Skip to content
Join our Newsletter

Time for your cup to runneth over...

Cogito ergo sum.
opinion_maxedout1

Cogito ergo sum.

In the 17th century world of René Descartes, the proposition he put forth — I think, therefore I am — was a radical thought, setting the stage, as it did, for much of what we like to think of as enlightened western philosophy, navel gazing though it may be. After all, it posited the individual, I, as the centre of an admittedly confined but very important universe. It also freaked out the Church and was, therefore, of even greater import.

There is a bizarre moment in an even more bizarre film, The Tenant, where a very inebriated Roman Polanski wonders aloud about the relationship between the self and the corporeal representation of the self — one's body. He asks his totally disinterested companion, at what precise moment does an individual stop being who he thinks he is?

He proceeds to expand on this question. "Cut off my arm. I say, 'Me and my arm.' Cut off my other arm. I say, 'Me and my two arms.' Take out my stomach, my kidneys, assuming that were possible, and I say, 'Me and my intestines.' But now, if you cut off my head... would I say, 'Me and my head... or me and my body?'

"What right had my head to call itself me?"

I don't know the answer to that question and I've often wondered about it since seeing the film in 1976. And if I haven't lost you yet, I probably will when I tell you it really doesn't have anything particularly to do with this column. Meh.

Edo ergo sum.

I eat, therefore I am. Edo will never swing the philosophical weight of Cogito but on a day-in, day-out basis, it is a much more pleasant conundrum to cogitate, don't you think? I eat every day. I think about eating every day. And these days, I've found myself thinking about eating way more than I find myself eating.

I wasn't sure exactly why until one of my increasingly faulty synapses connected with the tiny bit of memory storing the dates for this year's Cornucopia. It starts today! And it runs 11 days this year! And now I've used up the rest of the year's allotment of exclamation marks... albeit all for a good cause.

When the muni's FE&A group — Festivals, Events and Animation — was casting about for proposals for an autumnal festival upon which to lavish RMI funds, my first thought was, 'We, already have a fall festival — Cornucopia. And when you get right down to it, what better things to fete in the fall than food and wine?

After a summer of dash-n-go eating, salads, burgers on the barbie, road food, deep-fried butter at the PNE — never tried it, never will, but obviously some do — and a handful of this, handful of that variety of nourishment, autumn is the time when people begin to think about food again in much the same way they think about other cold weather comforts.

I was explaining this the other day to a friend who seemed unusually enamoured with an admittedly comely waitress. While frequently an ogler, he is rarely wistful. I explained it was the time of year. "It's fall. It's getting colder. In autumn, a person's thoughts turn to comfort and nothing is more comfortable than knowing you have someone warm to slip into bed with on a cold winter's night. That's why so many relationships begin as the days grow shorter."

And nothing sublimates for a missing mate like a big pot of soup or stew simmering on a slow stove while the snow falls and the bedsheets remain ice cold. Might not be what you want but it's a whole lot more available and there's no need to compromise; you want tofu in your stew, go for it, you poor delusional fool.

Let's be honest, there's not all that much to celebrate in the fall other than food and drink. Thanksgiving is all about being thankful for a harvest and what better way to give thanks than wolfing down enough turkey to induce a triptophan coma? Halloween is all about being thankful you don't have to live on mini chocolate bars all year long after eating enough of them to put your dentist's children through college. Dia de Muertos, Mexico's Day of the Dead celebrations even include feeding the dead! (OK, I lied.) Remembrance Day doesn't have to seem much to do with food and more is the pity. If we were clever, we'd find a way to include a feast in honour of our fallen warriors, sort of a last post, last meal affair.

If fall is about celebrating food and FE&A want a festival, what better place to start than Cornucopia? And what better way to than blowing it up to 11 days? Those were rhetorical questions.

There may be those who wonder whether such an expanded version of Cornucopia might not be too much of a good thing. Let me assure you, it's not. Of course, given 11 days to fill, there are some offerings that may sound — how should I put this, fringe? — but unless you've been living under a cabbage leaf for the past decade, you can appreciate what's fringe today may be, OK, not mainstream but somewhat less fringe tomorrow.

Paleo, for example. For those of you who wonder why your friends no longer come for dinner and prefer to eat like their cavepeople ancestors, there's an introduction to paleo. For those of you who have abandoned the notion of everything to moderation and have begun to hunt your own mastodons, there's even an advanced paleo offering, if advanced paleo isn't too much of an oxymoron, sort of a Neanderthal morphing into Cro-Magnon kind of thing.

For those of us who believe the Creator — or Trader Joes, if you prefer — put everything on earth for us to enjoy, there are sessions devoted to malt whisky, sausage, wine, cheese making (and, of course, eating), cocktails, comfort food, tequila, the 100-mile distillery diet (kidding), roll your own sushi and guilt-free holiday entertaining. Personally, I believe all holiday entertaining is guilt-free. It's the post-holiday battle of the bulge that leads people to do things they regret... join gyms, for example.

But if you're prone to food-induced guilt, there are morning meditation sessions where you can try and put those negative thoughts out of your mind. There are also morning yoga sessions where you can remember why you shouldn't do yoga on a full stomach and hungover head. Keep it down, dog.

And best of all, there's Crush this Friday and Saturday evening at the Conference Centre. Everybody who's anybody, at least in the wine-making world, will be there, pouring their best just for you. There will also be a silent auction with proceeds going to your very own library so bring your appetites and your generousity.