Vancouver Is Awesome

VHF opens the doors of private heritage homes… to you!

2012-05-16T00:36:18Z

How excited was I when our guidebooks (that double as tickets!) for the Vancouver Heritage Foundation’s Heritage House Tour 2012 arrived? Very! I (perhaps a bit too) feverishly made my way through this 24 page booklet that offers extensive insight into the 10 heritage homes who will be opening their doors to you on June 3rd, and then set my sights accordingly.

The deal is that ten privately-owned heritage buildings will literally open their doors for one day to people who take themselves on a self-guided tour with the “ticket” (booklet) that costs $40 and serves as a fundraising initiative for the Heritage Foundation.

My favourite on the list of buildings to hit up is Le Marche St George. My family picks up an organic box here every week but for obvious reasons we’ve never been beyond the storefront and into the homes that are attached to this corner grocery store located on St George Street in East Van. The booklet tells me that there’s a ground level home in the back as well as two apartments above that will also have theirs doors open to visitors. Five paragraphs outline the history of the building and the work the current owners have put into restoring it to near-original condition.

Photos: Martin Knowles Photo/Media www.mkphotomedia.com

The inside of the store is always a pleasure (shown in the photos below) and I can’t wait to see what hides behind the doors at Le Marche that we usually can’t open.

Events details:
Sunday, June 3rd from 10 am – 5 pm is the Vancouver Heritage Foundation’s 10th Annual Heritage House Tour. This year’s one-day self-guided tour of 10 houses includes a church converted to strata units, Shaughnessy mansions, Cedar Cottage homes, a restored corner store, and an old wood frame bank building with strata units to the rear. Tickets are $40+hst. To purchase tickets or for more info visit: www.vancouverheritagefoundation.org or call 604 264 9642

TO DIE FOR FOOD OF THE WEEK – VOLUME 3

2012-05-15T23:45:10Z

Every week I compile a collection of the most mouthwatering food photos that I shot in Vancouver restaurants and in my kitchen. The hashtag #todiefor denotes an item truly knee weakening in flavour. Questions? Tweet me @erin_ireland

Fat Dragon Milk Chocolate Bar – a collaboration from the Fat Dragon Chefs & Wendy Boys - topped with crispy rice, toasted coconut and ceylon cinnamon

Veg Sabji by Soho Road Naan Kebab - one of the top food carts in Vancouver with its own mobile tandoor

Smoked Queen Charlotte Sablefish at the Buy Local. Eat Natural. Dirty Apron cooking class - this melt-in-your-mouth fish was poached in local milk with garlic and thyme

Salted Chocolate Chip Cookie from Musette Caffe - sweet ‘n salty to the max!

Jasmine Green Tea Macarons at French Made Baking’s macaron class – details here

Turkey Sandwich with Cranberry Aioli & Brie by Cove Fine Foods - this has got to be as souped up as they come?

Dogtown Vancouver: Maestro

2012-05-04T03:43:31Z

It’s a new dog once a week! Click here to find out how to get your dog posted if you haven’t sent in your photos yet!

Today’s dog featured in Dogtown Vancouver is Maestro, Rachel H’s pup. Here’s what she had to say about him…

NAME: Maestro.
BREED: Miniature Yorkshire Terrier.
HOOD: West End.
FAVOURITE SNACK: Organic peanut butter & dried liver treats. Even I can’t afford organic produce for myself sometimes, but I always make sure I have it for my prized pooch!
OTHER INFO: Maestro is only five months old and already I couldn’t imagine life without him. I’m from Ireland originally and have been here for three years, so I couldn’t bear living without a canine companion any longer. So, my boyfriend went snowboarding one weekend……and when he came back we had a new puppy, ha :) Like all small dogs, Maestro may be mini in stature but he’s BIG in attitude, and he literally rules the roost. He loves finding secret hiding places under the bed or the couch, which is great until you realize he’s also leaving little “treasures” under there for you!!!! He’s a handful and he definitely thinks he’s the alpha male in the family, although I’m not sure said boyfriend would agree. The power struggle continues!!

If you’re interested in adopting a pet, check out our Happy Tails feature. If you adopted your pet from the SPCA and would like to share your awesome story on Happy Tails, send an email to Rory.Blanchard@novusnow.ca.

In The Village on False Creek part 4: Vancouver’s former Chief Planner shares his views on this “remarkable community”

2012-05-14T23:27:14Z

Welcome to In The Village on False Creek, a unique project inspired by Live@YVR and 365 Days of Dining. Over the coming months it’s my mission to draw from the myriad of things that make this new community awesome in order to bring you a weekly scoop.

Last week I brought you a fluffy DUCKLING RESCUE, this week I’m getting a little more serious. I was able to sit down with Vancouver’s former Chief Planner, Brent Toderian, for an upcoming 50 Coffees piece I’m doing and I doubled up my time with him in order to pick his brain about my new neighbourhood. He had a hand in steering the development in the time leading up to the Olympics and it was cool to get some insights from him on the neighbourhood.

Brent shot and tweeted this photo right after we had coffee at Terra Breads in the village, as “Proof that #OlympicVillage cafe [is a] hub for dogs, bikes & baby-strollers!”

I’ve joked lately about how everyone in Vancouver sees themselves as a city planner: regardless of our education or background we all think we know what’s best for the future of our neighbourhoods and everyone is voicing their opinions loud and proud. And while I joke about it it’s entirely fair for every single resident to voice their views on what’s best for their Vancouver. That’s democracy, of course, and the rise of social media has made it easy for all of us to be able to share our thoughts. But it was really cool to sit down with a bonafide City Planner, the one who had in fact helped plan the very neighbourhood that I live in, and get his thoughts on why I love living there.

It was all by design, of course. And though you wouldn’t know it by following the local media, in Brent’s circles (international city planners, urbanists and the like) The Village on False Creek is often praised as one of the 3 best new midrise developments in the world. It’s frequently referenced not only as just a balanced community, but a remarkable one, and years later it still wins monthly international awards for its design and is viewed globally as a gamechanger. All of the small pieces that I’m bringing you every week through this series make up a larger, totally awesome puzzle. This new neighbourhood is the best one I’ve ever lived in, and if you ask most of my neighbours they’ll tell you the same. Heck, I’ll ask them and bring you their stories over the coming months!

Learn more at TheVillageOnFalseCreek.com and stay tuned each week as I expose unique elements of our new community.

The future of our Viaducts

2012-05-16T15:45:32Z

I’ve been thinking a lot of about the Georgia and Dunsmuir viaducts lately. Just yesterday as I was walking under them to get to our office in Chinatown I ran into Vancouver-based professional skateboarder, Rick McCrank, standing in their shadow in the Skate Plaza. We had a discussion about what might happen to the Plaza should they come down, landing on the likely outcome for this particular space being – how can I say this – not the best one for Rick and his interests. The skatepark would likely end up being disassembled along with the viaduct as the property would all of a sudden go from being an easy one for the City to loan, as its current value is quite low, to a piece of land that would have many vying over it. A huge opportunity lies in creating more than shady, fenced in piles of dirt (what many of the spaces under the viaducts – aside from the Plaza – contain right now) and it’s sparked an interesting conversation from the City of Vancouver who are openly engaging all of the stakeholders in the city on the issue.

Professional skateboarder, Rick McCrank, often works under Vancouver’s viaducts

Back in the late 1960′s the viaducts were constructed because a freeway was supposed to meet them on the other side of Downtown but the residents of Strathcona and Chinatown rose up and opposed that paved thoroughfare that would have made our city look a LOT different some 40 years later, and it was obviously never built. Recently the City of Vancouver held a challenge inviting people to submit their concepts in 3 different categories: 1. A way to connect the core of the city if the viaducts weren’t there 2. Changing the existing viaducts into something, anything and 3. The Wildcard for random ideas. There were over 80 ideas, from well thought out plans complete with renderings all the way to basic concepts involving My Little Pony. All of them were interesting. Click the image below to visit the site where they’re presently being showcased.

Personally, I’d be happy to see them go and have some brighter space North of False Creek, perhaps more housing, green space and an urban trout pond (I should have submitted an entry to the challenge!). When I sat down for coffee with former City of Vancouver Chief Planner Brent Toderian last week I asked what he thought and his reply was “Take ‘em down”. City Councillor Geoff Meggs has been leading the charge on this conversation and I haven’t talked to him about it directly but judging from all of the POSTS on his blog that concern the subject I’m fairly certain he’s in favour of “total removal” as well. You can meet with him tomorrow at an SFU City Conversation event called Viaducts or Via-don’ts: The future of upper False Creek. Also speaking will be Urban Designer and Crosstown resident Frank Ducote, and Shirley Chan, whose family led the 1960s fight to stop the freeway I mentioned earlier in this piece. After they speak you’re invited to ask questions as well as share your opinions and ideas.

Event details:
When: Thursday, May 17, 2012
Time: 12:30-1:30 pm
Location: SFU Harbour Centre, Room 1425
LINK TO INFORMATION

Meet Your Urban Farmer 2: Chris Thoreau of My Urban Farm

2012-05-16T03:31:16Z

Another instalment of the new video series we’ve partnered with launched today! Produced by Fire and Light Media Group, “Meet Your Urban Farmer” is a series that takes an in-depth look at different urban farmers in greater Vancouver, bringing you a little bit closer to the food you eat!

Meet Your Urban Farmer: Chris Thoreau of My Urban Farm

Meet Chris Thoreau of My Urban Farm in this second short film in our Meet your Urban Farmer series. (The extended version of the interview can be found HERE).

Chris is a creator, papa, urban grower of sunflower, pea, and buckwheat shoots which are then cut and pedaled to you within hours of harvest, bike-powered. Chris likes soil, compost, and microgreens. From 2001 to 2006 Chris operated Influence Organics – a small, certified organic farm, on Vancouver Island. “Too much work”, he thought, “I’m going back to school”. He now holds a BSc. in Agroecology from UBC where his studies focused on soils, urban farming, and plant breeding. Chris still works too much, but that’s ok.

If you’ve never had the opportunity to meet the wonderful array of passionate individuals behind the urban farming movement, and the wonderful food they grow for the community, stay tuned as we meet other urban farmers in the Vancouver Metro area. This will be an opportunity you won’t want to miss.

Support your local urban farmers (and local rural farmers of course), and know where your food comes from.

DAILY FLICKR PICKR 758

2012-05-16T05:28:22Z

Every day we share a single photo from our Flickr Pool shot by one of our faithful and talented readers (that’s you!)

Ok, after this past weekend, which as AWESOME I might add, I was so happy to see this photo from Christoper M submitted to the Daily Flickr Pickr pool. So much joy in this photo and a perfect summary for the first really nice, warm, splendid weekend we’ve seen this year.

Enjoy Testing Gravity from Christopher M

John

BC Olympic athletes gearing up for London 2012

2012-05-15T22:22:39Z

This morning I had the great pleasure of walking out my door in The Village on False Creek and walking a block to the Creekside Community Centre where, previously unbeknownst to me (and you, I imagine) the Canadian Sport Centre Pacific houses their Vancouver Campus. The CSCP is a partner of the Own The Podium initiative and essentially what they do is provide sport performance programs to help athletes and coaches win medals for Canada. Today they brought in 3 of Canada’s athletes who will be participating in the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games as well as one of the coaches to talk to the media about their training, their hopes and to briefly give their personal stories about how they got to where they are.

Pictured above from left to right are Ryan Cochrane (Bronze medalist winner in the 2008 Games for 1500m Freestyle Swimming), his multi-award-winning coach Randy Bennett, Martha McCabe (Bronze medalist in the 2011 Shanghai World Championships for 200m Breaststroke) and Bo Hedges (Silver medalist in the 2008 Paralympic Games for Wheelchair Basketball). After they spoke it was announced that the CSCP launched a new campaign called WE CAN which you can follow the #WeCan hashtag on Twitter or HERE on their web site.

But what you’re dying to know is what were these athletes wearing on their feet, right? What kind of footwear are Canada’s Olympians wearing to press conferences 73 days before the London 2012 Summer Olympics kick off? Well, coach Randy (feet left) is wearing some sort of Asics crosstrainers. Ryan Cochrane (feet right) is wearing a casual pair of Tom’s.

Martha (feet left) is wearing checkered Vans slipons and my favourite pair of shoes I saw up there were Bo’s (feet right) Adidas.

We work tirelessly to bring you the hard-hitting news you demand, dear readers! We leave you with this view from the press conference at Creekside. Not bad.

Oh! And stay tuned as we’ll be bringing you a lot more coverage of the Vancouver and BC-based athletes (and their feet) who will be competing in London this summer.

Scene and Heard: Last Week In Music Vol. 104 ft The Matinee, Good For Grapes, Portage and Main, Great Lake Swimmers, Portage and Main (yes, again), Poor Young Things, The Dudes

2012-05-15T21:28:27Z

SCENE AND HEARD showcases the independent music scene here in Vancouver. We post weekly guest playlists comprised of Vancouver artists and ‘Last Week in Music’ highlights some of the best concerts happening around the city…

What a busy week! Some huge, and highly entertaining shows including the #TracksOnTracks launch…plus (almost) all the Portage and Main you’d ever want (they’re playing next week too, but I’ll tell you about it then) who killed it at The Vogue. This week is hella busy with lots of VCBW events happening amongst festival launch parties and awesome indie shows…Read up!:

THIS WEEK IN MUSIC: begins with a launch party for the 2012 Khatsahlano! Music + Arts Festival hosted by Zulu Records on Wednesday – where Kathryn Calder, The High Drops, and Capitol 6 are playing – starts at 7pm. Friday is the opening night of VCBW, as well as a show at the Media Club ft The Mocking Bird, The Never Surprise, and Ali Milner. Saturday I’ll be at the Hop-Headbangers Ball which has a little bit of Sack Blabbath (yes I wrote that correctly!). Sunday, some more beer and music with Hoppapalooza at the Alibi Room – where Rich Hope will be playing! Then Scott Cook, David Newberry, Jenny Ritter, and Eric Nassau will all be performing at Little Mountain Gallery! Have a great week!

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Vancouver Draw Down: Billy Campbell

2012-05-16T07:19:24Z

Vancouver Is Awesome is a proud media partner of Vancouver Draw Down 2012. The Drawing is Awesome project showcases prominent Vancouverites participating in the Online Daily Drawing Project…

Name & Occupation: Billy Campbell, Actor (The Killing, The 4400, The Rocketeer and more)

Daily Drawing Project: “Draw your route through the city today.” (From Day 7 Online Daily Drawing)

What was the last thing you drew before this?
A tin of Spam (this is true). I ate a delicious salad while drawing this! Drawing is for anytime.

Visit the Online Daily Drawing Project running May 9 – June 8 in the 31 days leading up to Vancouver Draw Down, an annual daylong celebration of drawing that offers 27 free drawing workshops at 18 locations around Vancouver.

Click here to check out daily drawings by other prominent Vancouverites!