One night in Philly years ago, fellow Canadian travel writer Margaret Webb and I got fabulously hosed guzzling Cuervo shots at some huge dyke party. All I remember is Margaret wearing skin-tight black vinyl pants, me wearing leather, our black-booted feet propped up on a wooden barrel. And honey, we kicked major ass.
"I still have a headache from that night!" Margaret cracks over the phone from Vancouver on her current book tour that brings her to Montreal next week to promote her critically acclaimed new book Apples to Oysters: A Food Lover’s Tour of Canadian Farms (Viking Canada).
In Apples to Oysters, Webb introduces us to "chefs of the soil and sea, tractor-seat philosophers [and] poet biologists."
"The book sold out on Amazon two days after it came out!" Margaret says proudly.
It could not have happened to a nicer person. The writer has paid her dues: After getting an MA in English and creative writing from Concordia, Webb held senior editorial positions at several Canadian magazines (T.O. Magazine, enRoute, Vista) before flying freelance, working on two screenplays for Walt Disney Studios, teaching J-school at Ryerson, then travelling across the Great White North to write Apples to Oysters.
Driving coast to coast to coast, especially during the great national debate over SSM that climaxed when former PM Paul Martin championed the historic 2005 vote that legalized gay civil marriage in this country, Margaret also helped win over straight rural Canadians who have little idea how integrated urban gay life is.
"No farmers I met were gay or lesbian," Margaret says. "What’s interesting about travelling across our country is outside the big city you think everyone’s a homophobe or redneck. But they all guessed I was gay right off the bat. I was just myself. I was with [my partner] Nancy. It was clear we were a couple. So they told us stories about their gay sisters and aunts and brothers. They have no one to talk about this to and really wanted to talk with us. I was quite overwhelmed."
Margaret continues, "One blind guy, he couldn’t see we were dykes. The civil marriage law had just passed and he said, ‘Why should we spend so much time on this [issue] when we should focus more on stem-cell research?’ I had to agree with him."
As I mentioned earlier, I met Margaret in Philly where we both attended the annual Equality Forum international gay civil rights think tank and conference.
Each year Equality Forum focuses on a different nation – Canada in 2005, China in 2006, the United Nations in 2007, and this year’s theme is "Gays and Lesbians in the Muslim World." Events include panels, workshops, parties and a screening of the doc A Jihad for Love with director Parvez Sharma in attendance (read my interview with Sharma at www.hour.ca/film/film.aspx?iIDArticle=13416).
Webb thinks we should invest ourselves in environmental activism as we have in the gay civil rights movement.
"Right now we are so dependent on China, the USA and South America for most of our food," Margaret – who also grew up on a working farm in Barrie, Ontario – explains. "If we don’t like the chemicals they use, do we really want them growing our food? If we get into a trade war with them, how dependent are we? Canada is a food superpower and I don’t want us to rely on another country to feed ourselves."
Now Margaret’s really on a roll.
"The decision to boycott the Beijing Olympics should have been made by the IOC years ago," she says. "I’m more concerned about pollution being a problem for the Games. But what effect is pollution having on the food they’re exporting to us? If [toxins] were found in cat and dog food [in over 100 brand names China exported to the West in 2007], you think it’s not in human food? Canada needs to smarten up. The world’s priority right now is food and water. If we don’t get a grip, we’ll be headed down that path too. We already are."
Essential buttplugs Meet Margaret Webb at her reading, book-signing and cheese tasting at Westmount’s Bon Appétit Cookbooks store (388 Victoria), May 6 from 5:30 to 7 p.m. Surf to www.margaretwebb.com.
If you’re headed to Philly, check out this year’s upcoming Equality Forum, April 28 to May 4. Surf to www.equalityforum.com. The City of Brotherly Love also hosts Philadelphia Black Gay Pride, April 24-27. Surf to www.phillyblackpride.org.
If you’re in Toronto this weekend, Skye Gilbert’s HAPPY: A Very Gay Little Musical winds down at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre on April 27. Surf to www.artsexy.ca.
Finally, if you’re in NYC this spring, do not miss the new all-black, all-star Broadway production of Tennessee Williams’ classic Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (with all the gay content intact). Directed by Debbie Allen, starring James Earl Jones, Terrence Howard, Phylicia Rashad and the gorgeous Giancarlo Esposito, at the Broadhurst Theater (235 West 44th St.), through June 22. Surf to www.cat2008onbroadway.com.
