thechatter

It’s the simple things JONATHAN GOLDSTEIN

While out grocery shopping with Gus strapped to my chest in a BabyBjorn, I’m struck by how much more exciting the world feels. With him at my side, the colours of the yogurt containers seem brighter, the Bee Gee’s falsettos over the PA feel more castrato-esque.

I’m reawakened to life and reminded of past outings with my own father. For him, when experienced with his son, the most mundane sojourns became epic adventures. One time, decades ago, we took a walk to the old part of the city and he still talks about it to this day.

“Remember how hot it was?” he asks me every few months. “Remember how we had to stop into that convenience store and each of us got a soda? We drank them straight from the can – no straw, no cup. Just like that. Like construction workers. Like street hustlers!”

My father doesn’t get out much. But when he does, he enjoys himself. The man is capable of joy. It’s just that his happiness makes my mother uncomfortable, so he tries to keep it under wraps. Whenever he starts to come out of his shell, she crams him back in there. So disco dancing at weddings, eating dessert with too much gusto, even drumming on the kitchen table to a radio jingle – all rub her the wrong way. If my father even laughs too loudly, she tells him he’s getting “punchy.” That usually quiets him down.

So when he and I get together, I see it as my chance to nurse him back to health. Really, all we do is head out for a bite to eat, but my father is wonderfully easy to please.

“Where do you want to go?” I ask him when we set out and, most often, he waves a hand and says any old place will do. A favourite expression of his is, “I don’t need special pampering.”

Pampering! Since the mideighties, the man has been using the same 99-cent VHS tape to record and re-record the same documentaries about Nazi hunting. He keeps his cufflinks in a washed-out yogurt container on his dresser.

At home, my father finishes a great many of his meals with the plate yanked away in mid-bite, forced to finish his corn-on-thecob stooped over the sink. So when we find a restaurant – usually some cafeteria – rather than eating hunched over as though planning a prison break, he reclines and looks around.

“This is the life,” he says. And now I get it. It’s wonderful when you’re out in the world doing the simplest things with the one you love so close. It is indeed the life. Weekend Post

DON’T MOCK DEEP-FRIED ROMANCE LAURA HENSLEY

As I glide across the tiled floors of a suburban Mandarin, passing piles of greasy food under heat lamps, I see an elderly couple sitting together at a table. They’re enjoying each other’s company, dining on chow mein.

The scene makes me wonder if I’ll ever experience such happiness.

Buffets, for all their saturated-fat glory, are a first date no-no. It’s too risky to bring a new fling to a dining environment that resembles a barn trough. But if buffets are places where couples still in love after decades of being together hang out, why not?

From a practical standpoint, the answer is unequivocally yes. At a buffet there’s no shortage of options. And the benefit of serving yourself is that you’ll never be held hostage by a forgetful server who takes an hour to bring out a bread basket.

Your date’s food choices will also reveal a lot about them. Do they come prepared for seven courses in stretchy pants? Are they eating a lot of sweet or salty foods? Are they opting for only the salad bar? If you’re a diehard sushi lover but your date can’t stand the sight of fish, it’s better to know early on.

There’s also a horrible misconception that women don’t eat much on dates. As a woman who puts herself in pizza coma at least once a week, I believe showing a potential partner your true colours early is key to a successful relationship.

At a buffet, not only do women have the chance to literally eat their weight in food, but they also have the rare opportunity to outeat a suitor and fight the patriarchy one spring roll at a time.

Buffets also have the ability to make one feel incredibly unsexy. For those who obey the no-kissing-on-a-first-date rule, a buffet essentially eliminates the possibility. Not only is it likely you’ll have chili flakes wedged between your teeth, but your breath will probably stink, too. Going home alone with a bellyful of deliciously deep-fried chicken balls is a win for your taste buds — and your morals.

So the next time a hot date comes calling, don’t take them to that kitschy cafe that just opened on your street. Because true romance might be waiting for you at the bottom of a fried dumpling pile. Weekend Post

Leave love out of it CALUM MARSH

Valentine’s Day, like Christmas, is insulated against criticism by cliché. Every sensible person is quite aware that the holiday is fatuous, irrelevant and hopelessly profit-oriented. But every sensible person is also quite aware that other sensible people are aware of it. Which puts the lot of us in a difficult situation.

We may be inclined to think the adult who celebrates Valentine’s in earnest a fool. The adult who scoffs and scorns, though – we may think even worse. We can’t easily criticize Valentine’s Day, because to do so is to be a bore.

If we can’t easily denounce the holiday, what can we do? We can ignore it and let it pass by like any other day, unremarked upon entirely. But this too carries a stigma. “I reject the social pressure of the holiday,” is interpreted as, “I don’t want to pay for an expensive dinner.” Much like the man who insists that his refusal to buy an engagement ring is an act of political obduracy, the anti-Valentine’s lover and his quiet nobility is widely suspect.

Nobody wants their affection doubted, let alone their generosity.

Even the modern couple who decide mutually to refrain from the ritual will have their resolve tested. They may face the dread question in the days following the holiday (“and what did you two get up to?”). Or they may be confronted by self-apprehension: “does my partner really want to forgo Valentine’s? Or was the demurral in truth a fake-out?” We might suspect that, “let’s not to do Valentine’s Day this year,” really means, “I secretly would still very much like to be surprised.”

Perhaps it’s one of those unspoken agreements. The invitation may say “no gifts necessary.” But you damned-well better bring one.

Of course you could perform the ritual with a wink. You could reserve a table at the finest restaurant, order a bouquet of roses to be delivered to your beloved’s place of work, buy a heart-shaped box of chocolates – all the while acknowledging with a smile how ridiculous this whole thing is.

The peril, I should caution, lay in social media, which does not handle the nuances of romantic irony well. Share even a single photograph of your extravagant date and, no matter how wry the caption – no matter how hard you try to make light of the grand romance you feel you’re gamely skewering – you will not look cool.

Indulge in the tradition if you must. But when it comes to broadcasting the results, refrain. Weekend Post

60 DAYS TO LEARN YOUR LOVER SADAF AHSAN

It’s a familiar rite of Valentine’s Day to pity the single. You can envision them out in the world, wincing at every couple they come across, sorrowfully making their way home where they’ll nosh on clearance-priced cinnamon hearts and watch every rom-com available on Netflix before drifting off alone in their beds.

But believe it or not there is a relationship dynamic far worse than suffering through a solo night of too much sugar and Katherine Heigl. At least being alone on February 14th has no expectations. Not so when it’s the early days of a relationship; when you have yet to establish what exactly it is you’re doing.

In said nightmare scenario, you’ve been dating for only a few weeks and the unfortunate timing of your coupling stumbles right into Valentine’s Day, prematurely forcing you to evaluate.

Do you see yourself with Tom from Tinder for the next week, month or year? It’s hard to say, but now, if you suggest you hang out on the 14th, what if he takes it as a hint that this relationship means more to you than it does?

This is why it is absolutely, completely, totally, 100 per cent necessary to have been together for at least two months before you even consider a genuine Valentine’s Day date. Like most rules, though, there is an exception. Sometimes, the type of dating is more important than how long you’ve been doing it.

For example, have you been seeing this person most days of the week, spending considerable time in bed and out? Have you pulled a Romeo and Juliet and already fallen in love? Then, by all means, take Valentine’s by storm — frankly, the day was designed exactly for your kind. On the other hand, is your not-sosignificant other more of a friend with benefits? Then this holiday is not for you.

This isn’t the only rule to be followed on Valentine’s Day for the unestablished pair – just the most important. Do not expect anything, do not buy anything, and certainly do not go near anything that looks, smells or even vaguely resembles a rose.

It may be a tough pill to swallow for the lovelorn, but in comparison to the newly dating, the single have it lucky on Valentine’s Day. For no young relationship is ever nurtured by the pressuring, watchful eye of a naked baby with a bow and arrow. Weekend Post

Heroes on a half shell DUSTIN PARKES

To consider the oyster is to understand why we cannot have nice things. For there is no indignity we won’t lay at the salt-water mollusc’s perfect little shell.

This Valentine’s Day there will be many stories touting the aphrodisiacal properties of oysters. It is nonsense. Nothing connects the consumption of a glorious bivale to an increased sex drive beyond myth – the best of which suggests that oysters were the breakfast of choice for Casanova.

As reported by WIRED last autumn, the “scientific evidence” often stems almost entirely from a misinterpreted study that occurred a decade ago. This, in and of itself, isn’t uncommon. What’s so irksome in the case of the oyster is that the creature’s actual properties are so wondrous that our attempts to exaggerate them cannot be anything other than intolerably crass. It’s like the garish souping up of a Ferrari.

As a “filter feeder,” an oyster mitigates pollutants and has a positive influence on an ecosystem. As a food, an oyster is an excellent source of zinc, iron, calcium and selenium – not to mention vitamins A and B12 – and is both low in calories and high in protein.

There is nothing like an oyster, and yet we try to make it something more than it is. Even worse is our appetite for the oyster itself.

In the late 19th century, New York Harbor’s oyster beds were so plentiful that on any day one could find as many as six million oysters waiting to be shucked along the waterfront. In The Big Oyster: History on the Half Shell, Mark Kurlansky suggests that New York’s restaurant scene as we know it wouldn’t exist without this supply. Bravo oyster!

However, as demand for those salty bits of meaty manna increased, cultivation became more efficient and our unhindered greed eventually turned an otherwise sustainable source of affordable protein into an expensive delicacy. By the beginning of the 20th century, we had nearly exhausted the supply. The Gilded Age, indeed. Irish satirist Jonathan Swift is credited with saying, “He was a bold man that first ate an oyster,” seemingly mocking its appearance. But I would submit to you that we are the ugly ones for using and abusing a creature that has never done anything other than provide nourishment, protect our waters and taste delicious.

And for that, we should be the ones imprisoned – if not in an oyster’s shell, then certainly by our own shame. Weekend Post