Big Enough?
© Dave Preston 2003

Okay, so mine's not the biggest you're likely to feast your eyes on. In fact, and I'll be honest, it's probably quite small. By most standards. But it works, and anyway it's not the size it's how you use it, right? My wife thinks it could do to be a bit bigger, and she'll often coax it in that direction, sometimes with a little help from her mother. All the women I work with know its limitations, but they're very kind and never mention it.

I've always known it would never get very big. When I was thirteen I slept over at a friend's house and saw his, going on for almost ever in all its glory, and I couldn't believe my eyes. See, we went to a school where you had to wear a uniform, complete with Latin mottoes and rugby, so I'd never seen how big his was, I just knew mine was small, 'cause I lived on a farm and we didn't have much money.

I'm talking about wardrobes, of course, the number of garments you have in your closet, and being a modest guy I'm sure my wardrobe is smaller than average. Mind, it's a lot bigger than when I was thirteen. Back then I had two pairs of jeans, maybe four T-shirts, a couple of dress shirts and my Sunday Best outfit for church. Underwear is assorted and for a few glorious weeks after Christmas and Father's Day my socks often match.

It's still not that big, though, because I'm stuck to the Less in More theme like a teen sticks to a phone. After a slap on the bum, the delivering doctor slipped me into a pair of Levi's and I've been happy in 'em ever since.

I wear black, mostly. Not because I'm in mourning, or to save on laundry or to boast that I don't have dandruff, but just because I like black. It matches my dog, my boots, and some of my hair. Black's amazingly versatile, good for weddings or funerals, interviews, and it lends a certain credibility to a witness stand. Black can also make you look taller, especially if you're a basketball player.

Deep down, I'm still superficial. Unless you're skiing or old enough to remember Roy Rogers, brevity is the soul of underwear. But again mine's black. Oh, except for the socks, and then I like red.

I do have a tie. Someone who obviously doesn't know me very well bought it for my last birthday. It's a loud, colourful affair, with a Disney character on. Fortunately it's 38" long so I can still tie a knot after it's gone around my waist. Just.

My friend also has a small one, most of the time. He'll spend months wearing jeans and a sweatshirt, then he'll confess to Closet Envy and suddenly dive into mall to spend on clothes. I think he's mannequin depressive. As for me, I save big money by diving into bargain bins for cheap Third World cotton garments that look great, until you actually wear them or let them go through the laundry.

So, if you think size matters, well, go ahead. Buy me more stuff for Father's Day. But really, I'm content with what the good Lord and St. Vincent blessed me with. And besides, if I had a big one where the heck would I put it?



Flying high on a cloud of sweet PEAs
© 1998 by Dave Preston

Have you noticed how busy people are these days? Ask them to come to a poetry reading, or help you move a fridge, and chances are you'll hear a list of excuses as long as a Barry Manilow boxed set. Ask them to sit on a tasting panel to check out worth of chocolates, however, and suddenly no one is preoccupied with washing hair, combing the cat, collecting a lottery win, or anything else for that matter.

I corralled five confessed chocoholics in about the time it takes to unwrap a Kit-Kat, sat them around my coffee table, and gave them an evening in heaven. I couldn't decide if I felt more like Santa, the Easter Bunny, or some crack dealer, as I handed out dark, delicious, seductive samples. Hypnotic eyes rolled, and moaning sighs of ecstasy flowed around the room as delicate, playful nibbles slowly gave way to impassioned consummation, I mean consumption. I had to open a window.

But first, before we examine the play-by-play of the orgy, here's a historical word from our sponsors: the people who took a few beans, crunched them up, discovered chocolate, and made it the sweet international currency it is today.

Cocoa trees grow naturally to a height of fifty feet or more, and prefer wet areas within 10 degrees North or South of the equator. Central America's a good patch. The pre-Columbian Nicaraguans were into this brown gold so much they had a god of chocolate. So exalted was this idol that they routinely offered their sex lives to him, the men swearing to celibacy for thirteen days prior to planting the next crop of cocoa tree seeds.

Elsewhere, a character who personified wisdom and knowledge, Quetzalcoatl, apparently brought cocoa seeds from heaven to give to the Aztecs, who called the stuff xocoatl, and served a cold, frothy drink heavily spiced and laced with honey and vanilla. The beans were used as hard cash, a slave costing about 100 and a rabbit 15, which effectively tips their hand on culinary and humanitarian values.

Columbus was not impressed with xocoatl, not being sure how to pronounce it perhaps, but probably because he was more of a curry fan and was seeking a route to the spices of East India. A following Spanish explorer, Cortes, was more taken and wrote back to his king: "A cup of this precious drink permits a man to walk a whole day without food." As if you'd want to.

The Aztec Emperor, Montezuma II, wasn't a serious hiking fan but reportedly quaffed 50 flagons a day, culminating with a high-test blend from a golden goblet prior to entering his harem.

Spanish-Mexican society took to xocoatl it in a big way, and drank it in church at mass, much to the annoyance of a local bishop who openly chastised them. This censorious cleric was promptly bumped off when someone put something unsavoury, highly toxic actually, into his morning cup of, you guessed it, chocolate.

Cortes took the beans to Europe, changed the name to cacao, and it slowly spread, via aristocratic marriage gift-giving, through the land. An enterprising Frenchman took a sample across the Channel to England and opened up a store there in 1657. The English had heard about chocolate through the writings of traveller Thomas Gage, some ten years earlier, but this was their first taste - and it beat the hell out of chewing twigs or whatever they did up until then.

The elixir even got Catholic approval when a Cardinal of Rome declared "Liquidum non frangit jejunum," which basically meant it didn't break your fast and was fair game during Lent.
The Chocolate House took over from the fashionable seventeenth century coffee houses and in 1828 a Dutch chemist came up with a method of making cocoa powder, leading to a better drink and, finally, eating chocolate.

Basically, the beans coming out of the pod are pale almond-like things, covered in a sticky white pulp. They are fermented for several days under the cover of leaves at around 40 deg. C during which time they develop chemical flavour precursors. The bitterness diminishes and the beans turn brown. They are then dried, usually in the sun, and then roasted and shelled (the shells are bought and used by many Torontonians for garden mulch). The next step is to grind and heat the beans to make "liquor" which can be cooled and formed as baking chocolate, or squeezed to extract the cocoa butter and leave cocoa powder. Pure white chocolate is all cocoa butter, but needs milk and sugar to be palatable.

The first people to make the eating chocolate breakthrough were the English, which makes a change, at Fry and Sons in 1847. This was a Quaker-owned company, as were other major chocolate manufacturers, Rowntree, Terry, and Cadbury. These were peace-loving folk who disliked cocoa industry labour policies of the time. Most plantation workers were enslaved, even those on Portuguese-run island cocoa farms off the West coast of Africa. A genteel boycott eventually led to reform, thanks largely to the work of William Cadbury.

The industry was gaining momentum in Belgium too, and across the hills in Montreux, the Sechauds had the best idea of 1913 when they invented filled chocolates, or more correctly, a filling coated with chocolate.

Meanwhile, American Milton Hershey had been touring European factories, looking for ways to get into chocolate, to bolster his already-famous caramel business. Espionage wasn't Milton's forte and he had to come up with his own recipe for milk chocolate, from whence the Hershey Bar, from whence a whole city built in Pennsylvania devoted to a chocolate factory and the welfare of its workers. Hershey was so successful that they never advertised until 1968. The rest, as they say, is junk mail.

So what's the hook? Well, a chemical called phenylethylamine, or PEA, is evident in the brains of happy folk. Not a great deal is known about PEA, except that chocolate is loaded with it. And that's all we need to know for now. Let's go back to my den of iniquity where my guests are melting into a blissful bed of sweet PEAs.

Having run around downtown during the afternoon, purchasing samples from seven notable chocolatiers, and a supermarket, I had offered unmarked, broken pieces of dark and milk chocolate bars to the panel. Plates were numbered 1 - 7. Panelists had only two things in common - they loved chocolate, and they knew me well enough to be invited. I sat and listened as my brownweather friends tucked in, comparing notes and swapping confessions of indulgence, (you won't find skeletons in the closet of a chocoholic, only empty wrappers).

The first plate was "too bland" and left "an odd aftertaste." The second was "more chocolatey" and was generally "much better, it's real chocolate." By plate 3 we were waxing lyrical about its "good nose and smoothness" and the fact that it "lasts well" and "crumbles nicely." Subjectivity was deliciously rampant. According to CHOCOSUISSE, the distinguished association of Swiss chocolate manufacturers, good chocolate should be: "unblemished, and have a silky sheen. It should break crisply and cleanly, and smell of chocolate, not cocoa. It should melt in your mouth, like butter."

My panelists were beyond caring, but they knew what they liked. And what they disliked. Neophyte that I am, I'd foolishly put a sample of white chocolate out. Only two of them bothered to touch it, and bruised my fond memories of being the local Milky Bar Kid in the mid-sixties.

Votes were carefully cast, manufacturers revealed, and revelations made. For plain chocolate, from bars costing anything from 64 cents to over , Coco's came first by majority vote. The least favourite was a unanimous decision and surprised all of us, (it would surprise both of you but I prefer not to divulge - I'd rather point in the right direction than away from the wrong).

As for filled chocolates, prices had ranged from around to for 100 grams, the average individual chocolate tipping my postal scales at around 15 grams. First place went to a representative of the industry's minor league - The Old Victoria Gourmet Fudge Company, a quaint little place run by a young brother and sister down the steps in Trounce Alley.

During my research I have become indebted to several people (chocolates are on their way, honest) and I've even learned how to remove chocolate stains. One thing I haven't learned how to remove, though, is a group of people who are lying around on my living room furniture, sipping white wine and exchanging tales of how they get their "quick fixes" of Montezuma's other revenge. An Aero bar, apparently, is considered fair nibbling, but when I offered that I was partial to a Snickers, I was shot several looks that left the Milky Bar Kid feeling not so strong and tough. He felt as if he'd PEAd in the hot tub.


Clayoquot - Hearing the Sound of Potential.
© Dave Preston 1999

Stress: the infinitely renewable worldwide resource of the nineties.

Leaving the Tofino dock that Thursday afternoon, under a heavy grey sky so typical of the west coast of Vancouver Island, I couldn't help but smile at the name of the sleek and powerful boat I was on: Stressbuster. Heading firmly into Clayoquot Sound, debating the difference between low cloud and fog with my skipper cum host, Randy Goddard, we agreed that regardless of weather, this is one special place.

Just five years ago the sound was a tense battlefield of loggers and environmentalists, the scene of the largest, peaceful civil disobedience protest in Canadian history - more than 800 were arrested, some spending time in jail, with fines up to ,000. Stressful stuff.

But Clayoquot's still a natural west coast paradise, and one hell of a resource. One of the world's largest collections of intact old-growth temperate rainforest watersheds, with fjord-like inlets, huge tidal mudflats, a 5,000 year-old rainforest, alpine meadows, and soaring peaks... if you can make it here, you don't want to make it anywhere else. Goddard, a former high-end car salesman from Vancouver, knows that.

Pulling through a channel just 20 metres wide, we're suddenly in the calm shelter of tiny Quait Cove, north of Meares Island and just over a well-treed ridge from Bedwell Sound. We ease off the throttle to come alongside the dock at a small place that's all set to mine this area's healing potential: Clayoquot Wilderness Resort. Stressbuster has made a good start on its job and I step lightly into the lobby.

It's a woody old barge, lovingly and expensively re-modelled by the Monaco-based Genovese Family Trust into a luxurious 16-room floating inn, complete with hot tub, gym, and classy restaurant. Call it a fishing lodge and Goddard, the manager of operations here, will smile. Remind him that the resort's website is www.greatfishing.com and he laughs. "Yes, but I want to offer everything."

There is good fishing, of course, salt and freshwater, and the 51 hectare property also has two of its own small, pristine lakes where, he says, "Fish grab the fly before it hits the water."

Aside from fishing charters, some of them delivered to mountain lakes by floatplane, there's other wet relaxation on offer, via kayaks, canoes and small boats which can be rented. There's also a natural swimming hole tucked under a nearby rocky ledge, complete with waterfall, the temperature of refreshing Chardonnay. If your stress is better steamed away than chilled, as mine is, Goddard will take you in Stressbuster up the coast to the fabled Hot Springs Cove, with a damn good chance of seeing grey whales en route. I saw four.

The handful of staff at the lodge, some of whom live on a sailboat tied up out front, are friendly, keen, and do double or triple duty. The guy who brings a glass of wine to your overstuffed chair by the river rock fireplace might be the same guy who taught you basic kayaking skills that morning. And the guy who gives your palate something to remember Clayoquot by is Chef Timothy May, coaxed by the challenge of this locale from the prestigious 900 West restaurant in Vancouver.

"I'll use the freshest local produce I can find today," he says, and I'm reminded of the small black buoys, marking the scallop farm we came through just outside Quait Cove. "Bring me your fish and I'll prepare it for your dinner," he adds, though my time was spent watching, photographing and splashing around in wildlife, as opposed to catching it.

Shellfish, scallops, salmon, halibut and other seafood are harvested daily, and expertly combined with piquant fresh cheeses, herbs and produce from local suppliers. The resort's remote location makes daily baking a simple, but enjoyable necessity.

The impressive Table d'Hote menu I enjoyed that first night began with roasted leek and rhubarb soup with thyme crème crustini, followed by citrus salmon tartar and root vegetable ratatouille with tomato oil. Then there were swimming scallops, pan-seared crusted halibut, apple risotto... I think you get the picture. Frame it with minted poached pear, marscapone phyllo, and strawberry crème fraiche, light it with a warm glow from BC's finest wines... and you get a real nice picture.

Tofino residents and visitors were introduced to this new resort by dinner cruises, running daily throughout the summer. Sixty dollars per person bought a round-trip boat ride from the village, with naturalist tour en route, and a four-course meal in the dining room. Those wishing to stay the night could, if rooms were available. Rates are not at the low-end, but then neither is the neighbourhood.
Clayoquot Wilderness Resort sits like a jewel, surrounded by well-forested Crown land. It's one of the few private land holdings in the area, and people will pay for the privilege of spending a quiet time with a few wild neighbours. Really wild. As I strolled the deck that night, waiting for the oysters on the outside barbecue to reach steamy perfection, I watched a black bear just a napkin's throw away, foraging for his supper near the swimming hole.

The rooms are small, we're aboard a floating vessel after all, but comfortable, with down duvets and original artwork, and handsomely finished with lumber milled on the property. Commercial chainsaws quit screaming on this lot in the 1920s, but Goddard has been salvaging fallen wood and running it through a makeshift but effective mill, tucked away under a blue tarp behind a rock. There's an organic approach to everything, from the bathroom soap to the greenhouse full or herbs and lettuce out back. (The resort even got the blessing, quite literally, of the neighbouring Asouhaht First Nations tribe; elder Stanley Sam came to perform a cleansing ceremony when the place opened last May.)

Outside, past the boathouse and across the boardwalk that links the lodge to Vancouver Island, there's a stable, a few horses, and "Cowboy John" Caiton, with his pet hawk, Hannah. Cowboy John, who's also the General Manager, will trek you on horseback up into the mountains, or teach you to cast a fly. Hannah, meanwhile, will sit on his shoulder and offer you an irresistible photo opportunity. Almost as good as the bald eagles which hang out on cedar snags high overhead.

I spent three nights at Clayoquot Wilderness Resort, the third being unplanned and brought about by low cloud which prevented Tofino Air from taking me home. It was a memorable, incredible visit, and speaking as one who knows firsthand the painful effects of stress, I'd say it's a retreat worth taking. What the environmentalists fought so hard to protect can still be viewed as a saleable resource, and foreign dollars should start lining up.

No one knows how much money the logs of Clayoquot Sound would have brought on the world market, just as no one knows how much people can ask for a slice of wilderness experience which the chainsaws couldn't reach. Expect to pay almost for a night here, plus perhaps another for food. Rental of kayaks, horses, and other toys will run you from and up, which might seem expensive. But then, how much will stress cost you in the long run if it doesn't get busted?


Dave Preston's work has appeared in the following publications:
American Brewer ~ Banana Time ~ Beer ~ Notes ~ Big Island ~ Business Examiner ~ Business Report ~ Celebrator Beer News ~ CIPS Review ~ Cow Magazine ~ Current Comedy ~ Cut-To: ~ Détail Santé ~ Elder Statesman ~ Equinews ~ FM Times ~ Focus on Women ~ Gardens West ~ GCBF Guide ~ Great Getaways ~ Handyman News ~ Home Improvement Ideas ~ Horse & Rider ~ Island Parent ~ Island Visitor ~ Malton Gazette ~ Mature Living ~ Monday Magazine ~ North Texas Parent ~ Northwest Beer Notes ~ Pacific NW Best Places ~ Passage Magazine ~ Punch ~ Readers Digest ~ Reflecting Trends Magazine ~ Rental Monthly ~ Select Homes ~ Sidney Review ~ Smithsonian ~ The Final Frontier ~ The Island Grower ~ The National Enquirer ~ The Onion ~ The Topic ~ The Victoria News ~ The Victoria Weeklies ~ Toronto Star ~ Toronto Sun ~ Transitions Abroad ~ Victoria Boulevard ~ Victoria Magazine ~ Victoria Times-Colonist ~ Victoria Today ~ Wedding Bells ~ Weekend Edition ~ Westcoast Reflections ~ What's Brewing ~ Where Victoria ~ Whole Family ~ Yorker Magazine
(and others)