The Return of the GMO

I just bit into an apple and it’s like I’m eating cardboard – there’s no apple taste.

It’s similar to the strawberries they sell at Safeway. You know the ones I’m talking about, the ones from California that look so big and juicy, you have to look twice to check if they're the fake ones they sell at IKEA. We did the whole u-pick thing out in Ladner a few weeks ago and I came home with a couple buckets full of tiny bright red berries that look like runts next to the Californian Safeway ones. You take a bite and the flavour is just incredible, oozing redness onto your tastebuds. The fake looking ones just can’t compare, they’re almost tasteless.

Is this the way produce is going? Big and beautiful to feed millions, and did we mention – your meal tastes like cardboard? Actually, I’m sure cardboard has a more earthy wood taste and has more flavour than a GMO strawberry.

This makes me angry because I’m not loaded with cash to afford organic Fair Trade groceries, it’s a barrier to my rights. The farmer markets are great, as are the health food stores, but let’s face it; when I go through the cash register with a small tray of blueberries, I have to consider taking out a personal loan for it.

A friend recalls going to India when she was little and that the food was packed with flavour. A few years ago, she went back and the food just doesn't taste the same. It’s happening all over the world.

If the slogan is “Go big or go home,” I think it’s time I jet. . .

Ode to JJ Bean

A friend just got me a one-person coffee contraption from Montreal, which gave me the perfect excuse to rush down to JJ Bean. (And of course each time has an excuse. Hey, it’s Wednesday, time to celebrate! Oh, today is July, congratulations. . .)

I enjoy my latte at JJ Bean like nobody’s business. Strong enough with the right amount of taste, aroma, not to mention it’s Fair Trade and organic, yadda yadda. Don’t worry - I’m not going to get into the oak barrels and hint of berry on the palate monologue from Sideways.

The experience of consuming milky java concoctions on the patio to people watch can’t be paralleled but they raised the prices recently and I need other alternatives. For the first time, I buy their freshly ground beans and once that warm paper bag packed with caffeine granules is in my palm I am so excited, I can burst.

“Do people ask for non-Fair Trade, non-organic coffee here?” I wonder to my friend.
“They probably carry it,” she says after a long sip of her latte. The barista took the liberty to trace a nicely curved leaf on the foam this time.

So this morning, I’m enjoying fresh DIY coffee. No more poor woman’s coffee (your very own line of filtered False Creek water at the office). Hmm. . .what’s next? I might possibly graduate to a French press and then maybe the high-tech Barista 3000 with the full pumps and foam agitator. Yuppie-living here I come. . .

There's a bomb on this bus

17:17, Friday July 8
I rush off the Skytrain at Joyce Station to catch the 41 bus and I make it just as the bus driver checks to see if everyone’s on board and ready to go. The bus is filling up but I manage to get a seat by the window, the row right in front of the back doors. A woman sits down sideways beside me, her legs facing the aisle of the bus and her boyfriend who is chatting with her stands behind her seat by the doors. The driver closes the front doors and starts his course towards Oak and 41.

My mind wanders and I open my book to a page near the end of a chapter. It’s Catch-22, a book I had put aside for a few years.

17:24
With my trench coat scrunched on my lap and my bulky purse squished on the coat, I sit quietly half-reading and half-dozing off. Suddenly, I hear a pop sound like the bursting of a helium balloon. As passengers around me gasp, I look up from my book to see like bits of yellow scraps lingering in the air by the air. The bus is stopped and people are getting up, hurriedly heading off their seats to the door. My initial reaction is to grab my things and I scramble to follow the crowd off the bus.

“What was that?”
“I can’t breathe!”
“What happened??”
“Something exploded. . .”
“Does anybody have water??” Somebody is yelling.
“My eyes, my eyes.”

I think of the London bombings I read about yesterday - some Vancouverite might have been inspired by international news. The bus is off the side of the road by a bus stop - everybody is standing on the grass. A few people are helping a young woman by pouring water on her eyes, down her red face. A man emerges from the house by the bus stop asking if we need help.

“It’s cayenne pepper,” somebody says. “Pepper bomb.”
“Ugh, I can taste it in my mouth.”
“Ow, my face is burning.”
“Does anybody need water?”

A skinny South Asian woman is tearing up and quietly moaning.
“It’s okay,” I say to her. She doesn’t seem to understand.
“Am I going to go blind?” The anxious woman with the red face asks randomly. “Can somebody call the ambulance?”

17:32
I’m on my phone with the Vancouver police. It’s my first time calling them and my right cheek is starting to burn. I tell them where we are and hand the phone to the woman who sat beside me. She seemed to have seen a lot more of what happened on the bus to give them details. I’m pouring water on my face from somebody’s drinking bottle and it doesn’t seem to help.

“What can I do to get rid of this?” I ask a guy who was pouring water down his face earlier.
“Just keep washing it off, it’ll go away.”

17:38
I survey the scene and the South Asian woman is crying. “They’re on their way,” I tell her.
“Oh, you called 911 too?” Somebody asks me.

Another bus comes along and a couple of people board it. I rub my stinging cheeks and run towards the bus, not knowing what else to do. The bus pulls away and I hear sirens, a fire truck has arrived.

My phone rings. It’s the Vancouver Police.
“Did you see who did this?”

Luckily the woman and her boyfriend are also on the bus. I give the phone to her and she tells him about a guy who was sitting in front of her. The bomb exploded in his bag and then he sprinted off. She hands me the phone when she is done. My heart is still racing when I get to my stop.