The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

The foods of Canada are very regional. It is a sad fact that we, as Canadians, rarely look inwards to appreciate the amazing quality of our foodstuffs. Why can't we realize that the strength of our culture is based in our diversity? The United States is a melting pot. Large culinary regions can be identified, that's about it. Here in Canada, perhaps because of our vast distances, communities still are able to be attached to their roots of generations past, yet we also can consider ourselves ' rampant, died in the wool nation- alists. Not too many countries share this privilege. Last week, we drove out through the snow covered fields of Waterloo County to purchase some freshly dried beans from a local farmer. They are wonder- ful...hard, white pearls. The bean soup that is cooling on the back deck is thick and meaty and as good as any that has ever come from my kitchen. It's smokey flavour comes from the remains of a home cured ham that I Anita Stewart Page 5, News, Tuesday, March 20, 1990 Good quality can be found right at home obtained from another farmer, this time in Wellington County. For dessert, the freezer provided some local, organically grown strawberries which I only have sweeten with a drizzle of honey, again from a bee-keeper near Arthur. What could be more regional...or more Canadian!?! WATERLOO COUNTY BEAN SOUP WITH HAM AND SMOKED SAUSAGE 1 Ib white beans, thoroughly washed 12 cups cold water 1 large meaty ham bone or 1/2 lb unsliced bacon 1/2 tsp. salt 1 cup minced onion 2 cups diced celery 1 clove garlic, minced 1 1/2 cups diced, lean ham 1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper 1 tsp dried marjoram 1/4 cup minced fresh parsley or 2 tbsps dried parsley 1 Ib smoked sausage, cut into small chunks. Place the beans in a large soup kettle. Cover with cold water and let stand for 8-10 hours. If your beans are fresh, the standing time can be reduced to 3-4 hours. Add the ham bone and salt. Cover, bring to boil and simmer for 2 hours. Stir in the onion, celery, diced ham, pepper and marjoram. Simmer for another hour. Add the parsley and smoked sausage. Cook gently for 30 min- utes. Makes 10-12 servings. SOURDOUGH DARK RYE BREAD I won't repeat the Sourdough Starter recipe because it has been printed several times over the past few months. 1 3/4 cups warm water 1 tsp granulated sugar 1 tbsp active dry yeast 1 cup sourdough starter 1/2 cup molasses 1/2 cup cooked leftover 7 grain cereal (optional) 2 tbsps cocoa, Dutch if available 1/4 cup vegetable oil 2 tsps salt 3 cups unbleached white flour 2 cups dark rye flour Rye flakes or wheat germ, as needed In a large warm bowl, stir together 1/2 cup of the warm water, the sugar and the yeast. Let stand for 7-10 minutes. "> Stir in the starter (don't forget to feed it before returning it to the refrigerator). Add the molasses, cereal, cocoa, oil, salt and white flour. Beat thoroughly. Add, about 1 1/2 cups of the rye flour, using the rest to spread on your work surface for kneading. Knead for 4-6 minutes. Wash and oil your mixing bowl. Place the dough into it, cover and let rise for 1 1/2 - 2 hours in a warm place. Punch down and shape into 2:round loaves. Grease two baking sheets and sprinkle with rye flakes. Place the loaves on top, slashing the upper surfaces with a sharp knife. Bake in Preheated 350 degree F oven for 35-40 minutes. Makes 2 loaves. World is stark...staring...mad, or is it me? Yer ole Baba could hardly believe her big ears the other day when she heard a certain inter- view on local radio station CBQ, It made me wonder if the whole world is going stark, staring mad, or is it just me? Am I so far out of it, that things like this just strike me as peculiar, or what?.. To elucidate. It seems that a certain Thunder Bay couple took up their thirteen-year-old son's challenge that he could last a whole six months without - wait for it! - without watching any television. Maybe it was for a whole year, but since I didn't get in on the beginning of this mad conversation, I missed the time element involved. Still, no mat- ter. It's what follows that matters. They promised to pay him FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS, if he could! Five hundred dollars to a thir- teen-year-old boy if he could unglue himself from in front of the Boob Tube whether it be six Olga Landiak Kennedy months, a year, two years or whatever! I'm still reeling from the shock of it. Have people got . SO much money to fling around these days they can afford to make mad gestures like this? And what about the example they are setting not only to their own kids, but to 'everybody else's who gets wind of it? Evidently, the deal was that the kid was to promise first that he would, quote "use the money sen- sibly", if he won. Did he? Well, I don't know about you, but I hardly consider spending a WHOLE five hundred smackeroos on new skiing equip- ment as being in the category of 'sensible'. Maybe it is to some people, but to my Scots-thrifty soul it is the height of materialis- tic depravation. Especially when you consider that that's practically a whole year's income to some peoples called Third Worlders. And yet this North American spoiled brat of a kid was actually lauded by Mum, Dad, siblings, friends and media people alike for his strength and fortitude. WHY? Has Boob Tubery got such a grasp on today's mentality, is it such a part of daily culture now, is it so engrained in the very psy- che, that one is worth five hun- dred bucks, a million yold stars, and all the praise in the world for ABSTAINING? I can't believe it. I just can't believe it. Friend-husband has lived all his life and I have lived most of mine without this insidious Blue- Eyed Octopus and we've survived very nicely, thank you, without any mental traumas or feelings of deprivation, and no one paid us one red cent let alone five hun- dred bucks to do it. Boy, at that going rate, we'd be worth a small fortune by now. Up to now, I should say, because just this past Christmas, we succumbed and purchased a small black-and-white portable with a screen as large as the tiny pictures one can now flash up on the Big Big Screens available today. But only to watch the rapid unfolding of events on the world stage, and such informative programs from which we can hopefully learn something. Thank goodness, there are still a few other lighter and CLEAN programs also available which do not completely offend the sensi- bilities. But we could just as easily "chuck the darn thing out the door tomorrow and not miss it one bit, and go back to all-time reading instead. Oh yes, that was about the only good thing to come out of this mad experiment with this Five-Hundred-Dollar Kid - he got to read an awful lot of books and so improved his school book assignments no end. If I was his mother, I'd tell him to stick to the reading, and NOT pay him one red cent for doing so. Who knows, he might even stand a chance of growing up to be liter- ate and knowledgeable. And de- spoiled. Liberals plead for less whining from North Premier David Peterson is reported to be thinking about when to call the next provincial election. He doesn't legally have to put his huge majority on the line until 1992, but we will likely be voting long before that. Peterson may call an election to bash Ottawa over the hammering Ontario received in the last feder- al budget, to fight the GST, or to seek a fresh mandate to really tackle environmental issues. Or, he may be motivated to call the election before the new provincial Tory leader has a chance to make much of a dent in the opinion polls. Those would be issues Peterson might use to sway votes in the south. But here in northern Ontario, the campaign will be very different. The northern issues for that next election cam- paign, whenever it comes, are being defined now in the back- NORTHERN INSIGHTS wash of rhetoric that's flying around since the "English Only" resolutions were passed by sever- al municipalities. Here's how it's shaping up. Some municipal politicians who supported the "English Only" res- olutions have tried to justify their position by arguing that the reso- lutions weren't meant as a bigoted attack on French-speaking peo- ple, or as a slap at Quebec. Rather, they're arguing that they had to do something dramatic to grab Peterson's attention, by Larry Sanders because, as northerners, we're being ignored. Dick Waddington, a Thunder Bay alderman given prominence on national television during the "English Only" debate, says "resolution after resolution has been passed for years, com- plaining about everything from the poor state of the highways, to the lack of doctors in the north, and been ignored." In response, the northern Liberal members of _ the Legislature have been busy recently, defending the Peterson government's record of "paying more attention to the north." Lyn McLeod, the MPP for Fort William and the Minister of Natural Resources and Energy, says "Northern Ontario voices are being heard again to say, we're somehow being neglected. And I think we have to get past a gener- al kind of call like that, and start talking about specific problems that northern Ontario communi- ties have, and how to address those specific problems. Because the call that northern Ontario is being neglected just simply does- n't hold." McLeod points to the move- ment of provincial head offices to Sault Ste. Marie, North Bay, Thunder Bay, and Sudbury to back up her claim. She's also warning that initiatives like that can be jeopardized, if northerners continue to whine. She says her cabinet colleagues from south- western or southeastern Ontario are asking why the north is get- ting such expensive special treat- ment, when other corners of the Province outside the Golden Horseshoe don't have a special Heritage Fund, government departments being relocated, or extra money to improve the high- ways. Taras Kozyra, another Liberal MPP from Thunder Bay, argues that the north should be concen- continued on page 10