This is really beside the point, and I like going out as much as the next guy, but come on. Your friends have chosen not to cook. Becoming an Iron Chef might be hard, but learning to cook simple and tasty dishes is about as hard as learning to use a PlayStation.
[QUOTE=Cat Whisperer]
People from Ontario think they’re slumming it to living in Calgary,
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Here in Ontario, people have nothing but nice things to say about just about everywhere else in Canada. You might hear the odd flatness-of-Saskatchewan joke, I guess. I doubt there’s any province in Canada that’s more positive about the other ones.
And I have trouble believing someone from a city smaller than Calgary - which in Ontario means all of them, save Toronto and arguably Mississauga/Brampton - would find Calgary “slumming it.” Most people here don’t live in Toronto.
Really, this insistence on seeking out fault with people from other places in the country is irritating. Most people do not spend all their time bitching about how it sucks in your part of the country, just as, at least in my experience, most people from other parts of the country who come here do not bitch about it. Obviously, people will have a tendency to prefer what they are used to, but that doesn’t usually extend to hostility and condescension.
Indeed, if I ask people what they think of Alberta, the great majority of responses will certainly be either “awesome” or “beautiful.” Offhand, everyone I know who’s been there remarks on either its natural beauty - it is, after all, very different from Ontario, and in terms of natural beauty what one is not used to is attractive - or admiration for the partying abilities of Calgarians and Edmontonians. I myself find the province lovely, find the two big cities terrific, and found the people friendly and accomodating.
I live smack dab in the middle of Los Angeles, home to some ridiculous number of millions, cozily situated on the West Coast, and my commute is zero minutes.
I live in the middle of Washington DC and my next assigment is in Kabul, I have about a 24 hour commute; why didn’t I move to a small town and avoid this horrible fate!
I really don’t care where anyone lives but myself. And, would prefer it if people tended to move towards cities. I’m not arguing for anyone to move out of the cities. If you truly want to though, it can be done. If I wanted/had to move to the city, I could do that as well. I would have to make a lot of sacrifices though, and the city has very little to offer me in return. Note I said ME. I am not judging anyone else’s choices.
Martini, you made the claim that there are people that may want to move to small towns, and one of the reasons they don’t is because they can’t cook. You certainly implied that. You then said that most of your friends can’t cook. I continue to maintain that anyone that can hold down at least a menial job will likely have the ability to read and follow simple directions. It is a choice and excuse to not be ‘able’ to cook.
As far as saving time? Well it depends. If you plan on living somewhere far from restaurants, knowing how to cook most certainly saves time. I would think that the same will be true for most cities. Unless it’s a person that lives off of fast food and hot dog carts.
I do know that you live in Australia. And will concede that it is different than the US. Parts of Australia are also different than other parts of Australia. As is also true in the US.
I also know you as a well informed poster. But in this case, I think you are incorrect about a few things. I certainly didn’t mean any disrespect.
I love this thread! Saskatoon born and raised here, and I have moved away for the past five years only to spend that time trying to return. Right now I live in a small town called Watrous that is an hour away. I can’t believe how people consider a 200000+ population city like Saskatoon small! I live in a 2000 member town…that is small! It’s like corner gas in real life!
Some misconceptions about Saskatoon from this thread.
1.Sushi is available in grocery stores. I can think of at least five restaurants that serve sushi off the top of my head. In fact as I recall, Saskatoon has the most restaurants per capita in Canada. So I think most people can find some exceptional to enjoy here in terms of dining (might i recommend the Taj Mahal?)
Crime has been statistically higher here in recent years…but it seems to me at least to be much more contained in certain areas. It’s not like Winnipeg (at least in my experience) in that it spills out over all the downtown and surrounding areas.
There are at least two gay hangouts that I am aware of. Divas is one. Headquarters used to be open but it went out of business as I remember.
Also here are some cool things about Saskatoon that put it on the map:
Saskatchewan (and Saskatoon) has had the strongest economy during the recession. We were in fact at one point the top new story on CNN! Yes there was a big fat picture of the river and the Bessborough on CNN news!
We have a Synchrotron and it is drawing lots of research scientists to the city.
We were voted the cultural capital of Canada a few years back.
Saskatoon is home for me! Though I would like to live elsewhere for while as well.
Sorry, I forgot to respond - we like the Big Rock products out here. The Wild Rose Brewery is making some nice beers, too. We certainly wouldn’t buy you a Bud or some swill like that. (Well, unless you wanted a Bud, in which case we’d politely withhold our opinions.)
Quasimodal, if I understand it correctly, the University of Saskatchewan is doing a lot of cutting-edge agricultural research, too, which isn’t all sexy and stuff, but it is going to be more and more important in the future, in my opinion.
No, I most certainly did not. I responded to a poster who asked why anyone would want to go to restaurant when they could (theoretically) cook fancy posh restaurant meals at home, and I offered a few possible reasons- none of which have anything to do with whether one lives in a city or a rural area.
Theoretically you’re right and theoretically I agree with you on the “anyone should be able to cook” thing. But I’d argue that it’s not so much a “Choice” not to be able to cook as “One of those things”, in much the same way I didn’t “Choose” not to be an electrician or a lumberjack.
[quote[I also know you as a well informed poster. But in this case, I think you are incorrect about a few things. I certainly didn’t mean any disrespect.[/QUOTE]
That’s OK; none taken. I just get tired of what appears to be the “You’re a Foreigner and therefore have no idea what you’re talking about” thing that’s present (IMHO) on the boards.
That’s funny. I’m in Sac now and I just went to an underground Sikh hip-hop show that was packed full with a couple hundred people…which is way more vibrant and interesting than the endless happy-hour circuit I live in DC. In Sac, you have to work a bit to find the fun stuff, but there is a lot there. That said, I’m not coming back to stay in Sac any time soon.
Life in a big city really is a lot of fun, especially for a young people. Sometimes when I’m dressed to the nines and rocketing through town in a taxi (which is pretty darn often), I feel like I’m living in a music video. I feel like I’m living the life of my dreams out there. Whenever I visit my parents, I’m reminded of how lucky I am that rather than watching tv shows about people with interesting lives, I’m living it.
If you are a quiet-evening-at-home type, obviously this isn’t going to appeal to you. You can cozy up on the couch and watch NetFlix anywhere. But if you hate being at home and love having a million things to do, a big city can be great. I don’t see how this becomes personal- different people like different things.
FWIW, I’m an excellent cook, but damn I love having my pick of restaurants. For some reason, I can never get my injira to turn out just right and I don’t have a good source for egusi. I’m glad I can get my yuxiang qiezi fix at the local real-thing Sichuan Chinese restaurant instead of having nothing but cheap fake Chinese food. And while I love gloopy Mughal-style Indian lunch buffets as much as anyone, I also enjoy being able to get idli and dosas when the mood strikes me. I don’t go out to eat often, but when I do I am grateful that I can get exactly the kind of regional cuisine that I don’t have the time, equipment or ingredients to master on my own.
Heh, trying to set other Canadians right about Ontario in general and Toronto in particular is a lost cause.
My response in the past was much like yours. Now, I sorta gave up and go with the flow - “yes, everyone, literally everyone, in Toronto sits on a huge pile of money while sneering at everything [your home province, city, or town] stands for. All the time. It’s how we handle the pain from having our souls carved out of our bodies and used to fuel the banks.”
I don’t think the accusation is that you sit on a huge pile of money rather an accusation that if it is good for Toronto and Ontario, then it is good for the rest of the country and you can suck it up if you don’t like it.
Well, actually, my “accusation” was that in my experience, a lot of people who come to Calgary from other places look down their noses at Calgary as not being as good as where they’re from. I didn’t think there was a lot of room for debate, since I was talking about what I have actually experienced.
Maybe, but they’re the closest thing we’ve got. They’re far better than a definition of ‘city’ that stops at the city limits, as if Arlington and Bethesda would have all those people if DC weren’t next door.
Their definitions usually are a bit expansive, because as I understand it, the idea is to be able to capture the growth in the urban area’s population without having to redefine the boundaries every 5 minutes. And they have to be defined in terms of counties because there aren’t good subcounty units to work with.
So sure, they include some towns that were there before the metro area became a MSA, and whose citizenry would be living there even if the city at the core of the MSA didn’t exist. But I bet that’s a pretty small percentage of the populations of most MSAs.
Yup, that’s exactly what we think. Not a day goes by that I don’t say to my neighbour something like: “hey bud, I like your lawn. By the way, what’s good for your lawn is good for the country, and those in Saskatoon can suck it up if they don’t like it”.
Yeah, learning to cook fairly decently probably isn’t that hard, but claiming that you can easily learn to cook as well as the better restaurants with all of their range is a little too much to claim. Of course most people can’t cook as good as professional cooks, not everyone is good at everything.
Heck, I would not weigh the wider range in restaurants all that high when considering the benefits of a big city, but I’m not going to deny that it is a valid reason for some people. It is very well possible to be a gastronome and not have cooking talent.
You stated “People from Ontario think they’re slumming it if they live in Calgary, and people from BC can’t stop moaning about how flat it is and how they miss their trees and mountains.” That’s not a claim of personal experience. You also said you encountered this all the time, but you pretty clearly said it was generally true.
Seriously, dude, we don’t all sit around thinking of how much we hate other provinces.
You snipped out the first part of my post - “Living in Calgary which seems to have about four transplants for every home-grown Calgarian, I see the attitudes all the time, and I think you’ve nailed it. People from Ontario think they’re slumming it to living in Calgary, and people from BC can’t stop moaning about how flat it is and how they miss their trees and mountains.” The second sentence is a continuation of my first idea, talking about what I see here. I don’t know what people think about in Ontario; I’m just talking about the attitudes I’ve seen from people who have moved here.
(Well, unless you wanted a Bud, in which case we’d politely withhold our opinions.)
