Slavery is Not Entertainment!

One of my favourite things to do in Vancouver is to go to Capers. Capers is sort of an organic theme park... a temple for the windbreaker-and-social-conscience set. Heaven knows I don't go there to buy the food. While grapes that were shipped to Canada on a catamaran so as not to disrupt the mating patterns of Oolichan is good in theory, I am reticent about paying 10 dollars for the privilege. No, I go to Capers merely for the purposes of observation, which seems to be my motivation for most things these days. At Capers, you can see so many things: Women in goretex with knitted brows, agonizing over which brand of organic amaranth cereal to feed young Tallulah or Rainforest; young urban professionals peppering the deli counter attendant with vital, probing questions like "did this cow go to therapy to deal with death related issues before it was killed?", or "I noticed that this Triple-Creme-l'Explorateur cheese from Normandy is made from animals who live in pens. Is there something you can do about this?".

My favourite thing to do at Capers is to look at the latest posting on the Customer Suggestions board. This really is a cornucopia of material for the satirist at heart. It is a place where all the naked-bike driving, green voting crazies-who-rolled-to-the-coast can vent frustration about their victuals, and about our world. "No more genetically modified turmeric!" proclaims one.
"I am offended by the price of organic goat butter"reads another. These are funny, and sometimes I laugh, but occasionally, I come across a really good one:

I would like to see more candida compliant dishes such as kamut, spelt pasta salads, Ezekiel wraps and amaranth quesadillas. Also stevia-sweetened treats would be great.

Thanks!

-Paloma

Dear Paloma

I agree wholeheartedly. I will continue to advocate for such cleanse-free and diet-restricted foods options from our regional merchandisers. -Sean

At least if you buy a cookie at Fauchon in Paris (or at the Maple Leaf bakery around the corner) there is the sense that you are doing something purely for your own gastronomic pleasure. When you buy a cookie at Capers, you are not only buying a cookie , you are purchasing a disproportionate amount of rhetoric... sort of a "think globally act locally" at the most microscopic level. It is as though they are trying to save the world, one cookie at a time. The combination of healthy organic ingredients doled out with a combination of Protestant missionary zeal and left-wing tree hugging myopia is what makes Vancouver unique. Needless to say, these cookies leave a bitter taste in the mouth, and not just beacuse they are made with brewers yeast and prune syrup.

Dear Paloma and Sean. Please get your heads out of your assholes and walk 8 blocks down to Hastings and Main. Ask the people standing there if they have heard of amaranth or kamut or stevia. Then give them all the money you were going to spend on cruelty free apricots, and don't ask any questions. Then, write a letter to the UN and ask why 1 billion people don't have running water. Or you can go to Capers in Lagos (or Kasheshewan) and write the following letter:

Dear Government/Large compaines-that-run-the-world:

Why don't we have clean running water? -Paloma

After I went to Capers, I attended a concert at the Vancouver Aquarium in honour of its 50th anniversary. The highlight of the concert was the premiere of a piece called Whales by local composer Leslie Uyeda, which was performed beside the beluga tank and incorporated whale sounds. Of course, as I was walking to the aquarium, I came across a man covered in balloon animals blowing in a loudspeaker. "How would you like to live in a bathtub? Slavery is not entertainment!" he yelled, with a megaphone, in my ear.

And then I started to think about Brigitte Bardot. Don't you think it is absurd that Brigitte Bardot is going ape-shit over seals in Canada while her own country is on the brink of rebellion due to social inequality and racial tension? Don't you think it is a bit bizarre that a man finds the fire in his soul to yell at people with megaphones about sea mammals (which are housed down the street so we can see them, and not think of whales as something distant that we don't need to think about) and not about the chronic lack of social housing?

Perhaps I don't get it. Perhaps buying organic grapes and getting offended by fish that live in tanks is the path to enligthenment and social change. I know that the earth is interconnected, and that we have to think about things like organic food, and animal rights. But, I also think that people often get involved in causes that don't get their hands dirty so they don't have to think about the issues outside their doorstep. Like the man who regularly shoots up drugs outside my apartment while I take out the garbage.

I think I should invite Brigitte Bardot and that protester for lunch. At Capers. We can fritter away the afternoon dining on organic figs and cruelty-free salmon, content in the fact that we are eating with a pure heart.