What if Ontario had a beer revolution?

What do I mean by a beer revolution? Well revolutions usually involve overthrowing tyrants, and instituting a new form of governance, but my revolution is maybe a little less violent than that, although by no means is it less radical.

Right now in Ontario, 1 out of every 20 beers drank came from an independent, Ontario brewery. By beer revolution, I mean, what would happen if Ontarians chose to drink an Ontario-made independent beer 1 out of every 2 times they drank beer?

Mr. Beauchesne goes on to make an economic argument for Ontario craft beer which doesn’t actually work all that well, but no matter: there are benefits to supporting local — if not necessarily independently owned — brewers. Besides, no living human should be made to drink the likes of MolsonCoors CanadianLight or its ilk. I felt, after reading the transcript of his speech, that I should try to drink primarily local beers. But it was the summer, and it was boiling hot, and goddammit I love me some German weissbier.

Then, this past Thursday, Nellie and I ducked into Smokeless Joe on our way home from the TIFF box office. There we met the charming and gracious Kaylea from WineNotOntario who recommended the Dieu du Ciel foursome on feature. I was no stranger to DdC, having enjoyed their Rosée D’hibiscus and struggled through their Péché Mortel (seriously, man…it tasted like a peach fucking ashtray) but I wouldn’t have noticed them all tucked away down there on Joe’s chalkboard had she not pointed them out. So I tried. I liked. And I decided: I should do with beer what we’ve been trying to do with wine: drink Canadian whenever possible. Uh, this October trip to SanFran/Napa/Sonoma notwithstanding…vacations don’t count. Aaaaaaaaanyloophole, I needed a plan. It wouldn’t do to swear off all non-Canadian beer, that’s just too drastic. But I figured I should make an effort to at least try the best local stuff, especially those I might not normally try. Hence: Project FiftyBrew.

Here’s the project plan:

1. Go to BeerAdvocate.com and download the list of what, according to their users, constitute the top 50 Canadian beers (DONE!);
2. Mark off the ones I’ve already tried (DONE!);
3. Vow to try the remaining 33 (subject to availability) over the next…oh, I don’t know. Whenever. No rush, right?

I’m looking forward to scouring the LCBO, Volo, Smokeless Joe, Beerbistro and C’est What for the unconquered bottles. I’m sure we’ll also plan a trip to Quebec ’cause, uh, they’re nearly all from there…Unibroue, Dieu du Ciel and McAuslan alone make  up more than half the list.

Also, by the time I finish these fifty I’m sure the list will have changed, but I look forward to trying the new entrants too. I may be coming at this from a somewhat different angle than Mr. Beauchesne, but I do hope one of his bottles of Beau’s climbs into the top tier.

Wish me luck.

However.

We just got our email…and we lucked out. Two #1 picks, three #2 picks. No do-overs. W00t!

• We got Trust, not Biutiful. Trust is the one I’m shaking my head at the most…I think we only picked it because it worked in the time slot, not because we rated it that highly.
• We got Blame, not Beautiful Boy, but Blame feels a little like a sleeper.
• We got Let Me In (the remake of Let The Right One In) which is coming to regular theatres soon, but so is Cave of Forgotten Dreams, which is such a hot ticket I gave up any hope of seeing it the second I found out what box we were in.
• The other two — Confessions and 13 Assassins — were our first picks, and I’m quite happy to close out the festival with a full-on Takashi Miike samurai battle.

Of course, the worst part of Algonquin is getting there, and this was no exception. I hate long drives. Hate hate hate. But we made it, and checked in to our Mew Lake campground. Nellie had done her homework and picked one of the best sites available.

This was my first time car-camping, so getting used to having people on all sides was weird, but we were about as private as you can get there. We set up our fancy new tent (which is awesome), settled in, built a fire and started making dinner.

Our meals, by the way, provoked some mockery among our Twitter and Facebook friends…apparently eating steak and drinking wine, or having a spread of prosciutto and salami and cheese and bread and chocolate, or cooking a delicious breakfast of bacon, eggs and sausage is verboten, and we should instead have cooked weenies or roasted marshmallows. To which we replied thus: since we have no kids to entertain with such traditions, why would we voluntarily eat crap food just because we’re camping? I mean, really…what’s wrong with this?

Nothing, sez I. Anyrant, once dinner and dishes were out of the way we sat our asses down by the campfire and watched the sun go down. It got a little chilly that night so the fire, while a pain to start, was sorely needed to keep us warm until we could tuck into our sleeping bags for the night. Reports of a bear in the area had us a tiny bit jumpy, but nothing serious. The next morning I got up before sunrise and took in the view of the steam billowing off the lake.

As I took pictures of the lake and sunrise (both, in some cases) I heard a rustling along the shore right in front of me. I saw a…well, I’m not sure what it was. A small heron of some kind maybe?

Whatever it was it took a few awkward strides through the water and then took off into the grass. Any ideas? A quick Google search didn’t turn up anything. I saw it again that afternoon, in the same spot, so maybe it had a nest there. Not sure, but Nellie got a kick out of him/her.

Since we had such good weather (seriously, ridiculous weather…warm and sunny during the day, moderate at night and not a cloud in the sky the entire weekend) we went for a hike at the nearby Track & Tower trail.

It was a good workout, but worth it for the deep woods seclusion, lake views (like the one above) and amazing lookout from a cliff toward Cache Lake.

We even came across a very unexpected trail companion: a turtle sunning himself on a hill. I’d never seen a turtle this big in the wild…he was about a foot across. I think it was a snapping turtle, but didn’t get close enough to find out. We got some pics and said our goodbyes.

We were pretty pooped (and extremely warm) by the time we got home so we jumped in the lake to cool off. During our swim, half a dozen Canada Geese descended down to the lake, circled us once and water-landed twenty feet from us. Which was pretty cool.

That night we didn’t have the energy for much…fortunately our meal involved slicing, not cooking. Still, it was nice to sit there and drink a bottle of Southbrook Fresh White and build a fire and be entertained by a chipmunk.

Sunday morning we wanted to beat traffic, so it was a whirlwind of breakfast and cleaning and packing and road-getting-on. We did pretty well too; it was smooth sailing all the way down highway 11 and the 400. The only traffic we hit was on the DVP at York Mills. Nevertheless, when we unloaded, returned the car and walked home we felt…well, smelly. Hooray for whoever invented the shower.

So, lots of fun was had, but I’m hoping to minimize the driving next time. And yes, there will be a next time. And yes, we will be eating awesome food and drinking good wine. Deal with it.

• Biutiful or Trust
• Beautiful Boy or Blame
• Cave of Forgotten Dreams or Let Me In
• Confessions or 127 Hours
• 13 Assassins or Amigo

The most frustrating part of this year (aside from the eternally unusable TIFF website) was finding out that the ‘premium’ screenings — into which ordinary movie-loving (as opposed to celebrity-slobbering) attendees are not allowed — are no longer limited to Roy Thomson Hall and the Elgin. We now find ourselves cut off from a few screenings at the Ryerson, Winter Garden and even the sad little Isabel Bader theatre.

If we get all our first picks we’ll have a nice little lineup, and a bad-ass samurai movie to close it out.

• Kick-Ass: most excellent
  
• Precious: good, incredibly well-acted (in that if I ever see Mo’Nique walking down the street I’m likely to punch her face in) but hard as fuck to watch
  
• Stripes: I’m sure it was a classic for its time, but it doesn’t really hold up.
  
• Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day: look, the original isn’t exactly a classic, but it’s always been kind of special to me because we discovered it ten years ago in a self-serve movie rental machine, not having any idea what we were about to see. I didn’t expect the sequel to live up to that, but I would have been happy with a close approximation of the original. Unfortunately it was hammy and stilted and over the top, and not in the cool way that the first one was. Lots of shots of my neighbourhood though, just like the first one.
  
• The Men Who Stare At Goats: I think I had the same reaction as most other people: quite funny in parts, but nothing special. Also: Ewan MacGregor continues to do the worst American accent of any British actor.
• Paranormal Activity: Okay, we watched this two weeks ago, but whatever. Actually a pretty effective little scare-machine, but completely blew it in the final 20 seconds. Also: Katie Featherston = girlfriend du jour.

.:.

My headphones were filled all week with the new releases by Best Coast (pretty good…almost like the Raveonettes without the male voice), Japandroids (good, but not as good as their last album, I’m afraid; few things last year were), Sleigh Bells (which I like more than I feel I should), Mates of State (hearing them cover the likes of Tom Waits and The Mars Volta seems sacrilegious at first, then awesome, then just fun) and, naturally, The Arcade Fire. Which is < Funeral but > Black Mirror and therefore one of the best things I’ve heard all year. Speaking of CadeFire — which is what I call them now, due to us being so very tight — Frank Yang (aka Chromewaves) summed up awfully well what’s so captivating about them:

They somehow manage to evoke that singular moment in everyone’s life where youth gives way to adulthood, where one becomes acutely aware of the fact that they are not in fact invincible, that they will someday die, but also the sense of still having their entire lives ahead of them and the sense of opportunity that offers – that mixture of anxiety and optimism, insecurity and confidence. It’s a powerful, primal resonance made even moreso when rendered in broad, bold musical strokes. With Funeral, it was conveyed through the lens of family and neighbourhoods, of being part of a special gang. Neon Bible turned it around to be them against the world with no sense that they’d actually triumph. And The Suburbs realizes that there’s no us and them, there’s just everyone.

I’ll probably keep The Suburbs on perma-rotation until my next big anticipated release: Lisbon by The Walkmen.

.:.

With Treme, The Office, Friday Night Lights, 30 Rock and Nurse Jackie off the air right now the only things I’m watching are Mad Men (because it’s the best thing on TV right now), True Blood (because it’s the most entertaining thing on TV right now) and Entourage (because, despite its persistent suck whenever Ari’s not on the screen, for the life of me I cannot seem to stop watching it).

.:.

The miniature time slot attributed to reading is reserved for, as ever, Tony Judt‘s Postwar and Kate Carraway’s twitter feed. However, all other reading shall cease on Tuesday and Wednesday as I have only those days to select our TIFF films.

.:.

And, with that, I’m off to work. After all, all play and no work makes Jack really far behind on his to-do list.

That’s why I’m always so disheartened by the kind of xenophobia that meets incidents like the arrival in Vancouver of a ship carrying 490 Tamil refugees. We don’t live in an ancient society, we live in one that’s barely adolescent. Our country is, by its very nature, made up of dozens — hundreds, probably — of different peoples, many of whom fled war or famine or worse, the likes of which these very Tamils fled. The difference, as Michael Valpy rightly pointed out in Friday’s Globe, is both where they come from, and how they get here:

Globe and Mail reporter Rod Mickleburgh discovered nearly 10 years ago that refugee claimants arriving by plane at Vancouver airport were almost never detained, were soon given access to social and medical benefits, were rarely deported and had a cracking good chance of being smuggled into the U.S.

Most claimants arriving on filthy, rusting ships or stowed away in containers, on the other hand, saw the inside of jails, lost their applications for refugee status and were deported. Immigration officials say it’s because the boat people are being trafficked by organized criminals.

See? If these Tamils just had the good sense to be white and buy some plane tickets, they’d be all set. But instead they did it the hard way, cramming themselves into an old freighter for a four-month slog across the Pacific. Surely their lack of drive and unwillingness to endure hardship will cause a drain on our social services.

Please, not another Komagata Maru. Not another MS St. Louis.

The Bird And The Bee . “Don’t Stop The Music” (Rihanna)

Cat Power . “Sweedeedee” (Michael Hurley. Who? Okay, I realize Michael Hurley isn’t a famous pop star, but that version of “Sweedeedee” is just so good I listen to it every chance I get.)

Elbow . “Independent Woman” (Destiny’s Child)

Flaming Lips . “Can’t Get You Out Of My Head” (Kylie Minogue)

Frontline Assembly . “Justify My Love” (Madonna)

Johnny Cash . “God’s Gonna Cut You Down” (Moby…kinda…I think Johnny wouldn’t have recorded this except that Moby had popularized the riff a few years back)

Lissie . “Bad Romance” (Lady Gaga)

Ted Leo . “Since U Been Gone” (Kelly Clarkson) Please note: any partial awesomeness in the middle of the song is exempt from any “bad song” label.

Travis . “Hit Me Baby One More Time” (Britney Spears)

White Stripes . “Jolene” (Dolly Parton)

Earlier this year — during another Postwar break — I read Judt’s Ill Fares The Land. I mentioned this too; Fraser, who had also read it, called it Judt’s cri de couer, as surely it was: his frustration at the deliberate dismantling in the U.S. and UK of the social safety nets set up in the wake of the second World War, and his plea for their rescue from further attack. The book did not specifically target Canada, but as John Geddes wrote today on the Maclean’s blog, “the questions [Judt] raised should trouble citizens in any rich Western nation.”

I highly recommend reading Ill Fares The Land and, if you’re up for it, Postwar. Also, The Guardian has a fine obituary (if there can be such a thing) and his four-year-old piece in the London Review of Books entitled “The Strange Death Of Liberal America” — including a glancing shot at one Michael Ignatieff — is not to be missed.

R.I.P., Mr. Judt.

Friday after work Nellie, T-Bone, The Sof and I drove to Niagara-on-the-Lake to begin a weekend of good food and flowing wine. After fighting off traffic we had a drink and some lobster poutine at the Shaw Club hotel’s bar, then left for our dinner reservations at Stone Road Grille. We’d enjoyed it so much last time that T-Bone wanted to try it too. Lucky for her, it was even better this time. All four starters — my scallops wrapped in duck breast bacon, The Sof’s poutine (he is from Montreal, after all) and the sweet corn, chantrelle and lobster risotto that Nellie and T-Bone each had — were fantastic. The mains — perfect flank steak frites for me, T-Bone’s shepherd’s pie with lamb, Nellie’s halibut with sea asparagus and The Sof’s duck confit — were also top-notch. We all took the easy way out and just did their suggested wine pairings, but they really did work perfectly. None of us had room for dessert; most of us had dessert wine, but then they brought out some cotton candy (!) for us to share, so…sweet overload. Quite a meal. We wisely decided to walk it off, but then foolishly decided to drink a bottle of Megalomaniac cab sauv when we got to the hotel. Ah well. When in Rome.

Saturday morning we again ate on the beautiful patio at the Shaw Club, then began the wine touring. We started with Stratus, whose wines were good and whose tasting room is gorgeous. Like, I want to live there gorgeous. Next was Southbrook, where our pouring needs were attended to by the most delightful Scottish lady. At this point we were getting hungry so we drove to Port Dalhousie where we had reservations at Treadwell. Our lunch there was excellent: a charcuterie plate to start, then fish & chips, soup, sandwiches and wine, all of it local. Oh, and our patio seats overlooked the water. So, yeah…pretty nice. But no time to rest, we had more wineries to visit.

We stopped at A Foreign Affair, then Alvento, then the beautiful cellar at Tawse, then the room at Megalomaniac tucked into a hill. By this time our trunk was full of wine and our energy levels flagging, so we checked in to our little inn, the Black Walnut Manor. The owners poured us another glass of wine (mercy!) and put out some brie and crackers and red pepper jelly and we sat and ate it on the deck under an enormous tree and felt sooooooooo relaxed. We sat by the pool and dipped our feet and played with dogs and wanted to stay forever or make them an offer to buy or maybe just have a nap or whatever. But we were happy.

A more casual dinner was in order, and luckily the proprietor was able to sneak us into About Thyme at the last minute. It didn’t look like much on the outside, but had good food and a great wine selection. Nothing about anyone’s meal was too remarkable, except Nellie’s steak with an atomic pile of mushroom poutine and my first experience tasting NYARAI‘s wines, but it was a very solid meal. It also provided a very relaxed atmosphere, conducive to us crashing immediately after dinner following the 2km walk home. I, for one, slept like the freaking dead.

The next morning was my happy place. I awoke at 8 to find juice, tea, nectarines and a newspaper outside our door. I adjourned to the balcony with laptop and wi-fi in tow, enjoying the fresh air. I luxuriated in my warm, quiet morning  until it was time for breakfast, prepared by the owners. Sitting with the four other guests (two different couples, both from Cincinnati oddly enough) we were treated to pancetta & melon, chocolatines and broccoli + cheese frittatas. But enough dilly-dallying: we had wineries to visit.

Zipping west to Beamsville, we started at Rosewood. Next was Thirty Bench, just across the street, where we loaded up on the cab franc. Then quick visits to Fielding and Hidden Bench (where we didn’t buy anything, but T-Bone did) followed by an experience at Daniel Lenko. Actually, it’d be more accurate to say an experience with Daniel Lenko, as he was the one pouring the wines right at his kitchen table. Sadly he was sold out of his white Cabernet, which was Nellie’s one required purchase for this trip. Major sad face.

Food was next on the agenda, so we took our innkeeper’s advice and visited The Good Earth for lunch. What a recommendation it was: nestled in this beautiful space among the vines and fruit trees, they served us lunch outdoors at a harvest table next to a wood-fired oven. Yet another charcuterie plate to start, and then a pile of meat for T-Bone and pizzas for the rest of us. The tomato, bocconcini and basil pizza was good, but Nellie’s prosciutto, peach and blue cheese pizza kicked ass. The food, the wine, the setting, the people, the day…none of us wanted to leave. And yet, it was time to go. The trunk could hold no more anyway. An hour later we were back in Toronto, wondering where the hell to put all these bottles. Storage issues aside, though, it was just a fantastic weekend. And so, I present the spoils:

This is what we bought:

• Stratus 2006 White
• Stratus 2008 Ice Wine White
• Southbrook Whimsy 2007 Cabernet Franc
• Southbrook Whimsy 2007 Lot no. 20 Cabernet Sauvignon
• The Foreign Affair 2007 Chardonnay
• The Foreign Affair 2008 Riesling
• The Foreign Affair 2007 Cabernet Sauvignon
• Alvento 2007 Viognier
• Tawse 2007 Meritage
• Tawse 2007 Chardonnay
• Megalomaniac 2007 Narcissist Riesling
• Rosewood 2008 Pinot Noir
• Rosewood 2008 Trois Femmes Rosé
• Thirty Bench Small Lot 2009 Triangle Riesling
• Thirty Bench Small Lot 2009 Gewurztraminer
• Thirty Bench Small Lot 2007 Cabernet Franc (x3)
• Fielding 2007 Sauvignon Blanc
• Fielding 2007 Chardonnay Musque
• Daniel Lenko 2005 Meritage
• Daniel Lenko 2007 Old Vines Chardonnay (French Oak)
• also: a Thirty Bench Merlot, which we intended to give away as a gift, because there will be no Merlot in this house

11 whites, 9 reds and 2 others. Probably a more even mix than I expected. I did not expect to come home with four chardonnays though.

Cheers, everyone.

On Saturday, once Nellie had slept off the limoncello, we did our usual run to the market and then hid out in the air conditioning for a bit. Ultimately the day was all about seeing Inception (imdb | rotten tomatoes) at the Scotiamount, which I LOVED. So good. Such a rare combination, that; an action movie that feels gritty and still cerebral. I don’t want to give away much to those who haven’t seen it, but among the many memorable scenes there’s a long hallway fight and subsequent sequence featuring Joseph Gordon-Levitt — certainly one of my favourite actors working today — that just blew my mind. What was left of it to blow, anyway. Highly, highly recommended, though I would say that there’s little need to see it in IMAX as we did. I think you could see this on a regular modern movie theatre screen and not lose anything. Plus, you wouldn’t have to suffer through the tragically cheesy IMAX laser light show before the film.

Not yet done with movies, we decided to take shelter from the rain and watch The Runaways (imdb | rotten tomatoes) on TV. Neither of us knew much about the band, or how it started, or even how young the girls were…just that Joan Jett, Lita Ford and Cherie Curry had been members. It was okay…really, it looked more like an art project than a movie, which is probably because Floria Sigismondi directed it. And while Michael Shannon was good, I mainly wanted to punch him in the face. So be warned.

Nowadays, while I’m hardly an aficionado, I quite enjoy it. I know enough to have favourite varietals and regions. I like Italian whites and California Cab Sauv, and I (naturally) hate Merlot. I like lighter, thinner wines like Pinot over robust wines like Bordeaux or Amarone. I don’t generally like French wine, except when I’m in France, which I can’t really explain. And I’ve developed a real fondness for, and interest in, Ontario wines. To wit: we’ve finally taken advantage of living next door to the Niagara region, and plan to soon visit the burgeoning Prince Edward County region. Our upcoming trip to San Francisco with a side trip to Napa has morphed into Napa-Sonoma-Healdsburg with San Francisco bookends. Our last lengthy trip to Nova Scotia included a visit to their young & interesting wine region. I’m even regretting not making a jaunt through the Okanagan part of our last trip to BC. And, of course, I’m hoping for one or two wine region outings when we visit the brother in Australia next year.

Nellie and I are (for a number of reasons beyond this one, it’s safe to say) odd: we both really enjoy beer and wine. I’d say I still prefer beer to wine, if I could pick only one, and I’m sure Nellie would say the opposite, but I think there aren’t many people who don’t prefer one and tolerate the other…let alone a pair of them. By the way, guys, if you’d like to get your wine-loving missus on-board with ze bier, check this out. Anyway, back to that California trip: for our five days in Napa we’re (obviously) drinking nothing but wine, whereas in San Francisco we’ve scoped out all the best beer places and can’t wait to try all the Trappist and microbrew goodness that we can’t get here in Toronto. We’re weird that way.

Side note, though: barley wine may sound like the best of these worlds. It is not. It most definitely not.

I should have more than this. I should be able to formulate interesting thoughts and analysis out of the books I’m reading, like The Imperfectionists or Blood Meridian or Ill Fares The Land. Or the music I’m listening to like The National or Titus Andronicus or Mates of State or Sleigh Bells. Or the TV I’m watching like Treme or Friday Night Lights or True Blood. Or the movies I’ve been watching, like Wanted or The Taking of Pelham 123 or Public Enemies. Okay, maybe not the movies. But still, work hours aside, I’m getting outside stimuli that should be fostering thoughtful writing. Even the G20 or a trip to Halifax or a day visit to the islands…but nothing. Actually, that’s not true; the G20 gave me plenty of ideas to write about. It’s just that every time I thought about writing I didn’t have time, or I just didn’t feel like it.

So maybe that’s it. Maybe my appetite for blogging is just dead. I started doing this nine years ago, before I even knew what blogging was and I had to write custom software to automagically transfer my thoughts to the interweb, so perhaps ze magic has disappeared. I feel like…like…oh, fuck it. Aaaaaaaaand VENN!!

Wednesday night we picked up two bottles of Rosewood Estates wine (the 2008 Semillon and 2008 Süssreserve Riesling) and some Cumbrae’s steaks by way of provisions, before kicking off our long weekend at Beerbistro (too crowded inside, too cold outside) and Duggan’s (just right). Not a long night, though…we were pacing ourselves.

I’ve already talked about Thursday — Canada Day — over here.

By Friday the weather was really picking up…good timing, as we’d decided to take the day off work. We began the day watching the orange jerseys parade along King Street toward Betty’s for the Netherlands-Brazil match before finding a less crowded seat at the Jason George from which to watch. Holland won and King Street went mad; we did a little furniture & art shopping, raided St. Lawrence Market, cleaned up our place (finally!), went for a run, made some ploughman’s lunch and drank a bottle of Firesteed Pinot Noir from Oregon.

Saturday started much like Friday: back to the Jason George to watch the Germany-Argentina match before hitting the farmer’s market and taking a stroll to the Distillery District. I needed a walk, Nellie needed wine glasses, and we both wanted to check out some art. Naturally we ended up sitting in the Mill Street brew pub, watching the excellent second half of the Spain-Paraguay match. When we arrived home Nellie completed her preparations for barbecued ribs, which were a tad on the spicy side…by which I mean they tasted like Satan had pissed hellfire in the sauce. Tasty, but they hurt my ever-so-delicate mouth.

Somewhere in there, between enjoying the outdoors at ground- or balcony-level, we watched a bunch of mediocre movies: My Best Friend’s Girl (imdb | rotten tomatoes), Green Zone (imdb | rotten tomatoes) and Thirst (imdb | rotten tomatoes). Actually, My Best Friend’s Girl was shit, but it was free, so I feel less bad about watching it.

Sunday was, sadly, the beginning of our return to reality. While we had fun taking pictures of all the hubbub of the Queen’s visit to our neighbourhood cathedral and relaxing on our balcony for the morning, it was back to work for me in the afternoon.

Oh my, but it’s been a nice Canada Day. We were up pretty early — improbably, Nellie get out of bed before I did — and walked down to the waterfront to catch the ferry to the islands. First we rented bikes (crappy ones, too…next time I need to find a better place from which to rent) from Centre Island, rode to the far end of Hanlon’s Point for some pictures and rode back to the pier. Nice.

Next we walked along the boardwalk toward Ward’s Island, looking out over the lake and the Leslie Street Spit. We stopped for lunch at the Rectory Cafe, which we’ve been meaning to try for years. Man, was it worth the wait. My pulled pork wrap was fantastic, Nellie’s pasta with shrimp, tomatoes and olive oil was simple and tasty, and we had several Ontario wines (Malivoire pinot gris and rose, and Fielding White Conception) throughout. We wrapped it up with an amazing sticky toffee pudding.

As we got up to leave we looked out over the lake and saw one of the tall ships we thought was coming into the harbour for the waterfront festival, but was in fact a ship that sails around the harbour all the time. Still…pretty! Then we walked across Ward’s Island, taking the pictures I’d hoped to get in my ill-fated excursion three years ago. A little good timing with the ferry and we were back on dry land, surrounded by hordes of families decked out in red.

Not quite done with the day yet, we sat on the sunny patio at Bier Markt and had some Canadian beers: Beau’s Lugtread and Denison’s. Then…well, I needed a nap. We came home and I made the couch my lover while we watched a crap movie, and then Nellie grilled up some amazing steak to go with yet more Canadian wine (2008 Rosewood Semillon and a bottle of L’Acadie Alchemy) while we watch the city light up with the minortillery of fireworks.

Happy birthday, country!

Further thoughts on our trip to Halifax this past weekend:

• Hard to believe now, but on Friday morning the G20 seemed like a non-event. We left super-early for the airport and got there in six minutes. Fortunately, waiting in Porter‘s lounge is a lot better than waiting around at Pearson: free drinks, shortbread cookies, wi-fi, comfy chairs and — for some reason — no screaming kids.
• Flying Porter, even though it takes an extra hour to Halifax, is worth it. Free drinks, actual lunch, friendly service, tons of leg room and doesn’t actually feel any longer than a direct flight.
• Taxis from the airport to downtown Halifax are always expensive, but we don’t mind paying just a little more now that we’ve found Crystal Limousines. There’s something extra-sweet about a nice car, lots of leg room and a cold bottle of water waiting for you when you get off a plane. They’re now on our speed dial whenever we fly in.
• Our hotel was on a lake called Chocolate Lake. So it was called the Chocolate Lake hotel. The lobby smelled of chocolate. A chocolate lab lives there. If they ever build a beer pool I’m moving in.
• As we tended to enjoy the nice weather having a Garrison on their patio, the bartender became our best friend. Two minutes after we arrived we took a seat in the sun, looked out over the lake, caught up with friends and slid lazily into vacation mode.
• We made our way downtown, strolled along the waterfront to take in the preparations for the Canadian navy’s 100th birthday and visit by the Queen, and picked up my parents at their hotel. Crazy coincidence though: walking in to the hotel we bumped into a guy who I last saw ten years ago when he was a co-op student at Delano. It was his first trip to Halifax, and we wouldn’t have even seen each other except for the earthquake last week. Anyway, it’s a long story, but it one of those coincidences that makes you shake your head at the cosmos.
• That night my parents, my brother and his wife joined us for dinner at Bish. I have to say, for all the talk of it being one of the best restaurants in the city I wasn’t very impressed. My steak was overdone and it took 40 minutes to bring us our mains (during which our wine glasses sat empty for 20 minutes). I wasn’t the only one underwhelmed either. It was nice to catch up with my family, though, if only for a few hours.
• We continued the evening with my brother and sister-in-law though, walking past a great many pubs and bars crammed full of drunk douchebags and scary cougars (it was fleet week, after all) before settling on a familiar standby: the Old Triangle. While we were there a bunch of secret service-looking people showed up; turns out the prime minister of the Netherlands was in there having a drink. We wondered why he needed a security detail…what drunk Nova Scotian is going to recognize the Dutch prime minister?? Anyhoo. We got home around 1:30…which, by Halifax standards isn’t that late, but I’m ooooooooold now.
• In spite of being an old man past his bedtime, we got up and had brunch at a friend’s house with her husband, kid, baby, dog and mildly retarded sister. We had a tour of their beautiful new house, ate breakfast on their deck and left with some art which now hangs on our fridge.
• And then, the reason we were in Halifax in the first place: our friend’s wedding. I’ve no room to list all the highlights, but they included fortuitous weather, wheel spinning, a toothbrush & Dan Marino jersey, flowing wine, Thriller choreography, belligerent Dan, road beers and a near-exhibition of “Murphy Girl drunk”. I also managed to catch snippets of Ghana beating the US and news of violence in Toronto.
• Notes on the DJ’s music selection: whoever made a nu-metal remix of “Barrett’s Privateers” should be horsewhipped. Also: it’s a universal truth that Trooper will come out earlier at an east coast wedding than anywhere else.
• Since we got even less sleep that night, there was little to do the next morning but meet friends for brunch at the hotel, take a limo back to the airport and fly home. Safe, sound and regretting that we didn’t have more time in Halifax. Soon, my pretty.

Aaaaaaaaaand then we returned to find Toronto in some kind of lock-down mode…stores closed, violent protests happening a few blocks away, upsetting displays from punks and police alike. I’m too tired to think much about it…just going to go to sleep and hope the city’s back to normal tomorrow morning.

Then again, with the earthquake today, massive police force in the streets and tornadoes in the area, maybe it’s best we get out of the town before Lake Ontario turns to blood.

After he died she always said that if the Hawks won the cup, she’d take the picture from the newspaper, frame it and have it placed on his grave.

And so:

Enjoy it, sir.

Though I could barely see them from where we were, I could certainly hear them. And feel them. They kicked off with “Raw Power” and “Search and Destroy”, and covered the other things everyone was waiting to hear…”I Got A Right”, “Fun House” and most especially “I Wanna Be Your Dog”. In fact, during the last, a mosh pit broke out…well, pretty much right on top of me.  So I got a little bruised while shielding Nellie from drunk 45-year-olds who never quite let go of grunge. I blame Mudhoney‘s show at the square two nights before.

No matter; a hearty thank you to nxne and Toronto for giving me the chance to see a living legend for free in my back yard.

Way at the other end of the bleak-meter was The Road (imdb | rotten tomatoes), which I kind of assumed they’d ruin, especially after seeing Charlize Theron in the previews. But they didn’t ruin it at all, and Theron’s part of the mother actually helped, I think. Certainly they explain more about the story’s genesis to the viewer than to those who read the book, but it was probably necessary. Anyway, watching it made me want to read more Cormac McCarthy, so I pulled Blood Meridian off the shelf and set to it last night. I reckon I’ll be despondent by tomorrow and homicidal by Friday.

Last night wasn’t a late finisher so much as it was an early starter. Dinner at Fieramosca (with a bottle of wine), then drinks with co-workers at The Pilot, then more co-worker drinks at Volo, and finally dinner at Origin. I think our meal was good. I know it was long. The ending gets a little fuzzy. The next morning was even fuzzier.

How fortunate, then, that we were scheduled to get on a boat and cruise around in the hot sun for most of Saturday afternoon. Our friend CB had arranged a little celebration for husband GB’s birthday, so nine of us piled on a catamaran and prepared to enjoy the weather. My stomach wasn’t quite ready for that, though; the first few minutes while we were tied up made me queasy, but as soon as we were underway I felt better. A little nap below decks helped.

We reached Centre Island, had a bit of a stroll and (somewhat inadvertently) took in the sights at Hanlon’s Point Beach. Then the skipper cooked lunch, which we ate on the grass, by the water, in the sun…pretty awesome. Back on board and birthday cake in hand we set back out, cruising through the harbor and all the way around the islands. It gave me a look at parts of Toronto I’d not seen before, like the north side of Ward’s Island and a bird colony on the Leslie Street Spit. I got to relax on the deck of a boat for a few hours, a cool breeze tempering the hot summer sun. Shaky start and a little sunburn aside, it was a brilliant day.

Yeeeeeaaaaah, I need a rich friend with a boat.

It might have been that Montreal was just exhausted after slogging their way through two consecutive 7-game series. Jaroslav Halak stopped over 500 shots in the playoffs. Their best defenseman, and maybe best player overall — Andrei Markov — was hurt in the first game of round 2, and his absence showed in the anemic power play. Ultimately, though, the Flyers did what Washington and Pittsburgh didn’t: they adjusted. The Capitals and Penguins seemed convinced that if they just kept playing the same way they had all year, their talent would come through and win the day. That played right into the Habs’ strategy, but the Flyers had none of it. They crashed the net, unlike the Caps and Pens who just talked about doing it, and Montreal coach Jacques Martin seemed unwilling to use Ryan O’Byrne on D, the one player big and strong enough to clear the crease. The Philly defense cut off the entry pass and punished the Canadiens’ small, skilled players along the wall. Mike Leighton may have recorded the shutouts, but apart from game 2 he was little better than average. The Flyers just choked the life out of the Montreal forwards.

So now the Flyers will play the Blackhawks for the finals. I will be cheering for the latter, almost as enthusiastically as I would have cheered for Montreal had they made it to the finals. Here’s why:

1. I have come to hate the Flyers as much as the Bruins and almost as much as the Leafs
2. I have come to hate the Flyers’ fans even more than the Flyers
3. I like a lot of Chicago players (especially Toews) and the way they play the game
4. Chicago has always been Nellie’s team, but she cheers for Montreal for my sake. It’s only fair I return the favour
5. If Chicago wins, the Maple Leafs will be the team who has gone the longest without winning the Stanley Cup. My excitement at this prospect should not be underestimated

So…I’ll take a few days to recover from this heartbreak, and then…go Hawks go.

Maybe I should put on L.A. Confidential and Bob Roberts, just to round things out.

Not much question whether I’ll be sore tomorrow. If my shoulders could give me a look both quizzical and annoyed, they would.

Now, game one of the NHL’s Eastern Conference semifinals. Be still, my yawning and yet overly nervous heart.