Cork is a restaurant in Elora, Ontario that we enjoy going to. Elora is a bit of a hike, though, so we were happy to hear that the owners were opening a second restaurant in Kitchener: Gilt.
Gilt opened in late September, and we tried it out on November 1. It’s relatively small and has a contemporary look, with a bar area along with its tables. It was a little loud but not to the point of not being able to hear each other. Service was good–attentive and wel- informed about the menu items.
And that menu is all tasting plates; that is, tapas-style, appetizer-size dishes. The regular menu items are supplemented by three varying specials: from the sea, from land, and raw feature. The waiter recommended that we order two to four items per person.
So we got a variety. We liked that their oyster menu detailed exactly which were available, and let you select as many of each type as you want. (They do similarly with their cheese plate, though we didn’t try that.) We went three East Coast options, six oysters in total. Still on the seafood theme, we tried their raw ceviche tun special, and some cooked scallops.
To that we added brie and pear flatbreads (an item we’d enjoyed at Cork), duck confit steam buns, BC wild mushrooms, and peanut butter & jam foie gras! Except for the mushrooms, which seemed a bit underseasoned, we were happy with all items. Jean was impressed with their take on foie gras, the only issue being perhaps a bit too much salt topping.
They have a pretty good wine list, offering many by the large or small glass, 1/2 half liter, or full bottle. Given the variety of food, we got 1/2 liter of Sauvignon and a glass of Malbec to share.
We were reasonably full after that, and ready to skip dessert, until they described the house specialty, nitro ice cream. For this, you get to go back to the kitchen and watch them make the ice cream with liquid nitrogen. It’s kind of fun. And the results are very delicious!
We took no photos during dinner, but afterward we went to check out the Kitchener Nightshift, a sort of nuit blanche event with outdoor installations and many stores and restaurants open until 2:00 AM. It was unfortunately a somewhat chilly night for it, though many participants had hot beverages on offer. We found this Gloss installation interesting, though feared the models might be chilly:
We later went into the Gloss store for the first time, and I emerged with a nifty new lace top.
His views largely reflect my own, though, and saves me a lot of time to just point you there.
Or even copy / paste some of his words, below.
—————————
With minimal ado, this blog [flyingsquirrel.ca] endorses the following candidates in the municipal races I [Darcy Casselman] get a say in:
Regional Chair: Ken Seiling
Ken’s had this job for a long time. That’s largely because he’s good at it. If he has any faults, it’s that he’s kind of bland and innocuous. You could be easily forgiven for never having heard of the guy despite holding what’s more or less the region’s top job for almost 30 years. He doesn’t grandstand and he doesn’t show boat. And I like that. Chairs shouldn’t do that sort of thing generally. He lets the region’s mayors and councillors do the show boating.
I dread the thought of a Chair who’d use the position to make it all about them.
If I was going to ever vote for someone to unseat him, it would have to be someone who’s had some experience in local government. Preferably a mayor or long-time regional councillor. It’s not going to be some yahoo who wanders in off the street raving about taxes and claiming their “business experience” somehow qualifies them to wrangle a consensus out of this wildly diverse and sometimes fractious region. If you want a job like this, you need to put in the time.
It should come as a shock to absolutely no-one reading this blog that I strongly support the region’s plan to build a light rail transit system. Despite over a decade of public consultation, despite it being approved twice by two successive regional councils, despite shovels being in the ground, some candidates in this election think now is the time to stop the project, no matter how many hundreds of millions of dollars it would cost to cancel it or how disruptive such a drastic change in long-term planning would be for the whole region. It’s ludicrous. Not only is it horrible policy, these people stoop to outright lies and fabrication to try to justify it. It’s appalling. So you should vote for Ken.
That and Jay Aissa is a horrible person.
Regional Councillors: Jane Mitchell, Karen Scian
One is easy: Jane is awesome. Seriously. Read her blog. She’s pretty much everything I want in a regional councillor. She’s engaged, open, thoughtful and accessible. If you have a problem with the region tweet her and if she doesn’t have an answer off the top of her head, she’ll dig it up and get it for you. She’s great.
Next is trickier. We get to pick two regional councillor candidates. The other incumbent is Sean Strickland. I have no problem with Sean. I’ve voted for him before. But this time Karen Scian stepped down from city councillor to represent Waterloo to the region. And I like Karen. Both Karen and Sean are really good and my reason for going with Karen probably have more to do with style than substance. I’ve followed Karen on Twitter for ages and I think I have a very good idea of where she stands on things. My feel for Sean is a bit more vague.
Also, there may be a bit of strategic voting in my choice, as I really, really don’t want to lose Jane Mitchell, and Strickland has always come out ahead of her.
I very much look forward to electing regional council by ranked ballot next election. Block voting is terrible.
Special non-shoutout goes to former MP Andrew Telegdi, who has been mostly invisible in this campaign. He appears to have been recruited by Jay Aissa to run on the anti-LRT ticket, with the cynical assumption he’ll coast in on name recognition without people knowing what he actually stands for. Which is despicable and makes me really sad having held him in such high regard in the past.
Mayor of Waterloo: David Jaworsky
I’ve seen Dave everywhere this year. He’s a great guy, affable, well-connected and engaged.
Unlike the Chair, none of the candidates running have served in public office. Dave, at least, has served on a bunch of non-profit boards, committees and was executive in residence at Capacity Waterloo, an organization I came to know and value through my work with Kwartzlab. I honestly think he’s the best choice for mayor.
As an aside, I was surprised at how much I like Rami Said, who is running on his business experience and an “I will speak for everyone!” platform. These are generally huge red flags for me. Pretending you can always represent everyone is naïve. And government is not, under any circumstances, a business. But he’s good. The deal-breaker, though, is he has no public service experience whatsoever. Not so much as a committee. If he was running for city councillor, I like him well enough I might let that slide, but not mayor. You gotta put in the time.
————————–
So again, above are the words of Darcy Casselman, not mine.
As for my ward (which differs from Darcy’s), I had the happy problem of all the candidates seeming quite decent, making it a tough to pick one. But after watching the debate and reviewing their websites this weekend, I have settled on the one I will vote for.
With school boards, it is very difficult to get information, but thanks to The Waterloo Region Record running brief candidate profiles this weekend, I have managed to select one there, too.
“That we have the vote means nothing. That we use it in the right way means everything.” ― Lou Henry Hoover
Not so long after I first moved to Kitchener, I decided that I should vote in the upcoming municipal election. That year the long-term mayor of Kitchener had resigned, and something 13 other people were running to take over the job. As a relative newcomer to the area, I had no idea who any of them were. It was daunting prospect trying to pick one out.
I watched the debates, I read articles in local newspaper. I finally settled on one candidate. I was handed my ballot, and was shocked to discover that it was this packet of paper with a bunch of other options I expected to select: city councillors, regional councillors, school board trustees, hydro commissioners!
I still don’t entirely recall what I did. Hopefully I just left the options other than Mayor blank, rather than pick names at random on them.
But that’s thing about municipal politics, isn’t it? They are, far and away, the most labour-intensive voting decisions Canadians have.
It’s no wonder to me most people don’t bother.
Barring acclamations, most Ontarians have three votes they can cast: for mayor, city councillor, and school board. Lucky us in Waterloo region, we have another level of government, so more votes: for regional chair and regional councillor (which, in my city’s case, grants me two votes).
If you’re counting, that’s six votes I have to figure out. Six. Whereas in every provincial and federal election, I just have one decision to make.
Furthermore, nobody in municipal politics runs as part of political parties. So there’s no shortcut to what the candidate is all about, just based on the fact that they chose to, for example, run for the Green party rather than Progressive Conservatives.
No. You have to research every single person individually.
And there’s not exactly one central point that you know you can go to and find that information. Sure it’s there—some cities like London have done a great job of creating election portals for people; our local CBC radio has KW ward profiles I’ve found useful; Rogers Cable runs debates for every race (except school board) and plays them multiples times (as long as you have cable!)—but you really have to want to find it.
It doesn’t surprise me that not everyone does. Or has the time to.
I don’t know how you solve this.
Electronic voting? As noted, I really don’t think the main deterrent is the need to walk down the street to fill in a paper ballot. Still, if the convenience slightly raises voter turnout, it’s worth it. But I do think it will be only slight.
We’ll have an idea after this election, because some cities are trying it.
Ranked ballots? A conflict for me, because I’m very much in favor, in principle, of enhancing our democratic institutions. And at the municipal level, this seems the best option. But the truth is, that only makes it a bit harder, doesn’t it? That now you have to put in order all the candidates in all three or all five of your elections, not just mark an x beside your top one or two?
However, as long as people are still allowed to just rank somebody number 1 and not bother with the rest, I think it should be fine. Frankly, if you are researching everyone anyway, it’s likely not that much harder putting them in order rather than just picking your top choice.
Political parties? No! Because although it would make things easier, partisanship has rendered our provincial and federal institutions incredibly unrepresentative and and undemocratic.
Do you want your city council meetings to turn into Question Period, full of heckling and clapping, but signifying nothing? No, you do not!
That’s what it comes down to Municipal elections are real democracy, real representation. And if you care about that stuff in principle, you’ve got to put it in action and vote in the darn things.
So though it’s been a slog, I’ve made my decisions on mayor and regional chair, and I’m narrowing it down on regional councilors and city councilor.
But if anyone has any idea where or how I can find out about the three people running for French Public School Board (Conseil scolaire Viamonde) trustee, that would be great! Because at this point, that may be where my democratic principles break down.
(Also, what do school board trustees do, exactly?)
So here’s a back story: I signed up to be a Supporter of the Liberal Party of Canada so that I could vote in their leadership campaign. It was a ranked ballot, meaning you number the candidates in order of preference, and I did not put Justin Trudeau as my number 1. I went with Joyce Murray (who? I know) as my first choice, because I liked her proposal on electoral reform.
But when Justin Trudeau was announced as the winner by a large margin (Joyce Murray came second, for the record—because I wasn’t the only one who liked her electoral reform platform), I was… totally good with it.
The victory was completely expected, of course, but it wasn’t just that I’d expected it and figured he would do. I felt really happy and excited about his election.
And when he gave his victory speech, I only became more so. And honestly, I was surprised by that.
Photo by Ryan Remiorz/The Canadian Press
But Justin Trudeau speaks well. And yes, he looks good. And he looks good speaking well. He most definitely has that sort of charm and charisma that draws people in. I am not immune to it.
But that does not mean that he would be a good Prime Minister. And him taking that post is certainly a possibility, given that his party’s polling numbers have risen, and have stayed high, ever since he assumed the leadership.
So when he came for a Waterloo region visit, I had to go. The local public meeting was at 5:30 in Cambridge, which is two cities away from me. But in the afternoon, he stopped in on the university campus that was just down the street from my office. That was way easier for me to get to, though it meant mingling with the young ‘uns.
UW is a very math-and-engineering–focused school, and voter turnout among that those age 18–25 is dire, but nevertheless, the “Great Hall” was packed awaiting his arrival. (Which was precisely on time, by the way.)
The world-weary, cynical students behind me predicted his speech would be full of promises that would appeal to students, such as lower tuition (and that he’d then go on to an age old home and promise them better mentions). But it wasn’t that at all. He just talked about the importance of harnessing the passion for the world that youth feel, but do not find expression for in partisan politics. That it’s not that they are apathetic, but that they are turned off by all the negativity. Which is why he’s trying to be positive, to listen, to change the tone.
It was a short talk, maybe 10 minutes (no notes, no teleprompter), and then he took questions.
While I won’t try to recap everything (in fact, I didn’t stay til the end, since it was the middle of the work day), a few moments did stand out.
Electoral reform
This was first question to draw applause, and Mr. Trudeau’s response that he wasn’t entirely in favor of proportional representation was the closest he got to being booed. So don’t tell me people don’t care about that issue. Trudeau said his problem with proportional representation systems is that they often involve selecting members of a parliament, rather than to represent a particular riding. And he did win some people over with his support of ranked ballots.
Ranked ballots might be an interesting change, but it likely wouldn’t change that much, in the end, and it certainly doesn’t give you proportional representation in a party system. Furthermore, I remain a bit frustrated that he doesn’t fully address:
a) That members of parliament don’t really represent their constituents now, at least not in terms of voting in the House of Commons, because all parties demand that all of their members vote along party lines almost all the time, whether their constituents like it or not.
I couldn’t quite hear the question, but I know it was very critical, and I thought Mr. Trudeau’s response was good. He said that it was needed, ultimately, is a two-state solution, and that speaking in a polarizing way on this issue doesn’t help achieve that. But then he pointed out, quite sensibly, that this is not an issue that Canada can solve. We’re destined to just be background players in this.
Better access for people with disabilities
A prime example of how, sometimes, his responses were just vague platitudes. Those world-weary students behind me grew pretty snarky as he just went on about the ideal about giving everyone an opportunity to succeed, without ever saying what he might do specifically to achieve that. “Just make something up, even if you won’t do it!” was the students’ spectacularly bad advice.
I have better advice: Look into the US regulations for people with disabilities, and look to adopting some of those. Believe it or not, the US has some of the best standards in the world—much better than Canada’s.
(Maybe I should write to Justin about that, too.)
Childcare
But here’s an example where he had a pretty good response, even though there is no solid Liberal platform on this issue. He reminded everything that Liberals had a plan in place for this, but it was never implemented after the defeat of the Paul Martin government. But that it was a complicated thing to negotiate with the provinces, and he couldn’t promise that he could just revive it if elected. “I just don’t know what fiscal situation we’ll be facing then,” he said.
Legalizing marijuana
A moment of humor, as the person asking the question really seemed to be high as a kite. “You wouldn’t have vested interest in legalization, would you?” Trudeau quipped. I like to remind people, “It’s not legal yet!” But then he went on to the solid argument that Canada’s current prohibition approach simply isn’t working. Marijuana is not good for the developing brain, but Canada is #1 in youth pot smoking. But with regulations, that would be easier to control, as we’ve seen with tobacco and alcohol. And that the extra funding, instead of going to organized crime, could be used for better drug rehabilitation services.
Canada is currently being led by a man who cannot deliver a speech without a teleprompter, who never takes unscripted questions from the public, who rarely even takes any from the media, and who shields himself behind a wall of security. Who was once advised: “You don’t have to like people to be in politics. But you can’t hate them.”
Justin Trudeau has proven he’s different on all these counts. How much that matters is for the Canadian public to decide.
But I like it.
Trudeaumania floods SLC (article from UW’s Imprint, including a video interview with Mr. Trudeau)
As previously mentioned, May was a big concert month for us. Unusually for us, we went out to eat before three of these outings.
1. Food trucks and Big Bad Voodoo Daddy
Big Bad Voodoo Daddy are a band who play retro, swinging jazz music. Before their concert at Centre in the Square, the Waterloo Hep Cat Hoppers were offering a dance lesson in the lobby. We wanted to take part in that, but it was at 6:30 pm on a work night, which seemed a bit tight.
So when Centre in the Square announced they’d have a couple food trucks there that night starting at 6:00, that seemed like a good option.
Seemed. But while food trucks are a whole big thing right now, they have a few problems.
Weather. At least the rain held off until we’d gotten our food and eaten it, but it was windy and cool, making it less than fabulous for eating outdoors.
Eating standing up. I’m a big fan of working standing up, but eating a meal is best enjoyed sitting down. Using metal and not plastic cutlery.
Standing in line. Just not my favorite activity. Made worst by the fact that while we were there promptly at 6:00, the trucks were not really ready until 6:15, allowing other people to get ahead of us in line, and making us a bit late for the dance lesson.
As for food quality… Meh… Jean didn’t particularly enjoy his Tandoori grilled cheese. I thought my Mediterranean crepe wasn’t bad, but not really worth braving weather / eating standing up / standing in line for again, unless I was stuck.
The dance lesson, though, was fine. What we were taught was very similar to the jive that Jean and I know well, only instead of backstep / step / step (or triple step), it was back-step / kick / kick. It was really hard to remember to do the kick / kick when we were so used to the step / step. Occasionally we just rebelled and reverted to jive dancing. But a good time.
As for the Big Bad Voodoo Daddy performance, that was hard not to enjoy also, as the music is so lively and fun. I hadn’t known that the band, the same group of people, had been together since 1995. Jean wasn’t in the greatest mood that night (and I’m sure the grilled cheese didn’t help), but he could still recognize that they gave a really good show. (Should point out that this concert was his idea for a change, rather than mine.)
Three Kretans is a Greek restaurant very close to Centre in the Square. For the past year or two, Centre in the Square’s parking lot has been under construction, making it a challenge to find a spot to leave your car before shows. So Three Kretans has come up with a pretty smart offer: Have dinner there, leave your car in their parking lot (for free), and walk to theatre. They have a pre-theatre menu that gets you to the show on time. With the ballroom concert at 7:00 on a week night, we decided to go that right.
The food isn’t bad. It is a casual Greek restaurnt, so you get your lamb, chicken, or pork skewers with potatoes and rice and Greek salad. And baklava-type dessert, if you want.
But Jean was underwhelmed. “I get better food than this at home,” he pointed out. [Ah, the perils of being such a fantastic home cook! 🙂 ]
The show, fortunately was in no way disappointing. Music was all provided by the KW Symphony, and the evening was hosted by Kym Johnson and Tristan MacManus of Dancing with the Stars, and also featured other dancers that show. That fact probably would have been more exciting if I watched Dancing with the Stars. (By the way, everyone in our ballroom dance class thinks it’s highly peculiar that we don’t watch that show.) And there were a couple singers from American Idol, which, again, I don’t watch, so I didn’t know who they were. But while the woman certainly had a nice voice, I will admit to being particularly impressed by the dude, one Von Smith, who had most impressive range and control.
Mainly, though, this was about dancing. It featured group numbers, solos, duets, mostly in the Latin and ballroom genres (though in that showy TV style with all the lifts and whatnot), but the twist was the inclusion of some modern and hip hop dancing as well. This was largely due to the inclusion of a couple dancers I had heard of: Legacy and Randi Lynn Strong, from So You Think You Can Dance. Their numbers were definitely my favorites. Very cool how the So You Think… training allows them to join the ballroom dancers in that genre, but also shine in their own.
At one point, the hosts even got the audience up dancing! All very fun.
Afterward we got to attend a reception with the performers, though I continued my tradition of never knowing what to say when in these situations. Still, what we learned from other people’s question were:
This was their only Canadian performance.
They don’t always get to perform with a live symphony, but like it when they do
… except when the symphony can’t keep the beat. But apparently, that was not a problem with the KW Symphony.
Randi Lynn Strong at Centre in the Square reception
After taking a few crappy phone photos, we headed home.
3. Marisol and KW Symphony Superheroes
Jean pointed out that Marisol restaurant is also close to Centre in the Square, but offers better food than Three Kretans. So though I hadn’t planned to go out to eat again this month, as we hadn’t been there in a while, I made a reservation before the final month’s concert.
It was a very enjoyable dinner. As an appetizer, we shared six small but delicious raspberry point oysters (they actually gave us seven, probably due to the size) and marinated sardines, served with a salad. There’s no beating fresh sardines from Portugal, but marinating them proved a rather good choice for those of us farther from the sea. We were so excited about these, we forgot to get a picture until almost done:
The remnants of our appetizers
As the wine, the waiter suggested a Portuguese Viognier-Sauvignon Blanc blend that was lemony and well-suited to the food.
I continued the seafood theme through dinner, having the fish of the day, which was sea bream. Served whole, it was really easy to fillet, and had been cooked very nicely. The side was a pasta made in-house, dressed simply with lemon, olive oil, and parsley.
Jean went with the lemon-tomato gnocchi. The texture of the pasta was perfect, and the flavor was more subtle than one usually gets with gnocchi. Not a bad thing.
For dessert, we share a creme caramel and forgot to take pictures, again.
We were in plenty of time to walk over for our concert, which the KW Symphony performing music from Superhero movies. This was conducted by John Morris Phillips, Cincinnati Pops conductor, who is always a lot of fun.
The only themes I knew in advance was Darth Vadar’s from Star Wars, but I found most quite engaging. The themes from Dark Knight, Supergirl, and X–Men were particularly striking. A lot were almost hilariously short, though; just the length of the opening credits, I guess! In some cases they put a few scores together to make a somewhat longer “theme” piece. Nothing that ever really taxed the attention span, though.
It was a great way to showcase the symphony’s skill, and it was nice to see a very full house in attendance.
While awaiting the start of this performance, Jean and tried to think how many other live dance performances we’d seen. It’s not that many, way behind live music and drama. For whatever reason, I went far more often back when I lived in Montreal, as a student. And Jean and I once saw Ballet Béjart on a trip to Montreal. They’re a Swiss company, and they were presenting a very modern ballet inspired by life of one Freddie Mercury. (Jean wasn’t sure to make of it immediately afterward, but it has aged well in his memory, and he now thinks on it fondly.)
But outside of La Belle Province, we’ve mostly experienced less arty dancing, like a “Riverdance” kind of show in Toronto (only more with tango and Latin and not so much Irish step dancing) and the So You Think You Can Dance: Canada tour stop in Hamilton (and actually, that was just me).
So it was nice of Montreal to bring the jazz ballet right to us.
They performed three pieces. The first was a sensual duet to a Phillip Glass soundtrack. The second was a longer piece featuring the whole company. It used an electronica soundtrack to present “scenes from a city”, starting with dancing at a club but moving on to various other scenes and themes. I’m not going to pretend I interpreted it all correctly, but I found the energy, beauty, and musical interpretation quite riveting.
After intermission, they performed the final, longest piece, Harry. This was presented as a sort of danced play, complete with the dancers speaking lines of dialogue (in English). But it was not a linear story; more of a revisiting of the themes of war, love, destiny, and determination. Which makes it sound all dour and serious, but it was neither; it was very funny at times and always entertaining, incorporating all kinds of dance styles, even ballroom.
And tickets were only $35 for this! If you could have gone to this, and didn’t… That was a mistake.
Did not spend the whole weekend configuring my computer. In fact, we did a number of other activities, starting with attending Centre in the Square’s season opener event, featuring dance troupe Bandaloop. They specialize in what they call “vertical dance”, meaning they perform dangling from wires, off the sides of buildings.
So this free Centre in the Square event was outdoors. The weather was definitely nippy that day, which none of us were used to, particularly after the record-breaking heat earlier in the week (hottest day of the summer). But we coped, thanks to scarves and such. And it was pretty neat seeing the performance off the edge of the building. They did four numbers:
A couple performing a swing dance (of sorts)
A trio of women in red doing somewhat balletic moves
A solo piece to very modern music
A finale of six dancers, three on each wall (a piece normally done on one wall, but adapted for this space)
We then decamped for dinner at Sole Restaurant, where they were featuring (yet another) local food menu, this time a four-course, with matching wines—all from Vineland Estates.
It started with a smoked trout salad with green beans and almonds, served with Pinot Grigio. The fish had very nice texture but not a strong smokey flavor (not sure if that’s good or bad); the beans were just delicious in slightly sweet glaze.
The next appetizer was a roasted tomato tart with goat cheese, tapenade, and basil, served with semi-dry Riesling. The crust here was a little tougher than ideal. Jean found the filling a bit salty, but I don’t know; tapenade is meant to be salty—I don’t think they overdid it. I wouldn’t have picked out a semi-dry white with this, but it actually went very well. Nice balance.
Little tart! (This is Jean’s caption. Not entirely sure which subject he’s referring to.)
The main course was duck confit, with banana bread, cherry compote, and sugar snap peas, served with Elevation Cabernet. The duck confit was fantastic—great texture and flavor. The sweetness of the banana bread was intriguing, though the texture was a little too dry in parts. The Cabernet was impressively delicious, with chocolate notes.
Dessert was a peach trio of crème brulée, mini pie, and cheesecake lollipop, served with Cabernet ice wine. Best was definitely the crème brulée, all nice and creamy. The tart was fine. The lollipop was just kind of strange in texture.
Then Sunday morning, we participated in the Terry Fox Run for the first time, though “Run” should be in quotes, because we walked. But we walked briskly and made pretty good time, I think; not that it’s a race. I’ve just always wanted to participate in the Terry Fox Run, as he’s a hero of mine, so it was nice to finely do it. Especially as we didn’t get rained on.
Sunday afternoon, 2-4, we had yet another food event! For the first time in a few years, we went to Foodlink’s Taste Local event, whereby restaurants partner with a local food producer and create an appetizer. For $60, you get 19 items. Don’t worry; we didn’t take pictures of them all, nor will I describe them all.
A look at the Taste Local event. Despite the threatening sky, we didn’t get rained on here, either.
I will note a few of the highlights, though:
Pulled duck (from Top Market Meats) with red onion preserve and chèvre on potato rosti, by Little Mushroom Catering. Mmm, duck.
Cured trout from Caudle’s Catch with radish and cucumber salad, on tortilla, by Marisol Restaurant (a favorite of ours). Doesn’t sound that good, but tasted amazing. Perfect texture, great flavoring.
Nick and Nat’s chicken liver pate on toasted with fruit relish preserve. So rich and creamy, to me it tasted almost like foie gras.
Tomato milk shake with basil foam and balsamic reduction by Solé (them again!). As long as you like tomato, pretty nice.
Taco Farm taking Herrle’s corn and adding a Mexican touch of lime, cilantro, and cream. Really good. (And served to us by Lydia Herrle, which was nice to see.)
Waterloo Inn using OK eggs to make an egg tower: Frittata with pickled egg and bacon aioli. Great idea, well executed, quite delicious.
But really, everything was good.
The main problem with the event was the odd timing, meal-wise. We had breakfast but no lunch in anticipation, resulting in Jean initially rushing through the booths at breakneck speed, because he was really hungry! We did get him to slow down after the first five or so.
And after two hours of this, we were all really full. (A lot of meat involved in these.) We attended with Kristi, who commented that we seem to be making a habit of marathon eating together (like Verses 20 courses), which maybe isn’t such a good thing. Anyway.
So clearly we didn’t have dinner after that, and facing a fairly long evening ahead, we went out to a movie. But I’ll save that for another post.
This region has a Twitter hashtag, #kwawesome, that seems a little needy to me. Places that are truly awesome don’t need to proclaim that fact.
Still, they truly do some things well. The initial, widespread criticism over uptown Waterloo’s public square has long since died down. While certainly not as pretty as downtown Kitchener’s City Hall site, it has proven itself as a great location to hold a wide variety of public events that do bring uptown. This weekend, it’s the Waterloo Buskers Festival.
It’s the 25th year of the event, so the city sponsored a special opening event: a free concert by Steven Page, formerly of the Barenaked Ladies. I got on the iExpress right from my office door to uptown (you see I was determined to fully partake of regional services) to take it in, on what turned into a beautiful summer day.
Mr Page played with one other musician, a cellist who also sang backup. He naturally did some of his solo material, which I admit I didn’t know, but that did demonstrate he hasn’t lost his ability to write catchy songs with clever lyrics. But he also offered a generous dose of Barenaked Ladies material as well, including “The Old Apartment”, “Enid”, “What a Good Boy”, “Jane”, “It’s All Been Done”, and of course, “Brian Wilson”, the closer (before an encore). In between, he offered amusing commentary. He played for about an hour, which is quite reasonable for a free show!
Why Steven Page, a Toronto guy, for this? Because—and while I think I’ve heard this before, I’d forgotten—the Barenaked Ladies played at the Waterloo Buskers Festival way back in 1990, when no one knew who they were. Not only that, but while they arrived a trio, they left a quartet, because they met drummer Tyler Stewart at the Festival. Unlike Page, he remains in the band to this day.
Jean joined me for only the last part of the show (work!), then we walked over to Solé Restaurant to try this year’s Summer Dishes menu: three courses for $33, using local ingredients.
There was no going wrong with the first course: Tomatoes and feta with olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and fresh basil. Lovely. For the main, I talked Jean into taking the pork with apple and sausage stuffing, sweet potato mash, and sugar snap peas, while I stuck with the trout with potatoes and corn that we’d both been eying at first. Lucky for him, as that turned out to be the better offering—really delicious all around. As for the trout, it was nicely cooked, corn is amazing this time of year, and potatoes are pretty decent, too. The problem, to me, was the remoulade on the fish, which just seemed too heavy, disguising the fish too much.
They weren’t offering wine pairings this year, so we figured it out ourselves. I started with a glass of Cave Spring rosé (local, local!), while Jean had a French sparkling of Blanquette (not Champagne). For the main, we shared a half bottle of Tawse 2010 Pinot Noir. It wasn’t as rich as we thought it might be, given that 2010 was a pretty warm summer, but it was still a nice wine.
For dessert, we both opted for blueberry yogurt from Whole Lot-A Gelata, another local restaurant, and it was just delicious. (Maybe even awesome.)
Stars of Sting’s stature don’t normally play Kitchener, as it’s only about an hour and a half from the much bigger, more lucrative market of Toronto. But this Back to Bass tour of his, Wikipedia informs me, has been going on for ages—since 2011! As he’s already hit all the obvious cities (like Toronto), I guess he’s working through another tier. Along with Kitchener, this leg of the tour around includes oddities like Kingston, Ontario; Bangor, Maine; Summerside, PEI; and Arras, France.
I am a Sting fan, but not a major, major one, and I’ve seen him in concert twice already—though that was decades ago. But given the combination of the show being right in town, at a reasonably small venue and price, and having friends who wanted to go, it was basically a no-brainer to attend.
As Sting does not have a new album to plug at the moment, the show was chock-a-block full of hits. Admittedly, a few of the songs I didn’t know—I have lost the thread of his solo career periodically—but mostly, the songs were ones I could sing along to. Possibly my fave, “Englishman in New York”, was third in the line-up, and prompted a rapturous response that the artist seemed to appreciate, saying that made his first visit to Kitchener seem worthwhile.
This tweet was the first I’d heard about the KW Symphony being dropped from the Jeans’n’Classics series of concerts, which struck me as very strange, since the whole point of those concerts was marrying rock band with symphony.
Except for this one, though, Twitter—often a great source for finding things out—was annoyingly silent on the subject. Finally I had to go old tech: I emailed Centre in the Square to ask them about the tweet. The fact that they didn’t quickly reply made me think it was probably true.
And indeed, the email response that eventually arrived confirmed it, saying that the KW Symphony would be replaced with session musicians: “the size and make-up of the orchestra will be tailored to meet the artistic and stylistic demands of each Jeans ‘n Classics production”.
Nobody seems very happy about this change, but what strikes me in particular is that first article claims that lower production costs were not the main reason here, but an artistic need for revitalization. The last article frankly states they couldn’t afford the series any longer in this form—which at least makes more sense of the whole thing.
They both agree, though, that they want a bigger audience. Got to wonder if they’re going to achieve it. I’m afraid that I, for one, won’t be helping them out with that.
At the third concert this season, they had us vote on which three concerts we wanted to see the following year (out of six choices). I thought that wasn’t a bad idea, but note that everything they selected was a reprise of a previously done show. If I go next year, I’ll be seeing three similar concerts again, only with a smaller, less talented orchestra. The promised “better staging and lighting” won’t make up for the diminished music.
When it works, it’s a fantastic sound, it really is. The sound of an orchestra when it’s playing with a rock band well… It makes every hair on your body stand on end. It’s incredibly powerful.
– Roger Daltrey (The Who), 1994
I’d know what I was missing. So after about 10 years of great seats, I’m out.
And I know I’m not the only one. So to get their bigger audience, they not only have to add people, they have to replace the ones lost to this decision.
But you know, I do wish them well. I love Centre in the Square. It’s a fantastic hall. It’s incredible that a smallish place like Kitchener-Waterloo has one of the two or three best concert halls in the whole country. More people should go experience the sound there. It’s unfortunate it’s somehow developed a bit of a “stodgy” reputation. Some things do need to change. They do need better acts, more acts, even gimmicks to drawn more people in.
I’m not sure this particular series change will work out for them. But I sure hope something their Strategic Plan does.
And it’s not like I’m abandoning the place. I’m already signed up for six KW Symphony concerts there next year (to go along with my three at the Conrad Centre). And with some dates now opened up by not going to the Jeans’n’Classics series any more, I’ll probably add a few more.
Cultureguru's Weblog 