Update: More here As Putin rears his head and comes into the airspace of the United States of America, where do they go? It’s Alaska. It’s just right over the border. It is from Alaska that we send those out to make sure that an eye is being kept on this very powerful nation, Russia,continue reading
Food and Wine Archives
Wine highlights
We started a new notebook at the beginning of the year — conveniently, we were running out of pages in the old book just as 2007 was running out of days. The new notebook is apparently mainly a story of whites, which seem to have both more numerous and better than the reds we’ve tastedcontinue reading
Niagara redux
We did our quasi-annual day trip to Niagara today — the first and last time ever we do this on the Labour Day weekend — QEW traffic having transformed the day trip into something approaching five hours of driving (not to mention a bad decision that had landed us right in the middle of CNEcontinue reading
Food and oil prices
The Guardian on yesterday’s fuel protests in Europe: Long queues formed at Spanish and Portuguese supermarkets after truckers said shops could run out of fresh food in days. Even before the strike began thousands of people formed long lines outside petrol stations and supermarkets. Supermarket chains Eroski and Carre-four said they had stocked up oncontinue reading
BPA BS
The whole fuss about BPA in water bottles and baby bottles is making me crazy. First, there is no good science that shows any deleterious effects in humans at normal levels of BPA consumption. Second, it’s pretty hard to make polycarbonate water bottles (or baby bottles, for that matter) leach much BPA. Hard plastics likecontinue reading
Tim’s takedown
It’s about time. Acoording to Rex Murphy, “the days of Tim Hortons as an essential Canadian experience are dwindling and few”: Their “roll up the rim” is a farcical gimmick. Their signature phrases — “double double” being the most familiar — gall more than they please. Their ridiculous lineups — in some places it takescontinue reading
LCBO experiments
I had M. with me when wine shopping on the weekend, so we ended up with a case full of mostly sub-$13 experiments. (Yay, strong Canadian dollar!) So far: Willm Riesling Reserve, France, Vintages, $15.85: all petrol and varnish on the nose. Tastes a bit thin. Won’t buy again at that price, but those fondcontinue reading
Okay, that’s pretty helpless.
HT to Val Dodge’s blog: I first saw Beyond the Orchard apple slices in the local Sobeys in early January, but didn’t see it again until mid-March. They’ve been in stock steadily since then, so presumably people are buying them. This package—a plastic box containing five individual sealed wrappers—contains just 285 grams of sliced apples,continue reading
The Battle of Other Milk Solids
Did you know that there is a pitched battle being waged over the composition of cheese? Since technological advances have made possible the creation of a whole new generation of milk products (for example, isolates or milk protein concentrates), which are not necessarily subject to tariff quotas and can therefore be imported freely into Canada,(2)continue reading
February 23 is Open That Bottle Night
According to the Star, and backed up by the inevitable Open That Bottle Night website. Open That Bottle Night (OTBN) is the event you have been waiting for…the time when you are entitled to uncork that cherished bottle and enjoy the contents. It doesn’t matter if the wine is expensive or low cost, white orcontinue reading