Category: Personal

A ballet at the Moulin Rouge and a symphony in space

The recent calendar has been a little busy, starting with a surprise party for Jean last Friday (at Verses), and a Valentine’s Dance on Saturday (at which we received some nice comments on our dancing, actually), and ending with another Verses dinner this Saturday, with a dance class and practice night fit in there as well.

And we also attended…

Moulin Rouge: The Ballet

The first ballet we’ve been to since, I think, the Ballet Béjart tribute to Freddie Mercury, quite a few years ago, in Montreal.

This one featured the Royal Winnipeg Ballet, and took place in our home town concert hall. It was inspired by the Bahz Luhrmann movie, but didn’t imitate it so closely as to get into copyright trouble. So though it is still a love triangle between a woman who works at the Moulin Rouge, an impoverished artist, and a more powerful man, they aren’t the same characters as in the movie. We still get a tango scene, and green fairy scene, but not at the same points, nor for the same reasons, as in the movie.

No matter. The plot isn’t the point in a ballet; it’s just window dressing for the dancing. And that setting and themes made for some really lively dancing. It particularly came to life, of course, with the extended can-can scene inside the Moulin Rouge. That part begun with an unfortunate flub, in which one dancer was nearly dropped, but otherwise the dancing was nothing but impressive. (Not that I’m any expert.) I wasn’t sure what Jean thought of the whole thing, but he assured me he found it enjoyable—even though he knows this may mean has had to attend another ballet in another 10 years or so.

And Friday, we had tickets to Symphony in Space.

Space image

This was a KW Symphony Pops concert intended to feature music with a astrological theme. So there was some Star Wars music, some Star Trek music, and some things you wouldn’t expect, like Bach’s Bradenburg Concerto, which apparently is out there on a space capsule somewhere, searching for intelligent life.

I’ve never seen conductor John Morris Russell before, but man, what an enthusiastic, lively personality he is. Along with being interested in science as well as music, he’s quite passionate about education, so the show also featured some young performers. The most adorable thing was seeing all these tiny violin players trot out to join the symphony in Suzuki’s “Variations on Twinkle Twinkle Little Star”. Brought back memories of my own violin-playing days. But these kids were much better.

The second half was hosted by an astronaut, Bjarni Tryggvason, who guided us through the planets of our solar system as the symphony played excerpts from Holst: The Planets and a bit of Mozart (Jupiter). This part was also accompanied by these gorgeous NASA photos of the various planets. It was really hard to get bored during this concert.

The conclusion featured the Eastwood Collegiate Concert Choir accompanying soloist AJ Bridel on “Defying Gravity” from Wicked. Man, does that girl have chops. Remember that name: She might be someone someday.

All in all it was one of the most enjoyable symphony performances of the season. Well worth making time for!

This is your cold on Cold-FX

ColdFX bottleColds used to always run their predictable course with me:

  1. Throat scratchy.
  2. Throat sore and scratchy.
  3. Nose starts to run.
  4. Nose becomes faucet; Kleenex stores deleted.
  5. Nose starts to clear; cough sets in.

If lucky, the whole thing would be over in around 7 days. When unlucky, residual stuffiness / coughing would linger for some weeks afterward.

So last Wednesday, when my throat felt scratchy, I felt a certain sense of doom. Not for the first time, I dosed with Cold-FX in response. (Per their recommendations—six pills the first day, then four, then two.) I have found that, for me, Cold-FX tends to lessen the severity and duration of colds. But this time, it was quite extreme. Really, I had a mildly scratchy throat and a bit of coughing at night, for about five days. No fatigue. No stuffed-up nose. No real sense that I ever needed a cough drop or a Tylenol sinus or anything.

Was that even a cold? Jean says no (partly because he didn’t catch anything at all). But I definitely had some sort of throat thing for a few days. It was just super mild.

Oh, well. No sense in worrying about not being sick. And I don’t know whether Cold-FX deserves any credit or not. But I’m certainly keeping it on hand…

And a foodie new year

Our annual new year gourmet dinner was held January 2, giving us a day’s break from New Year’s Eve dinner, and the day following (today) to rest up before heading back to work.

First course: Wild mushroom toasts

Originally my idea was to have lobster bisque as the first course, but I changed my mind based on:

  1. Feeling that soup might be too heavy a starter for also fairly heavy main course.
  2. A sense that I didn’t really want to kill anything to ring in the new year, but that frozen lobster might be sub-par.

So, we went back to a fairly standard item at these dinners, wild mushrooms. But a new recipe, from Fine Cooking magazine.

The one ingredient I wasn’t able to find was crème fraîche. But I did find instructions on how to make your own. Basically, it’s this:

  1. Add 1 Tablespoon buttermilk to 1 cup slightly warm whipping cream.
  2. Let that sit on your kitchen for about a day and half, stirring every once in a while, til it’s thick.
  3. Put it in the fridge.

Isn’t that weird? You’d think leaving dairy products out at room temperature for so long would be a bad thing, but we did eat that yesterday with no ill effects, so I guess not. (I also don’t understand why that’s called crème fraîche, which literally means fresh cream.) It didn’t seem to impart that much taste to the dish, which mostly tasted of mushrooms. I think it was more about adding texture.

Adding crème fraîche to the mushrooms:

The wine we had with this course was a 2007 California Beringer Pinot Noir. We’d bought it that same day, in the “last chance” bin, just on the thought that Pinot would be good with mushrooms. Turned out to be a very nice wine.

The soundtrack for this course was my Get Happy! playlist. Looks like it worked:

Dining on mushrooms and Pinot

Second course: Seared Scallops with Spiced Mango Coulis

The recipe we used here was from the New England Culinary Institute, and we picked it up while on vacation in Vermont. It was super-easy, though; the most challenging part, which Jean took on, was peeling and slicing the mango. Half a mango decorated the plates, and the rest was blended with ingredients like ginger, white wine, and clove, to make a coulis.

Happily, we were able to find some beautiful, large sea scallops at Sobey’s, and then you don’t have to do much to them. Salt, pepper, sear in a bit of grapeseed oil, then drizzle on a bit of olive oil.

Scallops and Chardonnay

The result was just delicious… My second-favorite dish of the night. (And Jean’s number 1.)

Zoe, me, and scallops

The wine was a French Chardonnay we had on hand, that wasn’t spectacular in itself, but went quite nicely with this food (which you really didn’t want to upstage). Moments after this shot, a bit of an accident occurred. It made us really happy this was a white wine:

Tower of wine

I guess the soundtrack for this portion—the Thoughtful playlist—wasn’t quite as effective.

Third course: Venison Osso Bucco with side of Vegetable Barley

This was the one course planned well ahead, when I spotted the venison osso bucco cuts at Brady’s. I then scoured the Internet for recipes, since I’d never made any kind 0f osso bucco before. I finally settled on a recipe from cdkitchen.com, which involved cooking it with lemons, oranges, carrot juice, red wine, juniper berries (which I couldn’t find, so I substituted gin), chicken broth, and various veggies. It wasn’t too hard at all.

Unfortunately, the results were disappointing. For whatever reason—having to scale down the recipe size, not using the best pots, whatever—the meat just wasn’t tender enough. It was tasty, but lacked that “falling off the bone” quality. If I try it again, I think I’ll go for a slow cooker method.

Osso bucco and Zinfandel

The barley side dish, though deliberately unexciting, was quite nice. I started with a recipe from Taste of Home, but made some changes: Cooked it in chicken broth instead of just water, used carrots instead of red peppers, and reduced the amount of green onion.

The California Zinfandel wine we had with this was a Christmas gift this year, and man, that was a lot of wine. Big and fruity. Nice, though.

Soundtrack was an old standby for dining, my Beautiful Ones playlist.

Dessert: Chocolate soufflé

I wanted a light (tasting) dessert to round things off, and what could be lighter than soufflé? I’d never made it before, either, so again I had to search online for recipes. I ended up with a highly recommended one from Epicurious.com, which had the added bonus of being fine with making everything ahead and just baking it right before eating.

The ingredients were really simple: eggs, milk, sugar, and 10.5 ounces of “extra-bittersweet chocolate”. It was easily the most fun dish to prepare, starting with the need to round up six soufflé ramekins when we had no idea what those were. And the word just struck us as really funny, so we were giggling the whole time we gathered a dog’s breakfast of custard dishes, small corningware, and oven-safe storage containers we figured could substitute for ramekins.

Then it was all beating egg whites and melting chocolate and buttering and sugaring the faux ramekins, not to mention really enjoying licking all the bowls and spoons.

After baking, the moment of truth: Would the soufflés rise? But, they did, they did! (The photo is of them inside the oven.)

Souffles in oven

While we considered port, we decided to open a Cabernet France ice wine from Stratus (a gift we received last Christmas) to serve with the soufflé. It was lovely.

Souffle and ice wine

What I wasn’t expecting, and loved, was the molten chocolate pool lying under the floating soufflé top:

Inside the souffle

This (unsurprisingly for me) was my favorite dish of the night. (And Jean’s #2.) The soundtrack for this portion of the evening was, of course, “Love, the sweetest thing” (that is, romantic songs).

Happy 2011, all.

My Christmas vacation

In this Christmas of such amazingly bad weather for so many would-be travelers, I guess I will start by saying that our travels couldn’t have been smoother. Crowds not that bad, all flights right on time, drives to and from airports not daunting.

And Timmins itself was really a winter wonderland this year. Not too cold (-8 C was the lowest we experienced), and this freezing “mist” followed by light snow and sun just caused all the trees to be beautifully coated in white.

This one may be the prettiest shot:

Trees against blue skies

But this one shows the tree “frosting” more:

In front of Frosted trees

Of course, the visit was about family, and we certainly got to see many of the local relatives. Christmas Eve we first attended my cousin’s Réveillon (as did my parents and my brother’s family), so I was able to see a number of cousins, aunts, uncles, second cousins, and such that I hadn’t seen in a while.

It was then off to the Lefebvre family Réveillon, which had a good turnout of all of Jean’s siblings and partners, and most of the nieces and nephews and their kids. The gift theme this year was food, and I think this was the funniest item that came out of the wrapped box:

Edible gift

(You can also get an idea of the delicious array of food available in non-gift form as well.)

Christmas morning was relatively quiet at McNair’s—just Jean and I and my parents doing our exchange, and talking to the Toronto sisters by phone. Though our gifts were not themed, there was still funny food to be had, in the form of these chocolates labeled Better Than Sex:

Chocolate gift

Jean went off for a family skate, then came back in time to see my brother’s kids tear into their stockings and gifts from grandparents and aunts. It was the usual fun chaos and major haul, leaving Neal to mutter something about how we’re definitely “picking names” for the kids next year. We’ll see.

Family visits, at this house, at that house, continued for the rest of our Timmins time. We also got out for some walks, and to see some friends. We did no Boxing Day shopping, except a bit in online form. (Although one bit was rather large, as we’re now booked onto a European River Cruise with my parents. But more on that another time.)

I’ll just conclude on a few more of Jean’s shots that I especially like.

Seth at arena

Nephew (great-Nephew, actually…) Seth at the arena

Mine shaft and Christmas ribbon

Timmins icon, all dolled up for Christmas.

Bird feeder

The very active bird feeder at my parent’s place.

Snowman

Jean’s fave Christmas shot.

Reno, part 1

The downstairs renovation planned out nearly a year ago finally resulted in concrete action: installation of fireplace. Isn’t it beautiful?

The fireplace itself is actually pretty attractive. The surroundings, at this point… Well…

But we are indeed pleased with how quiet the new fireplace is. We rarely used the old because the fan was too loud. Not an issue here. And now we have proof that the downstairs gets 1 degree C colder than the main floor, so a little extra heat down there is welcome this time of year.

And whatever the funny-looking results, we paid for the installation of this, so the effort on our part was zero. That won’t be true of the next step, which is to put in new flooring. We’ll be picking something like laminate (though not wood-style), which isn’t supposed to be too hard to put down. What does seem nightmarishly hard? Moving everything out of that room. All those books? The treadmill? The TV, PVR, stereo equipment? The computers? Where the heck will it all that go in the meantime?

But that still lies ahead. First, to actually select the flooring…

I’m not a charity case

Unsolicited free items I have received from registered national charities:

  • Christmas cards and envelopes (enough to open my own little Hallmark store)
  • Address labels (enough to last me the rest of my life, I think)
  • Notepads
  • Pens
  • Christmas CD
  • Money (generally in coin form)
  • Reusable shopping bags
  • Calendars (and to think I used to enjoy buying those for myself)
  • Gift bags
  • Wrapping paper and bows
  • Organic fair trade tea
  • Birthday, symphathy, and “any occasion” cards and envelopes (for my expanding Hallmark store, I guess)
  • Scarf
  • T-shirt

And that’s just what I can remember off the top of my head. And in most cases, not even from charities I donate to.

Whatever surprise or delight I might have once felt in getting something for nothing is now lost under the sheer quantity of stuff coming in. It’s tipping toward making me feel punished rather than rewarded for donating regularly.

It must work, or they wouldn’t do it. But damn. How much more good could be done if they didn’t have to bribe people into donating?

Charities see alarming trend as donors become older, fewer

What’s your point?

So I finally got my Scene card replaced.

I lost it quite some time ago, and I always found it irritating that I had to make a phone call—rather than fill in on some kind of online form—to get it replaced. So I didn’t bother. I don’t really go to Cineplex theatres all that often. I don’t like them. They’re tacky and crowded. Most of their movies play either too early, or too late. (6:45 or 10:00? These are my choices?) After charging me too much, they play too many commercials and movies. (The “pre-show”, they call it. Ha!)

But, if you want to see 3D or big-scale epics—and I sometimes do—they’re the only game in town.

And it would niggle at me that I’d have to say “No” to the “Do you have a Scene card?” prompt. So, having formed the plan to see The Social Network this weekend (review soon, but in short, it was good) I made the phone call and a new card is on its way. So someday, I may earn a free movie. At the theatre I hate going to.

Apparently Canadians are world leaders in having and using loyalty cards. Why just shop, when you can shop and earn points?

In fact, points accumulation is our cornerstone of our family budget. We have a joint MBNA TravelRewards card, and we use it as much as possible. Because we have family in Timmins, and it’s far to drive there, but expensive to fly. But with this card, a mere 15,000 points gets you there by air, for only the cost of the taxes on the ticket. Yes, it has an $85 annual fee, but trust me, we save quite a bit more than that on each ticket. And yes, the interest rate on it is appalling, so it’s absolutely critical to pay it off in full each month. But so far, that’s not been a problem. And the points have also taken us to Boston and San Francisco.

But why stop there, eh? (That would hardly be Canadian.) So despite the resulting bulging wallet, I also carry:

  • Air Miles card. Though I get the majority of my Air Miles by paying my Primus phone bill, and few more from shopping online through their portal, I still carry the actual card around in case of stops at LCBO. Of course, I don’t use these points to travel—they accumulate far too slowly for that. Mostly, I cash them in for gift cards to Chapters or iTunes. Which take three weeks to arrive, and then you have to go through the bother of redeeming before you have any actual free stuff in hand. Kind of an exercise in patience, this card.
  • Shopper’s Optimum card. Because I do go to Shopper’s semi-regularly. I don’t have much strategy here. I usually just wait until it gets to $10 off, then cash that in the next time I spend at least $60 there. I have no idea if that’s a wise approach.
  • Club Sobey’s, because it’s the nearest grocery story to my house, and actually, points accumulate pretty fast on this puppy, at least if you spend as much on food as we seem to. Strategy here is to redeem $15 once it reaches $30 off. (Because it’s faster to get from $15 to $30 off again than to start from $0.)
  • Beat Goes on card. A retro card, matching the retro products they carry (physical CD, LPs, and DVDs): Made of paper, you get a stamp with each purchase; when it’s full, you get a free CD or DVD.

Then there’s all those stores who track your points for you, at the store, sans plastic. Meaning that I’m currently also accumulating points at:

Is that a lot? Am I a points queen, completely typical, or just a lightweight?

Apparently, I don’t see much of a downside to these reward programs. I did hear that those who are savvy about using points credit card (meaning they always pay them off, but also accumulate enough points to get rewards) have a slightly inflationary effect for everyone else who doesn’t do that. That is, prices rise slightly for all to helping pay for my rewards. Umm, sorry about that, I guess.

And yes, there probably are times I’ve selected a particular product or even store because I get points there. But I don’t think it’s out of control yet.

Then, finally, the whole privacy issue. But really, given how much Google, for example, knows about me, what’s the big deal about Sobeys Inc. knowing that I buy food? Or Air Miles thinking I’m a wino with a modest phone bill and occasional online shopping habit? And Cineplex? They must think I haven’t been to a movie there in three years, when the Social Network caused me to break my fast.

Boyden on Riel and Dumont

Thursday I went to see Joseph Boyden talk about his new book, his first non-fiction effort, Louis Riel & Gabriel Dumont. I was flying solo, but not because Jean wasn’t interested. Boyden is perhaps Jean’s favorite novelist, and being Métis himself, he’s also interested in the Riel story. But weirdly, Jean was busy listening to another author that night—Kevin Callan, who writes humorous non-fiction about canoeing and other outdoor activities.

I have to admit that one of the main things I was wondering about Boyden is whether he looks as good in person as he does in his author. From my second-row seat, it quickly became apparent that, yes he does. The shock of black hair, the great smile with the gleaming white teeth, the compact body, the cool leaf tatoos on his forearms… It all adds up to someone perfectly fun to spend an hour looking at.

Fortunately, though, he was also quite interesting to listen to. He explained how he’d found it very difficult to get this book completed. Having to stick to facts (instead of the “lies of fiction”), trying to cover the lives of two men in a mere 45,000 words, were huge challenges. It took him about 3 years to complete the book.

Of course, he did learn a lot about the two men. He pointed out that Riel was not fighting just for the rights of the Métis, but of all the settlers on the land the railroad was to come through, whether Native, white, or Métis. And when McDonald sent in the troops, he says it was Riel’s refusal to follow Dumont’s advice and engage in guerilla warfare that doomed them. He was very moved by reading the transcript of Riel’s trial, where Riel was fighting not only the charges against, but also his defense team, who were arguing that he was insane.

During the Q&A, we learned a bit more about Boyden himself. He says his interest in Canadian history likely comes from having an elderly father, born in 1898. (His father died when Boyden was 8.) This set many of us off trying to do that math in our heads… And he thinks that his ability to write from a woman’s perspective (as in Through Black Spruce) was helped by having seven older sisters, who frequently dressed him up as a doll. And he’s currently working on two novels, one a continuation of the Three Mile Road / Through Black Spruce series, and another centered around the Jesuits arrival in Canada.

In general, he came across as quite charming and pretty funny, particularly for one whose books are a little dark.

Afterward, I stood in the line to get my books signed: Through Black Spruce, which I had before, and the Riel and Dumont one that I bought on the day. Fortunately I had something to say other than what seemed to be overly obvious, that being that I’m a fan of his writing. “I think you know my mother,” I said. Because, you see, they’d previously worked together at Northern College in Timmins. It can be a small world.

Ontario: Yours to discover

We didn’t have high expectations of our trip through Northern Ontario, but thanks to perfect weather all week, plus the fact that Ontario does happen to look gorgeous in the fall, it was actually a really nice getaway. I’ll have a full report later, but in the meantime, here are some highlights.

BYOB in Tobermory. We’d decided to dine at Molinari’s in Tobermory. They make Italian food, and I’d noted a bit wistfully on the way there that it was too bad they weren’t licensed, as a little red wine is very good with Italian. On arrival, we were the only patrons. We informed the owner that we’d like to have dinner there. Great, he said. But, he added, did we know that the LCBO was still open? It took a minute, but we figured out what he was alluding to. OK, we said. We’ll just pop over there, then come back. Just wait, he said. I have to pick up some stuff there anyway. Just lock up the door there, and I’ll drive you. And he did.

Aren’t small towns great?

No corkage fee, either. And very good food, at a very good price.

The colours of Manitoulin. We experienced great fall colours everywhere we went, really, but we were particularly struck by them on Manitoulin Island—maybe because we went there first, maybe because we weren’t quite expecting them, maybe because that’s where we did the most hiking. At any rate, it was just beautiful.

Petting a porcupine. Science North in Sudbury was fun in general, but especially cute was when the porcupine in the nature area made a run for it. (He was out of his cage while it was being cleaned, or something.) The trainer eventually corralled it, and while out, we were able to make his acquaintance. He was very cute, and felt kind of like straw to pet.

Fine dining in Northern Ontario. After a series of delicious dinners featuring items such as Moroccan lamb, mushroom risotto, elk carpaccio, green seafood curry, chocolate valrona cake, we realized that not only had we not had a bad dinner on this trip, but the overall food quality probably beat our last trip to France. This would not have been possible in Northern Ontario in years past.

Finally walking the AY Jackson lookout trail. I’m not sure how many times we’ve driven by it, but this year we finally hiked the AY Jackson Lookout trail near Sudbury. It’s really gorgeous. I can see how it might have inspired some paintings.

Full report on website

Starting in September

I was pleased–and, I admit, a little surprise–to read that Edwin Outwater, the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony’s young, hunky, charismatic, and talented conductor has renewed his contract through to 2015. I thought he would be lured away.

Not sure if I ever got around to mentioning how blown away we were by the Symphony’s Carmina Burana last year (the season closer). Never mind Tommy; that was the real original rock opera. It’s only disguised as classical music. But really, it’s all sex and drugs and debauchery… It’s rock’n’roll, baby.

This year’s Pops lineup looked so appealing we’ve signed up for all 8 shows, despite the sticker shock of buying that many tickets at once (good seats, of course). This Friday begins with a reprise of one my favorites from the past: Cirque de la Symphonie. It’s the closest we get to Cirque du soleil in this town.

Tons of TV shows seem to be starting this week as well, even before all the summer favorites (Mad Men, So You Think You Can Dance Canada) are done. Not sure there’s room in the schedule for any new shows. I’m rarely very good at picking out the new shows that will last, anyway, so perhaps it’s best not to even start until it’s clearer who the survivors will be.

It’s even back to school time for me, as our ballroom dance classes commence the last week of September.

So many leisure activities to fit in. I get mildly stressed thinking about it, which seems sort of backward.