The bread episode of The Great British Bake Off is notoriously difficult. Every season, contestants struggle to capture that perfectly crunchy crust with a light and fluffy interior. For something with so few ingredients, bread can be extremely finicky. Just one wrong move and you’ll be left wishing you’d never started. As one example, if it’s undercooked it can wind up doughy and inedible. But fear not! With this short recipe and a dash of patience, you’ll soon have your very own freshly baked bread to enjoy.
This recipe is adapted from Edna Staebler’s “Neil’s Harbour White Bread” from her book Food That Really Schmecks.
The Ingredients
1 cup lukewarm water
1 teaspoon white sugar
2 tablespoons yeast
2 cups lukewarm water
1⁄2 cup white sugar
1 tablespoon salt
1⁄2 cup canola oil, or substitute vegetable oil
8 cups all-purpose flour
Part One — Making the dough
Part Two — Proving yourself
Once you’ve finished kneading the dough, it needs a chance to rest and rise—also known as proving. To do this, place the dough in a large bowl that’s been lined in oil. Flip the dough to cover both sides in oil. Loosely cover the bowl with a damp cloth and leave it to prove in a warm spot for 1-2 hours or until it has doubled in size. Leaving it by a sunny window is generally your best bet. Here is a trick to know when you’re ready to move to the next step: when you stick your finger in the dough, your imprint should remain.
Punch the dough down until it has deflated a bit, and divide into 4 equal-sized loaves. Place the loaves onto parchment-lined sheet pans and let rise for another hour in the same sunny spot, covered in a damp tea towel. Make sure to leave room between the loaves.
While you’re waiting for the dough to rise, go enjoy spring days that will hopefully be here soon. You could go for a hike, grab coffee with a friend or maybe catch up on the Netflix show you’ve been binging. Better yet, invite someone over for a date and impress them with your incredible baking skills. You could even make the dough before class and then finish it when you get home.
While you’re waiting for the dough to rise, go enjoy spring days that will hopefully be here soon. You could go for a hike, grab coffee with a friend or maybe catch up on the Netflix show you’ve been binging. Better yet, invite someone over for a date and impress them with your incredible baking skills. You could even make the dough before class and then finish it when you get home.
Part Three — Let’s get this bread
Take the same four loves on the parchment-lined pans and bake at 400 degrees Fahrenheit for 20-30 minutes, until both the top and bottom of the loaves are golden, and the loaves sound hollow when tapped on the bottom. After you’ve removed your loaves from the oven, let them cool on a rack. This is the hardest part, but trust me, if you try to eat it right away you’re going to burn your tongue.
Voilà! You now have four delicious loaves of bread, perfect for any kind of sandwich you can think of. If you try this recipe, make sure to tag the Silhouette, we would love to see your baking adventures!
Voilà! You now have four delicious loaves of bread, perfect for any kind of sandwich you can think of. If you try this recipe, make sure to tag the Silhouette, we would love to see your baking adventures!
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By Shaan Babrah, Contributor
As you drudge through second semester, it is hard to not notice all the business-casual students on their way to class, clutching cups of coffee for warmth. One can only wonder whether there is any point in wearing a button-up and dress shoes to pour over a textbook in the library. The Indeed and LinkedIn tabs that seem to be on every computer in sight certainly don’t alleviate the pressure to be “grown-up” or “professional”.
Though you may feel tempted to emulate your post-grad future in your clothing, you should appreciate the beauty of being untethered to a dress code while you still can. Once the mid-February breeze runs through your favourite overcoat like you’re being possessed by the ghost of cold, you can’t be blamed for reaching for your Michelin Man parka. Now you may be warm, but one can only wonder if it’s necessary to be so amorphous to avoid hypothermia. Just when all hope seems to be lost, a new trend has entered the forefront of fashion to warm the frozen souls of students everywhere.
This look has been appropriately dubbed “hikercore”. Those on board with the movement are trading in their peacoats and chinos for fleeces and cargo pants. The recent popularization of clothes to stumble around the forest in has resurrected some great pieces that have previously been considered faux pas. Montreal’s Ssense, a titan of the retail industry, has taken note of this boom and virtually every major brand right now is releasing pieces that fit within this aesthetic. Many clothing items once considered untouchable are now lining the shelves of stores, looking better than most thought possible.
The trend started when hiking boots trickled into winter office attire and streetwear around the mid-2010s. Since then, hikercore has expanded, as fleeces eclipse knits and hoodies as the statement sweater of the season. This can be seen online, as brands like Snow Peak and Kapital are showing up in forum discussions and all over the Instagram explore page. Don’t feel pressured to prove your stripes as a free solo climber or munch the most muesli in order to take part in hikercore. In fact, most people should start with baby steps. The trailblazer look is not the most ubiquitous trend and you likely haven’t seen many of your peers in full Japanese trekking gear, but there is still plenty of inspiration for the average student to grab onto. By adding a few outdoorsy staples into your rotation, the urban hiker look can inject enough personality into your school wardrobe to prevent complete corporate assimilation.
The first step in the long road to environmental enlightenment begins with your footwear. After the hiking boot trend put brands like ROA in the big leagues, other companies have followed suit to put out more stylish variations on the look. For those fully invested in the style, Salomon Snowcross shoes or Danner boots are a great way to dip your toe into the aesthetic, and start dressing as though you actually have hobbies. I would also check out Salomon or Hoka One One at Sport Chek or Runner’s Den on King Street West as a great functional option for anyone who may want to give hikercore a test run before committing to a whole new aesthetic.
Fleeces, of course, are a staple that have been mainstream since your dad bought his first Columbia half-zip. Unlike the lighter weight dad-core options that are more commonly represented, a good hefty fleece will only inspire you to buy more, furthering your descent into student debt while keeping you toasty and cozy through your midterms. I would strongly advise against wearing any button-ups with a fleece and instead just stick to tees. If you’re shelling out your hard-earned money on a nice sweater, you should be able to appreciate the warm polyester hug.
There are many avenues and side trails to explore for inspiration, but not all are created equal. The Instagram page @organiclab.zip is the best place to start. Brands like South 2 West 8 and Patagonia are also great to check out, as they remain the godfathers of every fashionable outdoorsman or woman. Vintage North Face, Patagonia, Arc’teryx and Nike ACG ads are a gateway to some of the coolest looks that anyone can pull off while imagining the more fulfilling and spiritualistic life that awaits them at the end of the semester. All the biggest high fashion brands steal influence from vintage styles in their huge archive of regular old clothes, and there is no reason you shouldn’t do the same. Save some of your favourite looks and images on your phone and hit the thrift.
http://www.instagram.com/p/B8wItuigUio/
The best way to complete the look, though, is to check out any of Hamilton’s iconic hiking spots and find for yourself what subsection of the culture you identify with. Bruce Trail runs through many of Hamilton’s larger parks and is a great route for runners that prefer greener scenery. Parallel to Bruce Trails is Chedoke Radial Trails, which is perfect for cyclists and dog-walkers alike to get away from their usual concrete path. Of course, the many waterfalls across the city are a tried and true classic for dates and dressing well for the occasion can make you seem stylish and outdoorsy. For those that prefer to think global and act local, Adventure Attic (28 King St. W.) is certainly worth your time and provides the best look into what actual hikers wear and use.
From trail running to mountain climbing and all the way to Whole Foods hippie, there is a place for everybody in the great outdoors. For many, university is the last step before many of us graduate or move onto a tragically adult future full of J. Crew scarves and oxford cloth, so you may as well appreciate your freedom while it lasts.
From trail running to mountain climbing and all the way to Whole Foods hippie, there is a place for everybody in the great outdoors. For many, university is the last step before many of us graduate or move onto a tragically adult future full of J. Crew scarves and oxford cloth, so you may as well appreciate your freedom while it lasts.
Experimentation is an important part of stepping out of the monotony of routines. Despite the constant pressure to grow up and follow suit, it’s difficult to make great personal strides when your shoes are giving you blisters. You may not be a trail veteran, but the spirit of hikercore is carving out your own path. It could be a fully functional outfit with dozens of pockets or just a beloved Arc’teryx jacket for the temperamental weather; the choice is yours. This season, throw on all your favourite fleeces at the same time with your most semi-fashionable outdoorsy shoes and take a hike while you still can.
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This article has been edited as of Feb. 27, 2020
A previously published version of this article stated that Giroux phoned his daughter to ask about Casablancas. This has been corrected to state that he asked his son.
This article is part one of a two part series. Read part two here.
The latter half of the 2010 decade brought with it the rise of various right-winged movements throughout the world. Henry Giroux, a McMaster professor in the department of English and cultural studies, felt a sense of urgency; that the public needed to be educated in order to advance our democracy and combat the right side of politics. We recently had the chance to catch up with Giroux after he published his newest book, The Terror of the Unforeseen, which includes a forward by Julian Casablancas, lead singer of The Strokes.
INTRODUCTION TO CASABLANCAS:
In 2016, Giroux received a phone call from an agent asking if he knew who Julian Casablancas was, to which he responded, “No, I don’t”. He then phoned his son to ask who the mysterious rock star was.
Casablancas brought a film crew to Giroux’s Hamilton home and interviewed the professor about his work. This was the start of the duo’s friendship. Giroux then asked Casablancas if he wanted to write a forward in The Terror of the Unforeseen to open up his narrative to a much-wider audience.
After the forward was written, Casablancas interviewed Giroux in front of a live audience at a McMaster Library event at The Westdale Theatre (1014 King St. W.) on Oct. 24, 2019. The event was entitled “The Looming Threat of Fascist Politics”.
EARLY YEARS:
Giroux was born in Providence, Rhode Island, living in a working-class neighbourhood. He obtained a basketball scholarship from the University of Southern Maine and graduated from the university to become a high school teacher. He received a scholarship to complete his schooling at Carnegie-Mellon University, graduating with a PhD in 1977.
After becoming a professor at Boston University, Giroux began researching what education looks like at universities; what does it mean to get a university education?
In 1981, Giroux’s research inspired his second book, Theory and Resistance in Education: a Pedagogy for the Opposition. In Theory and Resistance, he defends that education has become a privatized endeavour that does not prioritizes the public’s best interests, including the interests of students. This privatization has become apparent through the promotion of maths and sciences, and the undermining of social and behavioural teachings. Giroux concludes that universities are no longer producing public intellectuals, people who think and reason critically, with the absence of humanities and social sciences.
When Giroux went up for tenure at Boston University, everyone but the president of the University wanted to give him the teaching position.
“[The president] was the east coast equivalent of Ronald Reagan, and a really ruthless guy.. he was denying tenure to everybody on the left [side of the political spectrum],” said Giroux.
Giroux moved to Miami University where he started the first cultural studies centre in the United States. He was then offered an endowed chair at Pennsylvania State University. When the opportunity came to apply to McMaster University, Giroux leapt at the offer and was hired in 2004.
THE TERROR OF THE UNFORESEEN:
Casablancas joined Giroux’s project because he saw the value in Giroux’s ideology.
“The idea for the book came out of a certain sense of incredible urgency . . . motivated by the election of Donald Trump and the rise of right-winged movements throughout the world,” said Giroux.
The author coined the term “neoliberal fascism”: a cross between racist ideology and a ruling financial elite class that disregards lower classes. This term is the basis of Giroux’s book, which describes how neoliberal fascism affects universities and media, along with how it has contributed to the creation of alt-right culture.
“I tried to take seriously the notion that politics follows culture, meaning that, you can’t really talk about politics unless you talk about the way in which people are experiencing their everyday lives and the problems that confront them,” said Giroux.
He believes that fascism never goes away, that it will always manifest itself in some context. Giroux used the U.S. as an example. The wealth and power held by the governing financial elite has created a state that does not care about the inequalities faced by most of its citizens.
Giroux links the above issues to the war on youth that much of his work has focused on, with the belief that youth are a long-term investment that are being written out of democracy.
CAMPUS POLITICS:
Giroux sees elements of youth being written out of democracy on our own campus. He also recognized that neoliberal ideology could have been a contributing cause to the province’s financial cuts to universities.
“The [ideal] model for education is now patterned after a business culture and with that, it seems to me, comes with an enormous set of dangers and anxieties,” stated Giroux.
According to Giroux, universities used to operate as public good; however, this is no longer their priority. Instead, universities are constantly worried about their bottom line, due in part to neoliberalism. This is especially evident in the elimination of or lack of funding for programs and courses that bring in less money for universities. Giroux cites the example of liberal arts education, which he believes is vital for every student to obtain. He believes this field teaches students a general understanding of our interactions with the world and how to become a socially responsible citizen; however, Giroux believes that liberal arts are being neglected in favour of teaching science and math.
While he understands that universities run deficits, this need to meet the bottom line can open the door for them to become influenced to opt-in to privatization and corporate influence. Giroux believes the only type of influence major corporations should have on campus are in the forms of sponsorships to allow the university to carry out its business as students are neither clients nor products.
“We have an obligation as educators, not to prepare students for just the work, but to prepare them for the world and what it means.”
When asked about the Ford government’s stance on OSAP cuts, Giroux believes that the government has a limited notion of investment, likely stemming from neoliberalist ideals.
“You don’t invest in students, for them to return profits . . . you invest in students and do everything you can to make sure that they can distinguish between meaningful work and meaningless work; that they can have some vision of the future that’s rooted in democratic values, that has some sense of compassion for what it means to live in a world in which we’re completely interdependent.
The Terror of the Unforeseen is the 71st book by Henry Giroux.
“I write because I believe that writing matters, I believe that elevating ideas into the public realm may help change the way people view the world,” said Giroux.
Stay tuned for part two of this series featuring our interview with Julian Casablancas.
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Walking through an art gallery or a museum is mostly a visual experience, whether you're looking at a sculpture, a painting or a photo. This can be exclusionary for people with little to no vision. The Art Gallery of Hamilton is aiming to make art accessible to a larger range of people with their Touch Tours, monthly group tours which take visitors through a sensory exploration of the art on display.
The tours are run by Laurie Kilgour-Walsh, the Senior Manager of Education at the Art Gallery of Hamilton. In 2007, Kilgour-Walsh attended an orientation program at the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa, a program targeted at new museum and art gallery employees in order to acquaint them with the process of running a large museum. Kilgour-Walsh says that one of the orientation activities inspired her to begin the Touch Tours. A patron of the gallery, who had lost her sight late in life, walked the visitors through the way that she now experiences art.
“[S]he started talking about her interaction with the sculpture, how she sees it and how she encounters all the different facets of the artists making the work, what the work looks like, the personality of the piece, just through the sense of touch,” said Kilgour-Walsh.
“[S]he started talking about her interaction with the sculpture, how she sees it and how she encounters all the different facets of the artists making the work, what the work looks like, the personality of the piece, just through the sense of touch,” said Kilgour-Walsh.
The Touch Tours were specifically created for people with vision loss, but all are welcome to attend. In many ways, the tours enrich the art-viewing experience. Kilgour-Walsh says that the average time that a person spends looking at a piece of art is about 30 seconds. Art viewing is almost entirely sight-based, unless there is an audio component to describe the artwork. The tours slow down that experience, allowing participants to explore the art in new ways.
Over time, the Touch Tours have evolved to include the other senses. For example, during an Emily Carr exhibition, small salt shakers with pine tree and pine essential oil created the smell of the forest to accompany Carr’s work.
“In other cases, when we have our public offering, sometimes people [attend] who are curious, who just want to have a sensory experience are coming and that is actually what we see most often. And so some of that is leading us to think more about tours that engage senses, rather than simply focusing on description . . . forming an image in your mind based on the words and feelings, and engaging hearing and sight and sound,” said Kilgour-Walsh.
The primary art medium that the tours display is sculpture. The benefit of sculpture is that it is, by nature, much more tactile than a painting. Running your hands over a sculpted apple is much easier to understand than a painted one, particularly if you’ve never seen an apple. Many of the sculptures that the tours use are made of bronze, because it is a fairly durable material, meaning that it’s unlikely to break or snap under pressure.
“[W]ith bronze casting, the original work of art is often made in like, clay or wax or some very soft surface, and then cast later. And so feeling this work, you can actually find those spots of the sculpture where you can see how the artists would have used a finger to put in a curve or detail. You can actually follow those movements with your fingers,” said Kilgour-Walsh.
“[W]ith bronze casting, the original work of art is often made in like, clay or wax or some very soft surface, and then cast later. And so feeling this work, you can actually find those spots of the sculpture where you can see how the artists would have used a finger to put in a curve or detail. You can actually follow those movements with your fingers,” said Kilgour-Walsh.
Paintings are trickier to include on the tours, but they're such an integral part of our culture that the AGH has been working hard to include them in the tours. Paintings are much more delicate and easy to tarnish, and they are also fairly flat, with little texture, making them difficult to perceive through touch. The Touch Tours has adapted over time to include paintings. Now, each tour provides a posterboard version of the original painting that visitors can hold in their hands. The posterboard paintings are then covered in different textures of paint to illustrate the different sections, with raised paint being used to outline larger shapes. The participants are then able to experience the painting through touch, feeling their way through the art.
The Touch Tours have also created materials that illustrate what the different aspects of the paintings would feel like. They’ve created small samples of fabric to demonstrate what is being portrayed in the paintings to create a more immersive experience.
“[A] lot of people who come don't know what canvas feels like, so we have blank canvas so you can feel the give of the surface and the texture. If we talk about images where there's a certain kind of fabric — we've had a couple of painting of really beautiful Victorian dresses — we can use something like this where we've got that silk fabric and we've got suede and we've got all of those different things to have a sense of being able to touch the fabric that is being portrayed,” said Kilgour-Walsh.
They also have small samples of different paints, from acrylic to watercolour, in order to give an idea of what the painting itself feels like.
Touch Tours and other accessible options are slowly being integrated into more museums and galleries, like the Art Gallery of Ontario, the National Gallery of Canada and even the Museum of Modern Art. These improvements not only help people with accessibility needs, but also anyone interested in experiencing art from a fresh perspective.
For anyone interested in exploring the Art Gallery of Hamilton (123 King St. W.), admission is free for McMaster and Mohawk students with a valid student ID.
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By Sarun Balaranjan and Henry Challen, Contributors
CW: Sexual violence
If you have spent any time on Mac Confessions, Youtube, or any other college-focused media, it is impossible to miss the prevailing issue surrounding consent and the way we conceptualize sexual relationships in a university setting. Whether it be a frat party, a first date, or a meal at one of McMaster University’s fine dining institutions, the question of consent remains a topic of the utmost concern. While student-to-student relationships are culturally accepted, faculty-student relationships are generally frowned upon. However, there remains a grey area when it comes to relationships between teaching assistants and students. Ask anyone, and someone will know someone who has engaged in sexual acts with their TA. As both students and adults, we need to think more critically about how consent manifests within undergraduate-TA relationships.
We could recount examples of TAs making sexual advances on their students, but that is not the purpose of this article. Instigating a campus-wide persecution of TAs is not our goal, but rather to think critically about consent and potentially change the current practices surrounding TA-student relationships. Currently, students are theoretically allowed to engage in sexual relationships with their TAs, so long as the department head is notified, a conflict of interest is declared and all marking of that students work is transferred. However, it is pertinent to note that the conflict of interest policy has not been updated since 2001. There have been immense differences in how we conceptualize consent between 2001 and 2020 and it is atrocious that the policies have not been updated since then.
Left unchecked, the current power structures produce a wide range of results for students. While many TAs are respectful of their students and their roles as educators, this is not always the case. When relationships do occur, they often place the students in the awkward position of interacting with their TAs in two very different contexts. Even if a student wants to partake in sexual relations with their TA, it is difficult to extract this sexual relationship from the power structures of their academic lives.
When relationships do occur, they often place the students in the awkward position of interacting with their TAs in two very different contexts. Even if a student wants to partake in sexual relations with their TA, it is difficult to extract this sexual relationship from the power structures of their academic lives.
This calls for a serious revision of the policies in place surrounding the training and orientation of McMaster’s teaching assistants. It is asinine that Welcome Week representatives are trained for hours regarding sexual sensitivity orientation for merely ten days of interaction with students while TAs are not held to the same standards. It is clear that TAs are placed in a position of more power than a Welcome Week rep and spend significantly larger quantities of time interacting socially with students. At the bare minimum, TAs should be subject to the same training as Welcome Week reps. There is an appalling lack of accountability being placed on TAs by university administration and the faculty that hires them.
As we as a culture think more critically about consent, it is necessary that we apply this understanding to all relationships, especially those with potential power imbalances. It is ludicrous to think that this is an issue that can be dealt with at the discretion of the TA, who simply has to sign off on some forms. This is not only insufficient, but also contributes to creating a dangerous precedent for consent within the McMaster community.
We are not calling for a ban on consensual relationships between adults. However, to create a culture of consent on campus, a deeper awareness of the nuance surrounding consent should be incorporated into the TA employment contract. In addition, there should be a more robust training process to ensure that TAs are aware of the responsibilities that come alongside their position of authority.
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After settling in the dust for a few years, a vacant restaurant space on 631 Barton St. E. has been given a new name and identity. The space now breathes the essence of tiki culture as extravagant drinks are set on fire and music pulsates through its art-covered walls and wooden floors etched in Polynesian-inspired patterns.
MaiPai is adding to a renewed sense of prosperity on Barton Street East as new businesses open up and historic establishments are restored. It’s also riding on a wave of local tiki bar resurgence. In 2015, The Shameful Tiki Room and The Shore Leave opened in Toronto, reintroducing the concept of a Toronto bar entirely dedicated to tiki culture for the first time in two decades.
The original tiki movement can be traced back to the early 1930s when the first Polynesian-themed bar and restaurant, Don the Beachcomber, first opened in Hollywood, California following the end of Prohibition— a nationwide ban on manufacturing, transporting and selling alcohol in the United States.
Ironically, prohibition drove an accelerated production of rum, much of which aged in casks waiting to be discovered by enterprising bar owners, like Victor Jules Bergeron, Jr., who founded Trader Vic, a Polynesian-themed restaurant chain, and claimed to have made the first Mai Tai, a staple tiki bar favourite, in 1944 from 17-year-old rum from Jamaica.
History then tells the story of a post-war urge for escapism in the 1940s, igniting a tiki bar obsession all across the United States, and eventually Canada, as bargoers imagined themselves escaping the realities of the world they lived in.
By the 1960s, tiki bars were all over Ontario, and in 1975, the Trader Vic chain arrived to downtown Toronto. Tiki bars continued to provide a sense of escape until the 1970s, when their novelty eventually sizzled out as people began to lose interest. Trader Vic’s Toronto location closed its doors in 1993.
The resurgence of modern-day tiki bars begs an important question—what are we escaping from? Or perhaps the love of tiki culture is just enough reason to bring back an experience in the past and reinvent it—which is exactly what MaiPai is introducing to Hamilton and Barton Village.
MaiPai’s menu is dedicated wholeheartedly to tiki culture with a Detroit-inspired pizza twist. This style of pizza originated in the 1940s when Gus Guerro from Buddy’s Pizza made a sicilian dough pizza in a thick rectangular steel pan with cheese going right to the edge—winning over the hearts of Detroiters and Hamilton chef Salar Madadi, who’s known for opening up Pokeh, one of the first restaurants in Canada dedicated to serving poke, a Hawaiian appetizer.
It all came full circle when Madadi happened to be in Detroit, at a tiki bar, and the idea of MaiPai came to be.
Madadi then reached out to long-time friend Peter Lazar, Director at UrbanRoom Group, a Hamilton-based event production company, and asked him if he wanted to open a tiki bar.
Despite shamefully name-dropping Niagara Falls’ Rainforest Café as his closest exposure to tiki culture, Lazar quickly fell in love with the idea and Madadi’s pizzas. MaiPai brings together both their talents of creating memorable and quality experiences with food and space.
“The more I got into it, the more I fell in love with tiki as a culture . . . We both love creating an experience that really transforms [a space] or moves people into an escape,” said Lazar.
“I really like the idea of people having somewhere where they can go in and there’s basically just no reminders of the outside world. There’s no TVs, there’s no windows. You just go somewhere and like, you just need to check out and have a good experience and good food,” added Madadi.
It only takes a few seconds for your eyes to adjust to MaiPai’s atmosphere and for you to feel transported back in time and into another world. Antique lamps, lights, dozens of tiki mugs and decorations were salvaged from flea markets and tiki restaurants that were open in the 60s. Some interesting finds include a skull-shaped mug covered in what appears to be melted cheese and pepperoni and a matchbook from a long-gone Hamilton tiki bar rumoured to have been the Tiki Trapper.
While MaiPai Tiki Bar may be a new concept to the Gibson neighbourhood, co-owners Madadi and Lazar are no strangers to this area — in fact, they live just a couple minutes’ walk from each other and the restaurant. It felt very natural for them to be working together on a project so close to home.
Their neighbours and community have welcomed their new venture with open arms—selling out their first two weeks of reservation-only menu testing in under 12 hours.
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“Both of us really respect and love opinions. We love hearing. We love the idea that multiple people's voices can come together and make something that's really unique. I think a lot of it just boils down to respect . . . we’re so appreciative of the staff that comes into work and . . . the fact that people would want to choose to come and eat out here,” said Lazar.
MaiPai’s menu is inspired by Madadi’s travels, Hamilton and responses from the community. MaiPai also includes a selection of wings, and almost the entire pizza menu can be made vegetarian or plant based.
One pizza in particular is inspired by Hamilton’s plethora of sub shops. The pizza has a thick, but light and airy crust made with MaiPai’s 48-hour cold fermented dough. It’s cooked with mortadella, salami and hot peppers, and when it comes out of the oven, it’s topped with shredded lettuce, kewpie mayo and sub sauce.
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MaiPai will continue their soft launch hours into February and are hosting feature nights to test out menu items and setting cocktails on fire ahead of their official launch in March. By then, Madadi and Lazar will have opened up the second part to their space by expanding into 629 Barton Street East—tripling their capacity to 80 patrons.
Much like the passionate revival of tiki culture, there’s a very present dedication to bringing new possibilities to Barton Street East. MaiPai is a story of how Hawaii meets Hamilton in peculiar ways, and the next chapters are looking promising.
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This article has been edited as of Feb. 11, 2019
A previously published version of this article misquoted Ikram Farah. The quote has since been updated.
Students are often at a standoff with the MSU president. A commonly held belief is that the President cannot get things done, while presidents themselves often feel that they are misunderstood by the student body. Looking back at former presidents, we can see the difficult realities of their jobs. However, each MSU president has many opportunities to enact change, and it is their responsibility to work within their limitations.
It’s hard to keep all the eggs in one basket
“When someone is running for president they are running on 12-15 platform points, but that is not your only priority, you are a CEO, you are a manager of the whole institution,” said Ikram Farah, former MSU president for the 2018-2019 school year.
Every MSU president has and will continue to struggle with balancing priorities. Consulting past presidents and critically examining a previous year’s struggles is meant to help incoming presidents plan for the year ahead. New president-elects are given the opportunity to do this during their training period under the current MSU president, which lasts from February to April of each year.
Even with this transition process, neither Marando, Farah nor Monaco-Barnes were prepared for how much time would be taken up by priorities unrelated to their platform points.
“I didn’t realize how much of my time would be taken up with chairing various meetings, SRA, clubs, committees, events, and other things that you don’t really see the president do until you are in the role yourself,” said Marando.
During the transition period, outgoing presidents still have their own responsibilities and incoming presidents have their academics. It is unclear exactly how many hours are spent orienting.
“[After March] you’re out, and the new person’s in, and it’s up to them and their team to carry on their objectives but also carry on ongoing projects to full term,” said Justin Monaco-Barnes, former MSU president for the 2016-2017 school year.
Limitations of the transition period may negatively impact a president’s future ability to establish continuity, balance priorities and prepare for unpredictability. Farah faced the impact of the Ontario Student Assistance Program cuts and the Student Choice Initiative. Responding to these events took up much of her team’s time.
“You don’t know what you don’t know,” said Farah.
Continuity is key
Longevity, according to Monaco-Barnes, can be an issue with a one-year term. A president must continue previous presidents’ work while attending to their own platform points and responsibilities. Marando, Farah and Monaco-Barnes highlighted the added pressure that comes from students wanting tangible results.
“. . . A lot of people probably don’t know I sit on groups that improve the university IT plan, or work on mental health support in classrooms. People don’t see all the time and energy that goes into working with our full-time staff and supporting business operations of the MSU. I think that if there isn’t a big promotion of something, people think nothing is happening. In reality things may span over a years — such as our new student space expansion — requiring a lot more resources than one might think,” said Marando.
The student space expansion came from Monaco-Barnes’ platform, whose Pulse expansion plans eventually evolved to include a new student center, the Student Activity Building.
“And then here we are, two years later, and it’s being built which is pretty cool,” said Monaco-Barnes.
Monaco-Barnes took an unpaid leave of absence to run two student-wide referenda and help secure funding for the expansion plans. During the second referendum, Ryan McDonald, the VP (Finance) at the time, also took an unpaid leave.
While the Student Activity and Pulse expansion are underway, future MSU presidents must see them through. Not all projects will survive this process.
At the end of Monaco-Barnes’s term, plastic water bottles were replaced with boxed water in Union Market. Union Market reverted back to plastic water bottles the following year.
“I don’t know how you control that. You hope that the continuity pieces that remain in the MSU leadership wise, you hope they will continue your original messages and ideas, but once you’re gone you can’t really control those things,” added Monaco-Barnes.
If this is a known problem, incoming and outgoing presidents should prevent it from happening as much as possible. Starting from scratch, as Monaco-Barnes noted, is a waste of time.
Who do you want in the room?
As Farah said, it can be easy to forget the significant impact that an MSU President can have in advocating for students. Advocacy could result in change that students may not link back to MSU, as such changes happen over the long-term.
“We need people with ideas and strategic vision. That’s where the Pulse expansion or student activity building becomes impactful. But we don’t always need that large action. Advocating for policies that enhance student life are incredibly important too; however, policy takes time though,” said Farah.
A president will have several opportunities to advocate for students. But it is not easy to get the job done. Monaco-Barnes said that higher-ups can wait out a president that they disagree with. There is also an intimidation factor at play, as the MSU president will interact with older and more experienced counterparts.
“It’d be very easy for a president to go in and do a lacklustre job if they are not motivated,” said Monaco-Barnes.
MSU presidents will make mistakes and struggle with their jobs. Their role is difficult to fully appreciate from an outside perspective. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t point out their mistakes and challenge them to work around limitations. If we do not hold them accountable, then we may see less work being done. Is being MSU president hard? Yes. Does that mean that they cannot accomplish anything? Absolutely not.
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On the night of Jan. 30, 2020, Giancarlo Da-Ré was in the basement of Togo Salmon Hall with a few members of his core campaign team when he learned that he was the new president-elect of the McMaster Students Union. As per tradition, the news was delivered to him by the current MSU president Josh Marando via phone call.
The ranked voting system requires over 50 per cent of the votes to elect a candidate. With 4810 students voting and 666 students abstaining, the threshold this year sat at 2073 votes. Da-Ré received 2504 votes, 431 votes over this requirement and approximately 52 per cent of the total votes that were cast.
The 2020 elections also saw a new low for the voter turnout, with only 19.1 per cent of eligible McMaster students voting this year. This marked a sharp decline from last year, especially when compared to 2014 to 2017, when voter turnout did not once dip below 40 per cent. This downward trend began in 2018, when voter turnout dropped to 28.8 per cent, and continued to 2019, when it dropped even further to 26.8 per cent.
“I was disappointed to see that the voter turnout this year had dropped again. I think this was the product of a few different factors, one of which being the low number of candidates, which would contribute to overall promotion of the election across our community of voting members,” said Da-Ré.
“I was disappointed to see that the voter turnout this year had dropped again. I think this was the product of a few different factors, one of which being the low number of candidates, which would contribute to overall promotion of the election across our community of voting members,” said Da-Ré.
Since all candidates are given five business days to contest any results and to appeal any fines, Da-Ré’s new position is still unofficial. Nevertheless, he is continuing conversations related to his platform, which highlighted accessibility, climate action and student experience.
One critique of Da-Ré’s platform is that while he claims that it was informed by 100 consultations, there were several key groups that he had not contacted by the time the campaign period began. Now, Da-Ré asserts that he has set up consultations with Maccess and the Academic Sustainability Programs Office in order to work towards accessibility and sustainability.
He also voices his desire to consult with people whose perspectives might differ from his own.
“If there’s one thing that I’ve learned from the campaign period, it is that there are many groups on campus trying to tackle different parts of the same puzzle, and that there is a lot of work I have to do to better understand those different pieces,” he says.
“If there’s one thing that I’ve learned from the campaign period, it is that there are many groups on campus trying to tackle different parts of the same puzzle, and that there is a lot of work I have to do to better understand those different pieces,” he says.
While he does not elaborate on any specific details, Da-Ré states that his consultations have helped him understand how offices and departments within McMaster interact with each other. He states that he has gained a sense of the work that has been done recently in this community, and, by extension, an idea of the work that still needs to be done.
With this in mind, Da-Ré wants to remind students at McMaster that they are foundational to the university’s community.
“Students are incredibly passionate and hard-working, and while some changes won’t be seen overnight, they have more power than they think in influencing change within our community,” he says.
Regarding what his first plans would be when he takes office, Da-Ré says, “It’s hard to say what my first plans will be a few months from now, but I look forward to getting up to speed on current initiatives and projects so that I can hit the ground running in May.”
For now, Da-Ré looks forward to the election results becoming official and to starting the transition process with Josh Marando.
He welcomes anyone interested in consulting to send an email to giancarlodare2020@gmail.com.
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By Elisa Do, Contributor
“How many of you are thinking of pursuing a career in health care?”
Since my first day at McMaster, I have — on several occasions — been asked this same question by various professors.
Every time, the classroom flooded with hands in the air. And it was safe to say that none of us were surprised.
Health care encompasses a growing range of professions that have become increasingly popular in our world today. This popularity arises from various circumstances, but it is especially due to the growing number of aged “baby boomers.” As folks of that generation age, the number of individuals seeking healthcare also increases. Thus, leading to greater needs for healthcare professionals, and further emphasis on the field’s importance. Considering this, many children are being taught the benefits of building a career within health care, and more specifically, the benefits of becoming a physician. Physicians are known to have high paying salaries, receive a high level of respect, and face considerable job demands.
However, working in health care is meant to be attractive beyond these practical values. To work in healthcare means providing for others; it means caring for complete strangers. And that, to me, is something meaningful.
Unfortunately, when thinking about the opportunities that healthcare can offer, folks tend to brush aside other crucial professions within the field. One of which include the profession of nursing. Nurses are often viewed as inferior to physicians and portrayed as mere subordinates within the media. They are thought to hold fewer skills, when in truth, they simply hold an extremely valuable set of different skills.
When I think about the time I spent in the hospital with my family, I think about the warm smiles of the nurses. I remember their patience, and their acts of kindness that brought my family comfort. That is not to say that the doctors were not helpful during our difficult times, but the level of intimacy was not the same. I remember the way they cheered my family on, and I remember thinking to myself, “I have to give back to this community someday. I have to bring kindness to other families the way that they did for me today.” In the short amount of time that the hospital became my home, those nurses touched me and my family in a way that will last a lifetime.
When I think about the time I spent in the hospital with my family, I think about the warm smiles of the nurses. I remember their patience, and their acts of kindness that brought my family comfort. That is not to say that the doctors were not helpful during our difficult times, but the level of intimacy was not the same. I remember the way they cheered my family on, and I remember thinking to myself, “I have to give back to this community someday. I have to bring kindness to other families the way that they did for me today.” In the short amount of time that the hospital became my home, those nurses touched me and my family in a way that will last a lifetime.
Nurses are not only caregivers, but they can also be involved in treating injuries, administering and managing medications and performing basic life support. Many of their responsibilities are those typically associated with the roles of doctors.
But even with all the responsibilities that nurses carry, many still regard nurses as “assistants” to physicians. Nurses are often thought to be less significant in the hospital as many forget that health care requires a team effort. If you want to provide care for strangers, and wish to have those strangers put faith in you, it takes a lot more than diagnosing conditions or performing surgery. It requires providing emotional and psychological support for patients and their families, maintaining a safe environment for everyone, and taking unique approaches when providing care for each individual.
In an integrative review done by several members of the Department of Nursing Science at the University of Turku, the perceptions of nursing that young people carry were found to inaccurately reflect the profession’s actual responsibilities. In fact, these perceptions have not changed in the last ten years. Nursing was described with poor working conditions, difficult shift work, and low social status. Along with the many stereotypes regarding nurses — such as gender roles and sexualization — found in the media today, many folks fail to further consider the educational requirements and intellectual demands that nurses face.
Before coming to McMaster, I had intended on applying for the undergraduate nursing program. Although I eventually changed my application choices as I discovered more regarding my interests, the nursing program still stands to me as an exceptional pathway into doing amazing work.
However, when I had initially introduced my family and friends to the idea of me becoming a nurse, I was presented with questions such as: “Why would you want to be a nurse? Why wouldn’t you want to be a doctor?” Hearing these questions not only felt insulting to my values, but more so insulting to the professions themselves, as if all there was to a career was the monetary benefit, or the accepted social status.
And I know doctors and nurses are not the only jobs being misconstrued. Understanding the responsibilities behind any profession takes more than a simple Google search or hearing salary ranges from friends.
Whether to choose medicine, nursing or any other health care pathway for that matter, should be a decision made based on what the individual seeks for their future. There are many wonderful reasons to become a physician, but I believe the spotlight of health care has been too concentrated on the title of ‘doctor’ rather than what the job really entails. It’s time we shift this spotlight and highlight the importance of other contributing members of the healthcare team; it’s time we take a closer look at what it really means to “pursue a career in health care.”
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Trisha Gregorio interviews MSU Presidential Candidate Giancarlo Dé-Re. Watch the video for some hot wings and hot takes:
[Video Description: Trisha Gregorio sits down with MSU Presidential Candidate Giancarlo Dé-Re at Twelve Eighty for an interview. Trisha asked Giancarlo four questions as they ate wings of increasing heat and spice intensity]
