Cookbooks, Carney, and Comebacks
The Walrus
Award winning independent journalism, fact checking, and national ideas-focused events.
Plus: Poilievre’s political destiny
Donald Trump said Pierre Poilievre is “not a MAGA guy,” which the Conservative leader noted as true. While he might not have the red hat or Donald’s endorsement, Poilievre has?flirted with MAGA-style politics, according to Justin Ling:
Poilievre has cribbed Trump’s warnings of “globalists” and a “deep state” with his professed fears of the World Economic Forum. He has borrowed Republican attacks on transgender people and taken to calling Justin Trudeau and his father “Marxist.” Poilievre has leaned into growing skepticism around immigration levels while adopting Trumpian tag lines to paint our urban centres as dangerous hellscapes. The Conservatives see this as a delicate dance: an attempt by Poilievre to show that he knows how to play the hits popularized by Trump—anti-woke, anti-DEI, anti-WEF. But by being primarily responsive to what die-hard conservatives want, Poilievre puts himself at their mercy. [Read more]
Scientists have created genetically modified rodents with long, wavy hair worthy of shampoo ads. These woolly mice may bring researchers one step closer to bringing back the woolly mammoth. Julia Zarankin investigated similar efforts to engineer a passenger pigeon comeback, in “Can Science Bring Extinct Animals Back to Life?”
If the project sounds reminiscent of Jurassic Park, that’s because it is. But there’s more at stake here than a sci-fi story—Ben Novak, the lead scientist of Revive & Restore’s Great Passenger Pigeon Comeback Project, sees the passenger pigeon as an essential species for the future of conserving eastern North American woodland biodiversity. “De-extinction is not something separate from a category that we call genetic rescue,” he explains. “If your goal is to conserve an entire ecosystem and there’s an extinct species that’s a key puzzle piece to that, you’ll always be fighting an uphill battle until that puzzle piece is back in the picture.” [Read more]
Meghan Markle just launched a new lifestyle series on Netflix, a field crowded by stalwarts like Martha Stewart, celebs such as Gwenyth Paltrow, and tradwife influencers like Nara Smith. Before domestic goddesses started selling us dinner-party tips, there was Company’s Coming. Kristy Woudstra explored "How Jean Paré Taught Canada to Cook" in her piece on the prolific cookbook author:
Paré’s books looked and felt like heartwarming instruction manuals, with knee-slapping puns and colourful photos of comfort food scattered throughout. They were distributed in places people shopped already: grocery stores, pharmacies, lumberyards, and hair salons. During her reign, Paré became an archivist of Canadian cooking traditions, preserving and interpreting recipes she grew up with and collected throughout her life. … But even as she became a Canadian tradition herself, she never abandoned one of her most treasured sources of inspiration: the community cookbook. “She wasn’t trying to be a fancy-pants,” says Baird. “She was just being honest in the way she was.” [Read more]
On March 9, the Liberal Party will choose their new leader. Here’s a roundup of reporting on the race, the new political landscape, and some of the candidates vying for the job:
Check out our books podcast, What Happened Next, hosted by Nathan Whitlock . This week’s conversation is with Anuja Varghese , about her short story collection, Chrysalis.
Read a poem by Phillip Crymble: “Map”
Read a short story by Charlotte Gill: “Giganto”
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