1 com

Indian Sweets

There are many fine Indian restaurants in Montreal, and although we may all know where to find the best chicken massala, most of us have seen little in the way of Indian pastries. My husband recently came home raving about Pushap Sweets, just off Decarie, where he had eaten with some work colleagues. Not only was it impressively inexpensive, but he also had an exquisite dessert made from chick peas.

He was so enthusiastic about it that the four of us went for dinner there on Saturday night. My kids don't enjoy Indian food, but we decided that they were old enough to start "acquiring" a taste. Besides, this restaurant was apparently known for its desserts--an easy selling point.

My favourite: "watermelon" made completely from cashews
Pushap Sweets is a modest vegetarian restaurant, but it did indeed have a separate desert counter with colourful deserts. Throughout our meal, there was a steady stream of Indian and non-Indian customers picking up a timbit-sized boxes of desserts. In the restaurant, we had delicious eggplant and potato curry with spicy chick peas. Our children had a less spicy curry. It was a hit with my daughter, but a little overwhelming for my son. Dessert however was another story. The charming waitress brought us a sampler with five different desserts without our asking. My daughter was a trooper and tried them all. Then my husband asked for the chick pea dessert, which I must admit had a beautiful texture.

Another dessert made from cashews
In addition to our dinner and dessert, we had two chais and took home some other desserts. The total for all of this was a whopping $29.00 My favourite was the watermelon made completely with cashews and organic food colouring to get that bright red and green. If you have a sweet tooth and would like to try something different, you might want to check it out. The woman behind the counter was very helpful and explained all the ingredients to us. Many were nut-based (pistachio, cashew or almond), but there were many others we'll have have to try another time. My husband recommends the chick pea pastry, his favourite.

Pushap Sweets
5195 Rue Paré, Montréal, 
 (514) 737-4527
Metro Namur 

Other Montreal-related posts


Montreal Heritage: Griffintown Horse Palace
The Montreal News Group 
Neon Icon: Miss Villeray
Buying Local: Slak on Villeray
Churros: The Uruguayan
Who's a Cyclopathe
Café Cuzcatlan: Roasting Local Coffee Beans
Creole Cuisine
Oriental Pastry Delights
 


.
 


Read more »
0 com

Joyce Carol Oates on her Life and US Politics

Joyce Carol Oates
Perhaps the highlight of the Blue Metropolis Literary Festival is the International Literary Grand Prix, awarded to a very deserving Joyce Carol Oates at the Bibliothèque Nationale last night. The prolific writer, who began her career at the tender age of 26, has penned some 70 works, which include novels, short stories, essays, memoirs, plays and children's fiction. She has also written under the pen names of Lauren Kelly and Rosamond Smith. In spite of her many literary achievements and her prominent professorship at Princeton University, Oates came across as affable, calm and poised, with many fine words for Canada, where she taught in the 1970s and founded the Ontario Review with her late husband.

In an interview with award-winning writer and broadcaster Eleanor Wachtel, Oates spoke of her humble beginnings on a poor farm in Millersport, New York, a mere crossroads, a little ways from Lockport and the Lake Erie Barge Canal. When Wachtel asked why the Canal and Niagara Falls often resurfaced in her work, Oates replied, "Language is inadequate so we must revisit them to make sure."

The Princeton professor attributes her impressive body of work to a farmer's work ethic and her life-long love of animals to her days on the farm. Her father, Fred Oates, performed his daily chores and then went to work as a tool and dye designer in a factory, Harrison Radiator. It was when Fred Oates retired that he attended university in Buffalo and that Oates and her father were able to interact on different level. Her maternal grandparents were Hungarian, her grandfather a hardworking, hard-drinking smithy. Upon his death, her grandmother wanted him to be buried in a Catholic cemetery, but the long-lapsed Catholics apparently had a few problems persuading the priest and finally offered themselves as converts to cinch the deal.

The writer`s education started out modestly in a small rural school, then a suburban high school, Syracuse University and later Princeton."We may have had two books in our house," Oates told Wachtel. It was her paternal grandmother who gave her her first book by CS Lewis and her first typewriter. It was much later that she learned of this grandmother's Jewish heritage and of her great grandfather`s tragic suicide, the raw material for the Gravedigger`s Daughter.

When asked why Joyce Carol Oates was drawn to the dark side and the tragic, the author replied that her work was lighter than the tragic story of her country, the US: the Afghanistan and Iraq wars and slavery. But among her remarks I found the most insightful were on US politics, specifically why working class Americans vote Republican, against their own best interests. Apparently, it has to do with the elusive dream of one day being wealthier than Croesus.

The author did make a remark about Canadians being on higher political ground, evidently unaware that just two metro stations away students and riot police had been hurling projectiles at one another for two days. When asked by a member of the audience about her thoughts on the current Quebec student standoff, Oates graciously replied that she did not have the cultural or political knowledge to comment, but said that she and her husband would be offering their support to the Occupy Wall Street movement.

The International Literary Grand Prix event was an evening that will not soon be forgotten. Not only did it gave us the chance to see Eleanor Wachtel, Canada’s finest literary interviewer, in action, but it also afforded us the opportunity to see Joyce Carol Oates, possibly a soon-to-be winner of the Nobel Prize for literature.

This has been cross-posted at Rover Arts.

Other related posts:

Fifty Shades of Grey 

The Return by Dany Laferrière
Meet Revolutionary Mother
Review: Something Fierce: Memoirs of a Revolutionary Daughter
Interview with Carmen Aguirre, Chilean Resistance Fighter
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
The Antagonist by Lynn Coady
Irma Voth by Miriam Toews
Dogs at the Perimeter by Madeleine Thien
Going Down Swinging by Billie Livingston
Incendiary by Chris Cleave
Winter's Bone by Daniel Woodrell 
The Girl Without Anyone by Kelli Deeth


Read more »
0 com

A Royal: Jackie Robinson


Yesterday, cities throughout the United States were celebrating the 65th anniversary of Jackie Robinson becoming the first African-American to play baseball in the major leagues. A little known fact is that the year before he signed with the Brooklyn Dodgers, he played for the Montreal Royals, one of the Dodgers' top farm clubs at the time. Not only credited with breaking the colour barrier in major league sports, Robinson was also a civil rights activist who worked alongside Martin Luther King Junior.


Now, you may be wondering about my sudden interest in baseball. This weekend, on a walk just a few blocks from my house, I discovered the duplex where Jackie Robinson lived with his wife, Rachel, while he played for the Royals in the 1946 season. A brass plaque in both French and English, a gift from the US Consulate, is now proudly displayed outside the front door of 8232 De Gaspé just north of Jarry in Villeray.

I wonder if he ever had breakfast at the Quebec Deli? Or had a smoked meat sandwich at Schwartz's?





Other Montreal-related posts
Montreal Heritage: Griffintown Horse Palace
Montreal: 200,000 Students Demonstrate
The Montreal News Group 
Neon Icon: Miss Villeray



.





.
Read more »
0 com

Montreal Heritage: Griffintown Horse Palace

Located at the intersection of Eléanor and Ottawa Streets in Griffintown, an area just south of downtown Montreal, the Horse Palace has been in existence since the 1860s and still serves as the stables for the horse-drawn calèches used in Old Montreal. But the modest structure was recently sold to Montreal developer Maître Carré, who apparently purchased the site because of its potential impact on the value of its neighbouring condo developments. The former owner, Leo Leonard, is now 85 years old and was the stable caretaker for decades. Also known as Clawhammer Jack, Leonard used to deliver ice by calèche in the 1940s and estimates that Griffintown was once home to some 3,000 horses, most of which were sired at the Montreal Horse Exchange.

Héritage Montréal is adamant that the Horse Palace must be preserved. The city of Montreal was built by horses, the principle mode of transportation until the 1930s and the power behind snow clearing and street cleaning. The Griffintown Horse Palace Foundation is also fighting to save the site and have the stables renovated and made open to the public, an undertaking that would require a significant cash input.

North-End of the Stables w/Blue Crane
We took a trip down to Griffintown to see the Horse Palace for ourselves, but it was a precarious sight to behold. As I took pictures of the stable, just 20 feet away was a massive blue construction crane building yet another condo development, I couldn't help but feel that everyone's efforts to preserve the site were for naught. As we drove through Griffintown, an area pockmarked with condo developments, I saw a neighbourhood with little greenery and even less evidence of sustainable urban planning.

For further reading, visit Walking Turcot Yards, a blog about Griffintown and the Sud Ouest borough of Montreal.

Other Montreal-related posts:

Montreal: 200,000 Students Demonstrate
The Montreal News Group 
Neon Icon: Miss Villeray




.
Read more »
0 com

Review of Ru by Kim Thuy


Ru
Translated by Sheila Fischman
Random House

This review has been cross-posted at Rover: Montreal Arts Uncovered.

Recipient of several literary prizes, including the Governor General’s Award for Literature, Ru is the autobiography of Kim Thuy. Under the name of Nguyen An Tinh, the author recounts her story: from her childhood in a palatial Saigon home, which her family is later forced to share with the invading Communist forces, to the squalor of the Malaysian refugee camp where she and her family fled before coming to Canada by boat. Starting out in Granby, Quebec, in the late 1970s, her parents work in menial jobs so that their children may one day live their “American” dream. As an adult, the protagonist returns to her native Vietnam where she is told that she is too fat to be Vietnamese and is mistaken for an escort and a Japanese tourist.

In Vietnamese, Ru means lullaby, while in French, it signifies a flow of money, blood or tears, three recurring themes in this book. The narrative is a series of vignettes, usually no longer than a page, taking the reader back and forth in time and space. One vignette segues into the next with a single thematic thread. In one instance, the author describes her silence growing up in the shadow of her cousin Sao Mai, who is the same age and gender. In the next, she is attending a Canadian military cadet school so that she can learn English for free. She spends her summer receiving incomprehensible orders from over-exuberant teens who know nothing of the horrors of war. At the end of the summer in her first English words to her superior officer, our protagonist bids him adieu: “Bye. Asshole.” 

As all writers know, appealing to the five senses is key to bringing the reader into the story. In Ru, Thuy not only relies on vibrant colours and rich sensual detail to layer her narrative, but she also introduces the refreshingly original, such as the texture of a comma, the sharp smell of sun-baked hair or the sound of crumpled dollar bills as they hit the feet of naked young women. And it is perhaps the rich detail of Ru that will make it so compelling for the North American reader, as it fills in the many cultural blanks we have of a country and a people about whom we have heard so much but know so little. 

For many of us, our ideas of Vietnam stem from the black and white war footage of the nightly US news in the early 1970s, only to be followed by a series of Hollywood movies taken from the perspective of US soldiers. There were North and South Vietnamese: the enemies and the victims, some of whom later became boatpeople. But for those of us who had Vietnamese classmates, we were never to ask them any questions about their past for fear we would unearth some horrific memory. 

Although the story is at times harrowing, it also takes humorous turns. In addition to shedding some light on the presence of the “hairy hands,” as the US GIs were known, the book also gives further details on the invading North Vietnamese soldiers who were often illiterate country bumpkins. The young operatives occupying the family’s Saigon home once rifled through the mother’s undergarment drawer only to discover her bras. Convinced they had found coffee filters, they immediately wanted to know why there were always two together. They deduced that one never drinks coffee alone. In another instance, the Communist soldiers occupying their home demanded that the family return their fish to them. The soldiers had apparently stored their dinner in the large white bowl in the shared washroom, unaware of the porcelain fixture’s purpose. The family had unwittingly flushed the fish away.


Read more »
4 com

The Girl Who Hated Books

The Girl Who Hated Books by Jo Meuris
Because I've reviewed a lot of books recently, I thought I'd let you in on a little secret: my 9-year-old daughter doesn't like to read. In fact, she has always preferred drawing and building things at bedtime to reading a story, even if it means she can stay up later. Needless to say, I have found this disappointing. Even on our weekly trips to the library, she has always run to the educational games section. While she plays, I sigh.

Don't get me wrong. She does well enough in reading and writing at school. Reading just doesn't appeal to her.

Then recently she came home from school to tell me that "everyone" had an iPod Touch and that she wanted one. I immediately thought of my own mother when I came home at age 12 and asked her if she would buy me a leather coat. With her hands on her hips, she threw her head back and laughed. When I asked her again, she said, "Oh, I'd like one of those too," and walked away.

My daughter pleaded with us for a few weeks, but neither my husband nor I had any intention of buying her something for over $200. But of course, "everyone at school had one." In the end, we relented, but she would have to put up half the money, tax included. An iPod Touch had to be earned."Well, where will I get the money?" she asked with her arms crossed and her foot tapping. I would pay her $10 for every (pre-approved) book she read. She was furious. With her hands on her hips, she told me that "no one else had to do that to get an iPod Touch." I then begrudgingly borrowed one of my mother's lines, "Well, you're not everyone." She stomped and stormed around for a few days, but then she was ready to negotiate.

We looked up the exact price and calculated the tax. She needed $115. She had to read 10 books and complete two math drill books for the last $15. Will this cultivate a love of reading? Dunno, but at least she's reading. This weekend she started her seventh book.

When I saw this animated short (7min,21s), The Girl Who Hated Books, I immediately thought of my daughter.

Jo Meuris is a Montreal animator who began her career in the early 80s when she was still a child. Her doodling in class earned her the scorn of teachers, but she nevertheless continued. As the path of an artist was not considered a great career plan, Jo found herself enrolled in Pre-Med at McGill, only to discover it wasn't for her. In 1998, she graduated with a BFA in animation from Concordia where she produced four films. Her first film, Real Men Wear Mustaches, received honourable mention at the Montreal World Film Festival's student competition. Her work has been seen at festivals around the world. If you like the Girl Who Hated Books, you might also like An Aqueous Solution.





Reviews of books for kids and teens:

Robert Munsch at Play Act Two
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
Books for Preschoolers
More Girl Spies Please
50 Poisonous Questions by Tanya Lloyd Kyi
The Trouble with Marlene by Billie Livingston
The Orphan Rescue by Anne Dublin
Dead Time by Christy Ann Conlin



Read more »
0 com

Seeing Red: The True Story of Blood

Seeing Red: The True Story of Blood
Tanya Lloyd Kyi
Illustrated by Steve Rolston
Annick Press

When I first came across Seeing Red and read the description, I was certain that it was going to be about forensics, vampires and perhaps delve into a little bit of the medical history of blood, but this book was so much more.

Steve Rolston's comic character, Harker, guides us through the macabre black and gory crimson book, appearing in more than a few comic book frames with a teen vampirette. Pre-teens and teens will readily identify with some of his reactions to some of the more lurid details.

Aimed at kids aged 10 +, Seeing Red methodically goes through bloody facts, bloody rituals, blood ties, bloodlines, hemophilia, porphyria, blood types, blood recipes and more information on blood splatter than can be gleaned from 5 seasons of CSI. My favourite part was the ethnology of blood and the various blood rituals from around the world.

I highly recommend this book for the budding historian, forensic expert or anthropologist. This is the second book that I have reviewed by Tanya Lloyd Kyi, and I must admit that she has once again provided a very thorough treatment of a vast topic.

Although I enjoyed the content, the lay-out caused a few problems. With the added comic strips and facts, the flow of the main information line was difficult to follow on a few occasions. Even though these minor features added other layers of enjoyment and information to the book, it would have been better if they had been consistently set in the margins, so that the reader could better follow the central story line.

Other than those minor points, this is a great book that will make your teen think differently about her sip of communion wine or the real ingredients in blood pudding. It comes with an index to locate specific topics and a section for further reading.


Other reviews of kids' books:
Robert Munsch at Play Act Two
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
Books for Preschoolers
More Girl Spies Please
50 Poisonous Questions by Tanya Lloyd Kyi
The Trouble with Marlene by Billie Livingston
The Orphan Rescue by Anne Dublin
Dead Time by Christy Ann Conlin


.






Read more »