Category Archives: Essay

#BCPoli | The Knock Down, Drag Out Fight in Vancouver-Yaletown

BC Election 2024, BC Votes 2024, Canada, canadian politics, Essay, News, Politics, Vancouver, VanRamblings, , , , , ,

One of the more interesting battles for office in the 2024 British Columbia provincial election will occur in the new, redistributed riding of Vancouver-Yaletown.

Vying for supremacy on election night, Saturday, October 19th, are Conservative Party of BC candidate for office, Melissa De Genova, and the recently recruited British Columbia New Democratic Party candidate, Terry Yung.

As we say above, Vancouver-Yaletown is a new British Columbia electoral riding that was created from a 2022 re-drawing of electoral riding boundaries.

Previously, the area was part of the Vancouver-False Creek riding, which is a geographical area that includes the False Creek South neighbourhoods.

Between 2013 and 2020, the riding of Vancouver-False Creek was held by former Vancouver Mayor Sam Sullivan. Currently, Vancouver-False Creek is represented by the BC NDP’s Brenda Bailey, who is the Minister of Jobs, Economic Development, and Innovation. In 2024, Ms. Bailey will seek elected office as the BC NDP candidate in the newly-created riding of Vancouver-South Granville.


Melissa De Genova, her VPD officer husband, Blair, and daughter, Lili — who just entered Grade Two

B.C. Conservative Party leader John Rustad, upon successfully recruiting Melissa De Genova as a party candidate, had this to say …

“Melissa brings valuable experience regarding getting housing built, with her deep understanding of the challenges of actually getting housing built, from all perspectives. In her tenure as a two-term Vancouver City Councillor, and her work in the private sector, Melissa worked to get both market and non-profit housing built. The Conservative Party believes Melissa De Genova’s expertise in housing is critical to tackling the affordability crisis in BC.”

The Conservative Party website adds about their Vancouver-Yaletown candidate.

Ms. De Genova was named one of the top forty under forty by Business in Vancouver for her work in creating affordable housing. She has volunteered for numerous community-focused charities, including the Moberly Arts and Cultural Centre, the Salvation Army in the Downtown Eastside, Odd Squad productions, Honour House and the Italian Day Festival Society.

What is true about Melissa De Genova is that she is a fighter, a community activist and elected official who doesn’t put up with any guff.

When Melissa De Genova fought for the construction of the Killarney Seniors Centre —  despite members of the majority Vision Vancouver City Council dragging their heels on approval of the needed seniors facility — Melissa was relentless in working to get the seniors facility built, as she moved the sun, the moon, the Earth and the stars to achieve her goal.

VanRamblings, and anyone who has worked with Melissa, can tell you, this three time elected official (Melissa sat as a Park Board Commissioner from 2011 to 2014, before being elected to two terms on Vancouver City Council) is no one to mess with when she sets her mind to serving the best interests of the community.


Vancouver City Councillor Sarah Kirby-Yung, and her beloved husband Terry Yung, BC NDP candidate.

Retired Vancouver Police Department (VPD) Inspector Terry Yung — who recently left the VPD after three decades of distinguished service — on August 28th became the British Columbia New Democratic Party candidate for office in the newly-created Vancouver-Yaletown riding, ready to fight for victory in the October 2024 provincial election.

“I know Terry is values driven.

He readies action any time someone is pushed around, exploited, taken advantage of, or left behind,” said BC NDP Premier David Eby, when Terry Yung secured the nomination.

“He knows we need to be tough on crime, and tough on the causes of crime. These values led him to an exceptional career in law enforcement, and have called him to public life as a BC NDP candidate. Terry will join two other senior police officers on our candidate team, all of whom have spent their careers dedicated to delivering safe and strong communities. The people of Vancouver-Yaletown can count on him to be in their corner,” continued Eby.

Terry Yung was also the longtime board Chair of the non-profit social service organization SUCCESS (United Chinese Community Enrichment Services Society), and involved with other organizations such as the Big Brothers of Greater Vancouver, the Vancouver Cambie Lions Club, and the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver. Terry is a recipient of the BC Medal of Good Citizenship and a Melvin Jones Fellow.

“City cores across North America are facing crises with homelessness and addictions, and the impact on public safety that follows. Here in B.C., we’re focused on keeping people safe and getting to the root causes of crime — it’s starting to make a difference,” Yung told those gathered for the Vancouver-Yaletown BC NDP meeting where he was acclaimed the party’s candidate.

“As a former VPD officer, I know B.C. can be a leader in successfully taking on these challenges with kindness and compassion, recognizing the roles of poverty and mental health in creating these conditions. And that’s the approach David Eby’s government has taken: hiring new police officers to take on organized crime, launching mental health crisis response teams, while opening more homes and treatment facilities. B.C. is tackling our public safety challenges on every level. It’s work worth doing — and worth being a part of, which is why I came forward. I can’t wait to get to work in the British Columbia Legislature.”

The emergent, central, defining election issue in Vancouver-Yaletown: crime.

VanRamblings sources tell us that …

  • When recruiting Terry Yung, the Premier made a commitment to Mr. Yung he would appoint the decorated VDP Inspector as our province’s next Solicitor General, and …
  • According to internal party polling, from both the Conservatives and NDP, Melissa De Genova currently enjoys a substantial lead over her opponent. But believe us when we say, with 46 days to go until Election Day, it is waaayyyy too early to predict the outcome of the electoral race to represent the residents of Vancouver-Yaletown..

Terry Yung’s claim to fame is that the residents of Yaletown give him credit for shutting down the controversial Overdose Prevention Society safe injection site — which was a magnet for crime and disorder in their neighbourhood.

Given that Yaletown has emerged in recent years as a family neighbourhood — we’re always surprised to find young children and their families walking throughout the neighbourhood, heading home from a visit to the T&T market, to their home on the 11th floor of one of the myriad Yaletown towers — moving the safe injection to a nearby site, adjacent to Yaletown, was the first order of business for Terry Yung, and the grateful residents of Yaletown.

If we have a criticism of Melissa’s 2024 campaign for provincial office it’s that she is — as has been the case throughout her political career — far too partisan for her own good, her daily visceral, ad hominen attacks on David Eby … who most folks actually like on a personal level, even if they’re not fans of his government … we believe to be counterproductive to her goal of attaining a seat in the provincial Legislature. In the 2022 Vancouver civic election, the electorate tired of her act, relegating her to a 19th place finish on election night, on Saturday, October 15th.

Melissa may wish to reconsider her strategy by adopting a somewhat less inflammatory approach to her goal of winning elected provincial office.

We will say two more things pertinent to Ms. De Genova’s bid to attain office.

  • There is no love loss between Ms. De Genova and current ABC Vancouver / former Non-Partisan Association (NPA) Vancouver City Councillor Sarah Kirby-Yung. Terry Yung loves his wife, and hardly cottons to Ms. De Genova’s less than generous appreciation of his beloved spouse. For Melissa, this is personal, not to mention which, knowing Melissa it is probable that she feels Terry Yung to be a turncoat — “How dare he have supported his wife’s run for Vancouver City Council under the centre-right Non-Partisan Association banner, while supporting his good friend, Vancouver-Langara B.C. Liberal Member of the Legislature, Michael Lee, and now emerge as a latter day candidate for the hated NDP.”
  • Terry Yung is a respected and beloved, retired 30-year member of the Vancouver Police Department. Ms. De Genova’s husband is Blair Da Costa, a multi-year member of the aforementioned Vancouver Police Department. Now, dear and constant reader, you may have heard something about “the boys in blue are a brotherhood.” If Terry Yung doesn’t exactly cotton to Ms. De Genova’s derision for his wife, you can bet that members of the VPD will not be thrilled with Mr. Da Costa’s wife going after one of their own. Just sayin’ …

One more thing: for far too long, members of the public — particularly on the left side of the political spectrum — have underestimated Melissa De Genova, written her off as a “whack job,” designated her as a ne’er-do-well right winger (this name calling on the left drives VanRamblings crazy).

In our long association with Melissa, VanRamblings has always found her to be a progressive on the social issues of the day — and, dare we say, a union supporter — a person of heart and conscience who means well for our city, a person who strives each and every day towards building a better tomorrow for her young daughter, and for all children and families who reside in every region of our province.


Photo of Terry Yung taken on May 11, 2012 for a BBC story on Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside

When it come to Terry Yung — who we know and like — we’re unconcerned about the viability and potential for success of his bid for elected provincial office.

Terry Yung went after the Vancouver-Yaletown New Democratic Party nomination with his eyes open. To underestimate Terry Yung’s wit, his intelligence, his experience and his political acumen — hell, he’s married to VanRamblings’ favourite political person in the province! — would be a terrible mistake. No fool he — they’re ain’t a smidgen of naïveté in how Terry Yung brings himself to the world.

Not to mention which: David Eby has no intention of losing this election.

The BC NDP and the BC NDP alone in the 2024 British Columbia provincial election have built an unassailable election campaign machine, with Dippers from across Canada arriving on our shores daily — experienced and winning campaigners, who mean to re-elect David Eby’s NDP government, given that there is so much on the line as they run against an alt-right, Trump-like John Rustad (who actually told the CBC’s Michelle Elliott last week that teachers are indoctrinating students in their care, distributing pornography to Grade 4 students as part of the SOGI 123 programme — without any evidence whatsoever to prove his claim — and that his government would ban thousands of books currently on the shelves in school libraries) — ready to fight for what is right, forward thinking and just for all.

#BCPoli | The Uncommon, Remarkable Genius of Dimitri Pantazopoulos

BC Election 2024, BC Votes 2024, Essay, Politics, Vancouver, , , , , , , , , ,


Dimitri Pantazopoulos, President @ Yorkville Strategies, Inc. | Partner @ Maple Leaf Strategies

Dimitri Pantazopoulos could very well play a determinative role in the outcome of the 2024 British Columbia provincial election.

Should John Rustad’s fledgling B.C. Conservative Party emerge victorious late on the evening of Saturday, October 19th, such an outcome will arise in part from the genius organizing skills of Mr. Pantazopoulos, the pollster / de facto co-campaign manager for the upstart, recently revived British Columbia political party.

Dating back to 2004, Dimitri Pantazopoulos was Conservative Party leader Stephen Harper’s pollster, a role he played through until the defeat of the Harper government in 2015. Mr. Pantazopoulos remains to this day the definitive pollster for Pierre Poilievre’s — certain to be government in 2025 — federal Conservative party.

When it comes to British Columbia, Dimitri Pantazopoulos’ myth-making claim to fame arises from B.C. Liberal Premier Christy Clark’s come from behind victory at the polls on Monday, May 13, 2013, in that year’s all-important provincial election.

When Dimitri Pantazopoulos arrived in British Columbia in early 2013, from his home in Ottawa, to survey the political scene in our province on behalf of the B.C. Liberal party, Mr. Pantazopoulos and his crack team from Maple Leaf Strategies set about to conduct intensive polling in the, then, 84 provincial ridings that comprised British Columbia’s tumultuous, voter capricious political landscape.

At the time, an unpopular Premier Christy Clark was mired at 26% in the polls, while newly-minted B.C. New Democratic Party leader Adrian Dix was riding a wave of unprecedented popularity, registering 49% support from British Columbia residents, an electorate eager for change, ready to make Mr. Dix B.C.’s 35th Premier.

In late mid-March 2013, a confident, ebullient Dimitri Pantazopoulos told the Premier, B.C. Liberal campaign manager Mike McDonald, and top B.C. Liberal fundraiser, Bob Rennie that the election could not only be won by Premier Clark, but that she could secure a majority government early in the evening of May 13th.

To say that Premier Clark, Mike McDonald and Bob Rennie were incredulous upon hearing what Mr. Pantazopoulos had to say would be to understate the matter.

Here’s what Dimitri Pantazopoulos told the political trio of disbelieving doubters.

“Having surveyed the province, my team and I believe that the B.C. Liberal party could win 50 seats on election night. We’ve identified those 50 seats. The remaining 34 ridings are write-offs, and represent unwinnable NDP strongholds into which the B.C. Liberals, although you may nominate candidates in those ridings, should not put one plug nickel into supporting the B.C. Liberal candidates running in those ridings.

On the other hand, in the 50 winnable ridings for the B.C. Liberal party, you’ll want to pour all of your resources into those ridings. Maple Leaf Strategies will conduct nightly polling in those 50 ridings, and “meet” with the candidates in those ridings each morning to advise them of the issues — identified in our nightly polling in the riding — that should be the focus of their activity and public pronouncements that day. I guarantee, should the B.C. Liberal party move forward on my recommendation, the party will secure victory in each of those ridings, as we run a hyper-local campaign for office in 2013.”

Premier Clark, Mike McDonald and Bob Rennie thought that Mr. Pantazopoulos had lost his marbles — but what did they have to lose in adopting Dimitri’s electoral strategy? Defeat seemed almost certain at that point. Dimitri Pantazopoulos offered the doleful B.C. Liberal election team a ray of hope that the party would not be wiped out at the polls, as unconvinced as they remained of the prospect of victory at the polls two months hence.


Premier Christy Clark, grinning like the chesire cat that both got the cream, and swallowed the canary

Premier Christy Clark did, indeed, emerge victorious with a comfortable majority government on May 13, 2013 thrilling the Premier, her campaign manager and major fundraiser. Dimitri Pantazopoulos had been right and there was untold joy at B.C. Liberal election headquarters that night.


Conservative Party of British Columbia leader John Rustad. Soon to be 38th Premier of our province?

In 2024, Dimitri Pantazopoulos has returned to British Columbia with a vengeance, working overtime to a secure victory for the band of untested newbies running for office with the embryonic, nascently inchoate British Columbia Conservative party.

Nine years on, Mr. Pantazopoulos and his team have identified 55 winnable ridings for the B.C. Conservatives, a number that may rise now that B.C. United has folded into the B.C. Conservative party. The fly in the ointment in 2024, though? The B.C. Conservative Party is woefully underfunded, having raised a paltry three million dollars, a fraction of the $26 million with which Premier David Eby’s New Democratic Party of British Columbia will fight the upcoming provincial election.

In some measure, the success of the B.C. Liberal campaign in 2013 was due to the 30-second game changing ads that ran incessantly, multiple times during the Global BC, CTV Vancouver and CBC morning, noon, 5pm, 6pm and 11pm newscasts — not to mention, every radio station across the province — that cast Adrian Dix as an ineffectual flip flopper, and a poor choice for Premier of the province. Add to that two botched debates by the NDP leader.

Taking into consideration Dimitri Pantazopoulos’ game plan, together with the devastatingly effective campaign ads run again Mr. Dix, and the poor debate performances by the NDP leader, spelled electoral doom for Adrian Dix’s New Democratic Party, which lost and lost badly to Christy Clark’s B.C. Liberals.

Underfunded or not, Dimitri Pantazopoulos and his team believe a victory for John Rustad’s B.C. Conservative party a near certainty — not, of course, if Premier David Eby’s BC NDP have anything to say about the matter. And they do, and they will.

All said, the wind is at the back of British Columbia’s provincial Conservative party, as they ride the wave of popularity that federal Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre currently enjoys in all parts of British Columbia, and across Canada.

Add to that, members of the election teams that helped secure victory for Conservative Premier Tim Houston in Nova Scotia, a second term for Ontario Premier Doug Ford, and last year a surprise victory for far-right-of-centre Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, the outcome of British Columbia’s upcoming election — our provincial election officially gets underway on Saturday, September 21st — may be far from certain, but given, as well, that the B.C. Conservatives, apart from the controversy that some of their soon-to-be-former candidates caused, could win it all on Saturday, October 19th, and form the next government.


Two fine B.C. Conservative candidates, one of whom we’ll endorse, the other who we like very much

Wednesday and Thursday on VanRamblings, we’ll take a look at the Vancouver-Yaletown and Vancouver-Little Mountain ridings, where two strong B.C. Conservative candidates for office are currently vying for elected provincial office.


The Curse of Politics podcast, where the ineffable David Herle, Jordan Leichnitz and Kory Teneycke discuss and debate the shenanigans that have gone on in British Columbia politics this past week.

Music | Top 100 Albums | Azure Ray | Dream Pop

A & E, Essay, Music, Pop Culture, , , ,

Dream pop duo Azure Ray — composed of Orenda Fink and Maria Taylor — employ graceful harmonies, patient folksy song structures, and touches of electronic production to create otherworldly songs that balance tranquility and intensity.

Their self-titled 2001 début created serene sonic landscapes unusual in the pop idiom, the duo employing piano and guitar, highlighted with cello and violin arrangements, the songs on their eponymous first album presented with delicate vocals, some barely above a whisper, the pain in their vocals ever present in their lyrics as they sing of remembrances and of loss and heartbreak.

The pair met at the age of 15 while attending the Alabama School of Fine Arts in Birmingham. Together, they fronted a band called Little Red Rocket, which released two CDs, Who Did You Pay (1997) and It’s in the Sound (2000), with the band breaking up shortly after the release of the latter album.

Orenda Fink and Maria Taylor decided to head out to Athens, Georgia, striking out to find a career, forming Azure Ray soon after arrival in their new home.

“My boyfriend had just died and we had written all of these songs that were helping us cope with everything. We had a night where all of our friends and family got together. We played those songs, which later would turn into the songs on our first Azure Ray record, which we released shortly thereafter,” says Taylor.

Their self-titled début album is a quiet, gentle set of lovely and soul-searching songs that incorporate elements of folk, pop, and light electronica.

Following the unexpected death of Taylor’s boyfriend, the two musicians used songwriting as a method of coping with their grief. The intensity of that loss informed the mournful tone of the group’s earliest work in 2001, and would carry through in their sound to some degree from that point on.

The song Sleep was later featured in the 2006 Academy Award-nominated movie The Devil Wears Prada, featuring Anne Hathaway.

In February 2015, Taylor Swift included Sleep on a six-song “breakup playlist” made for a fan via her official Tumblr account.

Camilo Arturo Leslie in Pitchfork had this to say about the début album …

Their album cover is simple: just an old, sepia-toned photograph of a little girl. She looks like my grandmother as a child. Nostalgia and melancholy rub off the liner notes and stain your fingertips. The little girl clutches her palms to her ears and wears an inscrutable expression that vacillates from pouty to fearful to verge-of-tears, depending on what mental angle you hold it at.

Azure Ray’s indie music aesthetic is built on pretty, easy-on-the-tympanum pop acoustic guitar strumming. No fuzz, no indigestible chords, just polished production and evocative arrangements. Lap steel guitar, cello, violin, church bells, piano, brass, and tape loops make appearances on these 11 tracks.

The draw of their music is, of course, the duo’s vocals, Azure Ray’s gentle trills offering a haunting balance between the ethereal and corporeal, as well as an understated,  yet distinct feminine strength, not unlike the early music of Linda Ronstadt.

Indie label-ghetto obscurity has kept Azure Ray from attaining massive popularity.

But an indie-ghetto habitué such as yourself shouldn’t have any trouble digging up a copy of Azure Ray’s début CD, or maybe a vinyl copy.

Red Cat Records on Main Street, or Zulu Records on West 4th Avenue, if they don’t have it in stock, could certainly order it for you.

Beautiful, expertly crafted pop songs keep a room in your heart’s hotel (under an assumed name, naturally).

You could also listen to Azure Ray on Spotify, or Apple or Amazon Music, or purchase their music from either of the two latter providers of digital music.

Stories of a Life | Redux | Chief Cook & Bottle Washer

Essay, fixin to die rag, Food & Health, Jude and Megan, Stories of a Life Redux, VanRamblings, ,

Jude and Megan Tomlin, aged 3 and 16 months, sitting at the kitchen table in 1978
1978. Jude, at age 3½, and Megan at near 2 years of age. At the kitchen table for breakfast.

A couple of weeks ago, when I was extolling the virtues of my Instant Pot to a friend, in a lull in the conversation, she turned to me and said, “You like to cook, don’t you?”

The short answer: I derive pleasure from both cooking and baking.

Here’s the story behind my love for the culinary powers of the kitchen.

1616 Semlin Drive, and East 1st Avenue, in Vancouver. One of the homes I lived in growing up.
1616 Semlin Drive, at E. 1st Ave. in Vancouver. One of the homes I lived in growing up.

From my earliest days, I fended for myself.

My mother worked three jobs, and my father worked the afternoon shift at the Post Office. When I arrived home from school, although my father often left a stew bubbling away in the slow cooker, from age seven on, for the most part if I wanted to eat, I’d have to make breakfast, lunch and dinner for myself, and for my sister.

So, being somewhat industrious, I learned to cook — well, make sandwiches and, for dessert, Jello, at least for the first few years.

I loved turkey growing up (all that triptiphan), so with the help of my mother, I learned to make her delicious turkey, stuffing, gravy, mashed potatoes and vegetables. For the most part, though, my cooking skills were rudimentary — but I didn’t starve, and more often than not there was food in my belly.

When in 1970, Cathy and I moved in together, marrying soon after, I was responsible for most of the cooking. Cathy’s mom sent her out $1000 a month (she didn’t know we were living together), visiting every three months, taking us to the local Woodward’s grocery floor, where she dropped in excess of $300 at each visit.

With Cathy’s mother money, we ate a fairly staple diet of generously thick T-bone steaks and baked potatoes.

Simon Fraser University's Louis Riel House, a student family one-and-two-bedroom apartment
Simon Fraser University’s Louis Riel House, SFU’S student family 1 + 2 bedroom residence.

Soon after moving into the Louis Riel Student Residence at Simon Fraser University in 1971, Cathy joined a women’s group, who met every Wednesday evening. Among the decisions that were taken by the women’s group was this: men shall participate in all household chores, and share in all food preparation.

As we often ate together with other of the students in the residence, my specialty became salads — all different kinds of healthy, nutritious salads, chock full of vegetables, nuts, sunflower seeds, and more.

At this point, Cathy still hated to cook — there was immense pressure placed on Cathy by her peers to develop culinary skills, but she refused. All that changed in the summer of 1973, which is a story for another day.

2182 East 2nd Avenue, in the Grandview Woodland neighbourhood of Vancouver
2182 East 2nd Avenue, in the Grandview Woodland neighbourhood of Vancouver.

When Cathy and I separated in 1978 — Jude and I lived in the home above, before Jude, Megan and I moved to Simon Fraser University and Louis Riel House, when I began work on my Masters degree — the thought occurred to me one morning when making breakfast that I was now the lone parent, and the sole person responsible for ensuring the children ate nutritious foods at each meal in order that they might grow up into healthy adults.

I took on the task of learning the art of cooking (and baking), in earnest.

There was, however, a quid pro quo involved.

After returning from a day of larnin’ and T.A.’ing at SFU, after picking up the children at daycare at 4:30pm, and walking the relatively short distance to our two-bedroom apartment at Louis Riel House, while the children played with their friends on the lawn in front of our apartment, I prepared dinner, calling them in about 45 minutes after dinner preparation had begun.

The kids were famished, and so was I.

Here’s where the quid pro quo came in: at the end of each meal, each of the children had to turn and say to me some version of, “Daddy that was a good dinner. It was mmmm, delicious. Thank you for making dinner for all of us, and all the work you put in to feeding us healthy and nutritious breakfasts, lunches and dinners, and all those wonderful desserts we love!”

I needed the incentive provided to me by both children, and their gratitude — which, in time, they came to acknowledge as their own. The kids felt good about encouraging me, as I encouraged them in all of their endeavours.

We were a happy family, and all was well with the world for the three of us.

Now, I was an adventuresome cook, and not everything I made turned out to the liking of all of us, or each one of us.

Being a dedicated democrat, Jude, Megan and I made a deal with one another in respect of dinner. Both children had to eat at least two bites of each food item I prepared: after all the work I put into preparing a dish, the least they could do was try out the dish to see whether they might like it.

Most of the time they did, but sometimes not.

One night, I made cream of escargot soup. Honestly, it wasn’t bad. But at the end of the soup entrée, I turned to the children and asked them what they thought, to which they replied almost in unison, “It was all right, tasty enough I suppose, but I’m not sure if I’d ever want to have it again.”

I agreed with them. We never ate cream of escargot soup ever again.

Each of us were allowed to have three foods on a list of our creation, foods we did not have to eat, no matter what.

Megan had three foods, Jude had three foods, and I had three foods — those foods changed over a period of time.

In order to add a food to our individual “nah, I don’t want to eat that food” list, some food on each of our lists had to come off. Took some thought on the part of the children as to whether they wanted to remove a food.

Megan, for a great long while didn’t like avocados — but one day, while placing a new food she didn’t like onto her “don’t eat” list, she took avocados off her list, eventually coming to love avocados, as she does to this day.

Watching me prepare meals all the time he was growing up caused Jude to want to become a chef — he worked in the food industry throughout his late teens and twenties, before getting into teaching, which paid better, and was overall less stressful, with “more honourable people”, he’d say to me.

In her teens, Megan became a vegan — there’s a story there, too, which I’ll leave for another day — and, for the most part, took on the preparation of her own meals, as did Jude over a period of time.

After the summer of 1973, Cathy became a great cook — there’s not much I miss about that tumultuous marriage, but I sure miss Cathy’s avant-garde cooking, her culinary craftsmanship, spicing and phenomenally delicious cooking.

Ah well.