no . 15 grit & gristle
KEN TSUI & JACKIE ELLIS
pop goes the culinary entrepreneur
comfort nude
strip down, chow down
EAT YOUR HEART OUT
Quarterly Conversations about Arts & Culture
vancouver’s best stress eating
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featured contributors
leeandra cianci is a graphic
daniela lagos is a journalist from
mandy-lyn is a 24-year-old East Vancouver photographer and DJ who is dedicated to analog. She loves rock and roll, good times, and wild adventures. See more of her work and her vast catalog of badass babes on Mandy-Lyn.com.
shmuel marmorstein lives and
contributing writers
contributing photographers
Kristin Ramsey Chief Copy Editor
Michelle Allin Nina Paula Morenas
Laurel Borrowman
Jackie Dives
Kristine McLellan Copy Editor
Rachel Burns
Lindsay Elliott
Kait Fowlie
Rommy Ghaly
Angela Fama
Kaitlin McNabb Copy Editor
Daniela Lagos
Rommy Ghaly Kerria Gray
Jeff Lawrence Copy Editor
Michelle Allin
Megan Lau Brianne Nettelfield
Mandy-Lyn Sarah Race
Portia Boehm Proofreader
Emily Ross
Camiel Pell Eleanor Radford
Katie Stewart
Pamela Rounis
Maddie Reddon
sylvie le sylvie
Amanda Lee Smith Web Editor Emily Ross Web Editor
Monika Malczynski Grady Mitchell
designer at The Grid Magazine and a freelance illustrator. She grew up in Ontario before moving to the east coast for university, where she earned a BFA from Mount Allison University and an MDes from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. In her spare time, she enjoys Mexican food, The Simpsons, and making rap lyrics into stylized postcards.
Hannah Bellamy
Santiago, Chile, though in Vancouver she works as a prep cook and previously had a short, yet fun, career as a dishwasher. She usually writes about music and TV, the two things that also take up most of her free time.
Lily Ditchburn
Pamela Rounis Katie Stewart Alex Stursberg Marie-Hélène Westgate Emily Wight
contributing artists Caitlin Bauman
LeeAndra Cianci Adam Cristobal Daniel Giantomaso Joelle Gebhardt Pamela Rounis Alex Stursberg Nicola Tibbetts
editorial staff Katie Stewart Creative Director & Co-Publisher Michelle Reid Co-Publisher & Managing Editor Jackie Hoffart Editor-in-Chief Shmuel Marmorstein Managing Editor
Jayme Cochrane of Slant Design Web Designer Deanne Beattie Founding Editor-in-Chief Brandon Gaukel Founding Creative Director
contributers to sadmag.ca
Pamela Rounis Lead Designer
Farah Tozy
Caitlin Bauman Designer
Jaclyn Bruneau
Natalie Hawryshkewich Designer
Lawrence Mathes
Robyn Humphreys Designer
Michelle Reid
Shazia Hafiz Ramji Cole Nowicki Carmen Mathes Shmuel Marmorstein
teaches in Vancouver, and writes about theatre, comedy, and weird rappers for Sad Mag online. He has also contributed to ION and Makeshift Magazine. He cares deeply about social justice, the English language, and hip-hop karaoke, and very occasionally tweets at @ shmoolyD.
Alex Stursberg Grant Hurley Shannon Waters Hannah Bellamy Monika Koch Jessica Russell
Sad Mag is published four times per year by the Sad Magazine Publishing Society, Suite 534, 2818 Main St., Vancouver, BC V5T 0C1 Email: hello@sadmag.ca
ISSN 1923-3566 Contents ©2014 Sad Mag All rights reserved. Distribution coordinated by Disticor sadmag.ca facebook.com/sadmag twitter.com/sadmag #GritAndGristle
LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
If this issue was a sandwich, it would be one of those badass paninis from La Grotta del Formaggio on Commercial Drive, where you ask for everything you never knew was so good together, pressed between two slices of focaccia and served to you by some sassy ladies who know how to work a cheese line. That basically describes this issue (and the people who make it), and we hope you are curled up somewhere cozy and private so you can wolf these 56 pages down in one sitting (we won’t tell). This issue has plenty of grit; more than a mouthful of hard-working people trying to bring their creative passions to life. Culinary artists, filmmakers and photographers, all with work that asks questions about the role of food in our daily lives, from dishwashers, to restaurateurs, to chocolatiers from the Downtown Eastside. There’s plenty of gristle to chew on too. Where do you do your emotional eating? And if you could heal it with a smoothie, what would that look like? If you wanna binge on eye candy, get sugar high on Mandy-Lyn’s photo spread. Ask yourself if you really should have ordered the chicken in El Salvador, Japan and India. Confront your lust for taxidermy at the Lion’s Den. As always, Sad Mag eschews digital photography in favour of our beloved analog, and we aim to blend the work of newer writers and artists with that of the slightly more established. It is our hope that when you bite into this magazine, you get the grit, the gristle; the whole package. Enjoy. —jackie hoffart, Editor-in-Chief
table of contents
06 08 10 16
Vancouver Smoothies: juice away the pain
Home-Style Touring: what fuels Fish & Bird
Bare Essentials: Jackie Dives gets vulnerable Eat Your Heart Out: eating your feelings across the city
18 20 22 26
Person, Place, Thing: a man, a cafe, a lion
Paper Sandwiches: independent publishing
Help Wanted: chewing the fat with local dishwashers Tsui Generis: Ken Tsui dreams of pop-ups
28 30 34 36
Merci Beaucoup: Jackie Ellis of Beaucoup Bakery Order Up: photos by Rommy Ghaly
Community Confections: East Van Roasters
Short Stories: the films of Lewis Bennett
40 44 46 52
Get it While it’s Hot: secret supper clubs
Dispatches: Japan, India and El Salvador
Sugar High: photos by Mandy-Lyn
The Indigestibles: death, Duffin’s, and beef jerky
sad mag would like to thank
Justine Little
Anthony Casey
Michelle MacLean
The City of Vancouver
Make Creative
The Cobalt
Carmen Mathes
Lily Ditchburn
One of a Few
East Van Roasters
The Rickshaw Theatre
F as in Frank Vintage
Jeff Sanders
Dan Fleming
Teresa South
Duffin’s Donuts
Jeff Taylor
Mr. Darren Lovenstuff
on the cover
on the back cover
Gravity Pope Tailored Goods
Sarah Tesla of Make Studios
Photographed by Jackie Dives
Painting by Nicola Tibbetts
The Lab
Natalie White
Lifetime Collective
Dandi Wind
Lizzy Karp “Comfort Food” Series (p.10) FujiColor Superia X-TRA 400
The Marriage of Figaro: Scene I, Act II
Juliane Koebler
12 in x 24 in
Kroma Acrylics
Acrylic on Canvas
Taryn Langemann
Shelley Kuitunen
vancouver smoothies by rachel burns
illustrations by caitlin bauman
Stressful job interview? Facing a lifetime of disappointment? We have the remedy! “Smoothie” out whatever life’s throwing your way with Sad Mag’s signature recipes for pureed spiritual support (fiber not included). Forget everything you thought you knew about goji berries and get ready to up the superfood ante with just one easy pulse of the Vitamix™!
ginger
Cleansing of spirit. Forget that time...
almond milk The reason your boyfriend left you in the first place...
kale
A tasty antioxidant, slightly bitter but loved. Destroys free radicals and questionable decisions.
chia seeds
Binds to negative receptor ions, filled with memories and tears. Flushes away toxic energy, including the residual damage from fringe plays attended, fights over the correct usage of salad tongs, disagreements over the wifi password (balsdip).
the break-up
Cry out your sadness with a drink that stabilizes, relieves, releases, rebuilds, and transforms.
e3 live
Derived from the algae from one lake in Portland, this supplement is as unique as you are. It relieves depression, easing the brain into a copacetic state, raising tolerance levels to your sister’s new boyfriend’s chewing noises.
raw cocoa
The spirit of the Aztecs infuse your being with energy while permitting you to smile and nod while your dad explains the truth about climate change.
whey protein powder
An unpretentious classic; no vegans here! Builds muscle mass, enabling you to do some heavy lifting, conversationally.
banana
Adds potassium, providing adequate endurance for withstanding two-hour transit connections to Pocomapleburquitlamrock (includes enough boost to crank out multiple tweets to Translink).
the pre-family energizer
Whether your family has been divorced three times or only two, this pre-family energizer will have you ready in no time. Pregnancy announcements, Easter, Hanukkah, christenings, ex-stepsister’s bat-mitzvah— this smoothie can handle it all. 7
: Interview
HOMESTYLE TOURING What fuels local band Fish & Bird by laurel borrowman photography by angela fama
Kodak Portra 400
Left to right: Ryan Boeur, Zoe Guigueno, Taylor Ashton, Adam IredaleGray & Ben Kelly
It’s rare for any Vancouver musician to be a musician only. Like many of this city’s myriad of creative types, they work at least one other job (or three) to fund their craft. And when a band spends their hardearned dollars to record an album, every second counts. Family, friends, those other jobs, sleep, and even regular sustenance all take a back seat. Musicians are more likely to survive on exhilaration and adrenaline—or the three Cs: cocaine, coffee, and cigarettes—whatever it takes to get the project done.
laurel borrowman: How did you five come
my place [Fiddlehead Studios] on Mayne Island, and had this really great bunch of folks all involved.
taylor ashton: The band was originally myself and Adam, the fiddle player over here, and we just got together and started playing. We recorded our first couple albums just using multi-tracking and a few guests. Between recording the second album [Left Brain Blues, 2009] and the third [Every Whisper is a Shout Across the Void, 2011] we kept accumulating members. By the time we recorded Every Whisper,
zoe guigueno: They were gourmet meals.
to be Fish & Bird?
“ We’d be doing takes downstairs, and then we’d come upstairs and there would just be all of these dumplings.” But upon meeting the members of Fish & Bird, a poised and even-keeled quintet, it’s clear their serene aura is the result of authentic home-cooked dumpling feasts between takes instead of cigarettes. They’re the portrait of calm and cool, influenced by their values, many of which revolve around food.
which is a couple years old now, we kind of decided we were a five-piece band, and that was that.
I meet the members for a meal to chat about how food influenced the recording process for their upcoming album (due out this year), and the value of being part of a musical community. Their grassroots ideals aren’t just a part of their folk music mentality; they’re also part of their minds, bodies, and stomachs.
adam iredale-gray: It was kind of cool. We had a couple of different people cook for us, and we went shopping for the whole time we were going to be there. We just decided it was super key that we not have to spend a lot of time thinking about that kind of stuff while recording. We did the whole record at
lb: Let’s hear about your most recent recording experience. I hear it wasn’t exactly a typical studio stint as far as recording goes.
aig: It was totally amazing. It would have been totally different if we had to cook for ourselves. zg: It made a big difference to the vibe. It was always so exciting to have dinner and hang out, and play. lb: That’s not exactly the norm when it comes to musicians and eating come recording time. ta: I mean, even if there had just been someone to hang out and cook a big pot of pasta every day so that we didn’t have to, that would have been useful. But this was really special food. Elise, who is Ryan’s sister, was cooking for us for the first stretch, and she was getting into amazing stuff. She just happened to be interested in cooking insanely delicious Asian food and Asian fusion cuisine. We’d be doing takes downstairs, and then we’d come upstairs and there would just be all of these dumplings being made. zg: And amazing Korean soup and beef. [all chiming in enthusiastically]
ta: It was nice to have that creative space, and also to feel really healthy and really pampered.
ta: Standing on the cliff and looking at them like, “I’m eating you. I love you. Thank you. Nice to eat you.”
aig: And it was something to look forward to.
lb: What is that like for you guys who come from the city and aren’t quite as connected to that?
lb: I hung out recently with a band in the studio and it
we’re going to play this song we wrote and sing it, right into you. You know, it makes that exchange feel more direct. Playing music for people is such a beautiful thing. People usually just buy a ticket and you don’t know who they are. I mean, we played the Commodore before to a sold-out crowd and I won’t say that that didn’t feel awesome, but it’s a different kind of thing. That exchange is a bit more direct. It makes my heart feel nice and fuzzy.
sounds pretty different from your experience. They only had so much time to take away from their work schedules, if any, and had to make the majority of an album in five days. It was intense. Being present and focused to play trumped everything. It’s not the norm to have a cook in there with you who has food ready when you realize you haven’t eaten in eight hours or more. And I can see how it would be great for your momentum to just go in there and binge-play, and not worry about stopping to try making yourself something to eat in that state.
ta: I’m more of a city person, but it’s good to be aware of where your food comes from. I think wherever we have ended up, we are all drawn to smaller places. Once you get there, you tend to meet more people.
people who are hunters or fishers.
ben kelly: I’m lactose intolerant.
aig: We went pretty hard and spent, like, $1,000 on groceries for the whole time [about 16 days total]. But we calculated it per person and all that food made 270 meals. That’s pretty cheap food.
aig: Think about that tour we did in the Yukon.
ta: As I get older, I think I become more lactose
ta: I hear stories about people recording albums, and they’re like, “When we go into the studio we live off coffee and cigarettes for like eight days,” and we could do that. Just coffee to keep you awake and cigarettes to suppress your appetite. Or someone could just be there with us and cook dumplings. Like, “Don’t forget your dumplings!”
aig: Who do what you like to do. zg: And we have a better chance of getting to know
About three years ago, Taylor and I did a home roots tour which is like a house concert.
ta: Just as a duo. aig: But pretty awesome. Every night people said
stuff like, “I hope you guys don’t mind, but this is some moose we got a while ago. Somebody told us you might not like it because you’re from the city.”
zg: [laughs]
I had a couple days when I was there by myself editing vocal tracking alone and those were the days when I didn’t eat that well. I was walking and I got pulled over by the cops that day, actually. I did look a little bit… Well I was walking to the market and I had a beer and apparently that’s not okay on Mayne Island.
ta: Somebody bought us frozen lasagna because
lb: I thought you were supposed to get away with
anything on Mayne Island.
Awesome. And we met a girl on the plane who had some, what was the meat she had?
ta: Well, it was a weird conversation. I said, “I
aig: Some caribou?
realize I’m walking on a main road and it’s public, and what the rule is but…” And he says, “So, you think that’s okay because you’re on Mayne Island?” I said, “Well, what do you want me to say? Because, yes.” He didn’t give me a ticket.
lb: As Mayne Island residents do you feel you try to feed
choices you’ve made about what to eat or not?
zg: I don’t like liver.
intolerant.
zg: I was vegetarian up until recently. aig: I didn’t eat wheat for a year. ta: I was never a strict vegetarian, but there have definitely been periods when I felt somewhat strongly about it. But being on tour at that time, I have to admit that it just wore me down. There are so many different reasons, but one of them is the hospitality. That’s such a common way for people to reach out.
they said, “Somebody told us you might be sick of wild game by now, on this part of your two-week tour.” We just went, “Two weeks of wild game is no problem.”
lb: I use the term “opportunivore” frequently.
aig: More like, could we please take some home with us?
lb: If you could cook a meal of your choice for a musician or band of your choice, who would it be and what would you make?
ta: This one guy had shot the moose a year ago.
ta: Dried caribou? aig: Yeah. ta: Remember that girl? She was like 15 or 16 and she says, “Do you guys want some dried caribou? I made it.” I don’t think either of us could really eat it. It was totally outside of my experience.
off the land more? And keep your diet closer to home because you can see the effect of your food consumption more directly?
ag: It tasted like it had eaten lichen off rocks for its
aig: Definitely. I mean one of the cool things about
lb: Considering you play a lot of house shows, do you
whole life. It had a really, really interesting taste to it.
being on Mayne Island is that I buy most of my food from my neighbours. They have beef, vegetables, they make awesome relishes and chutneys and stuff. There’s another farm right down the road, and we have sheep on our farm.
ta: At house concerts, yes. That’s the most extreme example of what an intimate show can be.
zg: A few years ago when we were doing the album
zg: Especially if it’s a potluck where everyone shows
ryan boeur: That was a bit of a trip.
ta: It’s a neat feeling. Somebody there made the food on such a basic level. Then later we’re like, now
before this, we were eating lamb from the field right beside the house we were recording in.
lb: Do any of you have any dietary restrictions or strict
think that the way you eat—whether you’re recording, or on the road—connects you to your audience more?
up early to eat together.
zg: Exactly.
bk: I’ve been listening to a lot of Toto lately, so I’ll
say Toto. And I’d make them fish, because I have access to a lot of fish.
zg: The first thing that comes to mind is Fiona Apple and the quartet she has right now. And I’d make them a lot of savoury pies.
lb: What kind of pies? zg: Moose, rabbit, chicken, beef, elk, salmon. aig: I’d make lamb and potatoes and salad from our property. For Radiohead. ta: Thom Yorke would leave. rb: I’m not sure who the band would be, but the experience would be coming over to Mayne, going out in the canoe, and paddling for about 25 minutes to the beach where we can get all these oysters. We’d just bring some lemons and a knife, and we’d go oyster shucking. ish & Bird will release their fourth full-length F album this year. Visit fishandbird.ca for the latest on shows, recordings, and news from the band.
9
: Interview
TOO EXPLICIT FOR ISSUU! visit sadmag.ca for purchase of uncensored back issues
BARE ESSENTIALS photography career
Jackie Dives is a Vancouver-based doula and birth photographer who received widespread media attention in late 2013—from Daily Mail, Huffington Post, My Modern Metropolis, and more— in response to a series of photos captured while attending home births. We met in her kitchen, an appropriate setting to discuss her new photo series, where she captures portraits of people eating comfort food in the nude. A collection of film and digital cameras were arranged like a makeshift centerpiece, and a large unfinished canvas was set in the corner. We drank root beer and discussed nudes, comfort food, and birth culture. What is the most unexpected experience you’ve had in your adult life or career?
FujiColor Superia X-TRA 400 “Comfort Food” Series. commission from Jackie Dives’ ongoing project.
Two things come to mind, and they are not necessarily solid events. One is that it took me awhile. I graduated from high school in 2002 and it wasn’t until now that I felt like I had discovered what I should be doing. I’ve always wanted to take pictures, I’ve known that from the beginning. And I’ve always wanted to work with people in need. Doulas aren’t necessarily working with people in need, but we are working with vulnerable people and offering support during a vulnerable time. It was unexpected that my love for photography and my desire to work with people in a caring profession would come together and create the perfect job for myself. The second thing is, despite going the long way around, because I haven’t gone to school for either jobs, I still ended up doing something that I can make a living at and that I’m proud of. That’s unexpected to me because I would have said two or three years ago that I had no expectation to find a career that’s worked as well as it’s working.
What has been your favourite project? I did a cool project over the past year and a half. I wanted to learn how to paint, and I wanted to paint big, for some reason. I couldn’t afford to buy the canvases because the ones I wanted to work on were that size (gestures to a canvas in the kitchen)—pretty big, made of wood, and like 80 bucks. I had gotten a show based on my mixed media work a few months in advance at a cafe and I didn’t want to do that work anymore. I felt [I was] past the mixed media stuff and I wanted to learn how to paint. So I put on Facebook, “If you want to support a local artist, I’ve got an idea for you.” I told them they could pay me 85 bucks and I would paint on a canvas that I purchased with it. If the painting sold in the show, they would get the $85 back. If the painting didn’t sell, they would get to keep the painting. Surprisingly, I had more than five—I was going for five— people say they would do this, even though all of them knew I’d never painted before. It was cool to learn that people wanted to support artists. In addition, people liked the paintings and I ended up selling a few. Where did your interest in women and birth come from? It’s hard for me to point to exactly where it came from, but ultimately it came from my self-exploration of being a woman. Even when I was a teenager, my bookcase was full of selfhelp books for women. I always liked coming-of-age stories, women’s health, and I was really curious about what was going on with me. I think that people don’t really talk about puberty and menopause and other things that are difficult.
11
: Interview
My interest was a progression. I became interested in do-ityourself culture and holistic and naturopathic stuff. Using herbs, using medicines from the earth, using your intuition, and trusting your body to do what it needs to do. I started reading novels about birth and midwives. I had pondered being a midwife, but that didn’t seem to be the right option for me. And then I met a doula. That was it. I knew that’s where I belonged. A lot of doulas say as soon as they attend their first birth, or as soon as they meet a doula, they know. I completely agree; the first birth I went to was one of the greatest experiences of my life. I cannot imagine living my life without going to births. It’s so magical.
hb: Where does being a doula and
being a photographer intersect for you? Is it mostly an intersection of your personal interests, or do you see some other connection?
jd: It just started with me having
in the photos? Often it’s somewhere in Vancouver and close to their home. I want them to look back on these maternity photos in 10 years and say, “Remember when we lived there and had our maternity photos done?” And I want them to be able to see the landscape in the background so it’s not just a photo of a belly, but it’s a photo of where they were in that moment in time.
FujiColor Superia X-TRA 400
Vancouver is so beautiful that it makes for an awesome backdrop. There are so many places to choose from, and I’ve almost never overlapped. I think I’ve shot Jericho Beach twice, but usually I go somewhere new even though I’m leaving it in the hands of the client. As I get better and better, I find that I’m including more of the scene. I’m stepping farther and farther from the belly and including the environment. I don’t know what that means.
“ Nudity makes people more vulnerable. I think you get a more interesting facial expression on someone when they’re not wearing clothes.”
my camera with me all the time, and because of that, I would take photos while I was at births being a doula—with permission, of course, always. But then I realized that I was doing something that was powerful and special. Capturing the first moments of a life is amazing. It’s cool as a gift to the family, and I find it incredibly fulfilling.
But as my images became more widely viewed, I realized these images I was taking and posting online were making a difference. I was changing birth culture, and changing it in a positive way. For me that was the ultimate desire. As a doula, you want to impart this feeling on women that they can do whatever they want, including giving birth. They can trust their bodies. Photographing these moments, when women are doing that, is sort of photographic evidence that women can do what they want. It’s not someone telling them they can; it’s showing them they can.
hb: Well, some of the shoots seem to have a story to them, like the one with the couple that took a Modo car to the hospital.
jd: Most of my photo shoots feel that way. I get that a lot. People say it’s narrative, or they can see there’s a story being told. It might have to do with the fact that I include the environment in the shoots. I don’t know if that’s different than anyone else in maternity photography, but I definitely find Vancouver inspiring, especially in the woodsy areas. The more off the path I can go, the happier I am. In the last maternity photo shoot I did we went to Capilano Canyon and we trekked into the forest. There was no one around and you couldn’t see any paths and we stuck her in the trees. hb: How does your new series “Comfort Food” compare to your past projects?
I think there is a lot about birth that’s going on right now that is really unfortunate. The power has been taken out of the woman’s hands, and it needs to be put back. Women can birth their babies without the help of anybody else. These images being posted online and then going viral mean that lots of women have seen them. I’ve been receiving emails from women all over the world saying because they saw my photos, they aren’t afraid anymore. To hear that is maybe the most amazing thing.
hb: I hadn’t made the connection that birth photography could change birth culture.
jd: I’ve always wanted to take documentary-style photos. I feel like I’m always shooting from the hip, wanting to capture motion and not wanting to be a big presence in the room. In birth, that’s it. There’s no other option because a woman is not going to pose for the camera. She’s just going to do what she needs to do, and I get to capture it. It fills the need for me to be a documentary-style photographer. hb: How does Vancouver as an aesthetic place influence your work, which focuses on people, and mothers in particular?
jd: Usually when a client wants me to do their maternity photos I ask them: where is somewhere you would like to be
jd: I stumbled upon a similarity between all my projects
without even realizing. Someone else pointed it out to me. I usually work with vulnerabilities. Generally there is some sort of vulnerable aspect to what I’m doing, whether it’s birth photography or photos of people naked eating their comfort food. I also do bereavement photography for parents who have lost a baby. That’s a hugely vulnerable situation. When I was listing these things off to someone, they were like, “you seem to work in emotionally charged situations.” I think that would be the thing that draws me. I love some sort of vulnerability or charged emotion.
hb: Did another project inspire “Comfort Food” in terms of vulnerabilities or emotion?
jd: No, where it came from was thinking about two things
that I wanted to take more photos of. One of them was nudes. I like taking nudes. I think they are interesting. Most of the time, they are more interesting than clothed photos. The other thing was something that was textured and colourful. That was probably the beginning of the idea. I find myself eating food a lot to comfort myself, that’s one of my issues that I struggle with. Being naked in front of people is another issue that I struggle with. Those two things together were like a powerhouse of struggling and vulnerability.
13
: Interview
TOO EXPLICIT FOR ISSUU! visit sadmag.ca for purchase of uncensored back issues
hb: Why is nudity significant in your projects? jd: Nudity makes people more vulnerable. I think you get a
more interesting facial expression on someone when they’re not wearing clothes. They’re feeling different things. Also, naked bodies are interesting. They’re just cool. All of them. All sizes. I think ultimately it just creates more tension, which is perhaps what I’m drawn to.
hb: Do you do anything different technically or aesthetically in a nude shoot?
jd: The naked dynamic makes it
wants all her clothes off when she is about to birth her baby. I’m cool with that. I’ve seen, like, a hundred vaginas.
FujiColor Superia X-TRA 400
In terms of getting people who are my friends or acquaintances to take their clothes off and be comfortable in front of the camera, usually the first step is to ask them to do it. I think
“ Normally a woman wants all her clothes off when she is about to birth her baby. I’m cool with that. I’ve seen, like, a hundred vaginas.”
much harder because you have a finite amount of time for them to be okay with their photo being taken. I find they become less comfortable as time passes. After 10 minutes of shooting it’s like they have reached a threshold and they don’t want to be naked anymore. That’s the point when it’s difficult as a photographer because you probably don’t have your shot in five or 10 minutes.
It’s a balancing act of going for it and getting the shot as quick as I can while not worrying about things I might worry about in another kind of shoot and stretching it out as long as I can.
hb: How do you approach nudity in your photography?
for some people, doing it is like a personal challenge. They’ve said yes because it’s going to be difficult and they want to do it anyway. My opinion about making people feel comfortable when I’m behind the camera and they are naked in front of it is pretending that they have clothes on. I don’t treat them any differently than I would if they were wearing clothes. I look them in the eyes, get close to them, maybe rearrange their hair, or put a pillow behind their back. I do whatever I need and I’m not afraid of seeing something I don’t want to see or saying something I don’t want to say.
jd: It’s easy in the birthing situation. Women are doing whatever they want to do in the photos. Normally a woman
15
: Field Trip
Heart O
EAT YOUR
an emotional
what’s eating you?
1
You got a drunk text from your ex meant for someone else.
5
The ex you left is engaged 6 months after they vowed they’d never get married.
2
Only thing clean is an old Halloween costume from 2010 when you went as Buzz Lightyear.
6
Finally came out! Parents not surprised. “I know another gay, let’s hook you up!”
7
A little too naked in bed with a second cousin after your brother’s wedding. Patchy memory...very patchy.
Dumpy, frumpy and getting drunky.
3
8
Made out with a random at The Roxy. You tongued a canker.
4
“You’re still just a server?”
9
You just graduated. With a BFA.
3
West End
solly’s bagelry Cinnamon Bun
1
breka bakery & cafe Apple Fritter 4
connie’s cookhouse Sweet & Sour Pork
5
sunshine diner Sunshine Benny 2
the junction Chicken Wings
K i t s i la n o
14
C H I NAT O W N
red wagon Pulled Pork Pancakes
12
golden garden Hot & Sour Soup
16
15 13
union pub Banga Cocktail
tacofino Diablo Cookies
red wagon (Add Maple Syrup)
Ha s t i n g s S u n ri s e
by camiel pell & pamela rounis
OUT VANCOUVER eating guide 10
Your bestie's description of Italian food is day-old pizza.
15
It's been three days and 10 unanswered texts since they texted.
19
Thought you got an email from your crush, turns out it’s a phishing scam.
11
Mom tags you in your eighth grade photo on Facebook.
16
That mid-century chaise from the alley gave your entire building bed bugs.
20
Your POF date is way more bald than in her picture.
12
Mystery bruises.
17
21
13
Your Friday one-night-stand is still at your house.
Peed in the shower, seconds before your lover hopped in to join you. Urine steam.
Let a fart slip on a first date, tried to disguise it by saying “I love you”.
18
These are all the fucks I give.
22
Mom is dating again and you run into her at La Senza.
14
It's been three days since they texted.
GRANVILLE
9
save on meats The Burger with Bacon
6
the templeton Poutine
8
falafel town Falafel 11 10
nicli antica pizzeria Margherita di Bufala
ask for luigi Luigi’s Meatballs
7
crave india Samosas
GA S T O W N
MAIN STREET
21 18
la mezcaleria Queso Fundido
rumpus room Deep Fried Bacon & Avocado
17
shameful tiki room Mystery Bowl Cocktail (meant for two but who are we kidding)
20
the charlatan Crispy Chicken Tenders
22
storm crow tavern Chickpea Fries
19
nice cafe Chocolate Milkshake
C O M M E RC I A L D R I V E
17
: Person, Place, Thing
Person Ken Brooks
Place
The Lion’s Den Cafe
Thing
Junior, the Taxidermied Lion
by maddie reddon photography by sarah race
Perched above the tables, Junior’s mouth hangs open in a permanent growl. His legs and paws are set to look like he is perpetually moving forward, always seconds away from jumping, running, or laying down in exhaustion. He faces out toward the street like a kind of eccentric, inanimate guard dog. As I walk in the door, our eyes meet. The stare of the taxidermied lion strikes me, even though I had been expecting him. After all, Junior is a well-known fixture at the Lions Den Cafe, so much so, that when I was told about the Den, he was one of the first details mentioned. The Lion’s Den Cafe is an unusual restaurant located at the intersection of Fraser and Kingsway, which is a strange hub of hip business and car exhaust. Since 1999, Ken Brooks and his wife, Junko, have run this eclectic restaurant. Ken runs the front end while Junko acts as the head chef. Locally, this restaurant is known for its “Japaribbean” food, which mixes home-style cooking from the owners’ respective native countries, the Bahamas and Japan.
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I’m by myself, next to a table of regulars who are smiling and chatting with Ken across the restaurant. This couple looks like
a mother and her adult son; she’s sorting receipts like she’s at her kitchen table while he makes small talk. It’s a pleasure to see people who feel so at home in the Den and I think a large part of what makes this atmosphere is its charming host. Ken’s warm voice and his welcoming manner make me feel at home as he seats me. As he jokes with me, I realize that what I especially like about Ken is that he doesn’t seem to be operating on a prescribed script; he’s just himself and that’s what makes him such a pleasure to talk with. He can immediately sense that I’m a new customer— the mark of a savvy businessman— and asks me to sign an aging calendar, kept from the first year he was in operation, as part of a long-held Lion’s Den tradition. This routine makes me smile. While I eat my breakfast, a stream of seasoned customers in high spirits filters through, each person greeting Ken as an old friend. I seem to be the only one eating. Everyone else just comes in to say hello, but it makes things lively. In addition to the exotic, fusion fare of their lunch and dinner menu, the Lion’s Den offers a classic and tasty $5 breakfast of eggs, meat fixins’ of your choice, hash browns, and toast. There is no “Japaribbean” twist this morning. In fact, most of the breakfast menu is pretty standard fare: waffles,
pancakes, French toast, and “eggers”. That being said, it is exactly what I want out of breakfast: a diner-style dish of soft-basted eggs, many a hash brown, and some juicy sausages on the side. Later in the day, they offer jerk chicken, lamb and goat curries, oxtail stew, Jamaican patties, ginger beef, and a mixed plate of jerk and teriyaki Chicken (and more). If that plethora of spicy and sweet doesn’t whet your appetite, consider going to one of their Cajun nights. Once a month, the Lion’s Den brings in a guest chef, originally from New Orleans, who prepares a bevy of dishes for an adoring public: jambalaya, gumbo, catfish, southern fried chicken, Cajun and BBQ ribs, and corn bread of course.
that was “something unique, something exotic, and something Canadian.” A few weeks later, the stately, stuffed, homegrown lion appeared out of the back of a friend’s van.
“H e can immediately sense that I’m a new customer and asks me to sign an aging calendar, kept from the first year he was in operation, as part of a long-held Lion’s Den tradition.”
Ken stops by my table to ask how everything is going and to tell me more about Junior. “What people find surprising,” he tells me, “is that Junior is a real Canadian lion.” Born in the African Lion Safari Zoo in Cambridge, Ontario, Junior found his way to the restaurant after Ken asked his friends to find him a symbol for the restaurant
As I leave, Ken gives me his friendly, signature “Have a creative day!”—a line that appears on some of the “Special” cards placed on the tables. Junior gives me the silent treatment.
19
: Interview
paper sandwiches Independent publisher Star Gods Press by alex stursberg
Star Gods Press is an independent book publisher and production house based in Chinatown, Vancouver. In recent years, they have established themselves as purveyors of unconventional short-run publications. Sad Mag sat down with operator Daniel Giantomaso to discuss the makeup of Star Gods, their influences, and their most recent project, Sammiches.
alex stursberg: What is Star Gods Press and how long have you been operating?
daniel giantomaso: I started Star Gods in 2011 with
Nathan Jones to publish a zine we made of collaborative drawings. Then we published another little zine of collaborative drawings that were reversible. Then from there it just sort of took off, and I kept coming up with new ideas for publications to do. Next, I did another zine with Morgan Spry-Young under our collaborative title White Swallows. So [Star Gods] exists to publish collaborations with people that I like, my friends, and people I admire. The last one I did was Sammiches, which features interpretations of sandwich drawings by 50 different artists. It turned out really well, except it’s still an ongoing process of building books and sending them to people.
recognized that well. So I just asked about 100 people to make art related to the theme. About 60 responded and about 50 actually came up with work. I decided on a size based on an old Raw magazine format, which is 10"x14". But I didn’t realize at the time how intense it would be to put it together or how expensive it would be. So there was a lot of fumbling and trying to learn as I went. But it came together in the end; I guess I’m resourceful.
as: Can you tell me more about the White Swallows collective? dg: White Swallows is my collective with Morgan SpryYoung. We made a book as an attempt to work out some of the issues we were having at one point. It’s a series of drawings that had a particular aesthetic that combined surrealism, ‘80s graphic design, s & m, and robots. Quite a few people really responded to it after we started putting images online. We got on some larger art blogs such as Juxtapoz and But Does it Float. I was really flattered that they were paying attention to us at all. Since then we’ve had a few invitations to do illustrations for other zines and a couple of album covers. We just really enjoy coming up with this stuff. But it’s a really slow process and takes a ton of time.
“ We made a book as an attempt to work out some of the issues we were having at one point. It’s a series of drawings that had a particular aesthetic that combined surrealism, ‘80s graphic design, s & m, and robots.” Everything I chose to do is very labour-intensive, like screenprinting on vinyl and hand-binding books. It’s an opportunity to experiment with process and have a goal in mind. It’s a way to make a limited number of images that fit into a theme and combine things that don’t seem like they go together.
as: What would you say is your greatest challenge operating an independent publishing company in Vancouver?
dg: Well, Vancouver doesn’t have very many outlets to sell
in. It has some really good ones that are really supportive like Lucky’s [Comics]. There are events and that’s fine, but it’s a really slow process. That’s the big challenge, to spend the money and then gain it back so that you can publish something else. I’ve sent a lot of stuff away to the States and there’s a lot of online ordering. It would be easier if I could just sell a big stack to a local store and know that people would buy it. But I think that’s a challenge in any city, I don’t think it’s just Vancouver. Publishing right now is a really tough business.
as: Returning to the Sammiches book, how did you come up with this theme?
This page: Sandwich Alex Stursberg collage Next page: Untitled White Swallows pen & ink/digital
dg: I was having lunch, eating sandwiches with some people, and we were talking about cartoon sandwiches and art about food. Then it occurred to me I could just ask people to contribute to a book about them. I thought it would be really interesting to see what people came up with knowing that everyone had seen that type of imagery before. At first it was just going to be a few local people so I could do a group art show around the theme. But then I started looking online at all these artists around the world that I really like that are not
as: What’s next for you and Star Gods?
dg: The main thing I’m
working on is a republication of anonymous fetish artists from Canada, specifically from interior BC. That’s probably the direction I’m going to take Star Gods, towards more fetish-based work. Then White Swallows is planning to do a tarot card deck. I’d like to work with more artists too, but have them come up with unique formats. I’d like them to determine what the book will be.
: Profile
HELP WANTED Chewing the fat with local dishwashers by daniela lagos photography by lindsay elliott & lily ditchburn (this page)
Restaurant looking for young energetic people for full- and part-time dishwasher positions. Experience is a plus, but not mandatory.
in the restaurants, bars, and cafes of the city are people with a non-Canadian passport.
All it takes is a scroll down Craigslist to find a handful of ads like this appearing every day. Some advise that the job may involve “heavy lifting,” some offer meals and a share of the tips, most of them let you know that the pay is minimum wage, and— maybe in return—that they do not expect applicants to have any previous knowledge of how a commercial kitchen works.
It’s a job that usually implies being the last one out of the kitchen and, a lot of the time, doing the things that no one else wants to do. There’s little glamour or romance around it. But for some people who do it, it’s not only a way to pay the bills, but also a way to learn a new language, meet people in a strange city, and try something completely new.
Combine this with the fact that people from all over the world are constantly arriving in Vancouver, looking for a new place to live or just to spend a year taking a break from real life, and it’s easy to understand why most of the many dishwashers that work
corentin clerge The first time Corentin Clerge was in Vancouver was two years ago, when he was 20 years old and visited the city for a short vacation. That’s one of the reasons he chose it after he decided to spend some time away from Nantes, the city in France where he’s from. “Vancouver, it’s a beautiful city, and it’s great that it’s by the ocean, but also has the mountains really close,” he says. After only finding part-time work in his profession as a carpenter, he also started working as a dishwasher. He worked in a big restaurant at first, and then moved on to a smaller place he likes better. “There’s no sense of hierarchy; everyone is the same,” he explains, also adding that he’s grown fond of dish washing, an occupation he never had before arriving in Canada. “It’s been good, and you get to talk to the rest of the people while you’re working. I think in France it’s seen as bad work, but here it’s just a job like any other.”
Kodak Portra 800
23
: Profile
hula desta Hula Desta has worked on and off as a dishwasher for the last four years. Though she’s originally from Ethiopia, Desta asserts that Canada has been her country since 1995. Before that she lived in Athens. “I used to speak Greek very well, but now I’ve forgotten it,” she says, explaining that in Europe she only had a temporary visa, but here she’s a permanent resident. “I’ve worked doing different things, and it doesn’t matter to me the kind of work I do,” she says. “As long as I can do it, it’s okay.” In the four years that she has been employed at both restaurants and cafes, she’s grown to like the work. “At the beginning I thought it was too much, but now I do it my own way and it’s all right.” Back when she was living in Ethiopia, Desta took care of the house (“it’s hard to find work,” she explains). Part of her family is still there, and after 22 years away, she’s thinking about going back for a visit. “I’m here because it’s a better opportunity, but I always miss it.”
paz salinas Before arriving at YVR, Paz Salinas had never been outside Chile, even though it was part of her plan for awhile. When she got laid off from her job at a transportation company in Santiago, the 28-year-old civil engineer decided it was time to get to know another bit of the world and learn a new language. Her savings, she calculates, could have gotten her through six months in Vancouver, but since she intends to stay for a year, she started working as a dishwasher at a Yaletown restaurant. “After the first day I couldn’t believe how tired I was,” she says, comparing the work she used to do with the work she does now. “This is a basic job and I feel like it’s also easy to lose it because there’s a lot of people that can do it. Working as an engineer I felt more secure, like I had more advantages. Now I’ve kept quiet about things that bother me, like last minute changes of schedule that happen without any bad intentions from anybody. I just have to get used to the fact that it’s that kind of job, and for now it’s okay.”
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victor teles Victor Teles explains that his pilot license allows him to fly a small, two-engine airplane, but he hopes to be flying commercial planes in about a year. Before that, he has to log more flight hours and also pass an English exam. “I could have studied in Brazil, but I still would’ve spent most of the time talking in Portuguese. Here I have to speak English all the time,” he says. This trip has been a series of firsts for the 24-year-old pilot: first time living without any family; first long period of time away from his country; first time working in a kitchen. He got the dishwasher position at a sports bar on Granville Street after two months of just studying. “I wanted to make some money and speak in English. I didn’t care what kind of job I got,” he explains, adding that the work itself hasn’t been especially rewarding, even though he has no complaints. “I just like being with the people, it’s an easy job to do.”
25
: As Told To
Tsui generis Popping up to ask why not? by megan lau illustration by adam cristobal
It was an act of minor insanity to create and coordinate 14 consecutive weekends of outdoor, public programming with a miniscule budget and in just four months. Still, Ken Tsui was determined to revitalize the 2013 Vancouver Chinatown Night Market. As the festival’s program director, the bespectacled 28-year-old events creator partnered with restaurateur Tannis Ling to throw a summer-long party in the heart of the city. Whether it was movie screenings, mahjong lessons, ping pong tournaments, or a gourmet dumpling festival, Ken was consistently creative and ambitious in his programming ideas, and relentlessly dedicated to seeing them through. I had the fortune of working on the night market team, and having been in the trenches with Ken, my admiration for him runs deep. Many of the brightest and most creative people in the city have a similar affection for the former filmmaker: they’ve either had positive experiences collaborating with Ken, or are looking to team up with him soon. With the night market and a track record of creating and selling out pop-up dinners, Ken is now Vancouver’s go-to guy for creating original events that leave you entertained and well fed. In the year ahead, we’ll see more events from Ken. Until recently, he was working shifts at the Vancouver Public Library to support his creative and culinary endeavours. In 2014, he’ll be focusing almost exclusively on bigger projects and new collaborations. In other words, he is doing what we all dream of: quitting our jobs to wholly go after our passions. Over dinner, Ken explained how he found himself in the enviable position of pursuing whatever he wants.
Why not? That’s the question that gets the ball rolling. It’s the thing that starts the whole process. Nearly every conversation I have with my collaborators starts with them feeling stagnant. Then it’s like, let’s do something about it, let’s make a goddamn difference. Let’s put ourselves out there. Why not? Why don’t we do that? I learned to ask, “why not?” out of my frustrations about not being in control of my life. Five years ago, I hated being culturally and creatively impotent. I felt like I was prescribed as a filmmaker and I couldn’t do anything else. People have been generous to me with their time and money in supporting me. Now I feel like I can do whatever I want. It might not be the best, but I’m trying to make it work. I spent my childhood in Jasper, Alberta, where my father worked in a Chinese restaurant as the head cook. He worked 12–14 hours a day; I hardly saw him. I had a hard time with English and making friends, so as a kid, I spent most of my time by myself. Even though we were the only Chinese people in town, my mom always made Cantonese home cooking. For
the first 18 years of my life, I had rice every day. My mom mostly cooked with steam, and made everything from scratch. She even made soy milk. I don’t think she was trying to keep my sister and me Chinese, she just didn’t know how to cook anything else. I hated it. I wanted to eat white people food. When I was 11, we moved from Jasper to Richmond—from the whitest place on the planet, to the most Chinese place on the planet—and I was a fish to water. I spoke Cantonese fluently and I loved the Hong Kong culture. I just loved it, everything about it. We lived there really briefly and then we moved to North Burnaby, where my parents continued the classic immigrant experience, moving from a Chinese restaurant to owning their own corner store. We lived above the corner store and I basically wasn’t allowed to go anywhere. I had a really boring childhood. That’s when I started cooking. I was genuinely interested, especially in using a wok. I learned how to make fried rice before high school.
When I got to high school, I fell in love with film. I watched movies constantly. I skipped band class to go to film class. In the middle of Grade 10 I decided I wanted to be a filmmaker, and I let everyone know. That obsession stretched for 10 years. I didn’t go to university right away and just pursued film. My early work really wasn’t very good, and I hit a ceiling and decided to go to school at Emily Carr University. I was 20-something, 23, 24. At school, I met some amazing people. We got to do a lot of travelling; we went to Norway. I was part of some great film work, but it was hard. It’s funny, I had the most knowledge going into school, but when we left, these guys, my really good friends,
We put the project into hibernation once September rolled around and almost immediately I met Alex Dadzis at the Dunlevy Snackbar. We just hit it off. We just started eating together. There was something there, we just clicked. He changed the game for me. At the time, he was cooking brunch at the Dunlevy. I told him, “You should start doing pop-ups, buddy. Why not?” And that’s what happened. We started cooking food and each time for larger and larger groups. He has an amazing palate, more than anybody I know, and is so creative and resourceful. He upped the game. He made it about expressing ourselves through food.
“Now, I fucking love being Chinese. I am owning it right now. Chinese Hipster, that’s what I am.” became stars. You stand in the shadow of these giants and that does something to your self-esteem. Even though I was confident doing the work, and knew how to tell a story through a visual medium, I wasn’t really making the work that I wanted to do. I was in a rut. The only way to get out was to be productive. My dear friend Ellen Lee and I were at dinner at a sushi joint when we decided we wanted to do something together. Throughout the time I was doing film, people knew me as a person who knew how to eat and cook. Ellen and I decided, “Let’s do food.” We like cooking, and we’re not necessarily good at it, but we were hungry and desperate to do something. We thought, why not? And things started to fall into place. We started Eat Together, a secret pop-up dinner for nine. The plan was to bring people together for a good time and serve seasonal suppers. My friends had an Airstream [Tin Can Studios] that was up for grabs. We said, “let’s do the dinners in the Airstream.” Then we found an urban farm and we thought, “okay, let’s use the produce from there.” So things just started falling into place, and we decided we were going to do this once a month. We were cooking all sorts of things, using all sorts of techniques, French, Italian. We just wanted to make food that worked with the season. The first summer was tough. We were begging people to come, just to fill those nine seats. We asked friends to come and we weren’t in it to make money. It was something to do, and every time we did it, we thought, “Fuck it, we’re not going to do this again, this is too hard.” But then, people come to eat and you build a relationship with them. And they’re having a good time and you fall in love with that. You see how happy you’re making people even though you think the food must be awful, you know? But you get the satisfaction of seeing other people happy. That was great, that was awesome.
We started with one for 50 people, a long-table dinner and we made no money. We thought we were going to make money doing something we wanted to do, but we ended up with $50 each. It was brutal. We made $1 a head for a five-course meal! So we thought, we gotta change the format, and that’s when we took a risk. We started just promoting the shit out of what we were doing and then just made a bunch of food and hoped that people would come. We got all our friends involved and it was the Saturday night hangout. You got food, you got wasted. It was the place to go. Every time, we sold out and it was so busy. It felt good. So we continued doing pop-ups, and it all culminated with Fei Bing Express. We cooked and served Mexican food, but we used Chinese ingredients. The tortilla wasn’t a tortilla—it was a Chinese crepe, the kind you usually use for Peking duck. We used pork belly with five-spice and our version of a duck sauce, which was an apple jelly, and we made a cabbage slaw. The food had the feelings and emotions of what I wanted to do, and it tapped into the idea of working with ingredients that I grew up eating. That pop-up was the last one that Alex and I did together, and it was the most intense. I cut off part of my finger working on that one. A large part. That was crazy. Fei Bing tested our friendship. Our vision and ambition eclipsed the practicality, and we were just angry at each other, but also angry at ourselves. The day of the pop-up was a shitty, shitty day, and we didn’t really know who was going to come through those doors. It could have been empty, we could have lost tons of money, but we just went and rolled the dice. People did come and the sun came out exactly when we opened. We were playing 1990s rap. It felt so appropriate for the hustle. Alex and I weren’t talking to each other at the time, but everything went perfectly. The food was what we wanted it to
be, and our friendship persevered through those really tough six hours. After Fei Bing, Alex left to go to Italy. Now he’s in Copenhagen. I miss him a lot and he’s destined for great things. In the months after, I helped Genevieve Mateyko launch her ice cream company, Sunday Morning Ice Cream. It also started with “So, you’re bored? Then do something about it. Why not?” We came up with the idea of delivering ice cream door to door and bringing it to the customer. I told her, “It’s going to cost you more and you might not make as much, but you’ll be different.” That’s how I ended up driving every Sunday morning delivering ice cream for three months. Genevieve has gotten tons of press and it was just that she needed someone to up her business. It was exciting to see that happen. The same thing happened with Backyard Câphé [Vietnamese Coffee Roasters]. I told them, “Just roast the beans and you’ll get there. Put your big boy pants on and just do it.” All these people, they always wanted to do something, and they never had the partner to do it with, that person who just fell in love with the idea, which is all I do, I just keep on falling in love with things. A lot of people that I know just need someone to tell them it’s okay. Fuck money. Fuck that. Just do it. Start. I don’t take credit for other people’s successes, but I see greatness in what people do and things that they’re interested in. That’s the thing that I’m best at. In December [2012], I was introduced to the Chinatown Night Market. It was a challenging experience but not a negative one. It helped me learn a lot of tough lessons in a short amount of time. The night market helped me refine my voice and wanting to be Chinese. Now I’m fascinated with the things I rejected. In my early 20s, all I wanted to do was be white. Now, I fucking love being Chinese. I am owning it right now. Chinese Hipster, that’s what I am. The thing that frustrates me the most is 30-year-olds that are still in cultural denial. C’mon, people are fascinated with our culture right now, fascinated with dim sum, noodle shops, hot pot . . . You’ve got to own it, educate, get people excited about your culture. We don’t have a lot of Chinese Canadians or Americans who are from outside of food, who are considered cool right now, but like, Roy Choi is the fucking man, Eddie Huang is the man, David Chang is the man, Danny Bowien is the man. All these people. I take massive pride in that work ethic that my parents have that was so embarrassing before. But now, it’s their hustle. Being immigrants and working so hard and working three jobs to get the money and the things and the life that you want. It’s awesome. I love that. I embrace that 100%. I’m closer to being super proud than I’ve ever been. I’m in the process of refining my voice and instead of pushing it away, making it a part of me, and doing it on my own terms.
27
: As Told To
Merci beaucoup Transforming lives one cookie at a time by megan lau illustration by adam cristobal
Jackie Kai Ellis found a little pocket between Kitsilano, the Armoury District, and South Granville and set up shop. In December 2012, Beaucoup Bakery and Café opened its doors and welcomed the neighbourhood inside. Customers were greeted with the best croissants in the city and luscious peanut butter sandwich cookies, among an assortment of expertly prepared French baked goods and pastries. Jackie, the owner and creator of Beaucoup, started the process of opening the bakery after returning from a year-long trip around the world. She had closed her thriving graphic design business to study pastry and pasta in France and Italy, respectively, travel Rwanda and Tanzania, and hike in the jungles of Congo. Along the way, she sampled the local fare enthusiastically. Jackie came back to Vancouver with a dream of sharing the pleasures of food, and began planning. At the time, while she had a wealth of knowledge about food, Jackie was a neophyte in the restaurant industry: “I’d never even waitressed,” she admits. Beaucoup is an extension of Jackie’s gifts (design, baking, entrepreneurship) and personality (warm, lively, engaging, sincere). The space, simply decorated with marble tables, Bentwood bistro chairs, and pastel Italian ceramics, elevates a coffee and a pastry to an escape. It is, for lack of a better word, lovely. It’s not uncommon to find every seat in the cafe full and the shelves bare at the end of the day. Just a few weeks after Beaucoup’s first birthday, Jackie reflected on her fortuitous path to becoming a culinary luminary.
In my life before, I always did the responsible thing. You get a good job, you become financially stable, you buy a house, you get married, you have kids. You do all of those things. You always contribute to your rrsps to the maximum benefits. You only spend what you need, so you can save all your money in order to be responsible. I was a good daughter. I did everything the right way. Then I realized I was saving for a house I didn’t want to buy. I can barely take care of my twobedroom condo, let alone buy a house with a garden and have to be at Home Depot on the weekend. I had limited myself to the idea—our parents’ idea—that you have one career for the rest of your life and that’s it. I wondered, is life this way? You just do the same thing every day? I had exhausted my creativity and I felt a little bit
dry. It seemed like something else was supposed to happen. I wanted to see Paris, to live there. I wanted to go to Africa and see a leopard, eat a wildebeest. The person who first inspired me to live more passionately was a guy I met at a party. One month he was a naturopath and the next he was a cheese maker and he was talking about buying a vineyard in Spain. I was like, “Whoa, you’re so cool!” But people who knew him told me he dates all these women and if she’s a naturopath, he’ll go be one with her. If she’s a cheese maker, he’ll go be a cheese maker with her. And the next thing you know, he’s moving to Montreal to be an artist. At first, I thought, that’s too bad. It would have been a great story. And then I thought to myself,
why can’t I be a little more like that? Maybe not all of that works for me, but this part works for me and I can incorporate it into my life. It wasn’t that I was unhappy with my previous job and it wasn’t fulfilling. My business was very healthy and I loved my clients, I still do. To this day, they still call me and say, “Stop this bakery foolishness and go back to design.” But I had to redefine the things I really valued in life. One of the hardest parts of the process was answering the question, what do you really want? That alone is hard, but the harder part is that it changes. The constant re-evaluation was really tough. I was journaling, thinking, testing things. Eventually, I followed the idea of exploration, the idea that there’s a huge world out there that I hadn’t seen. I’d seen all these paintings in books, and I remember travelling to France and England in my 20s and seeing the paintings in real life—like Degas. Oh my gosh, when you see the light and the movement in
It was about six months in total in France and Italy. I tried everything from Michelin-starred restaurants to crappy baguettes from the middle of nowhere. I went to Saint-Émilion to see what the very first macaron tasted like; I went to Dijon just to taste mustard. Well, it tastes just like it does at home. In Provence, I went to all the flea markets, rented a car and drove to all the little villages on the hills, seeing churches in the middle of lavender fields. It was totally picturesque. My time in Italy was mainly food tourism; I went everywhere. I even spent half a day in Naples just to eat pizza at the place where pizza started. And then I went to Bologna and spent a week there learning how to make pasta and eating gelato. It was literally my bucket list. I will never be the same person again. Back in Vancouver, I thought about what I wanted to do next. I started planning for the bakery pretty much immediately. M.F.K. Fisher talks about how food is the invisible thread that weaves together everybody in the world.
“Are you Jackie? I just want to thank you for opening this bakery. You think that it’s just a bakery but it’s not, it means so much more.” person, the paint, how it’s laid on the canvas, how he laid rose pink on top of sky blue to make this colour when you step back, you don’t see that in books. When I started defining these things, I realized I care about having the best experiences in life, even if it means that I’m broke. I just wanted to allow myself the luxury of being absorbed in something purely for the sake of enjoyment, because it tickled me, not because it had a final purpose. I was willing to give it all up to have those experiences, and that’s why I made the jump. We spend so much time caring what other people think of us, their opinions about what you’re doing. I just got to a point where I knew I’m the only one who lives my life 24 hours a day. If I want to get a face tattoo, that means I want a face tattoo. No one gets a say! You know what I mean? I’m probably not going to get one, it’s not really me, but hey man, props to Mike Tyson. I respect it. From the day I started to think about leaving to the day I left was about a year and a half. I started transferring all my clients over, putting aside the money, getting the visas, applying for the schools. A month before I left, I had the plane tickets booked, the apartments rented, I had tenants for my own apartment all set up. A lot of people think you jump into following your dreams. The process is actually a long road that you walk down. By the time that you get to the point where you’re jumping, you’ve done so much thinking and so much preparation that really the jump is just a two-foot step.
Every single person has something to do with food because they have to eat. Food is my passion; I’ve always loved baking. In the period of my life prior to leaving for France, I designed during the day and baked in the evenings. It was insane. I literally baked my way through the Culinary Institute of America pastry textbooks. I took every pastry course I could find in Vancouver, and built a business selling at farmers markets. It was my way of connecting with people. About a month ago, a guy came in here and asked, “Are you Jackie? I just want to thank you for opening this bakery. You think that it’s just a bakery but it’s not, it means so much more.” I didn’t ask him any more, but to me it felt like the very thing that I went through so many years ago. I remember waking up some mornings and wondering, what do I have to look forward to today? Okay, the only thing that excites me today is a chocolate chip cookie and five minutes with a coffee. I would sit in cafes and bakeries and be transformed, slowly. I knew that that’s what he was talking about. Because it’s not just a bakery to some people, it’s something small to look forward to in a day when maybe you don’t have anything else to look forward to.
There’s also this book called The School of Essential Ingredients. At one point in the story, a woman says to a man, “What are we to each other?” and he says, “I hope that we’re ladders and chairs for each other.” So, something to climb on and a place to sit. When I was making my business plan and asking myself what I wanted this bakery to be, it was ladders and chairs. We’re just providing a place as comfortable as possible for people to be here and do whatever they need to do. How do we do that? Amazing food, beautiful service, music, ambiance, a marble table, everything. We were ready to go probably six months before we opened, but there were a lot of construction delays and permit stuff. I’d never opened anything like this before. I’d never even worked in the food industry. But what got me through was naiveté. I didn’t know what I didn’t know. The best part of not knowing is that you can only see what’s in front of you. You just do that. And once you finish that, you see what’s next and you do that. Don’t get me wrong, I did all my research and had all my ducks in a row: marketing, finances, social media. But you can’t control the things you can’t control. When you’re so busy, you don’t have time to sweat the small stuff. When I opened this bakery, I would work for 72 hours straight, non-stop. Then I would sleep for an hour or two and then work for another 72 hours straight. How do you have time to worry about whether or not your telephone message is perfect? Every single person who tweeted me back in early days helped me to believe I was on to something. I remember when I hit 100 followers on Twitter I was like, “Thank you for being my 100th follower!” Everyone in the food community was so welcoming. Everyone wanted to see this succeed. Now, I’m not in the kitchen all the time. My role at the bakery is to grow the business, to make it as healthy as possible, to create a business where the people within the business can grow up. I say this to everyone, “Where do you dream to be in five years? If you want help, I’m here.” For me, this is my dream realized. I love creating. Oh my god, I cannot sit still. I’m one of those people. I am going to be starting six to 10 projects and businesses within the next year or two. Obviously, it’s still tough, I still sacrifice things. I have hard days, but I wouldn’t change a thing. I have amazing friends. My business is beautiful. My team is awesome. Anything I can dream of doing, I feel like I can make it happen. I’m very grateful.
The bakery was inspired by that concept. I felt it could be a place to inspire people, to give them a place of rest, to give them a place to connect. To me, I feel like in some weird way, being transformed myself and inspiring transformation in others is my raison d’être. That’s why I love living. I love seeing people transformed. If I can just be in the presence of it and just watch it, that makes me so happy.
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community confections
When I eat chocolate, I try to savour it. I resist the urge to chomp, and instead extend the experience by letting it melt. Now that I know how much work it takes to make chocolate, experiencing it with anything less than reverence seems wrong.
encouragement they need to succeed. Applying for a job is not easy for most people, as it can be an intimidating and deflating experience. We aim to remove those obstacles and make the first steps a lot less painful and a lot more fun.”
Bean-to-bar with East Van Roasters
It is the complex and laborious production process of chocolate that appealed to Shelley Bolton, the Director of Social Enterprise at the Portland Hotel Society. She was developing a project to create employment opportunities for women living in the Downtown Eastside’s Rainier Hotel, which provides housing and support services for women struggling with mental illness and addiction. While researching potential ventures, she learned that there are many stages before chocolate is ready to eat: planting, nurturing, fermenting, drying, sorting, roasting, winnowing, grinding, conching, tempering, and forming. The Rainier Hotel had a group of women eager to work if someone would give them a chance, and chocolate was a product that required a large amount of effort and time. East Van Roasters opened its doors in April 2013.
For Sheree McKay, the opportunity to work in a supportive environment has changed her outlook. “My eyes have been opened to a whole other way of living,” says McKay, who has bipolar disorder and for a time was homeless. Her life began to change with a move into the Rainier, where she still resides. “It was the only place that was drug-free and women only,” she says. “There’s never a shortage of someone to do up a zipper or colour your hair. There’s always a girlfriend on standby.”
by eleanor radford photography by kerria gray
McKay, who just turned 45, has worked at East Van Roasters since it opened and says the work environment has had a tremendous influence on her. “They’ve shown me the world’s really an open place. I kind of felt like it was a done deal, that my window of opportunity was basically closed. But I’m seeing that I have an equal number of years in front of me as I have behind me,” she says. McKay dreams of going back to school and one day getting a job working with animals, perhaps as a veterinary assistant. Employment at East Van Roasters has given her a future, perhaps because it gave her something vital first: a community. “I think the most important thing about being human is being connected, and that’s what food does, it brings us all together. It’s not a solo project, I feel like I have a lot of sisters.”
“ I think the most important thing about being human is being connected, and that’s what food does, it brings us all together. It’s not a solo project, I feel like I have a lot of sisters.” “It takes about seven days to produce one 30 kg batch of chocolate,” says Bolton. Once the cacao has been planted, nurtured, and fermented, the work at East Van Roasters begins. “We come in at [the sorting stage] and carry out the remaining steps right on the premises.” The East Van Roasters storefront, located on the ground floor of the Rainier Hotel, has big glass windows that invite passersby to witness the bean-to-bar journey. “We wanted anyone who walks by to be able to see the chocolate being made right before their eyes. There can be no question about who is making it for them,” explains Bolton. “And if they choose to walk in and want to learn more, it becomes an educational experience that enlightens people to the very precious—and delicious—nature of chocolate.” With backyard chickens and farmers markets, Vancouver’s foodie culture makes us increasingly aware of where our food comes from. Bolton views this as a reaction to a growing disconnect with the food people eat. “It’s an unhealthy trend that we need to try and correct,” Bolton notes. “Supporting local artisan producers creates a richly connected community. Eating locally-created foods makes much more sense for us physically, mentally, and spiritually.”
Ilford HP5 400
In addition to employing residents of the Rainier Hotel, East Van Roasters also employs women facing similar barriers to health and employment living elsewhere in the Downtown Eastside. “For some people, the opportunity of a job, even a part-time job, can be life changing. Many people within the community tell me they need and want to keep busy, but that no one will take the chance on them because they can only manage to work a four-hour day or 12 hours a week, or they have long gaps in their employment history,” observes Bolton. “Our program is a self-motivated one that allows for individuals to set their own pace while receiving the support, training, and
East Van Roasters is committed to their principles of support and respect at every stage of the production process, which is why Bolton only uses organic fair-trade beans. “I believe strongly that all businesses should do their best to be transparent and honest about their sourcing and supplier,” she says. “Food should be good for all people involved, from those who produce it to those who enjoy the finished project.”
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: Interview
SHORT STORIES Lewis Bennett reflects on his endeavour to produce twelve films about BC residents in twelve months interview and photography by rommy ghaly
I met Lewis Bennett for the first time at the Astoria Pub in early 2011. My memories of the introduction are hazy at best, so one could say I really met him over a year later when I heard about his viral film short, The Sandwich Nazi, about La Charcuterie Delicatessen owner Salam Kahil, released in
and The Huffington Post. They’ve been selected for festival programs at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), Slamdance, Whistler Film Festival, and the Northwest Filmmakers’ Festival, among many others.
“ Right from the beginning, it was pretty amazing, pretty surreal...I stood in the lineup. He looked over and saw that maybe I was nervous and started grilling me, saying things like ‘Are you gay?’ ” June 2012 as part of Bennett’s ambitious project to make a documentary short every month for a year. His films have gained considerable traction, and have been picked up by local, national, and international media outlets including Scout Magazine, The Georgia Straight, The Tyee, Eater,
After some back and forth over Twitter and a personal desire on my part to collaborate with him, he mentioned that he’d been working on the feature film version of The Sandwich Nazi and wanted to know if I’d be willing to shoot stills on set. Since then we’ve become friends in real life. I stopped by his place recently to catch up over a few beers.
rommy ghaly: How did you actually get
involved in filmmaking? Did you go to school for it or was it something you picked up in your spare time?
lewis bennett: I went to BCIT in 2005 or 2006, and I took this digital film and video production course. It was a little bit of everything.
rg: But it was a single course? lb: It was a single course, yeah. A one-year course. Sort of like [Vancouver Film School], but more, I would say. As part of the [tuition] we got a camera, a laptop, a Macbook/Powerbook, and we got Final Cut and a tripod, and a bunch of shit like that. So everything that we needed to make a movie. That was awesome, because when we were done with the course, we got to keep all that stuff to continue to make movies. There wasn’t any fighting over gear. Everyone had their own shit. rg: And that’s your only formal training? Did you ever do anything else?
lb: No, not like film stuff. rg: So I actually met you for the first time at the Astoria during Ryan Betts’s show, two years ago. I remember talking to you and you said that you were a filmmaker, but I didn’t know of you or what you had done until I heard about The Sandwich Nazi when it started going super viral. Like others, I was blown away by the comedy and the profound seriousness, as well by the subject, Salam Kahil. How did you find out about him and get connected to him?
lb: I knew about him through my brother and some friends … They’d always talk about [Kahil’s] food. I never really heard about the guy that much. And then when I was working on the project where I was trying to do a documentary a month, I was trying to figure out what to shoot after my third one. I was on Reddit, and someone was telling some stories about [Kahil] and some of the [inappropriate] things he would tell the customers, and I was immediately drawn to that.
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I went in there undercover to see what it was like. I didn’t know if I wanted to make a documentary. Right from the beginning, it was pretty amazing, pretty surreal. I couldn’t believe what was happening. I walked in. I was probably acting a little nervous because he’s an intense guy. So I stood in the lineup. He looked over and saw that maybe I was nervous and started grilling me, saying things like “Are you gay?” When he asked me a question like that in front of everybody, I was thinking that I’d never been asked if I was gay or straight at a restaurant or any store. (laughs) Then a few minutes later, he’s like, “Are you an undercover cop?” And I said, “No, no.” And by the end, I was there 20 minutes or something, because he takes his time making the sandwiches,
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I just asked him, “Can we come and film, sometime this week?” because I knew it would be good, that there would be something there. And he told me about the Downtown Eastside sandwich donations that they were doing the following Saturday. So we scheduled to come for that as well and started from there.
rg: And then you ended up at his apartment, interviewing him in his space.
“ We were just immediately drawn to his weird inappropriate jokes about blowjobs.” lb: He was just open to anything, everything. Anything we
wanted to do, we could film him doing anything. He’s always been 100% fine with all of it.
rg: How did you decide to make this film about him? Did you go
in there thinking this is going to be a comedy because he’s a hilarious character with a lot of quirky traits? Or did you want to make something a bit more?
lb: Yeah at first we were like, “Hey, this guy is gonna say a lot
of inappropriate shit and it’s gonna be funny.” We were just immediately drawn to his weird inappropriate jokes about [his history of escorting and] blowjobs, and all this sex stuff that he would talk about. We didn’t know that there were a whole bunch of other things that we would learn. A lot of times he’ll tell us something, and we’ll be like, he’s full of shit. And then we’d find out a couple months later he was telling the truth.
rg: So you’re kind of just gathering footage, but you can’t really have a solid direction because you don’t know what the end of the story is.
lb: Yeah, exactly. And I think in a way, I’m happy to do a “slice
of life” or a film that’s just analyzing this specific time in his life. In another way I’m drawn to the story, to the arc, with the climax, etc. If one comes, I think we’ll go for it. If not, I don’t think it’s the end of the world.
rg: So you got picked up by the Slamdance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, which is an amazing accomplishment. How did that feel? You went down there and… lb: Yeah it was very cool. When we arrived, some of the
programmers were like, “You gotta talk to this guy [filmmaker Ben Hethcoat] because he’s the champion of your film.” And we ended up running into him the first day and he was like, “Guys!” and he hugged us. He told us that our film had been on the chopping block and was probably not gonna make it in. He gave this impassioned speech where he said that it had to get in—he was like, “This is what filmmaking is about!” So we were super thankful for Ben who definitely helped it get in. We’ve been to five or six festivals, but that was one where we were able to watch movies the entire time.
rg: What other festivals were you in? What was your favourite? lb: They’ve all been really good for different reasons. TIFF
was awesome. The programmers there really know your movie really well. They just really cared about everybody and made an effort to get all the filmmakers to meet each other. We went to the Northwest Filmmakers’ Festival, and it was just a good time. We got super wasted.
rg: Wow. Yeah, I got the same impression [while shooting stills]. I thought that 90% of what he was saying, when I saw him, was bullshit.
lb: They’re good. They’re insanely big.
lb: Yeah I know! Even the little things. I’ve been going through
rg: Have you ever finished one?
the footage and one of those things was when a customer came in and said “I don’t like tomatoes,” and he said “Tomatoes are good for your prostate.” And I looked that up and tomatoes are good for your prostate. (laughs) He’s almost like a comedian who has been working his material. I’m sure it’s all swirling in his head all of the time because he repeats all the same things over and over again.
rg: I think he’s remarkably smart. That shows in those really brief moments that you’re hanging out with him, and he says something serious like “Say, thank you!” and you can tell he comes from a pretty good home with good manners. He was raised, like I was raised, to be respectful. When he’s talking, he’s clearly lived many different lives.
rg: So what do you think of Kahil’s sandwiches?
lb: Over like a day and a half. Every meal. rg: So I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but you’ve had a few films
with a food focus. You also made The Fat Diet, which I found to be incredibly funny. And it’s really crazy: you have this friend, Luke Brocki, whose Polish parents read a book by a Polish doctor, who seems to claim that an absolutely all-fat diet is healthy. How do you know Luke?
lb: I did this weekend course thing at The Tyee, and I met
about him?
him there. And a few months went by, and we were sitting around trying to come up with some ideas [for documentaries]. He had done a speech describing this whole diet at [live storytelling event] Rain City Chronicles, and so he sent me his talk, and it was just making me laugh. I think awkward child/ parent relationships are interesting. I think that’s maybe what I was most drawn to.
lb: It was the first day and I thought, we need to do more. And
rg: So how did they feel about being put in this movie? I mean, you’re
lb: Yeah! rg: So is that why you decided to go all out and make a feature film
if I wasn’t working on that project, where I was trying to do a short film every month, I probably would’ve done the feature then, because although I edited the short to the best of my ability, I didn’t feel like I had gone through and picked the best stuff. I didn’t cover his car accident. I didn’t cover his art. I didn’t cover his family. All these other things. His kids in Montreal. All these things that would’ve been awesome to add in but it would’ve ballooned too quickly.
essentially making fun of them.
lb: This is what blew us away. We put up the video on Vimeo
and almost everyone who commented on it was pro-fat diets. They were all like, “Way to go!” And we were trying to be neutral. If anything we were worried we were making fun of his parents too much and making fun of the diet too much. Maybe it’s one of those things where you watch it and whatever side
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you’re already gunning for, whatever you see in the film serves to reinforce your thought process.
rg: Maybe it’s because I’m cynical, but the first thing I thought was that what they were saying was ridiculous.
lb: Luke and I talked about this a lot. His parents are in better shape than us and we’re in our 20s.
rg: Have you had dinner at their house? lb: Yeah! We had the meal [of chicken, beets, and mashed potatoes] that they make in the film.
rg: How’d you feel? lb: It was really good! Yeah! rg: There was this film that you did with the environmental and
wildlife activist Alexandra Morton on the salmon feedlots, which was a total 180 from some of these other films you’ve done. Way more serious. What was it that inspired you to do that film?
lb: That was my friend Alex Batko. He went to SFU with a bunch of friends; he’s a friend of a friend. I don’t know how it came about. I think he’d seen the other films. He liked some of them and was like, “You should do something like a ‘change the world’ kind of thing.” I think that I’m kind of drawn to comedies. I do like to do other things, just because it’s fun to try different things and I want to learn. If it ends up being a disaster then that’s okay too.
rg: I showed it to some of the folks at Sad Mag and we were pretty
silent while we were watching it. When it was done, they were like, “Oh my God, I just want to go and do something about it.”
lb: Oh that’s cool. And thanks for saying that. I’m not saying
longer project that wasn’t funny, because comedy is the most fun for me personally. Alex’s description was that Alexandra Morton—this is what made me laugh—“Alexandra Morton is the Beyoncé of the activist world.” I thought that was pretty funny. But yeah, there’s a really cool documentary [Salmon Confidential] that she did around the same time we put out ours. But a feature documentary. It played at the Vancouver International Film Festival and I think they put it online right away, because it was one of those things where they wanted to get people watching it as soon as possible because they were trying to get out the message. It goes into a lot more detail than what we did in our film. We went up [to Malcolm Island]. It’s at the tip of Vancouver Island, then you take a ferry over from there. So it was a long trek.
rg: It’s such a departure from your usual comedy but it was still
incredibly well done. You get your subjects really talking about things. You get the personal side of what they’re doing on the professional side of things. It’s the same thing with everybody you talk to. That sense that I feel like I’m watching people and listening to them talk about themselves and what makes them passionate. That’s why I really enjoy your films.
lb: Thanks man. But some of them have been a little different.
Some of the films I’ve done have been more scripted. Fat Diet was fairly scripted because of the narration, but the other two, not very much.
rg: Do you see yourself as having an opinion? Or trying to get a point
across? Or do you really just see yourself as entertainment? Because you can say that about the first two, but the Alexandra Morton one, there’s a point in there.
lb: I really don’t want to make boring movies. That’s where the
entertainment comes from. If people are laughing then I think that they are more inclined to watch it.
it didn’t turn out well. I’m just saying I don’t think I’d do a
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GET IT WHILE IT’S HOT
where are the Best vegan eats? montreal
The allure of the secret supper club
I love Le Jardin Du Cari. I don’t go out to eat here much, but their chickpea root with pumpkin and their homemade hot sauce, so cheap so good.
interviews by marie-hÉlÈne westgate
new york
Cocoron, a soba place that has a killer veg noodle soup, and Lula’s Sweet Apothecary, a vegan ice-cream place that makes soft serve and uses a cashew base.
photography by katie stewart & sylvie le sylvie (this page)
vancouver
This tiny place beside the Naam called Healthy Noodle Time. For something more upscale, Grub at Main and 28th. They always have a changing menu there and their vegan option is always amazing.
It’s like an underground queer dance party in your parents’ basement, but with appetizers.
mhw: What was the process of putting together the recipes for
Sad Mag investigates the roots of one of the most established supper clubs in Montreal, while getting a taste of what it’s like starting your own in Vancouver. Contributing writer MarieHélène Westgate sits down with Montreal chef Merida Anderson to ruminate on the creation of the Vegan Secret Supper club, and corresponds with the Museum co-creators Kaylie Barfield and Camille Flanjak in Vancouver on the importance of timing, creativity, and Italo Calvino.
ma: Every VSS has a different menu and every dish is a recipe
mhw: How did Vegan Secret Supper come about? merida anderson: I took a trip across Canada in
the summer of 2008, after I had to end my clothing line [PaperBird Clothing], and ended up in Halifax where I was taken to a supper club there that happened on Sundays in a lovely house. I was so inspired by it that as soon as I got home, I decided I would do it in Vancouver. I told my roommate, and said I completely understood if it sounded too crazy. If she said no, I would move out and find a place to do it. I was determined. Amazingly, she said yes and I ran VSS for two years in an attic space.
mhw: What compelled the transition from fashion to food? ma: I stopped designing because I had two separate accidents,
Above: Merida Anderson
I’ve created. I semi-write them down on scraps of paper and notebooks. Sometimes I only write down the ingredients. I’m not a precise person, though I can be a perfectionist, so it makes it very hard when I can’t follow a recipe. Writing exact ingredients and quantities down was a challenge.
mhw: Were there particular experiences that formed your vision for VSS?
ma: I think my vision for VSS started very small and innocent, and the idea grew with me, as most things tend to. I never start big; I just start. As someone who is quite multi-disciplinary, I find that even starting a new music project will somehow affect other projects such as VSS. My aesthetic carries through all of my practices. mhw: How do you choose a space? ma: My space is my living space, most of the time, so I don’t choose it as much as I take what I can get and then make it into the space I want. My first place was a tiny attic apartment with the smallest kitchen I’ve ever worked in, smaller than some RV kitchens.
and broke both my wrists. I had to drop the season I was working on.
mhw: Is it true you build furniture specifically for secret suppers?
mhw: How long did it take to write your cookbook? [Vegan Secret
ceramics as well, but that’s an ongoing project.
Supper: Bold & Elegant Menus from a Rogue Kitchen] Fuji Pro 400
the book?
ma: I’ve been [working on] a cookbook since I was 16, though
I’m sure none of those recipes made it in! It’s hard to say how long. I wrote a lot of it, then lost it all on a computer crash, then years later I was connected with Arsenal Pulp Press to finish what I had lost.
ma: Yes. I’ve also been trying to replace all the dishes with my mhw: Any mistakes or obstacles (like your two broken wrists, say) along the way that have helped you grow in your VSS practice? ma: Every time I do a supper I learn something new, and think,
next time I’ll do it like this...and so forth. Things like burners breaking, ovens breaking, and desserts failing still happen all the time.
Fuji Instax From left: Camille Flanjak & Kaylie Barfield
mhw: What is your biggest stress when hosting VSS? ma: VSS to me is like playing a show or having an art opening.
I never get past the feeling of putting myself out there: from the set-up of the space to the three-day sourdough bread, I’m putting myself out, in this case, on a plate. Timing is everything. From designing a menu that not only is about the flow of flavours, textures, and colours, but also considers how food is prepared, whether I have enough burners, and the order in which I need to serve each dish. Everything is important.
mhw: If time and money didn’t matter, what would be the ultimate
vegan secret supper?
ma: A space that I could build from the ground up: build the furniture, make all the dishware and glasses (I have to learn to blow glass first, though it’s on my list) grow everything, and feed everyone for free. Oh but then everyone would help me do the dishes.
mhw: Any thoughts on the secret supper scene as you’ve experienced it in Vancouver, Brooklyn, and Montreal? ma: It’s more popular in the States and the UK. When I started, I think there was only one [supper club] in Vancouver. I think it appealed to me because I’m attracted to things that you can just do yourself. I really believe in the idea that [people] can do anything they put their mind to. kaylie barfield and camille flanjak (The Museum)
Kaylie Barfield and Camille Flanjak first attended Merida Anderson’s Vegan Secret Suppers back when she hosted them in Vancouver in 2008. Since Anderson’s departure, first to Brooklyn, then to Montreal, Barfield and Flanjak have been inspired to start their own supper club: the Museum.
mhw: How did the Museum come about?
kaylie barfield: Camille and I have collectively been working in the restaurant industry for 25 years. I’m a chef with a few vegan brunches under my belt, and Camille has been a server, manager, forager, mushroom enthusiast, and small-scale farmer. It’s something we had been talking about for awhile. Camille and I host in our house because it’s huge and also intimate. Sometimes people ask us to host at their places, but the Museum refers specifically to the operations that happen in our house. mhw: What is your greatest stress when hosting a Museum supper? kb:: Timing. Always timing. It’s important because we try to stagger our seatings. We need to make sure that everyone that orders together eats together. We don’t have the best kitchen setup so for some items we had to cook them outside with a camp stove. Sometimes we would forget that there was stuff out there, oops! Also, our house has very limited ventilation because it’s very old. So, we get creative by setting up fans and leaving the back door open. Oh, and burning stuff.
mhw: What inspired your vision for the Museum? kb: This past summer, we went to Europe for three months. I rode my bicycle through and met up with Camille a month later in Liguria. Together we rode, trained, bussed, and ate. We travelled by working a few weeks here and there at bed and breakfasts and farms; we were really able to learn about the intricacies of food production outside of North America. Everything is so fresh; genetically modified food barely exists. Everything is used because it’s useful! mhw: What were some of the ideas you tried out based on your European travels?
kb: There’s so much wild food everywhere. In Belgium and Holland there were fields and fields of sweet beets, corn, and potatoes. We ate for free a lot. In Italy there was wild onion, 41
: Interview
carrot, fennel, edible flowers, and berries. The sunflowers in Tuscany were just blooming and the bees were vigorously making honey. Every region in Italy has different dishes and particular types of things they are famous for. In Sassello they make beautiful gluten-free cookies called Amaretti di Saronno. They can make these because they use Amarena seeds— bitter cherry pits—that taste like almond. Just like amaretto. Plants are used a lot in Italy and Spain to produce certain flavours. At the Museum, we try to make most things vegan and glutenfree, but we don’t limit ourselves. We like it when everyone enjoys themselves. And really, all food is part of the way humans live.
“ We ordered the house wine and she told us the grapes for the wine were grown in her front yard. That’s what I want to do. Keep it small. Keep it easy, simple, local.” mhw: What was one of your favourite meals served at the Museum? kb: We made dinner based on a book once (Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino). We created a menu based on our readings of the book, and served it to about 10 people. There was a discussion that followed; we really got to deconstruct people’s conceptions of food. mhw: Do you find that supper clubs are gaining popularity, or have they always been around? kb: They’ve always been around. The modern restaurant was
built on supper clubs of the past. In Italy we went to a restaurant hosted in a woman’s home. She’s been running it this way for 30 years. It is one of the only exclusively vegetarian restaurants in Tuscany, called La Fonda. It’s by reservation only. There are six [tables for four], and an industrial kitchen.
We ordered the house wine and she told us the grapes for the wine were grown in her front yard. That’s what I want to do. Keep it small. Keep it easy, simple, local. Here in Canada, we actually do have a food identity. We do. Look to the First Nations! Tradition is a word that we try to play with at the Museum.
mhw: Have you encountered any exciting supper clubs or alternate food-making practices in Vancouver? kb: I started Vegan Mischief after attending a Vegan Secret Supper, years earlier, hosted by Merida Anderson. I was inspired. I emailed to thank her for doing something different. I realized I didn’t need to be confined by any restaurant I worked in. I could make the kind of food I wanted to create, which has made me a better chef. mhw: What was the most successful supper hosted at the Museum
so far?
kb: Pintxos night. It was a free-for-all: people running to
the bar, stuffing themselves with two-dollar bites. Pintxos are a cross between a canapé and tapa. They’re popular in the Basque region of Spain. We served [them as] sourdough oyster Po’ Boy [sandwiches] with charred jalapeno aioli. We served quail egg, Llomo and.... We served farinata (chickpea flatbread) with burrata, tomato confit, pressed spinach. We also did a gorgonzola mascarpone, plum, Sedano (celery) leaf, and dehydrated onion chip, as well as a house-cured salmon and hyper-local sake with Matsutake bonito flakes. Oh, and Patatas Bravas made with Pemberton purple potatoes, spicy tomato sauce, vegan garlic aioli foam, and juniper salt.
mhw: What would be the ultimate Museum supper? kb: We would host in a small cabin in Squamish or Pemberton, and serve a meal entirely representative of the bounty of our surroundings.
No Name 800 Pintxos evening at “The Museum”
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: Dispatches
illustrations by leeandra cianci
I’m squeezed in the middle row of an airplane and I’ve been blowing my nose into the same hanky for over five hours—there are six more to go. I’m headed to Japan, a country known for its exquisite (albeit radioactive) seafood and subtle flavours. This isn’t the time to be sick. Despite the fact that I’m having a hard time smelling and tasting, the unidentifiable meal I’ve just been served is, I’m pretty sure, disgusting. It’s brown, it’s mushy, it’s spicy, it’s…breakfast? When I arrive I’m greeted at my host’s home with an elaborate meal of Japanese delicacies, most of which are not explained to me and don’t seem to have words to describe them in English. Something looks like jello, but it’s seafood. “What kind of seafood?” “It’s from the ocean, try it.” “Uh, okay.” It’s slimy and salty. There’s also another dish that is unmistakably some kind of organ, but from something small, like a chicken. I dig in, unafraid, due to my
inability to smell. Is this a false sense of adventure? Will I boast that I was a real “foodie” in Japan when all the while I’m secretly sort of glad that I can’t actually taste the food? Do I fess up to my gracious hosts that these culinary delights are lost on me? I’m passed a dish of eel as they watch me expectantly for a reaction— I’m faking this foodgasm. My cold relents a little as a friend and I walk around Gion, a district in Kyoto. I realize for the first time in several days my olfactory system is switched on and I’m starving. My friend leads me into a dingy ramen place. I take a seat beside an old mop and some boxes in the corner. Just as I’m about to suggest we find another (cleaner) place a rush of businessmen flood in. Before we know it the place is elbow-to-elbow. I take it as a good sign and order the sliced pork ramen. The scent of the fragrant broth hits my face like some savoury steam bath I never want to end. The noodles are rich, buttery, and plentiful. Each bite of pork is a reminder of everything good I missed while being sick. I was tasting in black and white and suddenly the world is a kaleidoscopic cornucopia of delicious foods just waiting for me to take a bite. With the soundtrack of noodle slurping and the bustling city behind me, I finally feel full. —pamela rounis
“I ate non-veg once. There was a cockroach in my sambar.” —My yoga philosophy teacher. Talking about food is central to life in Mysore, perhaps trumping the act of consumption itself. Is it sattvic (pure)? Will it up my rajas (fiery tendencies) or reduce my tamas (loosely translated to sloth-like behaviour)? Many of the cafes are outdoor patios with family-style seating. These places are filled with yogis. On our first day I overheard, “This turmeric tea will totally heal my rotator cuff injury.” Then, in another conversation, “I had a fever for a few days; I think it was the trail mix. You know how dried papayas can cause a lot of heat.” On the last night of our three-week-long yoga study and practice in Mysore, my friends and I went to a bar in a restored 1920s style palace. We drank a few “Barman’s Bangs” (a mixture of rum, honey, soda, and some other stuff.) Some other yogis came to join us, staring for a long time at the drink list. “I love gin... but I think I’ll go for a fruit punch.” After they left and our drinks continued on, I raised my glass for a toast and declared with total certainty, “this is samadhi” (an enlightened state of being).
“ When there are no fish, they steer their boat to the mangrove forest and plunge their arms elbows-deep into sticky mud to pull out punchas, small crabs that pinch and draw blood.”
We had a send-off breakfast for our last morning. I spent most of it chatting with a 67-year-old woman who started her Ashtanga practice at the age of 60. The topic of vegetarianism came up and she seemed surprised, did I think she was pure veg? “I brought from home, corned beef, chorizo sausage, fish. I have them in a box in my room, I eat my secret sandwiches.” She always took the city bus around Mysore, explaining that the best way to travel is to get lost, then go somewhere you’ve been. Every time that my friends and I got lost, we seemed to end up with cake and coffee. —rachel burns
The fish is fried whole and served to me with a slice of lemon, a bottle of hot sauce, and a few thick tortillas. The family orders chicken—“we always have fish,” Mama explains through my interpreter. The ocean is on one side of us, the river on another. Her boys and her husband fish both waters every day, though they had to sell a net recently to pay for the doctor so their take is less. When there are no fish, they steer their boat to the mangrove forest and plunge their arms elbows-deep into sticky mud to pull out punchas, small crabs that pinch and draw blood. Ten crabs are worth a dollar. In summer, children smoke cigarettes as they dig—the smoke plumes around them and keeps the mosquitos away. They start as young as six. On a boat as wide as their stances, the two older boys drag fish out of the water, balancing on both feet and dragging nets through silt-water alive with alligators. In a patch of shade, Mama watches her boys from our boat; she is three months into an ectopic pregnancy and very Catholic. Someone mumbles a blessing at the other end of the table and the waitress brings orange Fanta in glass bottles for everyone. The fish is delicate, with crisp skin and seasoned with just a pinch of salt. It might be snapper. I scrape the flesh off the bones with my front teeth and savour it. It is perfect in the way that food is when you know where it comes from. It is simple, except for all the ways it is not. Mama smiles at me from across the table, and I smile back. I wonder if I should have ordered the chicken. —emily wight
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: Photography Earrings, Crown the Queens Top,Veronique Branquinho Fuji ColorSuperia X-TRA 400
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: Photography This page: Top, model’s own Next Page: Top, Alexander Wang
: Photography This page: Top, F as in Frank Next Page: Earrings, Crown the Queens / Top, model’s own.
: Feature
THE INDIGESTIBLES On death and Duffin’s and beef jerky by brianne nettelfield art by joelle gebhardt
On September 2nd, 2012, both of my grandparents were killed by a car while crossing a pedestrian intersection on a highway in Minnesota. They had just finished eating dinner at a restaurant across from their hotel. Sometimes I wonder if my Grandpa had just finished his last bowl of ice cream. He always ate ice cream for dessert. They were on their way back home to Texas after having spent a few days with my mom and me in the Kootenays. I am so grateful for those days. I received the call on Sunday morning of the Labour Day long weekend, two days before I would start my first “adult” job as a Research Assistant at the University of British Columbia. When my roommate and a friend returned to our house postbrunch, they found me in the throes of the greatest grief I had known in my 23 years of life. This was my first experience with the death of someone close to me. None of us knew what to do, how to handle death, how to respond to the immediacy with which it changes you. I wasn’t ready for any of it.
It resembled more of a museum now, with somber guests taking inventory. Neighbours had brought over platters and plates. The fridge was fully stocked with their good intentions and sorrow. The counter bore the effects of the constant snacking done by my distant relatives weary from their grief and the responsibilities it shadowed. Once I had said the requisite hellos to people whom I was acquainted with, estranged from, and had never met before, I settled in at the counter picking at small portions of meats, cheeses, and crackers. If there was nothing I could do to make this situation the least bit bearable, I could eat. After all, I had been practicing for weeks.
So we rolled a joint. We spent the rest of the day in the living room on a mattress watching bad 1990s movies and shovelling snacks into our mouths. Even when the other girls fell asleep, I just kept eating and smoking, eating and smoking, junk food strewn across the mattress. There were multiple items from every food group: chocolate, including the staple of Reese’s Pieces; three different types of candy (sweet, sour, and hard); two bags of chips. I couldn’t stop because I knew that the moment I did I would have to feel or think something, to try and comprehend what death meant for me, for my family, for my grandparents … who simply did not exist anymore. I remember lying there after hours of binge eating, vibrating and trying to figure out whether it was the sugar or the pot at fault. I thought I would explode into a million tiny coloured pieces, but instead I fell asleep. I began my new career on Tuesday despite protests from my new boss. I must have read somewhere that even when we lose people we love, life goes on. I was determined to go on. Thus would begin months of going to work, coming home to smoke a joint, and stuffing myself to the brim with Chinese food, cheeseburgers, hotdogs, candy, chips, chocolate, and anything else I could get my hands on between Duffin’s Donuts and the convenience store. “Open 24 Hours” is an emotional eater’s worst nightmare. Because of how metaphorically fractured and more literally scattered my family is, we weren’t able to arrange the memorial service until six weeks after the accident. I was in limbo for six weeks, in a city with no family and no friends close enough to share this very personal pain with. So I ate until there was nothing left to share with anyone.
PB & PJ Graphite and hand-embroidery on paper
When my mother and I arrived in Texas, we drove straight to my grandparents’ house—a home I had visited only once in my life, almost 10 years ago.
Two long days after our arrival, we had the memorial service. I was astonished at the amount of food people brought. The reception was full of Texas home cooking: rolls, different meats, casseroles, and pasta salads. Before the service even started I was in the kitchen with a piece of bread. I was starved. I felt starved all the time, like food was the only way I could sustain myself because tragic death had shown me its inevitability. If the death of those I love was an inevitable, unexpected, constant possibility, then I was no longer certain what in life had meaning. Death was the most meaningful thing in my world. Food was the only way I could feel not completely void. The night before my return to Vancouver, I was rocked by the most violent food poisoning I have ever had, the irony of which was not lost on me. I felt like I was vomiting up every single thing I had eaten in the past six weeks, although apparently it was just the hotel food. As soon as I felt well, though,
I ordered a cheeseburger. I had purged out all of my stuffing and was now empty and needed to be filled again. It wouldn’t be until March that I regained any sense of balance, emotionally, mentally, and physically. Twenty pounds of extra weight gained in five months led me into the doctor’s office asking for a referral to a therapist. The same day I went to the health food store and bought a “Your First Cleanse” kit. I never used the referral (maybe I was saving it for later) but I did choose to clean up my diet, which was enough to finally propel me into a new relationship with food. I couldn’t have known that I was only training for the next round.
catch my breath, and, even if I could, my lungs didn’t want to do what my brain asked of them. I didn’t go swimming. I barely made it through the door. Instead, Jess found me and took me home. But this time I didn’t eat. I couldn’t eat. The feelings I tried so hard to stuff down when my grandparents died absolutely refused to be contained this time. I was overwhelmed and my body would not take anything else in. It would only release tears, sighs, and sounds I did not know I could make. This time I chose nothing. I had learned that there was nothing to be done to silence grief. You could only listen to it and try not to scream too loudly in response.
nutritious yet requiring as little thought from the consumer as possible. I didn’t touch it. I barely looked at it. A few of us planned to go out to the river that Jim had loved later to have a fire. I had next to nothing to eat that day, and the only thing I wanted to open my mouth for was the beer and whiskey sure to be available at any Northern Alberta post-funeral bonfire. I couldn’t get out of there fast enough, away from the people and away from the food meant to pacify, sustain, and commemorate. The food that would be consumed over hushed conversation and condolences. It was more than I could bear to see people gathered in ceremonial celebration of his life when we were still unceremoniously mourning his death.
“ I remember lying there after hours of binge eating, vibrating and trying to figure out whether it was the sugar or the pot at fault. I thought I would explode into a million tiny coloured pieces, but instead I fell asleep.” In less than 48 hours, I had landed at the Grande Prairie airport to make the drive back to Peace River with Jim’s two sons. I remember being concerned that I hadn’t seen them eat at all that day. But then again, neither had I.
On June 13, 2013, two days after his 45th birthday, the man who was the closest thing I had to a father died in an off-roading accident on 12-foot Davis Hill in Peace River, Alberta. I had just arrived at the swimming pool to meet my friend Jess and was locking my bike when I checked my phone and saw two missed calls from my best friend Kayla. Immediately I knew that something wasn’t right, so I called her. I could never have expected the physical pain that would engulf me when she said, “Jim died today, in a car accident.” It is the kind of pain you never forget. The kind of pain that takes you to the depths of what being human means. I doubled over, just like they do in the movies. I always thought that phrase was overdramatic. But when someone you love deeply and complexly is taken from you, from others, from the only world you exist in, you cannot stomach it. It reaches your guts and threatens to tear them out if you don’t protect them. I doubled over, I couldn’t
I spent a few days at home visiting with my mother and some old friends. I found space for myself in the comfort of things that did not change: my love for my home and the people I left behind. I stopped a few times at the restaurant I worked at as a teenager and had my old favourites: bacon and eggs over-easy with a side of toast, and a Monte Cristo sandwich. In those moments I felt normal, capable of taking things in and giving little bits of myself back to the world. But it didn’t take long for the reality of my visit to come crashing down on me and then I retreated—food became unimportant and uninteresting again. On the morning of the funeral I struggled to get out of bed. I stayed until the last possible minute, drinking coffee, crying, rolling from this side to that. When we arrived in Peace River I made my mom circle the block, and drive me past Jim’s old apartment, then down the streets where he taught me to drive. The funeral itself was made bearable only by the shared suffering of the many people that were gathered there. I wasn’t alone in my grief. We rarely are. After the service everyone headed outside to smoke and downstairs to eat. The platters of food and canteens of coffee reminded me of my grandparents’ funeral. Food you could eat with your hands,
After the liquor store we stopped at the gas station for the rest of the necessities: cigarettes and the only piece of food I could permit myself so as not to faint: the never-boastful beef jerky— a key staple to surviving in the wilds of Northern Alberta.
Into the evening, about the same time I was starting to kick myself for drinking on an empty stomach, a few family members showed up with food from the service. There was something less repulsive about these leftovers, like they had been blessed by the mourners who drove them over. Bringing sustenance to a true place of grieving, a place the man we were missing had loved. The food would allow us to continue into the summer night, not weighed down by ceremony or obligation. It could have been my body’s insistence on selfpreservation, or perhaps the setting, but I ate half of a leftover sandwich and some grapes. Just enough to keep drinking.
The next morning, I woke up alone in the bed of an old friend who’d already left for work. I looked out the window to see that beautiful big blue Albertan sky and the sign for Peace Gardens, the only Chinese restaurant around, where, years ago, I took my mother for her 49th birthday. It was all over. In a few hours I would be driving to Grande Prairie, headed back to my life in Vancouver. The show must go on. But in that bed I was held safe in a memory. The safety of home, no matter how much sadness it had, could be felt in the warmth of the sheets and the promising return of a familiar face. Leaving was the last thing I wanted to do. I wanted to stay right there in that bed and admit defeat. Instead, I let the sadness in and cried looking out the window at the life I didn’t have anymore, at the place littered with memories of a man who I always needed and will never forget. We stopped at Fatburger before my flight. I ordered a gigantic burger, fries, and a coke. I felt sick, but the way back home was not clearly marked and I had already begun to fear the emptiness of a strange city in the face of such immense loss.
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Coming this Spring! (just for the hell of it)
SOME BIRDS WALK FOR THE HELL OF IT poems by CR Avery Avery’s poetry is alternately profane, brilliantly vulgar, outrageously funny and brash in its lonesome courage, unsettling, and unquestionably original. “Audacious and astounding; 5 star” –David Burke, London Time Out “a cultural magpie who’s impossible to pigeon-hole” –David Kidman, Net Rhythms Magazine
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