I just fin­ished read­ing Dean Mahomet’s Trav­els, an auto­bi­o­graph­i­cal account of a career in the East Indi­an Company’s armed forces dur­ing the eigh­teenth cen­tu­ry, by a self-edu­cat­ed Bihari Mus­lim who even­tu­al­ly immi­grat­ed to Ire­land [see Read­ing for March 2006]. There are many things to learn from this book, but I would like to use it as evi­dence for my views on the his­to­ry and nature of the Cor­po­ra­tion. Read more »

While I was walk­ing home, in the ear­ly evening, the sky became that bril­liant, glow­ing cobalt blue that only hap­pens when con­di­tions are right. There are few things more beautiful.

Today, I was able to take a short breather from the work I’ve been doing, com­pil­ing a data­base of com­pa­nies for an urban invest­ment del­e­ga­tion. I deliv­ered an excel doc in the ear­ly morn­ing, after doing an all-nighter. So, after fin­ish­ing some over­due house­hold chores, I caught a four-dol­lar mat­inée at the Rain­bow Cin­e­ma. It was my first the­atre movie of the year. I must be the only per­son on the plan­et who went to see Broke­back Moun­tain because of the sheep and the scenery [see THE LABYRINTH: VIEWING — Films 2006]. The the­atre is across the street from St. Lawrence Mar­ket, so I stopped in. There’s a veg­etable store there that is so picky about qual­i­ty that it toss­es any­thing even slight­ly sub­stan­dard onto the dis­count rack. There, I found a bag of per­fect­ly good chanterelle mush­rooms for a dol­lar, and a large bunch of leeks for the same price. Mush­room Soup! Once home, I made one of my impro­vi­sa­tion­al inspi­ra­tions: cream base (not too thick), chopped leeks, cel­ery, car­rots and the chanterelles, enriched in the pot with papri­ka, Madras cur­ry, pars­ley, a dash of soy sauce, and a tea­spoon of tamarind paste.. I rec­om­mend it. Remem­ber, don’t make the cream base sludgy.

As I was pour­ing it into the bowl, the Cana­di­an dol­lar moved up to US 88.39. Per­haps I con­tributed to the rise. When it reach­es par, there will be a lot of soul-search­ing. Exporters who have used the crutch of a low dol­lar will now have to decide to make things that com­pete in qual­i­ty, or go into decline. It will be inter­est­ing to see which way they go.

Quite busy, late­ly. Work­ing on the set of cable tele­vi­sion show, and also doing some don­key work for a for­eign trade mis­sion. The rent will be late, but it will be paid.

One reflec­tion on life in Toron­to: No mat­ter how poor you are, there’s no prob­lem get­ting real­ly good food. I may have trou­ble mak­ing the rent, but I eat like an emper­or. Eat­ing well is, as far as I can see, cheap­er than eat­ing bad­ly. I can make a sup­per of cur­ried chan­na, steamed callaloo, and chick­en, brazed in yogurt and spiced with cumin, sumac and blaz­ing mit­mi­ta, served on a fill­ing Ethiopi­an njeera, for a total cost of $3.50. I can wash it down with thick, top qual­i­ty gua­va juice for three dol­lars a litre. I can lunch on bagels and fresh salmon & dill cream cheese for less than what it costs in a super­mar­ket, or find an aged herb gou­da at one third the super­mar­ket price, if I keep my eyes open in Kens­ing­ton Market.

The trick is to keep a good shelf of spices. I buy them fresh, by weight, at House of Spice, a store that is more enter­tain­ing to walk into than any amuse­ment park. By keep­ing the pantry stocked with sta­ples (rice, pas­ta, pota­toes, frozen peas and corn, wakame, njeera, crushed toma­toes), one can come across a cut of meat on sale and trans­form it into some­thing spe­cial. Soups are my per­son­al spe­cial­ty. A hardy bor­sht with sour cream, a spicy shrimp and lemon grass in coconut or tamarind broth, a stur­dy black bean and pota­to, a refresh­ing cold gaz­pa­cho. Any­one can make these in min­utes. The skills involved are trivial.

I most­ly shop in free mar­ket stores, not cor­po­rate ones, which in this neigh­bour­hood means most­ly Tamil, Pilipino, Soma­li, Ethiopi­an, Kore­an and Jamaican food shops. All of them are geared to feed­ing big fam­i­lies on small bud­gets. Between them, I have a huge vari­ety with­in a five minute walk. But with­in a twen­ty minute walk, I can get to any­thing con­ceiv­able, in Kens­ing­ton Mar­ket (chaos and mys­ter­ies and bar­gains), or in St. Lawrence Mar­ket (high­est qual­i­ty, rarest items, such as muskox steak and arc­tic char flown in from Nunavut, an entire store devot­ed to caviar, and anoth­er that sells only hot sauces and mus­tards). Chi­na­town, Lit­tle India, and Greek­town, all with­in walk­ing dis­tance, each pro­vide their par­tic­u­lar delights. I prob­a­bly spend far less on food than the aver­age per­son, but nobody could call me deprived.

City life, with all its noise, rush hour chaos and car­bon monox­ide, does have some rec­om­pens­es. Hen­ry David Thore­au may have read the Mahab­hara­ta at Walden Pond, to fill his spir­i­tu­al needs. But I find that a real­ly good chick­en tik­ka fills mine. I won­der, could I have lured Hen­ry away from the pond with a real­ly deli­cious kylbasa?

I pro­pose that Cana­da ini­ti­ate the for­ma­tion of a new inter­na­tion­al body. Mem­ber­ship would be defined by the fol­low­ing fac­tors: 1) a pop­u­la­tion of less than thir­ty-five mil­lion, 2) a per capi­ta GNI (Gross Nation­al Income) over US$20,000, and 3) a record of ful­ly func­tion­ing democ­ra­cy for a min­i­mum of fifty years. Switzer­land, which qual­i­fies, would be omit­ted by dint of its spe­cial neu­tral­i­ty and bank­ing inter­ests. The fol­low­ing coun­tries would be invit­ed: Aus­tria, Aus­tralia, Bel­gium, Den­mark, Fin­land, Ice­land, Ire­land, Lux­em­bourg, the Nether­lands, New Zealand, Nor­way, and Swe­den. In addi­tion, I would sug­gest that Green­land and the Faroe Islands, both enti­ties semi-autonomous from Den­mark, be invit­ed to par­tic­i­pate as full mem­bers. Cana­da has a spe­cial inter­est in close co-oper­a­tion with Green­land. Read more »