Obie Trice and Smoked Trout salad

Open mic time is upon us again.

At midnight, as the clock ticked over on the Reverend Dr Martin Luther King Jr's birthday, as I sat in the lobby of the Grand Theatre watching flatscreen tv, as I ran to Coch's lookin for the after party, I was a hip hop fugitive.

An hour earlier,  giggling into a microphone, running around the feet of the crowd, my calling was clear: I was born to be Sonny Vibe$' hypeman. I was hip hop. I was of the pageantry and not the poetry. Concert photography by RADimagery.

Two hours before midnight, as the show first got underway, I was a bundle of nerves; go-go dancing, twirling and pratfalling in my red flannel, dry-humping speaker columns to the sounds of Snoop and 'skeet skeet skeet'. I don't need a mic to work the crowd. Even my body language is loud. But I am getting tired of celebrating misogyny and violence, especially considering the date...

This week's celebrity near-encounter is Obie Trice. I spotted him at the Grand during DJ Invisible's soundcheck. We were both staring at our phones, pacing the floor of a room not unlike the Opera House on Queen east in Toronto. 

This weeks open mic host is Jamie Neveau. He also runs a weekly jam at the Indian friendship centre over on East street. The last time I hung out on the corner of Queen and East, some kids walked by and told me "yous were great". Now that's the most street cred I've had since I left Victoria

The menu for this week's open mic is:

Banana bread
Beetroot brownies
Parsnip soup
Salad of romaine, tomato, red onion, and carrot in a white wine vinaigrette, served with toast topped with ricotta cheese and Sayer's smoked trout

Parsnip soup:

Six medium parsnips
Two carrots
Three wee potatoes
Two medium red onions
Two tablespoons fresh rosemary
1.5 tablespoons Maple syrup
Salt and pepper

Dice and sautee red onion
over medium heat.

Peel and dice parsnip, carrots, and potatoes, ssautee. Add rosemary, salt and pepper. Stir.

Cover with water, bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer until vegetables have softened. Blend, add salt and pepper, maple syrup to taste.