Food Warrior Mother

I live in what's called an inner suburb of the city of Toronto.  What does this mean in practical terms?  Well, I have a 7 minute walk to the subway line or a 1 minute walk to a bus stop that will take you directly into the subway station with a very short ride.  Ergo I have easy and affordable access to all that a world class city like Toronto has to offer.

My daughter has 4 more days of high school classes.  This morning I reflected upon her years of education in the big city and my choice 13 years ago to move here and raise her in the most populous city in Canada.  A place in Canada that bears the brunt of criticism by the rest of Canada.  I myself was raised in a Toronto suburb and lived in Kitchener-Waterloo for over a decade and still can't understand why people hate '416' so much.  I love all parts of Canada and have visited nearly all of our all major cities and find the criticism well, rather childish really.

As a breeder I am thankful that 13 years ago my 32 year old self had the foresight/good fortune to recognize the advantages of moving to the city for my daughter's public school education.  As a breeder who did this on my own I am especially thankful.  Unlike the children of many of my suburban and rural parenting peers, once my daughter was old enough, she started walking to elementary school.  She was in grade 4 and started crossing a moderately busy arterial street without me and there is no crosswalk or lights (gasp!).  In grade 7 she went to an inner city alternative public school for middle school and took the subway everyday for this - she was 11 the fall she started doing this on her own (horror!).  Thus, starting in grade 7 I no longer had to transport or 'taxi' her to activities.  I have had years of being free of this duty.  I merely dole out money for TTC tickets and await texts of details of her social life and departure/arrival times and I don't even have to be home to receive these.  And I don't know how I'd even start to estimate the hours saved of me sitting behind the wheel of a car on the busy streets of the suburbs surrounding Toronto or the long drives from rural homes to lessons/friends/shopping.  I dated a suburban guy and recall many hours driving with him and his children and little else from the time we spent at his suburban home.  I don't recall any activity that didn't involve at least a 15 minute drive to get to out there.

Another significant advantage to raising her in Toronto has been the access to a large assortment of fantastic public schools including specialty schools for the arts and technical skills. Two personal favourite's are Bendale Business and Technical Institute's Horicultural Program in Scarborough and The culinary program headed by Chef Keith at Thistletown Collegiate Institute in Rexdale.  My own daughter went to three stellar public schools in this city:  West Prep, Horizon Alternative and Harbord Collegiate Institute.

I could go on and on but this is quickly becoming a melancholic soliloquy from a soon-to-be-empty-nester. I will sign off with two pics I took yesterday while on an urban farm tour.  There are many reasons to love the city of Toronto.  Urban parenting and the thriving urban agriculture scene in Toronto are at the top of my list today.  These two streams of thought are more connected than you might think.  A core philosphy in my parenting has been the choices of food I've fed my child with.  Fresh local food has been a central component of our  little family's diet and allowing other families affordable access to this is a passion for this particular Food Warrior Mother.

Artichokes growing on the rooftop of AccessPoint on the Danforth - a ladybug is the red spot.

A Newfoundland flag caught my eye across from one of the H.O.P.E. Community Gardens in Parkdale.

Blonde, blue-eyed and bullied

She was shiny brand new and red and gave me the ability to get around quicker.  This meant I could explore more since I could now get around faster.  A dream come true.  I didn't have that tricycle for long but there was a huge amount of emotion attached to my ownership of it.

This is not instagram, this is me in 1972

I don't recall riding very much before the 'incident' occurred.  I remember realizing that a tricycle was a bit of a rip-off as a mode of transportation.  Running using your legs could get you places faster but the tricycle was a slightly improved version of walking.  I don't remember any of my neighbourhood friends having tricycles so it wasn't a peer pressured acquisition.  I had probably seen trikes on Sesame Street and imagined a whole new world of exploration opening up to me so I pestered my parents for one.

My mother has maintained, as did her father before her, that as one ages there are certain memories of early childhood that take on a crystal clear quality to them and they start to come back to you as you age.  In the last few months I've had two very powerful ones return to me.  I have not sought out these memories.  They seemingly have been floating around in the nethersphere of my mind and after being poked at and prodded at by seemingly unconnected current events they decided to park in a neuron or two in my brain and literally crystallize.

The family story about my shiny red trike goes as follows:

"She sold her trike at the park so we never got her another bike after that. That taught her a lesson for selling her brand new bike for a dime no less!"

Despite my protestations when later informing them of the 'truth' (my bike was stolen) I don't think either of my parents have ever really believed my version of events.

Yesterday I was mulling over my recent entrance into the land of urban bicycling.  I thought back, with enormous gratitude, to my aunt giving me her old two wheeled bicycle when I was about 10.  For years my parents had held to their promise and my younger sister was finally on a two wheel and my aunt took great pity on me and gave me her clunky, old lady bike (my sister had a cool bike, or at least much cooler than the one gifted me).  I learned to ride on that bike and am enormously grateful to my aunt now for providing me with it. I now ride my current old lady bike with pride.  It's all about mobility and the ability to explore and this new found mode of urban exploration is a new world and I am excited about it.

At the end of this mulling I reflected back to when my trike was stolen.  And then it hit me.  The crystallization.  I recalled, for the first time as an adult, the big kid telling me not to tell anyone about the stolen trike:  "Or else".  While he was delivering this threat to me I could see in the distance his equally big friend who was wheeling away my trike from the fence in the park where I'd left it with the other kids bikes and trikes.  My trike was shiny and red so there was no doubt that it was mine. I watched the trike disappear with a sinking heart.  I could not even share with my friends. I felt enormous fear and the certainty that this big boy would indeed deliver on his threat if I told.

So, clever child and problem solver that I was, I concocted a tale that laid the blame squarely on me so that this threat could never be acted upon.  I also wasn't that devastated since I had had the trike long enough that my eye was already on the bigger goal of a speedy two wheeler.  My reasoning process could not have foreseen the long term consequence of this fictitious tale and I would go 5 or more years before my aunt took pity on me and gifted me her 'old lady' bike.  Long after we moved away from that neighbourhood I tried to tell my parents the story of the stealing but I don't once recall ever adding the bit about the friend bullying me.  I think part of the reason I 'hid' that bit was because my younger sister would have pounced on yet another reason to ridicule me for being a wimp.

The two older kids that stole my bike probably regarded me as a cute little rich kid whose parents could well afford to get their darling girl another trike.  I do know that they lived in the area so I pretty much avoided that park again.   I didn't want to be questioned or threatened again.

Cheap Shots

It is always interesting for me to think now of how quickly the world has changed.  Back in 1977, with my first camera, there was always the underlying cost consciousness for me (and my parents).  Every click meant a photo development cost and if you didn't focus or use a flash when needed you were essentially throwing money away because the development of the photo was the only way to know about whether your skills made the cut.

This new hobby of mine was soon neglected with the resurgence of parental turmoil and the almost overnight removal of extras from our comfortable middle class life.

The hobby didn't really resurface until the birth of my child.  This was in 1994 and although digital cameras were making their debut in the consumer market, my now adult pocketbook was competing with the costs of a new mortgage and child care costs.  And then, after the abrupt ending of my marriage, frugality once again became a necessity.  However, I did manage to snap enough pix in those early childhood years to fill (and label!) a few photo albums.

And now I own a digital camera thanks to my mother.  About 8 years ago she gave me an awesome present of a top of the line point and click camera with a swivel LCD screen.  By today's standards it is quite primitive but I still love it.  In the past year I've taken to carrying it with me nearly everywhere.  I delight in the opportunity to take unplanned urban shots like the ones below.  I love the ability to take multiple shots and immediately assess them (or not).  The camera has become like an appendage to me.  And perhaps it is my way of taking cheap shots at the world I am so regularly angry with.

South side of King St West East of Spadina  September 2011

Vaughan Rd North of St. Clair August 2011

I have had fun filling up albums on Flickr, Facebook and Picasa.  I am contemplating trying all 21 of the suggestions here.  My old recipe blog has a lot of food pictures and may soon see a resurgence due to my never ending penchant for cooking and my new knowledge about taking food photos :)