October 28th, 2009 by Chris Eng

There sometimes comes a point in creative people’s lives where, despite the solitary nature of their hobbies and/or trades, they have to admit that they can’t do it alone, that they need the support of other folks. And that’s a hard thing to accept for headstrong sorts. Being able to admit that you need someone else to lean on to get stuff done isn’t easy. It’s admitting weakness and, some might feel, defeat.

I’ve got about five or six partially competed novels sitting in my notebooks and boxes. It’s a collection I’m not particularly proud of, but I wasn’t sure what I could do about it. To be honest, the 3/4 point pretty much kills me every time. And I’ve reached the point where I finally need to say, “Yes, I need a support network, or I will never finish one of these things.” They will become the skeletons in my closet and I’m not particularly interested in raising a zombie army of half-completed manuscripts before I die. Which is why, in order to get past that block, I need the aid of something that makes the simple act of support fun, and that’s why I’m going to do the Nanowrimo this year.

National Novel Writing Month could be considered a contest of sorts, but the only person you’re really competing against is yourself. The aim is to complete a novel from start to finish during the month of November. You’re allowed to go into it with notes and plot, if you want, but you don’t start writing it until November 1st and you must complete 50,000 words by November 30th.

Signing up on the Nanowrimo website gives you a profile page and the ability to mingle with the other writers—about 80,000 so far (from a count that’s a couple of days old). Every day you input your word count and watch it climb toward your goal, which is a nice bit of visual encouragement. And twice a week, they send out pep talks from various established authors, just to make sure you stay on track and keep working at what you’ve started. This year, they’ve got Lynda Barry, Gail Carson Levine and Tamora Pierce (among others) on board. (They get a lot of YA authors to contribute, because there’s an entire Young Writers Program that collaborates with teachers in order to get kids to write—1,100 classrooms so far! Awesome!)

Schedule

I order to do the Nanowrimo, I am rearranging my life schedule. My computer recently died (I tried to give it some beer and it stopped speaking to me! It was Blue Buck, too! What gratitude!) so I’m sharing my wife’s computer. This normally doesn’t cause too many problems because we keep different enough schedules that I can get most of my computing done while she’s at work. If I’m going to be writing for at least two hours a day, however (I write at around 1,000 words an hour), I thought I should probably try to schedule it so I’m out of her hair as much as possible, so I’m getting up at 6am.

This isn’t the most outlandish time of day for me to be up and around—I’ve had jobs where I’ve needed to be up at 6:00, if not earlier—but I’ve still started scaling my wake-up times back incrementally. No, it’s not outlandish, but it’s not natural for me, either. Plenty of black tea will be drunk in November. Coffee, too.

Prep

You can go into the Nanowrimo with notes and prep, but you can’t start it until the first, so I’ve taken advantage of this and essentially plotted the book from beginning to end. Mostly. Some of the characters are a little rough in my mind and I’ve left room for the cast to deviate from my ideas, but I think it’s mostly there. It’s a punk romance novel, or, as I’d like to call this new genre, a “hoodie-ripper”. (Ever seen a punk wear a bodice? It doesn’t happen that often.) I can write 50K about young punks in love, easy.

Contact

If you want to do it too, you’re got about 3 days of prep left and then the shit’s gonna hit the fan. My screen name at the Nanowrimo site is chriseng. (I know—shocking right?) Feel free to add me. And let’s write some damn novels.

August 12th, 2009 by Chris Eng

The 100-Mile Diet: A Year of Local Eating
Alisa Smith & J.B. MacKinnon
(Vintage)
ISBN: 978-0679314837

At some point, my aunt asked me to review something happy in order to help assuage my cousin, who apparently is going through what I went through a year or so ago and is suffering a bit of the “PEAK OIL IS HAPPENING TO US AND CIVILIZATION IS GOING TO COLLAPSE AND WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE IN A ROAD WARRIOR-LIKE WASTELAND!” And my mom, after I handed her my copy of Why Your World Is About to Get a Whole Lot Smaller (because I thought she might appreciate the info therein), asked, “This isn’t going to make me depressed, is it?”

Yeah, I guess there’s a lot of gloom and depression mixed in with environmental books nowadays, because (depending on who the author is) it’s either too late or almost too late to fix things in the world, and while that may be the actual state of affairs, it’s not exceptionally heartening to have it repeatedly hammered into your skull. This review, then, is for my cousin, mother and anyone else who may want to read a book review of something inspiring a certain degree of hope.

The premise of The 100 Mile Diet is simple: a couple decide that all they’ll eat for a year are those things which can be produced within a 100 mile radius of where they live. The premise provides ample opportunity for elitism, snobbiness and hard-linery to proliferate in the book and could have easily turned into a proscription for Righteous Living, but it is miraculously devoid of more or less any of that, instead making its case as a sensible suggestion. This is a marked difference from the usual doomsaying environmental bestsellers who seem to think that telling you “IF YOU DON’T LIVE YOUR LIFE THIS WAY, WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE!” is a practical and non-alienating course of action. In fact, without trying to give too much away (SPOILER ALERT: they make it through the year), at the end of the book they go back to eating some of the things they weren’t allowed to. But that’s essentially Alisa Smith and JB McKinnon’s point: for all of us to move into an ethical future is for all of us to live as ethically as we can and do the best we can; not to embrace some unrealistic hairshirt environmental dogma which requires us to martyr ourselves for unattainable goals that nobody else cares about.

No, there is no coffee grown within a hundred miles of Vancouver (which, coincidentally, is where I’m from and where Smith and McKinnon are based). But there are free trade and ethical choices you can make in your coffee consumption. Or black tea. Or chocolate. Because again, no one is asking you to be a monk—just do what you can. What the book does encourage, though, is putting in the footwork and not giving up in your quest for viable alternatives. By putting themselves in a situation where they couldn’t bend the rules, they were forced to keep looking for things like wheat, which—despite the lack of grain farmers on BC’s coast—they eventually found. Yes, we who occupy the Vancouver/Victoria area tend to be a little spoiled in our options, because most things can be grown in our neck of the woods, but wherever there have been permanent settlements of humans, there have been the means to thrive locally. Of course, that equation has become pretty skewed with the rise of the metropoli—you can’t feed a city of 1,000,000+ on purely organic, locally raised food (not under our current structure, anyway)—but the general principle is sound.

But why, you wonder to yourself, would I want to eat locally in the first place—what’s the point? Well, there are a few of them.

- Locally grown food is more nutritious. It’s not that organic produce has a bigger selection of vitamins or nutrients than vegetables grown on industrial farms, but local produce is generally picked much closer to its sale date than the stuff in your supermarket. Since produce accumulates nutrients as it approaches ripeness, it only makes sense that a tomato picked the day before it’s sold will be more nutritious that one that’s picked and shipped when it’s still green.
- Locally grown food is likely to be more ecologically sound. Some small-scale farmers use toxic pesticides and chemically-laden fertilizer, but not all of them do, and if you’re buying from the grower personally, you can ask what their standards and practices are yourself. Plus, on a very basic level, locally grown food is good for the environment because growing things benefits the environment. I hope I don’t have to explain this point.
- Buying local is also good for the economy—your local economy. It will probably cost more to shop that way, yeah, but if and when post-peak oil becomes a reality, food prices will start to go through the roof regardless, and I’d rather pay higher prices and support someone I know on a first-hand basis because I buy from them all the time than funnel my hard-earned food dollars into a faceless corporation’s coffers in exchange for some comparatively bland food.
- Which brings us ’round to the last (and possibly most) compelling reason: locally-grown food tastes better. It does. Seriously. Vegetables are delicious enough to eat steamed with maybe a touch of butter. Dishes in general require very little seasoning due to their nearly overwhelming natural flavours. No, the stuff we’re used to eating in packages isn’t what food is supposed to taste like—it’s a “good enough” approximation of a home-cooked meal. Somewhere along the line, though, we forgot what scratch-cooked food was actually like and accepted the food corporations’ assertions that what they were giving us was the real deal—besides, it was faster and even if it wasn’t excellent it was still, well, good enough. But the thing you have to prepare yourself for is that once you start eating local food, “good enough” isn’t good enough. You may keep eating it, but you’ll likely come to view it as filler in between the meals made with organic veggies and meat.

And what if you’re in a position where you don’t have access to a farmer’s market or its equivalent? The 100 Mile Diet also has buckets of inspiration to go around. Thanks to the non-preachy, non-guilt laden approach, you may find yourself inclined to do some gardening by the time you’re done… or bee-keeping… or cheese-making… or salt-distilling… or, for that matter, any combination of the above. None of these are impossible, and not all of them are necessarily very hard. We (as a culture) had most of the skills it takes to do those things up until 100 years ago or so—we’ve just forgotten them in the meantime. Smith and McKinnon have written a book encouraging us to reacquire them, and I’d encourage you to do the same. Moreover, I encourage you to do it for purely selfish reasons (on your part) but toward an altruistic end. You may or may not contribute to the ultimate salvation of our world by buying local food, but you’ll certainly contribute to the betterment of your diet and palate by doing so. To paraphrase Buckley’s, it tastes awesome and it works.

July 19th, 2009 by Chris Eng

Went on a hike around Buntzen Lake a week and half ago, or so. Know this streak of incredible warmth and sun we’ve been having recently? Take a guess as to what the weather was like when we decided to go. No, you don’t have to guess; I’ll show you:

Yes. It was wet that day. Or rather, it got wet when we were about halfway along. I know I look unhappy, but after an hour’s forced march through a torrential downpour, yeah, I was a little tetchy. Stella wasn’t that thrilled either and she’s one happy-go-lucky dog. What this hike proves, I think, beyond a shadow of a doubt, is that even in the middle of summer we live in a temperate rainforest.

Other things I have learned from this hike:

1) Stella is a good dog and I will walk her any time. I knew she was a good dog before we left, but she proved it several times over the course of that day.
2) Always have a spare shirt waiting in the car. Hey, if it’s extra sunny you might need it ’cause you’re sweaty. And if it’s rainy…
3) Have a towel in the car, too.
4) Waterproof shells (especially ones that collapse down to a fraction of their size and which you can shove easily in your bag) are invaluable.
5) The mini-suspension bridge on the far side of the lake is good times.
6) Not many people walk on the smaller, off-shoot trails. This makes the smaller trails more relaxing. On the other hand, there are also large hills involved. There’s a trade-off involved.

Overall, though, I’m looking forward to going back on a day when I don’t have to carry an extra few pounds of water around in my clothes. Pretty trails; good hike.

July 3rd, 2009 by Chris Eng

So, I’m back at the old bookstore, which still manages to make me squee a little with the amount of cool environmentally-conscious and just generally neat books it stocks. The work is good; the people I work with are good. Goodness abounds.

In other news, I was trying to think of what had been going since since the last time I’d done regular updates and I realized Carla and I had climbed a mountain.

See how happy we are? We’re at the top of The Chief, out in Squamish! Third Peak–you know, the far one!

It took us and our friend Liz about two hours to get up to the top, but when we got there, there was plenty to look at.

Like this tree:

We could also see what we think is Black Tusk where one of our best friends got brained by a rock on his 30th birthday and almost died. We are not in a hurry to climb that one.

And we saw this pond, which we’re pretty sure produced all the mosquitoes for the general Squamish area:

And after taking pictures of the surrounding area, we clambered back down and we ate gigantic, organic and kind of politically incorrect burgers at the Tomahawk which is awesome and everyone should go there. The end.

January 14th, 2009 by Chris Eng

If I could spend all day fucking around, surfing the ‘net and reading, I would. This isn’t an exaggeration—I’m a world-class procrastinator. If there’s something that needs to be finished in a timely fashion, it can wait until I’ve finished the next Castlevania level or get caught up on Battlestar Galactica. I’ve tried various methods over the years to motivate myself and get things done early, but none of them have ever worked. As a result, I remained an undisciplined slacker past the point I thought it possible to get away with.

But the winds of change might finally be blowing. Over the past month or so, two things have occurred to shift the balance of power toward motivation. The first is simply the will to change. I’m tired of the way I’ve been living and I want to get more done. Continuing the way I have been isn’t going to give me the time I need in order to complete everything I need to work on and learn, so obviously a change is in order. Which is fine as far as it goes, but wishing for change isn’t gonna do jack unless there’s a plan to back it up—luckily I’ve got one.

Half of you may start rolling your eyes when you read this, but here’s my simple plan (which has worked so far, I might add): get up at 7:30am. “Chris,” you say, “you want to grow and raise your own food. That’s what a farmer does. If you were a farmer you’d have to get up a hell of a lot earlier than that.” This is true. The crucial difference is I’m not a farmer; I’m a freelance writer and comic shop employee at the moment, and getting up early doesn’t automatically mesh itself with those lines of work. But I’m taking care of the dishes and laundry on a daily basis, as well as studying and getting my writing done—all of which can be accomplished by noon if I get up at 7:30. On the days when I’m at the comic shop it means I can have everything done by the time I have to leave for my shift. On the days I don’t, my afternoons are free to do chores or whatever other projects I have going on. Which is pretty awesome.

It feels good too. I have more energy since I started my new schedule and I’m genuinely getting more done. It’s not like the urge to screw around isn’t there anymore, but I’m able to put it in its place thanks to a positive routine. And sure, some days it takes me until afternoon to get everything done I wanted to, but I figure that happens to everyone sometimes. I’m getting a lot done aside from that; the bar is leaning much more heavily toward productivity than it was last summer.

Do I feel slightly smug about my newfound drive? I think I’m entitled to a little of that. But in the interests of politeness, I’ll just keep it to myself. If you need me, I’ll be over by the sink, drying dishes and chuckling quietly with self-satisfaction.

*heh heh* Awesome.

January 9th, 2009 by Chris Eng

Well, my goal to get better at cooking has gotten off to a good start. On New Year’s Eve, I thought I’d celebrate by making dinner for Carla (an event that happens much too infrequently). So, early on in the evening we went to the seemingly only supermarket in the city that was open (the SuperValu at 1st and Commercial) and I picked out some ingredients. We trundled them home in the snow and with just a little bit of effort I managed to put this together:

It's chorizo, zucchini, mushrooms and peppers in a tomato sauce served over rice, with oysters. I did the actual cooking but Carla hung out and helped me with the fiddly bits, like how to get the best results when frying sausage, which spices to add, and at which points to put in what vegetables. Those are the things which (in many ways) simply require memorization and which I don't have the background or experience to know. For instance, putting the zucchini in at the beginning (I did not do this) will give you a main course that is, for want of a more perfect phrase, seriously friggin’ gross-ass. Carla knows all that back to front and was happy to impart her wisdom.

And when all was said and done, it ended up pretty damn good, if I do say so myself. Still pot/pan food is kind of what I’m good at already. If it can be chopped it up and simmered on the stovetop, I can improvise with it and come up with something tasty (even if I do need advice now and then), so I wasn’t really stretching my wings too much with this one. What is really daunting to me, and which will be the focus of my next personal challenges, is the range. I want to start making broiled and baked things, both sweet and savoury. I’m going to start with a cake this month. I’ve never made a cake before and I figure it’s a good introduction to baking. I’m sure I’ll move on to gougères and spanakopita next month.

While we’re on the subject, though, I did make my first loaf of bread the other day. Okay okay, it was in the bread maker, but still—first loaf! And edible! Tasty, edible bread! At home! In, like, ten minutes (of prep time)! And I don’t have to bug Carla to do it! No, it’s not like it was ever a complicated procedure, but it’s one of those things that you have to be shown and I just never quite got around to asking. But I’m on the cooking path now and I will work my magic with the bread maker. And someday… someday I will make bread without it!

But, y’know, in the meantime I’ll whip up some cake.

December 22nd, 2008 by Chris Eng

It’s days like today, when I’m only about a 20 minute walk from a supermarket in a major metropolitan area, but it’s down a steep hill and there’s a foot of snow on the ground, that I really wish I had a pantry full of preserves. I don’t really have a type or flavour preference in mind, but I certainly appreciate the logic of jams, jellies and various preserved vegetables at the moment. In remote areas (depending on the weather) they will potentially keep you from starving; in Vancouver they save you from going outside, slipping all over the place and needlessly freezing your ass off.

Yes, preserving is something else I’ll be looking at learning in the new year.

December 13th, 2008 by Chris Eng

“Not only am I not learning, I’m forgetting stuff I used to know. ”
- Milhouse

I was thinking about The Joy of Cooking the other day and how baffling parts of it were to me growing up. “Why,” I thought to myself in dumbfounded bemusement, “do they tell you how to skin and gut animals in here? Do people still do that?” The short answer being yes, just not in as great numbers as they used to.

And that’s the thing of it: the contents of The Joy of Cooking were a standard repository of kitchen practice and advice from 50 or 60 years ago. In half a century, the collective knowledge and wisdom related to food preparation in Western culture has degraded immensely. Catastrophically, really. Witness the CitiGroup ad from earlier this year, featuring a woman standing in a kitchen where every available bit of cupboard space is filled with clothes, about which she proudly boasts: “I don’t cook. So I made my eat-in kitchen a fabulous walk-in closet.” Which isn’t to say it’s a woman’s place to be in the kitchen skinning possums and baking pies and men should be out shooting said possums with their 12 gauge. Not at all. But it is to say that we generally have no idea where our food comes from or the steps it takes to bring it to the table anymore, and even the act of cooking a simple meal is arduous and confusing to the better part of a generation.

If most of our food is already prepared and comes from a box, bag, bottle or can, what will that mean if the cost of shipping the food to the cities from its origin points around the globe becomes so expensive it’s untenable to continue buying it on a daily basis? It means people will have to resort to buying their food locally—fresh food, untouched by preservatives and still in its component parts. And the generation that’s going to have to put it together is the one demanding Kraft Cheese & Macaroni in already assembled microwaveable packages because the original kind takes too much effort and/or skill to prepare.

This loss of knowledge and wisdom is touched upon in a recent essay by Dorothy Woodend. In it, Woodend specifically adresses the concept of what might happen to coming generations if there’s some kind of large-scale emergency spurred on by a global oil crisis. All the skills useful in such a situation (which our grandparents might have known and practiced) are being forgotten and abandoned at such a rapid pace that in a few generations there will be very little first-hand knowledge left to be passed down.

“Still,” as one of my co-workers argued, while we discussed this the other day, “we’ve never been in a situation like we are now, where almost limitless information is available on every conceivable subject at the touch of our fingertips.” Which is true as far as it goes, but Woodend has a convenient and succinct rejoinder for that: “Information is not knowledge, nor even close to wisdom.” And that drives to the heart of the matter. If you want to build a house, you can find blueprints for any one you want, but they won’t teach you the proper way to use your tools. Even if you find good books on foundation-laying, carpentry, plumbing, electrical work, tiling, shingling and all of the other trades that go into house-building, you still won’t have the accumulated tips and advice accumulated by doing the same job over the course of your life—the wisdom gained by being an expert in one’s field. That’s what will take the most time to regain, should we find ourself at a point where our culture needs this wisdom again.

And those are my plans for the short term: read up on the various subjects I’m interested in as much as possible, then seek out someone able to impart first-hand knowledge of them. In the case of farming, there’s a number of places around the Lower Mainland that accept volunteers (though not for a few months, at the moment—December/January isn’t really the ideal crop-growing season), and in the case of cooking, there’s Carla. I’m not an awful cook, but she knows tricks and shortcuts around the kitchen that would help me out immeasurably over the course of my life, and conveniently enough lives in the same house as me. In point of fact, there are experts out there willing to give you practical, hands-on training in almost any almost any field you could want—some for money (in places like community colleges), some not—but we have to get our D.I.Y. drives back up and running and quit handing all our problems off to the next person in line. Yes, there’s too much out there to be an expert or even a jack-of-all-trades in every field, but we can learn enough to feel like accomplished, capable and responsible people in our own lives, and maybe the reclamation of that responsibility—and the decision not to fill our kitchen with Manolos—is one of the most responsible acts we can currently strive for.