The Ice Cream Truck

The ice cream truck was here today! Wuz just enjoying the post-babecue rib glow a little after 8 pm (still bright outside -- hooray, summer is here!) and heard that familiar dun-de-dun-de-run-de-run musical theme. Jon quickly grabbed some change and queued up with the rest of the neighbourhood kids.

I looked out the window and saw Caitlin and the two girls followed by Jon, each with a cone in hand blissfully enjoying their treats.

Norm's ice cream truck marks the beginning of spring as much as the first robin or the sight of daffodil leaves thrusting through the soil. (It is a sad day in the fall when we all say goodbye to Norm for yet another season.) Part of the charm of our neighbourhood is the sight of children urgently dropping their usual play activities to line up for a soft vanilla cone or half vanilla/half chocolate (sometimes with sprinkles) at the first few notes of that annoying little ditty played by that truck. I thought at first that it was highly suspicious that Norm knew all the kids names by heart, but found it not so after discovering a) he knew the adults names, too, and b) his father owned the ice cream truck before him and inherited this route years ago.

When Norm's truck comes around, it heightens the Pleasantville feel of our neighbourhood -- that fifties feel -- when children played outside with no adult supervision, and neighbours knew and socialized with each other, and talked to each other over fence posts. One more look outside, and there's that scene again: children's bicycles abandoned in the middle of the street, Max, the cat, on a fence post intently watching a bushy tree, my husband strolling home licking an ice cream cone and chatting with the neighbours. Welcome to Pleasanville, 1952.

Garbology

Toronto has an enviable green bin program. It was introduced by the City about two years ago. In order to reduce the amount of garbage we dump across the border, we are being encouraged to separate our organics.

It's a beatiful system really: we sort the recyclables -- paper in the blue bin, tins and plastic in the grey bin (*note, the City is now piloting one superbin where you can add your paper, tins and plastic in one container so no more sorting) -- and the organics (including cat litter!) get added to the green bin, leaving the rest to the garbage. It's amazing what a difference this made.

As a household of two people, the City can collect once a month and we still cannot fill our garbage cans. It was a real eye-opener to realize that more than half of our household garbage is actually organic. The deal is that the City collects the organics every week and throw it in some major composter. Then in the spring and summer, the City sells the compost we get from this. A very neat system, really. I'm surprised they don't have it everywhere.

In any case, since every Tuesday is organics pick-up day, I've now set aside every Monday night to empty the fridge. As I was doing this tonight, it occured to me that there's a lot that can be learned from our lives by the kind of things we throw out.

Here's what I ended up throwing in the green bin:
- moldy, squishy Italian eggplant. I remember picking out this beautiful, shiny vegetable with visions of an Eggplant Parmigiana dancing in my head. Alas, I did not do it that weekend and the eggplant was shoved to the back of the vegetable "crisper" to languish and deteriorate. The one I threw out was more lilac-coloured than deep purple and very, very sad-looking. Other vegetables that needed to be thrown out: full head of Boston lettuce, three green onions, one serving of mesclun, fresh thyme and sage, nearly a full head of purple cabbage, two Yukon potatoes that are now sprouting, asparagus ends, lemon rinds, etc. etc.
- loukmades. I remember picking up two scoops of loukemades from a Greek bakery Jon and I discovered. I think I must have had some that afternoon, then packed up the rest in a Tupperware and shoved it in the fridge. Time to say bye bye to that although it still looks edible. It's been at least two weeks and I'm sure waaay past the freshness stage.
- leftovers: I had leftover congee (preserved egg and shredded pork), taro hot pot from a Buddhist vegetarian place, small bowl of hot and sour soup, half a grapefruit, a small tub of plum tomatoes, a container of tofu with hot chilis, half a loaf of sourdough bread, two cheese balls, etc. etc.
- others: coffee grounds with filter, papertowels, coffee skins (the kind that flakes off when you roast your own coffee)

In the garbage, here's what I threw out: shells of 15 oysters, waxy butchers paper, styrofoam from the takeout, and some flimsy plastic bags.

All the rest were recyclable: empty honey jar, tin of tomato soup, tin of tinned milk, orange juice carton, olive oil container.

I guess modern day garbologists will need not only sift through our garbage but our green, blue and grey bins as well. Experts going through our discarded stuff will probably say this about us:
- lots of good intentions but lacking in the follow through. How else do you explain vegetables that were obviously purchased for a particular purpose then left to rot?
- lazy cook or very busy judging by the take-out containers
- adventurous eater judging from the take-out containers
- must enjoy cooking because there were fresh herbs in the fridge
- must be recovering from a cold or something judging from the comfort food (congee) and the number of lemon rinds.

I guess all that would be true. The only statement I will probably argue with is the lazy cook part. I really, really wish I had more time to cook. But listen to me -- here I am blogging instead of carving out time to cook!