Amazon.ca | Knife-Sharpening as A Life Changing Experience

April 21, 2018Food & Health, VanRamblingsRaymond Tomlin

Good, Sharp Knives, Essential to the Maintenance of Any Kitchen

To prepare meals simply and easily, home chefs (that’d be you and me) need three things: fresh ingredients (preferably organic), well-honed and simple preparation techniques, and a few, high quality tools.
We’d add the life-changing Instant Pot, but we’ll save writing about this best-selling, homegrown Canadian device for another day.
Having the right equipment available makes the job of preparing breakfast, lunch or dinner that much easier. Whether it’s a well-seasoned cast iron frying pan, or baking dishes that have been passed down through the generations, great kitchenware makes preparing meals a near & utter joy.
Much has been written over the years about a kitchen’s one essential tool, used in the creation of virtually every dish, and that would be: the knife.
Good, sharp knives represent the single most important set of kitchen tools used in the creation of virtually every and any dish that you might wish to prepare. A sharp knife means more control and less slippage when you cut, leading to safer, more consistent slices. Plus, cutting with a sharp knife is something of an unadulterated joy! From mincing garlic and fine herbs, or slicing thick wide wedges from a fresh-baked loaf of bread, to the often tough job of peeling the skin off a cantaloupe, a truly sharp chef’s knife will help you get the job done, quickly, efficiently & - most importantly - safely.
In Vancouver, if you need your knives sharpened, knife sharpening aficionados have long known that the Sharpening House, at 511 West 7th Avenue in Vancouver - just west of Cambie, in the neighbourhood of Best Buy, Canadian Tire and Home Depot - is the place to go. Read the Yelp testimonials available in the link on the second line of this paragraph. Knives sharpened well (and repaired, if necessary) for as little as $7.

Now, of course, as a chef, one is supposed to learn to employ a diamond-sharp honing tool to keep our knives truly and well-sharpened (you’ve got one, right?) - anyway, for VanRamblings this seems like a little bit of too much work. Don’tcha think? Who knows about the future, though?
VanRamblings has long believed that the “big things” in life have a way of working themselves out, but it is the “little things”, the nagging annoyances that come with everyday life that when resolved bring the most, if only momentary, joy. Today, we’re going to let you in on a life-changing secret: the $4.50 Edgeware 50009 2-Stage Edge Grip Knife Sharpener, available through Amazon.ca, with free shipping! Take a gander at the videos above.

The Edgeware 50009 2-Stage Edge Grip Knife Sharpener works as advertised, a simple, straightforward, reliable, ‘you get far more out of the use of this utterly essential knife sharpening tool than you paid for it’ joy. VanRamblings believes that you’ll find this kitchen staple one of the most rewarding kitchen tools in your kitchen repertoire of essential products, and one that you’ll find you use to great satisfaction multiple times a day.

VanRamblings’ friend, Norquay community organizer, General UBC Librarian Emeritus, and VIFF aficionado, Joseph Jones, has taken us to task for promoting the pecuniary interests of Jeff Bezos and his worker-exploiting online behemoth, Amazon, by deigning to suggest that even expending $4.50 for the Edgeware Knife Sharpener is as poorly thought out and demeaning of worker interests recommendation as we could possibly make.
Of course, Joseph is entirely correct, and the person of honour and integrity we know him to be. Joseph has come up with what he considers to be a far superior — if somewhat costlier, at $19.95 — alternative to the Edgeware product we recommended above: the Chestnut Tools ‘all-purpose carbide wonder’ (Joseph’s words) Universal Sharpening Tool, available at Lee Valley Tools, 1180 S.E. Marine Drive in Vancouver, just east of the Knight Street turnabout, the indispensable, local economy and non-exploiting worker supporting company offering a principled place to shop, for a product that is in all likelihood a superior product, and one that will last a lifetime.

VanRamblings being the pauper that we are, we’ll have to save up a bit o’ the old do re mi to set aside for the purchase of the Chestnut Tools Universal Sharpener, perhaps as a birthday present for ourselves. And for our treasured VanRamblings readers, you now have a principled knife sharpening alternative to the worker exploiting Bezos-Amazon product.

Vancouver Municipal Election 2018 | A Dog’s Breakfast

April 20, 2018BC Politics, Politics, Vancouver, Vancouver Votes 2018Raymond Tomlin

The critical 2018 Vancouver municipal election is only 6 short months away.
Today, as you’re probably aware is 4-20, the annual “stoner’s day” celebration. Voters in 2018’s Vancouver civic election may need to be as high as the participants at Sunset Beach today if they’re going to make any sense out of the miasma that is this year’s Vancouver municipal election.
Take a look at the graphic above. There are 12 — count ’em, 12 — candidates who are currently vying for a Vancouver Mayoral nomination, and at the end of this year’s sure-to-be-bumpy and decidedly and overtly partisan electoral contest, on October 20th the grand prize as Mayor of Vancouver will determine Vancouver’s future early in the 21st century.
Looming large on the Vancouver political landscape, the four candidates for the right-of-centre Non-Partisan Association (NPA), the largely male-dominated Vancouver civic party that held power from 1937 through 1972, 1976 through 2002, and from mid-autumn 2005 until the fall of 2008. Four men. Take a look at their faces. Clearly, for the antediluvian NPA, the #MeToo & #TimesUp movements have had little impact on the world view of the corporate-funded-and-backed civic party they’ve chosen to run with.
Is this 2018, or is this 1938? One wonders, when considering the ‘he-men‘ of the NPA. Sad, and more’s the pity, because 2018 is a year of change.
Left-to-right top row, we have John “I don’t suffer fools gladly” Coupar, a homegrown boy, a decent man, recent Chairperson of the Vancouver Park Board, and current Commissioner on our illustrious Park Board.
To John’s right (and we do mean “to his right”, in every sense of the word), current Vancouver City Councillor Hector Bremner, the Mr. Supply, Supply, Supply candidate in the current civic election, Tom “Terrifying” Campbell for the 21st century, the development candidate on methamphetamine famous for saying, “The people of Kitsilano have had it way too easy for way too long. At the end of my first four year term, I will have turned Kitsilano into the new West End. I’ll be coming for your neighbourhood next. I love towers.” In 2018, it would seem that what is old is new again. Alas.
And to Hector’s right, the indefatigable 2014 Cedar Party Mayoral aspirant, Glen Chernen, the “they’re corrupt, they’re all corrupt, there’s a new sheriff in town, and I’m gonna clean this town up, yesirree Bob & Mabel, you can count on it”, a 2018 Non-Partisan Association Mayoral aspirant, don’tcha know. If nothing else, Glen will keep the contest interesting (sort of like the old Chinese curse, “May you live in interesting times.”). Alas deux.
And, finally and to the far right (is he, or is he not?), 47-year-young entrepreneur “I’ve never even given a passing thought to running for elected office before, but I figure Mayor is as good a place as any to start” Ken Sim, the Vancouver Non-Partisan Association corporate candidate, who announced his intention to seek the NPA Mayoral nomination this past Monday. No website for his candidacy, though. No Ken Sim for Mayor Facebook page, either. Tch, tch. Maybe the affable Mr. Sim is not a nomination candidate for Vancouver Mayor. Could be. Enquiring minds want to know — or at least see a galldarn web page for his putative mayoral bid.

VanRamblings’ money is on one of the four women Mayoral aspirants pictured above. As we will do for all candidates, next week and the week after we’ll write at some greater length about all 12 of the Vancouver Mayoral aspirants — taking a glancing blow at each individual’s candidacy, which none of them will like, but we can guarantee that we’ll be kinder than what all 12 have in store for them over the next six months.
First up, there’s Shauna Sylvester — to the far left (which she is, compared to any of the NPA mayoral aspirants) — a thoroughly decent person, someone VanRamblings likes and very much admires — and someone who doesn’t have a hope in hell of becoming Vancouver’s next Mayor. Not that VanRamblings won’t give you myriad reasons to support Ms. Sylvester’s “independent” bid for Mayor — we will, and will sing Ms. Sylvester’s glory to the rafters (but as we warned her, we’re gonna be “mean” first, but not a tenth as mean as she’ll find herself subject to in the coming months). In 2018, Ms. Sylvester is the “woo woo” candidate. Alas and alack.
To Ms. Sylvester’s right, above, we have the gregarious, principled and top vote-getter in the 2014 Vancouver municipal election, two-term Green Party of Vancouver probable Mayoral candidate Adriane Carr — or, as we like to say, the “Harry Rankin Mayoral candidate” in this year’s Vancouver civic election. Why the “Harry Rankin Mayoral candidate”? The exceedingly cantankerous, but ever-so-bright and on your side, Harry topped the polls each election during his 20 year tenure as an alderman (as they called City Councillors then) on Vancouver City Council, but when Harry ran for Mayor in 1986, against a young upstart by the name of Gordon Campbell, the NPA entered a new electoral Valhalla when Campbell didn’t just top the polls, he slammed a disconsolate Rankin by a greater than 20,000 vote margin.
To Ms. Carr’s right (but not politically), 2017 Vancouver-False Creek NDP candidate and current Vice-President on the Executive Council of the beloved and activist British Columbia New Democratic Party, a political party that is actually on your side, the one, the only Morgane Oger, who VanRamblings believes is the unity candidate in the 2018 civic election, the only Mayoral candidate that all five political parties could & would support.
In 2018, the Vancouver & District Labour Council (VDLC) is in the throes of an attempt to broker a deal that would “unite” the “progressive” parties — Vision Vancouver, One City, the Greens, COPE and Team Jean — against the dark forces of the dastardly Vancouver Non-Partisan Association. If none of this makes any sense to you, VanRamblings will take a glancing blow at each of the civic parties offering candidates for office in the coming civic election, although truth to tell we’re pretty smitten with OneCity Vancouver. And, please, don’t get us started on the Council candidacy of Christine Boyle — we’re so over-the-moon about Ms. Boyle’s candidacy, we may change the name of our VanRamblings website to VoteForChristineBoyle.
And, finally, on the far right above (but not politically), the incredibly wonderful Meena Wong, who was the principled COPE candidate for Mayor in the 2014 Vancouver municipal election, and may — we did say may — make another bid for the Mayor’s chair if the VDLC is unable to broker a deal for a “unity candidate” for the five progressive parties to get behind.

And last, and most probably least, the final four candidates for Mayor, Colleen “my taxes are just too damn high” Hardwick — who will give VanRamblings hell if we don’t point out that she has not, finally and once-and-for-all, made up her mind as to whether she’ll enter the race with, probably, A Better City (a party she and others formed years ago); Dr. Patrick “working with the citizens, together we could build a livable Vancouver for all of us, and in 2018 I am the Naheed Nenshi candidate (and let us hope for all our sakes that turns out to be the case)” Condon; current Vancouver City Councillor, Finance Chair and recent President of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, Raymond Louie; and last and least, Wai “whack-a-doodle” Young, whose putative candidacy for Mayor is dead on arrival, as she sets about on her bid for Mayor with the so-called Coalition Party, which appellation is accurate if you consider the meaning of her party’s name to mean, The Coalition of the Damned.
VanRamblings imagines that Ms. Young’s campaign manager, Peter Labrie (who last November ran for the NPA Board, and lost miserably) and Dunbar Theatre owner, Ken Charko, a federal Conservative Party member (and seeming Trump supporter) will be far from pleased with our construction of Ms. Young’s Mayoral candidacy. Alas.
Just chalk it up to VanRamblings being a miserable old cuss. It is to weep.

Today’s VanRamblings column represents the first in what will probably emerge as more than 100 columns, over the course of the next six months, on the upcoming civic election, for Council, School Board and Park Board. As you have no doubt detected, VanRamblings remains a devotee of hyperbole, and where some might say we’re being “mean”, we see it simply as truth-telling. We will attempt to be fair, though, and will afford each candidate an opportunity to have their unadulterated thoughts on their bid for electoral office recorded on VanRamblings, without benefit of snarky or untoward comment from VanRamblings.
Over the course of the next six months, we will attempt to make some sense of all that is about to unfold on Vancouver’s civic scene. At this point, we have a pretty good idea of who we like and who we’ll be supporting — but the list of those persons VanRamblings will be supporting come early October, when the advance polls open, and on Vancouver Election Day, Saturday, October 20th, is by no means complete.

Sparkling OneCity Vancouver Council candidate Christine Boyle (centre), with friends

If you’re wondering what values we support, you need look no further than Christine Boyle’s essay, It Matters How We Do Politics, a more expansive recording of what the principled Ms. Boyle stands for than was published recently on The Georgia Straight website — which is to say, she stands for us — the single most hopeful, skilled, humane and utterly transformative candidate for office VanRamblings has ever witnessed emerging on the political scene, anywhere, anytime (and we know some darn fine folks, political people we just love, and so admire that sometimes it is difficult for us to contain ourselves — and, yes, Patti Bacchus, David Eby, Carrie Bercic, Spencer Chandra Herbert, Allan Wong & Adi Pick, we’re talking about you).
VanRamblings will publish every day going forward.
On the weekend, we’ll take a break from writing about politics (but we will write a column each day this weekend), and will return to writing about the upcoming civic election on Monday. Steel yourself, Ms. Sylvester, and mayoral compatriots. One final thing: VanRamblings will soon publish an apology to Vision Vancouver, for our horrid past coverage of a civic party that has done much good (not that they get a lot of credit for it — we’ll attempt to change that egregious circumstance by recording all that is good that has been accomplished by Vision Vancouver this past 10 years).

Black Friday Almost Over, Cyber Monday On Its Way

November 26, 2017fixin to die rag, Jude and Megan, VanRamblings, Web & TechRaymond Tomlin

In 1957, my mother gave me a transistor radio for my 7th birthday!
We lived at 2165 East 2nd Avenue in Vancouver, just off Garden Park, on Vancouver’s eastside. I knew my neighbours, a polyglot amalgam of “displaced persons” (displaced from WWII), refugees from a Europe of destruction who had arrived in Canada to pursue a life for their families.
Although the television had been around for almost a decade in common use by the more well-to-do among the population, no one on our block had a TV — there were doctors, plumbers, nannies, seniors, construction workers, and no one thought to purchase a television, particularly given that TVs were going for around $400, or about 10% of a man’s average annual wage (the average hourly wage for women: 35¢). When times were tight, and families were large, and folks were just simply trying to find a way to scrape by, purchasing a $400 TV (with an outlay of another $50 for a rooftop aerial) was simply beyond the means of the common folks.

If we wanted to watch television, we’d head up to Commercial Drive, and watch the TV in the Magnet Hardware window.
Of course, all the kids on our block clamoured for a new TV (not that any of their friends owned one, mind you) — but, alas, that was not to be. Fortunately, the price of a black-and-white TV dropped dramatically in 1958 with the introduction of the colour TV (introduction of a new technology always results in a price cut for “older” technology), and most families, including mine, bought their first television that year, parents finally capitulating to the incessant, heart-rending pleas of their gentle children.

1957. I was about to go into Grade 2 at Lord Nelson Elementary School. My birthday fell on the 223rd day of that year, on August 11th, an otherwise inauspicious Sunday, except for the fact that at midday, thanks to my mother, I found myself in the possession of a brand new $49.95 (plus tax) leather-cased transistor radio! That’s right, my mother worked more than 150 hours to get me my much-prized 7th birthday present — making me the only boy on the block with a portable transistor radio. I was thrilled!
On another day, I’ll tell you what the impact of being the first to own a new tech toy had on me, what it meant for a career that I would pursue less than a decade later, and how it came to be that over the past 40 years, I have continually found myself on the cutting edge of new technology, as an early adopter. As I say, though, I’ll leave that story for another day.

All of which brings me to Black Friday, a day I cannot resist even if it is Buy Nothing Day. On Friday, I purchased a new Acer Aspire Intel Core i5 desktop computer (even though I can’t afford it, cuz I’m a pauper) — as a consequence of my 8-year-old, once state-of-the-art custom-built computer having been on its lasts legs for some months now. A friend assured me today that my new computer is a piece of junk. Oh goodie.

A fairly mundane picture of my new, much-needed computer may be found at the top of today’s column — alongside my brand spanking new Google Home Mini which, truth to tell, I don’t really need but it was half price at only $39.95, and I’ve been falling behind on my cutting edge tech persona. At about $40, I think I can indulge my techy side this holiday season.
As you may know, I love radio (even to this day). Just by saying, “Hey Google, play BBC Radio One“, within seconds BBC Radio One will begin playing through the Google Home Mini speaker. The same is true of hundreds of other radio stations. I’ve used my Google Home Mini to set alarms and reminders, check sports scores, stream music from Spotify, or from my iTunes library (of more than 5000 songs) employing Bluetooth.
If I purchase a Logitech Harmony Hub I could control my home theatre by voice command. Or, if I purchase the Phillips Hue Starter Kit, I could also control all of the lights in my house, and set the lights to turn on at a specific time, so when I enter my Co-op apartment, I won’t be entering into darkness. I could even set each individual light to a specific colour.

Yep — an indulgence. I won’t be purchasing the Phillips Hue system or the Harmony Hub anytime soon, but it’s nice to know that they’re available.

Arts Friday | Lori McKenna | America’s Finest Roots Songwriter

November 24, 2017A & E, fixin to die rag, Jude and Megan, MusicRaymond Tomlin

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, I was head over heels in love with the music of Joni Mitchell — so much in love, in fact, that I turned around and married a woman (Cathy) who looked just like Joni Mitchell.

By the time the late 1970s rolled around, my woman singer-songwriter allegiance had switched definitively to Rickie Lee Jones — whose music became the soundtrack of my life through the late 1970s and 1980s, so much so, that Rickie Lee Jones also became the soundtrack of my children’s lives — that’d be Jude and Megan — as well. In the times to come, I will write about my love for Rickie Lee Jones, which has not abated to this day.
Being a callow fellow, as time rolled on my allegiance to a woman singer-songwriter of melancholy countenance switched to Iris DeMent in the early 1990s — for me, there is no better, more reflective and more melancholy album that has ever been recorded than Ms. DeMent’s 1993 release, My Life. Please find the entire album directly below. Have a listen …

As I say, though, I am a callow fellow, and by the late 1990s I had found a new love — a Boston-suburb-based housewife, mother to five children, wife of a Boston firefighter and, by far, the best roots songwriter this century. On another day, I’ll write about Lori McKenna at greater length. Today, you’ll find four of her songs at the top of the column — four of my favourite songs written by and sung by Lori McKenna … well worth a listen.
Recently, my friends and next door neighbours, Shirley Ross and Bill Tieleman celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary — I looked all over for Lori McKenna’s Stealing Kisses somewhere online, but until a couple of days ago, I couldn’t find it (and, truth to tell, I bet the video below won’t last long online — you’ll want to listen to Stealing Kisses while the opportunity is provided to you). Here is one of my favourite Lori McKenna songs.
Dedicated to Bill Tieleman and Shirley Ross, Happy 25th Anniversary …