Ottawa a city of refinement

Ottawa is Canada’s capital city and I finally visited it last month after nearly 10 years in Canada. The rationale why it became the capital was not entirely clear to me. Now I know. Ottawa was a compromise choice because of the long rift between the English and French and the cities that grew into today’s urban giants, namely Toronto and Montreal.

The mixture of English and French is quite fascinating

. What I envisioned as a dull, boring provincial city turned out to be a marvelous experience. Ottawa is definitely not just the political capital. The National Arts Centre is a focus for theater, opera and ballet. And the National Gallery can boast of more than 25,000 outstanding artworks and is Canada’s premier collection of the fine arts. Ottawa is a city of some refinement and is a place where bilingualism (English and French) seems to thrive.

One of the reasons for m Ottawa trip was to attend the graduation of a close friend who took a catering course at Le Cordon Bleu Paris Ottawa Culinary Arts Institute. The graduation was followed by a sit-down dinner, prepared by the graduating class, supervised by the chef instructors.

One of the top chefs in the prestigious school is a Filipino originally from Paete, Laguna. His name is chef Armando Baisas. His fascinating career as kitchen artist and garde-manger started with the Hilton International Hotel Group, working in the Philippines, Kenya, Cyprus, Egypt and Sudan. In 1987, Baisas and his family moved to North America and took the position of chef sculptor/garde-manger at the Vista International Hotel in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania then moved to Hilton Hotel in Montreal, Quebec. He later joined the Montreal Casino where he was discovered by the school. Chef Baisas joined the Le Cordon Blue in the fall of 2000 as chef sculptor/instructor. The 22nd Vancouver International Film Festival started last Sept. 22 and ended Oct. 10. The lineup included 324 features and 75 shorts. There were 11 world premieres, 40 international debuts but there was no Tagalog films in sight. Maybe Montreal and Toronto already got the best picks from a lean selection of commercial, badly-made Philippine movies.

Well, it is better to have no Philippine representation than showing leftovers and bottom of the barrel variety that got rejected from other minor international film festivals.

Here are some fascinating Canadian tidbits.

• The country’s top nutritional experts say that carbohydrates should be labeled good or bad, just the way fats are and that mashed potatoes and white bread are dietary evil. In general, starchy foods like refined grain products and potatoes have a high glycemic index – 50 per cent higher than table sugar.

• Canadian research discovered that the first puff of a cigarette could be enough to hook a young teenager into addiction. A study showed that some young people showed signs of nicotine dependence long before they demonstrated any heavy daily tobacco use.

• Statistics Canada reported that nearly-fifth of middle-aged Canadians said that they will never retire and one-third of today’s middle-aged people feel financially unprepared for retirement. Fewer than one Canadian in 20 currently continues working after the age of 70. Quebec and Manitoba are the only provinces that do not have a mandatory retirement age. The typical retirement age in other provinces is 65.

• Canadian teens scored in the Top 5 in international tests in reading, math and science, even though their class sizes are the largest in the Western world. Only Finland outperformed Canada on the reading literacy component.

• Tony ‘n’ Tina’s wedding is the longest running play in Vancouver and possibly the most profitable. The dynamics of the show is that the audience act as invited guests who gets involved with some troublesome relatives of the bride and groom. All get caught up in a family feud during the wedding ceremony and reception. As a new twist for a fund-raising event, the producers tried something new by making the latter-day Capulets —vs- Montague battle to be played out around two guys in love. Thus, the re-named version is Tony ‘n’ Tino’s Wedding. The producers did not expect a controversy by noting that their production last year of Corpus Christi did not draw any controversial fire despite offering the controversial premise that Jesus was gay.

That’s because Vancouverites have better things to do and think about. Most believe that minds are like parachutes, they only operate when open.