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Eugénie Brazier
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This deals with the loss of babies. Please take care of yourself.
The middle sibling.
Born between two babies who passed.
My older brother Christopher died of sudden infant death syndrome at six weeks. Thursday, August 10, 1961.
My mom got up that morning and remembers thinking how quiet he was. How well he had slept.
She picked him up. That's where her memory ends.
Several years ago, my dad visited Christopher's grave at the cemetery in Shelburne, Nova Scotia.
To remember and tend to it.
I have photos. I know where my older brother is.
My dad told me this story. It left a big impression.
After losing Christopher they both wanted a baby. He'd come home on his motorcycle from a shift at Union Carbide in Welland and my mom would be waiting.
I was wanted.
And then Kathleen. Born February 6, 1964.
We shared a birthday. I was one.
I found the memorial card in my forties. A picture of Jesus with a shepherd's staff and a small flock of sheep at his feet.
I knew about my sister. Just not the date.
What we had in common was shocking.
She came into the world a perfect soft, pink, tiny human smelling yeasty like champagne.
Then they took her to the nursery.
And she never came back.
An autopsy revealed she had a quarter of a heart. The doctor was surprised she survived her long birth.
I like to think she wanted to be held by my mom and dad.
If only once.
My mom was put into a private room. Sheltering the new mothers on the ward from her loss.
My dad went home. Probably to work the next day.
Both alone that first night.
I was with Theo and Harry.
When I was about seven or eight, I remember my parents going off in a hurry one evening to see a couple at a hospital in Burlington.
Another couple told me once how much it meant to them when my father visited the hospital after they lost a child.
Walking with others in the darkness.
My mom picked the music. It's a piece that's always brought her comfort.
I'll soon be 59. My mom's 82. This week we talked and cried about all of it.
Grief. I knew it early.
Bob Seger.
My 15-year-old fantasy.
I'd grown up.
I spent a six-year period from 1974 to 1980 living in Goderich. Hard years in my family history.
Looked good on the outside. The beautiful house on Wilson Street—one street from the lake and a block from the lighthouse.
Directly across Lake Huron was Windsor, gateway to Detroit.
I'd drift to sleep at night listening to the radio—CKLW out of Windsor.
My love for Bob Seger happened in the front yard of my dreams. Through the gate in the picket fence of consciousness.
He's a poet—like John Fogerty, Tom Petty, Nathaniel Radcliffe…I could go on.
Deciding on a song was hard. There are so many I love.
Beautiful Loser. Night Moves.
"I woke last night to the sound of thunder.
How far off I sat and wondered?"
It's around that age that a man really showed me where things were at in the sheets. The bar was set high early.
Some might say too early. But being sexually active was normal.
Best One-Night Stand.
I knew the potential. Could measure performance.
To this day I'm grateful.
The important stuff about him: he was curious about women, an admirable quality in a man.
He also taught me that nice surprises sometimes come wrapped in plain paper.
I'm eighteen in the photo.
Beautiful...having fun. As it should be.
Even in an era of women's liberation, our pleasure was mostly taboo.
Maybe I'd read some things in "Our Bodies, Ourselves." That book looked like a Harrowsmith manual.
I was afraid. Kept part of me hidden.
Feels like freedom to talk about it now.
Men in chef whites—sexiest thing alive.
Women, not so much.
I had a stunning cooking career. I did things. Big things.
Worked hard. Paid the price. Made like it was okay.
Neutered myself sexually speaking. Safety first.
In 1988, I went for an interview at Centro with Raffaello Ferrari. In the wine cellar basement. Just him and I at a table. He asked me how I would handle all the horny men working in the kitchen. His coke habit was in full swing, if that's not obvious.
All I wanted was to get out of there.
I'd come from André Donnet in Hamilton. A gentleman.
I didn't not get hired. Things work out for the best.
Lonely at work. Lonely at home.
Some of that's mine to own.
​A vibrant and gifted woman. Something special.
Longing to be seen. Not erased.
Put on either of these songs and I'm going to like you.
​Look at this live television performance. This Ebet Roberts' photo for Rolling Stone:
​My young heart beating.
"​Ain't good looking, but you know I ain't shy
Ain't afraid to look it girl, hey hear me out
So if you need some lovin', and you need it right away
Take a little time out, and maybe I'll stay"
Some of the words, music, and art that kept me nourished (and sane) in 2021
I'm living with limits this year and am not a paid subscriber to all the newsletters I list here. I hope that changes, soon.
Story Club with George Saunders
"But I also have to admit that this is what I crave from the writers I love. I want to hear how they wrote a particular story. Not so much what they think the story means, but how it actually came about. What I'd really love is a keystroke-capture recreation, that I could watch to see how the thing grew along the way – like one of those fast-motion films of the lifespan of a tree."
The Red Hand Files (Nick Cave)
"You will discover that love, radical love, is a kind of supercharged aliveness, and all that is of true value in the world is animated by it. And, yes, heartache awaits love's end, but you find in time that this too is a gift — this little death — from which you are reborn, time and again." What can you tell me about love
​Dense Discovery
"What I was trying to highlight, and what the podcast made a great case for, is that we need more intellectual provocations that prepare us for the inevitable changes to come. Regardless of your views on degrowth, I think most of us can agree that GDP growth is a dismally blunt tool to measure the good life." Issue #168
Austin Kleon
​"I used to steal magazines from a store on Genesee Street, in Waukegan, and read them and then steal them back on the racks again. That way I took the print off with my eyeballs and stayed honest. I didn't want to be a permanent thief, and I was very careful to wash my hands before I read them." —Ray Bradbury Lifted Type Collages
​From the Desk of Alicia Kennedy
"The way we think of abundance in the United States has nothing to do with banana trees that bear fruit and edible flowers. It has to do with how much is in the supermarket, how much false choice there is between the products of just a few agribusiness conglomerates. This is an obvious statement, of course, but it's worth repeating that the ways of eating in the U.S. are against nature—meaning actively working to destroy nature—and for capital." On Abundance
This has been the year of short sentences. Stitching three or four words together—working on cadence—what pleasure. No Masterclass required. Writing a poem a day in long hand has helped. Poem of the Day.
The music I use for 'today' is drawn from a messy and meandering playlist. Listen on shuffle. There are bonafide gems here. Remember, I was the girl who hung out by the stereo at parties. Deborah's 2021 playlist.
A few of the poets, painters, potters, photographers, writers, and cooks who inspire me.
Alisa Larsen
Jim Yale
Ray H. Mercado
Helma Bongenaar
Jay Heins
Ken Sakamoto
jeni glasgow + reuven diaz
Kevin Douillez
Watch Tom Petty at work: Somewhere You Feel Free. The Making of Wildflowers
​"And it's wake up time
Time to open your eyes
And rise and shine"
Theo and me in 1964. Helping Harry pack for the boat.
Everywhere I've lived in Toronto has been close to nature—most often a ravine.
The thing all the places have in common is proximity to wealthy neighbourhoods.
Currently, I'm between Swansea and Baby Point. Near the Humber River and High Park.
I like low-rise apartment buildings built in the 20s and 30s. Low-density living. My building is well cared for. People who visit always comment on that. I know and say hello to enough people that it feels like home. The owners care and the people are nice. That's the magic most developers can't replicate.
While I was out for a long walk this week I found another thread in Theo's story.
After she gave birth to my uncle, she had to work for six months to pay off her room and board. Those were the terms. She incurred debt while waiting to have a baby.
The Salvation Army and the Soeurs de Miséricorde both had residents on Jarvis Street. In the early 30s, they shared the delivery rooms at the Toronto's Hospital for Unwed Mothers—Grace Hospital today. (I've scoured the Toronto archives trying to find images of the homes. No surprise, there are not many photos.)
I believe she was with the soeurs. Imagining what she would have had to put up with can make me mad.
Repent.
Wealthy families in Rosedale hired the girls after their babies were born—probably for a song. A repayment plan of sorts.
My grandmother was a chambermaid. That's where she learned to cook (she told me).
Theo's mother, Odille, was a terrible cook (and had a black streak of meanness in her). She'd fed men in lumber camps in southern Quebec in the early 1900s. I pity them. So many habitant memories are horror stories.
Something was good between Theo and the cook in the Rosedale mansion. Learning about good food was a way for Theo to declare her autonomy. Leave Odille in her dust.
She was always curious—an admirable and essential quality in the kitchen. My grandmother, like me, was probably a good student.
The cook taught her. Well.
What Theo went through in 1933 was hard.
But the way seemed softer after.
The universe showed her mercy.
The wealthy home owners liked her.
Can you imagine how good that must have felt?
She started to recover. Her spirit above all else.
When I lived on the perimeter of Rosedale, shortly after I first learned about this part of Theo's story, I would try and imagine which house she worked in. Did she live-in or go back to Jarvis Street at night?
At the time, my location didn't feel like a coincidence. Theo was with me.
She still is.
I've stitched our hearts together.
There was a lick of fog hanging over the south end of Grenadier Pond today.
This has been in my head.
Here's the thing about making amends.
I need to start with myself.
That's the hard part.
It's what takes the longest.
Sometimes I need to lean into it. Push on my character.
I made a video amend to myself this year. There was an email I sent before it.
I called it, 2021 Lessons in Journalism.
I dated it because the learning's not done.
My approach was creative. It made opening the door to the tender stuff easier.
Looking squarely at the way I behaved. Swallowing my pride.
The whole point of it—knowing how I need to change.
I was pleased when it was done. It's fulsome.
Forgiveness is a process.
It took me more than two years.
Unnecessary delays are felt in subtle ways.
The time was ripe to get on with it.
Or embrace low-frequency discomfort.
I did it because I needed to. The events robbed me of words for a while.
For a long time, I could not write.
That's all I've got these days.
​It's my life.
Understanding what's not mine to own takes time too.
It feels good to be clear about that.
Being responsible and sorry for everything is impossible.
Others will get to their stuff. Or they won't.
​Not my business.
A wise person who has my back reminded me of this (and I'm paraphrasing here):
All people are to some extent emotionally ill as well as frequently wrong.
That sentence is currently taped to my desk.
Talk about gratitude can be cheap. The real feeling of it is elusive.
It drops unscripted.
On Tuesday evening, right there, a warmth spread through me.
Just below the southwest corner of University Ave and King Street.
St. Andrew's station.
The tube of fluorescent light casting bleach spots on the glazed teal tiles. Terrazzo the colour of dirty mop water. A loudspeaker that crackles and sends out garbled messages. Even if you strain to listen, it's impossible to hear.
I've passed here countless times. There's a weekday noon meeting I like near Roy Thomson Hall.
Mundane. The word that best fits it.
But it's where I felt a sparkle.
My heart broke open to the beauty of the city.
Right there.
Crazy, I know.
I was passing through on my way to get my booster shot at the Metro Convention Centre.
At the clinic, Abba's Super Trouper was playing.
"Tonight the super trouper beams are gonna blind me
But I won't feel blue
Like I always do
'Cause somewhere in the crowd there's you"
It's been hard. I know of no one who has escaped that fact this year.
I hope there are good, kind, big-hearted humans riding shotgun with you.
And that there's room for your heart to break open too.
Stress Man.
The name we gave to the man with his back to the camera.
The high priest of garde manger. The rigour of his work and the detail in his presentations were like nothing I'd seen before.
He was also a misanthrope. I did not take his disdain personally. The half dozen young French male commis working furiously in his station received the same treatment.
One day a week, he made terrines. The preparations began in the morning. Creamy white lobes of fatty foie d'oie—the size of capon breasts—bobbed in a stainless-steel sink of milk. Dégorgé.
During afternoon break, he did the assembly. The kitchen was quiet, and there were no prying eyes: just him and the craft.
After a few weeks in the kitchen, I stayed behind to watch him. I don't know if he was that happy with the arrangement. But I had a hunger to learn everything. I also felt that passing on his mastery would have been a great offence.
It was clear he did not want my help. I stood on the sidelines, drawing pictures and scribbling notes. For a couple of hours, there was silence between us.
The smile on my face was for the man behind the camera—Bjorn from Oslo. (The photo was taken in the calm before service.) For six weeks in 1993, we were a team. Two foreign stagiaires flung together in a kitchen in Cannes, France.
We needed each other for different reasons.
Bjorn landed in the kitchen two days ahead of me. He didn't speak a word of French and had strolled in wearing a chef's jacket with his name embroidered on it. The story of his first day was hair raising. He came to understand that only one chef in the kitchen was known by name. On break, Bjorn scrambled to buy another jacket to cloak him in anonymity.
My arrival in the kitchen was a bit of magic for him. I'm not bilingual, but I had enough French to know what was going down.
He helped me too. In Norway, women worked in kitchens. Having a female peer was no big deal. He set an example.
Bjorn got in the service elevator with Stress Man on a busy day during the film festival and pushed a button for the wrong floor—just his presence would make you do stupid nervous things. The yelling started before the door closed, and about three minutes later, the elevator door opened again, and Bjorn was spat out on a stream of French expletives. We lost it—howled with laughter.
During one afternoon break, Bjorn and I returned to the kitchen on the sly. Two bandits in a low-stakes heist. We both wanted something that hung on the wall of the saucier station—a handwritten list of the master recipes. Both of us were sweating the thought of getting caught.
I was the scout, put on watch. What would I have done if one of the cooks had come into the kitchen? It seemed to take forever to carefully peel the object of our desire off the wall, remove it from its plastic protective sleeve, photocopy it in the hall, and put it all back in a way that passed notice.
All these years later, I'm betting there were cameras in the kitchen.
We were committed to working hard for the team.
One night during the film festival Jacques Chibois rounded the corner in the kitchen at about 1:00 a.m., where we were finishing the prep for a function the next day. He was stunned to find me there. Drove me home in his older classic Mercedes Benz—the front end was so long and the seats so low I could hardly see the hood ornament or the road in front of us. It was the kind of car I could imagine Escoffier driving.
After the festival, we were invited to a staff barbecue. The chef de cuisine called me at my small studio apartment on a day off. The show of respect and appreciation—my heart was like golden beeswax.
But I wasn't turning up to a Cannes beach party wearing only a bikini bottom. Going topless alone or with friends was not a problem. Baring my breasts to the men in the kitchen. No fucking way.
The Côte d'Azur saltwater and sun, the charcoal-grilled burgers, meeting their wives and children—all the small details of that afternoon were perfect.
The thrill of being accepted.
Bjorn left two days before me. I watched his send-off from the sidelines. They emptied a bag of flour, a bag of paprika and dry mustard over him and then threw him in a tilt skillet full of water. I can't imagine the walk back to his apartment or how he got the pasty mess out of his hair and clothes.
A pack of young men gleefully participated in this strange and animalistic hazing. All that was missing was a fire and spears.
I missed Bjorn. Terribly.
On the last night, I had dinner in the restaurant—the long tasting menu with stunning wine pairings. I sat next to a couple from San Francisco. We made good company (my currency was behind-the-scenes knowledge).
My departure was quiet. There was no ritual for sending a woman off.
I made that dream happen—staging in a Michelin Two-Star kitchen for a man Gault-Millau had christened France's chef of the year.
Ambition, chutzpah, and a whole lot of talent—I had it.
Do you know how many women around me were doing that? Very few.
Young, beautiful, brave, free-spirited me.
James D. G. Dunn and John William Rogerson feel that the Bible portrays Delilah as "a doubly dangerous woman given her apparent independence," noting that she is not "identified by a male relationship - the wife, daughter or sister of anyone" but simply "appears in her own right." Wikipedia
"In her own right."
I've been adrift.
Unsure of what's ahead. GPS malfunctioning.
Fifty-eight. Not my first time at this juncture.
Been here enough to know beautiful things are on the other side.
And even in the unsettling here and now.
I have a new assignment for the months ahead:
The joy of living.
The timing's serendipitous. Delivered to me from a benevolent universe.
Sitting on the sagging dock, on the right, between Yvonne and Angie.
​Strawberry blond hair in the sunlight.
Lake Cowichan, Vancouver Island.
A few days into Katimavik. (Look it up.) Nine months that changed me.
In the worn cardboard box of my memory:
The Cowichan welcome.
Bonding while building bunk beds from scratch to sleep in.
The quiet and shelter of the big pines.
A safety film called Chain Saw Savvy. (I can't unwatch that.)
Phil bringing warm milk from the cows in the morning. The terrible night sounds of dogs in with the sheep.
Wild Tofino Beach—giant driftwood, mounds of seaweed, jacket-slapping wind,
thundering waves, and the moody slate grey sky.
Wrapping soft dough disks around pierogi filling for Ukrainian Christmas.
Bill Reid's The Raven and the First Men at UBC.
Buying a used bookstore copy of Leonard Cohen's The Spice Box of Earth.
Learning to ride a horse at Bromont Equestrian Centre.
Hayward's solid-gold sense of humour. The care package from home—jarred moose meat.
For this young woman, it was a character-shaping period of public service. Priceless life lessons.
Living and working in a community. Serving others.
So many beautiful people in that photo. More on the travels across the country.
The thing that turned up at seventeen, when I didn't know what was next.
I still have a heart full of gratitude for the experience.
Singing this chorus at the top of our lungs around a fire.
The echo off the lake. Sparks whorling up to meet the darkness.
I don't have much. But I'm making much of what I have.
Thirty plus years of turning up at the stove—finding happiness in practice—has taught me a lot.
This above all else.
Build a solid foundation. Make it taste good.
Look at that pot. That's my basic recipe.
There are a few more things:
Discard the soaking liquid. Give the beans a cold, fresh rinse.
Bring them to a simmer without flavourings. Scoop the clouds of foam from the surface—more than once.
Then add carrots, celery, onion, garlic, and parsley. Always.
Open your cupboards and imagine what else—chillies, tomatoes, marjoram, summer savory, chipotles in adobo, curry leaves, and lemon slices.
Cook gently to tender. Don't let the shells split or the guts pop out.
Turn off the heat and add salt until the flavour makes you smile a little.
Let them steep in the pot until cool.
Discard the flavourings.
Ladle the beans into containers. Freeze.
I gave some to Jessica last weekend. A few days later, she sent me this text:
"Those beans were soooo good."
Share what you have. It lifts the spirit.
Make Melissa Clark's Indian butter chickpeas. Five stars and over 2,000 reviews—it's saucy and good. I add chillies for heat and lime juice as a bright finish. It feeds many, or there'll be some for the freezer.
Let me teach you how to make the River Cafe's, chickpeas and cavolo nero. On a platter, finished with extra virgin olive oil, it's nice with roast chicken, fatty grilled pork chops, or a well-made green salad.
The only time I cook chickpeas to near collapse is for hummus. Baking soda speeds the process—but too much, and you'll taste it. Resist the impulse to hurry to the finish and take the time to remove the skins—the silky finish is worth it. Michael Solomonov's Hummus Tehina is the gold standard. Make it beautiful to bring to the table.
The sky's grey flannel. Bursts of cerulean blue.
Half-hearted rain. Sidewalk saturated in patches.
People in shorts and t-shirts and jackets and sweaters.
The foyer to fall.
Put this song on repeat. Not ready to let go.
"Just bees and things and flowers."
"Melt a small knob of butter in a small pan and add a scrap of garlic. Over a thread of heat, allow it to flavour the butter for a minute or two and then remove it."
Some might want a more explicit expression of temperature. But a "thread of heat" is an evocative choice. Simon Hopkinson could have plunked in the practical term, low. But he didn't, and I admire that. This isn't a technical manual. It's about the sensual pleasure of cooking.
Every time I open it, I fall hard for things I've yet to cook—cold ham soufflé, roast duck with cider, cream and apples, and sea trout in champagne sauce.
And I rush back to make simple cream of vegetable soup—carrots, watercress, zucchini, button mushrooms, potatoes, tomatoes—cooked to a vegetal concentrate. With a tangy cream finish—a nod to its Normandy roots. The essential chore of cranking it through a food mill. The country substance of it in warm shallow bowls. A restorative for the body and spirit.
Or pot-roast chicken with potatoes, bacon, garlic and thyme. The potatoes are near translucent from sopping up fat and meat juices—a nudge with a fork, and they're rubble.
And Tomato curry—creamed coconut, curry leaves, cardamom, chillies, ginger, garlic—a sublime late summer dinner that takes a little more than half an hour from start to finish.
Hopkinson got the idea for the cookbook over a long boozy Saturday lunch with friends. Camaraderie and the pleasures of the table are threads holding it together. In form, it's serene, not busy.
Many of the headnotes are long—what's not to like about a good cook who wants to talk. Pull up a chair. But a favourite of mine, for cold poached pork belly, is brief. "Please be in the mood and make the time to cook this recipe. It is absolutely delicious and needs love and care lavished upon it."
There are chapters for each week of the year—with an opening essay and several recipes on a theme. It's culled from his weekly column for the Independent.
In "I Know What I Like," Hopkinson writes about returning to familiar restaurants in Paris. "Too much of a dull creature of habit, that's me."
Jason Lowe's images rise to meet the words. Like the veal scallopine on the cover—pounded thin on the bone, heavily seasoned, and cooked in a cast-iron pan until golden. Frothy brown butter and a scattering of pungent sage leaves to finish. It's from the chapter "The One and Only" that begins with a meandering essay on the gastronomic charms of Milan.
It's also a signal that sometimes what's best is simple.
We're in the season of new cookbooks. Like tomatoes, green beans, and prune plums, there's a glut on the market in mid-September. The pace is frantic with media tours and holiday listicles. I sometimes wonder how a cook with a book keeps up. The whole thing feels a little like hawkers at a fall country fair.
I've also grown cynical about cooks producing books on an industrial scale. I'm sure they buoy the bottom line of many in the business, but there are a few who need to take a long sabbatical.
So here I am, when everything is new, recommending a book that's out of print. I, too, am a creature of habit.