And although Doug shares the same bullying, impenetrable forehead and tiny, receded eyes that characterized his younger brother, he is distinct in a few ways. Primarily, he has always been seen as the steadying brains behind the operation. Always a belligerent and pitiless protector of his misunderstood, addict brother, Doug was also seen as the intellectual wind beneath Ford Nation’s wings. Doug dealt dope, while Rob used it.
That sort of thing.
At any rate, Doug Ford is now running against Liberal Kathleen Wynne to become the Premier of Ontario. He is doing better than you’d think, and seems to be riding a conservative, populist backlash that’s shivering up the spine of so many nations right now. Doug Ford, a white, affluent suburban businessman from a political dynasty, has long fashioned himself as being “For the People,” and has been making a point of courting various communities that might find more in common with his traditional values than say, Kathleen Wynne.
Who is a lady.
A lady lesbian.
A lady lesbian who is not For the People.
A lady lesbian who hates your way of life.
At any rate, one of the ways that the campaign is doing this outreach is for Doug and his family to go to a different community restaurant each month and review it. It’s part photo-up, part promotion for small business, and an opportunity for Ford to network and get his face in media. This is his first review:
Doug N’ Dash Food Reviews
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Pukka (Indian)
778 St. Clair
Toronto
I have to tell you, when I heard the name I didn’t want to go. Who wants to go to a restaurant with a name like that? Nobody, that’s who. Lazy marketing there. Imagine if my family had called Deco Labels and Tags, FIBROMYALGIA or something.
Pretty negative, pretty confusing, eh? So the first thing I would do is change the Puke name to something like: GOOD INDIAN FOOD THAT ISN’T TOO GODDAMN SPICY AND COMES AT AN AFFORDABLE PRICE.
The Indian people, so famous for their yoga, bright colours and diarrhea, aren’t stupid. No they just need somebody For The People, somebody who knows how to get the job done, to serve as a business mentor to help move them out of all the 7-11’s and into buffet style operations they can run themselves!
You will notice that Kathleen Wynne, who does not love minorities as I do, ever in a restaurant. This is because she has a finger disease in which the the skin is always peeling off. Really gross. Like a snake shedding it’s skin or something.
You watch her fingers.
You’ll see she’s hiding something.
So I had the butter chicken and the wife, who doesn’t much like the Indian food as it can give her the Aztec two-step, had something with kale in it.
You know women. Straight women.
Anyway, my chicken was good.
Not Swiss Chalet good, but good.
I’d give it a 7 out of 10.
Karla said her kale thing was good, too.
THIS RESTARAUNT IS FORD APPROVED!
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Rachelle: Are you still on for the Textile Museum at 2:00?
Rachelle: Tetanus?
Rachelle: No
Rachelle: No, I am certain there’s no such thing as a “Tetanus Museum.”
Rachelle: Well, I’m sorry you misunderstood.
Rachelle: But we have passes for the Textile Museum and we agreed to meet there in 30 minutes.
Rachelle: But you were so keen on seeing the Kimono of Itchiku Kobuta! You said that’s what you were going to name your Fantasy baseball team! What happened?
Rachelle: Really, Pickle?
Rachelle: You think it’s cultural appropriation?
Rachelle: And you don’t want to exercise your white privilege by exploiting something that was not created for the white, male gaze?
Rachelle: And in order to achieve that goal you’ve gone to The Keg Mansion, the place where everything is specially made for you, is that right?
Rachelle: Yes, yes, I know you have a gift card.
Rachelle: And yes, I know The Keg is your safe space.
Rachelle: You’ve said it many times.
Rachelle: Will you do me a favour? Just have a look around.
Rachelle: Do you see a bunch of men who more or less look like you, all eating steak and drinking wine?
Rachelle: Yes, or drinking Caesars.
Rachelle: And are they all being served by hot, young women laughing at all the jokes they’re being told through gritted, shoot-me-now teeth?
Rachelle: In the exploitation Olympics, I think that beats going to a fabric museum, don’t you?
Rachelle: Look, do you even know what false equivalency means?.
Rachelle: I thought not.
Rachelle: Oh, I see.
Rachelle: I was all wrong about Madison the server.
Rachelle: She’s different, is she?
Rachelle: Well maybe when she said that she didn’t mean funny ha-ha?
Rachelle: Okay, let’s just never mind.
Rachelle: Are you going to meet me or not?
Rachelle: Oh, your wedge salad just arrived!
Rachelle: Well obviously your hands are tied.
Rachelle: Yes.
Rachelle: That was sarcasm.
Rachelle: Because you’re being a jerk.
Rachelle: Sweet Jesus.
Rachelle: In no way am I discriminating against you for eating meat.
Rachelle: I’m a Social Justice Warrior? I’m not even sure I know what one is.
Rachelle: You’re drunk.
Rachelle: You Keg-Sized your Caesar, didn’t you?
Rachelle: Yes, I am psychic.
Rachelle: I can also detect something slurry and aggressive in all your texts.
Rachelle: It’s like you’re campaigning for something.
Rachelle: Shouting from the podium!
Rachelle: Throwing emoticons everywhere!
Rachelle: Like angry confetti.
Rachelle: Whatever.
Rachelle: Just remember that the doctor said you could only have one drink a day, okay?
Rachelle: No, don’t worry about it. It’s fine.
Rachelle: I’m going to go to the museum then have a power skating session with Pierre.
Rachelle: No, he wasn’t deported.
Rachelle: He was in Costa Rica on a spiritual retreat.
Rachelle: Very tan. And he shaved off his moustache.
Rachelle: I know it’s a dream of yours to one day grow a full beard like Pierre does so effortlessly, but it’s just not your path, Pickle.
Rachelle: Yes, yours is the path of low testosterone and patchy facial hair.
Rachelle: We all have our crosses to bear, dear.
]]>She lives in the same part of Toronto as I do, and occasionally we bump into one another as we did yesterday when Rachelle and I were at the local park with our two-year old son Jones:
************************************************
Me: Oh, shit.
Rachelle: What?
Me: Two o’clock.
Rachelle: The woman in the cloak?
Me: I thought it was a cape.
Rachelle: No, that’s a cloak.
Me: Ok, whatever. Either way, it’s Margaret fucking Atwood.
Rachelle: I think she’s coming over. I’m going to take Jones to the swings! You two talk on your own!!
( Rachelle and Jones run off as Atwood approaches)
Atwood: Forgive me, but I have to ask, do the police get called very often?
Me: I’m not sure I understand what you mean.
Atwood: You, a middle-aged loner who will never be accepted by his neighbouring, wealthy peers.
Never-quite wearing the right brand and always on the periphery, just shy of conversation, always staring at the children and their pretty young mothers, staring so hard it seems as if you’re trying to fill some interior void that can never stop hungering. I’d think that might make many of the parents nervous.
Me: I think I’m seen more as a kind of guardian, like Batman.
Atwood: Yes, Batman, or perhaps a guardian, like a hollowed-out and mother-dominated crossing guard still living with his deceased parents. Maybe like that, too.
Me: Did you make it to the corn boil here the other day? Blue grass band and everything.
Atwood: Here at Sibelius park?
Me: Yes.
Atwood: No, I was in LA at the Emmy’s.
Me: Funny how the city of Toronto would name a park Sibelius, after a Finnish composer of classical music, before naming one after you, a Canadian writer of impenetrable, mostly hated books. Wonder why that is?
Atwood: I am astonished. You must have been reading your Wikipedia in order to find out who Jean Sibelius was, for surely you thought he was some old Toronto Maple Leaf who died in car crash, no?
Me: JONES!!! NO KICKING!!!! I’M SERIOUS!! I WILL TAKE THAT DIGGER AWAY!!! DON’T THINK I WON’T!!
Atwood: They’re so beautiful at that age. It’s wonderful to see such attentive nurturing, too. With all the advantages you’re giving your son, I am sure he will go far in this world, maybe all the way to The Keg.
Me: I heard you were wearing your housecoat on stage when that thing you wrote so long ago, The Handmaiden’s Tale, won some Emmy for best red outfit worn by a supporting actress, or something.
Atwood: Handmaid’s Tale, and it was awarded Best Drama, amongst several other awards, for being considered a prescient and uncanny representation of Trump’s America.
Me: It’s no Game of Thrones, is all I can say.
Atwood: “Perlen vor Schweinen geworfen,” as they say.
Me: Yeah, whatever.
Atwood: I saw that the *Giller Prize nominees were announced.
Me: JONES!!! I’M NOT TELLING YOU AGAIN!!
Atwood: I couldn’t help but notice you weren’t nominated.
Not even on the long list.
Again.
How does that make you feel, Marcel?
Me: It’s Michael.
Atwood: Right, so sorry.
* The prize awards $100,000 annually to the author of the best Canadian novel or short story collection published in English, and $10,000 to each of the finalists.
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As fate would have it, actress Chloe Sevigny was sitting at the table directly beside us.
Subtly, like a panther at night, I went back to the patio, had a look around, came back to the bar, stretched a few times, and then discreetly took a photograph of Sevigny as she ate lunch.
This is what happened after I returned to my seat and sat down:
Chloe Sevigny: I know what you did.
Me: Sorry?
Chloe Sevigny: I know what you did.
Me: Last summer?
Chloe Sevigny: (Dripping with sarcasm) Oh, you’re so clever! You should write for Hollywood! Look, I know that you just took a picture of me without permission. I saw you, asshole.
Me: Lady, I don’t even have a clue who you are.
Chloe Sevigny: Don’t give me that bullshit, you know damn well who I am!
Me: Are you a homely 16 year-old boy dressed up like he’s in some metal hair band for Halloween?
Rachelle: (Urgent whispering) Pickle, just apologize and the shut-up so we can move on, okay?
Me: (To Rachelle) I didn’t do anything wrong! I just went to the patio to see if they had better looking servers out there! I’m not apologizing for that!
Chloe Sevigny: (To Rachelle) I feel sorry for you. Your life must be a real challenge.
Rachelle: Oh, I know, it is, it is. He did the same thing when we saw some actress from Law & Order at the airport. He said he was taking photographs of the luggage for a gallery show, but of course…
Me: It wasn’t some actress, damn it, it was Angie Harmon!
Rachelle: And then her football player husband came over and asked what was going on, and my husband’s nose began to bleed!
Chloe Sevigny: (As if this was the most hilarious thing she has ever heard in her life, Sevingy does a spit-take the way you would expect from a bad, over-rated actress.)
Me: It was the dry air from the plane trip.
Rachelle: We were getting on a flight, not off.
Me: No we weren’t.
Chloe Sevigny: (To her friend) I think it’s time for us to leave.
Me: You know what? A real fashion icon would want her photo taken, she’s be flattered, and you know what else? Hilary Swank carried you in Boys Don’t Cry, she carried you! Your careers have really gone in different directions since then, haven’t they?
01 Jan 1999 — FILM ‘BOYS DON’T CRY’ DIRECTED BY KIMBERLY PEIRCE — Image by © CORBIS SYGMA
Chloe Sevingy: (Gives me the finger, drops a bunch of cash on the table and leaves without finishing her meal)
( I have saved Chloe Sevigny’s unfinished burger and am in the process of selling a photograph of it to the fetish site, Unfinished Celebrity Burgers. However, I will be putting the real leftover, which is in a ziplock bag in my fridge, on Ebay, but am happy to take offers from anybody reading now. )
]]>Making the desserts is a beautiful, young woman wearing black leotards. She has a long frizz of hair, part of which is pinched into a bun at the top of her head, the rest loosely knotted by a bandana that looks like she might have been wearing around her neck two years ago when she worked as a camp counselor. She looks shy and not entirely sure of herself yet, but her job is to make things small and beautiful, to suggest a foreign accent through the softness and distance in her eyes.
The waitress is wearing black leotards, too, only she’s sporting denim shorts over top of them. She whirls out of darkness and puts a plate in front of me, her eyes moving through me to some point in the future– another table she has to tend to, the party she’s going to in an hour, the cat she always feeds on her way home…
Robotically, amidst the almost industrial din of downtown cool, she recites the memorized details of my amuse-bouche, as if a guide speaking through a megaphone to faraway tourists on a hot, double-decker bus excursion.
Men with beards drink artisanal beer at the bar.
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Like the restaurant itself, the waitress working when I was there was easy to overlook. She wore her generic black and white server’s attire as if camouflage. Bespectacled and with practical black hair that obscured her features, she moved quickly, whether she was approaching a task or finishing one. She avoided eye contact and wore make-up in the fashion of somebody who wasn’t accustomed to wearing make-up, as if it, too, were part of the disguise she had to wear for work. Perfunctory and with her head down, she was a delivery system who offered up no clues as to what her life exterior to the restaurant might be like.
The place wasn’t very busy and she was getting off early. She cashed out quickly, without hanging around to have a glass of wine or something to eat the way that restaurant staff often does. In her friendless manner she hurried out the door, stopping when a homeless woman sitting on a milk crate said something to her. They spoke for a moment or two and then the waitress took out her purse, gave the woman some money and then hugged her right there on the sidewalk. For nearly a minute they must have embraced, and then after having wiped away a tear the waitress left, moving into the rest of her unseen life.
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Encumbered by a stern resting face, she’s locked like a laser into the world of her iPhone. Forced and slightly unnatural, she makes a point of never glancing around but lives inside her self-constructed bubble bringing small, impulsive miseries upon employees through calls or texts. After about 15 minutes her companion, hurried and apologetic for being late, arrives. The stern-faced woman is passive-aggressive, telling the new arrival that she had no choice but to go ahead and order, and then making unnecessary and pointed noises of completion with her cutlery. She then launches straight into business, a vampire sucking information from her guilty and compliant victim.
There are two waitresses serving the half dozen or so tables and both of them are lovely. One is tall and thin with a trace of brittleness to her, as if she hasn’t quite found her place in the world and might be looking for some time yet. She wears over-sized, bold glasses meant to add some complexity to the generic beauty queen image she projects—this, something she worries about, you can tell.
The other one is young and dewy, striding optimistically forward. She’s completely comfortable with who she is, and being good-natured and cheerful is not a mask she puts on when she goes to work—she wants to meet the world exactly where it stands.
An older woman, over-dressed for the weather, has the long, grey hair of a sociologist. She’s proud of it and considers it a political statement, pulling it into two practical pigtails that she fastens, one with a red band, and one with blue. She’s very particular, almost stubborn in her manner, and when she stands up to dust the crumbs off her placemat and onto the ground, it’s as if she’s beating a carpet out on a clothesline. Efficient, economical and unsentimental, she wants us to see her self-reliance, how she’s always been happy to live alone in this world. A train then trundles by, and everything shakes. Somehow, the patio then seems to dislocate and separate from time for a moment, and the world becomes a little richer, the passing aroma of electricity and oil drifting through us like history.
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Me: That steak was good.
Rachelle: It was.
Me: Really glad I’m here cuz after the US election really didn’t feel like I’d had enough politics!
Rachelle: Haha!!
Me: What movie would u like to be watching right now?
Rachelle: Babe: Pig in the city.
Me: Yeah, that was good– no nudity though.
Rachelle: Babe was nude.
Me: True.
Me: I thought Lincoln might emancipate a nude slave or something.
Rachelle: Ur thinking Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.
Me: Nude vampire slaves? Why r we here????
Rachelle: U still in the theatre?
Me: YES!
Rachelle: Poor, brave pickle!
Me: Where are u?
Rachelle: Walking home from the subway.
Me: Why didn’t u tell me u were leaving?!
Rachelle: U were asleep. Snoring so horribly, I was embarrassed to know u.
Me: The usher has woken up 3 people that I’ve seen, so I wasn’t alone.
Rachelle: You were probably asleep for about 20 more wake-ups!
Me: Hope Lincoln gets assassinated soon.
Rachelle: That’s not very nice, he was a great American!
Me: Lots of “acting” in this movie. Wigs everywhere.
Rachelle: It’s a nice night for a stroll, and look, I just found a five dollar bill on the street!
Me: ur a very lucky woman.
Rachelle: You make your own luck, they say!
Me: I think there’s about 45 minutes left in this movie.
Rachelle: Why don’t u just leave?
Me: Still might be some tasteful nudity.
Rachelle: U want to see Lincoln nude, don’t u!
Me: No! I’m just not leaving till the slaves are free, dammit! I care!
]]>It’s a great space. Cool and sophisticated, it was an effortlessly busy spot full of confident looking people undaunted by the presence of beauty. It emitted a really charismatic, downtown vibe. Waxed mustaches, iPhones and carefully considered lighting were all around us. The chefs working in the open kitchen at the back were illuminated as if actors on a stage, coming across more like artists than cooks, so theatrical and precise were they in the execution of their tasks.
The food was great, arriving like sculpture on plates, each one a conversation piece to photograph and post on Instagram. It was a little bit precious and eating the food almost felt secondary, as if it was the destructive, privileged indulgence of ruining somebody else’s creation (think of a bullying child knocking over a sand castle) rather than a simple act of physical restoration.
Much of this feeling arose from the comically small portions that are served at Ursa. It was as if a parody, with the experience of dining in a restaurant having virtually nothing to do with actually getting fed. Our main course, that cost $26, was artfully arranged, but it had less than three ounces of beef in it. My appetizer, one piece of tofu that was embellished by a broth poured at the table, $12, and Rachelle’s beet salad, which I think contained one beet, was in the same ballpark. You weren’t being fed, you were being fluffed, and walking out of the restaurant– now hipster laden and cocktail shaken– we had to figure out where to go to eat. Seriously. It was as if the theatrics had been done with– as well as a good chunk of money– and now it was off to get something less “arranged,” but more sustaining.
By definition the foodie culture is judgmental. It’s implied that you need a certain level of education to appreciate what’s in front of you, but unlike other art forms, the consumption of the food does nothing to elevate you. It doesn’t make you a better, more empathetic person or lift you up and out of yourself, but simply moves you into a class above others. It’s the surface taste of things, and the love and nourishment we imagine present in meals is oddly displaced, with each trip to a restaurant more like a visit to a museum than a participatory, reciprocal expression of something shared and humble. Taste, as they say, is not a moral virtue, but a privileged acquisition that has more to do with “belonging” than the content of any given individual.
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