Baby dictator photos - baby dressed up as Stalin

Baby dictator photos art project explores nature of evil and motherhood

Gender & Parenting, Tech Meets History & Totalitarianism /

I have conflicted feelings about mommy blogging. It’s an activity which, like much of online living, presupposes some kind of inherent relevance to your personal life. But what about the child as art canvas? I’m not talking Sally Mann or Tierney Gearon style photographs of their children in day-to-day life. I’m talking about costuming and photographing your baby as an art project. Danish-Norwegian artist Nina […]

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Cover of Purge by Sofi Oksanen

Soviet gulags just not sexy enough for the zeitgeist

Books & Movies, Soviet-Jewish History /

I just finished reading Purge by Sofi Oksanen, recently translated into English from Finnish. I’ve been slowly reading for about a week now, but then halfway through, I suddenly got much more into it, and finished the entire book in a night. It’s not a book to read before bed, in case you also plan to stay up until 2 am. There are some stomach-turning

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Loyalty card for Toronto Coffee Conspiracy

Caffeinated conspiracies and indie economics (2)

Food /

(This is the second of my posts on independent coffee shops and socioeconomics. The first looked more specifically at the microcosm of Cabbagetown coffee culture.) Like the Tim Hortons and Jetfuel debate in Cabbagetown, the newly formed Toronto Coffee Conspiracy (TCC), is equally applause-worthy and depressingly elitist. In an effort to encourage people to support their local independents, seven cafes have gotten together to form

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Lego woman chef figurine representing female chefs and sexism

Women! Chefs! Sexism!

Food, Gender & Parenting /

Tired of hearing about gender bias (read: female chefs and sexism) in professional kitchens? That’s too bad, because the problem isn’t going away. Amidst the hubbub over the recent James Beard Awards, more than a few people noticed the nearly uniform lack of women on the winners’ list. Three out of 24, to be precise. In the four years of the awards, a whopping 16%

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Hating Mother’s Day is as damaging as sentimentalizing it

Gender & Parenting /

Amidst yesterday’s many saccharine mother shout-outs and articles, seeing “Why I hate Mother’s Day” pop up in my Twitter feed was a breath of fresh air. Hating on Mother’s Day? Of course I clicked. On a day that wallows in the sappiest of mother-cliche (If a child doesn’t pen an ode to mother’s food, does that mother truly exist?), a little perspective is in order.

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Barista pouring coffee at fancy, independent coffeeshop.

What Tim Hortons has that independent coffeeshops keep missing

Food /

This is the first of two posts looking at Toronto indie coffee shops. My next post will talk about the recently launched Toronto Coffee Conspiracy. → When was the last time you applauded the opening of a new Tim Hortons or a Starbucks? Now think about your reaction anytime a new independent coffeeshop opens up in your neighbourhood. Unless you live under a rock, you

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The Holocaust and Facebook: Collage of Anne Frank and other Holocaust victims Facebook profiles

The Holocaust and Facebook – When Anne Frank got her own page

Tech Meets History & Totalitarianism /

[Note – the Anne Frank Facebook page has been changed from a fan page to an author page since this post on the Holocaust and Facebook was first published.] I don’t know why this surprised me, but it did—Anne Frank is now on Facebook. And I’m sure she’d be thrilled to know that a boy named Ricky hates the Nazis because they deprived the world

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Authentic cuisine: Jewish Artichoke alla giudia in Rome

Edible authenticity puts class politics on the plate

Food /

Just who does “authentic” cuisine serve? Anya von Bremzen, writing in the April issue of Saveur, isn’t so sure. I don’t normally buy food magazines for the articles on Italian food, but the April Saveur has a piece on Roman food, “Eternal Pleasures“, by von Bremzen, who also wrote one of my favourite cookbooks, Please to the Table: The Russian Cookbook. I was in Rome

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