Haisai Tasting menu

Michael Stadtländer’s Haisai restaurant does not have (nor is intended to have) the cachet of his Eigensinn Farm, but this summer they are offering one aspect of that establishment: the “you shall eat what you are given” tasting menu (not published in advance). Only here you can do so for a mere $75, with optional $50 for matching wines. We tried it out this past Friday.

If you haven’t been here or to the farm before, the atmosphere can be a surprise:

Interior of Haisai

But even at these more manageable prices, the food remains some of the best on offer in the country.

The countdown on the four-course meal did not include the amuse bouche, but it’s definitely worth mentioning. It was a single oyster on one side, a fish roll on the other, and both lacking only in I would have liked to have had more.

Amuse of oysters and fish roll

All wines served were from the Ravine winery. First up was a nice dry rosé, meant to last through the amuse and the two appetizers.

The first of these was speck-wrapped Georgian Bay white fish (speck is a smoked pork—bacon-y), with braised cucumbers, peas, beets, and broad beans. All veggies were from the Eigensinn Farm, which is also where the pork was smoked. All the flavors “popped”, yet played nice together.

Appetizer of fish and speck

Appetizer the second was osso bucco ravioli, topped with cranberries, with a side of apple and radish. This proved to be the highlight of the meal, as the only thing better than just plain osso bucco, it turns out, is stuffing osso bucco into a perfect ravioli. The cranberries were a great accent.

Osso bucco ravioli

The main course wine was a meritage, that was very smooth, not excessively fruity. The main course itself was beef, asparagus, thyme polenta, and Swiss chard. We remain lesser fans of getting beef at gourmet dinners, but one must say that this free-range, grass-fed meat was really delicious, and literally was so tender it was cut with a butter knife. Polenta is another thing I usually don’t care for, but this was the best one I’ve had. The asparagus was good, of course, but the actual highlight? The Swiss chard! Delish.

Main course at Haisai

That left dessert, which was served with a Gewurtz that was slightly off-dry. There we split, with Jean opting for the three cheeses (all Canadian, and all meeting his approval) while I had the sweet stuff: Lemon tart, meringue on custard, and strawberry ice cream. All lovely, though the meringue was my favorite.

Three desserts

All photos taken with Blackberry or Android phones, as we forgot to bring a camera

 

 

 

Movie reviews: The Hunger Games and The Visitor

And talking about two movies that have absolutely nothing in common…

*** The Hunger Games (March 2012) – Theatre
Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson. Based on the novel. Young woman volunteers for a deadly game to save her sister. 24 tributes enter the arena; they are to fight until only one is left.

She says: Well-executed action movie. I was glad I’d read the novel, though, as I think the movie might have been a little confusing otherwise. And of course the book was better, but as the novel is all first-person perspective, it was nice to see parts of the story from other character’s perspectives in the movie. The violence with some subtlety, rendering it less disturbing than it could have been.
He says: Boy, even if you had read the book, it was an engrossing movie, eh? Pretty violent, though.

*** The Visitor (March 2012) – Rental
Richard Jenkins, Haaz Sleiman. A college professor merely going through the motions of his life finds renewed purpose in an expected friendship with an illegal immigrant who is also a musician.

She says: A simple yet effective movie. It was good to watch the main character “blossom” in this late stage of his life, as he gets involved in Tarek’s native music and his fight to stay in the country.
He says: So. Another movie that doesn’t really end; it more just stops.

Separated at birth?

When we acquired this handsome, blue-eyed fellow—a tabby / Siamese cross— six years ago, we had to name him. We went through various famous blue-eyed men: Frank Sinatra, Paul Newman, Brad Pitt, Jared Leto… (It was long enough ago that I don’t think Roger Daltrey even came to mind.)

Photo of McSteamy

But none seemed quite right until we thought of this fella, Eric Dane:

McSteamy the actor

Or, as his Grey’s Anatomy character is nicknamed, McSteamy. The gray-ish hair, the solidity, the air of mischief… It all just really seemed to match our cat. (“Wow. He really does look like McSteamy,” my Mom said, on first seeing the cat.)

And so we have a cat named McSteamy. Six years later, the name remains the source of either much delight or much confusion, depending on how much the person first hearing the name knows about Grey’s Anatony.

Lush

Hub and I are not really into the whole yardwork thing. But we do periodically put in a bit of effort. This year, we finally got the hot tub, which hadn’t worked in years, removed from the deck. That made more of a difference than either of us thought, making the deck actually seem somewhat inviting to sit on.

Thus inspired, we (well, mostly he) went after the weeds that had almost invaded the patio, making it look more like a patio again.

The gardens haven’t been particularly coddle but seemed to have enjoyed what nature has provided so far. Yes, the back flower garden certainly contains some monster weeds, but the flowers we planted long ago are definitely competing. The roses seem downright aggressive in their size this year, spreading up and out with their thorns and pink flowers, as if daring the weeds to come closer. And the cover flowers are abundant and on the move, some of them making their way onto the lawn, creating pretty little white patches here and there.

Roses

It was a good year for the roses

In the front garden, the tulips, daffodils, and lilies gamely keep returning. This year they are joined by a bunch of purple flowers that I did not plant. Perhaps these purple flowers are some horribly invasive plant I should be trying to get rid of. But I find them pretty, and they certainly like the shaded part of the garden more than the other flowers do.

It occurs to me that the herb garden probably looks like a big patch of weeds, but it’s actually the least weedy garden I have. It’s just that herbs are so ridiculously lush; normally only weeds to get such size. The tarragon and sage are, as always, monstrous. (I’ve started adding tarragon to many recipes. It’s quite nice, really. Sage, sadly, remains less versatile.) But this year’s returning cilantro, which seemed so wimpy last year, is also now tall, and spreading everywhere. Not to mention the dill I just planted, already a giant, and seeming to sprouts new offshoots every day.

The only other veggie I have this year are tomatoes. If the flowers are any indication, it could be quite the crop of those later on.

We even attempted to start a new backyard flower garden this year, from seed. We had the plot mostly ready, and the instructions on the wildflower seed bag made it sound very easy. Expecting something like grass seed, I was surprised that the flower seeds looked more like laundry lint. The package did warn that regular watering was necessary to get things going, so we’ve been obliging on that front on the days that don’t rain.

Sadly, all we seem to have so far is soggy laundry lint. Reading up on it, I think we may have failed to clear away enough mulch for the seed to make sufficient contact with the soil. This one may be a do-over.

Stand and deliver

Since the flurry of stories about how sitting too long at your job can, basically, kill you, I’ve been trying to figure out what to do about that short of, you know, quitting my sedentary job to become a waitress or something. Articles on the subject sometimes recommended things like walking around while talking on the phone, but this was not useful to me. What with meetings, email, messaging, and talking in person, I clock maybe 5 minutes a week on the phone. Not near enough to reduce my death risk through pacing.

No, I really needed a way to type standing up.

With all these stories you’d think the options for “stand-up” desks would be multiple and easily purchased, but I did not find it to be so. I saw nothing along these lines at local office furniture stores. Web research led me to an American company that had some options, but these were not cheap to start with, and the shipping from there added something like $130 to the price.

I was nevertheless considering it when the site added a link to a Canadian distributor. Prices weren’t any cheaper (but also not much more expensive—not always true in Canada), but the shipping was way less. This was http://www.ergocanada.com.

But trying to figure out what products would work with the desk setup I have was not the easiest thing. It was often not too clear what accessories you needed with what, and what the measurements meant… Even what everything did. Fortunately, they were really responsive to questions by email and phone, even steering me to cheaper options than I had been considering.

In the end, I bought a dual-monitor stand:

Dual-wing LCD arm

And a keyboard tray raiser. Despite all this effort to get the right stuff, though, the monitor stand ended up being too low to use standing up. I would have had to crouch down to work on it, which didn’t seem that healthy. So that meant another call, another order, and another installation of an extender for the monitor arm.

Now, finally, it works. The monitor arms holds both my 19″ monitors at the height of my choosing, moving pretty easily between sitting and standing height. The keyboard also moves up and down quite well. It would be too low for a tall person, I think, but is fine for me. I have an extra-wide tray, so it does get a bit wobbly at the edges in upright position. I’m not finding that much of a problem so far, with a centered keyboard.

It also arrived at a time when I’m having this irritating pain in my ribs on the right side (from coughing? I have no idea) that is very much aggravated by sitting too long. So whether or not I actually live longer because of sitting less, I’m definitely benefiting now.

Too bad it’s all so complicated and expensive, though. Lots of office workers out there, with little choice but to sit 6+ hours a day…

PS And apparently you can about double the number of calories you burn just by standing instead of sitting to work. Huh. I didn’t even know that part…

Movie reviews: Two British comedies

*** The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (May 2012) – Theatre
Judy Dench, Bill Nighy, Maggie Smith. British retirees are lured to the bargain price Marigold Hotel in India, only to find it’s not quite like the brochure.

She says: This is another one Jean didn’t see; I went with my Mom. We both thought it was a fun movie. It wasn’t terribly deep, but it was engaging, and certainly elevated by the excellent cast.

Image from Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

*** Hysteria (May 2012) – Theatre
Hugh Dancy, Maggie Gyllenhaal. Story about the doctor who helped invent the vibrator, as treatment for female “hysteria”.

She says: “This story is based on actual events. No, really.”

Such is the tagline of Hysteria, which tells the story of young, Victorian-era doctor, Mortimer, (Hugh Dancy) who treats female “hysteria”—a very broadly defined condition—by giving them intimate massages, until they achieve “paroxysm”. This popular treatment leads to serious hand cramping until he and a tinkerer friend (Rupert Everett) almost inadvertently invent the vibrator.

These quite strange but true facts are woven into a sort of romantic comedy between the younger doctor and the activist daughter, Charlotte (Maggie Gyllenhaal), of the older doctor who employs him. Charlotte works with the poor and thinks her father’s work frivolous; she is not shy about expressing these opinions.

I found the movie mostly fun and entertaining, with very lively performances by the actors. But the glimpses of Charlotte’s work, and even early scenes of Mortimer toiling at public hospitals, gave this movie a sort of weight that didn’t entirely sit well. It was hard to completely enjoy the story of the ridiculous, yet appreciated hysteria treatment when there was so much misery on the edges of that story.

He says: Well, that was a funny movie. And the hardest part to believe was what was actually true!

Image from Hysteria

Movie review: The Killing of John Lennon

** The Killing of John Lennon (August 2006) – Rental
Jonas Ball. A look into the mind of Mark Chapman in the days leading up to the murder of John Lennon.

Jean didn’t see this movie, so only my comments this time.

This isn’t a terrible movie. It holds the interest reasonably well, considering that there’s no suspense: we know how this will end. However, it is a pointless one. The movie’s tagline is “We all know who killed John Lennon. This is the first movie to explain why.”—but there is no why. He was a mentally disturbed guy with delusions of grandeur who became fixated on Catcher in the Rye and John Lennon. His actions are insane. Watching them play out is not boring, but it’s not satisfying, either. It’s not spun into a bigger narrative about gun control or failures of mental health treatment or the legal system or anything else. It’s just this dude being crazy and killing a great artist for no reason.

So I don’t recommend it. (Apparently there’s yet another movie about Chapman, called Chapter 27, starring Jared Leto, that is worse than this one. So, be warned.)

Québec City!

I don’t really have that much to say about our recent, quick visit to Québec City as all we did—apart from the concert—is what we always do there: amble about, do a little shopping, look at art, enjoy the romantic “old city” feel of the place, and eat at great restaurants. We were not bored, but it’ not much to write home about. But Jean took such great pictures there, I have to say something!

Quebec City street

Accommodations

It did strike me, this time, how we never, ever seem to stay at the same place twice when we visit. We were spotting our past hotels all over. This time out, of course, was a new one, Hotel le Grande Allée, just outside the gates of Old Quebec. Having achieved cost reductions by using travel points, it was by far the biggest room we have ever had in Québec City: It featured not only a sitting room, but two full bedrooms. Interesting, but rather more than a couple requires.

Gates to Old Quebec

Gates to Old Quebec, just down from our hotel

It was on a super-busy street, teaming with bars, cafes, and restaurants that were going strong Saturday night. So can affirm the hotel had pretty good sound proofing. Steep to park there, though.

Weather

The weekend weather could not have been better for our visit: Sunny both days, with a high around 21.

Hotel Frontenac and field

The weather, she be perfect

Food

For meals, we went to the reliable Crémaillère for dinner before the concert, and found it still had excellent service and very fine food. I shall have to contact Where to Eat in Canada to see why they don’t list it.

Sunday lunch was at a randomly selected place where I had a great platter of antipasto’s like duck pate, house-smoked salmon, roasted red peppers, prociutto, and olives. Jean had the cheese platter (no surprise).

Quebec terasse

We had lunch on a térasse something like this. (And yes, this is a photo of Jean’s)

Sunday dinner was the coolest, though, as we went to restaurant Toast!, which was entirely enjoyable. We were able to dine in their recently “open for the season” covered patio, which has a very neat atmosphere. Service was great but not stuffy, as evidenced by the staff uniform of a red plaid shirt over black pants. And their menu is just appetizers—no main courses. Which was perfect, because we weren’t starved, but everything sounded so good.

So we were able to share four: An amazing mushroom crostini; very nice asparagus and crab; le foie gras, specialty of the house; and a lamb and gnochi creation. Each with a matching glass of wine. The small serving sizes left plenty of room for dessert, which was (big surprise) chocolate for me, cheese for Jean.

Shopping

We did look at art, seriously considering one painting (which we’re still considering), but made only small-ticket purchases while there, of items such as chocolate truffles. And shoe laces. (Really.)

Street art

This piece of street art was not for sale

Students

We had two near encounters with the student protestors: we heard their pots clanging away nearby while having lunch, then after visiting the Assemblée Nationale at night. We returned to our hotel room, turned on the TV, and saw a “live” shot of protestors at the Assemblée Nationale. Meaning they must have arrived five, ten minutes after we left.

Assemblee Nationale fountain

Assemblée Nationale shortly before being overrun by student protestors

I admire their tenacity, but jeez I wish they would put it toward something actually worth fighting for!

Entertainment

Our audiobook for the journey was Sacre Bleu: A Comedy d’Art by Christopher Moore. It was the first book of his either of us had read, and we both really liked it. Very interesting weaving of all these Impressionist painters with a fantastical element. It also allowed us to great enjoyment out of lines such as “Accident. Couldn’t be helped.” and “Not that Prussian shit!”, which no one understood but us. That’s always fun.

More photos in the gallery

The Queen Extravaganza

The Canadian locations for The Queen Extravaganza tour consisted of the usual suspects—Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton—and one outlier: Québec City.

The Queen Extravaganza is a project of Roger Taylor of Queen. He held an online competition to find, essentially, the ultimate Queen tribute band. And of the nine winners, a full third are from Québec: Québec City native son Francois-Olivier Doyon on bass, Yvan Pednault—familiar to many from his long run starring in Toronto’s We Will Rock—on vocals, and Marc Martel, YouTube sensation for his uncanny physical and aural resemblance to Freddie Mercury, also on vocals.

Yvan Pednault

Yvan Pednault, apparently not yet tired of singing Queen songs for a living

So odd a choice as Québec City might have seemed for tour opener, it was probably a wise choice. The show sold out (trying to get my two tickets that opening day was a challenge, let me tell you), and the crowd was super-enthusiastic.

And yes, I was there. Naturally, Toronto would have been closer and easier—but it was on a Tuesday, and we hadn’t been to Québec in a while, so there we were. In Québec for the Queen Extravaganza.

Continue reading “The Queen Extravaganza” →

Hurrying toward dictatorship

Our so-called leaders speak
With words they try to jail ya —
They subjugate the meek
But it’s the rhetoric of failure

–The Police, Spirits in the Material World

This week I heard the KW Symphony and Jeans’n’Classics play the music of Sting and The Police. That was fantastic.

I also read a lot of political columns about the federal Conservative government is up to. That was the opposite of fantastic.

Earlier in their majority mandate, pundits wondered, why the rush? Why push so many bills through, and why impose time allocation on all of them?

Now that their agenda is becoming clearer, I think we know:

The Harper revolution has never been about abortion or gay rights. This prime minister has little interest in social conservatism.

Rather, the revolution is economic. It is aimed at eliminating regulations—particularly environmental regulations—that interfere in profit-making. It is aimed at reducing wages (which is why the Conservatives take swipes at unions whenever possible). It is aimed at scaling back any social programs—from Old Age Security to Employment Insurance — that help keep wages up.

–Thomas Walkom, Stephen Harper’s stealthy war against wages and the environment

Not quite what they campaigned on, eh? And even though true believers may applaud the efforts to plunder the natural world—they seem to feel that, with fervent enough belief in the capitalist system, one can overcome those pesky biological needs for clean water, air, and food—I’m not sure they’d be as happy about efforts to impoverish them.

So, the Conservatives really have to get all this done as quickly as possible, stifling debate wherever they can, before opposition can really mobilize. Before most people even notice.

Let’s see how many different outrages we heard about—just this week!

1 Denying medical coverage to refugees

2 Working to increase crime rates by cutting rehabilation programs and encouraging prison overcrowding

When the emphasis moves away from corrections toward more and harsher punishment of both the physical and psychological variety, recidivism rates will increase and real correction will become more difficult. That will likely mean more crime over the long haul in a country that, apart from the United States (which is in a league by itself), has one of the highest incarceration rates in the world.

— Jeffrey Simpson, Globe and Mail

3 Rejecting all amendments to the new Copyright Act

This is—believe it or not—a largely good piece of legislation, except for a problematic clause on digital locks. Why not consider amending that?  Far as we can tell, only because the opposition parties brought them forward. I mean, God forbid opposition members actually get to do anything for us in return for our tax dollars.

None of [the defeated] amendments were radical or undermined the goals of the legislation. There is much to like in Bill C-11 but the defeat of provisions designed to improve access for the blind, preserve fair dealing, enhance education, and open the door to innovative services hardly seems like something to celebrate.

— Michael Geist

4 Admitted to dismantling an Environmental advisory group because it recommended a carbon tax

The fact is, a carbon tax is the best way to deal with climate change, so any group serious about it has to advocate for one. The Conservatives have, of course, demonized carbon taxes, so they can’t impose them now. So instead they are trying a “regulatory” approach, Communist style, which as we see, doesn’t work. Canada’s carbon emissions just keep going up. Do they care? Apparently, no.

So that’s four pretty big things in one week—but none are the biggest thing. Not by a long shot. No, the biggest thing, quite literally, is the 420-page Omnibus Bill supposedly to “implement the budget”, but in fact, doing a whole lot of other things as well.

(Which, of course, they immediately imposed time allocation on. Why would anyone need any extra time at all to review 420 pages of confusingly worded new laws?)

This bill, among so other things:

  • Repeals the Fair Wage act.  [You didn’t want a fair wage, did ya?]
  • Repeals the Environmental Assessment act.
  • Makes some kind of changes to EI. We’re not sure what, really. We’ll tell you eventually, after this bill is passed. Trust us. It will be great.
    (Rick Mercer: “How can the gov say we will find out what is in the budget after the budget is voted on? Does that work on other planets?”)
  • Re-writes the Fisheries Act, the Species at Risk Act, and the Navigable Waters Protection Act.

There’s a ton of environmental law changes in here. The thrust of most, from what I can tell, is to get rid of informed government bodies who currently regulate these matters, and move them to uninformed Harper Cabinet to decide . I’m serious.

Writer Richard Poplak wonders why Canadians aren’t angrier about this. Why we aren’t mobilizing.

There’s a bill, called C-38. It’s driven to Parliament on forklifts retrofitted for maximum stealth. This bill, similar at 420 pages in weight and heft to a small pony, is delivered to dead-eyed MPs, behind whom stands the chief whip, taser in hand. The drool-drenched backbenchers nod in unison, and put the bill back on the forklifts for rubber-stamping further down the line.

By not making this the issue of our generation, by not linking this with other efforts calling for responsible governance and respect for democratic institutions–and by not understanding that this trend is not just local, but global–Canadians are rolling over and playing dead.

And why is that?

Well, maybe we’re just a little exhausted from the constant barrage of appalling behavior from our federal government.
Maybe we’re overwhelmed. We just don’t know which of the many outrages to go after first.
Maybe we don’t know how to protest. What would actually work?
Maybe we’re just sick of whole thing. We’ve tuned out. It’s nice out. We have gardening to do.

Unfortunately, that is exactly what Stephen Harper wants.

Speak out against Harper’s budget (NDP)
Harper is ending environmental protection (Liberal)
Environmental Devastation Act (Green Party)
Black Out Speak Out (Environmental groups)
Apologize to the rest of the world