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White chocolate great The beauty of being a food writer is that, from time to time, new products cross my kitchen table that I absolutely love. Last autumn, Bakers' Chocolate launched their new white choco-. late line. It seems a perfect time, just around Easter, to talk about chocolate. Bakers has been a household word for a century here in Canada. It was actually founded in 1780 making it the oldest branded company 'in North America. White chocolate is made from only the cocoa butter extracted from the cocoa bean, and not the dark chocolate liquor. Imitation Anita Stewart Page 5, News, Tuesday, April 3, 1990 butter and lacks the rich choco- latey taste and aroma of pure white chocolate. WHITE CHOCOLATE CHEESECAKE 2 packages (250 g) softened plain cream cheese 1/3 cup granulalted sugar 1 tsp lemon juice 6 squares white chocolate, melted 3/4 cup sour cream 1 cup sour cream 2 tbsp granulated sugar White chocolate curls and fresh fruit, as needed. Preheat the oven to 450 F. Beat the cream cheese, sugar and lemon juice until very smooth. Whip in the melted chocolate, sour cream, eggs and vanilla. Pour the batter into a lightly greased 8 1/2" springform pan, smoothing the top with a spatula. Bake at 450 F for 10 minutes. _ Prepare the topping by com- bining the sour cream and 2 tbsp. Sor Easter treats and run a sharp knife around the edge. Refrigerate at least 6 hours or preferably overnight. Garnish and serve, slicing with a very sharp knife, dipped in hot water if necessary. Makes 8-10 servings. 'STRAWBERRIES DIPPED IN WHITE CHOCOLATE Partially melt several choco- late squares over hot, not boiling water, Stir until very smooth. Dip the tips of clean, dried berries with their stems on, into the melted chocolate. Set to dry on waxed paper. Store in the refrigerator. They will keep for a white chocolate, often called 2 large eggs Reduce the heat to 250 F and of sugar. Spread over the cheese-_ day. "compound coating" is made with 1 tsp vanilla continue to bake for 30-35 min- cake and bake for an additional 5 Perfect mandarin orange sec- vegetable fat instead of cocoa Topping: _ utes longer. minutes. Remove from the oven _ tions may also be dipped. Maybe life 1 "Gee, Baba," says one of my little kidnik friends, "why you always so serious about every- thing? You don't tell many hokes." ; "Surely you mean 'jokes', little innocent one. I never heard of no 'hokes™ "That's 'cause you're so old- fashioned hokey-pokey, Baba." "Oh, I getcha. But listen, kid- nik, life ain't no hoke no matter whether you're old-fashioned-old like me or with-it-young like you. Life is grim, life is serious, life is ir oh shucks, what the hell. Let's have a laugh and a giggle while wecan. » life can't be alk that: bad." Well, sometimes yes, some- times no. . Depends on which part of the Mountain of Life you're sit- ting. The little green foothills of youth, the great big rosy peak of success, fame and fortune, or the gtey downside of this whole great big Pilgrim's Progress. Making We're down to the last, short strokes to save the Meech Lake constitutional accord. Furious telephone conference calls are going on among the three hold out-provinces, Prime Minister Mulroney and Ontario Premier David Peterson. They're trying to find a formu- la for a so-called "parallel accord"--one that will commit the provinces and Ottawa to passing the Meech Lake accord as it stands to satisfy Quebec, and at the same time adopt a second document--somewhat like a sec- ond mortgage on your house when you can't handle the first mortgage. This "parallel accord" is being developed in secret, without public involvement, over long distance telephone lines. Thus, we don't know what this "parallel accord" might contain. Presumably, it will deal with the concerns of the Meech Lake dissenters, such as the failure of the original agreement to deal with women's rights, aboriginal rights, or the rights of the Yukon and the Northwest territories to evolve into provinces. If the parallel accord does deal with aboriginal rights or aborigi- nal ealf-onvernment. it Will no Olga Landiak Kennedy But that side doesn't necessari- ly have to be so grey looking or sounding. Not unless you want to match it up with the grey hairs in the old thatch and beard. (if you happen to be the original Bearded Lady, that is.) Nor should it be an undignified caper of feigned frivolity and fun in an effort to show just how very young we still are. Oh, why will people insist on using that too-too coy phrase of So-and-So being so many years 'young' when they are well into their Goldie Oldie times? Is this supposed to make that person feel the illusion of youth, if not its actuality? What's so awful about admitting to being so many years OLD? That kind of coyness just turns me off. Heck, we've earned every one of those hard-fought years, and I don't want anybody depriv- ing me of a single day of them with some kind of phony appella- tion of youthfulness. Don't know about you, but I'm glad to leave behind those young years with all their greenness about life and how she is lived. May not exact- ly be a feminine version of Solomon when it comes to the wisdom department by now, but heck, neither am I so naive or unknowledgeable anymore. I hope! So why bemoan the passing of the years and the loss of some kind of ephemeral beauty or handsomeness. Give me a nice old wrinkled face with loads of character and experience written. into it any day, instead of those baby-bum-smooth unwritten- upon mugs of youth looking just as blank as the thoughts behind them. As for 'living it up and being with it', shucks, we've got our own ways of doing that. Maybe not in the fast lane of the young gung-ho ones, but the slower one that gives us time to look around at all the madnesses going on and see them for the inanities they really are. And if that isn't an advantage, I don't know what is. s only just a hoke after all And when I hear or rea of all the arrogant pronouncements of these same gung-ho ones who think their generation is so all- fired clever and wise, well, it sure gives me my laugh for the day. When I'm not blowing off steam, that is, at their stupid, crass and immoral practices. But what the heck, no one per- son ever changed the world. No, not even the Hung-Upon-A-Cross One who left us an awful lot of hard lessons to be learnt about ourselves and our oh-so-fallible- human-nature, and which we've done a rotten job of putting into practice in daily living. So maybe Life is a Hoke after all, and maybe it's better to make your Final Exit with a grin on the old face and an old hoke on the withered lips. As they used to say in the old days of vaudeville, "Always leave 'em laughing!" Even when there's nothing left to laugh about. Municipalities constitutional NORTHERN INSIGHTS doubt allow some kind of local government rights for Canada's First Peoples. This would give band councils something like the powers of a municipality. That includes the power to raise taxes, pass local zoning and other types of by-laws, and run recreation programs. The problem with this is that municipalities themselves do not have an official status under the constitution. Towns and cities are what the lawyers call "creatures of the provinces". In other words, the municipalities only have the powers and rights given to them by the province. Yet the municipal level of government is the one that affects your daily life most often. Garbage is collected, water flows through taps, toilets are flushed, streets are ploughed, and kids go to school--everyday. by Larry Sanders Iain Angus, a New Democrat MP from Thunder Bay, has sug- gested that this imbalance should be corrected, by giving munici- palities formal status under the constitution. He's not suggesting that the municipalities should get into the last-minute Meech Lake debate. He says "It will take time, in part because we have to deal with other constitutional issues first." Instead, he's sug- gesting that municipalities get their case ready for the next round of constitutional talks, whenever those are. Angus argues' that giving municipalities formal status under the constitution would get at the real problem cities and towns say they're complaining about by passing "English-only" resolu- tions: the nasty habit of Ottawa programs that force municipali- ties to pay, without giving munic- ipalities the right to say no, or any right to raise income to pay for these programs though income tax. The municipalities are forced to raise property taxes, and Angus says that's not fair. "Property tax, as is sales tax, is the most regressive form of rais- ing government revenues, because there is no relationship to the ability to pay. Only if munici- palities are able to tap income tax in a direct way, will they be able to respond more appropriately to the demands of the people that they directly represent." Can you imagine filling out yet another income tax form? that's already the case in some states. Some Americans have to fill out a federal income tax form, a state income tax form, and a municipal one. The folks at H& R Block will be happy to think about bringing that kind of sys- tem to Canada. To be fair, Angus and the NDP also advocate a massive tax reform package, one that would greatly simplify the tax system. Presumably, those reforms would make it easier to pay municipal income taxes, since you would fill out only one statement of 'income and expenses for your family, business, or corporation, and then each of the three levels of government would get a share of your real net income. The principle is based on your real income--not the size of your house like property tax is, or your ability to pay for fancy tax audi- tors and lawyers to find loop- holes. Under Angus's proposed con- stitutional amendment, munici- palities would get more than the right to collect income tax. They'd also get the right to say "no" to senior levels of govern- ment. That's the way it works now between the provinces and the federal government. Ottawa can't pass legislation in areas of continued on page 6 ; and Queen's Park of legislating --