After the 3-Day Juice Reboot, I committed to another 10 days, and that ends now. I’m down 11 pounds and feeling like I’m doing something really good for myself. Energy has been high, although I did feel a little dizzy today when I stood up this morning in synagogue. So I added whey protein to my lunch juice for a boost.

Today I harvested the Japanese eggplant I’ve been growing on our rooftop garden to make Sweet and Spicy Moroccan Eggplant for Sunday night’s Erev Rosh Hashanah (Jewish New Year) potluck dinner I’m hosting in the common house. I put out the word through a digital newsletter, messages to synagogue email groups and my Vancouver Cohousing community. Fifteen people are confirmed with a few more expressions of interest.

Hosting this dinner means I’ll be beginning to eat more solid food Sunday, with a breakfast smoothie, cooked seven-grain cereal for lunch and a moderate portion of whatever culinary wonders the dinner guests bring.

For 13 days I’ve been juicing fruit like apples, oranges, lemons, mango, cherries and grapefruit, and vegetables like kale, swiss chard, gai lan, carrots, parsley, cucumbers, romaine lettuce, even squash.

It’s been organic except for the produce on the Clean 15 list published by the Environmental Working Group (EWG), a U.S. environmental non-profit. EWG’s Shopper’s Guide to Pesticides in Produce ranks pesticide contamination on 48 popular fruits and vegetables. The guide is based on results of more than 35,200 samples tested by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration

The Clean 15 items are the least contaminated with pesticides and can be bought conventional. EWG also highlights the Dirty Dozen – the conventional produce most contaminated and should be bought organic.

I can’t let the whole month of September go by without any posts. I’ve been juice fasting for 12 days now – nothing but juiced fruits and vegetables – with great energy and 10 pounds lighter.

The photo is from day two, when it was harder to forego food than it is now. I was inspired by a documentary called “Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead.” It was made by Joe Cross, an Australian who was sick and tired of being over 300 pounds, and taking large amounts of drugs for an autoimmune disease that plagued his body with painful and itchy rashes.

Joe discovered juicing and decided to make a documentary about juice fasting his way across the United States for 60 days. In the process he lost 82 pounds and turned countless people on to this way to be more healthy. Eventually, he no longer needed medication. Thousands have followed his lead.

Wanting to try it out, I took a look at his website and saw I could start with what he calls the 3-Day Quick-Start Juicy-Only Reboot. I ordered the same juicer he used, a Breville, refurbished off Amazon for $119.95.

Then I stocked up on organic fruits and vegetables in addition to the produce I get from a weekly Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) box many of us at Vancouver Cohousing receive from Earth Apple organic farm in Abbotsford.

More tomorrow. Feels wonderful to be blogging again!

I’ve spent the morning dancing, singing and drumming in my kitchen to my new favourite tune, “Like a Drum,” written and performed yesterday by Yukon’s Diyet, who brought her band to the Powell Street Festival in Vancouver’s former Japantown.

The verses are strong and compassionate: “Will no one stand up and shout / for the boy being pushed in the school yard / for the beggar we know nothing about.” I find the chorus even more compelling: “Oh my heart, oh my heart, beats like a drum, like a drum for you.” For me, it celebrates both humanity and the Divine, the big You.

I can’t stop singing the chorus and may even bring it into this evening’s Chanting & Chocolate – 7:30 at Or Shalom, 10th and Fraser.

The free Powell Street Festival, which continues until early this evening at Oppenheimer Park, is marking its 40th anniversary as a showcase of the Japanese-Canadian community. Diyet’s link is through her Japanese grandmother, one facet of her diverse ethnic mix that includes Southern Tutchone, Tlingit and Scottish.

The festival features crafts booths, community organizations, martial arts, performances and especially a wider variety of Japanese foods than you’ll find in any restaurant.

Powell Street Festival goers line up for the great food served up all weekend.

Vancouver had a vibrant Japantown in what is now known as the Downtown Eastside until after Pearl Harbour in the Second World War, which sparked the wholesale internment of the Japanese Canadian community, many of them born in Canada, mostly in camps in the B.C. Interior.

Post-War, they were forced to settle east of the Rockies or be “repatriated” to Japan, and weren’t allowed to return to the West Coast until 1949. The first and second generation – the Issei and Nisei – scattered to the suburbs, not wanting to be identified as a racial community.

The third generation – the Sansei – wanted to rediscover their roots and launched the festival in 1976. At that time, I was living in Toronto, and first discovered the festival after returning to Vancouver in 1979 with my Japanese-born wife.

I was amazed by the drumming by Vancouver’s first taiko group, Katari Taiko. Here were young men and women playing intricate rhythms on big drums, sweating, dancing and yelling encouragement to each other. This definitely was not the tea ceremony.

Now there are nine groups in Vancouver, one of which, Sawagi Taiko, I saw play yesterday. I was inspired by Katari Taiko to study in Japan for two years, and then played in Vancouver for eight years. More about that another time.

Vancouver’s women’s group, Sawagi Taiko, performs at the Powell Street Festival.

The annual Vancouver Folk Music Festival is my can’t-miss cultural event, with spiritual high points too. A beautiful community is recreated every year inside the gates at Jericho Beach Park where thousands come from near and far to enjoy a fantastic world of music from just about every genre short of classical.

The Folk Fest began in 1978 and I’ve been coming since the early 1980s. I covered it for 13 years for The Province daily newspaper, and for the last several years I’ve been editing the performer profiles for the program guide to earn my weekend pass and meals backstage with the rest of the volunteers.

For two decades now there’s been an announcement from the main stage inviting people to gather by a large tree near the fence by the beach to welcome Shabbat, the Jewish day of rest that begins at sundown Friday and continues until sundown Saturday. And every year a couple dozen Jews and friends answer the call. Except for two years where I filled in, Rabbi David Mivasair has been leading the prayers and blessings.

We light candles, bless challah bread and the fruit of the vine, and sing to welcome the Shabbat angels and celebrate how brothers and sisters can dwell together – this year Hadani Ditmars added a Muslim prayer. Saturday evenings we gather again to usher out Shabbat and welcome the new week.

Another spiritual high point for me is the annual gospel workshop on Sunday mornings at 10 at Stage 2. One year, it was missing from the schedule – the nerve! – but returned the following year due to popular demand. We all sing up a storm.

Speaking of storms, from the weather forecast, it looks like rain will hold off until Monday, sparing festival goers but dousing the folks who will be dismantling the site. Rain has often come on the festival weekend, and until I sold my nearby house in 2003 I had a comfy refuge. More recently I’ve been able to retreat to the covered dining area backstage.

More information about the Folk Fest here.

The Crooked Brothers perform at the Vancouver Folk Festival.

The sun sets over the porta potties at the Folk Fest.

By day, my cohousing neighbour Cyrena Huang is a mild-mannered cello teacher wearing serious glasses. This weekend I discovered that by night, she ditches the glasses, wears a form-fitting dress and takes the stage at Vancouver’s Kino as a bold and beautiful flamenco singer and dancer.

What a transformation – kind of like from Clark Kent into Superman. But more about that below.

On Friday night, another cohousing neighbour, Paddy, and I settled into a table next to the stage and were treated to a passionate and masterful set of of singing, instrumental music and dance.

While flamenco comes from Spain, it has been embraced all over the world. The performers on stage were a prime example, with Cyrena, whose roots are in Taiwan, her teacher Kasandra “La China” Lea, whose roots are in Hong Kong, and musicians from Italy, Syria and Israel.

Cyrena Huang performs with Emad Armoush and Liron Man.

Cyrena dances with her teacher Kasandra Lea.

The Kino – next to the Park Theatre on Cambie – has been hosting flamenco performances for 23 years. There are three sets a night on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays. Cyrena first discovered it while walking by 14 years ago and was captivated by Kasandra’s dancing. (It turns out both had played in the National Youth Orchestra.)

Cyrena began studying with Kasandra at Al Mozaico Flamenco Dance Academy and in time has become a teacher there. Here is a 2007 blog post by Cyrena on the academy’s website where she describes her experience:

Canada Day has been a day for planting. First I planted my Made in China flag among my herbs. And then I planted 10 Japanese eggplant seedlings in our newest gardening space at Vancouver Cohousing.

Our building plans called for a large community garden of almost 2,000 square feet on top of two one-storey homes. But we ran out of money. In fact, we went half a million dollars over budget. So, a number of things were cut.

One was furnishing the 6,500-square-foot, which we’ve managed to do anyway by pooling our resources. And thanks to Cam’s resourceful ingenuity, we now have the rooftop garden with a greenhouse.

He began by gathering wooden pallets from a Home Depot. But let Cam tell the story, as he did in an email to our community:

Vesanto and I would like to thank those who helped with the soil and work on the rooftop garden yesterday including Joe, Cyrena, Joanne, Tara, Heather and JM. Also thanks to Fabrice for inspiring and getting the roof top gardening started so well.

As you know the escalating cost during construction meant that the deck for the rooftop garden was scratched as the cost for deck and planters was approaching $30,000 to $40,000.

Those who like gardening were of course disappointed  as funds for a garden seemed far off. After consulting a variety of folks about a low cost solution I started looking around at community gardens and other low cost garden areas. The HOME Society manages 2 community gardens on borrowed land.

After getting on Craigslist it seemed clear that there was plenty of wood for free but it came in the form of pallets. There were also large plastic barrels which if sliced vertically could serve as light weight garden containers. Finally a WindSong friend who manages the Richmond Harvest recycling depot helped by arranging that we could pick up relatively inexpensive compost.

With an old van I began collecting pallets and barrels. We collected and moved up about 50 pallets. Again thanks for all the help with this upward mobility and 12 barrels (24 garden containers when split) so far. The patch work of many sized pallets were carefully placed on the roof using dense styrofoam under the pallets– the same as under our current decks.

After the pallets were up and we had many visitors including children, it became clear that children like the roof as well. This lea to a search for more wood to fill in the cracks in the pallets to make it as safe as possible. Some of this was found in our HOMES storage areas, some at Wood-Knot a social enterprise HOMES manages; and 2x4s were also sliced up (each 2×4 produced 5 pieces roughly 1.5×3/4 of an inch in size which is ideal for filling in the spaces in pallets).

At Windsong Cohousing we had many mini green houses in the gardens but I thought the upper garden might better lend itself to a single community greenhouse. Again using sliced 2x4s, cheap plastic, and some help on the roof, and consulting round the roof lines, we popped up a greenhouse on the weekend. Tomatoes and peppers tend to do better in a greenhouse and have an extended season. So far no slugs have discovered the roof garden.

We still have room for 50 more containers (25 barrels- I get 3 or 4 free containers every 2 weeks) Feel free to tour and to plant something or take potted plants up there. Beans, zuchinni, and squash should do well in full sun. For those who would like to plant up there, we would like to create a watering roateion; to start it will be hand watering. V

Vesanto has moved up number of plants (mainly peas, squash, and arugula) from the lower garden by the ramp. With a small crew of helpers (Joanne, Cyrena, Vesanto), these are looking good. The roof deck is a great place to relax, tan and appreciate sunsets on the 4 folding chairs. If you come up with children, please remember it is a garden and not a play area. Donnie has done a wonderful job of helping children get a appreciation of garden bounty in the lower gardens. Thanks to all the help and vision of folks like Colin and Donnie in setting the tone for low cost nutritious food. We have a few more pieces of plastic to hang on the green house. It will have roll up sides and some doors for easy ventilation.

I am very thankful for all of the help and support and encouragement. Please visit and enjoy the upper garden. Fell free to add enhancements–it is your garden.

Thanks

Cam Dore

The simple act of eating outside is nourishing connections with my cohousing neighbours. With the warmer weather, I’m coming out of my cave – my place is dark – to eat meals at my patio bistro set. That’s right next to the post box and at a crossroads where people come in and out of the front gate. So, it’s easy to strike up conversations.

Sometimes friends will join me at the little table. Recently I made lunch for Vesanto and Cam – who often invite me to eat outside their courtyard-level place – and my next-door neighbour Marijean, who moved her table next to mine.

In my wok, I stir-fried vegetables with shiitake mushrooms, Chinese stewed tofu and green bean noodles, plus a salad with my red miso dressing. We lingered with Japanese tea and oranges. When Marijean had to leave, Anna – my neighbour across the courtyard – brought her zucchini noodle salad over and sat next to me (pictured).

Cooking for others brings me joy. I first really learned to cook when I was 21 and Betsy and I were living in Vancouver. We met up with Fernando Lee, whose family had a Chinese restaurant in Lima, Peru, and a chicken farm outside the city. He took us to Chinatown where we bought a wok, cleaver and lots of ingredients. Back at our tiny house at 5th and Nootka, Fernando taught us how to chop, stir-fry and steam.

Basically, that’s how I’ve cooked ever since. More recently I’ve experimented more with recipes from “Plenty” by Yotam Ottolenghi. And now that I’m cooking for 4o people when I’m on a common-meal cooking team, I’m trying new recipes.

The common theme in what I’ve made for the three meals I’ve been involved in has been eggplant – eggplant bharta, lentils with broiled eggplant and baba ganoush. So far, they’ve been hits and that makes me feel great.

I spent a beautiful evening singing with my old friend Anand David. He hosts Singing Buddha Satsang and Meditation, at Empower Health on Commercial Drive. Anand was a frequent musical guest at my evenings of Hebrew chant a decade ago before we both left Vancouver for a while – him to California and me to Uganda.

Anand calls his events a space for sound wisdom. They’re on Saturdays evenings at 7, coming up on June 4 and 18. This evening he was accompanied by Lisa on guitar, and he invited me to play his frame drum. We sang his own wonderful chants in English as well as more classical Sanskrit kirtan.

I was most affected by this chant of Anand’s:

When the darkness surrounds you,
when the darkness enfolds you,
dream, feel, believe

Anand encouraged us to embrace the darkness and see it as an opportunity for deep learning about the self. That’s a good lesson for me. I’ve been stuck in “light is good, dark is bad.”

Anand also spoke about the current full moon and Buddha’s birthday, which is today in the Tibetan tradition. That reminded me of my own brushes with Buddhism, although I’ve never considered myself a Jewish Buddhist, which has several abbreviated forms, such as Jewbu, Jewboo, Jubu and Buju.

Years ago I spent long enough in a Soto Zen monastery on the Japanese island of Shikoku called Niihama no Zuioji to come out of it with hemorrhoids from straining in a difficult seating position on the floor called seiza. I also read “The Jew in the Lotus”, Rodger Kamenetz’s excellent account of the 1990 encounter between the Dalai Lama and a group of American rabbis – including Reb Zalman Schachter-Shalomi – in Dharamsala to discuss “the secret of Jewish spiritual survival in exile.”

I continue to treasure the papier maché Buddha based on “The Jew in the Lotus” that a close family member made in high school. On the back it features the Shema – the central statement in Judaism that affirms the oneness of the Divine – surrounding a lotus blossom. The Buddha sits inside a Mogen David (Star of David) designed to look like barbed wire.

asas

I was asked to write about Vancouver Cohousing both for the KCC Neighbour newspaper and for Hadani Ditmars, who is presenting Vancouverism Then and Now: Designing New Communities, part of the London Festival of Architecture. What follows also serves as my latest blog post. (Photo by Cam Dore)

• • • • • • •

Vancouver Cohousing is a unique and exciting new addition to Kensington-Cedar Cottage. Cohousing is a style of community living developed in Denmark in which residents own their own homes and also share considerable common space and resources.

The 52 adults and 21 children – and one on the way – living here are feeling more and more settled in as we set up our new homes, plant our gardens and share common meals. We are living the dream of a more collaborative, sustainable and close-knit community lifestyle.

We moved into our 31-unit project – the first in the City of Vancouver – at the end of February, four years after the first public meeting was held at the WISE Hall. That year we bought three double-deep lots on East 33rd Ave. between Argyle and Commercial Streets. In March 2013, we received approval from City Council to rezone from single family to comprehensive development. In July 2014, we broke ground for construction.

We were strangers when we began but we have become good friends over the years of development and good neighbours since we moved in. We have strata title to our homes. Ranging in size from studios to a four-bedroom, all the homes are equipped with kitchens, bathrooms, etc., but as well we share a lot, such as camping gear, childcare, vacuum cleaners and a shared car.

The heart of the community is the 6,500 sq. ft. common house where we serve three common dinners a week plus a weekend brunch. No one has to eat those meals but we’re all on cooking and kitchen cleaning teams. The common house includes a lounge, laundry room, craft room, kids’ playroom, studio where yoga classes are held, shared office, two guest rooms, workshop and teen room. We do the maintenance.

The central artery is the courtyard, where we hang out together. All the kitchens on that level face into the courtyard to promote more social contact. It’s also where the children ride their scooters. Cohousing is a kids’ paradise where they can run out their front door and play with their friends.

Sustainability is key. Ninety solar panels generate electricity. The parkade has two electric cars with charging stations. We collect rain water for our gardens, our landscaping is largely edible and we’re very conscientious recyclers.

We recently hosted more than 40 of our immediate neighbours to a block party. We’ve just received a Neighbourhood Small Grant from the City and intend to host another event in the summer. We are very happy to be here.