One of the cool projects we’ve been working on at the office is the Global Dialogue on the Future of Iran. Tomorrow, we launch the second version of the Global Dialogue – an election monitoring centre operated by U of T’s Munk School, National Democratic Institute, and ASL19. The aim is to curate content from inside Iran and share it with the world. Latest news, violations and citizen reporting, by Iranians, for Iranians.
Check it out when you have a moment!
Sometimes the best days on the job are those when unexpected events throw me off kilter and I find myself scrambling to make it work. Often, that means we’re dealing with an issue of sorts. This time, we were dealing with something fun — whimsical, even.
It started out innocently on Tuesday afternoon when U.S. Secretary of State, John Kerry, sent a tweet to my boss, Canada’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, John Baird. That night, Canada and the U.S. were set to face-off at the Women’s IIHF Hockey Championships. Secretary Kerry bet a case of Sam Adams versus a case of Molson Canadian that Team U.S.A. would win the match. Our Minister took up the challenge and tweeted back that he’d not only take on the bet, but he’d add a case of Beau’s Lugtread. If you’re not familiar with Beau’s, it’s an amazing microbrewery in Vankleek Hill, just outside Ottawa (and just outside Minister Baird’s constituency).
So the bet was on.
We watched the game with a lot of anxiety and anticipation. Team Canada trailed in the third period and we were hoping for a comeback win. Alas, it didn’t happen. The next morning, reality hit. Minister Baird and Secretary Kerry would be meeting Thursday in London, England for the Foreign Minister’s Meeting. Minister Baird would have to make good on his wager. He was already in London, having spent two weeks in the Middle East. He wasn’t exactly carrying cases of beer with him. Luckily, one can find Molson Canadian in London. Beau’s? Not so much?
I called Steve Beauchesne, owner of Beau’s first thing in the morning.
“Hey Steve, I assume you saw the Twitter traffic last night?”
“Yeah, that was awesome! Too bad we lost!”
“Totally agree! Now, we have to make this work. I could go to the closest LCBO and buy some of your beer and get it off to London, but what about doing something fun?”
We bounced some ideas and agreed that a custom label for their flagship beer would be fun. So he and his team went to work and by noon had a label designed, printed, and slapped onto some bottles. Just amazing; you have to marvel at the nimbleness of small businesses.
While we couldn’t get the beer to London in time, Baird is still a man of his word. He’ll be giving the beer to Secretary Kerry via the U.S. Embassy when he returns to Ottawa next week.
Beau’s got some international attention for being such good sports about the whole thing, with coverage on CNN, Washington Times, CTV, CBC, and Canoe. It wouldn’t have been possible without the energetic work of Steve and his team at Beau’s.
So, if you have a glass nearby, raise it to this family business for embracing the challenge on such short notice; having fun with it; and making Canada proud on the world stage!
It’s been a week since I bottled the West Coast Amber Ale. That means it’s time to check in tasting. The beer is never ready so soon, but I do it as quality check of sorts. While this beer should be ready in two weeks, given tonight’s tasting, I think it’ll need three weeks.
There’s a lot on the line for tonight’s women’s world hockey championship. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry made an impromptu Twitter bet with my boss: Canada’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, John Baird. On the line? Sam Adams, Molson Canadian, and Ottawa’s own Beau’s All Natural.
Here’s how it played out earlier. Let’s hope our women pull through!
Game on .@statedept! But John, in addition to #molsoncanadian, I’ll double-up with some of Ottawa’s finest .@beausallnatural. Go Canada Go!
— John Baird (@HonJohnBaird) April 9, 2013
UPDATE: Looks like we’re going to have to ship some Molson Canadian and Beau’s All Natural to the State Department.
I think we had just as much fun as the kid! A short video of how our oldest started his day:
Easter Hunt! from Joseph Lavoie on Vimeo.
This recipe, which I adapted from George Hummel’s West Coast Amber Ale, intrigued me because of a small twist in the brewing process. Rather than add all the malt extract at the start of the boil, you add half at the start and half near the end. I have no idea what the final results of this will look like, but I have nonetheless given this a go with my own selection of hops. I’ve also doubled the amount of dark roast barley (hence the name of this brew). This batch is now sitting in a secondary fermentor, and it’s
I got all my ingredients from beergrains.com:
It’s the name of my favourite place in the world, and of my favourite cook book of all time. Just over a year ago, I visited Jerusalem for the first time and had the good fortune of returning a couple months later. I hope to return soon. I am absolutely fascinated by this city’s significance – biblical, spiritual, historical, and political.
The first time I walked the streets of the old city and saw the site on which Christ was crucified, I couldn’t wrap my head around it. There’s just nothing else like it in the world. Regardless of your faith (or non-faith, for that matter), the confluence of some of the most Holy sites in the world for Christianity, Judaism, and Islam in such compressed space, makes for a fascinating adventure for even the most hardened agnostic or atheist. But even if that’s not your thing, walking the streets of Jerusalem is a culinary experience of a lifetime. And that alone, is worth a visit.
Sure, there are tourist holes that may trap you, but there’s also real food. And I do mean, real food. A friend and colleague, who used to live in Jerusalem took me on a walk that started at a falafel/shawarma joint on the corner of a lane-way that eventually took us to the Ben Yehuda market. No fancy tables. No linen. Nothing but a small counter in a room occupying the footprint of what would otherwise qualify as a closet, serving mean shawarma. It’s hectic and messy, but when the lineup has but one tourist (yourself), you know you’re in for something good.
Then, just up the street, you can experience a real market. Not the kind of market too many of us get here in Canada — you know, the ones selling the same produce your supermarket grocer gets from the Food Terminal. No, the Ben Yehuda market is the opposite. This is a market filled with stands selling fragrant spices by the bucketful. Even though Jerusalem does not sit off the ocean, you can somehow procure fish so fresh, the fish monger has to smack it once or twice upside the head in the bag to get an accurate weigh-in. The produce options are endless. It’s a carnival — people shouting, bartering and pushing…you simply have to experience it.
But if you can’t, there’s hope for you still. It comes in the form of a cook book that will teleport you to Jerusalem. If you’re a food geek, I’m sure you know the book. It’s won accolades around the world since it was published last year. I was fortunate enough to get it as a gift from good friends over the Holidays. It is, without a doubt, the best cookbook I have.
It could easily double as a coffee table book — its pages are filled with beautiful photos of food and the city. But where most cook books suffer from on overly competent food photographer or stylist that raises expectations too high, this one’s recipes deliver on the photographer’s promise.
I had honestly never heard of its authors, chefs Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi before this book made it to the year-end must-buy list of most food writers. But you couldn’t find two better authors to take on the challenge of sharing Jerusalem in such a personal way:
This book and this journey into the food of Jerusalem form part of a private odyssey. We both grew up in the city, Sami in the Muslim east and Yotam in the Jewish west, but never knew each other. We lived there as children in the 1970s and 1980s and then left in the 1990s, first to Tel Aviv and then to London. Only there did we meet and discover our parrallel histories; we became close friends and then business partners, alongside others…
The flavors and smells of this city are our mother tongue. We imagine them and dream in them, even though we’ve adopted some new, perhaps more sophisticated languages. They define comfort for us, excitement, joy, serene bliss. Everything we taste and everything we cook is filtered though the prism of our childhood experiences: foods our mothers fed us, wild herbs picked on school trips, days spent in markets, the smell of the dry soil on a summer’s day, goat and sheep roaming the hills, fresh pitas with ground lamb, chopped parsley, chopped liver, black figs, smoky chops, syrupy cakes, crumbly cookies…
And in reality, they have imparted that experience in the recipes that line this book. Cooking their recipes transforms your home, like you’ve stumbled on a street stand of amazing food, or a hole in the wall locals flock to. It sounds dramatic, I know, but the food in this book is just spectacular. I have been letting it guide my hand in the kitchen for three months and have yet to find a recipe that hasn’t wowed me. Just earlier tonight, I made the Chicken with caramelized onion and cardamon rice and couldn’t get how each bite smacked me upside the head with flavour. It’s typical of all the recipes in the book. There’s no room for nuance, yet the dishes shine in their sophistication. Much like the city and its people, in fact.
This post comes a day late, yesterday being the best day to enjoy an Irish Stout, of course. While we may be a day removed from St. Paddy’s Day, the weatherman is predicting a big winter storm for tomorrow — a fitting evening to enjoy a dark beer. I brewed this batch in early February, and the timing was quite good. The beer has had ample time to condition in the bottle, and the results are delicious. This is arguable the best home brew I’ve made yet. The recipe is an absolute keeper.
Now, on to the tasting notes!
Style: Stout
Colour: Very dark brown
Nose: Nutty and sweet
Taste: Notes of roasted nuts and barley. Sweet start with a pleasantly bitter finish. Mild, almost non-existant after-taste.
Tasting profile: (10-point scale, from low to high in profile, not quality)
Opinion: As I said above, this is the best home brew I’ve made (yet). It tastes like an improved Guinness: a touch more bitter, but with a more pronounced nuttiness. I’d happily drink more than one pint if it was offered to me at the pub.
Rating: 4/5 stars
This is what happens when you take a toddler to the sugar bush for the first time:
Cabane a sucre from Joseph Lavoie on Vimeo.
I remember when my wife and I found out she was pregnant for our first child, the sudden rush of excitement and jubilation was quickly replaced with anxiety about how exactly I’d make this happen. I was working long hours at the office and would soon be working full-time on a 12-month election campaign. When, exactly, would I have time to be a husband and father when I was regularly clocking 80 to 100-hour weeks?
It wouldn’t take long for my poor wife to find out I didn’t have the time. Shortly after our son was born, the campaign got into full swing and I was working 120-hour weeks. It’s safe to say, I was an absentee father for our son’s first year. The day after election day, we packed up the car and moved to Ottawa where I began my next gig as a political staffer on the Hill. As you know, the political staffer role doesn’t quite rank up there in the “family-friendly” category.
Oh, and just as we were moving into our new home, my wife gave me some wonderful news: she was pregnant for our second child. I got the same rush of excitement and jubilation as I had 19 months before, and then the anxiety kicked in. This time, it was worse. So far, I had proven unable to be there for my wife or our first son. What had started out as a fear last time, had since become reality. I’d have to change something if I had any hope of being there for my family.
Don’t worry, this isn’t a self-loathing blog post. I’m just providing a bit of context for how I got to this point: where I’m surprisingly able to manage my time such that I’m somehow more efficient at the office, and more importantly, there for my family.
It hindsight, it seems so simple. I didn’t see it before, but I was actually awful at managing my time. Not to sure why that was — perhaps my personal obligations were lighter before we had kids — if I worked late nights, my wife and I would adapt. We’d have a later meal, or we’d go out for dinner. Often, she was out late freelancing as a musician; I didn’t always have an incentive to rush home. Of course, with two kids in the picture, my responsibilities have since grown: I have to make it a habit — a routine — of coming home at a reasonable hour, and on a regular basis. Oh, and I no longer have the luxury of going into work on weekends to catch up on work and compensate for my procrastination during the week. Weekends are when I catch up with the boys and (hopefully) give my wife much deserved “me-time.”
To my pleasant surprise, and despite the occasional international trip for work, I’ve found a way to make this happen. (Lest I neglect to point out the obvious: my wife is amazing. Without her, there’s no way I could do the work I do).
So, if you’re a new dad, or just got the news you’ll become one soon,, here are some tips I wish I had adopted much earlier in fatherhood:
1. Going out after work should be the exception, not the rule
This probably sounds ridiculously obvious to most, but it wasn’t for me. Going out used to be the rule. Industry events, political events, networking opportunities, galas, new business development, late nights at the office…being home during the week before 9pm was a rare thing. Now, I limit myself to one night per week. If there is more than one event that week, I have to pick one. Sometimes I go two or three weeks without going out, but by allowing myself one night per week, I can plan accordingly. This makes the planning for the whole family much, much easier.
2. Block off weekends for your family
Again, another one that is probably an obvious to the seasoned parent. I used to fill up my weekend time catching up with friends, often by entertaining in our humble condo. That meant an early rise to the St. Lawrence Market to get first dibs at fresh produce, meat and fish; followed by an entire day cooking; and then hosting dinner into the wee hours of the morning. We’d recover on Sunday at a local coffee shop, I’d go to the office to catch up on work and that was a great weekend.
Not any more.
It’s amazing how much free time you get when you’re not busy planning a dinner-party. That’s not to say our weekends are a walk in the park, but because I block it off as family time, I’m mentally prepared to be a dad on weekends. I go with the flow. Whatever works for the family, works for me.
3. Make time for your spouse/partner and for yourself.
Family time is great, but we all need alone time. I’ll speak for my wife, but come the weekend, after a full week of being with two boys under three, she needs to get out of the house for her own sanity. It’s most deserved. I have always needed some solitude time to recharge my batteries.
We’ve come up with a routine that seems to work most weekends. One Saturday, I take care of the kids for the whole morning (say 9am to noon or so) and then we’ll swap in the afternoon. The parent who leaves the house has 3 hours to do whatever they want. We typically work out and read books. Sundays are left to be 100% family time. The following Saturday the other parent gets morning duty and vice versa. It’s a nice way to start your weekend and to recharge your batteries. And it’s a must.
4. Embrace the necessary evil: technology
My wife will likely disagree with me on this one, but mobile devices have actually proven to be a godsend in my ability to be a parent. It gives me the freedom to work away from my desk, which means more time at home. Yes, it means I’m frequently looking at the blackberry to check on emails, but it also means I don’t have to go into the office on weekends or evenings. I can take the boys for a walk to the park, take a quick scroll through emails to stay in the loop, slip it back in my pocket and carry on. That’s much, much less intrusive that driving to the office to do that work.
5. Make every minute at the office count
This is probably the toughest item on this list. Tough because it’s hard to do and tough because it’s tough to admit you’re probably wasting more time than you think. If you treat every single minute of your work day as precious time, it’s amazing how much you can get done. Your mind turns on this overdrive mode and you find yourself cranking out the work. You’ll catch yourself wanting to check in on Facebook or watch a YouTube video when you could otherwise be getting something productive done.
At first, it’s exhausting. Forcing yourself to focus on the task at hand every time your mind wanders is draining at first. And it takes a lot of discipline. But once you start treating every minute of your day like every one of those sixty seconds counts, you start realizing just how much time you have in a day to get work done.
And you’ll find yourself changing your routine to maximize your time. I now eat at my desk. I takes me 10 minutes to eat lunch, rather than the 30-60 I used to spend during my lunch hours. It also means I socialize a lot less. This part is an unfortunate casualty of course, especially when you have amazing colleagues like I do. But if I’m going to make it home at a reasonable hour, I need to maximize every single minute.
And there are other side effects. You’ll soon find yourself short tempered when sitting in meetings that are a waste of time, or when a meeting that should take 10 minutes drags on for 60. You’ll catch yourself cutting people off, rushing them through their thoughts and sometimes closing off discussion just for the sake of expediting the damn meeting.
If you’ve resigned yourself to the fact that the meeting will drag on, you might start multiple-tasking during the meeting. It’s effective most of the time. But that one time you miss something is the one time you wish you had paid greater attention. I’m embarrassed to admit it’s happened to me more than once.