Gold Medal for Desperation

As of today we are almost half way through the Apocalympics (not my original word, unfortunately). The whole thing seems to be plagued by one unfortunate event after another. Bad weather, protesters, training accidents, planning snafus and tragically a death. I'm thinking that the organizers are tipping back a few stiff ones in the evenings to get through it all.

On top of all of this, comes the national (or perhaps just media) hysteria over gold medals. For several years we have all been hearing about the 'Own the Podium' initiative that is supposed to funnel more money to athletes for training so that they can increase their chances of a medal (preferably gold, one supposes) during these and future Olympics. It doesn't help that Canada, up until a few days ago, had never won a gold medal at an Olympics that was hosted here. Leading up to the Olympics attention was focused on who could potentially win medals and when they would be won. What must it be like for these athletes? What happens, if for some reason, they don't perform as well as expected?

The pressure must be incredible. All for a sporting event that only happens every four years. Not to brag or anything, but I'm raising three children who, like every other child in the country, is the future of this country. As corny as it sounds, all of these kids will be the next teachers, doctors, lawyers, politicians… the leaders of this country. Guess how many people are looking over my shoulder as I get them ready for life? I don't have commentators estimating my chances of raising the next Nobel laureate.

With these huge expectations it is, of course, the athlete who loses out. I enjoy a great come from behind victory as much as anyone else. I am, for all my nit picking, a proud Canadian. But let's keep things in perspective. Let's support our athletes by taking some of the pressure off them and results. Should we expect them to do their best? Absolutely. Should we get our knickers in a twist if they don't perform as well as we think they should? No. But never fail, every four years (every 2 years if you count the summer games as well), the national self doubt sets in. So instead of properly funding sports and recreation with ongoing support for proper training and preparation we panic, throw money at the 'problem' in bursts and hope that this will somehow solve things. That we will be able to 'Own the Podium'. Are we really so desperate for a small piece of medal to represent our worth as a country?

All of the Goodness, None of the Flavour

I don't know what it is like at your house, but here at Rancho Relax-o I tend to do most of the meal preparation and baking. My bride can and does cook and bake well. But for some reason I do most if it. Don't know why or how it ended up this way but there it is. I just usually end up in front of the stove when it's time to cook something. Not all the time, but most of the time. I don't mind that. I actually enjoy preparing the meals and planning the menu. Cleaning things up afterwards – not so much. Most of the time things turn out well. Sometimes things go off the rails.

One of my recent successes was with an Irish stew. After browning the beef and adding the onions and garlic, instead of adding water to simmer the meat in, I pour in a bottle or two of stout (you know the super dark, heavy beer, like Guinness, only I use my own brew) and let it simmer away for a couple of hours and then add the rest of the veggies and such. MMmmmm. Delicious if I do say so myself. Even the kids like this stew and they eat like they've been cast members on Survivor whenever it is served.

Then there are those dark days when things don't go so well. The kids love to recount the one and only time the breadcrumb topping on the seafood casserole actually caught fire in the oven. To hear them tell it you would think that a fiery rain was pouring down from the heavens.

Just today we have another unexpected event to add to the annals of family gourmet history. My lovely bride, in an attempt to cut back on packaging and to try and keep us eating healthy made some cookies. They were the oatmeal, low fat, high fibre, chocolate chip, twigs and bark, non peanut butter kind of cookies. Looking at the recipe you would have thought that these cookies had it all. That's what we thought. Taking each of the ingredients on their own, these cookies should have been great. How can you go wrong with milk chocolate chips? They even called for a little butter! Great we thought! So off she went to make these gastronomic wonders.

Fast forward a couple of hours and the cookies were cooled and ready for eating. They looked great and so I took large bite of one and was overwhelmed with the lack of taste. They had the look of cookies and the texture of cookies and the weight of cookies but none of the flavour of cookies. They were like eating crunchy air, or warm ice or something. Lots of flash but no substance. Just kind of blah. So now we have these wonderful cookies that are good for us and the environment and no one will eat them. Not even my bride, who would usually eat them just to prove a point, won't go near them. They've been sitting on the counter all evening, like some sort of nutritious leper colony. I'm half convinced that even other food is slowly edging itself away from these things. All of the goodness and none of the flavour. Perhaps if we let them age like wine flavour will develop.

Maybe some cream cheese icing and chocolate sauce would salvage them.

Six More Weeks Of Winter

Well, for those of us in the North America, what seems to be both the most eagerly awaited and the most dreaded day on the calendar has come and gone. I speak of course of Ground Hog Day. Yes, it is true. We base our hopes for an early spring on a rodent that is yanked from its burrow by some guy in a top hat and whether or not we think it sees its shadow. What a fool proof system. Thank goodness we haven't spent loads of money in setting up weather monitoring stations and developing computer programs for modelling weather systems. Oh, wait… D'oh!

Anyway, I digress. Back to the most eagerly awaited part. My youngest child, who is 6 years old, was incredibly excited about Ground Hog Day this year. All we heard from her for days was "It's almost Ground Hog Day," and many variations of this, several times a day and sometimes a couple of times an hour. Ground Hog Day hysteria was sweeping the house. My bride and I could not understand this whole interest in what is essentially a made up 'holiday', which if you care to look at your calendar, has no impact on the length of the winter. Any more excitement over this and we thought we might have to invest in a scale replica of a ground hog to set up in our living room.

So, anyway, the big day comes and my daughter gets home from school and wants to know "Did the ground hog see it's shadow?" To which I said, "Which one?", because there are about 10 or so different rodents who 'predict' the coming of spring. My humour was of course lost on her, so I broke the news that, yes, it saw it's shadow and that there would be six more weeks of winter. Her face crumpled in disappointment and I stood dumbfounded at her reaction this piece of ridiculous news.

After she got over her initial disappointment and some questioning on my part, I came to find out that it was not whether or not spring was going to come early that was her concern. In her mind she figured that if spring came early then so would her birthday! I don't know if she thought that the 6 weeks that lie between Ground Hog Day and the first day of Spring would just disappear or what, but… Needless to say that after the kids had hit the hay for the night my bride and I had a good laugh at the logic behind the desire for an early birthday.