Rediscovering Super Sardines

My travels along the boulevard of “Healthy Eating” have hardly been fast, focused and smooth. Instead, you’ll find patches of burnt rubber, skid marks, lots of tire tracks leading off-road, along with countless, rather shameful detours into the parking lots of such unspeakably delicious destinations as ice cream parlors, cake stores and donut shops. My GPS confirms I am, indeed, on the boulevard, but, to most people speeding past, it appears I’ve stalled, or broken down.

Here’s my reality; I like eating healthy food I like and will not go out of my way to eat healthy food I do not like. I am also exceptionally lazy when it comes to cooking! I’ve been doing decently with the fish thing. The suggestion is that we eat fish twice a week. I’m on it. They are a lean, healthy source of protein and they come with heart-healthy and brain-healthy omega-3 fats.

When my former morning television co-host, Camille, told me I could place a filet of salmon on aluminum foil, sprinkle on pepper and be done, I thought, “sold!” Peppered salmon on a bed of brown rice has been part of my weekly diet since then! I’ve been devouring tuna since I was a child. I used to enjoy kippered snacks, smoked herring, right out of the can. They are packed in oil, which now deters me. I must say, the Pacific mackerel I’ve been eating, canned in China, doesn’t always look that appetizing when it slides out of the tin. Thinking it’s a healthy option, every now and then, I treat myself to a shrimp stir fry in the Montreal Trust food court.

Websites will tell you that when it comes to omega-3 fatty acids, not all seafood is created equal. It turns out the unglamorous sardine is way out in front! Who knew? It packs more omega-3 per 3 ounce serving than salmon, tuna or any other food! It’s also naturally high in vitamin D, which is great for bones because it helps increase the absorption of calcium. Sardines, I’ve learned, offer phosphorus, also good for bones. On top of all that, the tiny, inexpensive, sustainable sardine is a good source of vitamin B12, which promotes cardiovascular health.

How can you argue with that?

The canned version only has about 400mg of sodium, which is not much at all. I’m in the process of rediscovering sardines and I’m buying them packed in mineral water. I can’t remember why, but I stopped eating sardines years ago. Now, not only do I see them on lists of healthy foods to eat, they are being hailed by some experts as an outright superfood! Oh, sardine superfood, my apologies for the snub and, by all means, let’s spend some time together.

On the boulevard of “Healthy Eating”, that's got to be worth a lurch forward.

Recollections

I got to do so many amazing segments as feature reporter for the former Montreal morning show, “This Morning Live”! My goal each morning was to infotain Montreal viewers by making my segments as visually compelling as possible and fun to watch, which, I must say, made them great fun to do. Over the five years that I did the job, we built up some wonderful relationships with locations in and around Montreal.

Visits to La Ronde were always a highlight for my cameraman, Gilbert Laporte, and myself. Management at the amusement park was always willing to open early and bring in staff as we came rumbling through the gates at 5AM with our camera and microwave truck. They would gladly put me in elaborate make-up and costumes to help promote their popular events. It provided wild visuals for viewers of our morning show and gave me a chance to act like a goofball, which I always love doing.

Over the years, we helped promote several events, rides, shows and anniversaries at La Ronde, including the park's horror extravaganza, Fright Fest! On those mornings, the park would bring in a slew of actors and makeup artists. Our camera would show our early morning viewers a flurry of wandering zombies, ghouls and other assorted creepy beings, live, as I would interview enthusiastic witches and mad scientists.

You can see excerpts from some segments I did at La Ronde on one of my demo reels.

 Feature Reporter Demo

I don’t like roller coasters, but on September 15th 2005, to celebrate the 20^th anniversary of the Monster, I climbed aboard the ride with the park’s media relations person at the time. I managed to speak into the microphone as we climbed to the top of the first 40 metre drop but for the rest of the ride, I closed my eyes, held my breath and didn’t say a word. I guess I was better at promoting some things than others. Gilbert might not want me to admit this, but park officials actually offered to let us do some stuff we were just too chicken to do!

We also helped promote the spectacular fireworks competition that happens at La Ronde. One of the people I often interviewed was Paul Csukassy, the Technical Director of the competition. When my son didn’t have school, he would come with me to some of the locations that our morning team visited. 

One morning Paul arranged to have my son set off a test firework, live on the air. Neither Tristan, nor I, have ever forgotten it! I hadn’t seen Paul for several years but he agreed to be a guest on our show this week! We have a segment called “From The Lookout”, where we meet interesting Montrealers and talk with them about their connection to the city. It was nice to see him again, share his passion for his work and hear about how he started out as a member of the fireworks clean-up team and then worked his way up to Technical Director, a position he’s held for 20 years now.

This past season, Paul worked with legendary Quebec singer/songwriter Serge Fiori on the soundtrack to the final show of L’International des feux Loto-Quebec. Paul talks about the collaboration in our interview, which you can see here (at 22:30).

City Life on MAtv (Fall 2017 Episode 7)

Thanks to Paul for coming in for this week’s interview and thanks to La Ronde for the great people and great memories.