The following article appeared in the Globe and Mail yesterday. (I have included the text below since the Globe cuts off access to non-members after a number of days.) For those who did not grow up in Canada, The Friendly Giant was a wonderful children's program that ran on the CBC from 1958-1985. I have very fond memories of this show and can still see Bob Homme's (The Friendly Giant) smiling face. There was something warm and comforting about the Giant and his faithful puppet companions Rusty and Jerome. These clips I found on You Tube will give you the general idea of what this show was all about. I had nostalgic tears in my eyes watching them. (Although the commercials for Fraggle Rock and The Beachcombers that begin the first clip did make me laugh my ass off.)
I was pretty disappointed when I read this article. Not in the CBC. The only thing the CBC did wrong was not ask for permission to use the puppets. But come on people! Doesn't anyone have a sense of humour anymore?
EDIT: Just found the offending clip on You Tube. Judge for yourself.
Rusty and Jerome will live happily ever - after the CBC
GAYLE MACDONALD
From Tuesday's Globe and Mail
November 27, 2007 at 1:04 AM EST
Two of the most enduring characters in the history of Canadian children's programming, Rusty the Rooster and Jerome the Giraffe, are about to quit the building. The children of actor and Friendly Giant creator Bob Homme, angered by the CBC's recent treatment of the loveable puppets, are removing them from a museum at the public broadcaster, their home since the iconic program debuted in Canada in 1958.
In an e-mail to The Globe and Mail, Mr. Homme's daughter, Ann, asked for assistance tracking down a video of the recent Gemini Awards, which included a skit showing Rusty, Jerome and other stuffed stars now living in a retirement home after their shows were cancelled.
From friends, Ms. Homme had heard about her dad's puppets appearing in the mock clip, where a narrator described them as sitting around, drinking, smoking and having sex.
Rusty and Jerome were not shown engaging in any salacious behaviour.
“The appearance of the puppets, alone, shocked me, as the CBC is required to get our permission to use them in any way… This is the last straw (a big one) and I feel I have to address it,” Ms. Homme wrote.
“Until recently, we were contacted by the people at the CBC museum, where the puppets are on loan, by a very conscientious woman who seemed to guard the Friendly Giant display with her life. Recently, she was let go, and replaced by someone who seems to think our permission is unnecessary. Needless to say, I am going to remove the Friendly Giant props and puppets as soon as possible.”
Ms. Homme and a brother plan to remove Rusty, Jerome and other Friendly Giant paraphernalia from the CBC Museum Tuesday.
Monday, in an internal memo, the CBC communications group invited staff to “say goodbye to Rusty and Jerome in style,” at a midafternoon ceremony at the Graham Spry Theatre, where milk and cookies were served while classic episodes of Friendly Giant ran on a continuous loop.
“While you may have bid farewell to Friendly when you left your childhood behind, this afternoon, you'll have an opportunity to say goodbye to the real Rusty and Jerome,” the memo said. “After a lengthy stay with us here in the Broadcasting Centre, these iconic creations and other Friendly artifacts, which have been on loan to the CBC museum for many years, will be going home – at the request of the family of the man who made them famous,” the memo said.
None of Mr. Homme's family attended.
For 26 years, young viewers were greeted by the tune Early One Morning as Friendly (played by Mr. Homme) lowered the drawbridge on the miniature castle. He would invite them to have a seat: “One little chair for one of you, and a bigger chair for two to curl up in, and for someone who likes to rock, a rocking chair in the middle.”
Then: “Look up, look wa-a-ay up …” and there was Friendly, soon joined by Rusty, a guitar-playing rooster who lived in a book bag hung on the castle wall, and Jerome, a giraffe with blue spots who stuck his head through a nearby window. The two principal puppets were manipulated by CBC radio veteran Rod Coneybeare.
Mr. Homme produced more than 3,000 episodes before the show was cancelled in 1985 after deep cuts to the CBC budget. Mr. Homme was made a member of the Order of Canada in 1998. He died on May 2, 2000, of prostate cancer, at the age of 81.
In her e-mail to The Globe, Ms. Homme called her father “a truly gentle man” who “never caused much of a fuss.”
“But I can assure you,” she wrote, referring to the Geminis, “that he would be very angry about this breach of trust.”
Showing posts with label globe and mail. Show all posts
Showing posts with label globe and mail. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
I love this bar...
Now this is my kind of restaurant!
In today's Globe and Mail Beppi Crosariol reported on a unique Vancouver restaurant. All they serve is wine, cheese and meat. No fancy kitchen or gourmet chef necessary. This is totally up my alley! One of my favourite dinners is what Steve and I call the snacky dinner. A couple of different cheeses, some nice cured meat, gourmet olives, a few crackers and a good bottle of red wine. Kind of a rustic European thing. In fact, the snacky dinner has kind of become our Christmas Eve tradition. We spend Christmas Day and Boxing Day with family so Christmas Eve is our time. We lay out a yummy spread and open the presents we bought for each other. Just the two of us. It's a nice tradition. But I digress.
I've included the article below even though I linked to it above. The Globe is one of those annoying newspapers that cuts off access to articles after a few days, unless you are an online subscriber.
Rise of the anti-restaurant
It's in a seedy alleyway, has no kitchen and never bothered to hire a chef. But Sean Heather's meat, cheese and wine bar is anything but a misstep - instead, it's turning the restaurant model on its ear
BEPPI CROSARIOL
From Wednesday's Globe and Mail
September 26, 2007 at 10:22 AM EDT
VANCOUVER — Want to succeed in the restaurant business? Consider some tips from Sean Heather:
Find a rundown space in a seedy alleyway with no pedestrian traffic or other businesses; replace the existing wood flooring with bare concrete; set up a long, picnic-style, communal table and offer patrons paper napkins instead of linen. Oh, and don't bother with unnecessary details like hiring a chef or installing a stove; buy ready-made food and slice it up onto plates.
Welcome to Salt Tasting Room, a 14-month-old charcuterie restaurant and wine bar in Vancouver's Gastown that has not only played to positive reviews but also emerged as one of the most envied, and unlikely, successes in this city's hyperactive fine-dining scene.
From a culinary standpoint, Salt taps the growing appetite for raw-milk cheeses and locally cured meats with farmhouse provenance. There's ash-covered camembert from Moonstruck Organic Cheese Inc. on Salt Spring Island, for example, and wild-boar headcheese that Mr. Heather sourced from Oyama Sausage Co. on Granville Island.
There's also no denying the cheap-chic allure of the minimalist design, complete with a chalkboard that serves as the menu and a Ferrari-red, hand-cranked Italian meat slicer - the latter one of several ideas borrowed from New York superchef Mario Batali.
But it's the novel - at least for Canada - kitchenless fine-dining concept that has been turning professional heads and pulling in a steady stream of hungry and curious chefs in their off hours.
"It's genius, it really is," said Jeff Van Geest, chef-owner of 4-1/2-year-old Aurora Bistro. "I think every restaurateur in the city is saying the same thing: 'Why didn't I think of that?' "
Mr. Van Geest says he resists even categorizing Salt as a restaurant because Mr. Heather and his business partner, Scott Hawthorn, have brilliantly turned the traditional business model on its ear, avoiding the crippling costs that can ultimately capsize even the best cooking.
Call it the anti-restaurant.
"The staffing issues, the equipment, all the overhead things that make our [profit] margins so tight in restaurants and make us struggle for every cent - he's eliminated all of that, and he's full most of the time," Mr. Van Geest said.
Salt is also the model around which Mr. Heather, who owns several other local establishments including the Irish Heather gastropub and Salty Tongue deli, is building his expansion plans. Get ready for a bigger original Salt in Blood Alley, two more Salts in Vancouver, a "seasonal" Salt for summer wine tourists in the Okanagan Valley and, if Mr. Heather can find the right eastern partners, a Toronto Salt.
On a recent Tuesday afternoon, Mr. Heather, 41, who grew up and trained as a chef in Ireland before moving to Canada and eventually launching the Irish Heather 11 years ago, spoke candidly about Salt's economics.
"We didn't have a lot of business today, but I still made a hundred bucks," he said, sitting at a 6-metre-long communal table that runs along one side of the dimly lit, main dining area. "I don't need to do a lot of business to make money. My rent is not high. I'm in an alleyway. I have no chef - that would cost me 50 or 60 grand a year. There's no waste. There's no gas. There's no grease trap, there's no [ventilation] hood."
Another key to Salt's profitability is the autocratic menu. The minimum food order must consist of at least three items, whether meat or cheese, at a cost of $15. You can't just taste one for $5, an option that has scuttled many a wine-bar concept in the past. Add a glass of good wine and the typical order doesn't take long to exceed $30.
"We have an average spend of 35 bucks a head here, and that rivals most restaurants, but we're not cooking anything," Mr. Heather boasted in a cheerful tone that suggested gratitude for what he calls his "Irish luck" rather than any sort of arrogance.
Because of Salt's success, Mr. Heather has dropped long-standing plans to open a more expensive, hot-food restaurant that was to be called Pepper. Instead, he says, he is now expanding into an unused basement area with Salt Cellar, virtually doubling the 800-square-foot dining space and storage area he now has. Then, next year, he will expand the concept to a location on Main Street and one in Kitsilano.
Not that salami-slinging wine bars are new. Italy has countless. But as Mr. Heather and other restaurateurs note, the bare-bones concept is virtually unknown in Canada.
In fact, Mr. Heather had to lay some blarney on provincial liquor inspectors to get his alcohol licence. Aware that "liquor-primary" licences for bars are rarely issued any longer, he decided to ask for a "food-primary" licence for his wine bar concept. But his kitchenless blueprint perplexed the booze patrol.
"So, about two weeks into discussions with these guys, we stopped calling it a tasting bar and we started calling it a sushi bar," Mr. Heather recalled, referring to the Japanese raw fish delicacy.
"Once they heard 'sushi,' they said, 'Oh, yeah.' They had a reference point. It was only until about two weeks before we opened that, when the guys came to do actual inspections, they were like, 'Where's the sushi?' I said, 'It's kind of like sushi, but it's meat and cheese.' ... We were a sushi bar on the books for a long time."
The other virtue of not needing a chef is that Vancouver is currently facing a shortage of culinary talent following a flurry of fine-dining openings during the past 18 months. "We could open up 20 of these and not have to worry about that problem."
With Salt, Mr. Heather has also shrewdly sidestepped another of the big nuisances of running a restaurant: customer complaints. "You go to a restaurant and you want your steak done medium-rare and it comes back medium, 'Nah, nah, nah.' You come here, if you've got a problem, we can say, 'Talk to the cheese maker. We just cut the cheese.' "
As for the competition, Mr. Heather believes he's eluded that, as well. "As more and more restaurants open up, we become a place that you could come to before or after. We're not competing. We're complementing all these new restaurants."
If Salt does eventually expand to Toronto, it could face competition there, however. Terroni, the popular downtown chain of southern Italian-style trattorias, is expanding to a big new location in the historic courthouse building on Adelaide Street East, with plans for an adjacent, but separate, wine bar that will offer a bare-bones cured-meat-and-cheese menu and have a strict policy of not serving hot food from the Terroni kitchen.
"They can have a nice cutting board with specialized meats, prosciuttos and salami," said Cosimo Mammoliti, Terroni's owner. "But they cannot have food in the bar."
Mr. Mammoliti says he believes Toronto is ripe for an "authentic" Italian wine bar. "People need a place like that to go to - even if they're going to dinner somewhere else," he said. "It's hard to find that any place in the city."
In today's Globe and Mail Beppi Crosariol reported on a unique Vancouver restaurant. All they serve is wine, cheese and meat. No fancy kitchen or gourmet chef necessary. This is totally up my alley! One of my favourite dinners is what Steve and I call the snacky dinner. A couple of different cheeses, some nice cured meat, gourmet olives, a few crackers and a good bottle of red wine. Kind of a rustic European thing. In fact, the snacky dinner has kind of become our Christmas Eve tradition. We spend Christmas Day and Boxing Day with family so Christmas Eve is our time. We lay out a yummy spread and open the presents we bought for each other. Just the two of us. It's a nice tradition. But I digress.
I've included the article below even though I linked to it above. The Globe is one of those annoying newspapers that cuts off access to articles after a few days, unless you are an online subscriber.
Rise of the anti-restaurant
It's in a seedy alleyway, has no kitchen and never bothered to hire a chef. But Sean Heather's meat, cheese and wine bar is anything but a misstep - instead, it's turning the restaurant model on its ear
BEPPI CROSARIOL
From Wednesday's Globe and Mail
September 26, 2007 at 10:22 AM EDT
VANCOUVER — Want to succeed in the restaurant business? Consider some tips from Sean Heather:
Find a rundown space in a seedy alleyway with no pedestrian traffic or other businesses; replace the existing wood flooring with bare concrete; set up a long, picnic-style, communal table and offer patrons paper napkins instead of linen. Oh, and don't bother with unnecessary details like hiring a chef or installing a stove; buy ready-made food and slice it up onto plates.
Welcome to Salt Tasting Room, a 14-month-old charcuterie restaurant and wine bar in Vancouver's Gastown that has not only played to positive reviews but also emerged as one of the most envied, and unlikely, successes in this city's hyperactive fine-dining scene.
From a culinary standpoint, Salt taps the growing appetite for raw-milk cheeses and locally cured meats with farmhouse provenance. There's ash-covered camembert from Moonstruck Organic Cheese Inc. on Salt Spring Island, for example, and wild-boar headcheese that Mr. Heather sourced from Oyama Sausage Co. on Granville Island.
There's also no denying the cheap-chic allure of the minimalist design, complete with a chalkboard that serves as the menu and a Ferrari-red, hand-cranked Italian meat slicer - the latter one of several ideas borrowed from New York superchef Mario Batali.
But it's the novel - at least for Canada - kitchenless fine-dining concept that has been turning professional heads and pulling in a steady stream of hungry and curious chefs in their off hours.
"It's genius, it really is," said Jeff Van Geest, chef-owner of 4-1/2-year-old Aurora Bistro. "I think every restaurateur in the city is saying the same thing: 'Why didn't I think of that?' "
Mr. Van Geest says he resists even categorizing Salt as a restaurant because Mr. Heather and his business partner, Scott Hawthorn, have brilliantly turned the traditional business model on its ear, avoiding the crippling costs that can ultimately capsize even the best cooking.
Call it the anti-restaurant.
"The staffing issues, the equipment, all the overhead things that make our [profit] margins so tight in restaurants and make us struggle for every cent - he's eliminated all of that, and he's full most of the time," Mr. Van Geest said.
Salt is also the model around which Mr. Heather, who owns several other local establishments including the Irish Heather gastropub and Salty Tongue deli, is building his expansion plans. Get ready for a bigger original Salt in Blood Alley, two more Salts in Vancouver, a "seasonal" Salt for summer wine tourists in the Okanagan Valley and, if Mr. Heather can find the right eastern partners, a Toronto Salt.
On a recent Tuesday afternoon, Mr. Heather, 41, who grew up and trained as a chef in Ireland before moving to Canada and eventually launching the Irish Heather 11 years ago, spoke candidly about Salt's economics.
"We didn't have a lot of business today, but I still made a hundred bucks," he said, sitting at a 6-metre-long communal table that runs along one side of the dimly lit, main dining area. "I don't need to do a lot of business to make money. My rent is not high. I'm in an alleyway. I have no chef - that would cost me 50 or 60 grand a year. There's no waste. There's no gas. There's no grease trap, there's no [ventilation] hood."
Another key to Salt's profitability is the autocratic menu. The minimum food order must consist of at least three items, whether meat or cheese, at a cost of $15. You can't just taste one for $5, an option that has scuttled many a wine-bar concept in the past. Add a glass of good wine and the typical order doesn't take long to exceed $30.
"We have an average spend of 35 bucks a head here, and that rivals most restaurants, but we're not cooking anything," Mr. Heather boasted in a cheerful tone that suggested gratitude for what he calls his "Irish luck" rather than any sort of arrogance.
Because of Salt's success, Mr. Heather has dropped long-standing plans to open a more expensive, hot-food restaurant that was to be called Pepper. Instead, he says, he is now expanding into an unused basement area with Salt Cellar, virtually doubling the 800-square-foot dining space and storage area he now has. Then, next year, he will expand the concept to a location on Main Street and one in Kitsilano.
Not that salami-slinging wine bars are new. Italy has countless. But as Mr. Heather and other restaurateurs note, the bare-bones concept is virtually unknown in Canada.
In fact, Mr. Heather had to lay some blarney on provincial liquor inspectors to get his alcohol licence. Aware that "liquor-primary" licences for bars are rarely issued any longer, he decided to ask for a "food-primary" licence for his wine bar concept. But his kitchenless blueprint perplexed the booze patrol.
"So, about two weeks into discussions with these guys, we stopped calling it a tasting bar and we started calling it a sushi bar," Mr. Heather recalled, referring to the Japanese raw fish delicacy.
"Once they heard 'sushi,' they said, 'Oh, yeah.' They had a reference point. It was only until about two weeks before we opened that, when the guys came to do actual inspections, they were like, 'Where's the sushi?' I said, 'It's kind of like sushi, but it's meat and cheese.' ... We were a sushi bar on the books for a long time."
The other virtue of not needing a chef is that Vancouver is currently facing a shortage of culinary talent following a flurry of fine-dining openings during the past 18 months. "We could open up 20 of these and not have to worry about that problem."
With Salt, Mr. Heather has also shrewdly sidestepped another of the big nuisances of running a restaurant: customer complaints. "You go to a restaurant and you want your steak done medium-rare and it comes back medium, 'Nah, nah, nah.' You come here, if you've got a problem, we can say, 'Talk to the cheese maker. We just cut the cheese.' "
As for the competition, Mr. Heather believes he's eluded that, as well. "As more and more restaurants open up, we become a place that you could come to before or after. We're not competing. We're complementing all these new restaurants."
If Salt does eventually expand to Toronto, it could face competition there, however. Terroni, the popular downtown chain of southern Italian-style trattorias, is expanding to a big new location in the historic courthouse building on Adelaide Street East, with plans for an adjacent, but separate, wine bar that will offer a bare-bones cured-meat-and-cheese menu and have a strict policy of not serving hot food from the Terroni kitchen.
"They can have a nice cutting board with specialized meats, prosciuttos and salami," said Cosimo Mammoliti, Terroni's owner. "But they cannot have food in the bar."
Mr. Mammoliti says he believes Toronto is ripe for an "authentic" Italian wine bar. "People need a place like that to go to - even if they're going to dinner somewhere else," he said. "It's hard to find that any place in the city."
Sunday, March 25, 2007
glitter and be gay
A few weeks ago as I was riding the TTC south from Yorkdale to Museum, I noticed a rather curious advertisement. "A club with benefits" read the sleek, black background poster showing pictures of hard bodied men, pools and showers. The ad was for a "gym" called Steamworks. In addition to the "state of the art gym, huge hot tub, steam room, dry sauna, showers and incredible sound system" it touted its "over 70 private rooms" Hello! This ain't no ordinary gym! This was an ad for a men's bathhouse, conveniently located in the heart of Toronto's gay village. Wow! I couldn't believe that the TTC actually allowed it. Not that it bothered me personally, but I was sure the homophobic crowd would totally freak and well publicized controversy would ensue. Of course, Steamworks is a legitimate business with a specific clientele and the TTC seemed like a logical choice for advertising. I just assumed that the TTC would choose not to allow this business to advertise for fear of the backlash from those out there who are too thick to realize that gay, lesbian, transgender and bisexual individuals are people too.
I was thrilled to see an article in yesterday's Globe and Mail about the ad. The TTC has received a whopping 3 complaints about the ad. In a city of over 2.5 million people, only 3 complained. So either people don't realize the type of business being advertised or they don't care. I certainly hope it is the later. Steamworks has as much right to advertise publicly as Telus with their adorable animals and Dove with their realistically shaped models. Kudos to both Steamworks and the TTC. And way to go people of Toronto! Hopefully this is a positive sign for the future of humanity!
I was thrilled to see an article in yesterday's Globe and Mail about the ad. The TTC has received a whopping 3 complaints about the ad. In a city of over 2.5 million people, only 3 complained. So either people don't realize the type of business being advertised or they don't care. I certainly hope it is the later. Steamworks has as much right to advertise publicly as Telus with their adorable animals and Dove with their realistically shaped models. Kudos to both Steamworks and the TTC. And way to go people of Toronto! Hopefully this is a positive sign for the future of humanity!
Saturday, March 24, 2007
papa's got a brand new bag
I have been thinking seriously about how to reduce our household waste. One thing I hate is the amount of plastic bags we end up with, especially after grocery shopping. We try to reuse them, but eventually they still end up in the landfill. So I'm looking into other options.
Fortinos, our local grocery store, sells these purple, plastic bins to cart your groceries home in. They look like those green, rectangular recycling bins. I haven't been able to find any information about them online, so I'll check it out when I go grocery shopping tomorrow.
In last Saturday's Globe and Mail, there was an article in the Toronto section talking about how Costco is selling reusable tote bags. They are huge, measuring a half-meter in length, 38 centimeters tall and 30 centimeters wide. The bags are made of a durable woven poly-propylene. Apparently they are strong enough to carry up to 40 kilograms in weight. They come in packs of two bags and sell for just $1.99.
We headed over to Costco this morning to pick up a few of these bags. They were completely sold out. Not great for me, but how fantastic is this? Hopefully it means that others are also looking for ways to cut plastic bags out of their lives! The article in the Globe mentioned that other grocery store chains are also offering reusable shopping bags and most of them are sold out as well. Very encouraging news!
Fortinos, our local grocery store, sells these purple, plastic bins to cart your groceries home in. They look like those green, rectangular recycling bins. I haven't been able to find any information about them online, so I'll check it out when I go grocery shopping tomorrow.
In last Saturday's Globe and Mail, there was an article in the Toronto section talking about how Costco is selling reusable tote bags. They are huge, measuring a half-meter in length, 38 centimeters tall and 30 centimeters wide. The bags are made of a durable woven poly-propylene. Apparently they are strong enough to carry up to 40 kilograms in weight. They come in packs of two bags and sell for just $1.99.
We headed over to Costco this morning to pick up a few of these bags. They were completely sold out. Not great for me, but how fantastic is this? Hopefully it means that others are also looking for ways to cut plastic bags out of their lives! The article in the Globe mentioned that other grocery store chains are also offering reusable shopping bags and most of them are sold out as well. Very encouraging news!
Saturday, March 10, 2007
bottle of red...
It's time for another wine review!
I've been meaning to pick up the Finca Flinchman Expressions Malbec/Cabernet Sauvignon 2005, after my favourite wine writer, Beppi Crosariol recommended it in his January 27, 2007 Wine and Spirits column in the Globe and Mail. Once again, Beppi did not disappoint! It tastes like it smells, deeply fruity, spicy and full of oak. This one has a long, intense finish. $15.95 with limited availability at the LCBO. Grab it if you find it!
I've been meaning to pick up the Finca Flinchman Expressions Malbec/Cabernet Sauvignon 2005, after my favourite wine writer, Beppi Crosariol recommended it in his January 27, 2007 Wine and Spirits column in the Globe and Mail. Once again, Beppi did not disappoint! It tastes like it smells, deeply fruity, spicy and full of oak. This one has a long, intense finish. $15.95 with limited availability at the LCBO. Grab it if you find it!
Friday, February 9, 2007
a case of you
Steve and I recently discover some excellent, less expensive wines. Here's a quick overview.
We love finding a good "ten-buck chuck." This is our most recent find. The LCBO is currently promoting Latin American wines and the 2005 Vina TaraPaca Cabernet Sauvignon from Chile is on for $8.70, down from it's usual, inexpensive $9.50. This one has great berry & oak flavours and nice tannins. I think it would be fabulous with a big bowl of beef chili.
We subscribe to the Saturday Globe and Mail. One of the first things I do, is read Beppi Crosariol's wine column in the Style section. I have never been disappointed with his recommendations. The man knows his stuff. So when he recommended the 2005 Negroamaro MezzoMondo that sells for only $8.45 at the LCBO, I had to try it. This little gem from Italy is full of rich cherry flavours and is incredibly smooth for its price. Perfect with a gourmet take-out pizza!
We had an open house during the Christmas holidays. A lot of friends came with a bottle of wine in hand. Although I don't want or expect people to bring a gift, I secretly love this for the sole purpose of discovering new wines. Our dear friend Sarah turned us on to the 2005 Bin 15a Shiraz from France. This stuff rocks! For only $11.30 at the LCBO, this rich, peppery, fruity Shiraz is freakin' awesome! I would drink this with absolutely anything. And you gotta love the artsy label!
We recently had a couple of friends over for a yummy steak frites dinner. Geoff brought this fantastic French wine. The 2004 Chateau Timberlay Bordeaux was absolutely delightful and a perfect complement to our medium rare strip loin steaks. If you like the taste of bell peppers and smoke in your wine, you have to give this a try. At $15.20 a bottle, it's a bit more than I would spend for a mid-week chugger, but a nice treat for the end of a tough work week.
So there's my amateur wine round up for this time. If you get a chance to try any of these wines, let me know what you think.
We love finding a good "ten-buck chuck." This is our most recent find. The LCBO is currently promoting Latin American wines and the 2005 Vina TaraPaca Cabernet Sauvignon from Chile is on for $8.70, down from it's usual, inexpensive $9.50. This one has great berry & oak flavours and nice tannins. I think it would be fabulous with a big bowl of beef chili.
We subscribe to the Saturday Globe and Mail. One of the first things I do, is read Beppi Crosariol's wine column in the Style section. I have never been disappointed with his recommendations. The man knows his stuff. So when he recommended the 2005 Negroamaro MezzoMondo that sells for only $8.45 at the LCBO, I had to try it. This little gem from Italy is full of rich cherry flavours and is incredibly smooth for its price. Perfect with a gourmet take-out pizza!
We had an open house during the Christmas holidays. A lot of friends came with a bottle of wine in hand. Although I don't want or expect people to bring a gift, I secretly love this for the sole purpose of discovering new wines. Our dear friend Sarah turned us on to the 2005 Bin 15a Shiraz from France. This stuff rocks! For only $11.30 at the LCBO, this rich, peppery, fruity Shiraz is freakin' awesome! I would drink this with absolutely anything. And you gotta love the artsy label!
We recently had a couple of friends over for a yummy steak frites dinner. Geoff brought this fantastic French wine. The 2004 Chateau Timberlay Bordeaux was absolutely delightful and a perfect complement to our medium rare strip loin steaks. If you like the taste of bell peppers and smoke in your wine, you have to give this a try. At $15.20 a bottle, it's a bit more than I would spend for a mid-week chugger, but a nice treat for the end of a tough work week.
So there's my amateur wine round up for this time. If you get a chance to try any of these wines, let me know what you think.
Saturday, January 6, 2007
don't throw it all away
I came across a great article in the Globe and Mail this morning. There's a couple in Toronto who's goal in 2007 is to produce absolutely no household waste. Absolutely none. They even limit what they recycle as the process of recycling produces waste. Every aspect of their life is affected by this, from their work, to how they shop and what they eat. Now I try to make environmentally conscious decisions all the time, but I can't even imagine this! Whether they are successful or not (and I have a feeling they will be) , simply attempting this feat proves that as individuals, we have the power to affect change. It has certainly inspired me to try harder to reduce the waste that I produce.
You can follow their efforts at Say No to Trash.
You can follow their efforts at Say No to Trash.
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