“We’ve gotta get Jack’s coffee sorted out before he gets here,” says Dominic. It’s only 7:15 – the market officially opens at 8 AM – yet there is urgency in Dom’s voice. I arrange the coffee bags faster.
Every Saturday since Catfish Coffee set up shop at the Old Strathcona Farmers Market, Jack sneaks in before opening hours, and gets his special order: decaf beans, roasted espresso dark. Dominic never fails to bring him a one-pound bag. In felt pen, he writes “Jack’s Blend” on the bag.
Sure enough, Jack shows up, right on time. He’s an amiable man, and he spends a minute chatting with Dominic as we rush to finish setting up the Catfish Coffee booth.
Jack is what Dom calls a “pro”. The pros make it early to the market, intent on snatching the freshest produce off the shelf before the masses can pick through them. They are organized: they bring lists, and know where to go.
I’m one of these pros, although my Saturday market routine involves spending a leisurely breakfast at the nearby New York Bagel Café. But today, I’ve beat them all, even Jack.
You see, today, I’m one of the vendors.
Bounty from the Market, May 2008
(Click to enlarge)
Over the last year, Helene and I have spent countless hours at the Catfish Coffee stand, chatting with Dominic and his fiancee Tracy. I’m as passionate about good coffee as they are about roasting it: and as surely as coffee begets conversation, conversation begets friendship.
For Dom and Tracy, the love of coffee means spending long evenings roasting their coffee by hand, despite having a newborn baby, and in the case of Dominic, a demanding day job. Yet every Saturday morning, they show up in time for Jack’s unofficial launch of the market day, with hundreds of pounds of coffee painstakingly roasted by hand, 5 pounds at a time.
Why do they do it? If you ever meet them go ahead and ask them that question. They’ll tell you they cannot imagine having it any other way; and their smile will leave no doubt they’re telling the truth.
Dom and Tracy manning the booth
(Click to enlarge)
The pros are meticulous in their appreciation of coffee. They ask questions about the roast, and sample the various blends. When Dom or I answer, you can see them lean forward across the table, gulping up the knowledge. They’re clear about what they like and don’t like, and the mere suggestion that they might not have a grinder at home makes their eyes widen in amused outrage.
Dom and Tracy give them friendly nicknames. Biker Al got his because of his omnipresent helmet. The Coach got his moniker for his seven daughters, enough for a baseball team. To Dom and Tracy, until they learned my real name, I was French Press, both for my native language, and my usual way of making coffee.
As the lunch hour approaches, the crowd thickens and changes. We’re entering Tire Kicker territory: that’s how Dom calls those who are just hanging out. We start seeing more and more Starbucks and other commercial coffee cups. Every time one cup-holding wanderer goes by without stopping to investigate the stand, I feel I’m on the darkened side of a one-way mirror. Will these people ever realize that they walked by the best coffee in town, while they sipped their Tim Horton’s?
Fortunately, others are curious enough to stop and ask a few questions. A minute of hearing Dom talk with knowledge and passion, and most of them will try a sample; and of those trying a sample, very few leave without a bag. The coffee speaks eloquently for itself; Dom and I are there to make the introduction.
Catfish Coffee’s “Bali Blue Morning” beans
(Click to enlarge)
If you ever stop by the Farmers Market, I dare you to ask Dominic about Fair Trade certification. While most of his beans are certified, he does not have the Fair Trade sticker on his bags. Doing so would require that he charge his customers as much as $5 more per pound, with not a penny going back to the producer.
But even worse, Dom has seen a decline in recent months in the quality of fair trade certified coffee. This is due in large part to the economics of Fair Trade: simply put, a grower must reach a certain volume of production before he can apply for certification; and because of market demand for Fair Trade, the only way for small growers to sell their beans in within a cooperatives.
During my visit to their retail and roasting location, Dom showed me a Fair Trade Costa Rican. The beans were uneven, some of them broken into pieces; he even pulled up rocks from the beans. This, Dom says, is the result of twenty-some farmers pooling their beans, and stopping to care about quality knowing it will be buried under nineteen others.
Then, one day, Dom and Tracy received a green bean bag from Harar, Ethiopia. The bag featured the crude picture of a horse, and was sewn shut by hand. When she opened it, Tracy found a surprise inside. It was a note, written by the grower, addressed to whoever would inherit the fruits of his labor.
Hope my beans are good, it said. If you have a problem with them, here’s my phone number.
Without knowing it, Catfish Coffee had taken its first step outside the comfort zone of Fair Trade certification. The world beyond was filled with producers too proud to abandon their beans to the anonymity of a coop. A world, unsurprisingly, very much like that of the Farmers Market.
Oh, and the Harar Horse? Best coffee I’ve ever had. Brew it fresh, close your eyes and take a sip: you can taste the soil it grew in, somewhere in the Horn of Africa, lovingly coaxed from the beans by Dominic and Tracy’s roast.
January 2009: Catfish introduces the Harar Horse
(Click to enlarge)
As closing time approaches, the Tire Kickers dwindle. The pros have moved in again: this is the crowd I usually join, when I’m not busy selling coffee.
I’m tired and exhilarated by my day at the market. Most of it has gone in a blur, and all I can remember are the powder of fresh ground coffee on my fingers, and my repeated explanations to customers about Catfish Coffee’s philosophy.
And it dawns on me: like Dominic, Tracy, and most of the vendors at the Market, I’m not here selling a product, but a worldview. Every time a customer walks by, I want them to taste the coffee, and share with me the feeling of walking off the beaten path of consumerism. I want them to see the world lurking behind the facade of brands and certifications, where human beings still trade with a smile and a handshake, whether on a field in Ethiopia, or in a market in Edmonton.
I want them to know the taste of a coffee born without a barcode.
+
Catfish Coffee is on sale every Saturday at the Old Strathcona Farmers Market in Edmonton, at 10310 83rd Avenue. Their retail location will open soon at 6507 112nd Ave. For inquiries, call 780-491-0771, or join the Catfish Coffee Roasters page on Facebook. Tell them French Press sent you!
Posted under Edmonton, Food by Daniel on 28.02.2009
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Sunday morning, my shoulder will feel sore as hell. It’s getting punched repeatedly by a merciless bully. The bully’s name? .300 Winchester Magnum.
I line up my shot, remembering not to lean forward too close to the rifle’s sight; I don’t feel like shopping for a new pair of glasses with a black eye. My target is square in the crosshairs, so now comes the hard part: not fearing the kick of the gun as the shot is fired.
“Every time, you have to convince your brain that this time, this one time, you won’t get hurt, that a bullet is not about to explode inches from your face. But of course, it’s a lie,” explained Jim, an ex-colleague and gun enthusiast.
Unfortunately, I’m not that great at lying to my brain, yet. I can’t help but double-check that the rifle’s butt is squarely set against the crook of my shoulder. I can’t help but close my eyes the second before I pull the trigger.
The shot goes off. The bullet’s explosion is enough to shake some snow off the roof of the firing stand. My shoulder briefly throbs from the hard plastic punch of the rifle’s butt. I check the target, and see I’ve missed the center by a few inches. I jerked a bit as I squeezed the trigger, knowing the shot was about to go off.
I eject the spent cartridge by pulling back the bolt. I load up a new one, and lock up.
Lining up the shot, I start lying to my brain again.
The Sherwood Park rifle range in summer
Jocelyn, Ben, Jim and I are at the Sherwood Park Outdoor Firing Range on a Sunday afternoon in February. Despite the biting cold, two other men are at the rifle range, and shotgun shots can be heard from the skeet shooting range nearby.
I came here at Jocelyn’s behest, after he heard of my trip to West Edmonton Mall’s Wild West Shooting Range. Joce is a Quebecois friend from BioWare, and a hunting enthusiast. I hadn’t planned to venture again into the world of firearms, but Joce’s proposal is tempting: he’s offering me the chance to fire real hunting rifles, at an outdoor shooting range. In travel terms, he’s suggesting I move away from the tourist trap, and try out an authentic local spot. Put almost anything to me in these terms, and it’s impossible to say no.
On the way over – a 45 minutes drive from downtown Edmonton – Jocelyn and I talk about local food issues, as well as the thrill of hunting. And truth be told, I’m warming up to the idea of stalking an animal, holding a big gun. “What’s more organic than a buck that grazed from the forest all its life?” asks Joce. He’s right.
After the WEM shooting experience, I’m less weary around firearms. Not that I’m careless, on the contrary – but my aversion for them is turning into respect. As my friend Malcolm puts it, it’s the kind of respect you give a boiling pot. You can feel it coming from the experienced shooters, as well; you never see the guys waving them around, or making light of them in any way. If anything, they are even more aware than me of the gun’s destructive potential. When I lean forward to look through the scope of Ben’s unloaded rifle while Jim is in the field placing targets, Joce quickly instructs me to put the rifle down, even when it was clearly not loaded. I feel a bit shameful, and do as he asks.
Once Jim is back from the target area, Joce sits down to business: he’s doing load development on two of his rifles, which means he’s testing out a number of loads for accuracy and velocity. It’s all business for him, but thankfully, he lets me sit down with another one of his rifles, and a box of .300 cartridges.
I shoot enough of them to numb my shoulder. Lie as much as I want, my brain remains firmly convinced I’m out to hurt myself every time I pull the trigger. Damn you brain for being right.
Third from right: .300 Winchester Magnum
On the way back from the shooting range, I express my satisfaction to Joce. It definitely felt more real than at West Edmonton Mall, and firing a hunting rifle capable of taking down a moose is quite different from a 9mm pistol.
We talk about hunting some more. Joce explains how he’d like to butcher an animal himself, some day, maybe this year. I nod my consent. Whenever I speak to hunters, there is nothing but respect for the animals they kill. They talk about the thrill of the hunt, of the beauty of nature, of the quality of the meat.
“The people who say it’s too easy to hunt with a gun make me laugh,” explained Jim, earlier. “They have no idea how hard it is to kill an animal with a rifle. The cold, the interminable waiting, the difficulty of hitting an animal at 100 yards… It’s hard.”
Joce, for his part, explains the thrill you feel when you have an animal in your sights. “That’s what you don’t get at the firing range… the adrenaline. Your hands start shaking, it’s so hard to take a shot.” It sounds like a hell of a thrill.
Feeling my bruised shoulder, I wonder what it would be like to kill a buck myself. To clean its carcass. To grill its meat on the barbecue. I wonder how you can be disrespectful to an animal when you snuffed away its life yourself. Is it possible to treat it with the blind contempt our society holds for industrial meat? I doubt it.
In a way, the thought process that got me here, on a cold, sunny day, is the same that got me to quit meat for 3 months.
It comes from a desire to appreciate the food I eat with both eyes open.
Posted under Edmonton, Food by Daniel on 17.02.2009
2 comments »
A few days ago, one of my contacts on Facebook posted a generic bucket list, which people were invited to check depending on what they did. My friend John was quick to remark to me that it was a pretty generic one, and suggested we write our own.
So here’s mine.
Done
Visit Asia
Stand on the Great Wall of China
Visit Europe
Visit Scotland
Visit Eastern Europe
See the Rockies
Eat sushi in a fishing village in Japan
Eat Kobe beef
Learn a foreign language
Live in a foreign country
Visit Transylvania
Witness something so beautiful it makes me cry
Write a novel
Own all the issues of the GrimJack comicbook series
Work in videogames
Work for BioWare
Inspire someone to change their life for the better
Fire a gun
Pending
Visit Antarctica
Visit Africa
Visit the Middle East
Visit South America
Learn Arabic
Visit North Korea
Visit Iran
Eat tiramisu in Rome
Really learn about wine, then drink an exceptionally good one in full appreciation
Publish a book
Spend a year traveling
Reach my ideal weight
Work on a farm
Work on a coffee grower’s farm in Ethiopia
Participate in international humanitarian work
Create a critically-acclaimed and successful original videogame
Own a café, bistrot, hostel or inn
Eat an animal I have killed myself
Save a human life
Reduce everything I own to what fits in a backpack
Jump from the cliff at Horseshoe Lake
Posted under Silliness by Daniel on 17.02.2009
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Wow, has it been a month already into my vegetarian experiment?
One month is long enough to start forming habits, and my vegetarianism is no exception. The simple fact is, I barely think about it anymore. As a matter of fact, others are starting to think about it for me.
Eating vegetarian is a personal decision, and not even one I feel that strongly about. It’s an experiment, so I’m more interested in observing my perception over time, than I am in ensuring my vegetarianism is strictly followed. I’m being strict with myself, don’t take me wrong; I just don’t expect other people to bend backwards for it.
But bend they do. I feel like I have acquired some disability by choosing to be a vegetarian, in the way people feel obliged to carefully consider this whenever food is discussed. They’ll triple-check to make sure a specific restaurant has vegetarian options, for instance, or feel bad if they suggest I should enjoy a meat-based dish. The attention is nice, mind you; I just wish people didn’t feel they had to inconvenience themselves so much to support my choice.
On the personal front, I’m absolutely not missing meat right now. I still look at cooking shows featuring meat and think “that looks delicious”, but I certainly don’t feel like having a steak right now. As a matter of fact, the one dish I have been craving for a week now is palak paneer.
I wouldn’t kill for it, exactly… But I would aggressively uproot a carrot.
I don’t know yet whether I’ll go back to being a regular meat-eater once this is over. I think I’ll definitely keep eating meat when I travel, since it’s important to me to be receptive of other people’s cuisines, and many of the world’s cuisines feature meat proeminently. I couldn’t turn down snake blood alcohol when it was offered to me as a gesture of hospitality in Vietnam, so I’ll definitely accept beef offered to me out of kindness and hospitality.
But my perception of meat as an every day meal is definitely changing. My meat eating had already gone down before I cut it out completely for 3 months, but I’m thinking of keeping my diet mostly vegetarian afterward, with meat being used rarely and as a special dish.
Then again, Helene predicts that within 3 months, I’ll actually grow to find meat disgusting. We’ll see… That would be a heck of a reversal for a 3 months period. But who knows? If that’s the case, I’ll definitely have learned something about myself.
Posted under Food by Daniel on 06.02.2009
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“We’ve never shot before. We’re looking for something fairly small, just to get a feel for it.”
“9 mil,” answers the cashier without hesitation. She’s Asian, petite and cute, in her early twenties.
“Right! Ok. But we’d also like something more powerful. See, we’re fans of videogames, and there’s a gun…”
“Desert Eagle.” The cashier flashes us a smile. She’s got us all figured out.
Dorian and I grin at each other: oh, it’s on. We’re about to shoot a gun for the first time in our lives, all in time to catch a movie. Just your typical Friday night at West Edmonton Mall.
*
Dinner and a movie. That was the Friday night Dorian, Helene and I had agreed on. But when we reached the movie theater, we realized we had 2 hours to kill. The movie theater being at West Edmonton Mall, we had a lot of options to kill time before the 10 PM showing, including glow-in-the-dark minigolf. That and the gun range.
I’m not a fan of guns. I recognize them as the lethal pieces of metal they are, and I’ve shunned them most of my life. I don’t think they’re glamorous, and although “guns don’t kill people”, they certainly make it a hell of a lot easier to do so. Even in videogames, I find the glorification of modern weapons to be troubling.
But I’m not one to pass up an experience, especially when it puts me outside of my comfort zone. And so, when Dorian suggested we visit the Wild West Shooting Centre in West Edmonton Mall, I knew I couldn’t pass up the opportunity.
Dorian and I stood in line while we waited for 2 booths to clear up. The firing range was much busier than I expected on a Friday night. The crowd was mostly young people, generally in their early twenties. There were some couples holding hands, and young girls gossiping as they waited for their turns. We all held a paper target; unsurprisingly, my zombie motif seemed pretty popular with the guys. The girls liked the cute-looking alien instead.
The range officer set up two booths side-by-side for Dorian and I. We had established through rock-paper-scissors that I would start off with the 9mm pistol. Dorian would be firing the Desert Eagle as his first shot.
I remarked to Dorian that it was a hell of a gun to first fire a shot with. The range officer laughed knowingly.
“It’s like losing your virginity to a hooker,” he said.
*
I have only ever held a gun once before. This time, though, I am loading the bullets one by one into the clip, loading the gun, and pulling back the barrel to chamber a bullet. I am holding a loaded 9mm pistol. I squeeze the trigger, trying not to blink from the expected bang.
Loud noise. A hole appears in my target.
The 9mm is instructive. I’m experiencing something new, and I can appreciate it on a philosophical level. How easy it is to point it, pull the trigger… it feels like you’re not part at all of that final hole in the paper.
After firing 10 rounds and emptying the clip, Dorian and I trade places. Dorian has a gleam in his eye from shooting the Desert Eagle. This should be good.
“When you’re about to fire, lean forward and push with your right hand. Pull back against your right hand with the left,” the range officer explains. This is to compensate for the recoil. Oh, gosh, he didn’t say anything about recoil on the 9mm, and yet I could feel it.
I load the Desert Eagle, and slowly squeeze the trigger. I push forward with the right hand, back with the left. I don’t know what to expect.
I fire.
Holy CRAP. I feel adrenaline coursing through my veins. The shot is loud, even through my ear protectors. Dorian exclaims from the booth over that my own shot has deafened out his 9mm.
In that moment I understand the allure of the gun. The Desert Eagle is a heavy piece of destructive machinery. One second it lies quiet in your hands, and the next a bullet explodes in the chamber that sends your arms backwards.
I like it. A lot. I line up for my next shot, feeling a bit sad already that I only have 4 bullets left.
*
Stepping out of the firing booth, Dorian and I had big grins on our faces. Helene, who had shot a gun before, had preferred to go shopping for clothes while we did the manly thing. She didn’t quite expect our enthusiasm coming out. We both showed her proudly the numerous holes we had punched in the paper zombies, then showed her the Desert Eagle in the counter.
The rush of power lasted a while. Never mind that we had very little to do with it in actuality; the only thing we did was give our bank cards to the cashier, then listen patiently to the range officer as he explained how to load a gun. But even then, the sense of immediate power when the gun goes off was hard to dispell.
I was left wondering how people felt about using this power against other human beings. Can it overcome the dread of what would happen?
If anything, this intimate encounter with live firearms has given me a greater respect for what they represent. Now I know not only its destructive potential, but also its allure.
Before leaving, I checked the price list. There was a range of rifles I was eager to try next time.
Oh yeah. There will be a next time.
Posted under Edmonton by Daniel on 02.02.2009
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