As Burns Night and Lunar New Year share a date this year, it’s time to revisit this essay I wrote for The Globe and Mail a few years ago. It seems two of our family cultures have more in common than I thought. Facts & Arguments: THE ESSAY Stumbling through Lunar New Year The more […]
Most writers don’t put words on screens for the laurels that might come their way. We write to say something; to explore an idea; or to capture a feeling, a moment, a place. Still, when those laurels come, it is sweet. I spoke at a speaker’s series recently and a member of the audience waited […]
A student in my PR writing class described a hypothetical food festival his group had created for an end-of-semester project. It will showcase food that’s super-hyper-local, he said. As we unpacked the meanings of local, hyper and super, I thought about how many of us feel a bit virtuous in our grocery shopping and […]
I had a blast wandering through Toronto’s back alleys with CBC Metro Morning’s Morgan Passi as she prepared this piece for broadcast June 11. Even if we weren’t in your neighbourhood, I’ll bet you recognize the descriptions. The Fruitful City https://ecwpress.com/products/fruitful-city is available online and in fine bookstores everywhere.
It’s graduation season: Celebrate the ritual The chancellor spoke in Latin. The graduands, all black-gowned and hooded, dipped or kneeled as the president tapped a mortar board cap on their heads declaring them graduated. I joined the group of freshly-educated at the University of King’s College encaenia. We sang hymns and bowed for prayers, following […]
Many Canadians are still figuring out what to do with Family Day. We’d do well to turn to China, midway through Lunar New Year celebrations. After the fireworks and banging drums comes time to honour ancestors and visit with family. The largest annual human migration in the world is an indication of how important that […]
I opened a jar of pickled green beans a few weeks ago and stuck in a fork. It was during that grey area between afternoon snack (“I need something to tide me over”) and pre-dinner (“Oh I shouldn’t”). The jar had arrived as part of a gift basket from editor Jen Knoch, welcoming me to […]
The potential of a new year I’m starting 2016 with a look at my own backyard. As desolate as it seems in the darkest months of the year, grey bark on brittle branches, I remember what it produced. Over there, under the hundred-year-old oak were a few serviceberries on a still young sapling. To the […]
An urban story of nature’s bounty.