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Today in Toronto: Gryphon Trio, National Geographic Live and more

Caroline, or Change It was only a matter of time before the adventurous Acting Up put on this show by big-issues playwright extraordinaire Tony Kushner. Caroline, a black maid for a Jewish family in 1963 Louisiana, struggles with the swiftly tilting world outside the basement where she spends her days doing laundry. Find out more »

Gryphon Trio Annalee Patipatanakoon on violin, Roman Borys on cello and Jamie Parker on piano make up what is arguably the country’s most distinguished chamber ensemble, one that recently snagged a Juno for best classical album. Find out more »

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The Dish

Culinary Curiosities

January 19, 2012 | 10:19 am

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Meat grown in a lab could grace our plates by year’s end (but it probably won’t)

Could this be in our near future? (Probably not)

In vitro meat is one of those futuristic products that feels like it belongs to a future full of hovercraft, silver jumpsuits and Leonardo DiCaprio dropping into our dreams. Imagine our surprise, then, to see an article in the Daily Mail bearing the unapologetically emphatic headline “Artificial meat grown in a lab could become a reality THIS year.” The article suggests that 2012 could be the breakthrough year for lab-produced meat (which could help ease world hunger, animal suffering, climate change, etc.), and even contains an, ahem, scientific-looking infographic to show how the process works (it’s worth a click). If you ask us, that timeline feels mighty optimistic; researchers profiled in recent issues of The New Yorker and The Walrus indicated that we’re still some distance away from sitting down for a nice cut of vat-grown rib-eye (doesn’t that sound lovely?). Read the entire story [Daily Mail] »

(Images: steak, FotoosVanRobin; petri dish, JamesZ_Flickr)

The Informer

From the Print Edition

November 10, 2011 | 1:05 pm

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Memoir: How a 59-year-old neuroscientist and university professor fell prey to opiates—again

By Marc Lewis

Memoir: Opium Dreams My family and I moved to the Netherlands from Toronto in the summer of 2010. I’d been a psychology professor at the University of Toronto for over 20 years, my wife, Isabel, had a research job at SickKids, and we were both offered faculty positions in Nijmegen, a nice little city near the country’s eastern border. We were feeling a bit stagnant, our twins were still young, and it seemed like a good time for an adventure. But hauling suitcases and children from Canada to Europe took its toll on my 59-year-old body.

According to the MRI, I was developing what’s loosely called sciatica. The nerves in my lower spine were getting squished, causing pain in the back of my legs. In September, the pain was bothersome; by early October, it spurted intermittently like a sulphurous geyser; and by late October it was excruciating—an ugly, dirty pain that lived like a demon in my body. I sometimes let out a screech when rolling over in bed at night, which freaked the hell out of Isabel and embarrassed me to no end. “Go back to sleep, it’s not that bad,” I’d say. But really it was.

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The Hype

To-Do List

November 2, 2011 | 3:05 pm

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The Weekender: Don Giovanni, Literary Death Match and six other events on our to-do list

Phillip Addis as Don Giovanni, giant pumpkins at the Royal Winter Agricultural Fair, Matthew Good

1. LITERARY DEATH MATCH TORONTO
In this singularly silly lit event, four authors (Grace O’Connell, Carolyn Black, Rebecca Rosenblum and Dani Couture this time around) give readings of their best pieces of writing. After each reading, the panel of judges (poet Ryan Kamstra, comedian Lindy Zucker and National Post books editor Mark Medley) offer up American Idol–esque commentary (more Paula than Simon) before narrowing the field to two finalists, who compete in a madcap showdown (last time involved throwing cupcakes at a poster of Margaret Atwood). November 6. $10. Gladstone Hotel, 1214 Queen St. W., 416-531-4635, literarydeathmatch.com.

2. THE ROYAL AGRICULTURAL WINTER FAIR
Even the hippest Torontonian could use a little rodeo in their lives now and again. The annual fair is back in town, with its gigantic horses, veggies of unusual proportion, craft shopping and the ever-popular SuperDogs. We do have one small beef with this longtime Toronto tradition: why does it have to be called the winter fair? For the record, it’s still fall, and we’re not nearly ready for winter yet. November 4 to 13. $22. Ricoh Coliseum, 100 Princes’ Blvd., 416-263-3400, royalfair.org.

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The Dish

Bottoms Up

October 4, 2011 | 2:02 pm

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Australian scientists developing “stay sober” pill to combat excessive drunkenness

The Adelaide Herald is reporting that Australian scientists are developing a pill that helps over-indulgers in alcoholic bevvies stay sober. According to scientists at the University of Adelaide, the pill aims to limit the effects of alcohol on a drinker’s brain as well as stop cravings for alcohol in general. The pill has been extremely successful thus far on murine drinkers.

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The Informer

From the Print Edition

September 29, 2011 | 10:25 am

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Jan Wong: how the rise of horticultural training at Toronto schools is bad for students

While we’re busy teaching our kids to tend school gardens, they’re failing provincial tests in reading, writing and math. The folly of the new enviro-propaganda

(Illustration: Tavis Coburn)

This fall, hundreds of Toronto students are harvesting beets and zucchini from their school gardens. I say: nice photo op, bad idea. The argument for school gardens assumes that by grubbing in the dirt, kids will learn to love eating vegetables. They won’t think chickens hatch into this world as deep-fried nuggets. And they’ll develop a respect for nature.

Here’s the counter-argument: our students shouldn’t be out scrabbling in the hot sun when one in five can’t pass the Grade 10 literacy test administered by the provincially funded Education Quality and Accountability Office. And while Canadian students score high internationally in reading, mathematics and the sciences, Statistics Canada says our relative ranking is declining due to improved performance by other countries. In this era of global competition, we can’t afford to let other nations nip at our heels.

Half of Toronto’s population was born outside Canada, and it’s a safe bet many of them came here for a better life, including a good education for their offspring. A lot of immigrants originate from agrarian regions of countries such as India, Pakistan, China and the Philippines. The last thing these newcomers need is a morality crusade about carrots. Yet more than 200 of Toronto’s nearly 600 public schools now have gardens, and an army of well-meaning parents, volunteers, activists and advocacy organizations with a social agenda is successfully lobbying for more.

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The Dish

Foodie Follies

September 7, 2011 | 2:16 pm

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Attention food science nerds: Foodpairing.com’s Bernard Lahousse brings taste into the lab in two talks this week

Lahousse in the lab (Image: Sense of Taste)

Chefs often speak of perfect pairings, particularly in food and wine. While most accept that certain flavour combinations just work, a team from Belgium has developed a popular tool based on the principle that foods combine well with one another when they share major flavour components (the working philosophy of The Fat Duck’s Heston Blumenthal). The Foodpairing database features 1,000 ingredients, along with their corresponding flavour profiles, and is beloved by food science nerds the world over. We spoke to Bernard Lahousse, science research director at parent company Sense for Taste (who was in town this week to present at the Pangborn Sensory Science Symposium) about how these innovative tools are used by professional chefs, home cooks and, increasingly, bartenders and mixologists.

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The Informer

The New Normal

July 15, 2010 | 11:22 am

2 Comments

Hogweed hits Hogtown: plant oozing blindness-causing goo spreads through Toronto

The G20 summit may be over, but now Toronto faces a new calamity in the form of hogweed, a gigantic poisonous plant that’s recently been spotted in the Don Valley and even backyards. The weed, which also goes by the hilarious name giant cow parsnip, has been spreading across the country and is covered in a sap that’s downright brutal: contact with the sap, in addition to potentially causing cancer and birth defects, can lead to inflammation, blisters, permanent scarring and even blindness. It’s the worst thing to hit the Don Valley since the DVP.

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The Dish

Culinary Curiosities

June 3, 2010 | 4:40 pm

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Cellphones may be killing bees, disrupting food supply

Can you hear me now? (Image: David Blaikie)

In addition to making humans dumber, cellphones might be contributing to an ecological and culinary disaster known as electrosmog. Indian researchers recently released a study that links cellphone radiation to the drastic drop in bee populations occurring throughout Europe and North America. The implications of a rapidly declining bee population are far-reaching, seeing as how about one third of the food we eat depends on pollinators, according to bee expert Laurence Packer from York University. That includes apples, avocados, nuts and squash, to name just a few.

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The Hype

Cinemania

June 3, 2010 | 11:30 am

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Splice: the drinking game

The latest entry in the Canadian horror genre, Splice, creeps into theatres Friday. In his cautionary tale about two renegade scientists (played by Adrien Brody and Sarah Polley) obsessed with their latest creation—a human-animal hybrid named Dren—Cube director Vincenzo Natali manages to make winter, farms and Polley (Canada’s sweetheart!) come across as really, really creepy. And we haven’t even touched on the laboratory scenes. Dull your growing sense of dread with a lash or two (or 10) of your favourite booze. You’ll need it. Our Splice drinking game, after the jump.

Best of broth worlds: ranking canned soups (Photo by Pablo Diaz)

• ’Tis the season for warm, hearty food—even canned soup. New York’s chief restaurant critic, Adam Platt, does a blind taste test of two dozen store-bought varieties. His discerning palate can tell right away which one is Campbell’s (“It’s immediately synthetic and metallic”), and his favourites remind him of childhood (“It makes me want to crumble up crackers in it, watch Leave It to Beaver, cry, punch my brother and stay home from school”). The winner: Wolfgang Puck Organic Classic Tomato With Basil. [New York Magazine]

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