dijon

cait and sam get
tofu sandwiches from oxbow

Why did you choose this meal?

C: Well, they’re our neighbours and now our closest friends. Andy makes this sandwich and I love Andy. And I love the sandwich. I love sauce and he makes them so saucy. It’s also vegan. I’ve been vegan for two years, vegetarian for 13.

S: I’ve been vegetarian for 17 years and I go in and out of being vegan, I have for a long time. It’s based on how I feel.

Do you cook a lot for yourselves being vegan?

C: Oh yeah. We cook three meals a day. When I say that I’m going home to make dinner it’s surprising how many people I realize don’t cook very much. We get obsessed with four things and eat them every week until we’re sick of them. Right now it’s breakfast lasagna and roasted cauliflower with roasted carrots, mushrooms and gravy in a cast iron pan. 

What is breakfast lasagna?

S: Breakfast lasagna is amazing. It’s like vegan hollandaise and a tofu scramble - instead of scrambled eggs. Then you crumble vegan sausages, so it’s layered. 

C: You fry the sausages with maple syrup. The tofu has green pepper, mushrooms, shallot in there. Have you heard of this stuff called ‘black salt?’ It looks like garlic powder and literally makes stuff taste like eggs. 

S: I think the real name is ‘kala namak,’ it’s from India but it’s sulphuric salt, so it really does taste like eggs. One time Cait put it in guacamole and it was disgusting. We were like gagging while eating the tacos but didn’t want to waste them. 

C: It’s not that I necessarily miss egg flavour, but it makes sense with this dish. There’s salsa, “cheese” on top. We can eat it for breakfast, lunch and dinner. The hollandaise sounds gross to people for lasagna but it adds the creaminess. 

What’s the breakfast routine?

C: I make us Americanos.

S: I start frying Just Eggs which are vegan egg patties and we make bagels with avocado and tomato slices.

C: Yeah we eat bagels every day, haha.

S: We eat this pretty much every day, when we get sick of it we switch to oatmeal. We stand all day so we kind of need a heavy breakfast to give us energy while we burn it off. If I have cereal or oatmeal at 7am and then start work at 8 or 9, it just doesn’t fill me up long enough.

What do you do with your doggies all day long?

S: They go to daycare. I would love to bring them here but they’d just bark. And Carl is a runner so he’d try to run away - it’s pretty rude actually. It’s a little too scary on Osborne. 

What kind of dogs are they?

S: Dachshunds. 

But they look very different from one another.

S: Louis is a rescue, the curly one. Everyone says he looks like a different breed but when he’s wet and all of his fur is slicked down he looks identical to Carl. It’s just that he has fuzzy hair. We got him when he was one and a half so I really wish we could see what he looked like as a puppy. I bet there are artists somewhere that you could hire to simulate what your dog would look like as a puppy. 

Yeah, like a computer app - age my dog, now reverse age my dog. Did you pick your dogs or did your dogs pick you?

S: I like to say “who rescued who?” Haha. I would jump in front of a bus for Louis, he’s my favourite thing in the world so I’d say he picked us. 

C: Yeah, and then Carl was chosen by us and he’s the spoiled one. Louis is grateful for everything and then Carl just thinks he deserves it. 

S: Older child and middle child syndrome. Carl’s the brat and Louis just wants your approval. I bet if we just looked up some simple psychology it would explain everything.

Are your dogs eating anything interesting these days?

C: Our dogs get a fried quail egg for breakfast, haha. We give them the egg with some raw meat, blueberries, raw veggies. They’re very spoiled, and now they’re picky.

S: Yeah now that we started frying their fucking eggs. It sounds really fancy but a regular egg is just too big for them, hence the smaller quail eggs. Carl even eats the shells. It started because Louie was super picky and would only eat meat, so we were like, ‘ok well you have to eat these vegetables to balance it out’, so we found ones he likes even though he still sometimes picks them out. It was really just so he would eat, but then it’s like, are we really just going to feed Carl dry kibble while his brother gets this feast? It just got out of hand, really.

What’s it like being life and business partners?

S: So good. So nice.

Aw!

C: She’s joking. 

S: To speak for myself, I feel like most of the time it’s good, we’ve worked together for a really long time. I did this one astrology course one time. I did both of our charts and it didn’t know how we were connected, whether we were together or sisters or work friends, whatever. But over and over and over it said “you should definitely work together, you’re super compatible” which was interesting because we were already working together at that point and for years. I feel like the work stuff is really really easy. The hardest part is -- 

C: -- Having time, outside of work. I have a hard time separating myself from work, don’t you think?

S: Yeah we’re just always together. Sometimes I want to talk about something that isn’t work. 

Did you two meet at work?

S: No, we both were already hairdressers. I’m from Toronto and I lived there when we met and Cait was working at Hunter & Gunn as a barber and I was working as a hairstylist. I went to a barbershop shortly after we met, like three months later. I didn’t want to go into barbering because I thought it would be a fad.

C: You literally told me that it was stupid to be only a barber because that trend was going to go away, haha. Now we own a “Barbershop.”

S: Yes but I still think that being able to cut all lengths of hair is a huge advantage. She moved to Toronto for a year and we worked at the same barbershop and then we moved here and tried to work at different shops, but I couldn’t find a job so I joined her at Hunter & Gunn and we worked there for five years.

C: It is hard, because when we were working at the shop in Toronto, there was a pretty toxic environment and obviously it goes home with you. And it’s not like you go home and decompress to your partner about how shitty your day was and you move on from it, we were both experiencing it. So it’s for better and worse in that way - when it’s good, we’re both feeling really good. Knock on wood but I feel like we haven’t had anything too stressful happen yet. Like, when we were opening this place and trying to get permits through the City, that was stressful, and the lockdown, and reopening. But I don’t know, I think we have a good system. Sam takes care of these things and I take care of everything else, haha.

Do you care to talk about the division of labour around here?

C: Sam cuts hair and helps me write captions for Instagram, haha. 

Captions are hard.

S: To be totally honest I was never like, “I want to own my own shop one day.” It’s not that I don’t love it now, I’m so happy with it but I felt content with cutting hair and getting really good at it. So in some ways, I’m like ‘yes you can do the bookkeeping because this was your idea.’ 

C: It was my idea, I’ve always wanted this. 

S: I do a lot of the organizing though, so I did the community cleanup, free haircut night for LGBTQ youth… at Hunter and Gunn I did a drive every holiday season so this will be my 6th annual one even though it’s the first one here. I love the community outreach part of our shop. Plus I do all of the Green Circle stuff.

What’s that?

S: We are certified sustainable. So none of our garbage goes to a landfill, everything we can recycle through the City goes there, and then all of our hair, foil, product containers, PPE, gloves etc. is all shipped to certain facilities where they are broken down and reused in some capacity. Like all of the PPE is burnt and used as asphalt, everything is totally environmentally friendly. 

C: The hair we collect is used for oil spills…

S: Everyone who creates garbage should legally have to do it and I mean corporations too. That was my dream since I started cutting hair. I heard about Green Circle salons about 10 years ago and knew if I ever owned a shop it would have to be Green Circle certified. It does cost a lot of money but we feel good about it.

C: When hair breaks down in the ground it produces carbon so it’s actually really bad.

S: Anything they can’t reuse then they do compost it, and I’m not sure how they do it but it’s a managed landfill so it’s better than throwing it in a garbage bag and throwing it into the City dump. 

C: Like our trash can is made out of hair! It’s so cool. Luckily there are not enough oil spills to require the amount hairstylists collect, so they’re always finding new things to do with it. I’m reading this book that talks about what makes a good workplace, and there are people that are always doing new things and wanting promotions, and then there are people that are really good at their jobs. They’re happy and passionate but they’re comfortable where they are. I love reading about the business aspect of all of this and how to be a good boss. 

S: Are you my boss?

C: Yes. But we spend so much time working that it’s important to like who you’re working with and you’re in a place that you like otherwise you spend so much time being unhappy. I guess I’m always interested in how to be better. 

Jobs are such a bummer for so many people, if you can make one less place a bummer that’s amazing. 

C: Yeah, I know. I feel super grateful that we are able to do that.

S: We have an employee named Tory and she’s so sincere and enthusiastic about the job. I love overhearing her telling her clients about the shop, I don’t think I ever loved a place I worked that much. 

We think you left Winnipeg for a bit.

S: Yes, I am from Windsor, but lived in Toronto for years, so Cait came and lived with me for one year but then she hated it, so we moved here. I think we moved a little too soon. Here for me, I feel like I need more friends. It takes so long. It’s kind of easier in Toronto because no one is from there, whereas here it’s harder to break into friend groups cause they’re like, “well I could invite you but I’ve invited my ten friends I grew up with.

C: I loved visiting there, but I didn’t love living there. But Toronto gave me a good perspective. Like, here you get off work and call a friend and see people. There you need to make plans months in advance.

S: Yeah cause everyone has like two jobs so they’re like, “I’m free in 20 days.”

C: I just knew I could work less for the same amount of money. There’s a lot of things I miss though, like concerts and biking everywhere. 

S: I grew up in Windsor which is so close to Detroit - any show you want to see you can see there, then I lived in Toronto. So yeah, it’s pretty jarring how few bands come through here.

C: When I was young I was obsessed with Warped Tour, and Sam went to them every year because she lived right there. I would buy the DVD every year and me and my friends would watch it on the way to the ski hill or something. I was like, ‘When I’m older I’m going to work for PETA and go to Warped Tour’ and for Sam, it was like going over the Osborne bridge going to Detroit. 

What’s your favourite place on the planet that you’ve been to?

C: It’s so lame to say but I love LA. It’s chill, beautiful and warm.

S: We just really love California, we’ve been several times. We were supposed to get married in Joshua Tree. It is so weirdly special. 

C: You go around one corner and it’s all these boulders, and then you turn another corner and you see all the Joshua Trees. Very Dr. Seuss. We have a hold to Joshua Tree for sure.

What’s the south Osborne scene like?

C: Great, when we moved to this area three years ago, Oxbow wasn’t here, Little Sister coffee or Black Market so they’ve all opened fairly recently. Another restaurant just opened down the street, Tabula Rasa. It’s great, especially for that style of food, the portions are quite good.

S: Yeah and a bowling alley just opened, we’ve been twice already.

C: I love bowling alley bars and arcade bars so I’m stoked to have that, we’re going to have a bowling team with some neighbours.

S: We live in South Osborne too, and it’s so nice to walk to work. 

C: Someone told me that there is a direct correlation between your happiness and your commute to work every day, and I believe that - it’s how you start your day. 

S: I think some people have struggled with working in their house through the pandemic so it is nice that we’re close but still have to leave the house.

What was something unexpected you found out, good or bad, by opening this shop?

S: We didn’t know what the fuck we were doing and there’s no manual on how to open a barbershop, so you ask around but everyone does it differently. We had to retrofit this whole space and get everything up to current code. Most places have heat, plumbing, electrical, etc. Since we didn’t, we had a lot more work to do and it cost a lot more money.

C: When people move into a space, even if it isn’t currently, but once was a barbershop or hair salon, you get grandfathered in. We had to change the zoning. You can’t really ask for advice, every business owner, contractor, everyone has a completely different experience so you just have to roll with it.

Lots of people are super satisfied with a $10 haircut because they got their money’s worth. It’s interesting to me that people can have a bad haircut and not even know. A decent haircut will look good day of with the product in, but a truly good haircut will look good 3-4 weeks later. I love seeing clients come back in and their hair is growing out really nice.

What are the trends for hair that you love right now?

C: Mullets.

S: Yeah, shaggy mullets, we’re calling them shullets.

C: People are getting super blunt bangs, with tight sides and a mullet back, which at first when people were asking for it I was like, ‘you can’t have five different haircuts in one’ but now I love it.

S: Yeah it totally works. Mullets now are so much more elevated than they were in the 80’s, there’s texture. But yes shags, I’m taking a class on shag cuts on Sunday. It’s really really popular in the states. 

C: Yeah, people in Toronto or Europe have been getting these super blunt bang haircuts.

S: Maybe not the only people getting these cuts but the vast majority are queer and gay people. Men mostly, or queer people that are not afraid of a fashionable cut. It challenges masculinity.

C: When we moved to this spot, I was only posting pictures of crazy cuts, and had to consciously switch it up so that we were also posting normal haircuts - we don’t just do mullets. 

S: You only get a fun mullet every so often so we were of course taking pictures of them and posing. But people might think that’s all we do here, so we’ve got to show both. 

What was your high school style?

S: I love this question because for Halloween this year we are being emo kids. I was a scene kid, so not necessarily emo but more so big teased hair with a bow in it. My computer crashed sometime in my adolescence so I don’t have any photos, unfortunately. Skinny jeans, band shirts… I used to make these hemp necklaces but the letters would say “Atreyu” or “The Used” or “Fallout Boy.” I feel like to this day I’ve somehow merged being a hippie with being alternative. I’ll make a hemp necklace but with an emo band in it. I sold them too, haha.

C: I still kind of dress the same, Dickies, band t-shirts, but I also loved American Apparel. The purple hoodie, striped t-shirts..

What are some of your favourite childhood food memories?

S: Well I grew up eating toaster strudels and slim fast for breakfast. I give my mom so much shit over this, but I loved it - I feel like she was like, ‘whatever, if she’ll eat it, great.’

C: Tell them what you used to eat as a snack.

S: Liverwurst. So? I’d eat it on crackers, my grandma got me on those. My mom would make snacks when we got home from school, if it were around this time of year she’d make raw oatmeal dough balls, put pretzels in them for legs and then raisins for eyes - they were these little oatmeal spiders. 

C: My mom was a vegetarian when I was growing up but my dad hunted, so we ate vegetables and hunted meat. I had this obsession with McDonalds as a kid, I’d get it for my birthday. One memory of my grandma, who isn’t alive anymore, told me that in heaven McDonalds is free. My parents would have to tell me that things tasted like McDonalds chicken nuggets for me to eat it, haha. I also loved hot dogs and macaroni with hot dogs too. 

S: Velveeta on shells, that’s something I also liked. Or Kraft Dinner deluxe, I remember loving it as a young person, but tried it as an adult and it’s disgusting. Some things do not age well.