple Serum to help fight wrinkles, loss of firmness and dark spots.

Amal Amamou I always thought: You're still young; you don't have to worry about your skin. It wasn't ŀČĻóą¯C¯ijĻ°įĻÓϯČēĻóÉóČé¯Ţ̄ČÓ¯ąóČÓij¯°ČϯϰįĂ¯ijĬēĻij¯ēČ¯ċŗ¯è°ÉÓ¯Ļï°Ļ¯C¯ŔēŕÓϯĻē¯Ļ°ĂÓ¯ÈÓĻĻÓį¯ É°įÓ¯ēè¯ċŗ¯ijĂóČ¯°ČϯïÓ°ąĻïʘ¯C¯ïóįÓϯ°¯ĬÓįijēČ°ą¯Ļį°óČÓį ¯įÓÏŀÉÓϯijŀé°į¯èįēċ¯ċŗ¯ÏóÓĻ ¯ŀĬĬÓϯ ċŗ¯ŕ°ĻÓį¯óČĻ°ĂÓ¯°ČϯijĻ°įĻÓϯŀijóČé¯ĻïÓ¯ČÓŕ¯T°ČÉĖċÓ¯}ÔČÓįéóÓ¯ įóĬąÓ¯ Óįŀċʘ¯C¯ĻŗĬóÉ°ąąŗ¯ ĬįÓèÓį¯°ąąʵóČʵēČÓ¯ĬįēÏŀÉĻij ¯°ČϯĻïóij¯ijÓįŀċ¯óij¯ČēĻ¯ēČąŗ¯ÓèŢ̄ÉóÓČĻ¯ÈŀĻ¯°ąijē¯ÓèèÓÉĻóŔÓʸóĻ¯óij¯ŀąĻį°ʵ ïŗÏį°ĻóČé ¯Ļ°įéÓĻij¯°¯ŕóÏÓ¯į°ČéÓ¯ēè¯ijĂóČ¯°éóČé¯ÉēČÉÓįČij¯°ČÏ¯É°Č¯ÈÓ¯ŀijÓϯϰŗ¯°ČϯČóéïĻʘ zÓįijēČ°ąąŗ ¯C¯ąēŔÓ¯Ļïóij¯ijÓįŀċʘ¯8įēċ¯ĻïÓ¯ŔÓįŗ¯Ţ̄įijĻ¯°ĬĬąóÉ°ĻóēČ ¯C¯ČēĻóÉÓϯċŗ¯ijĂóČ¯ŕ°ij¯ĬąŀċĬÓϯ °ČϯÏÓÓĬąŗ¯ïŗÏį°ĻÓÏʘ¯C¯ÏóÏČˀĻ¯ÓŔÓČ¯ČÓÓϯĻē¯°ĬĬąŗ¯ċŗ¯įÓéŀą°į¯ċēóijĻŀįóŞÓįʘ¯ ïÓ¯èēąąēŕóČé¯ŕÓÓĂ ¯ Ļē¯ċŗ¯éįÓ°Ļ¯ijŀįĬįóijÓ ¯ĻïÓ¯ąóČÓij¯ēČ¯ċŗ¯èēįÓïӰϯŕÓįÓ¯ċóČóċóŞÓÏʘ¯Cˀąą¯ÉēČĻóČŀÓ¯Ļē¯ŀijÓ¯Ļïóij¯ ijÓįŀċ¯ÈÓÉ°ŀijÓ¯óĻ¯óij¯ÉąóČóÉ°ąąŗ¯ĬįēŔÓČ¯Ļē¯ijóéČóŢ̄É°ČĻąŗ¯įÓÏŀÉÓ¯ŕįóČĂąÓij¯°ČϯóċĬįēŔÓ¯ŀČÓŔÓČ¯ ijĂóČ¯ĻēČÓ¯°ČϯĻēČóÉóĻŗ¯ŕóĻïóČ¯ÓóéïĻ¯ŕÓÓĂijʘ¯Cè¯ŗēŀ¯°įÓ¯ijÓÓóČé¯ąēijij¯ēè¯Ţ̄įċČÓijij ¯ÈįēŕČ¯ijĬēĻij¯ °ČϯŕįóČĂąÓij¯óČ¯ŗēŀį¯ijĂóČ ¯C¯ïóéïąŗ¯įÓÉēċċÓČϯĻįŗóČé¯Ļïóij¯ijÓįŀċʘ

Fake the laminated look with a clear brow gel.

Benefit Cosmetics brow setter, $32, sephora.com.

THREE MORE WAYS TO MAKE BROWS LOOK THICKER

TEXT, ANDRÉANNE DION. PHOTO, CHRISTIE VUONG. MAKEUP & HAIR, ROBERT WEIR FOR P1M.CA. MODEL, SAMANTHA JANE @ INSTAGRAM.COM/SAMANTHAJANEYT.

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[ EYEBROW R AISING ]

A perm for your brows Perfect for unruly, sparse and overplucked arches, eyebrow lamination is a 40-minute process, during which a technician applies a gentle, permlike solution to brows, and then sets individual hairs in the desired direction (typically upward) to make them appear lifted, fuller and thicker for six to eight weeks. From there, they can be tinted, plucked and waxed for a more defined shape. The treatment is quickly going mainstream: Benefit Cosmetics is offering lamination in its Sephora brow bars nationwide starting in June. “Anyone with brow hairs can do this,” says Breigh Bellavance, the brand’s national brow artist. “It provides instant gratification.” From $100, including brow shaping, sephora.benefitbrowbars.com.

MAY/JUNE 2022 • CHATELAINE

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NOTES

High contrast Kick up your style with an eye-catching sole in a vibrant, summer-ready hue. Platform heeled clogs, $178, lintervalle shoes.com.

Storm trooper This waterproof clog comes in several fun colours and features a removable, sweat-wicking sock.

Waterproof clogs, $100, ugg.com.

Checkered wooden clogs, $322, charlotte-stone.com.

Crocs rock Beloved for their cushy support, the brand’s foam clogs are now available in a platform style. Classic platform clogs, $65, crocs.ca.

Sole cycle Hear that? It’s the clickety-clack of clogs making their way to the top of your spring footwear wish list. Spurred on by casual pandemic dressing, the divisive style has been experiencing a renaissance of late.

(Crocs reportedly clocked record sales in 2021.) A modern take on the wooden klompen Dutch farmers wore in the 13th century, this season’s chunky slip-ons come in a variety of vibrant hues, with soles made from wood, cork, rubber and foam.

15 min before sun exposure.

Source: Health Canada

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CHATELAINE • MAY/JUNE 2022

You can’t go wrong with this classic pairing of leather and wood, embellished with silver studs. Studded leather clogs, $179, zara.com.

Burning issue With sunnier days just around the corner, it’s time for our seasonal PSA: Daily sunscreen is non-negotiable and should be reapplied every two hours. SpotMyUV’s detection stickers make it easy to remember when it’s time for an SPF re-up.

The small, water-resistant purple dots—which were developed by three University of Waterloo alums—turn clear when in contact with enough sunscreen to protect against harmful UV rays, and purple again to let you know when it’s time for more. $18 for 20 stickers, spotmyuv.ca.

TEXT, ANDRÉANNE DION.

A friendly reminder: Sunscreen should be applied at least

Metal works

style frome pag 15

Brow wow Longing for bolder arches?

Eyebrow expert Veronica Tran of Toronto’s Pretty in the City has three suggestions for you

EYEBROW TINT Brows are defined using a semi-permanent dye. “They appear fuller when lighter hairs are darker and more visible,” explains Tran.

Results last up to six weeks, though the dye fades in around two weeks on white hairs.

The treatment is quick, painless and affordable, ringing in at around $20.

MICROBLADING Hairlike strokes are manually etched into the skin with semi-permanent pigment to fill out sparse brows. Expect to pay around $600, plus the cost of touch-ups every one to three years. (Microblading is not ideal for those with oily or thin skin, as the ink can fade more quickly or blur, says Tran. It can also be painful.)

POWDER BROWS Tiny dots of pigment are deposited into the skin via a single-needle tattoo machine for a soft, powderlike effect. “It gives a natural, gradient look,” notes Tran.

It’s suitable for most people. The cost is about the same as microblading, but results last longer, requiring touch-ups every 18 months to four years.

Shorts story Many of us are heading back to the office this summer— but what the heck do we wear now? Enter the Bermuda shorts and blazer combo. With just the right amount of tailoring to be dressed up or down, this fresh take on the power suit can be paired with a graphic tee and loafers, or a breezy linen blouse and heels.

NOTES

Beauty talk READERS SHARE THEIR FEEDBACK ON OUR FAVOURITE NEW(-ISH) PRODUCTS

Chanel N°1 De Chanel Revitalizing Cream, $136, chanel.com.

“I use this supremely luxurious cream morning and night. It feels a little sticky upon application, but it absorbs quickly without causing irritation to my sensitive skin—it leaves it softer and plumper than it has felt in a long time. I’ve even received compliments on how great my complexion looks!”

— Richelle, 58, Kelowna, B.C.

Wool blazer, $299, wool Bermuda shorts, $120, bananarepublic.ca.

Burt’s Bees Gloss & Glow Glossy Balm, $11, shoppersdrugmart.ca.

“The barely-there feel of this glossy lip balm makes it a comfortable pick for everyday wear, but it packs an impressive amount of pigmentation. It’s also surprisingly nourishing on my lips.”

— Simone, 41, White Rock, B.C.

JVN Complete Instant Recovery Serum, $36, sephora.com.

“This leave-in treatment has quickly become a staple in my haircare routine. The lightweight texture makes it easy to apply on both wet and dry hair and produces immediate results. My hair feels softer and healthier after each use.” — Erin, 38, Toronto

Want to join our roster of beauty testers? Email us at style@chatelaine.com.

More than 85 percent of women will experience some form of hair loss in their lifetime—and the mental health fallout that comes with it. Here’s what I learned from my own struggle with alopecia areata, and the treatments and support systems that are bringing new hope to people living with hair loss Written by ANDRÉANNE DION

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style This is me in 2021, four years after I experienced significant hair loss and was diagnosed with alopecia areata.

W PHOTO, ROSE DERAMO. HAIRSTYLING, MORGAN TULLY AT THIC STUDIO. MAKEUP STYLING, KRISTIN INNOCENT FOR HBFACE.

HEN MY HAIR started falling out in fistfuls and clogging up the shower drain, I barely noticed. I was 29 and halfway through a doctorate degree, juggling a demanding teaching schedule, part-time jobs and a lengthy research-based dissertation. More than anything, I was busy performing the mental gymnastics required to ignore the growing certainty that the life I had worked toward for seven years left me unfulfilled and unhappy. I’d been pushing through blindly because I couldn’t bear to face the truth: I didn’t feel passionate enough about my PhD to see it through. At the same time, I couldn’t imagine a life outside of academia, and giving up on the only career path I’d ever known without a plan seemed reckless. Though every rational fibre of my being knew those thoughts were ridiculous, I worried that my parents—who had worked hard so that I could be the first in my family to go to university—would be disappointed, that my partner would be ashamed of me and that I would resent my university friends for finishing something that I could not. The relentless pressure, guilt and anxiety of wanting to give it all up threatened to swallow me whole.

HAIR LOSS

Only when my fingers skimmed a strangely smooth, palm-sized patch of bare skin at the nape of my neck did I realize what was happening: I was going bald.

As an anxious person, I’d always had a long list of unlikely events I worried about, but losing my thick brown hair had never been one of them. Hair loss didn’t run in my family, and I had no idea that otherwise healthy women could experience thinning, let alone complete baldness.

As it turns out, female hair loss is shockingly common—more than 85 percent of women will experience some form of it.

Shedding 50 to 100 strands a day is considered normal, but people experiencing hair loss may notice a higher volume of strands coming out in the shower and on their brush or pillowcase.

There are approximately 100 types of hair loss, though only about 20 are routinely seen by doctors. They can be triggered by a whole slew of genetic, hormonal, autoimmune and psychological factors, as well as hairstyling practices and repeated friction from head coverings, such as hijabs. The most common are telogen effluvium, which typically occurs in the months following acute emotional or physical trauma (such as childbirth, divorce, grief, job loss, certain nutritional deficiencies, thyroid problems or, say, a neverending global pandemic), and androgenetic alopecia, which is also called pattern baldness. The latter is a condition believed to have genetic and hormonal causes; it’s perhaps most commonly known to affect men as they age, though more than 40 percent of women will develop it, often after menopause.

A few weeks after I found that patch— along with several smaller ones—my doctor confirmed what I already knew from desperate Google searches: I had alopecia areata, an autoimmune condition that affects about two percent of the population.

It happens when the body fails to recognize the follicles’ immune privilege (which allows hair to grow without being seen as a threat) and attacks them, leading strands to rapidly fall out in round patches and inflammation to set in, thus preventing new growth. Most people diagnosed with alopecia areata develop just a few spots, but 15 percent go on to develop alopecia totalis (complete loss of hair on the scalp) or alopecia universalis (complete

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HAIR LOSS

Two of the hundreds of photos I took in 2017 to document the spread of my bald patches. As my hair loss accelerated, my life came to a complete halt. I stopped going out and seeing friends; instead, I hid in my room. Eventually, a friend marched me down to our university’s mental health services office for an emergency session with a therapist.

loss of hair on the scalp and body). The condition is unpredictable, and while 90 percent of people eventually see regrowth, hair loss often recurs.

“Individuals with alopecia areata are born with genes that can cause it, but that doesn’t mean that they’re going to develop it,” explains Dr. Jeff Donovan, a boardcertified dermatologist, hair-loss specialist and president of the Whistler, B.C.–based Canadian Hair Loss Foundation. “There has to be some other trigger or environmental factor that happens later in life.”

(In my case, it was extreme distress over my life choices.)

While trauma—physical and emotional— and acute stress have been proven to be common triggers for certain types of hair loss, hair loss itself can have severe consequences on mental health and emotional well-being. “Studies have shown that people going through hair loss, and women specifically, may be at higher risk for developing major depressive disorders, anxiety disorders and social phobias,” says Negar Amirfarhad, a registered psychotherapist who routinely works with alopecia and cancer patients at Women’s College Hospital in Toronto. She notes that while it’s easy to discount the loss as being “just hair,” anyone who has gone through it—or even just a particularly disastrous haircut—knows it’s so much more than that.

Watching your hair go down the drain is life altering and lonely. “Hair loss might be of little consequence to others, but to the person who is going through it, it can be extremely traumatic,” adds Amirfarhad.

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She notes that it can trigger a grief response, which, by nature, is isolating: “Only the person experiencing it can know the magnitude of the impact.”

At age 33, three months after having her first child, Shikha Kasal’s luscious pregnancy hair started shedding. This is a normal process: Elevated estrogen and progesterone levels during pregnancy keep the hair in a prolonged growth cycle, which leads to a thicker mane. When hormone levels drop after birth, the cycle enters a resting phase and hair starts falling out.

The growth cycle then levels out about six months to a year postpartum. However, the fact that pregnancy hair loss is common doesn’t minimize the distress it causes.

Kasal—who is based in Toronto and is the co-founder of Havah, a hair oil brand that is rooted in Ayurvedic tradition— thought she might be spared severe shedding due to her stellar haircare routine.

In reality, her hair thinned out so much that her scalp was visible when she wore a ponytail. “Being a first-time mom was already a stressful experience. Aside from the emotional and mental trauma that comes with it, your body is changing, too,” she says. “It was disheartening to lose my hair, because I was grappling with so many physical changes.”

On the advice of a friend, she cut her hair short, hoping to hide the extent of the shedding. Eventually, she just let it run its course, as postpartum hair loss usually resolves itself. In Kasal’s case, it lasted for about a month. (If excessive shedding doesn’t cease after a year postpartum, see

your doctor—this could indicate a thyroid issue or nutritional deficiency.)

For Black women, whose hair is constantly scrutinized, hair loss can be particularly devastating. Christal Malcolm, a 43-year-old administrative assistant and alopecia advocate from Scarborough, Ont., has been living with central centrifugal cicatricial alopecia (CCCA), a rare form of the autoimmune disease that may lead to permanent hair loss, for more than 20 years.

Her condition left her feeling isolated and unable to participate in the weekly haircare routine that she had enjoyed from a young age. “Growing up, Sunday was wash day. My mom would put oils in my hair and braid it. It was a loving process and it became a ritual at home, and later at salons,” she recalls. “When I started losing my hair, that sense of excitement, happiness and fun was no more. The ritual became filled with anxiety.” Malcolm’s sense of belonging to her community was shaken. “I was angry because, as a Black woman, my hair is my

90% OF PEOPLE WHO EXPERIENCE A LO P E C I A A R E ATA W I L L E V E N T U A L LY SEE REGROW TH— B U T H A I R LO S S OFTEN RECURS D O W N T H E R OA D .

crowning glory and a way to express my creativity,” she says. “I felt like I was losing that and I had no control over it.”

ITH SO MANY potential triggers and overlapping factors at play, identifying the root cause of excessive shedding is the first step in devising a treatment plan.

Your doctor can rule out any health-related triggers through blood work. From there, a dermatologist referral is usually advised, and that may take as long as a year,

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TELOGEN EFFLUVIUM

ANDROGENETIC ALOPECIA

ALOPECIA AREATA

TRACTION ALOPECIA

ANAGEN EFFLUVIUM

What it is

What it is

What it is

What it is

What it is

A form of hair loss that happens when strands transition from their resting phase to their shedding phase prematurely. Hair looks thinner all over, though there are generally no bare patches.

Common causes include acute stress or trauma, thyroid issues and low iron levels, as well as the fluctuating hormone levels that occur postpartum.

Also called pattern hair loss, androgenetic alopecia is believed to have both genetic and hormonal causes. It leads to decreased volume, with women noticing a wider part and a more visible scalp, rather than the M-shaped receding hairline usually observed in men.

Alopecia areata is an autoimmune disease in which the body attacks hair follicles, causing the hair to fall out in round patches and inflammation to set in. It affects about two percent of the population and can progress to alopecia totalis (complete loss of hair on the scalp) or alopecia universalis (complete loss of hair on the scalp and body, including lashes and eyebrows).

This type of hair thinning—caused by repeated pulling on the root—is most often associated with hair styling practices, such as tight ponytails, braids and buns, or the friction caused by weaves, wigs or head coverings, like hijabs.

Cancer treatments, such as chemotherapy, radiation therapy, hormonal therapy or targeted therapy, cause this type of hair loss.

It affects the entire body but especially the scalp. Hair may progressively thin out or fall out in clumps.

How it’s treated

How it’s treated

Prevention is key.

Minoxidil can help hair grow back, but changing your styling routine is the first step. Silk caps worn under head coverings can also help decrease the friction that causes hair to fall out.

There’s currently no treatment proven to prevent or stop it. Cooling caps—which, as the name implies, cool the scalp— can help decrease blood flow so follicles are less likely to be damaged by chemotherapy, but they can’t completely halt hair loss. Hair typically starts growing back two to six months after the end of treatments, and it may temporarily grow in a different colour or texture. Permanent hair loss can occur, but is relatively rare.

How it’s treated Blood work is required to rule out or address chronic conditions, such as thyroid issues and nutritional deficiencies. Treatment options are based on the root cause and can include lifestyle changes; supplements (under the guidance of a medical professional); and treatments containing minoxidil (such as Rogaine), many of which are available without a prescription.

How it’s treated There is no way to fully reverse pattern hair loss.

However, it can be stabilized— and even partially improved, in some cases—with a variety of treatments, including minoxidil and anti-androgen tablets that regulate the hormones that may be accelerating hair loss. Low-level laser therapy can stimulate circulation and promote hair growth, while injections of platelet-rich plasma can promote cell growth and regeneration.

Undergoing a hair transplant is another option.

How it’s treated Steroids, either topical or injected under the scalp, are highly effective for those experiencing milder forms, but in more advanced cases immunosuppressants are typically recommended to stop the immune system from attacking hair follicles. Clinical trials have shown promising results for a sophisticated new kind of immunosuppressant called JAK inhibitors, which target specific pathways in the immune system.

HAIR LOSS

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HAIR LOSS

depending on where you live. These long wait times can exacerbate the physical and emotional toll of hair loss—as can dismissiveness from medical professionals.

Though she started losing her hair in her late teens, Malcolm was in her 30s when a scalp biopsy revealed she had CCCA. The first dermatologist she saw in her early 20s simply referred to her condition as “alopecia,” which, when used alone (not in conjunction with, say, “areata” or “totalis”), is a general term that simply means “hair loss.” From the start, the relationship was strained. “The first thing they said when they saw me was, ‘You’re the fifth patient I’ve seen today with [hair loss],’ ” she recalls. “They just looked at my scalp and wrote a prescription for a shampoo and a medicated serum.”

CCCA is a scarring form of hair loss, in which the follicles are destroyed and replaced with scar tissue. It’s associated with a host of symptoms, including itching, burning, redness, scalp inflammation and painful pimples, all of which Malcolm displayed at the time she saw her first dermatologist. According to Donovan, these kinds of symptoms have to be addressed promptly, otherwise the damage can spread and become permanent.

“It was such a terrible experience, so I tried to navigate my hair loss on my own,” says Malcolm. It took her 10 years to find

a doctor she trusted, who was able to get the painful symptoms under control and give her the answers she needed to start healing, both physically and emotionally.

Her experience with CCCA led Malcolm to seek help for her mental health—not just for hair loss but also for other things that were going on in her life. Untangling her sense of worth from external relationships was crucial to her journey. “Losing my hair was the last thing in a long list of events that stripped me of who I thought I was,” she says. “Once I sorted out those other feelings, I was able to relearn how to love myself as a whole, and it made the process of losing my hair permanently a little easier to bear.”

Brianne Cail, a 30-year-old social media manager, wasn’t worried when she found a nickel-sized patch of scalp at the top of her head in the fall of 2020, when she was living in Midland, Ont. She’d gone through stress-related hair loss in college, and her hair had eventually come back as thick as before. When the spot grew to the size of a toonie, her doctor suggested waiting to see how it developed—due to the pandemic, in-person appointments were impossible and Cail wasn’t offered a virtual option. Three months later, she was finally referred to a dermatologist (without ever being able to see her doctor for blood work); by then, the original patch had grown to

Brianne Cail shaved her head in June 2021 to regain a sense of control after her hair started falling out due to alopecia areata.

the size of a softball and more had developed. When a cancellation allowed her to meet with the dermatologist three months ahead of schedule, her alopecia areata was too advanced for topical treatments or steroid injections under the scalp, which suppress the immune response. “For patients with two or three patches of hair loss, steroid shots regrow hair in about 90 percent of people,” says Donovan. The key is to catch the problem early, as this treatment doesn’t work as well on extensive hair loss and not at all in patients with alopecia universalis and totalis.

Instead, Cail’s hair loss progressed, marbling her scalp and making it increasingly difficult to hide or style. She ended up shaving her head to regain a sense of control, and eventually went back on the antidepressant she had previously stopped, which helped her manage the stress and anxiety caused by hair loss, among other triggers.

“I still feel bitter,” she says. “I can’t help but wonder: If I had been taken seriously from the start, would I have lost nearly all my hair?”

IKE MANY OF the women I spoke to for this piece, I felt like I had brought my hair loss on myself; if I had just been able to get my stress under control, it might not have happened. My bald patches were easy

L It took 10 years for Christal Malcolm to get a proper diagnosis for her hair loss, which was caused by a rare condition called central centrifugal cicatricial alopecia.

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to conceal, so no one knew what I was going through except for my doctors and my closest friends—who all told me that my anxiety about my hair loss would exacerbate it.

That well-intentioned advice only made me feel worse. I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t sleep.

I couldn’t think of anything else. On the rare occasion when the panic receded, it just made space for all-consuming guilt.

Physically, I was perfectly healthy. It felt vain to get so worked up over a few thousand strands of hair.

As my hair loss accelerated, my life came to a complete halt; I stopped going out and seeing friends. Instead, I hid in my room, but I couldn’t focus long enough to make progress on my PhD work. Finally, a friend marched me into our university’s mental health services office for an emergency session with a therapist. I dutifully started going to weekly appointments and doing my therapy homework, quickly realizing that I was prone to catastrophizing. Soon, the semester came to an end and so did my time in therapy. Though it helped me confront the fact that I was unhappy in my career path, when it came to my hair loss, I felt my therapist didn’t grasp the urgency of my feelings. (I also couldn’t help but feel bitter about her long, glossy locks.) I would have suffered any amount of pain and spent all the money I had to get my hair back.

This specific type of desperation is ripe for exploitation. Hair-loss treatments and wellness supplements are lucrative categories of the beauty industry. The former is forecasted to be worth $4 billion by 2025, while the latter generated $57.28 billion in 2020. But there’s no quick fix. Some products—scrubs, volumizing treatments and other styling formulas—may temporarily give the illusion of thicker or denser strands. Others, like minoxidil, also sold under the name Rogaine, have been proven to work well for certain forms of hair loss like telogen effluvium and androgenetic alopecia. (Minoxidil helps keep hair in its growth phase longer, though progress is lost once treatment is stopped.)

Supplements—such as the gummy vitamins celebrities are paid to promote on social media—are nearly always useless.

“If you are experiencing hair loss due to a thyroid or autoimmune condition, a hair supplement is not going to help,” notes Donovan. Dr. Renée Beach, a dermatologist and the head of the hair-loss clinic at Women’s College Hospital in Toronto, cautions against trying supplements without

Hair loss myths, busted 1 Shaving your head will stimulate hair growth The hair that we can see and touch on our scalp is dead, so cutting or shaving it won’t affect how quickly it grows. “The root determines the growth rate and schedule, and shaving doesn’t affect the hair root,” says Dr. Renée Beach, a dermatologist and director of the hairloss clinic at Women’s College Hospital in Toronto.

2 You should avoid washing and styling your hair A common reaction to excessive shedding is to stop touching your hair as much as possible. But the truth is that keeping up with your routine isn’t going to accelerate hair loss. “The hair that wants to fall out will find a way and a

time to fall out,” says Beach. Shampooing your hair a few times a week may also be less traumatic than a weekly wash. “You’ll see less shedding each time than if you wash your hair once a week, at which point you might see 500 hairs come out, which is terrifying,” says Dr. Jeff Donovan, a board-certified dermatologist and hair-loss specialist.

Another consideration: The more often you wash your hair, the less likely you are to develop seborrheic dermatitis, a condition caused by increased sebum production that inflames the scalp. As a result, it can become itchy, and scratching can damage the hair shaft and cause more hair loss.

3 You got it from your dad Androgenetic alopecia, which has a known genetic component, is not easy to predict. “Patients often focus a lot on what their dad’s hair

the guidance of a medical professional. She warns that high doses of biotin, which is often touted as a miracle hair-growth booster, can cause acne and distort some medical tests.

That said, there are some promising new developments. According to Donovan, there are more than 40 drugs currently in clinical trials for various forms of hair loss.

Anne-Lise Nadeau, a 42-year-old singer and actor from Saint-Damase, Que., has lived with alopecia areata since she was five; two instances were so severe that she ended up shaving her head. In August 2021, after spending 10 months in a clinical trial for a new generation of immunosuppressant medication called JAK inhibitors, her

HAIR LOSS

looks like, but you really need to see the family tree two generations back at advanced ages to have a really good understanding of hair-loss patterns, and most people don’t have that luxury,” explains Donovan. “Genetic hair loss comes from both sides of the family,” he says, and there are also other factors at play, such as hormones.

4 Biotin supplements help with hair loss Beach cautions against biotin, also known as vitamin B7, as it has not been proven to promote hair growth and can actually be dangerous.

“We only need about 130 micrograms of biotin a day, which we get through our diets.

The 5,000 micrograms we often see in supplements can instead lead to acne, distorted thyroidtest results and even mask troponin, a protein used to detect heart attacks.”

hair started growing back. “There are still thin spots at the back, but I can feel hair there when I run my hand through it,” she marvels. Cail has also been on JAK inhibitors for more than nine months; it took just a month for her to notice peach fuzz growing in. While alopecia areata has been treated with potent immunosuppressants in the past, they came with a bunch of undesirable side effects, such as nausea, liver irritation and the reduction of red cells, white cells and platelet levels in the blood.

“JAK inhibitors are much more specific, targeting one pathway in the cell rather than a multitude of pathways, leading to fewer side effects,” explains Donovan, noting that there are also other drugs in the

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pipeline for alopecia areata, though JAK inhibitors have been a focus of late.

My own hair grew back, too, thanks to monthly steroid injections and a major lifestyle change. (I took a one-year medical leave from my PhD and then decided to quit. The relief was immediate.) At first, my regrowth was thin, wispy and white, but it eventually turned brown, and the palmsized spot filled out with enough hair to be mistaken for a grown-out undercut.

When I started opening up about my hair loss with my wider circle, I was shocked to find out that many people I knew had also experienced it—and that we’d all gone through it in silence.

As recently as five years ago (when I was desperate for guidance myself), online searches for women experiencing hair loss pulled nothing but pleas for help and bleak stories shared on discussion boards. Now, a growing online community is helping to shed the stigma. American model Christie Valdiserri—who famously took off her wig while walking a Sports Illustrated runway show in 2019—created the Baldtourage, a group where women who experience hair loss can share their stories and find support. “The connections I’ve made there changed my life,” says Malcolm.

“I CAN USE THOSE 20 YEARS OF GRIEF AND H E A R TAC H E TO B E A B E AC O N O F L I G H T TO OT H E R P E O P L E .”

After living with her pain in silence for 20 years, Malcolm is now making up for lost time. She’s an active member of several alopecia communities, she runs a blog and YouTube channel called the Peckish Palate, where she shares her experience with hair loss, and she mentors and advocates for people with alopecia through the Baldtourage and the Canadian Alopecia

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After this photo was taken, Anne-Lise Nadeau’s hair started growing back thanks to a promising alopecia areata drug that’s currently in clinical trials.

Areata Foundation, for which she also serves as a board member.

“I still have my highs and lows; some days I just wish I had hair on my head,” she says. “But I can use those 20 years of grief and heartache to be a beacon of light to other people.”

Nadeau, who shares the realities of life with alopecia areata on her blog, Tête Libre, hopes to normalize hair loss through her online presence, her acting work and, eventually, a documentary. Shaving her head helped her take control and accept her condition, as did opening up about her journey online.

Kasal also notes the importance of speaking out, saying she found solace in talking about her experience with others who had experienced postpartum hair loss. “Hair is a big part of our culture,” she says. “South Asian women are known for having this long, thick black hair. So when you’re going through [hair loss], you feel like it’s only impacting you.”

The pain and trauma of the year I spent wondering if I would lose all my hair stays with me. I still mindlessly run my fingers over the formerly bald areas several times a day, to check that my hair is still there.

I’ve also developed an elaborate monitoring routine. Each day, I try to ballpark how many strands I lose in my brush and in the shower. Every night, I inspect my hairline

and my part. I even devised a mirror system to check the back of my head for bald spots. My partner has reluctantly gotten used to checking my scalp a few times a week as well. We’ve gotten into more arguments than I can count over whether he’s lying to me about the thickness of my hair (the jury is still out).

When I started reporting and writing this feature, my hair-loss nightmares— which I experienced frequently five years ago, when my hair first started falling out—came back with a vengeance. Looking at photos of my bald spots resurfaced all the fears I thought I had left behind when my hair grew back. I was surprised by the intensity of those feelings, but Amirfarhad notes the underlying shame, vigilance and anxiety that comes with hair loss can often stay with us even after regrowth. Instead of a complete recovery, she says, it’s about learning to live with the fear that hair loss could happen again.

I still wrestle with the fact that I can’t control what’s going to happen to my hair— and with the knowledge that my alopecia areata will likely recur. But connecting with women who have gone through similar experiences was healing in a way I didn’t expect or think I needed at this point in my journey. I may not be able to avoid losing my hair again, but now I know I’m not alone.

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SHOP CANADA

Cotton top, $148, wide-leg cotton pants, $175, ogeajibe.com.

Colour code Take a walk on the bright side with mood-boosting hues, feel-good prints and easy-breezy silhouettes that steal the show

All aflutter

Rosy outlook

Flutter-sleeve blouse, $80, ca.frankandoak.com.

Oversized sunglasses, $84, marsquest.com.

In the pink

Flower suit

Take a bow

Wilfred chiffon blouse, $98, aritzia.com.

Tie one-piece swimsuit, $280, bethrichards.ca.

Long-sleeved romper, $138, thisisstudio.ca.

Gingham style

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Square deal

T-shirt dress, $149, marigoldmtl.com.

Quilted bag, $69, simons.ca.

This bucket hat comes with adjustable ties

Reversible dress, $195, daggandstacey.com.

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Nana the Brand bucket hat, $28, simons.ca.

PRODUCED BY ANDRÉANNE DION.

for windy days.

style Party lines

Garden variety

Collar coordinated

SHOP CANADA

Lime twist The insoles of these kicks are made, in part, from recycled mattresses!

Confetti sweatshirt, $165, okayok.ca.

Cutout swimsuit, $95, noize.com.

Silk shirt, $275, silklaundry.ca.

Sneakers, $50, callitspring.com.

Grape crush

Blush it up

Rain on

What a pair

Silk-blend sleep set, $175, wearnumi.com.

Vegan leather 3-in-1 bag, $140, designlambert.com.

Raincoat, $69, joefresh.com.

Tie-dyed socks, $23, elliemaestudios.com.

Bloom service

Make a splash

Hand-dyed rayon pants, $268, oseiduro.com.

Bikini top, $34, bottoms, $28, ca.oakandfort.com.

Head over heels

Checks, please

Kitten-heel sandals, $90, aldoshoes.com.

Recycled resin earrings, $70, dconstruct.ca.

Cotton maxi dress, $215, batikboutik.com.

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Try a low maintenance dried flower arrangement. $52 for three, etsy.com/ shop/IslandFlowerGirlPEI. THREE WOMEN ON THE JOYS OF #VANLIFE

TEXT, MAUREEN HALUSHAK. PHOTO, ERIK PUTZ. PROP STYLING, MADELEINE JOHARI. PRODUCED BY STEPHANIE HAN KIM.

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[ BRIGHT IDEA ]

A new trick for old vases April showers bring May flowers, but if you’re running out of receptacles for your blooms, here’s a pretty hack for the glass vases that abound at thrift stores. Pour some matte latex paint into a bowl and stir in a spoonful of baking soda.

Keep stirring in more spoonfuls until you like the texture of the paint. Apply a coat to the outside and inside the neck of your vase. (Brush it on in different patterns for an organic look.) Let it dry and apply another coat, if desired.

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NOTES

BREAKING IT DOWN If you don’t have a curbside green bin program, a countertop composter could be just the ticket. We test drove five models; here’s how they stacked up EVERY YEAR, Canadians throw away nearly 2.2 million tonnes of food. Not only is this incredibly wasteful, but it’s also awful for the environment. When buried in a landfill, food waste generates methane, a potent greenhouse gas.

In fact, landfills are responsible for nearly one-quarter of Canada’s methane emissions.

“Methane contributes to global warming, and its concentration is increasing in the atmosphere,” explains Mario Tenuta, a professor of applied soil ecology at the University of Manitoba. “One of the ways to decrease the environmental impact of landfills is to divert materials

from going to them. That’s where composting comes in.”

When composted, food breaks down to produce nutrients, such as nitrogen and phosphorus, and returns carbon to the soil instead of releasing it into the atmosphere. Many Canadian cities operate a green bin program for food waste, but if yours doesn’t have one, consider the countertop composter. There are a variety of models on the market; most yield either true compost, or a dehydrated byproduct that can be used as fertilizer. Chatelaine staffers put five options to the test in our kitchens. — Natalie Michie

WE TRIED IT: COUNTERTOP COMPOSTER EDITION

REENCLE, $873, reencleus.com

LOMI, $624, pela.earth/lomi

After being primed by a four-week carb and protein diet, Reencle’s patented microbes break down select types of food waste into compost in three to five hours.

Pros Odourless; quiet motor; processes food quickly; no need to replace microbes if instructions are followed well; creates actual compost as opposed to dehydrated food waste Cons Very expensive; bulky; can’t process many common waste types (such as eggshells, onion skins and root vegetables)

Lomi grinds and dehydrates many types of food waste—as well as yard waste, compostable paper and Lomi-approved bioplastics—into compost that can be used indoors or out. A cycle can take from three to 20 hours (the latter results in mature compost); a LomiPod tablet, which contains microbes, is recommended for most cycles to facilitate decomposition.

Pros Sleek design; odourless; accepts a wide variety of waste; creates actual compost Cons Expensive; need to repurchase LomiPods and replace activated charcoal at regular intervals; our tester found the motor somewhat loud

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VITAMIX FOODCYCLER, $500, vitamix.com This “food recycler” grinds and dehydrates many types of food waste—including dairy and small bones—within eight hours. The end product can be used as a plant fertilizer indoors or out (though the brand doesn’t recommend it if you’re processing meat waste).

Pros Odourless; quiet motor; processes food quickly; no additives required to process waste Cons Expensive; bulky; need to replace activated charcoal in filter at regular intervals

TERO, $595, teroinnovation.ca The brainchild of two Laval University students turned entrepreneurs, Tero grinds and dehydrates many types of food waste into fertilizer that can be used indoors or out. A cycle takes from four to eight hours.

Pros Sleek design; odourless; very easy to operate; no additives required to process waste; Canadian; female-founded Cons Expensive; need to replace activated charcoal in filter at regular intervals; doesn’t accept paper products

URBALIVE BOKASHI KITCHEN COMPOSTER, $150, wormbox.ca Bokashi is a Japanese method of fermenting food waste with layers of microbe-laden bran. After three weeks, it yields a “pre-compost” that can be buried or added to an outdoor composter, as well as a liquid that can be used as fertilizer.

Pros Less expensive; odourless; no electricity required; accepts a wide variety of food waste; made from recycled plastic; Canadian Cons Cannot be opened during fermentation process; waste needs to be chopped well; need to repurchase bran and paper filters at regular intervals; the pre-compost can’t be used directly on plants

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VAN LIFE

PHOTO, COURTESY OF EMILY SOON, INSTAGRAM.COM/EMSVANLIFE.

On the road Three Canadian women on the ups—and downs—of living the #vanlife

Written by STACY LEE KONG

You’ve probably seen the pictures pop up on your Instagram feed: a gorgeous slice of landscape framed by the open back doors of a camper van. Beautifully designed, minimalist interiors complete with chic bedding, hardwood floors and a shocking amount of hidden storage. And, of course, perfectly composed shots of the people who live (and travel, and often work) in them.

There’s no data on exactly how many Canadians have ditched their mortgages or rent in favour of living out of a van, but news coverage suggests the number of people embracing a nomadic lifestyle spiked during the pandemic—whether due to remote work opportunities, soaring home prices, the itch to travel, joblessness or all of the above. Meet three women who downsized their lives and hit the road.

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Emily Soon, Sunshine Coast, B.C. @EMSVANLIFE 1. While she’s staying put for now, Soon uses her van for day trips and to get around on evenings and weekends. “After work, I can drive to the beach and enjoy dinner with a view, or sit on the roof and have a glass of wine at sunset.” 2. “Cooking is not an important part of my life, so I wanted my kitchen to be functional but not the star of the show,” says Soon of her pintsized space. 3. The bench hides a composting toilet. 4. Closet space was non-negotiable: “I wanted to have dresses that weren’t rolled up in packing cubes and blouses that didn’t need to be constantly ironed.”

5. The dining table seats two people and can be folded down into a bench. 6. “I love the freedom the van brings. And it’s nice to always have your bathroom and snacks with you wherever you go,” says Soon.

EMILY SOON LAUGHS about it now, but she didn’t realize people actually lived in camper vans at first. She had rented them for vacations before; she just never thought it was possible to make a van a home. But after the pandemic forced her to move back home to Canada from Australia, where she had lived for close to eight years, she felt ready for a new adventure. “I wanted to travel and didn’t want to have to rely on booking a place to stay in each location, so the thought of having my own vehicle and built-in accommodations was exactly the flexibility I was looking for,” she says.

Soon ended up buying a 2014 Ram ProMaster van in May 2020 and hired an Alberta company to outfit it for her. She picked it up that October and moved in by November—but still hasn’t really travelled anywhere, except for the odd day trip.

“I just live in my van year-round,” she says. “When I realized

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that I couldn’t travel across Canada [because of COVID-19 restrictions], I was knee-deep in renovating it. I thought, ‘I have it, so I might as well live in it while I figure out what I want to do.’ ” Her plan was to stay put for a few months, and then go on an extended trip. In the meantime, she would be able to spend time with family and friends, whom she hadn’t seen often while living abroad.

A year later, Soon has a full-time job on B.C.’s Sunshine Coast, where she works in the tourism industry. She has set up her van on the same property as her company’s headquarters; in addition to having a very short commute, she uses the on-site shower and washing machine, and she doesn’t have to worry about running afoul of city bylaws. (Even before the pandemic started, cities across Canada and the U.S. began enforcing existing laws that

ALL PHOTOS, COURTESY OF EMILY SOON, INSTAGRAM.COM/EMSVANLIFE.

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“It’s a lot more space than I need.”

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VAN LIFE

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prohibit vehicle camping, or even passing new ones in a bid to deter overcrowding.)

And she loves small-space living. “For the last dozen years, I’ve lived in very small apartments or I’ve rented a room, so I’ve always lived minimally,” she explains. “It’s actually a lot more space than I need. I’ve got so much storage!”

In fact, her cubby holes, hidden drawers and other clever design decisions—not to mention her real-talk videos on what #vanlife is like—have gained her more than 29,000 followers on Instagram.

Recent posts have covered less-than-glamorous (but very necessary) behind-the-scenes tasks, including winterizing the van’s pipes and cleaning her composting toilet. She also shares the safety features that give her peace of mind as a woman living alone: a heavy-duty car alarm, a satellite phone in case she finds herself

without cell reception, and carbon monoxide and smoke detectors.

If there’s a challenge to living this lifestyle, it’s prioritizing what’s important to you over what’s commonly done. Soon made design decisions rarely seen in other vans: Her bed is permanent instead of convertible, and she incorporated a full-length closet so she can hang her clothes. She also sacrificed some precious under-bed storage because she wanted to be able to sit up with a high bun on her head. (She measured!) Minimalist she might be, but to make it work, she has a storage locker where she stashes her off-season clothes and other bulky items.

“The lifestyle is so glamorized on social media, but everyone’s version of van life is different—mine doesn’t involve travelling,” she says. “My biggest tip is: Don’t try to do someone else’s version just because that’s what you think it should be.”

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VAN LIFE

Emily Inson, London, Ont. @THEALMOSTVANLIFE

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“I stopped telling myself I couldn’t do things because I was a single woman.”

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IN APRIL 2021, not long after Emily Inson packed up her life in London, Ont., and headed out on a cross-Canada trip with her miniature dachshund, Marty, something went wrong with her 1977 Ford Econoline. First, the van wouldn’t start. Then, gas began pouring from the engine. Worse, she was in rural Quebec and whatever French she’d learned in school had long deserted her.

“This was during the pandemic and, unfortunately, the people around me wouldn’t help,” she says now. “I also had a language barrier working against me. I shared the whole experience with my Instagram followers and soon I had thousands of people giving me suggestions. It was incredible!”

One follower’s advice stopped the gas from flowing, and Inson soon found a local who could give Marty and her a ride to a hotel.

The next morning, her van was towed to a mechanic, who was able to fix it. She was on the road again quickly, hooked on the sense of community she found online.

For Inson, a freelance social media manager and consultant who bought her fully converted van in January 2021, the connections she’s made by sharing her experiences with her social

PHOTOS, COURTESY OF CASS SARAZIN, INSTAGRAM.COM/CSARAZIN.

1. Marty is a very laid-back travel partner, says Inson. On driving days, he mostly sleeps; when they’re exploring, he’s full of energy. Plus, he “makes for a great guard dog. His bark resembles that of a much bigger breed.” 2. The countertop hides a built-in, full-size shower. The curtain attaches to a GoPro mount on the ceiling. 3. The bed converts into a kitchen table, which is the perfect on-the-road work spot.

4. Though she is a social media manager by trade, Inson doesn’t plan her own van-life content. “When I make an Instagram post, it’s truly a raw moment that I’m going through at the time,” she says.

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7 5. Inson loves cooking in her van: “I have a stove, an oven and plenty of pantry storage.” 6. Inson, pictured with her co-pilot, Marty. 7. When people find out that Inson’s van is a 1977 model, they assume she’s a mechanical pro. “I’m not, but I have learned a lot,” she says.

INTERIOR AND EXTERIOR VAN PHOTOS, EMILY INSON, INSTAGRAM.COM/ THEALMOSTVANLIFE. EMILY AND MARTY PORTRAIT, COURTESY OF CASS SARAZIN, INSTAGRAM.COM/CSARAZIN.

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media followers are one of the best parts of living the way she does—and not just because they’re always ready to offer mechanical suggestions.

She decided to embark on this adventure in 2020, not long after her mom was diagnosed with a serious illness. “My mother, who worked so hard her whole life as a registered nurse, finally retired with big dreams of travelling, only to get sick with an incurable lung disease. Life is too short not to live the life you want,” she says. But it was her own journey toward self-love that spurred her on to make a change. “I used [the beginning of the pandemic, when we were all in quarantine] to work on myself, my self-worth and my self-confidence. I stopped telling myself I couldn’t do things because I was a single woman.”

Instead, she took a chance. She bought her van from a Red Deer, Alta., seller, sight unseen. On paper, it was perfect: It came outfitted with a fridge, a four-burner stove, an oven, a deep sink, plenty of hidden storage and even a projector for movie nights. Best of all, there was a full-size convertible shower. And, luckily, it more than lived up to her expectations; aside from a paint job and some

minor tweaks, the van didn’t need much to make it feel like home.

The next month, she took possession and drove the van from Calgary to London, Ont., with Marty as her co-pilot. The duo has since driven across Canada and much of the U.S., including a sixmonth jaunt from Ontario to San Diego, California, which Inson says has been her favourite stop so far.

From her first posts on social media, Inson hasn’t just been sharing the unvarnished truth about van life, like how she handles late-night bathroom breaks or what she does when the van just won’t start; she has also been taking her followers along the bumpy road to self-discovery and acceptance. And they have responded enthusiastically to her honest approach.

“Living in my van and travelling from coast to coast has empowered me and reassured me that this is the exact journey I am supposed to be on,” says Inson. “I have recently started accepting my body and, for the first time in 34 years, I wore a tuckedin T-shirt. I’ve never felt more confident. I was blown away by the response and support I received from my community. I feel so fortunate.”

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Joanie Goyette, Montreal @JOANIEGOYETTE

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BACK IN 2016, Joanie Goyette had a dream: to build herself a tiny living space somewhere in her home province of Quebec. As a singer, she was often away from home for weeks or months at a time, and it seemed more practical to go small. It never happened.

Instead, she joined the touring production of Cirque du Soleil’s Kooza and put her tiny-home dream on hold.

When the world shut down in March 2020, Kooza was between stops in Seville, Spain, and Lyon, France. Goyette didn’t know it at the time, but it would be more than 600 days before the production could begin touring again.

“When the pandemic hit, I knew I needed a project. I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do, and I realized I would still like to live in a tiny house,” she says. “And I still wanted to travel.

I had never really travelled across Canada—that’s how the van life idea started.”

ROAD TRIPPIN’ Wanna go for a drive? Here’s what you need to know before you embark on your own van-life adventure

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Goyette bought a deep-red 2020 Ram ProMaster and set to work converting it herself with her dad’s help. “It was a nice fatherdaughter project,” she says. She opted to take the DIY route because she wanted something very specific: an interior that could function as both a living space and a music studio. In addition to bright shiplap walls, variegated butcher block countertops and a warm wood ceiling, the van, which she’s dubbed Joyce, has a convertible area at the back that can function as a bed, a couch or an “office/keyboard holder/dinner set-up,” as she described it in an Instagram post last year. There’s also a “terrace” on top of the van that serves as a stage for outdoor performances.

But while the final product is beautiful, Goyette might be most proud of a more practical feature: the electricity, which she wired all by herself. “This was the most challenging part of the build, which is why I was so happy when I saw that everything worked!

1. GO FOR OLD

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Emily Inson of the Almost Van Life says there’s a reason she opted for a 1977 Ford Econoline: the repair bills!

“They don’t make things like they used to. I would recommend buying an older, well-built model,” she says.

“My van has no computers, so when it requires fixing, it’s just parts; this means repairs cost a lot less.”

When Emily Soon, the content creator behind Em’s Van Life, started designing her van, she had to get creative and make the most of every inch of space. “Everything in the van has a purpose, or multiple purposes,” she says. If you’re struggling to downsize your possessions, she suggests keeping “maybe” items in storage for a couple of months. If you don’t need them during that time period, donate them.

PHOTOS, COURTESY OF JOANIE GOYETTE, INSTAGRAM.COM/JOANIEGOYETTE.

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1. A self-proclaimed “pure nomad,” Goyette enjoys the freedom that comes with van life and the ability to make spurof-the-moment decisions. 2. The musician wired the van herself, which is one of her proudest van-life accomplishments.

3. Goyette and her van, which she calls Joyce, before the renovation began.

4. Goyette looks for parking spots that get plenty of sunlight during the day to make the most of her solar panels. “In the winter, I have to climb on the roof to clean off the snow,” she laughs.

home

“When the pandemic hit, I knew I needed a project.”

5 5. “I find a calm spot to park the van, open the back doors, and write or play music,” says Goyette.

And now I know a ton about electric wires, wiring, electric circuits, solar energy, all kinds of batteries—and patience.”

Goyette did enlist a professional to install the rooftop solar panels necessary to provide the van with power. But it was worth the investment, she says, because it gives her the freedom to live totally off the grid—in all types of weather. (The van has a heater that runs using the van’s gas tank, which has been a lifesaver during the freezing winter months.)

After four months of building, Goyette set out toward Vancouver Island, documenting her journey on Instagram with shots of sunsets, nature and photos of Joyce “in the wild,” parked in front of snowy landscapes, forested backdrops or alongside new friends she made along the way. Some of the trip’s highlights include driving through the Rockies, and visiting Prince Albert National Park in Saskatchewan and the Okanagan Valley in B.C. “I started this journey during the pandemic, when I was alone,” she says. “I’ve met incredible nomads while crossing the country, and others on social media. This community is amazing—everybody is willing to help, give tips, share experiences. And I love that it’s super diverse.”

Now that Kooza is back on tour, Goyette isn’t spending as much time with Joyce. But she’s hoping she can live in the van full-time when the tour heads to the U.S., because she’s been missing van life. “The freedom is amazing,” she says. “When I left Quebec, I thought my trip would last for three or four months, but it turned into a new lifestyle.”

ICONS, ISTOCKPHOTO.

VAN LIFE

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7 6. Goyette’s creative side has come in handy during her time on the road. “So many things can happen that you don’t have a plan for; you have to think on your feet,” she explains. 7. It took four months for Goyette and her dad to outfit the van.

3. SECURE THE GOODS

4. START SMALL

5. SNOOZE SAFE

“Keep in mind that you are building a home in a moving vehicle,” says musician and van lifer Joanie Goyette.

“You will climb up and down hills. You will stop abruptly or take a quick turn.

Anything you bring into your van will need to be secured.” Soon swears by Velcro, double-sided tape and non-slip silicone pads to keep things in place.

Before you head out on an epic, cross-country journey, Goyette recommends taking a short, two- to five-day trip to work out the kinks and get familiar with your new home. “Don’t go too far from where you built the van so that if there’s a major problem you still can fix it,” she says. “I promise you will learn a lot about your new baby in five days!”

Finding a safe place to sleep is key.

Inson usually opts for truck stops and rest stops, or uses the iOverlander app to find a campsite or a place to park.

The parking lots of parks, hotels, big box stores and 24-hour businesses are frequently used by van lifers. Find a well-lit spot and keep your keys handy in case of emergency, cautions Inson.

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LEARN TO BREATHE BETTER

page 42 [ C U R TA I N C A L L ]

TEXT, DEVON MURPHY. PRODUCED BY AIMEE NISHITOBA. PHOTO, CARMEN CHEUNG. PROP STYLING, MADELEINE JOHARI. CHAIR, BLANKET, PILLOW, HAT, RUG AND DOG BED, ALL HOMESENSE.CA.

The dark side If you find deep, uninterrupted sleep hard to come by, the amount of light in your bedroom could be the culprit. Artificial light is linked to poor sleep quality, and most blackout curtains don’t live up to their name. Sleepout, created by an insomniac and his partner, is a portable blackout curtain that uses suction cups to block out light bleeds. The Kickstarter sensation was funded in just two hours; since then, night shift workers, nap-needy toddlers and even Olympians have benefited from its technology. The only downside?

Actually having to get out of bed.

The Sleepout Curtain, $120, sleepoutcurtains.ca.

MAY/JUNE 2022 • CHATELAINE

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IN PARTNERSHIP WITH TENA

up are on this tinkle train. Many family doctors don’t bring it up, either. I’ve had the same doctor for 15 years, and despite the fact that she’s gazed into the abyss of my vagina as many times as an accountant opens an Excel doc and we’ve spoken at length about everything from uterine fibroids to sexual pleasure, she’s never once asked me if I suddenly peed all over myself when my cat launched a surprise attack on my head. (I have.)

Thanks to a laundry list of factors that can include genetics, hormonal shifts, pregnancy, childbirth and the effects of aging on our tissues and muscles, the Leak Ness Monster will eventually come for many of us. The good news is that there are lots of ways to treat it.

“Incontinence really affects women’s lives on an everyday basis,” says Nathalie Leroux, an obstetrician/gynecologist with a sub-specialty in urogynecology and a professor at the University of Montreal. “When I treat patients for abnormal menstruation, I’m fixing one week a month. When I treat patients for incontinence, they’ll come back and say, ‘You’ve changed my life.’ ”

We need to talk about incontinence Thanks to a laundry list of factors, the Leak Ness Monster will eventually come for many of us. The good news? There are lots of lo-fi ways to treat it Written by LEAH RUMACK Illustration by ALLISON + CAM

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y friends and I talk about pee in much the same way we talk about the latest episode of a mustwatch TV show—albeit if said show had episodes like The Case of the Bathroom We Couldn’t Find in Time or We Jumped on a Trampoline and Deeply Regretted It. But unlike so many other previously taboo topics

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like menstruation and childbirth, urinary incontinence is the one subject that women still only whisper about. And it’s true even though the Canadian Continence Foundation estimates that one in four women will experience it, and not only in our Golden Girls years—the Canadian Urinary Bladder Survey found that 33 percent of women ages 40 and

WHAT IS URINARY INCONTINENCE? The two most common types of urinary incontinence are stress urinary incontinence (SUI) and urge incontinence (UI), though many women will experience a mix of both.

Stress incontinence, explains Sinéad Dufour, a pelvic health physiotherapist and associate professor at McMaster University, is more mechanical, while urge incontinence is more physiological. If you pee when you laugh, cough, jump or, say, get assaulted by a cat, that’s stress incontinence. If you have to urinate all the time, or you only get about a half-second warning between thinking “Gee, I think I have to pee” and actually peeing, that’s urge incontinence.

One reason you can experience SUI is from damage to your pelvic floor, a group of muscles that sit like a bouncy trampoline at the base of your pelvis and support your bladder, rectum and reproductive organs.

While vaginal birth is a common way to injure your pelvic floor, doing lots of high-impact sports or constant straining when you’re trying to poo will also do the trick.

The pelvic floor controls the sphincter around your urethra, and when your floor is working it responds automatically to increases in intra-abdominal pressure.

“Sneeze, move suddenly—even if you’re yelling at your kid—these are all things that can increase intra-abdominal pressure,” says

Unlike so many other previously taboo topics . . . incontinence is the one subject that women still only whisper about.

Dufour. “The pelvic floor is supposed to say, ‘Okay, sphincters, it’s time to come together, lift up and close!’ But if the pelvic floor isn’t working properly, that pressure comes down instead and urine leaks out.”

UI happens when the detrusor muscle, which is in the lining of your bladder, becomes overly active or spastic and squeezes out pee before you can make it to the bathroom. There isn’t one specific reason that the detrusor starts to throw a temper tantrum (especially as we age), but it can seriously cramp your style. “I hear horror stories of women standing in line in the grocery store, getting that urge and looking around, going ‘Shoot, is there a washroom?’ then boom! The next thing they know, it’s like Niagara Falls,” says Dufour.

SO WHAT CAN I DO? First, says Leroux, your doctor should rule out more serious possibilities like an infection, stones in the bladder or cancer.

But after that, depending on which type of incontinence you’re experiencing, conservative treatments like exercises to strengthen your pelvic floor and bladder training (where you practise holding your pee) should always be your first line of defence. More serious cases may need to level up to things like medications, injections, lasers and surgery.

A healthy pelvic floor helps fix SUI and UI. Rehabbing a damaged one—and maintaining your bouncy, refreshed pelvic floor from that point forward—usually involves a regime of Kegel exercises (squeezing your pelvic floor to strengthen it). Ideally you should book at least one session with a pelvic physiotherapist for an assessment and

to ensure you’re doing your Kegels properly, but a good way to figure out where your pelvic floor muscles are is to try to stop your pee midstream—those are the muscles you want to use. How often you need to do Kegels depends on your circumstances—a doctor or pelvic physio can recommend an individualized regime for you—but according to Leroux, a good general rule is about 30 to 50 squeezes a day.

“I want it to be for my patients like brushing their teeth,” says Leroux. “Maybe they do them every time they’re at a stoplight or every day in the shower, but they have to keep them up. If you only go to the gym once a week, you won’t see results.”

If you have urge incontinence, Dufour also recommends limiting common bladder irritants like coffee, alcohol, tomatoes, vinegar and fizzy drinks. You will also need to retrain your bladder to go longer between toilet sessions. While how often you pee obviously depends on how much liquid you take in, a healthy average is between five to eight times a day—about every two to four hours—and not at night, unless you’re postmenopausal, in which case once at night is normal. Dufour says that you should be peeing for at least eight seconds each time—less than that and your bladder probably wasn’t full.

The most counterintuitive part of treating UI is that the things you’re probably doing to protect yourself from being that Niagara Falls-in-the-grocery-line lady will only make things worse: By always keeping your bladder as empty as possible, you essentially teach it that every time you feel a little tickle you need to go to the bathroom. This results in a hyperactive bladder that will eventually just start to go without you.

Dufour says that using an incontinence product can help build confidence when you’re starting a pelvic floor or bladder-training regime, but they shouldn’t be your long-term plan. And don’t just reach for a period pad, either.

“That’s a big no-no,” she says. “Menstrual products aren’t designed to collect urine and pull it away from your skin, and you’ll get all sorts of abrasions on your vulva if you use them for that.”

Instead, there’s now a wide range of stylish incontinence underwear on the market that look and feel just like regular underwear—which means even if you have taken an unexpected detour to Niagara Falls, you can keep calm and Kegel on.

Designed to look and feel just like underwear At last, an incontinence garment you actually want to wear. Women no longer need to compromise comfort or style thanks to TENA Stylish Incontinence Underwear’s body-hugging fit and cottonysoft stretch fabric. Available in sleek black—emphasis on the sleek—these are designed to look and feel just like regular underwear.

They also provide maximum absorbency with triple protection against leaks, odour and wetness so you don’t have to worry about staying dry or feeling bulky.

Now, finally, you can have underwear that gives you confidence in everything you do.

NOTES

Deeeeep breath The surprising health benefits of learning to breathe better Written by MARYAM SIDDIQI

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n average, we breathe in and out 22,000 times a day. These breaths can activate the brain’s networks, affect the nervous system, help treat chronic pain, relieve muscle tension and improve blood flow. Breathing patterns can indicate when something isn’t right in our bodies and can be used as a tool to ease physical and mental stress—feelings we’ve endured plenty of over the past two-plus years.

“The way we breathe has a direct relationship with mood, anxiety, stress regulation, memory, attention, focus and body awareness,” says Dr. Monica Vermani, a Toronto-based clinical psychologist and author of A Deeper Wellness. “Breathing deeply has a positive effect, and shallow breathing has just the opposite.”

While it might be instinctual, many of us could learn how to breathe better. “As children, we’re born with a proper belly breath,” says Vermani, referring to breathing with your diaphragm, the muscle that sits just below the lungs, and extending the stomach on each inhale. “As we grow up, we get caught up in the hustle and bustle, and brain activity gets to us physiologically. We go from a belly breath to a short and shallow breath,” she says. (Our tendency to suck in our stomachs doesn’t help with this, either.)

THREE LUNG EXERCISES TO BOOST YOUR BREATH

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Shallow, or apical, breathing happens when you use the muscles around your shoulders and neck to expand and contract the lungs. “If you are using your secondary breathing muscles to breathe, which people tend to do, you are doing thousands of extra contractions a day. You are giving yourself a lot of extra stress,” says Kyle Reteff, a registered massage therapist who’s also trained in yoga, reiki and acupuncture.

Shallow breathing can also reduce focus, and cause irritability, muscle tension and even heart palpitations. Reteff often sees clients with tight neck, shoulder and upper back muscles; he can tell apical breathing is a cause.

The good news is that we can retrain our breathing habits. Breath work is a tool used by psychologists like Vermani as well as physiotherapists and movement coaches to treat people dealing with stress and anxiety. It can also give you a boost of energy or help you wind down before going to sleep.

Reteff is part of the team at Othership, a wellness studio in Toronto that launched as a breathing-exercise app. Guided exercises are set to music and take users through a series of breathing patterns— like a workout for your diaphragm.

Sachi O’Hoski, a physiotherapist who specializes in pulmonary rehabilitation at Toronto’s West Park Healthcare Centre, works with patients dealing with chronic lung disease and COVID-19. She says everyone could use a little breathing rehab.

“People who have COPD [a type of chronic lung disease] tend to get really hyperinflated lungs,” she says, so exercises for these patients focus on getting as much air out on the exhale as possible. “But even for the average person, if you’re really emptying your lungs completely, it allows you to take a full breath.”

She advises doing diaphragmatic breathing once or twice a day until “you start to do it without thinking about it.”

Diaphragmatic breathing

Pursed-lip breathing

Box breathing

Lying on the floor, place one hand on your stomach and one on your chest. Breathe in slowly, using your diaphragm—you should feel your stomach expand. Exhale slowly as your stomach contracts. Your chest should not move during this exercise. Vermani takes six diaphragmatic breaths upon waking each day and six again before going to sleep.

Used in pulmonary rehab, this exercise involves diaphragmatic breathing on the inhale through your nose, then pursing your lips and exhaling slowly through your mouth.

This keeps your airway open a bit longer than normal. “It helps with gas exchange: You get more carbon dioxide out, which can improve your ability to take in oxygen,” says O’Hoski.

U.S. Navy SEALs use this technique to cope with intense stress, because it distracts the mind and eases stress on the nervous system and body. Try it before your next important meeting: Inhale for four counts, hold for four counts, exhale slowly for four counts, and then pause for another four counts.

CHATELAINE • MAY/JUNE 2022

PHOTO, GETTY IMAGES.

health

No child should have to wait.

You can help.

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CHRONIC PAIN

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Written by GABRIELLE DROLET Illustrations by HOLLY STAPLETON

When my wrists started to twinge in February 2021, I assumed it was temporary. Instead, I joined the 20 percent of Canadians who experience chronic pain, at a time when relief had become even harder to find

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little over a year ago, a dull pain started forming in my wrists whenever I worked. It came on when I typed and sometimes lingered long afterwards, throbbing up my forearms. I pushed through it, assuming it would go away with time.

Instead, dull pain turned into sharp, shooting bolts that made me wince.

My fingers started to tingle, and then went numb entirely. On a bad day, I couldn’t type through the searing pain that started at my neck and moved down through my arms and into my hands. On a worse day, I couldn’t feel my hands at all. By March 2021, my life had been altered completely. It was no longer just typing that caused me pain; it was buttoning shirts, turning on the faucet, thumbing through a book.

As a freelance writer and illustrator, I felt my livelihood become more unstable during an already challenging time. What’s more, I had witnessed my then girlfriend, a pianist, experience similar symptoms in the years prior. Not long after we met, she started feeling pain in her wrists when she pressed her fingers down onto the keys, her sonatas cut short when it got to be too much.

Suddenly—seemingly all at once—she could barely play at all. She was diagnosed with tendinitis; after months of treatment, she started to recover, but she never fully regained her original skill on the piano.

I didn’t fully understand what she had lived through until it happened to me: how all-consuming it is to constantly hurt, and the immense sense of loss you feel when your body keeps you from the things you love.

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I didn’t know it at the time, but those first twinges in my wrists would become my introduction to the world of chronic pain.

CHRONIC PAIN,

which is generally defined as pain lasting for three months or longer, can be categorized as either primary or secondary. Primary pain, explains Dr. Andrea Furlan, an associate professor of medicine at the University of Toronto, is a disease of the pain system and not a signal that there is an injury to be fixed. Secondary pain is caused by an identifiable and treatable problem—say, arthritis or injuries from a car accident. Regardless of whether it’s primary or secondary, chronic pain is persistent and you experience it every day—though some days are worse than others.

“Many [people with chronic pain] are still living a normal life as much as they can, but they pay the price,” says Furlan. “If they can maintain a full-time job, when they get home, they are extremely fatigued.

They can’t help other people; they can’t socialize.”

It’s estimated that nearly eight million Canadians live with chronic pain—that’s roughly 20 percent of

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CHRONIC PAIN

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CHRONIC PAIN

the population. Despite this, we don’t tend to think or talk about its effects.

I’ve felt this first-hand. When I tell people about my symptoms, they either don’t seem to believe the severity or offer recommendations they swear will cure me, from taking Aleve to smoking CBD. The assumption from many is that pain is an easy problem to fix.

Maria Hudspith knows that’s not the case. She’s the founding executive director of Pain BC, an organization established in 2008 that advocates for pain patients, hosts support groups, fosters research on pain and educates health care workers on how to better assess and treat it.

Getting people to take chronic pain seriously has been central to her work.

Beyond a poor cultural understanding of the issue, Hudspith says there’s a lack of understanding in our health care systems. Furlan agrees: “Chronic pain is not taught in medical school; it’s not taught in family medicine residency,” she says. The result is that patients are often dismissed or improperly diagnosed.

Part of the problem is that the idea of chronic pain is still relatively new.

Pain medicine wasn’t recognized as a specialty by the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada until 2010, and the Canadian Pain Task Force—a federally appointed group charged with making recommendations on the prevention, assessment and management of pain in Canada, which Hudspith co-chairs—wasn’t established until 2019. Given that it’s only been an area of specialization in Canada for 12 years, there’s a lack of practitioners who are trained to treat it. “That basic sort of recognition and infrastructure has been very slow to evolve,” says Hudspith.

Chronic pain is closely linked to another public health crisis: opioid addiction. Those who are never properly treated for their pain may develop substance-use disorders in an attempt to self-medicate, while effective relief is now harder for chronic-pain patients to access as doctors reduce the amount of opioids they prescribe.

Hudspith stresses that a holistic approach to treating chronic pain is crucial to mitigating its effects. Pain patients often need access to other

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practitioners in addition to their family doctor, including social workers, occupational therapists, mental health professionals and more. This way, chronic pain can be treated alongside related conditions, like anxiety and depression, while helping patients readapt to everyday life. Though this need is addressed by pain clinics, which connect patients to a variety of practitioners and support systems, such clinics are still few and far between. Many people with chronic pain are left to find relief on their own, navigating an oftenoverwhelming health care system.

THAT’S THE POSITION

I found myself in last year. When my symptoms began, I was living in Nova Scotia, a province with a profoundly felt family doctor shortage. Without access to a GP, I made an appointment with one of the few physiotherapists in my area, who diagnosed me with carpal tunnel syndrome.

I never thought to question her.

Our weekly appointments consisted of manual therapy and education about how to manage my symptoms.

I was given a host of exercises to do every day, many of which I’d watched my girlfriend do in the years prior.

I followed the routine to a tee, but my condition kept getting worse. As I lost access to my work and my hobbies—cooking, crosswords and video games—I began to question who I was without them.

After two months of weekly appointments without any progress, my therapist told me that she didn’t think physio was going to provide me with long-term

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relief, and that she couldn’t, in good conscience, keep charging me for treatment. (In other words, she dumped me due to my lack of progress.) I felt angry with myself. I was convinced if I’d just done my exercises better or gone in for more appointments, I would have seen results.

I started looking into carpal tunnel surgery and found another physiotherapy clinic in the meantime.

My next physio also immediately diagnosed me with carpal tunnel. As I sat through dry needling, continued with at-home exercises and paid out of pocket for treatment that wasn’t working, my condition kept getting worse. Feeling like I didn’t have other options, I stuck with this regimen for another three months.

In all, I went to physio for the wrong condition for five months. Since chronic pain is so complicated, Furlan says, practitioners often reach for the simplest solution. What’s more, neither of my physios talked to me about what my enduring pain actually meant.

I had no idea that, as it transitioned from acute to chronic, it could be considered a disability. Despite how much I was struggling, I didn’t feel comfortable asking for accommodations at work or school, nor forming community with other disabled people.

I didn’t know I might be eligible for treatment at pain clinics, nor that it was normal for my mental health to suffer. Instead, I felt embarrassed when I teared up at appointments and my physiotherapists seemingly didn’t notice.

The frustration I felt during that time was allconsuming. I had to take a months-long break from drawing, and I started operating my computer with my voice because I was no longer able to type.

At the time, I was also a grad student in my dream creative writing program. Though it took me a long time to admit it, keeping up with both work and school felt physically impossible. I tried to write at the same pace as my classmates, growing angry with myself when I couldn’t. As my peers shared their work during our virtual classes, I’d often turn off my camera and cry, unsure if I’d ever be able to write as well as them again. I eventually took a leave from the program.

I’VE BEEN IN PAIN

for more than a year now, and it unfurled alongside an unrelenting pandemic. In those first six months, without the distraction of socializing with friends and family, I spent my days sitting in my apartment and thinking about my pain.

Lockdown also made it harder for my loved ones to fully understand what I was going through, as they weren’t able to see how it affected me. Though my symptoms were the central concern in my life, they often felt like a conversational footnote: “And how are the hands? I’m sure they’ll get better. Anyway!” I got the sense that people were uncomfortable talking about my pain and itching to change the subject.

Luckily, I had a supportive partner. She took on a bigger share of household work, encouraged me to do my exercises and listened as I ranted or cried. I was

CHRONIC PAIN

grateful for her, but I felt (and still feel) pangs of guilt as I struggled to come to terms with how little I’d been able to empathize with her when our roles had been reversed.

Looking back, I should have sought help for my mental health. (I now know there are therapists who specialize in chronic pain.) Instead, I suffered quietly, still not understanding the extent to which my physical and mental well-being were linked.

ANYONE CAN EXPERIENCE

chronic pain, but certain groups— including seniors, people living in poverty, racialized people, women and more—are disproportionately affected. These disparities are driven by multiple factors. One of these is bias from white health care practitioners, who, studies suggest, may be more likely to believe that Black patients are less sensitive to pain than white patients. Another factor—considering that treatment from specialists like physiotherapists and massage therapists is generally paid for out of pocket—is the ability to afford care, especially during the pandemic.

“People living with systemic inequities already presumably had more issues accessing pain relief,” says Lise Dassieu, a health sociologist who coled a two-part study that examined the first wave’s impact on people living with chronic pain. “The pandemic added to their pre-existing challenges.”

COVID-19 affected pain patients in multiple ways. Several studies conducted in Canada and internationally showed the pandemic exacerbated both the physical and emotional effects of chronic pain for many, and Dassieu’s research (for which Pain BC was a partner) found that some patients reported feeling new or heightened pain symptoms during the first lockdown. Being separated from friends and family seemed to aggravate physical symptoms as well as psychological distress, as some patients had more time to fixate on their pain.

Lack of access to treatment during the pandemic also made life harder for people in pain. Pain clinics either ceased or reduced their in-person appointments when cases spiked, while our strained medical system led to longer wait times for surgeries and other procedures. Anusha Gandhi, who has struggled with chronic pain from both endometriosis and ulcerative colitis, says the pandemic left her managing symptoms on her own.

“I didn’t have access to any of my doctors, and all of the tests that I needed to have done were cancelled,” she says. Pushing herself when she wasn’t able to seek medical help led to such bad flare-ups that she ended up in the emergency room three times over the past two years.

Even after pain clinics and other medical facilities opened up again, COVID remained a risk that prevented many pain patients—some of whom have compromised immune systems—from accessing treatment, as a potential COVID infection could worsen symptoms or bring on new ones. I’ve felt this deeply: At the height of the first Omicron wave, I stopped seeing my physiotherapist. My pain and numbness immediately flared up.

A desire to stay safe can also distance people from their communities. “I’ve hugged three people in the past two years,” says Aggie Panda, a decadeslong pain patient whose symptoms have gotten dramatically worse since the beginning of the pandemic. “That’s not healthy.”

Panda, who lives alone in Toronto, still feels isolated—especially once COVID numbers started shooting up again this April after most of Ontario’s restrictions were lifted. Though they recognize the effect that social distancing has on their mental health, they say the risk of getting sick isn’t worth changing their behaviour.

Beyond physical isolation, emotional isolation often accompanies chronic pain. I still struggle to make family and friends understand how I live. Part of this is because we often think of pain as a fleeting sensation. It’s hard to imagine what it’s like to be hurting at all hours of the day—to be at a point where you don’t remember what it was like not to hurt. This all plays into

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one of the most overlooked aspects of chronic pain: the emotional and mental toll. There’s a clear correlation. Chronic-pain patients are more likely to experience anxiety and depression, as well as other mental health issues.

“Sometimes people may become suicidal, or they may lose their jobs, or their families may fall apart. And many of those things can be mitigated if people get help early,” says Hudspith.

She explains that the relationship between pain and stress is cyclical.

Increased pain leads to more stress; increased stress results in more pain; and so on and so forth. At a time when losing access to both care and support systems means an increase in both physical and psychological distress, this feedback loop can feel never-ending.

IN SEPTEMBER 2021,

after my girlfriend and I broke up, I moved to Toronto. There, I was finally able to find a family doctor and a physiotherapist who believed the severity of my symptoms.

In addition to support, I finally got answers. I never had carpal tunnel syndrome. Instead, my Toronto physiotherapist immediately diagnosed me with thoracic outlet syndrome, meaning my nerves are compressed in my chest, likely due to all of the time I had spent working from home, hunched over my computer without an external mouse or keyboard, or a laptop stand.

Upon finally receiving the correct diagnosis, I felt an overwhelming sense of relief and validation; understanding why I was hurting made me feel more in control, and it explained why my earlier treatment hadn’t worked. However, I was frustrated at how long it had taken to get there. My Toronto physiotherapist told me if I’d been properly diagnosed when I first sought care, my symptoms probably would have gone away after a few weeks.

Today, my hands are much better than they were—getting the correct treatment helped immensely, as did finding adaptations and accessibility tools (like a more ergonomic drawing set-up) that make my day-to-day life easier.

“ N OW T H AT I U N D E R S TA N D C H R O N I C PA I N B E T T E R , I K N OW T H AT M Y S Y M P TO M S A R E N ’ T A P E R S O N A L FA I LI N G .”

As my physical health has improved, so has my mental health. Though I’m still in constant pain, with the help of my physiotherapist and occasional massage therapy, it’s become manageable. I can draw for short stints, type for a few minutes at a time and cook with relative ease. With a proper diagnosis, I feel more hopeful that I can keep my pain under control. And now that I understand chronic pain better, I also know that my symptoms aren’t a personal failing.

That said, there are also days and weeks when my flare-ups are so bad I can’t sleep, and my productivity wanes. And because my symptoms weren’t taken seriously for so long, there’s a good chance that I might never fully recover.

I spend a lot of time thinking about how different my life would be if the first physiotherapist I saw had taken the time to actually figure out what was causing my pain. I think about how much more I could have written and drawn.

About how I would still be in grad school, wrapping up a thesis I never got the chance to start. About how much easier my job would be if I could type this

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3,000-word feature instead of dictating it. And I think about all the small ways my life might be better, too: I could use fresh garlic instead of the jarred stuff; I could play new video games; I could carry home groceries instead of ordering them.

I’m not sure what will happen from here. I recently moved from Toronto to Montreal, where I lucked out in finding a physiotherapist who specializes in chronic pain. He talks to me about my physical symptoms as well as the mental struggles that accompany them, like the psychological pain of not being able to build an Ikea dresser by myself, or still feeling like I’m lagging behind my colleagues. However, I once again need to find a GP I can trust. I’ll keep trying different remedies and doing my physio exercises. Hopefully, I’ll keep improving, too.

I’ve come to terms with navigating the world as a disabled person, and I’m learning to be more patient with myself when things are difficult. I also feel less isolated—as I’ve become more comfortable sharing my experiences, I’ve found community with other disabled people. However, if one in five Canadians are experiencing the same thing I am, coming to terms with my chronic pain shouldn’t have been so difficult.

It’s clear the culture surrounding chronic pain needs to change—both medically and socially. There are still days when the lack of understanding from certain people in my life feels staggering. On a recent phone call, one of my immediate family members insisted that I wasn’t disabled because he “doesn’t see me that way.”

Friends to whom I’ve explained my condition continue to invite me to activities that aren’t accessible to me, like video game nights and dinner parties that require communal meal prep, and acquaintances throw out unsolicited advice that feels insulting: Have I tried icing it? Have I tried yoga?

In addition to making life harder for those who already had chronic pain, the pandemic might create more of us, as lasting pain is a potential symptom of long COVID. It’s clear that Canada needs a more robust infrastructure for treating pain. This means adequately training health care providers and creating more pain clinics. It also means addressing the longstanding inequities in our health care system.

In March 2021, the Canadian Pain Task Force published a report that outlines recommendations on how to achieve just that, including equitable access to timely care, investing in pain research, educating pain patients and health care practitioners about treatment, and more. If these recommendations are taken up, we might finally see some of the gaps in our health care system shrink. (It’s also worth noting that Canada is one of only a handful of countries that have created a national strategy for pain.)

Beyond government, a fundamental shift needs to happen in how we talk about chronic pain and its impacts. At the very least, we need to start talking about it, and to believe people when they tell us how much they’re hurting.

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FAIR CARE Canada’s reproductive health care system needs an overhaul, and midwives are the professionals for the job Written by CARLA CICCONE Illustrations by SÉBASTIEN THIBAULT

REPRODUCTIVE JUSTICE

A HOTEL BY THE airport might not be a typical setting for a prenatal checkup, but thanks to Manavi Handa, care often comes to those who need it, wherever that is. Since November 2021, the Toronto-based midwife has been providing full physical exams; routine visits; pre-, peri- and postnatal care; and more at a GTA hotel that acts as temporary housing for recently arrived Afghan refugees. Now, she’s preparing to provide similar services to Ukrainian refugees as they arrive in Canada.

Handa, who is also an associate professor in Ryerson University’s midwifery program, isn’t new to this set-up. She launched clinics to provide care out of hotels when the first group of Syrian refugees arrived in Canada in 2015. The first baby born to a Syrian refugee in Canada was delivered by a midwife from her Toronto practice, West End Midwives, which provides perinatal care to expectant parents who are newcomers, refugees or without Ontario health insurance. “It shows how important it is to have us in the community,” she says.

Her work exemplifies the midwifery model, which is centred around trust and relationship building. This is reflected in the pre- and postnatal hotel visits Handa does in between teaching and working from West End Midwives, and the always-on-call hours of delivering babies. Handa has wellearned insight into the lives of the people she cares for—and many tell her about their gynecological needs outside of pregnancy.

She knows, for instance, that most people fleeing danger don’t have access to routine health checks or contraception.

“I quickly realized many of the women want IUDs, so I trained on how to insert them,” she says. But she can’t always provide this care: “There’s a clause that says I can’t take care of people unless they’re within eight weeks postpartum without a medical directive from a physician.” Handa is used to providing gynecological care under medical directives from doctors she works with, but sometimes, like when the physician she normally collaborates with goes on maternity leave, attaining them can be a challenge. “IUD insertion is still one of the biggest reasons people come to see me,” she says, adding that she’s in the process of ensuring the directive she gets is ongoing.

Handa’s experience positions her to provide all of these procedures at any time. But like midwives in most places across Canada, there are hard limits on what she can do.

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A profession almost exclusively staffed by women and regulated in Canada for nearly 30 years, midwifery has been left out of many policy decisions when it comes to reproductive health care. Allowing midwives to insert IUDs, provide medical abortions (including those used for miscarriages), offer stillbirth care and work outside of prenatal clinics could transform reproductive health care in Canada. Instead, midwives such as Handa are left looking for workarounds to provide the care their communities need, often with little support.

IN 19 94 , Ontario and Alberta became the first provinces to regulate midwifery as a health care profession. Today, midwives are a popular, government-funded perinatal-care choice among pregnant Canadians who have the time, knowledge and health care system know-how to access their often wait-listed services—in other words, educated, middle- to upper-class, and largely white people. But their popularity is no surprise: Midwives offer longer perinatal visits; more hands-on, personalized care; and a postnatal follow-up routine that includes home visits. And all of this goes a long way toward establishing good patient relationships.

These relationships, as well as their training—which includes a four-year degree and a clinical placement—equip midwives to provide a wider range of care than they’re currently allowed to deliver. According to a 2018 report from the University of British Columbia’s Contraception and Abortion Research Team, midwives’ training makes them experts in sexual-health planning, education and care delivery, and they could (and should) provide abortion care, but their scope of practice has been limited in Canada. In many countries, including the U.K., Sweden and France, midwives or nurse-midwives are already responsible for many of these types of care.

Cecilia Benoit, professor emeritus of sociology at the University of Victoria, has studied midwifery for more than 30 years.

She points to Sweden, where midwives provide birth control and sex education, as exemplary. “Midwives should be seen as crucial primary care workers who are linked in at the community level, and they should be responsible for the reproductive-care cycle, including medical abortions,” she says. Benoit also thinks they should be able to work outside midwife clinics, as staff in

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hospitals or general-practice clinics. Last February, the Canadian Association of Midwives voiced its support of midwives providing more comprehensive reproductive health care, including safe and legal abortion and post-abortion care. “We need more abortion providers in Canada,” says association vice-president Elizabeth Brandeis. “The midwifery model of care is so well set up, not just for accessibility reasons but also to provide trauma-informed care that helps people through these experiences in life that sometimes feel like they exist in the shadows.”

ALLOWING MIDWIVES to provide abortion care could improve access to and the quality of a procedure that up to a third of Canadians with uteruses will need in their lifetime. It certainly would have helped me.

I had an abortion in Alberta in 2013, but the experience felt like a trip to a time before abortion was legal. It started with a Google search. The first links led to antiabortion counselling organizations, which outnumber abortion clinics in Alberta nearly four to one. The two Calgary clinics that provided surgical abortions charged for out-of-province access to their services. At least I had options: In Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Ontario, where up to 40 percent of the population live in rural areas, abortion providers only exist in urban centres.

“There is a particular lens of what midwifery care should be here, but in many parts of the world, they provide full-spectrum perinatal care.”

When I experienced severe bleeding and cramps a week after the surgery, the clinic provided no help. It took three visits to a walk-in clinic, where the residing doctor told me she was Catholic and uncomfortable providing abortion-related care, to get a referral for an ultrasound to find out what happened: an incomplete abortion that did not properly remove the fetus and required a second procedure. This difficulty in accessing care is, sadly, not unique.

Conscientious objection—the ability to refuse to perform certain medical procedures based on religious beliefs—is a documented roadblock to abortion access in Canada.

Not once during this process did anyone hold my hand, ask about my pain or follow up with me. I needed a care provider who understood what my body and mind were going through. I needed a midwife.

Expanding midwifery’s scope to include abortion would help make the experience more humane. Joyce Arthur, executive director of the Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada, says that including abortion care in the scope of midwifery practice would help it become an accepted, normalized part of health care—and could greatly reduce the impact that conscientiousobjection rights have on those seeking abortion. “That’s a big problem here, especially in rural areas,” says Arthur, “so midwives who are willing to help with abortion is a way around that.” Plus, midwives typically travel, so they can assist those in need wherever they are, eliminating the access barrier that many in remote locations face.

The midwifery approach could also reimagine the experience of wantedpregnancy loss, which affects 15 to 25 percent of pregnancies in Canada. “What we’re watching for and what we’re counselling for with abortion is the same [as] for someone having a miscarriage,” says Handa.

“In fact, those medications can actually help people who are having a miscarriage if it’s not happening on its own.”

THE COMMUNITY midwife-care centres Benoit envisions do exist in Canada but are usually grant-funded pilot projects.

One of them is Midwifery and Toronto Community Health (MATCH), a program run by Shezeen Suleman and her team out of the South Riverdale Community Health Centre. Since 2018, four full-time midwives have provided a full range of reproductive services—from birth control to perinatal care to medical abortion—through the

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clinic, focusing on patients facing significant barriers to accessing health care, including racialized folks, drug users, single parents and underhoused people.

“When we first got funded, we unabashedly took training at the National Abortion Federation on providing medicinal abortion, knowing there was no way that we could actually provide the care because the drug is not on our drug list right now,” says Suleman. But with the doctors and nurse practitioners at her clinic on board, they began to offer abortions collaboratively: Physicians write prescriptions for mifepristone and misoprostol, while midwives provide most of the care, including speaking with patients by phone to support them after they take the second pill, which causes labour-like contractions. They also give patients a care package that includes medicines they’ll need, pads, a thermometer and a cellphone if they don’t have one.

Suleman doesn’t see the work as unique; her great aunt was a midwife in Kenya, where she provided reproductive health care to her community, including abortions. “In white-dominant spaces in North

America, there is a very particular lens of what midwifery care can and should look like,” she says, “when in many parts of the world, midwives have long been providing full-spectrum perinatal care.”

The midwife abortion model has been successful at MATCH, but in order to address limited access in rural communities, midwives who don’t work alongside doctors need to be able to prescribe mifepristone and misoprostol themselves.

Currently, regulations in every province and territory in Canada vary, and some provinces’ parameters are much stricter than others’. In Nova Scotia, for example, midwives can prescribe hormonal contraceptives, but Ontario midwives cannot, although the College of Midwives of Ontario is pushing for this to change. “One of the biggest barriers is that we’re still microregulated,” says Handa. “The college is trying to change that, but the Ontario Medical Association [OMA] has a lot of power.”

A 2020 report from BMC Health Services found that Ontario’s different payment models for physicians and midwives have limited midwives’ ability to work outside of

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strictly defined parameters. “In the medical model, payment mechanisms privilege physician-provided and hospital-based services,” the authors noted. (While doctors bill for individual services, midwives bill by course of care—which usually means billing once for all services provided during the course of a pregnancy.)

The care midwives are—and are not— permitted to provide can seem confounding. In 2009, when Ontario passed legislation that allowed midwives to collect specimens to test for two STIs, it didn’t include the ability to prescribe the antibiotics needed to remedy them. “It’s the same with prescribing hormones,” says Handa.

“With contraception, the [OMA] saw it as us creeping into the family-medicine area, as opposed to looking at reproductive health care in a more holistic way.”

In response, the OMA noted in a statement that “the regulations that health professionals are allowed to operate under are created by the Ontario government and not the OMA.” They expressed support for the contribution midwives bring to health care, but the organization’s stance on prescriptions remains: “Midwives are not trained in pharmacology to the level of a family doctor or obstetrician. Prescribing substances and drugs is a complex and, at times, high-risk activity that must be done in the context of the whole patient.”

Despite the barriers, many physicians and ob-gyns would welcome a midwiferyintegrated model of gynecological care. Dr. Rachel F. Spitzer, associate professor at the University of Toronto and ob-gyn at Mount Sinai Hospital, is in awe of the work midwives have done to foster relationships in marginalized communities, and she understands their appeal. “With midwives, you have somebody who’s going to come to your home to visit you and check in on you for six weeks without having to pay them extra to do it,” she says. By contrast, Spitzer does one visit with patients at six weeks postpartum in her office. “For people who don’t have built-in support at home, we have a good opportunity to make that kind of care a standard offering with midwives.”

Spitzer adds that the ideal model of care would involve allowing everybody the space and energy to do what they do best.

“We need each other,” she says. “Sometimes they might feel over their depth in the complexity of a case and need colleagues to reach out to. It works best when we work together.”

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INCEST SURVIVORS NEED THEIR #METOO MOMENT Written by JULIE S. LALONDE Photography by CHLOË ELLINGSON and JESSICA DEEKS

The past few years have seen great changes in how we talk about sexual assault, with one big exception: the shame and stigma that still surrounds those who publicly accuse a family member of a heinous crime 52

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WHEN ARCH MONTGOMERY died in the late 1980s, his obituary included a curious Bible quote about harm befalling those who hurt children: “It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he cast into the sea, than that he should offend one of these little ones.” It had been decades since he sexually abused his granddaughter Sue Montgomery, but she wanted his tight-knit, religious community to know the truth.

Montgomery didn’t have the language to label the experiences as sexual assault when she was a child, but at age nine, she told her mom that she did not like the way her grandpa treated her. Her mom looked horrified but said nothing. Years later, in her early 20s, she did call the experience sexual abuse when telling her family about it, after discovering she was not her grandfather’s only victim.

“Sexual assault brings all kinds of judgment to its victims, but it’s an extra layer of shame when it’s incest,” says Montgomery, a one-time journalist as well as a former mayor of the Montreal borough Côte-des-Neiges–Notre-Dame-de-Grâce. It’s a shame that she’s determined to dismantle: About a decade after telling her family, she spoke publicly for the first time about her experience of incest, at an event on

In her early 20s, Sue Montgomery of Montreal came forward with her story as a survivor of incest, after she learned she was not her grandfather’s only victim.

Photograph by CHLOË ELLINGSON

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violence against women. Montgomery has been projecting her voice into the silence ever since.

Statistics on rates of incest in Canada are hard to come by. A 2012 Statistics Canada report on police-reported incidents of family violence found 158 victims of incest that year. But considering the low rate of reporting for all forms of gender-based violence—in 2014, StatsCan found that only five percent of sexual assaults were reported to police—the total number must be significantly higher.

The veil of secrecy surrounding other forms of sexual violence has been pulled off in recent years, in part thanks to the women who, beginning in 2014, said they were harmed by former CBC star Jian Ghomeshi. There are also the legions of survivors who disclosed their experiences at the hands of high-profile perpetrators such as Bill Cosby, R. Kelly and Harvey Weinstein. But while #MeToo successfully challenged many stereotypes, myths about sexual violence persist. Even if abusers aren’t always strangers lurking in public spaces, we tend to think they’re at least people like Weinstein—grotesque perps that you can spot from a mile away.

There is no doubt that #MeToo forever changed the way we talk about sexual assault. But where are the survivors of incest? Speaking up is still extra difficult for these people, who often must overcome their own internal stigma just to conceive of a loved one as abusive—let alone publicly accuse them of a heinous crime.

“When people speak out, countless others feel seen. But that visibility can cost you.”

SEXUAL TABOOS have long fascinated philosophers and anthropologists, and incest is no exception. The formative 1897 French text by Émile Durkheim, Incest: The Nature and Origin of the Taboo, attempts to trace the taboo’s roots: Is it born from nature or nurture? Is it an evolutionary disgust or one imposed by prudish societies? Either way, it is clear that the taboo still exists. Incest is seen as so repulsive that even most pornography, which exists to indulge the forbidden, avoids it, obfuscating with promises of sex scenes between

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“stepmoms,” “stepsisters” and “sugar daddies” rather than biological relatives.

The few representations of incest in media or pop culture are often stereotypical caricatures of inbred hicks. Even though monarchies the world over are notorious for marrying within the family, it is the chilling banjo plucking of the classic 1972 film Deliverance that is most often the punchline to jokes about incest. This image haunts JoAnne Brooks, executive director of the Women’s Sexual Assault Centre of Renfrew County (a rural area outside of Ottawa), who has worked with countless survivors of incest over her nearly 30-year career.

“It is absolutely the vast majority of our clients,” says Brooks. “And I know it’s not just happening here, because my colleagues across Canada see the same number of incest clients. But it’s so hard for rural survivors, because they feel like coming forward is reinforcing the worst stereotypes about rural life.” She knows this intimately because she is a survivor herself. Brooks is originally from rural southwestern Ontario; her father sexually assaulted her for years.

Confidentiality is almost impossible to come by in rural areas, where everyone knows everyone. Victims must decide whether to approach service providers or the police with the knowledge that people will find out and probably be disinclined to believe something so awful about a family they’ve known for years. “If your story becomes public, it becomes public property, and you become the incest survivor in town,” says Brooks.

This is particularly difficult when the assault is perpetrated by one sibling on another. Of the 10 survivors I interviewed for this piece, six were sexually abused by their brothers. Sam*, a woman in her early 20s from southern Ontario, grew up in an evangelical family. She says a lack of knowledge about family violence meant she was unable to fully understand what was going on when her older brother convinced her that what she was experiencing wasn’t abuse; he was simply “practising for marriage.”

“When I thought about pedophiles, I thought [about] creepy old men, not my 16-year-old brother,” says Sam. Sibling-on-sibling sexual assault is particularly complex for parents—to believe the child coming forward, they must see their other child as an abuser. When Madison*, who grew up in Quebec, told her parents that she was being sexually assaulted by her brother, the abuse was excused because he had an intellectual disability.

“I feel like the default assumption with sibling assault is that it is seen as exploration rather than a form of assault,” says another survivor, who was sexually assaulted by an older brother and sister for years.

The idea that everyone involved in incest is equally to blame is not just a dangerous stereotype; for a long time, it was also embedded into the legal system. In 1892, Section 176 of the Criminal Code read, “Every parent and child, every brother and sister, and every grandparent

An asterisk (*) indicates a name has been changed to protect privacy.

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A 2012 Statistics Canada report on police-reported incidents of family violence found 158 victims of incest that year. But considering the low rate of reporting for gender-based violence— in 2014, only five percent of sexual assaults were reported—the total number must be significantly higher.

and grandchild, who cohabit or have sexual intercourse with each other, shall each of them, if aware of their consanguinity, be deemed to have committed incest, and be guilty of an indictable offence and liable to fourteen years’ imprisonment.”

“Clearly, the older member is the criminal, but the power imbalance wasn’t taken into consideration back then,” says Constance Backhouse, a law professor at the University of Ottawa whose 2008 book, Carnal Crimes, looks at sexual assault law in Canada from 1900 to 1975. “Everyone involved was criminalized.” (Even Backhouse, Canada’s premier feminist legal historian, said that she hadn’t really thought about the incest taboo and how it played out in the criminal justice system until I asked her.)

Thankfully, decades of advocacy have successfully changed various elements of the Criminal Code related to sexual assault. Currently, it reads, “Every one commits incest who, knowing that another person is by blood relationship his or her parent, child, brother, sister, grandparent or grandchild, as the case may be, has sexual intercourse with that person.”

It is encouraging to see the legal system’s acknowledgement of the devastation of incest, but it’s hard to know what true justice looks like. While some survivors might want criminal charges and imprisonment for their abusers, others are still reluctant, in part because of how that might affect their larger community. Incest, by definition, implicates the family. Survivors aren’t just sharing their story, but rather a family legacy.

Dakota* is a First Nations incest survivor who, as an adult, sees the clear links between sexual abuse at the hands of family and intergenerational trauma caused by residential schools. “Incest is not something that is easily rectified if the ‘traditional support systems’ like family are the instigators or perpetrators,” he says, which is why it’s complicated to contemplate a path forward for survivors. For him, healing came through therapy and opening up to friends, creating a chosen family of support. Dakota believes that “strengthening ties outside of the ordinary familial bonds could be a step in the right direction.”

Holding abusers accountable while recognizing the circumstances that enabled the abuse is complex work.

Another complication is the reality that abusers often prey on multiple victims, usually also in the family; in these cases, coming forward means you are not only telling your story but the story of a sibling, cousin or other relative.

Three-quarters of the survivors I spoke to said they have not publicly shared their stories because they want to protect the confidentiality of a fellow victimized family member. As survivors, they feel torn between their desire to share their story and their desire to protect those who are not yet comfortable doing so.

All the survivors I spoke to wanted a #MeToo moment for incest but also feared the toll that coming forward would take on survivors. “When people dare to speak out, countless others feel seen,” says Brooks. “#MeToo showed us that. But that visibility can cost you. We always end up putting the onus on the very people who have already survived so much bullshit.”

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“Survivors are still searching for paths to healing and justice, neither of which are linear.”

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On a personal level, Brooks found justice in moving away from her home community, working with other survivors and eventually writing a letter to her family explaining why she was now estranged. Her mother eventually apologized, weeks before she died in 2004: “I just didn’t know where to turn, so I turned away,” her mother said.

Survivors are still searching for paths to healing and justice, neither of which are linear. It’s clear they need allyship from those who understand the issue but are able to speak freely without consequence. As a society, we must also re-examine our definitions of accountability. There is a strong need to create new models of justice that go beyond the current criminal system, particularly when perpetrators come from within families.

Photograph by JESSICA DEEKS

PHOTO SHOT ON LOCATION AT RIVIERA OTTAWA RESTAURANT.

JoAnne Brooks has worked with countless survivors of incest at the Women’s Sexual Assault Centre of Renfrew County, in Ontario. She is a survivor herself.

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One idea for where to start is restorative justice, an approach with roots in many Indigenous communities.

The goal is to think beyond carceral approaches to punishment in favour of meaningful healing for everyone involved. Restorative justice approaches exist within Canada’s legal framework, as part of sentencing for various crimes: According to Justice Canada, restorative justice “seeks to repair harm by providing an opportunity for those harmed and those who take responsibility for the harm to communicate about and address their needs in the aftermath of a crime.” It can also be facilitated in grassroots spaces, such as St. Stephen’s Community House in Toronto, which offers community-based mediation for several types of conflicts, including restorative justice circles for sexual assault survivors.

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The process can be an incredibly effective means of providing survivors with a path to healing, says Dr. Alissa Ackerman, an associate professor at California State University, Fullerton, who holds a PhD in philosophy. A rape survivor and the co-founder of Ampersands Restorative Justice, she has worked with hundreds of survivors.

Feedback has been incredibly positive, which Ackerman believes is “because survivors have the lead.”

Perpetrators’ honest participation is required for a traditional restorative justice process, and all of the survivors I spoke to said that their abusers refused to acknowledge the harm they had caused, either denying or minimizing their actions, or failing to show remorse.

Even so, Ackerman says there are options. They can include inviting a proxy to participate in the healing process, such as a parent who blamed their daughter when she disclosed being assaulted. While not all survivors will be able to confront their abusers directly, it’s still possible to heal a relationship with the support system that failed someone after an assault.

Unlike the traditional criminal approach, true restorative justice is a private process that is consensus-based, survivor-directed and trauma-informed—an ideal situation for those who want healing within the family while still maintaining privacy.

But while Ackerman and her team are among a handful of restorative justice experts in North America who specialize in addressing sexual harm, she has never dealt with an incest case.

“Incest exposes entire family systems, so people are not willing to come forward,” she says. “But I think if survivors went through a restorative justice process and there were healthy outcomes, families would be more willing to be open about it.”

Many, if not most, sexual assault survivors “rarely know restorative justice exists,” says Ackerman, who thinks greater awareness about its existence would go a long way toward breaking silence and secrecy within families.

When the Ghomeshi story broke in the fall of 2014, Montgomery took to social media to share her story with the hashtag #BeenRapedNeverReported. As an adult, she had tried to report her grandfather’s sexual abuse to the local police—but because Arch was a loyal churchgoer and a dedicated community leader, she says the police dismissed her.

Undeterred, Montgomery confronted her grandfather before he died. “God knows what you did. I hope you rot in hell,” she told him before storming out of his house.

“I just wanted an apology and proof that I wasn’t crazy,” she says now.

Montgomery also told the rest of her relatives the truth about what he had done to her and other women in her family. Many recoiled in horror. She remains unsure what they found more disturbing: the revelation or her audacity to say it aloud. And after Arch’s death, she found solace in including that scathing scripture in his obituary.

Either way, confronting him and publicly labelling his crimes were the closure Montgomery was denied by police, and it’s what she wishes for all survivors: “I took justice into my own hands and I have no regrets.”

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diction d a n me a e m t o

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Three years after publishing Drunk Mom, I learned that having to live up to the hype of the book was almost as harmful as the addiction itself Written by JOWITA BYDLOWSKA

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PHOTO, ANYA CHIBIS.

and then I relapsed

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don’t know when it got surreal.

Perhaps when Lena Dunham gushed about my book during a talk show, or last year at a small dinner party deep in the Rockies, when a stranger’s eyes widened comically as she grabbed my arm and said, “Oh my God, Drunk Mom!” We were talking about books, and specifically fiction.

I’d hoped we’d continue, but from that moment there was no diverting the conversation from a memoir I published in 2013 about being a new mother while secretly battling addiction and cautiously getting sober again, partly with the help of a 12-step program. It became a bestseller and changed the course of my life. And so we talked about Drunk Mom. Again.

I’m so sick of talking about it—and yet, here I am doing exactly that. Maybe because I feel like I owe you an explanation. This feeling is a habit of sorts. For the longest time I felt responsible, for my sobriety and others’. It’s something that’s been weighing on me heavily, so thank you for letting me come clean. Again.

MEMOIR

I’VE BEEN IN A CONVERSATION about Drunk Mom for almost 10 years. Readers still write to tell me that this book helped them—to stop drinking, to stay sober another day, to feel less alone—and to thank me for writing it. I love every message. But the truth is, whatever the book does for people was never intentional.

Technically, its title wasn’t either. It was the name of a folder on my desktop, where I kept early drafts of the memoir; my publisher’s marketing team loved its flippant tone. Originally, I’d wanted something other than Drunk Mom: something poetic, a cover with flowers, a stem, a pale hand waving.

I’d also originally wanted to write about my struggle under the guise of literary fiction. My initial motivation was only to write. But in the end, once I got sober, I made the decision to own up to the story as mine. With that decision came responsibility. With the publication of Drunk Mom, I became the poster mom for addiction.

When the book first came out I talked about it and about addiction on TV, on the radio and in this very magazine, too. People wrote essays discussing it in the context of mental health and feminist writing—and, in one case, they wrote about people writing about it. The book has been taught in at least three university-level courses that cover memoir. Many applauded me for the courage to be so brutally honest (courage that was debatable, at least to me). A few said it was self-harm, and some said my son would hate me when he was old enough to read it. But the book opened a lot of doors— mainly to the world of book publishing. With the critical reception of my memoir, I was finally able to get eyes on my fiction as well.

What the memoir didn’t do was keep me sober.

Three years after the publication of Drunk Mom, I started to drink again, and it took me years to understand that the expectation of having to live up to the hype of my own addiction memoir was in some ways more harmful than the addiction itself.

In 2016, I found myself in the office of a social worker assigned to help me with my newest relapse. Oh how the mighty have fallen. The thought appeared in my head and then disappeared, as if blown away by the fan in the corner of the office. As the social worker scanned my file, she seemed to connect the dots. Suddenly, she got up, rummaged on the shelf behind her and thrust the book right into my lap, knocking over a small pile of handouts that swooshed off her desk. I stared at that ridiculous title printed above my name.

I picked up the book. It felt like a useless object.

It offered no clues as to why I was drinking again.

Prior to that appointment, my sister and I sat on a small hill close to the hospital, mostly silent, both of us exhausted. To anyone else, it would have seemed like a sunny summer day, yet to me, everything seemed too dry, dying of thirst. Nothing made sense. I’d stayed at my sister’s place the night before, after being told by a police officer—called by my ex-husband—to leave my

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life

MEMOIR

house after I came home drunk. The same house with a sign out front that read Sold.

I had come from a park, where I had passed out earlier, inconsolable, unable to accept that our life as a family was over, that the house that was once ours was gone and that I was definitely in the throes of a relapse. In my inebriated state, I thought it was morning and that it was time to get my son ready for school. I’d started drinking again that year, resorting to the only coping mechanism I had, unable to handle the multiple, devastating betrayals that led to my husband and I separating (my subsequent drinking didn’t help). My only saving grace was trying to be present around my son during the day. But after we ended up selling our home, I no longer bothered to hide my drinking. What was the point? I didn’t want to live—but I didn’t want to die either. I was in a limbo familiar to anyone losing themselves to a compulsion they can’t control.

The final frontier of my pretending everything was under control was with the book. In the social worker’s office, I wanted to plead with her to not let anyone know I was looking for help. Looking for help again meant I’d failed—not just myself and my son, but also everybody else who’d read the book. What became obvious in that moment was that telling my story of addiction—so publicly, so openly—didn’t save me from it. I hoped the book would dismantle the secrecy and stigma; in the end, it only pushed me further into it.

I SPECIFICALLY SET OUT NOT TO write a self-help manual. But I guess it’s only natural for people to look for guidance in a book. We all have a desire to get better, and aren’t books smart?

They may be, but the people who write them are just people. They screw up. They change. I kept on living after the memoir came out, and some of that involved losing a marriage, a house and my sanity in the process.

Living through those things didn’t mean I failed my readers. The book still helped some people, and some are probably sober to this day and wouldn’t relapse if they read that I did. It’s absurd to think that, and I know that now.

In the past two years, many of us have had to re-examine what happily ever after means, and we’ve all had to adapt quickly to ever-changing circumstances.

Many of us had all of our values and beliefs irrecoverably challenged. Not surprisingly, the buzzword of the pandemic is “pivot.” I think we can all agree that the biggest lesson of the 2020s so far has been that the only constant is change.

The most popular addiction recovery model, the famous 12-step one, is based on a series of rigid rules that promise sobriety—but only if you follow the rules. If you don’t, the logic goes, chances are you will relapse.

I originally quit drinking with that sort of dogmatic thinking, believing the onus of my sobriety was on how well I did or didn’t follow the program, or the story I told about myself. But here’s the big secret: There is no one program that works. A memoir is not a program, but for some, reading mine was enough of a program to get sober. Writing it just wasn’t enough for me.

I am sober today. What got me here? Not my memoir.

Not AA. Do you need to know this about me? Probably not, but I’ll try: a supportive, non-drinking partner and friends, creative outlets—such as writing short stories and novels—and physical exercise. And making a conscious decision to choose optimism.

I know it’s a bit of a cop-out but, truly, the only way to recover is to do it in a way that is safe and supportive for you. You need good people around you, you need connections, you need intellectual components such as literature and you need to do whatever brings you joy. You need honesty, and that includes coming clean about failing. However many times that happens.

I used to wishfully think that the memoir would guarantee my own happily ever after, now that I was accountable to the entire world. I remember saying in various media outlets that the only hope I actually had was that, if anything else, the memoir would at least open doors to uncomfortable conversations we need to have about addiction.

Today, I’m still hoping for that and nothing else; today I’m only glad that, almost a decade later, the story I wrote is letting me chip away at secrets of failing and succeeding again.

Sobriety is not onesize-fits-all. Unlike Drunk Mom, this is the only true narrative of addiction.

For some, reading my book was enough of a program to get sober. Writing it just wasn’t enough for me.

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life

POLITICS

Michelle Rempel Garner doesn’t care if you like her THIS WINTER, on the heels of a leadership shakeup in the Conservative Party of Canada, Michelle Rempel Garner found herself on the outs. The Calgary Nose Hill MP had been a fixture in the party’s inner circle for nearly a decade: A rising star in Stephen Harper’s cabinet in the 2010s, she went on to serve as health critic and then as natural resources critic under Opposition leader Erin O’Toole. Among Conservatives, Rempel Garner signified who the party could serve: young, socially progressive, fiscally conservative Canadians.

But that came to a halt in February, when members of the party voted to oust O’Toole. Stepping in as interim leader was Manitoba MP Candice Bergen. In weeks, she would turf multiple members of O’Toole’s shadow cabinet. Rempel Garner, along with other outspoken social progressives, was out of the inner circle.

It’s not the first time in her 11 years in office that the 42-year-old has found herself on the outside. When former Conservative cabinet minister Keith Ashfield made a sexist comment about a teenager at a 2013 media event, Rempel Garner face-palmed her way through his non-apology in the House of Commons while other Conservatives stayed quiet. “I’ve never been comfortable just letting shit like that pass,” she

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After a decade in the party, this Conservative insider is willing to make herself an outsider—all for the kind of conservatism she believes Canada needs Written by VICKY MOCHAMA Photograph by JESSICA DEEKS

says. She was also a vocal cheerleader in 2016 when the Conservative party, then a decade behind in public policy, struck language from its internal documents in order to recognize gay marriage. Five years later, she lobbied for more research into gay party drugs, colloquially known as poppers, amid a party still debating whether or not to support a ban on conversion-therapy practices across Canada. (She was one of the most outspoken Conservatives in favour of the ban.) She even called Prime Minister Justin Trudeau a “fake feminist” in the House in 2019.

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POLITICS

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POLITICS

But with this outsider status comes backlash: Rempel Garner has been on the receiving end of death and rape threats for years. She also holds positions that those on the other side of the political spectrum find hard to agree with—from supporting gun rights to lobbying the government to cancel increases to the carbon tax.

Now, as the Conservative party searches for a new leader, Rempel Garner has hitched herself to Patrick Brown, co-chairing the Brampton, Ont., mayor’s leadership campaign. While Brown was accused in 2018 of sexual misconduct, Rempel Garner says supporting him means remaining true to her beliefs—endorsing the person she thinks will make the best leader of the party. The cost? After years of working from within a boys’ club of a party, this Conservative insider is once again willing to make herself an outsider—and to pay the price for advancing the kind of conservatism she believes in.

BORN MICHELLE GODIN on Valentine’s Day in 1980 to a working-class family in Winnipeg, Rempel Garner discovered her interest in politics when a local Liberal MP came in to speak to her high school class. “I knew nothing about politics; my family was not political at all. And to 17-year-old me, this guy just came across as so naive [and] shitty and arrogant,” she tells me over lunch in March at the CattleBaron Steakhouse near her Calgary riding. That was also the moment she started looking seriously at the Conservative party: “I’m like, if this guy’s such a dick, then clearly I don’t want to be part of this.”

She studied economics at the University of Manitoba, paying for school in part with gigs as a classically trained pianist. In 2004, she and then husband Jason Rempel moved to Calgary for work—he as an actuary, and she as the director of the Institutional Programs Division at the University of Calgary. (She has since divorced and remarried.) There, Rempel Garner connected with the Conservative party; she rose through the ranks of then MP Diane Ablonczy’s riding association. Years later, she found her way in when, in 2010, Jim Prentice announced he would be stepping away from politics, leaving his Calgary Centre-North riding vacant.

Rempel Garner ran unopposed, winning the nomination by acclamation.

“I’m a public policy wonk . . . I love the legislative process. To be able to do that in a democracy as a woman, it’s incredible,” she says. But “the hardest part of this job for me is getting up and being in front of a camera all the time.”

A self-described introvert, Rempel Garner has nonetheless found herself at the forefront of some of the country’s most pressing issues. Throughout the pandemic, she served as health critic for the Opposition, often asking some of the toughest questions about the government’s management of the public health crisis. During the wildest days of the Trump administration’s policy reversals on refugees, which led to an increased number of overland crossings at the U.S.-Canada border, she was the immigration critic.

In some ways, Ottawa’s media bubble was always going to find her compelling. Elected at 31, Rempel Garner became the youngest woman ever in cabinet (she held the distinction until Karina Gould joined the Liberal cabinet in 2017). In 2020, her colleagues across party lines voted Rempel Garner the Hardest Working Parliamentarian in Maclean’s magazine’s annual parliamentary popularity contest. For someone who dislikes the spotlight, she has nonetheless found herself working doggedly underneath it.

“MICHELLE’S GOING TO CRY,” warns Lisa Raitt about my pending interview with Rempel Garner. The two women became close friends when they were cabinet colleagues under Harper from 2013 to 2015. “I viewed myself as a feminist, and I am a feminist, but Jesus, she took on shit that I would never even think about being able to stand up to,” says Raitt. “She wasn’t afraid of the backlash that would come at her.”

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There would be times, Raitt remembers, when Rempel Garner would receive “nasty feedback” for opting out of the usual Conservative uniform, a threepiece blue suit, on Parliament Hill. “She put her chin up and she would wear [the same outfit] again the next day and not really give an F what other people thought,” says Raitt.

“She’s always authentic, regardless of the leader or the direction; she’s very authentic to who she is and who she is as a conservative,” notes Erika Barootes, senator-elect in Alberta and vice-president of Western Canada for PR firm Enterprise Canada. Barootes called Rempel Garner when she was running for Senate in Alberta to get her support, drawing in part on their personal relationship; she got an exacting earful about policy and public service as she drove back through the mountains with her family. “She’s a no-bullshitter,” says Barootes.

And in a political world filled with manufactured talking points and copy-and-pasted-in-both-officiallanguages tweets, her social media offers unusual honesty—from hot takes on Liberal spending to callouts of government failures on COVID-19. She manages her own Twitter account, where she’s fluent in the language of a well placed emoji reply. She’s also friendly with the service’s block button; for many, the #BlockedByRempel hashtag has become a badge of honour. But her online presence hasn’t always been easy to manage: Twitter puts “pressure on parties and politicians into generating ever-more rapid and emotive responses,” Rempel Garner wrote for The Line in 2021. “I’m guilty of falling into this trap, myself.”

REMPEL GARNER DOES, in fact, cry when we talk at that Calgary steak house: about the challenge of being a newlywed separated from her husband during the pandemic, about the end of her first marriage and about the stress of her political career over the past five years.

“I divorced shortly after I was elected,” she tells me. “We got married too young.” She has since married Jeff Garner, a U.S. Army veteran who ran an equine-therapy centre in Oklahoma. (Early in the pandemic, before the government recalled Canadians home, she was working remotely from Oklahoma when her family received word of her mother-in-law’s cancer diagnosis.) The two met on an airplane from New Orleans. “I sat down by the window and I put my earphones and sleep mask on, the universal signal of ‘Just Don’t Talk to Me,’ ” Rempel Garner recalls. “And Jeff changed his seat—he’s a large man—so he could sit in the middle seat beside me. And he had me.” The pair married in May 2019; Stephen Harper was their officiant. Rempel Garner is now a stepmother to three, and a step-grandmother.

Beyond personal hurdles, Rempel Garner says the federal elections in 2015 and 2019 were the most taxing for her. Party policies, like banning niqabs

life

from citizenship ceremonies, came up frequently at the doors in 2015; by the next election, Andrew Scheer (try your best to imagine him—I dare you) was leading the party even further toward social conservatism.

That’s why she’s taken a stance in the Conservative party’s current leadership race, which she calls “a critical inflection point for the party.” She has endorsed Patrick Brown, who is running on an “anticancel-culture” platform; she’ll also serve as national co-chair on his campaign.

That hasn’t been so straightforward given Brown’s track record. In 2018, Brown resigned as leader of the Ontario PC party after CTV News reported that he’d been accused of sexual misconduct by two women during his time as a local politician and federal MP. Brown launched an $8-million defamation suit against CTV in 2018 and reached a settlement with the news channel in early March 2022; no money changed hands, but the channel updated their story to include a statement noting that “key details” in the story were “factually incorrect and required correction.”

Despite the addition of the statement and a correction to the age of one of the women, the story remains up on CTV’s website. In it, Brown, a well-known teetotaler, is alleged to have propositioned a woman for oral sex while she was drunk and he was a local politician in Barrie, Ont.; in a second incident, he is alleged to have offered a young woman a job in his office and she alleges that, during her term there, he sexually assaulted her when she had been drinking.

Brown denies all of the allegations.

“Obviously, having that retraction meant a lot,” Rempel Garner says about the update to the CTV News story. Still, she admits she would have “no qualms or compunction, if anything else [were to come] forward, [about] being very vocal on it. And that’s always been my role in the party; the party knows I’ve never shied away from speaking, even against my own team.”

Rempel Garner has been outspoken on women’s issues, from the plight of Yazidi women and girls to the gendered harassment she faces as a public official.

That hasn’t changed her decision to endorse Brown.

“He knows that if I endorse him, I’m holding him to account on that stuff,” she says. “Because for me, we will never attract more women to politics—and it’s not just our party—unless it’s very clear that nobody is above and nobody has so much power that women’s rights can be taken away.”

Rempel Garner’s endorsement of Brown coincided with his campaign launch speech in March.

The speech critiqued leadership front-runner Pierre Poilievre’s support of the 2015 niqab ban and the establishment of a tip line that would allow Canadians to report “barbaric cultural practices”—policies condemned by activists and opposition parties for being racist. Rempel Garner, then a cabinet minister, was not critical of the policies at the time. She says she didn’t understand the niqab ban as she should have:

POLITICS

“The party knows I’ve never shied away from speaking, even against my own team.”

“I was 34 years old. There’s no reason why I shouldn’t have.” Understanding the ban then as a matter of procedural administration, she also notes that she “hadn’t really interacted with a lot of people that are of Islamic faith.”

That changed in 2020, when four members of a Muslim family in London, Ont., were killed after a white man intentionally drove into them with a pickup truck. “While I’ve since spoken out on it, one of my biggest regrets in my public service was being silent during the 2015 general election campaign on the wrongness of the barbaric cultural practices tip line and the proposed niqab ban,” Rempel Garner wrote in a statement on her website.

“Those policies were wrong.”

“I think it’s important to acknowledge that it’s necessary to hear someone like Michelle acknowledge what she did was wrong,” says Amira Elghawaby, director of strategic communications and campaigns at the Canadian Race Relations Foundation. “It’s tragic that it had to take this tragedy for that realization to happen for Ms. Rempel Garner.”

Over New York strip loin (“rare”), Rempel Garner offers some contrition. “Those moments where you’re wrong, they stick with you,” she says.

I ask why she chose to wait nearly five years to apologize or acknowledge her errors—if it’s too little, too late for her and the party to set the record straight. “Why do I have to be the first out on everything?” she says. Then she quickly backs down: “I’m not trying to argue with you. There’s actually no justification for it.”

There’s a cost to being first out. “It’s a personal cost,” Rempel Garner admits. “It’s people hating you from your own team.”

IN HER CAR, on the way back to downtown Calgary, Rempel Garner and I chat about my recent trip to Kenya. She’s been there before, too, on a parliamentary trip. Without the permission or help of the Canadian Embassy, she trekked to Amboseli National Park—just her and a guide in a rickety van.

They made the nearly four-hour drive to the park and stopped in a clearing, where the guide removed the tarp over the van. And then, suddenly, “This herd of about 40 elephants came by and they were just touching my head,” she says. Rempel Garner goes her own way, consequences be damned.

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gather joyfully. eat soulfully.

live deliciously.

When you choose Prosciutto di San Daniele PDO, Grana Padano PDO and Prosciutto di Parma PDO, you show a passion for life that includes incomparably delicious, natural food that’s never mass-produced or processed.

Each of these products carries the Protected Designation of Origin seal, the European Union’s guarantee of quality and authenticity, so you know they are from a specific geographical region in Italy and are created using traditional techniques that have set the standard of culinary excellence for generations.

Learn more about these icons of European taste at iconsofeuropeantaste.eu

The content of this promotion campaign represents the views of the author only and is his/her sole responsibility. The European Commission and the European Research Executive Agency (REA) do not accept any responsibility for any use that may be made of the information it contains.

CAMPAIGN FINANCED WITH AID FROM THE EUROPEAN UNION.

THE EUROPEAN UNION SUPPORTS CAMPAIGNS THAT PROMOTE HIGH QUALITY AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS.

Toronto’s Saigon Drip sources Vietnamese beans for its cà phê kits. Drip Kit, $45, saigondrip.com.

CELEBRATE MOM WITH A DIY BAGEL BRUNCH

TEXT, IRENE NGO. PHOTO, CHRISTIE VUONG. FOOD STYLING, ESHUN MOTT. PROP STYLING, CHRISTINE HANLON.

page 74

Build up the sweetness slowly; start with a small amount of condensed milk, adding more as needed.

[ D R I P, D R I P ]

Wake-up call Dalgona coffee made a splash two years ago, but these days we’re sweet on cà phê sũ’a nóng, a potent caffeinated drink from Vietnam. Boiled water slowly drips over ground robusta beans and through a phin (metal filter) into a mug or glass containing sweetened condensed milk, which balances out the coffee’s intensity and makes a creamy, espresso-style drink. For a hot-weather version, pour the brewed beverage over ice.

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food

KITCHEN NOTES

B

EFORE THEY were sold at grocery stores, plantbased milks had been around for centuries and were staples in various cuisines. Take soy milk, for example: In China, where this beverage originated, it’s not uncommon to make your own to use in cooking or to drink for breakfast. Coconut milk also has a long history, and is a key ingredient in Filipino dishes, Thai curries, Vietnamese desserts and Caribbean stews.

There are also other plant-based milks that have been around for only a few decades, like oat milk.

It was first commercially developed in the early ’90s by Swedish scientist Rickard Öste, who was looking for a dairy-free alternative for people with lactose intolerance and allergies.

Besides producing fewer greenhouse gases than dairy, plantbased milks also offer health benefits. Nuts, grains and seeds (such as almonds, cashews, oats and hemp) are sources of fibre; soy is high in protein; and coconut is packed with antioxidants and medium-chain fatty acids, which can support digestion.

Tri Ngo and Hang Vu from Rustle & Still, a Toronto café, say they opt for coconut milk in their desserts and coffee-based drinks because they love its depth of flavour and texture. It also adds a creaminess that you don’t get from whole milk. In other words, their preference isn’t intentionally vegan; that just happens to be a benefit.

Making your own plant-based milks allows you to adjust the flavour and texture to your liking— and most are quite easy to DIY. With a few staple ingredients and tools, you can make dairy-free milk to use in all sorts of cooking and baking. We asked three Canadian food-business owners who regularly make their own for their recipes and tips.

GIVE IT A WHIR A guide to making your own nutand grain-based milks at home Written by RIA ELCIARIO Photography by ERIK PUTZ Prop styling by MADELEINE JOHARI Food styling by ASHLEY DENTON

YOU’LL NEED

GREENHOUSE RECIPE: EXCERPTED FROM THE GREENHOUSE COOKBOOK BY EMMA KNIGHT WITH HANA JAMES, DEEVA GREEN AND LEE REITELMAN. COPYRIGHT © 2017 BY GREENHOUSE JUICE COMPANY. PUBLISHED BY PENGUIN, A DIVISION OF PENGUIN RANDOM HOUSE CANADA LIMITED. REPRODUCED BY ARRANGEMENT WITH THE PUBLISHER. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

blender fine-mesh strainer cheesecloth large bowl

Sourcing organic where possible is important to Emma Knight, co-founder of Greenhouse Juice Co., which sells its organic beverages in grocery stores across Canada. “Conventional crops are sprayed with pesticides and herbicides that end up in the drink, and organic crops are better for the health of the soil,” she says. Aside from almond milk, her family also makes their own oat milk, which she recommends, as Canada is a large agricultural producer of oats, and as a crop they require less water than almonds.

Almond Milk Makes 2 cups 3

cups filtered water, divided

2

cups raw almonds

4

Medjool dates, pitted and chopped

1

tsp pure vanilla extract (or 1 vanilla bean, halved lengthwise, seeds scraped out and set aside)

1

tbsp coconut oil (optional)

Kate Taylor Martin, owner of Torontobased Nutbar, says oat milk is probably the least straightforward plant-based milk to make at home, because it can turn gooey if you use too-warm water, or if you overblend, or if you heat it up.

However, homemade oat milk tastes great if you chill and use it soon after you make it. Depending on your preference or what you’re using your oat milk for (Martin enjoys hers in smoothies), she recommends adding a pinch of sea salt, a dash of vanilla and/or maple syrup, or even a pinch of cinnamon.

Cashew Milk Makes 3 to 4 cups

Oat Milk

4

cups water

Makes 3 cups

1

cup raw unsalted cashews

1 4

cups very cold water

tbsp maple syrup, or to taste (optional)

1

cup organic rolled oats

Pinch salt (optional)

1. In a blender, combine water and oats and blend on high for no more than 20 sec.

2 . Place a fine-mesh strainer lined with cheesecloth over a large bowl.

Slowly pour the oat mixture into the centre of the strainer and let drain until only the pulp remains. If there are oat pieces in the strained liquid, strain again.

3. Chill and use immediately.

Pinch sea salt (optional)

1. In a blender, combine 1 cup water, almonds, dates, vanilla, coconut oil and salt. Blend on low until combined.

2 . Add remaining 2 cups water and then blend for another minute or until smooth.

3. To strain, place a large fine-mesh strainer lined with 2 layers of cheesecloth over a large bowl, making sure there’s enough cloth hanging over the edges that you can gather the ends and create a pouch.

4. Pour half of the blended mixture into the centre of the cheesecloth, and then gather the ends to create a pouch.

Squeeze the almond milk through the strainer and into the bowl.

5. Empty the remaining fibre (you can save it to make protein bars) into another container, then repeat the process with remaining mixture.

6. Serve chilled, or seal in an airtight bottle or jar and keep in the refrigerator for up to 3 days.

Raw unsalted cashews are key to good homemade cashew milk, says Ashley Wittig, founder of Honey’s, a plant-based ice cream shop in Toronto.

For a creamier texture–ideal for sauces or soups—she recommends reducing the water to three cups. Wittig combines cashew and coconut milks to create luscious ice creams that will make you forget all about the dairy-based kind.

1. If you have a powerful blender (a high-speed one with a few blending options), combine water, cashews, maple syrup and salt, and blend on high until smooth.

2 . If you have a not-so-powerful blender (a slower-speed one with no blending options), soak cashews in water for at least 2 hrs (or overnight) in the refrigerator. Strain and follow the instructions above.

3. Store in an airtight bottle or jar in the refrigerator for up to 3 days.

GEAR GUIDE

Blender bender Picks that can power through nuts and grains at every price point Shopping tip: A high-speed blender should have a 1,000-watt or higher motor.

This powerful KitchenAid offering uses texture presets to blitz tough ingredients like nuts and ice.

KitchenAid K400 Blender, $199, kitchenaid.ca.

Oster’s high-performance blender offers an affordable alternative to its pricier counterparts.

Oster Versa, $273, amazon.ca.

With the sturdiest blades and fastest motor, Vitamix’s pricey-butworth-it reputation is wellearned. Vitamix A2500 Ascent, $769, thebay.com.

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food

LET’S HAVE A DRINK

Sweet ’n’ spicy Tequila takes on a lighter, fizzier form in this refreshing sipper Recipe by CHRISTINE SISMONDO

El Jaibol Serves 1

Celebrate the return of spring with this sweet riff on a classic highball, made with tequila and ginger instead of the more traditional whisky-soda formula.

1

oz Patrón Silver blanco tequila*

1

oz Giffard Ginger of the Indies liqueur**

½

oz Campari

½

oz lemon juice

¼

oz simple syrup

4

oz soda water

3

dashes Dillon’s Hot Pepper Bitters (or to taste)*** Grapefruit twist, for garnish

*Or another high-quality blanco (clear) tequila. **Giffard isn’t available in every province. Domaine de Canton and The King’s Ginger are both excellent substitutes. ***If Dillon’s is hard to find, Scrappy’s, Bittermens and Nickel 9 all make bitters from spicy chili peppers.

WHAT A PAIR

Wine pro Vidal Wu and beer sommelier Crystal Luxmore play matchmaker for some of the recipes in this issue. Here are their picks

Big Spruce Kitchen Party Pale Ale + Tofu and Quinoa Rainbow Chard Wraps, p 92 Taste the terroir of Cape Breton Island with this pale ale. Big Spruce Brewing grows some of its own hops and is certified organic.

The beer’s citrusy bitterness will smooth out the chard’s bite, while its crisp bubbles will cleanse the tongue. bigspruce.ca.

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Little Beasts La Saison d’Été + Rotisserie Chicken Tartines with Pea Pesto, p 96 This female-owned Ontario brewery specializes in Belgian-style beers, and this saison’s notes of passion fruit, bubble gum, white pepper and lemon will pair perfectly with this summery dish. littlebeastsbrewing.com.

Southbrook Vidal SkinFermented White + Pan-Fried Mediterranean Sea Bass, p 97 Everyone’s least-loved icewine grape, Vidal, gets a makeover in this biodynamic orange. Made without additives, this was Ontario’s first skin-fermented wine and remains a benchmark, all pithy grapefruit, apricot and herbal tannins. southbrook.com.

Tawse Quarry Road Pinot Noir + Smoky Chard, Potato and Sausage Soup, p 92 This perfect pinot from the late Paul Pender, a beloved stalwart of Ontario’s winemaking scene who died earlier this year, is made for the dinner table. Food-friendly, it amuses every bouche with ripe fruit, balanced acidity and a spicy, earthy finish—ideal for cozy soups. tawsewinery.ca.

SWEET ’N’ SPICY PRODUCED BY AIMEE NISHITOBA. PHOTO, ERIK PUTZ. FOOD STYLING, ZEKE GOODWIN. PROP STYLING, NICOLE BILLARK.

1. Chill tequila and highball glass in the freezer, and soda water in the refrigerator, so that everything is nice and frosty.

Cold temperatures are key in a long drink.

2 . Drop a couple of ice cubes into chilled highball glass. Pour in tequila, ginger liqueur and Campari and gently stir for a few seconds. Add lemon juice, simple syrup and soda water.

3. Top with ice and stir gently again. Add bitters and garnish with grapefruit twist.

CREATED FOR

Sip and Savour the Sounds of Summer To master the art of patio living, we pair Frontera’s best-selling wine selection with a feel-good summer soundtrack of Canadian GRAMMY winners.

SONIC SUPERSTARS LIKE Céline Dion and Drake have solidified their place in the Canadian musical canon with anthemic GRAMMY–winning tunes, but it’s Frontera Wines that is hitting all the right notes this summer. As the official wine partner of the GRAMMY Awards, Frontera’s bottles are tastefully crafted with the listening experience in mind. So hit play, tune in, drop the needle—however you choose to groove— and pour a glass of Chile’s finest, because these wines have met their musical match.

Enjoy the season with this curation of feelgood tracks from iconic GRAMMY–winning Canadian artists. The only question that remains: what’s your summer vibe?

Celebrate the best of the North with a curation of Canadian classics that cut across genre and time.

Bryan Adams Summer of ’69 Nelly Furtado I’m Like a Bird Drake Nice for What Shania Twain Man! I Feel Like a Woman!

Justin Bieber Peaches (feat.

Daniel Caesar & Giveon)

The Weeknd Starboy Céline Dion It’s All Coming Back to Me Now Neil Young Heart of Gold Michael Bublé Haven’t Met You Yet Arcade Fire The Suburbs

FOR FEISTY SINGALONG SOIRÉES: FRONTERA CABERNET SAUVIGNON AND ALANIS MORISSETTE This ruby red bottle has a slightly spicy kick, making it the perfect sip to wash down with any track from Alanis Morissette’s GRAMMY– winning album Jagged Little Pill. The ’90s may be over, but their rebel spirit is making a comeback. Embrace the revival and rock out at patio nights and backyard barbecues, with the volume up to 11 and glasses full of this juicy Cabernet Sauvignon. The 2020s haven’t exactly been a pleasure cruise thus far, so why not release your inhibitions with Morissette’s cathartic angst pop and a well-deserved bottle of rich Frontera red.

FOR THE FLIRTATION FACTOR: FRONTERA MERLOT AND JUSTIN BIEBER Sumptuous and dark-cherry red, Frontera’s full-bodied Merlot should be sipped while listening to “E.T.A.”, a seductive R&B track from Canada’s most famous bad-boy-gone-good: Justin Bieber. As he croons about “skin sweeter than cinnamon,” savour the voluptuous notes of cocoa and cherries. If this Merlot could talk, there’s no doubt it would be smooth—just like Bieber’s sweet nothings in this under-the-radar song from his GRAMMY–nominated album Changes. Date night coming up? This romantic pairing is sure to turn up the heat.

FOR SIPPING ON SUNSHINE: FRONTERA SAUVIGNON BLANC AND JONI MITCHELL A classic grape, Sauvignon Blanc is the ideal sip for the classic sound of the ’70s. Cue: Joni Mitchell’s “Big Yellow Taxi”. Though this joyous folk tune was never nominated for a gilded gramophone, Mitchell is still a welldecorated GRAMMY–winning artist so we’re taking the liberty to nominate it here. Since the song is a celebration of the natural world, we’re pairing it with this bottle for the same reason.

With notes of succulent pear and citrus bursting through like a ray of sunshine, this wine is made for summer picnics or light seafood dinners. Luxuriate in every last golden drop because, as Mitchell sings, “You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone.”

FOR GROOVING UNDER STARRY SKIES: FRONTERA TWILIGHT ROSÉ AND KAYTRANADA Featuring Syrah, Cabernet Sauvignon and Carménère grapes picked during the crisp cool of night, Frontera’s blushing Twilight Rosé calls for an equally chill musical pairing. “10%” by Montreal electronic producer Kaytranada, featuring breezy vocals by fellow GRAMMY–winner Kali Uchis, is up to the task. The slickest dance floor groove this side of the ’70s, it’s a summer hit that calls for a summer wine—and Twilight Rosé answers with its luscious notes of cherries and florals. Indulge alongside a decadent dessert or quench your thirst while dancing under the twinkling night sky.

food

MEMOIR

Our food is beautiful—and bookworthy When I couldn’t find a Sri Lankan cookbook published in Canada, I wrote one myself Written by RUWANMALI SAMARAKOON-AMUNUGAMA Illustration by EMILY DAKIN

I

learned how to cook Sri Lankan food from my mother, who immigrated to Canada in the mid 1970s. We moved around a lot, from Ontario to Alberta before finally settling in Port Coquitlam, B.C. With every move to a new town, my mother wasted no time in befriending families in the budding Sri Lankan communities—and her cooking was a big part of that.

Most of our gatherings centred around food, and the dinners she frequently hosted showcased her unsurpassed skill at preparing popular Sri Lankan curries, desserts and other dishes.

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As a child, I observed her cooking from a distance, but, as the years passed, I found myself increasingly by her side, absorbing everything I could. I dedicated a notebook solely to scribbling down recipes that had been passed down from my grandmother.

Watching my mother use traditional techniques, I learned the secrets to a recipe’s success; among them, how to use key ingredients—including pandan and curry leaves, cinnamon bark, turmeric root and coconut—in ways that make our food distinct.

To build on our generational knowledge, I sought other stories

food

MEMOIR

and examples of Sri Lankan cooking but could find no Canadianpublished Sri Lankan cookbooks sold in bookstores. In B.C., I found only a few restaurants on the fringes of town featuring some of our dishes.

It seemed as though our culinary expertise was not visible in city centres or highlighted in popular restaurants. Canada is home to a significant Sri Lankan diaspora that began in the 1950s and has reached almost 200,000 today, but little is known outside of the community about our food or culture.

Sri Lankan cuisine is one of the most beautiful in the world.

Our dishes boast an intricacy of flavours not easily replicated that are the result of the island’s plants, spices and cooking methods being combined with culinary influences introduced by the Portuguese, Dutch and British during colonial eras. The food also blends Indian, Chinese, Malay and Arab influences, and varies by region and among local ethnic groups, such as Tamil, Sinhalese and Burgher. And if that’s not complex enough, recipes are orally passed down within families.

For example, one would be hard-pressed to find original recipes for lamprais, or rice and curries packed in banana leaves. Even roasted curry powder blends are closely guarded secrets. So, while many of the spices in modern Western markets were brought here during colonial times and are now in common use, the way we use them in Sri Lankan cooking is not widely understood.

When I decided to compile a cookbook of my family’s recipes, I wanted to lift the veil of mystery—if just a little. I wrote the book so that new generations of Sri Lankan Canadians who may not have the opportunity to learn the nuances of cooking our cuisine from elders would have something to start with. I wanted to raise credibility for the way we traditionally learn to cook, at home with our elders, rather than in a formal institute. And it

was important to me that I bring the story of unsung Sri Lankan cooks—parents and grandparents, and those who have followed in their footsteps—to the fore.

I sent out unsolicited manuscripts of my cookbook and faced rejection by publishers who either didn’t understand the cuisine or felt it was too niche. My generational recipes and at-home training presented an obstacle for predominantly white publishers who don’t typically recognize this expertise. Eventually, I received interest from an independent publisher about my book. After speaking at length, the publisher asked me why I wanted to see my work printed. I replied, “I want to see a space on the shelves of Canadian bookstores for a Sri Lankan cookbook. I want to see that representation.” My book, Milk, Spice and Curry Leaves: Hill Country Recipes from the Heart of Sri Lanka, was printed a year later, and I’m still in awe when I see it on the shelf at my local Chapters.

I hope those who buy the book bring an open mind and their own flair to the recipes. I also hope food publishers, restaurateurs and retailers begin to embrace a new perspective about generational cooking. Ideally, Sri Lankan food will move beyond the “ethnic food” designation and be recognized as a valued and celebrated part of Canada’s mainstream culinary scene. For our cuisine to truly be cherished in the way it deserves, Sri Lankan cooks must have the opportunity to bring their expertise front and centre.

My mother showed me the importance of bridging our traditions no matter where we resided. While my aspirations for this cookbook are vast, mostly I want to give credence to her imparted wisdom. Thinking back to the many years we spent together in the kitchen revering our heritage, I realize now that the recipes we preserved are second to the time we shared. That was the true gift.

Sri Lankan Watalappan (Sri Lankan-Style Crème Caramel)

from heat. Set aside and let cool slightly.

4. Vigorously whisk eggs in a large bowl for several minutes. Set aside.

5. Add coconut milk, nutmeg and cardamom to the melted jaggery. Add a pinch of salt.

Stir well to combine.

6. Slowly pour the jaggery mixture into the whisked eggs and whisk again. Pour the mixture into the Pyrex bowl. Place the bowl in the pot, and cover the pot with a tight-fitting lid. (You may wish to tie a tea towel around the rim of the lid to help prevent steam from escaping.)

Steam over low heat for 40 to 45 min.

7. Carefully remove the bowl of watalappan from the pot.

The watalappan will jiggle and have a soft-looking centre on top, yet will be cooked and

Serves 4 to 6 Prep 25 min; Total 1 hr 10 min Watalappan 225

g jaggery, preferably Sri Lankan kithul jaggery (palm sugar)

3⁄4

tsp vanilla

5

large eggs

¾

cup canned unsweetened coconut milk

1⁄8

tsp ground nutmeg

1⁄8

tsp ground cardamom

Chantilly Cream 1

cup 35% cream

1⁄2

tsp vanilla

1⁄2

tsp orange blossom water or orange extract

¼

cup icing sugar Crushed lightly toasted cashews or toasted sliced almonds (optional)

1. Watalappan: Fill a large pot with water only a few inches above the base. Place a round metal steamer rack trivet inside (one without handles because you will need to ensure a tightly closed lid when you begin steaming). Set the pot on the stove over high heat.

Have a 4-cup tempered glass bowl ready that will easily fit into the pot.

2 . Using a sharp knife, finely shred the jaggery into pieces (draw your knife along the edge of the block, as if you are shredding a piece of hard cheese).

3. Combine shredded jaggery with a few tbsp of warm water in a small saucepan set over medium-low. Cook, stirring often with a wooden spoon, until jaggery melts to a syrupy consistency. Stir in vanilla for 1 to 2 min. Remove

firm enough to cut through without breaking.

8 . Chantilly cream: Whisk cream with vanilla and orange blossom water until soft peaks form. Add icing sugar; whisk until stiff peaks form.

9. Garnish plated servings of watalappan with a dollop of Chantilly cream.

Alternatively, sprinkle the top of the watalappan with toasted nuts, if desired.

Serve warm or cool, with tea or coffee.

Kitchen tip Traditional watalappan uses palm sugar made from the sap of the kithul palm tree, which grows in Sri Lanka. It’s available online or at local Sri Lankan food stores, though some other types of jaggery may do in a pinch. Substituting brown sugar or molasses is not recommended.

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WEEKEND FEAST

MIX AND MATCH

Brass and glass and plenty of lace: This relaxed approach to table decor is easy and elegant.

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WEEKEND FEAST

Brunch club This Mother’s Day, why not celebrate with a deceptively simple brunch bar? Make your own bagels, cure your own gravlax, crack open a few jars of pickled things and, of course, feast on cake Recipes by IRENE NGO Produced by SUN NGO Photography by CHRISTIE VUONG Food styling by ESHUN MOTT Prop styling by CHRISTINE HANLON

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BIG SPREAD

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PLATES, COURTESY OF ALYSSAGOODMANART.COM. (BOTTOM LEFT WITH SALMON, LAZY RIVER PLATE. TOP LEFT WITH CAPERS, SWAN PLATE. TOP RIGHT, RIVER PLATE.)

food WEEKEND FEAST

Easy Homemade Bagels P 80

Hearts of Palm “Whitefish” Salad P 81

Beet-Cured Salmon Gravlax P 80 Pickled Red Onions P 81

Smoked Whitefish Salad P 80

Cashew “Cream Cheese” P 81

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WEEKEND FEAST

Hard Cider Mimosa P 81

Jam Swirl Mini Cheesecakes P 81

SET THE TONE

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WEEKEND FEAST

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WEEKEND FEAST

BAKING SCHOOL A foolproof way to BYOB—bake your own bagels—with one simple dough hack Easy Homemade Bagels Makes 8 Prep 20 min; total 50 min 1⁄3

600

cup everything bagel seasoning, sesame seeds or poppy seeds g pkg cold storebought pizza dough

1⁄3

cup honey

1⁄4

tsp salt

1. Position rack in centre of oven and preheat to 425F. Line a baking sheet with parchment, then lightly spray with oil. Pour bagel seasoning into a small bowl. Set a clean tea towel (or some paper towels) on a rack.

2 . Place dough on a cutting board. Cut into 8 equal portions. Fold each portion into a ball. (Pizza dough shouldn’t be sticky, but lightly oil your fingers, if desired.)

5. Sprinkle both sides of dried bagels with seasoning, then return to prepared sheet.

1 1⁄2

Beet-Cured Salmon Gravlax Serves 15 Prep 20 min; total 30 min Plus 48 hours curing time 1 1⁄2 cups kosher salt

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CHATELAINE • MAY/JUNE 2022

3. Working with 1 ball at a time, poke your thumb through centre of ball, then slowly stretch the dough out until it forms a 4-in.-wide ring. Lay on prepared sheet.

Repeat with remaining dough balls. (It’s okay if rings look a little messy.) Set aside.

6. Bake until bagels are deepgolden, 20 to 25 min. Serve warm with cream cheese.

cups granulated sugar

1

cup chopped dill

3

cups grated beets

1

kg skin-on salmon fillet

4. Combine 4 cups water, honey and salt in a medium saucepan. Bring to a boil over high. Reduce heat to mediumhigh. Add bagels, 1 or 2 at a time, and boil for 1 min per side. Using a slotted spoon, transfer to towel and let dry.

Repeat with remaining bagels.

1. Combine salt, sugar and dill in a small bowl. Lay 2 large sheets of plastic wrap, lengthwise, on a rimmed baking sheet, overlapping by about 3 in. Spread half of the salt mixture on the plastic wrap to make an area the size of the fillet. Lay salmon on top, skinside down.

2. Cover salmon with grated beets, patting them down to coat well, then top with remaining salt mixture. Wrap tightly in plastic wrap. Top with a second baking sheet.

Weigh down salmon by placing heavy objects on top sheet.

Refrigerate for 48 hours.

3. Unwrap salmon, then scrape off and discard salt mixture.

Wipe clean with paper towels.

4. Cut salmon into thin slices with a sharp knife. Arrange slices on a platter.

Kitchen tip Using cold pizza dough straight from the fridge will yield a denser, chewier bagel. If you let the dough come to room temperature before baking, the bagels will have a more breadlike texture.

Smoked Whitefish Salad Makes 1 1⁄3 cups Prep 10 min; total 10 min 170

g smoked whitefish or smoked mackerel, skin

food

removed and broken into chunks 1⁄3

cup mayonnaise

1⁄2

cup finely chopped celery (about 1 large stalk)

¼

cup finely chopped chives

2 ⅛

tbsp chopped dill tsp pepper

1. Combine whitefish with mayo, celery, chives, dill and pepper in a medium bowl.

Stir with a fork to combine, breaking fish into smaller pieces. Cover and refrigerate for up to 3 days.

Hearts of Palm “Whitefish” Salad Makes 1 3⁄4 cups Prep 10 min; total 10 min 1

398-mL can hearts of palm, drained and finely chopped

1

celery stalk, finely chopped

½

shallot, finely chopped

¼

cup finely chopped chives

2

tbsp chopped dill

2

tbsp dulse flakes (optional)

1⁄3 1 ⅛

Cashew “Cream Cheese” Makes 1 cup Prep 10 min; total 10 min Plus overnight soaking ½

cup raw cashews

1⁄2

350-g pkg extra-firm tofu, drained very well

1

tbsp nutritional yeast

1

tbsp apple cider vinegar

½

tsp salt

¼

cup finely chopped chives (optional)

1. Combine cashews with enough water to cover in a medium bowl. Cover and refrigerate overnight, about 12 hrs.

(This will soften cashews and make them easier to blend.)

2 . Drain cashews after overnight soaking, then transfer to a blender or food processor along with tofu, nutritional yeast, vinegar and salt. Blend, scraping down sides as needed, until mixture is creamy.

3. Scrape mixture into a bowl. Stir in chopped chives, if desired.

1. Boil a kettle of water. Pour boiling water over onion rings in a large bowl until covered.

Let stand for 2 min, then drain.

2 . Boil vinegar with sugar and salt in a medium saucepan until sugar dissolves. Remove from heat and add onion rings. Press onion into liquid.

Let stand, stirring occasionally, for at least 30 min. Use immediately or refrigerate for up to 1 week.

Hard Cider Mimosa Makes 1 Prep 5 min; total 5 min ⅔ cup chilled hard cider 1⁄3 cup chilled orange juice

1. Pour cider and orange juice into a flute.

Prefer a mocktail? Substitute sparkling apple juice for hard apple cider.

Jam Swirl Mini Cheesecakes

Ba ke t he ! cover

Serves 12 Prep 25 min; total 1 hr 45 min

cup vegan mayonnaise tsp liquid smoke

Crust

tsp pepper

1. Combine hearts of palm with celery, shallot, chives, dill, dulse, mayo, liquid smoke and pepper in a medium bowl. Stir with a fork to combine. Cover and refrigerate for up to 5 days.

Kitchen tip Hearts of palm come from the core of certain types of young palm shoots.

They taste a little like artichokes and are high in fibre.

When chopped or shredded finely, they make a great textural substitute for fish.

1

cup graham cracker crumbs (137 g)

1⁄3

cup unsalted butter, melted

Filling 2

Pickled Red Onions

⅔

Makes 1 1⁄2 cups Prep 5 min; total 35 min

2

½

small red onion, cut in 1⁄8-in.-thick rounds, separated into rings

1⁄3

cup white wine vinegar

1⁄4

tsp granulated sugar

1⁄4

tsp salt

250-g pkgs cream cheese, softened cup granulated sugar (128 g) large eggs, at room temperature

½

cup sour cream

1

tsp lemon zest

1

tbsp lemon juice

¼ to 1⁄3 cup store-bought peach or berry jam, at room temperature, strained

WEEKEND FEAST

1. Position rack in centre of oven and preheat to 325F. Line one 12-cup muffin pan with paper liners.

2 . Crust: Stir crumbs and butter in a small bowl until crumbs are moist. Divide evenly among paper liners.

Press down firmly and evenly.

3. Filling: Beat cream cheese in a large bowl, using an electric mixer on medium-low, scraping down sides occasionally, until very smooth, 4 min.

Beat in sugar until combined, 1 to 2 min. Beat in eggs on low speed. Beat in sour cream, lemon zest and lemon juice until smooth. Divide batter evenly among liners.

4. Whisk jam in a small bowl until loosened. Spoon small drops over filling. Gently pull the tip of a skewer or toothpick through drops to create small swirls. Bake until filling is set, 24 min. Transfer to a rack and let cool for 15 min. Transfer cheesecakes to rack and let cool completely. Cheesecakes will keep in the refrigerator for up to 3 days.

Kitchen tip A silicone muffin mould brushed with melted butter will increase your chances of a perfectly turned-out cheesecake. Let cool completely and run the thin edge of a spatula around each cheesecake before popping it out.

Switch it up If you prefer bars, spray a 9 × 9-in. metal baking pan with oil, then line with parchment, leaving overhang on 2 sides. For crust, increase graham cracker crumbs to 1 ½ cups and melted butter to ½ cup. Prepare crust and press firmly and evenly onto bottom of pan. Bake at 325F for 12 to 15 min. Meanwhile, prepare filling. Pour into warm crust, then swirl in jam. Bake until filling is set, 30 to 35 min.

Let cool completely on a rack, about 1 hr. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 1 to 2 hours. Cut into bars.

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BAKING

LEMON POPPY SEED STREUSEL MUFFINS P 87

BLUEBERRY OAT MUFFINS P 84

GLUTEN-FREE RASPBERRY AND ALMOND MUFFINS P 87

Recipes by DONNA BOROOAH and IRENE NGO Produced by STEPHANIE HAN KIM Photography by ERIK PUTZ Food styling by RYAN BARCLAY Prop styling by MADELEINE JOHARI

VEGAN BANANA CHOCOLATE CHUNK MUFFINS P 87

CHEDDAR AND BACON CORNMEAL MUFFINS P 84

They’re breakfast. They’re dessert. They’re a brunch treat and a savoury snack.

When you think of muffins as a delicious delivery system for whatever you’re in the mood for, the possibilities become endless—and we’ve got the recipes to prove it

food BAKING

MORNING GLORY MUFFINS P 84

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BAKING

Blueberry Oat Muffins

Morning Glory Muffins

Makes 12 Prep 15 min; total 1 hr 5 min

Makes 12 Prep 15 min; total 45 min

1½

cups all-purpose flour (180 g)

1 1⁄4

cups all-purpose flour (150 g)

⅔

cup quick oats (53 g)

1 1⁄2

tsp baking powder

⅔

cup granulated sugar (128 g)

1⁄2

1 1⁄2

tsp baking powder

1 1⁄2 1⁄4

tsp cinnamon tsp salt

tsp baking soda

1⁄4

tsp salt

1⁄2

cup canola oil

1

large egg

1⁄2

cup buttermilk

1

cup 2% milk

1⁄2

cup granulated sugar (96 g)

1⁄4

cup packed dark brown sugar (48 g)

¼

cup canola oil

1

tbsp lemon zest

4

tsp lemon juice

1

cup blueberries

1. Position rack in centre of oven and preheat to 375F. Line a 12-cup muffin pan with paper liners.

2 . Stir flour with oats, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a large bowl. Whisk egg with milk, oil, lemon zest and juice in a medium bowl.

Stir egg mixture into flour mixture just until combined.

Set batter aside for 15 min.

3. Spoon about 2 tbsp batter into each liner. Stir blueberries into remaining batter.

Divide batter among liners.

(This will prevent blueberries from sticking to the bottom of paper liners.)

4. Bake until a skewer inserted into the centre of a muffin comes out clean, 25 to 30 min. Let muffins cool in pans for 10 min, then transfer to a rack and let cool completely. Muffins will keep in an airtight container for up to 3 days.

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Makes 12 Prep 20 min; total 50 min 6

bacon strips, excess fat trimmed and discarded, chopped

1

cup all-purpose flour (120 g)

1

cup cornmeal (160 g)

tsp baking soda

1⁄2

2

Cheddar and Bacon Cornmeal Muffins

large eggs

1

tsp vanilla

1

cup coarsely grated peeled Gala apple

1

cup coarsely grated carrot

1⁄2

cup unsweetened shredded coconut

1⁄2

cup sultanas

1. Position rack in centre of oven and preheat to 375F. Line a 12-cup muffin pan with paper liners.

2 . Whisk flour with baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and salt in a medium bowl.

3. Whisk eggs in a large bowl, then whisk in oil, buttermilk, granulated and brown sugars, and vanilla.

Stir flour mixture into egg mixture just until combined.

4. Stir in apple, carrot, coconut and sultanas just until combined. Divide batter among liners.

5. Bake until a skewer inserted into the centre of a muffin comes out clean, 18 to 20 min. Let muffins cool in pans for 10 min, then transfer to a rack and let cool completely. Muffins will keep in an airtight container for up to 3 days.

¼ 2 1⁄2

cup granulated sugar (48 g) tsp baking powder tsp salt

2

large eggs

1

cup 2% milk

1⁄3

cup unsalted butter, melted

1

cup shredded cheddar cheese (120 g)

4

green onions, thinly sliced

1. Position rack in centre of oven and preheat to 375F. Spray a 12-cup muffin pan with oil.

2 . Heat a large non-stick frying pan over medium. Add bacon. Cook, stirring occasionally, just until crisp, 5 to 7 min. Transfer bacon to a paper-towel-lined plate and let cool slightly.

3. Whisk flour with cornmeal, sugar, baking powder and salt in a medium bowl. Season with pepper.

4. Whisk eggs with milk and butter in a large bowl. Stir flour mixture into egg mixture just until combined. (It’s okay if batter is lumpy.) Stir in cooled bacon, cheddar and green onions. Divide batter among prepared muffin cups.

5. Bake until a skewer inserted into the centre of a muffin comes out clean, 15 to 18 min.

Let muffins cool in pan for 10 min, then serve warm.

Cooled muffins will keep in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 2 days.

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BAKING

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BAKING

Gluten-Free Raspberry and Almond Muffins

Lemon Poppy Seed Streusel Muffins

Vegan Banana Chocolate Chunk Muffins

Makes 12 Prep 20 min; total 40 min

Makes 12 Prep 20 min; total 40 min

Makes 12 Prep 10 min; total 40 min

1½

½ 2

cups gluten-free flour, such as Bob’s Red Mill 1 to 1 (222 g) cup almond flour (60 g) tsp baking powder

½

tsp baking soda

½

tsp salt

¼

tsp cinnamon

2

large eggs

¾

cup granulated sugar (144 g)

1

175-g tub plain Balkan yogurt (about ¾ cup)

1⁄3 1 ¼

cup canola oil

Streusel

2

tbsp ground flax meal

¼

cup all-purpose flour (30 g)

3

very ripe large bananas

¼

cup granulated sugar (48 g)

2

tbsp cold unsalted butter, cubed

cups all-purpose flour (240 g)

2

tsp baking powder

1

tsp baking soda

3

Muffins 1

cup granulated sugar (192 g)

2

tbsp lemon zest

2 1⁄3

cups all-purpose flour (280 g)

2 to 3 tbsp poppy seeds 2

tsp baking powder

170-g pkg raspberries, divided

½

tsp salt

½

tsp turmeric (optional)

cup sliced natural almonds

¼

tsp baking soda

2

1. Position rack in centre of oven and preheat to 400F. Line a 12-cup muffin pan with paper liners.

2 . Whisk gluten-free flour with almond flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and cinnamon in a medium bowl.

3. Whisk eggs with sugar, yogurt and oil in a large bowl.

Gradually whisk flour mixture into egg mixture until smooth. Set aside 12 raspberries for garnish. Stir remaining raspberries into batter.

Divide batter among liners, then top with sliced almonds and reserved raspberries.

4. Bake until a skewer inserted into the centre of a muffin comes out clean, 17 to 20 min. Transfer muffins to a rack and let cool. Muffins will keep in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 1 day.

Kitchen tip Look for a glutenfree flour blend that contains xanthan gum—this will give your muffins the best texture.

large eggs

½

cup canola oil

1⁄3

cup 2% milk

1⁄3

cup lemon juice

1. Position rack in centre of oven and preheat to 375F. Line a 12-cup muffin pan with paper liners.

2 . Streusel: Combine ¼ cup flour with ¼ cup sugar in a small bowl. Add butter. With your hands, rub butter and flour mixture together until crumbly. Set aside.

3. Muffins: Whisk 1 cup sugar with lemon zest in a medium bowl. Whisk in 2⅓ cups flour, poppy seeds, baking powder, salt, turmeric and baking soda.

4. Whisk eggs with oil, milk and lemon juice in a large bowl. Stir flour mixture into egg mixture just until combined. Divide batter among liners, then top with streusel.

5. Bake until a skewer inserted into the centre of a muffin comes out clean, 16 to 18 min.

Transfer muffins to a rack and let cool. Muffins will keep in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 2 days.

1⁄2

tsp salt

1⁄2

cup coconut oil, at room temperature

3⁄4

cup packed brown sugar (144 g)

1

tbsp vanilla

1

cup coarsely chopped vegan chocolate or vegan chocolate chips

1. Position rack in centre of oven and preheat to 375F. Line a 12-cup muffin pan with paper liners.

2 . Stir flax meal with ⅔ cup room-temperature water in a large bowl. Mash bananas in a large measuring cup (it should measure 1 to 1 ¼ cups).

3. Stir flour with baking powder, baking soda and salt in a medium bowl.

4. Add coconut oil, sugar and vanilla to flax mixture. Using an electric mixer on medium, beat until fluffy, 1 to 2 min.

(Mixture may look curdled.)

Beat in bananas just until combined. Stir flour mixture into banana mixture until no streaks remain. (Batter will be thick.) Stir in chocolate just until combined. Divide batter among liners.

5. Bake until a skewer inserted into the centre of a muffin comes out clean, 18 to 20 min.

Let muffins cool in pans for 10 min, then transfer to a rack and let cool completely.

Muffins will keep in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 3 days.

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IN SEASON

Pickled Rainbow Chard Stems P 92

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MARIN SATIN 5-PIECE FLATWARE PLACE SETTING IN SATIN FINISH, CRATEANDBARREL.CA.

food IN SEASON

Smoky Rainbow Chard, Potato and Sausage Soup

P 92

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IN SEASON

Tofu and Quinoa Rainbow Chard Wraps P 92

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IN SEASON

Pickled Rainbow Chard Stems Makes 1 ½ cups Prep 10 min; total 15 min Plus overnight chilling 2

large bunches rainbow chard

1⁄2

cup white wine vinegar

3

tbsp granulated sugar

1 1⁄2

tbsp pickling spice

1. Cut stems off chard. Reserve leaves for another use. Cut stems into 2 ½-in.-long pieces (if stems are thick, halve pieces lengthwise).

2 . Combine vinegar, sugar and ½ cup water in a small saucepan and set over medium-high. Boil until sugar dissolves, about 1 min.

3. Combine stems and pickling spice in a glass bowl or jar.

Pour vinegar mixture overtop.

Set aside until completely cooled. Cover and refrigerate overnight before serving.

Pickles will keep well in the refrigerator for up to 3 days.

Smoky Rainbow Chard, Potato and Sausage Soup Serves 4 Prep 15 min; total 30 min

1 cup water. Bring to a boil.

Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer just until potatoes are fork-tender, 6 to 8 min.

3. Remove and discard bay leaf. Add chard stems and cherry tomatoes. Simmer just until stems are tender, about 3 min. Stir in chard leaves just until wilted. Ladle soup into serving bowls.

Kitchen tip Chouriço is a flavourful, garlicky smoked sausage from Portugal that is fully cooked and ready to eat.

You can also substitute drycured Spanish chorizo, which has a stronger paprika than garlic flavour, for this recipe.

Tofu and Quinoa Rainbow Chard Wraps Serves 4 Prep 35 min; total 55 min Marinated Tofu 1⁄4

cup apple cider vinegar

1⁄4

cup soy sauce

1

tbsp maple syrup

1

350-g block extra-firm tofu, cut in long, thin sticks

Wraps ¾ 1

cup quinoa large bunch rainbow chard, preferably with 8 large leaves

1

tbsp olive oil

2

Portuguese hot chouriço sausages, thinly sliced

1⁄2

cup vegan or regular mayonnaise

1

small onion, finely diced

2

2

garlic cloves, minced

plum tomatoes, cut in ½-in.-thick sticks

1

bay leaf

2

1

900-L carton sodiumreduced chicken broth

mini cucumbers, quartered lengthwise

1

avocado, cut in 8 wedges

1

large yellow potato, peeled and cut in ¾-in. cubes

1

small bunch rainbow chard, leaves and stems chopped and separated

1

pint cherry tomatoes, halved

1. Heat a pot over medium.

Add oil, then sausage and onion. Cook, stirring often, until onion is softened, about 3 min. Add garlic and bay leaf. Cook, stirring, for 2 min.

2. Add broth, potatoes and

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CHATELAINE • MAY/JUNE 2022

1. Marinated tofu: Stir vinegar, soy sauce and maple syrup in a loaf pan or medium bowl.

Add tofu sticks, making sure they are covered with marinade. Set aside. (Depending on the vessel, you may need to flip sticks occasionally to evenly marinate them.)

2 . Wraps: Meanwhile, cook quinoa following package directions and set aside to cool. Then cut stem off 1 chard leaf at base. Carefully shave

off any excess stalk on leaf to make it thinner and easier to roll. (Shaved stem should be flush with leaf.) Cut stem into long, thin sticks.

4. Wipe leaf clean with a damp paper towel. (Do not wash.) Microwave on high until slightly softened, about 30 sec. (This is just enough to make leaf pliable for rolling.)

Place on a clean kitchen towel to absorb any excess liquid that may have released from leaf. Repeat with remaining chard leaves.

5. Stir mayo and 2 tbsp tofu marinating liquid into quinoa. Drain tofu, reserving marinating liquid for another use, if desired.

6. When leaves are dry, divide tofu, quinoa, stems, tomatoes, cucumbers and avocado along wide ends of leaves. Lift 1 long edge of each leaf up and over filling, then roll toward the centre. Fold in sides and continue rolling to form a log. Set seam-side down on a platter.

Cut rolls in half, if desired.

Kitchen tip No microwave?

Blanch the chard leaves in boiling water for 2 to 3 sec, immediately placing in a bowl of cold water to stop cooking.

Lay the leaves on clean kitchen towels and let dry completely. This method will yield wetter leaves—it’s best to let them dry for a few hours before rolling.

Kitchen tip Chard stems can have tough strings on the outside, just like celery stalks.

Peel them, if desired.

Switch it up You can also eat this dish as a salad—just chop the chard leaves instead of microwaving them.

Rainbow Chard and Chicken Salad Serves 4 Prep 20 min; total 30 min Dressing 1⁄3

cup olive oil

¼

cup sherry vinegar

4

tsp maple syrup

1

tbsp Dijon mustard

2

tsp anchovy paste

Salad 4 1⁄4

skinless, boneless chicken breasts tsp salt

1

tbsp butter or olive oil

1

tsp anchovy paste (optional)

1

small bunch rainbow chard, leaves and stems chopped

1

pint cherry tomatoes, halved

4

radishes, thinly sliced

1. Dressing: Whisk oil with vinegar, maple syrup, Dijon and 2 tsp anchovy paste in a small bowl. Set aside.

2 . Salad: Sprinkle chicken with salt. Season with pepper.

3. Melt butter in a large frying pan over medium-high. Add chicken. Cook for 3 min. Flip chicken, then reduce heat to medium-low. Cover and cook until no longer pink in the centre, about 4 min more.

4. Add 1 tsp anchovy paste to pan. Stir until melted into butter. Spoon over chicken to coat well.

5. Arrange chard, tomatoes and radishes on a platter. Slice chicken and arrange on salad.

Drizzle dressing overtop.

SHOP AND STORE When shopping for rainbow chard, look for firm stems and glossy green leaves. Use the tender, smaller leaves first (they’re great in our Rainbow Chard and Chicken Salad). Larger leaves will last longer.

Avoid washing chard before storing in the fridge; moisture will encourage the leaves to wilt. Wrap in a dry paper towel, store in a reusable produce bag, and keep in the vegetable crisper for up to a week.

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IN SEASON

Rainbow Chard and Chicken Salad

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MAY/JUNE 2022 • CHATELAINE

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food

DINNER PLAN

The dinner plan Five easy weeknight meals

40

[ M O N DAY ]

Orecchiette with Shrimp, Arugula and Cherry Tomatoes 94

CHATELAINE • MAY/JUNE 2022

RECIPES, ESHUN MOTT. PRODUCED BY AIMEE NISHITOBA. PHOTOS, ERIK PUTZ. FOOD STYLING, SAGE DAKOTA. PROP STYLING, NICOLE BILLARK.

minutes or less!

food

DINNER PLAN

[ T U E S DAY ]

[ W E D N E S DAY ]

Rotisserie Chicken Tartines with Pea Pesto

Carrot and Fennel Soup with Chili Garlic Oil

[ T H U R S DAY ]

[ F R I DAY ]

Spanish Tortilla with Asparagus

Pan-Fried Mediterranean Sea Bass and Spring Vegetables MAY/JUNE 2022 • CHATELAINE

95

food

DINNER PLAN

[ M O N DAY ]

[ T U E S DAY ]

[ W E D N E S DAY ]

Orecchiette with Shrimp, Arugula and Cherry Tomatoes

Rotisserie Chicken Tartines with Pea Pesto

Carrot and Fennel Soup with Chili Garlic Oil

Serves 4

Serves 4

Serves 4

Prep 20 min; total 30 min

Prep 15 min; total 25 min

Prep 15 min; total 40 min

450

g orecchiette pasta

400

g frozen raw peeled shrimp, thawed

1⁄2

8 1⁄2

tbsp olive oil, divided

550

tsp lemon zest 1⁄2

g carrots, cut in 1⁄2-in. pieces (about 4 cups) fennel bulb, cored and diced (about 1 1⁄2 cups), fronds reserved

tsp salt, divided

1

tbsp lemon juice

6

tbsp olive oil, divided

4

2

large shallots, chopped

cups shredded rotisserie chicken (about ½ whole chicken)

5

large garlic cloves, divided

1

head garlic, peeled and chopped (about ¼ cup)

2

cups fresh or frozen peas

3

tbsp olive oil, divided

1⁄4

cup chopped walnuts

2

tsp fennel seeds

tsp red pepper flakes

1⁄4

cup chopped mint

1⁄2

tsp salt

garlic cloves, divided

1⁄4

cup canola oil

1⁄2 680

g cherry tomatoes, halved

2

tbsp red wine vinegar (optional)

4

cups packed baby arugula

2 1⁄4 4

1. Cook pasta following package directions. Reserve 1 cup of pasta water, then drain pasta. Set aside.

2 . Pat shrimp dry with paper towels.

Season with ¼ tsp salt. Heat a large frying pan over medium-high. Add 2 tbsp oil, then shrimp. Cook until shrimp is just cooked through, about 1 min per side. Transfer shrimp to a plate.

3. Reduce heat to medium-low. Add remaining 4 tbsp oil, shallots, garlic and red pepper flakes to pan. Cook, stirring often, until shallots soften, about 2 min.

Add tomatoes. Cook, stirring occasionally, until saucy, about 5 min. Stir in red wine vinegar.

4. Increase heat to medium. Return shrimp to pan. Stir in pasta and arugula until warmed through. Gradually stir in pasta water to loosen sauce, if desired.

Season with black pepper.

Per serving 710 calories, 28 g protein, 99 g carbs, 24 g fat, 7 g fibre, 2 mg iron, 850 mg sodium.

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CHATELAINE • MAY/JUNE 2022

cup finely grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese

1

red hot pepper, seeded and thinly sliced

1

tsp sweet paprika

large slices sourdough or rustic bread

1

onion, chopped

5

cups no-salt vegetable broth

1. Combine 2 tbsp oil, lemon zest and juice in a large bowl. Add chicken and toss to combine. Season with pepper.

2 . Bring a medium pot of water to a boil. Add peas. Boil until tender, 3 to 4 min. Drain and rinse with cold water.

Combine drained peas with 4 tbsp oil, walnuts, mint and 1 garlic clove in a blender or food processor. Pulse until well combined but still chunky. Scrape into a medium bowl, then stir in cheese.

3. Position rack in centre of oven and preheat broiler. Brush both sides of bread with remaining 2 tbsp oil, then arrange on a baking sheet. Broil until deep golden, 1 to 2 min per side. Cut remaining garlic clove in half and rub 1 side of each toast with cut sides of garlic clove.

4. Spread each toast thickly with pea pesto, then cut in half. Top with chicken mixture. Sprinkle with more mint leaves, if desired.

Per serving 640 calories, 36 g protein, 28 g carbs, 43 g fat, 4 g fibre, 3 mg iron, 790 mg sodium.

1⁄4

cup 35% cream

1. Position rack in centre of oven and preheat to 450F. 2 . Toss carrots, fennel and 2 large unpeeled garlic cloves with 2 tbsp olive oil, fennel seeds and salt on a large baking sheet. Spread out vegetables in a single layer. Season with pepper.

3. Roast, stirring halfway through, until vegetables are browned and soft, 20 min.

4. Meanwhile, prepare chili garlic oil.

Thinly slice remaining 3 garlic cloves.

Heat a small saucepan over medium-low.

Add canola oil. When warm, add garlic and hot pepper. Cook until garlic is golden and pepper is tender, 5 min. Stir in paprika. Remove from heat.

5. Heat a pot over medium. Add remaining 1 tbsp olive oil, then onion. Cook, stirring often, until softened, about 2 min.

Discard skins from roasted garlic, then add vegetables and roasted garlic to pot.

Pour in broth. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium-low, cover and simmer until vegetables are very soft, about 10 min.

6. Remove from heat. Purée soup until smooth. Stir in cream. Serve soup drizzled with chili garlic oil; top with reserved fennel fronds.

Per serving 360 calories, 3 g protein, 28 g carbs, 27 g fat, 6 g fibre, 1 mg iron, 430 mg sodium.

[ T H U R S DAY ]

[ F R I DAY ]

Spanish Tortilla with Asparagus Serves 4

Pan-Fried Mediterranean Sea Bass and Spring Vegetables

Prep 15 min; total 40 min

Serves 4

Prep 15 min; total 25 min 6 1⁄2

tbsp olive oil, divided cup finely chopped mild dry-cured chorizo sausage

4

skin-on Mediterranean sea bass fillets (about 500 g)

1

onion, chopped

1⁄2

tsp salt, divided

2

medium Yukon Gold potatoes, cut in ½-in. cubes

1⁄3

cup finely chopped parsley leaves

250 6 1⁄4 3

Want to give yourself the gift of a royal escape?

g asparagus, tough ends removed, cut in ½-in. pieces large eggs tsp salt tbsp chopped fresh parsley

1

garlic clove, minced

1

anchovy fillet, minced

4

tbsp olive oil, divided

1

tbsp white wine vinegar

250 10 200

1. Heat a medium non-stick frying pan (about 10 in. wide) over medium. Add 1 tbsp oil, then chorizo. Cook, stirring often, until lightly browned. Transfer chorizo to a plate.

2 . Add remaining 5 tbsp oil, onion and potatoes to pan. Cook, stirring often, until potatoes are almost cooked through, about 8 min.

3. Add asparagus. Cook just until tender-crisp, about 3 min. Stir in chorizo.

Spread out vegetables and chorizo in an even layer.

4. Beat eggs with salt in a medium bowl.

Season with pepper. Pour over vegetables and chorizo, stirring slightly to cover all ingredients, if needed. Cook for 5 min. Cover pan and reduce heat to low.

Cook, covered, until eggs are set, about 5 min. Use a rubber spatula to work your way all around the edge and underneath the tortilla to loosen from pan.

5. Carefully flip tortilla out of pan onto a large plate or baking sheet that is bigger than the tortilla itself. Then slide it back into pan so the top is now on the bottom. Cook until lightly golden, 5 to 10 min more.

6. Slide tortilla onto a cutting board.

Cut into wedges and sprinkle with chopped parsley.

Per serving 450 calories, 17 g protein, 21 g carbs, 34 g fat, 3 g fibre, 4 mg iron, 480 mg sodium.

1

GET 12 ISSUES – FOR JUST $12

g carrots, peeled and cut in 2-in. lengths medium radishes, halved or quartered g sugar snap peas, trimmed tbsp unsalted butter

1. Pat fish dry with paper towels and remove any pin bones that remain; slash skin in a few places. Sprinkle with ¼ tsp salt. Season with pepper. Set aside.

2 . Combine parsley with garlic, anchovy, 3 tbsp oil and vinegar in a small bowl.

Season with pepper. Set aside.

3. Heat a large frying pan over mediumhigh. Add remaining 1 tbsp oil, then carrots. Cook, stirring often, until carrots just begin to brown, about 1 min.

Add radishes. Cook, stirring, for 2 min.

Add peas and remaining ¼ tsp salt.

Cook, stirring, until bright green, about 1 min. Season with pepper. Transfer vegetables to a large bowl.

4. Melt butter in same pan and swirl to coat bottom. Add fish, skin-side down.

Cook until skin is browned and crisp, about 2 min. (Press down on fillets with a spatula if edges start to curl up.) Flip fish and cook until bottom is light golden and fish begins to flake when you press down on the centre of the fillet, about 2 min more. (Thicker fillets may take longer to cook.)

5. Serve fish with vegetables and spoon parsley mixture overtop.

Kitchen tip You can also use sea bream or another similar white fish for this recipe.

Per serving 320 calories, 26 g protein, 10 g carbs, 19 g fat, 3 g fibre, 2 mg iron, 430 mg sodium.

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one last thing

HUMOUR

A year in recipe review(s) Written by MONICA HEISEY Illustration by LEEANDRA CIANCI

7

CRANBERRY, WHITE CHOCOLATE & OATMEAL COOKIES 10

This recipe is a HIT. I brought these to a work picnic. Not only did my boss come back for thirds, aloof office heartthrob Steve talked to me for the first time! I wouldn’t change a thing—except substituting white flour for oat flour, dark chocolate for white chocolate chips, skipping the cranberries and using the dough as the base for a frozen treat. I guess what I’m saying is: I made chocolate chip ice cream sandwiches, but really appreciated this recipe as a jumping-off point.

SPAGHETTI & MEATBALLS 1.0 A classic for a reason!!!

8 10 Great first-date food; I cooked this for a colleagueturned-more and I substituted bread crumbs for graham crackers, chili for garlic and dessert for . . . well . . . ;) Just go easy on the garlic!

TURKEY WITH SAGE STUFFING It feels important to 3 10 note that this turkey needs, like, a lot of time and patience, and that if you are cooking Christmas dinner for your new boyfriend’s family, you might want something a little less labour-intensive or likely to make you yell “I KNOW HOW TO STUFF A BIRD, GLADYS!!!” at someone’s elderly mother. Also I substituted whole brioche for the traditional bread crumbs.

NEW YEAR’S PUNCH While this punch is delicious— 2 10 the rum mixes playfully with the pineapple, and the

98

CHATELAINE • MAY/JUNE 2022

old-school maraschino cherries are a nice touch—it’s worth mentioning that it is QUITE strong. I wouldn’t say it was the only reason Steve and I had an enormous fight or why, at midnight, I frenched a potted plant to “teach him a lesson,” but it didn’t help. It’s January 7, and we haven’t spoken since. For an extra festive kick, freeze cranberries into the ice cubes!

CLASSIC FUDGY BROWNIES The serving size, I’m 6 10 sorry, is discriminatory toward women whose difficult emotional circumstances have synced with an unfortunate part of their hormonal cycle. Might be more accurate to say: “Makes six . . . as long as you are in a good place. Otherwise, makes one.” I also found them difficult on my digestive system (substituted two cans of black beans for most of the flour . . . but still).

WINTER SQUASH SALAD A GREAT RECIPE FOR A 400 10 WOMAN IN CONTROL OF HER LIFE! A DELICJUS MEAL FOR SOMEUN WHO DOESNTT NEED A MAN AND WHO WILL BE JUZT FINE, ACTUALLY, STEVE!!!!! I replaced the squash with a bottle of wine, the spinach with a second bottle of wine, and the pine nuts with a straw. AMAZING recipe and so easy 2 make, will def make again soon!!!

SPAGHETTI & MEATBALLS 2.0 Steve came back as I 10 10 was crying into a can of tomatoes. We ordered in.

Best spaghetti ever.