HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2011-11-03, Page 5THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 2011. PAGE 5.
Detroit, Detroit,
Got a hell of a hockey team
Got a left-handed way of making a man
Sign up for that automotive dream
Oh yeah….
– Paul Simon
If you travel far enough in this herky jerky
world of ours, sooner or later you will find
yourself in one of humanity’s less
successful experiments in socialization. It may
be an African shantytown or a Brazilian favela;
a banlieue of Paris or a Manchester slum. But
chances are it’ll be closer to home –
Vancouver’s downtown eastside, say, or a
roachy dead-end street in Toronto’s Parkdale
district. Wherever it turns out to be, you’ll
know the rules have changed because your
long-dormant primordial instincts will kick in.
Adrenaline will begin to prickle your gut.
You’ll feel more alert, slightly unsafe. The
hairs on the back of your neck may begin to
stir.
I know all about this sort of thing. I recently
flew into Detroit.
“Brace yourself,” I told my flying
companion. “We’re about to enter the Third
World.”
It’s not like I was announcing breaking news
– everybody knows Detroit’s on the skids. In
the past decade it’s lost 25 per cent of its
population. One-third of Detroit’s 140 square
miles is derelict. YouTube is speckled with
videos that show rotting factories, gutted
ballrooms and deserted office buildings.
The industrial juggernaut that once
manufactured four out of every five
automobiles in the world is a skeleton of its
former self. Ford and GM alone have axed
70,000 jobs in the past few years. Corrupt
politicians, collapsing public schools – I knew
we were headed into an urban no-man’s land
once our plane taxied up to the gate.
I just wanted to be sure my travelling
companion wasn’t too shocked when we
deplaned.
We were shocked – by the airport, for
starters. It moves 30 million passengers a year,
making it one of the busiest on the continent.
Detroit is a transportation hub for all North
American airlines and the Asian gateway for
Delta, the largest airline in the world. What’s
more the airport is not dingy like Pearson,
bewildering like La Guardia, nor Second-
Circle-of-Hellish like Los Angeles. There are
automated walkways, a swift and whisper-
quiet overhead shuttle train, dozens of bright
and cheerful shops and most amazingly, a
psychedelic tunnel that connects two main
concourses. The glass walls of the tunnel are
embedded with LED lights which sparkle and
swoop and shift through all the colours of the
rainbow and then some, and it’s all
choreographed to symphonic music. It’s a
mind blower if you’re stone sober. For those
who aren’t there’s a kill switch at both ends of
the tunnel which stops the sound and light
show for the five minutes necessary to pass
through the tunnel. If you want to go on a mild
acid trip without ingesting the chemicals,
Detroit airport has the venue for you.
I didn’t spend a lot of time in Detroit but
none of the sights I took in or the people I met
suggested I was in a down-and-out city.
There’s a cocky defiance – a kind of
belligerent cheerfulness in the air. The arts and
culture scene (perhaps because of the cheap
rents) is thriving. Some culturati have taken to
calling Detroit ‘the new Berlin’. I passed a
sign at the outskirts that read “Welcome to
Detroit, the Renaissance City, Founded 1701”.
Detroit’s got spunk – and a history of
comebacks. It’s the only city in North America
that’s been under the flag of three world
powers – French, British and American.
It’s where Henry Ford built his first car
and where the Motown Sound was born. You
don’t know anybody from Detroit? Sure you
do. Francis Ford Coppola was born in Detroit.
So were Lily Tomlin, Charlton Heston
and James Earl Jones. Writers? How about
Robert Frost, Elmore Leonard, Joyce Carol
Oates?
My favourite Detroit sculpture occupies the
middle of a traffic circle near the downtown
core. It’s a 24' bronze of a brown, muscular
arm culminating in a forbiddingly clenched
human paw.
It’s called The Fist. It’s an homage to Joe
Louis, a Detroit native and one of the greatest
heavyweight boxers of all time.
Can’t imagine a better symbol for Detroit.
And they do have a helluva hockey team.
Arthur
Black
Other Views Still car city after all these years
It looks like Toronto Mayor Rob Ford is
soon going to have a bigger issue with
trespassing than the CBC’s Mary Walsh
creeping up on him on his driveway last week.
In the now-infamous video, Walsh rushes up
to Ford on his driveway to play a bit of a prank
on him. As we all know by now, Ford didn’t
take the joke as well as Walsh had hoped and
he called 911 to report what he called the
‘ambush’ that occurred on his Etobicoke
driveway, maybe using a curse word or two.
It seems Ford doesn’t like people on his
property. He said he felt that reporters coming
to his home ‘crossed the line’.
Funny, he hasn’t really seemed to mind the
inconvenience the Occupy Toronto protest is
causing for people all around the city. Maybe
it’s because they’re not on his driveway.
By the time you read this column, the protest
will have been going on for nearly three weeks.
Between the tent city at St. James Park, the
sporadic marches to here or there and whoever
else they’re annoying at the park (there was a
wedding at the Cathedral Church of St. James
on the first weekend which all of a sudden
included hundreds of uninvited and
underdressed guests) protests and
demonstrations are ongoing.
Early last week there was a crucial
development that drove city officials and
department heads into an emergency meeting,
but it went highly unreported because of the
coverage the driveway incident received.
At St. James Park Mohawk Warriors are
stockpiling wood to light what they call a
‘sacred fire’ that they hope will burn
throughout the winter months. That’s right. A
fire. In the City of Toronto. All winter.
Jason Fleury, a Mohawk from Alberta, said
the group was also hoping to ‘ramp’ the protest
up by bringing in more people.
One Occupy Toronto protester said that he
and the rest of his group wouldn’t be able to
light a fire to keep warm throughout the winter,
as it would break a City of Toronto bylaw.
However, Aboriginals don’t need permits for
sacred fires, so their fire would be allowed.
So with that spanner thrown into the works
for the people of Toronto, what’s more
important? Sure Ford is a bit of a goof, but this
protest could last for months, not to mention a
fire burning for the duration that would be
illegal if it weren’t for who was starting it.
A columnist for the Toronto Sun writes that
the new incarnation of Occupy Toronto, with
the Mohawk Warriors, has the potential to
evolve into the next Ipperwash or Caledonia if
authorities decide to finally make their move.
So while I don’t particularly like repeating
myself in back-to-back columns, it seems like
the Occupy Toronto movement is gaining
steam, not fizzling out as many had predicted
and as I had hoped in last week’s column.
Instead, protesters and self-proclaimed
‘anarchists’ alike are wielding hammers and
nails to winterize their tents, claiming they’re
in it for the long haul.
And now after this ‘incident’ Ford has gone
to great lengths to establish a ‘line’ that shan’t
be crossed, but it’s one he’s on the other side
of. But when it comes to the people of Toronto,
he seems to be a little more gun shy when
considering drawing a line in the sand.
With the Mohawk Warriors set to move in
and the city nearing the time for action
(eviction, according to Toronto Deputy-Mayor
Doug Holyday) Ford could be sitting on a
powder keg and he could soon realize that a
nearly-60-year-old woman in a super hero
costume asking him some questions could be
the least of his worries.
A line in the sand
Originally this week, I was debating
what to write about. I wanted to be hip
and irreverent and take a swing at
Toronto Mayor Rob Ford’s inability to tell a
consistent story and make light of his being
scared of a comedian with a plastic sword and
a costume.
I wanted to be topical and very even-handed
and take a stance on the Tim Hortons in
Blenheim that ejected two women displaying
affection for each other and try to point out
that, regardless of gender and sexual
preference, public displays of affection have a
time and place.
I wanted to talk about hockey season and
how much I love watching my team win but
that really hasn’t happened yet (well, except
for the game against the Winnipeg Jets I
suppose, but beating a new franchise is kind of
like getting excited after winning a boxing
match with an infant).
There were so many things I thought I
should tackle, but, as I sit here, after scrapping
one column due to not liking the way it came
out, all I can think of is the proper way to
make a Caesar salad.
On Friday I had some errands to run in
Wingham and, being payday, I decided to treat
myself to a chicken Caesar wrap at Tim
Hortons on my way back to Blyth.
I placed my order and got in line to wait (I
have said how much I hate lines, but I guess
it’s a necessary evil in this case).
Then I watched, in horror, as the wrap was
built.
Caesar dressing, okay.
Lettuce, all right.
Tomato, that I...
Wait, no I can’t live with that.
I’ve never understood why people don’t
know how to create one of the easiest, most
scrumptious meals on earth.
Up there with french fries, perogies and
peanut butter and jam sandwiches, Caesar
salads are easy to make and they DO NOT
CONTAIN tomatoes.
Some people may say you can add tomatoes
or onions or peppers or cucumbers, and they’re
entitled to their opinion about what tastes
good, however the second you add anything to
a Caesar salad that is not part of the following
ingredient list, it is no longer a Caesar salad, it
is a salad with Caesar dressing.
An original Caesar salad, as created by
Caesar Cardini (widely accepted as the father
of the dish during a holiday rush in 1924) must
contain:
• Romaine or cos lettuce (no substitutions)
• croutons
• lemon or lime juice
• olive oil
• raw egg yolks
• Worcestershire sauce (which gives the
anchovy flavour)
• crushed garlic
• parmesan cheese
• black pepper and salt to taste
To some people’s surprise, bacon is not on
that list.
Those of us who don’t wish to create so
much from scratch may substitute key
ingredients with a pre-made dressing, but, that
is pretty much how a Caesar is supposed to
look.
You can top a Caesar with any number of
meats and call it a variation, however, the
Caesar salad is created by what you read
above.
There are many mistakes that a restaurant
can make, like the aforementioned discrimin-
ation that the Tim Hortons in Blenheim
participated in, that are downright wrong.
However, as someone who loves his Caesar
salad, I can tell you, there are only a few
cardinal sins a restaurant can commit and
placing tomato in a Caesar salad is high
among them.
This realization, and having to taste the
tomato taint all the way back to my house
before I could brush my teeth and mouthwash
the horrible flavour out, led me to realize,
there are very important rules to follow when
ordering food.
• Never assume anything, ask what is in
every dish, just in case some joker thinks that
a vegan burger should contain bacon, or a
Caesar salad should have green peppers.
• When ordering lemon tea (or any tea with
a citrus base), do not ask for milk or cream, it
will curdle.
• Don’t order unprepared food like
sandwiches or wraps at a café/coffee shop
drive through
• Don’t order items not on the menu unless
you can buy and sell the restaurant. If so, buy
the restaurant, make whatever you want
yourself, then sell the restaurant.
• There isn’t anything special about special
sauce, it’s probably a mixture of Thousand-
Island dressing and vinegar. However, never
ask because most employees will have no idea
what a dressing is made out of.
• If you want a burger made your way go to
Harvey’s or a sit-down restaurant, if you want
a burger minus one or two ingredients, that’s
fine. However if you want a burger and it takes
you more than two sentences to describe it,
you’re probably in the wrong line-up or drive-
through.
And the most important rule; be kind to
those on the other side of the counter.
Blowing up doesn’t help anyone – if they’re
making a culinary mistake and the badge
doesn’t say trainee, odds are it’s a decision by
the company. Bite your tongue, hold your
temper and write a letter later.
The TDL Group Corporation, the parent
company of Tim Hortons will certainly be
getting a letter about the proper composition
of a Caesar salad from me.
Shawn
Loughlin
Shawn’s Sense
Denny
Scott
Denny’s Den
No tomatoes in my Caesar salad