Helping out a friend... and Grandma's everywhere!

As I mentioned in one of my earlier posts I made a decision on a life style change a year ago from the day I started this blog. It wasn't easy, but it was a choice I had to make. Along the way I have found a number of ways of staying motivated, but there is one friend whom I have probably known since I was in my early teens and he was friends with my younger brother. Over the years we have managed to stay in touch. I have helped him with language training for roles he has auditioned for and he has always found the time to be encouraging and motivating during this change in my life, at times much more so the family members that you would expect to hear something positive from.

About a week ago my friend Jasson Finney, who is an actor, personal trainer and motivational speaker sent me an e-mail about a new project he is working on. It didn't at all surprise me as he has shared segments of video on this project in the past, while I would send him recipes of healthy eating options I would whip up in whatever kitchen I was close to.

There have been more than a few times that Jasson and I have sat at the same table, and most of those times were at his mother's place for either for Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner. Some of the most memorable times were when his grandmother was still with us. In fact I understand just how much Jasson's grandmother meant to him. Ukrainian grandmother's, like most grandmothers are not simply a grandmother; they are really an institution within each family, and also within a larger subset of the communities they live in. I never knew either of my grandmothers. My maternal grandmother passed at a very young age in her early thirties, when my mother was but eleven years old. My paternal grandmother was behind the Iron Curtain, she died when I was about eleven years old. To this day I remember that day when my father learned of the passing of his mother, the letter, the black and white photographs from the funeral. I never knew a grandmother! Though I very well understand their value in our families and communities.

However, those dinners happened many years ago, but a more recent brunch last year on Mother's Day was quite a nice change from the standard day out with Mom. Jasson gave me a call and invited me to go over to his place with my Mom for brunch, it was there were I met two new faces to add to the vast array of many people I know scattered around the globe.

New faces then travels

To this little fest of celebrating our mothers, Jasson had also invited a friend of his Tammy and her mother Elaine. Elaine, like my mother and Jasson's grandmother is also someone's grandmother, and thus with this she brings to her family and community many traditions, particularly in the area of culinary expertise. While that Mother's Day was the first time I met Elaine, it wasn't the last time that I would meet Tammy, but that wouldn't come for some time.

Before the third week of October started in 2012, I was off to Germany for nearly three months where my lifestyle changes started to slowly materialize. I had my own small flat for that period of time and I started going to the gym regularly, and walking practically everywhere, within the small town were I was locate. I completely abstained from any alcohol for nearly that entire three month period. I started regain my desire to prepare healthy and tasty meals. I made very attempt to eliminate any processed foods from my diet. This together with a regular regime of exercise, helped me a great deal, one step at a time, to losing fifty pounds over the first six months. I never craved anything during that period, I began to eat smaller portions of healthy food, and maybe four to five times a day. I felt great and I felt energized!

During most of my stay in Germany, I would be in touch with Jasson. I started sharing with him some of the dietary changes I had made I my life, as well some of the work I was doing on my own in the gym. While I had known him for a long time this was the first time I had ever received such encouragement and support because of a decision I had made to take back my life. We had many different Skype conversations, and I have always appreciated his supportive role in helping me change.

When I returned to Canada, it was Jasson who helped me find an affordable gym with great staff and equipment. This allowed me to continue on my path to further self development, during one of the nastiest winters we have had in Montreal in many years.

At some point in the spring Jasson told me he would be back in Montreal for a little while and that he would be having a pot luck dinner/get together for some friends. He added, “I want you to bring one of those bean soups you whipped up when you were in Germany, it sounded so great!”

Well that dinner party came along and this is where I would once again run into Tammy, her new boyfriend, and some of Jasson's other friends and family. It was a great evening! All kinds of great food.

Some foodie memories

That pot luck that Jasson had organized brought back a few memories of dinner parties my room mates and I would organized, or would simply materialize, almost organically. One of these started out as a birthday dinner for a friend of mine who's birthday happened to fall on Valentine's Day. Originally, it was just supposed to be two of us, then one of my roommates, Chris, said his girlfriend Lori was going to be down and asked if he could join me in the kitchen. That little party ended up with fourteen people around our small kitchen table, including our other two room mates and the four girls who lived upstairs.

Though that wasn't the only dinner party, in 1989 my room mate John and I invited two young ladies we had met playing volley ball in the Ukrainian community in Ottawa. We planned that menu for a few days, when shopping for the ingredients the morning of the day before the planned event. Most of the prep work was done on Saturday, the day Nathalie and Christine, were supposed to come over for dinner. That Saturday night John and I attended a going away party for an acquaintance of ours in Ottawa who worked as a journalist for the Globe & Mail – he was getting posted to Hong Kong. It turned out to be quite an affair, the amount inebriating fluids my room mate and I had consumed clearly created a picture to the young women who we had invited, that there was no way would be in any shape to be preparing them dinner, and at about 2:30 in the morning one of them broke it to me. “We aren't coming for dinner tomorrow!” Neither John, nor I, were pleased with this, but I know our neighbour, whose name now escapes me, together with her significant other, were extremely happy to be invited for Duck a l'orange wild rice and mixed vegetables. She even at one point during dinner, stated: “May more women stand you guys up – as long as you invite me!”

And now back to the shtick

I am a story teller, so I do stray off the path well trodden at times, but that is what makes life interesting. Now that you know about Jasson, and my connection to him, I want to share this video with you all.



It is in this video that I met the culinary side of Tammy's mom and saw her again. It was in part that in watching his video, that I could see my personal need to start getting back into my passion for food. I know Jasson is passionate about everything he does. I have a passion for food and more particularly healthy food, particularity in the last year. I want to share this passion with you, and I hope to at some point introduce you all to Jasson, but in the mean time, for those of you who would like to see a different twist on the Grandmothers who are foodie institutions for their families and communities, I would love you guys to support Jasson with his project.

This support can come in many different ways, you can provide him with your Grandma as an inspiration for a programme, or you can simply donate to get his indiegogo campaign off the ground. In any way you folks can help it would be appreciated! Right now, I 'm just returning the support a friend gave me during a period where changing my lifestyle meant a great deal to me. In time, I know that I will find a different way to support this project, but at the moment, this is the best way I know how to support this particular friend!