Category: Food / drink

Arf

Dan Dickinson1 Comment

One of the brothers is in town, and we’ve been having some low-key Dickinson-esque fun. Last night we went to Wvrst to have some tasty sausages and beer, got into a deep discussion regarding Game Of Thrones, and shot some strangers in a few Call Of Duty deathmatches.

Today we  perused St. Lawrence Market, sucked back some Fahrenheit coffee, introduced him to The Newsroom, strolled happily among the dogs at Woofstock, had some frigging delicious sandwiches at the Hogtown Smoke food truck, and drank cold beers in the warm sun on the patio at the Bier Markt.

“A person who claims an area of interest, such as the arts, without real commitment or knowledge.”

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

First thing about yesterday: it was hot.

Second thing about yesterday: the mother-in-law returned from a side trip and, along with Nellie, promptly got to work washing the windows and cleaning up the balcony. I rewarded them with cold beer from Beer Academy. We drank them, and a bit of Benjamin Bridge Nova 7, on the balcony to celebrate.

Third thing about yesterday: we had reservations at Richmond Station. It was, as usual, tremendous. We started off with salad and a radish dish, all just incredibly fresh. Then Nellie and her mom each had the lobster bisque while I had the scallop crudo with jerk spice, all paired with a 2011 Domaine Breton “La Dilettante” Chenin Blanc from the Loire. Then for our mains Nellie had the halibut, while her mom and I had the duck. I’d say it was  pretty much the bets duck  I’ve ever had, and I’ve had me some duck. The pairing for that round was a beautiful 2011 Christopher Pacalet Gamay. The feature dessert of the night was an amazing-looking deconstructed cinnamon roll but we just didn’t have an inch of room left. We came home and drank our final bottle of Shypoke Charbono.

Saturday!

Photo by images_of_money, used under Creative Commons license

The key word here is control.

Dan Dickinson1 Comment

Oh, right. The LCBO might go on strike. Yawn.

Seriously, I don’t see this as a problem at all. Which is probably not what the LCBO wants to hear, since they’re counting on using the threat of a strike on the eve of May 2-4 weekend — Think of all the poor cottagers! And where are frat boys supposed to buy their Laker?! — for leverage. But, living where I live, it’s a minor inconvenience at worst.

I assume that resourceful establishments such as Volo, Beerbistro, Bar Hop, and Wvrst will still have a healthy supply of beer coming in. If I want to bring excellent beer home I can always just pop by Bellwoods or Beer Academy.

And I get that I’m lucky (though I prefer to think of it as being well-prepared) to have >100 bottles of wine at home just waiting to be opened, but — like the rest of Toronto — I’m an hour away from Beamsville and Vineland, where we can buy stellar wine from the likes of Thirty Bench, Rosewood, Hidden Bench, Fielding, Daniel Lenko, Tawse, Kacaba, Megalomaniac, Foreign Affair, and Vineland Estates. People at the east end of the GTA or Ottawa are 2-3 hours from Prince Edward County, where they could enjoy the scenery and stock up on more than enough outstanding wine to get them through an LCBO blackout.

Remember: nature abhors a monopoly. It also drinks local.

.:.

Photo by images_of_money, used under Creative Commons license

“Friends, relations, tribe, nation, common people.”

Dan Dickinson1 Comment

I spent most of last week at a conference just outside of Phoenix. This was my view each morning:

Not bad, right? But with this trip coming right on the heels of the previous week’s trip to Boston, I was ready to come back to Toronto and have a couple of quiet weekends. Fortunately while I was away the long Toronto winter finally breathed its last. I arrived home Thursday to find runners and cyclists swarming the waterfront, leaves finally breaking out on trees, and the Canadiens playing their first playoff game.

As sure as those are signs of spring, so too is Hot Docs. My travel schedule kept us from seeing our usual five screenings this year, but we did manage to squeak in a few. First, after a bite and a beer at The Oxley followed by a few spectacular glasses of wine (my ’99 Peter Lehmann Shiraz really stood out) at Opus we took in a late screening of Blackfish. I get emotional every time I think about Tilikum or Dawn Brancheau or pretty much any other part of that film so I’m not going to describe it much more here. I’m just going to say this: SeaWorld can go fuck itself. So can MarineLand. So can anyone who goes there.

After our customary pre-Hot Docs stop on the patio at the Victory Café…

…we hit our second screening: Which Way Is The Front Line From Here: The Life And Time Of Tim Hetherington. It was directed by the author Sebastien Junger, with whom Hetherington had shadowed an army platoon to create a book called War and a documentary called Restrepo. Not long after the documentary was nominated for an Oscar Hetherington was killed in Libya covering yet another war zone. Junger made the documentary to explain who Tim was, why he was so possessed with telling stories this way, and sharing more of his brilliance than we were likely to ever see otherwise.

After that we needed another drink. We made our way (slowly, happily) down to Bellwoods Brewery, which we’d shamefully not yet tried despite it being named the 3rd-best new brewery in the world last year. We had several tasty pints and ate bread and salumi and rosemary fries, and sat in the perfect inside-but-almost-outside weather.

Spring!

 

Freeballin’

Dan Dickinson3 Comments

About halfway up to our friends Matt & Kaylea’s cottage last Friday we got a text from Matt telling us to meet them in Norland. Turns out he’d forgotten his key to the cottage, so we were to meet them at the Riverside Inn and wait for a backup key to arrive via family. So we did…and in so doing stumbled upon the theme for the weekend.

We entered the inn around 5pm on a Friday, and found it completely empty. Not a soul in the place except wait staff. We asked for a table, thinking we’d have our pick. The hostess asked if we had a reservation. Kaylea replied that, “No, we’re just freeballin’ it.” Matt and I looked at each other…uh, what now?

FREEBALLIN’ [free-bawl-in]
verb
1. Usually used to refer to males who are without underwear.
2. The act of not wearing underwear.

We were pretty sure she didn’t mean to use that term. And it turned out that no, indeed she didn’t…she thought it indicated that we were winging it, no real plans, just having fun. In any case, the server understood and Matt and I had a giggle and we each had a pint of Cameron’s and then got down to the business of retrieving the key and making our way to the cottage. But freeballin’ had become the mantra.

We got to the cottage (after almost hitting a wild turkey on the highway) and realized very quickly that, unlike last summer, there would be no swimming. No canoeing. No watching a gorgeous sunset from the dock.

The shitty spring we’ve been having meant that we’d be spending our cottage time indoors. Luckily, we had provisions.

Like, say an Ontario rainbow trout with asparagus and smashed potatoes (prepped by Matt), and a bottle of Semillon-Sauv Blanc. That was the nice, light setup for the main event of the evening. Like last summer when we brought a 2001 Closson Chase chardonnay (which I’d won at auction) to the cottage, we brought two wines for a side-by-side comparison: a 1999 Thirty Bench cabernet franc (won at the same auction) and a bottle of the recently-released 2010 vintage.

That cab franc is pretty much my favourite red wine full stop, but I’d never tried anything older than 2007. And while the 2010 is just as good, the 1999 was something else entirely. A little less muscular than the newer vintage, but so much more refined. Tremendous stuff. I managed to start a whole twitter debate about who the winemaker was, finally receiving the correct answer right around the time that we emptied the bottle and noticed his name written on the label. Oops. The night gets a little fuzzy after that. I remember Matt saying “We are good at drinking.” I remember Nellie saying, “Matthew, NO.” And I remember them not being related. I also remember an epic struggle with an overzealous smoke detector at 4am.

The next morning we chugged some coffee and scarfed peameal sandwiches shlepped from St. Lawrence Market the day before and did a quick supply run into town (which was suffering from the same flooding that’s been plaguing the rest of cottage country, though not as severely.). There we picked up a De Souza meritage and a Côtes du Rhône and a mini-keg of Lake of Bays Crosswind, as well as 14 pounds of pork shoulder from the local butcher and a few more groceries. There were sightings of dazzling rubber boots, a ferocious pickup truck, and an awe-inspiring mullet, each more spectacular than the last. Nellie, in dire need of Vitamin Water, felt bad about making Kaylea drive to three different stores to find some. Not to worry, Kaylea said, we’re just freeballin’ it. In fact, she freeballed a traffic light just for good measure.

Back at the cottage, the weather turned even less pleasant as snow squalls hit.

No spring day, this: it was well below freezing outside. There was nothing for it but to bundle up, build a fire, and make some delicious food. First: maple doughnuts. And by “maple” I mean that there was Dickinson Brothers maple in the dough, in the cream filling, and dusted on top.

Around the same time, Matt was busy teaching me how to make sausage. I was less than adept at this, but enjoyed the hell out of it. The first step was to chunk up half of that pork shoulder and add seasoning…

…the run it through a grinder…

…then bind it with water and skim milk powder…

…and then stuff it into the casings and twist it into links.

Et voila: breakfast sausage with Dickinson maple sugar and sage. The recipe came partly from Matt’s brain, a tiny bit from the sugar woods of Nova Scotia, and a lot from this book, our bible for the weekend:

After a quick visit to a nearby maple farm to pick up a few things (and talk a little shop) we got back to the cottage and re-commenced into the culinary activities. Next up was a second round of sausage-making for the lads and a sparkling wine tasting for the ladies.

That’s right: it was colder outside than it was in the fridge. Happy spring! Anyway, we all did a blind tasting of these — turns out I know the difference between Ontario wine regions, but not the difference between Ontario and France — paired with a bunch of cheese and meat we’d brought from the market the day before.

Finally, after a much tougher process for the Texas Canadian hot links (a second grind was needed, and the addition of some maple syrup and sparkling Ontario white called for a name change) Matt took them to the smoker.

We sampled a bit, and declared it a success.

Cheers.

We packaged up the sausages and grilled steaks for dinner to go with the reds we’d picked up earlier in the day. There was talk of playing debit card monopoly, but after a stroll down to the lake and back I just fell asleep on the couch. Matt took up a position on the other couch not long after, having heaved the (depleted) Crosswind keg onto the lawn. Hey, we’d worked hard that day, we deserved an early beddy-bye time. Anyway, it’s not like there was a set agenda. Freeballin’, remember?

The next morning we sampled the fruits of our labours, in the form of breakfast sausage. Mission? Accomplished, with deliciousness. We laid around as long as we could, but eventually had to pack up and go. Nellie didn’t do so well on the way home, but we made it back to T.O. with a fully-fueled rental car and about 20 minutes to spare.

We may not have gotten the weather we’d hoped for, but the food and fun more than made up for it. There were shapeless neon hats and snowman scarves and games of fetch. There was bird watching and data tethering and biomass burning. Most impressively there was handmade sausage and maple-y doughnuts and outstanding wine, but more importantly there were good friends and warm fires and hilarious videos, and all of those adjectives were totally interchangeable.

Freeballin’: better with friends.

No, not Bellie…Nellie

Dan Dickinson2 Comments

Since our wine rack was looking a little sparse, we tootled down to Niagara to pick some up. We hit Kacaba (warning: maybe the ugliest website I’ve seen in a decade) and Vineland and Tawse, where they were pouring samples of their 2011 Pinots alongside the 2010 vintages from the same vineyards. We stopped at Southbrook and had lunch at The Garrison House (warning: that site autoplays Gordon Lightfoot). We picked up bottles by Le Clos Jordanne, Stratus, Lailey, Ravine, and Five Rows.

We weren’t just picking up for ourselves either. We gathered a case along the way for friends who’ve recently bought a beautiful home in Niagara-On-The-Lake, and who graciously hosted us for a dinner of soup and short ribs and copious amounts of wine. Then there was some throwback Wii Sports, and then some sleep — and thank god, because I’d been sipping wine since 10:30am. By around the same time the next morning we were on our way back to Toronto, fighting the wind on the Skyway and some Jays fan traffic on the Gardiner, but nothing too serious.

It was a quick there-and-back, but we came back with a fine haul:

  • Five Rows 2012 Sauvignon Blanc
  • Five Rows 2012 Pinot Gris
  • FiveRows 2012 Pinot Gris
  • Kacaba 2011 Barrel Fermented Chardonnay
  • Kacaba 2009 Cabernet Sauvignon
  • Lailey 2010 Unfiltered Cabernet Sauvignon
  • Le Clos Jordanne 2010 Village Reserve Chardonnay
  • Le Clos Jordanne 2010 Claystone Terrace Chardonnay (x2)
  • Southbrook 2010 Whimsy Lot “I” Cabernet Sauvignon
  • Southbrook 2011 Winemaker’s White
  • Stratus 2007 Cabernet Sauvignon
  • Stratus 2009 Chardonnay
  • Vineland Estates 2011 Elevation Bo-Teek Vineyard Chardonnay
  • Vineland Estates 2009 Sauvignon Blanc
  • Vineland Estates 2007 Reserve Fumé Blanc

Photo by Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, used under Creative Commons license

Two worlds

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Cross another Toronto beer hot spot off the list: last night we tried Stout Irish Pub on Carlton. It was a busy place, being open on (Good) Friday night, so we took the last two spots at the bar, ate dinner (meh; my spicy chicken sandwich was just okay, while they actually brought Nellie the completely wrong soup), and tried some new beers. I had a Wellington Terrestrial Brown Ale, a Sawdust City Skinny Dipping With Friends Stout, and a Dieu du Ciel Grande Noirceur before we shared a large bottle of Church Key Zwei Welten Dunkelweizen Bock. So, to sum up: good beer and friendly bartenders, but not in the real top tier of beer places in the city. Still, a solid choice in a part of town without much to offer, beer-wise.

Speaking of pubs: earlier that day, while out for some lunch at the Jason George, a little girl — maybe 8 or 9 years old — walked up to our table and just took fries off my plate. So that happened.

.:.

Photo by Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, used under Creative Commons license

Photo by Thomas Hawk, used under Creative Commons license

The kid

Dan Dickinson1 Comment

I watch lots of hockey. Lots and lots and lots. In fact I’m watching a Montreal Canadiens game, en Français, as I write this. I’ve also been to a fair number of games now, mostly at the ACC, as my work sometimes affords me a chance to go. I feel bad about that — I despise the Leafs, and feel bad taking a seat from someone who would dearly love to see a game, but don’t want to be rude to those who invite me, and anyway still enjoy seeing the game played live. You just don’t get a sense, watching it on TV, how fast and fluid the game is.

Last Thursday I was lucky enough to see the Leafs play host to the Pittsburgh Penguins. I’d actually seen that match-up live once before, but with a key difference: Sidney Crosby didn’t play the first time. Last week I got to see the best player in the world live.

To be honest, it freaked me out a little. Like I said, I watch a lot of hockey, and I’ve gotten pretty good at reading the play, spotting the open man, guessing where the next pass will go, identifying openings and seams which — if exploited — could lead to a goal. So, normally when I watch a game I feel like I’m about half a second ahead of the play. But not with Crosby. With Crosby, I was behind. Actually, I was completely out of the play. Two or three times he passed the puck somewhere I hadn’t been expecting, to a space I didn’t know was occupied until his teammate had the puck on his stick. Like the one at the 2:38 mark in this video, behind his back to Pascal Dupuis who was so open Crosby was likely the only player on either team who knew he was there.

The Pens came from behind to beat the Leafs 3-1, and I got to see Sidney Crosby play, so I was a happy guy.

Oh, and we had dinner at Aria before the game, my first time there. It was…just okay. I wouldn’t go out of my way to go back, but it’s certainly better than most other options that close to the ACC.

.:.

Photo by Thomas Hawk, used under Creative Commons license

Image by GOTSfile, used under creative commons license

“You think I’m not serious just because I carry a rabbit?”

Dan Dickinson1 Comment

Here’s how we’ve spent our last 72 hours (work notwithstanding):

  • Yummy beers at Bar Hop
  • The Game of Thrones exhibit at the Design Exchange, which was small, but free, and not at all bad. Just got me even more excited for March 31st.
  • Meat at Triple A
  • Dinner at Richmond Station, our first time back since Nellie’s birthday. We didn’t have a reservation, but they managed to find us a table upstairs…a cool space, since you can see the kitchen preparing the dishes. Just like the first time the food was good, and the service/servers were excellent. It’s quickly becoming one of my very favourite places in the neighbourhood.
  • Watched Seven Psychopaths (imdb | rotten tomatoes), made by the director of In Bruges. Very entertaining. Christopher Walken, man. Just…yeah.
  • Safe House (imdb | rotten tomatoes) was pretty meh, but at least it gave us an early preview of Cape Town.

.:.

Image by GOTSfile, used under creative commons license

Photo by Oefe, user under Creative Commons license

Surprisingly: no beans

Dan Dickinson3 Comments

In retrospect, February may not have been the best time for a trip to Boston. But of course I didn’t think about that when a Porter seat sale prompted us to visit a new city. Yes, new city: somehow neither of us had ever made it to Boston.

The trip started out well enough: it was snowing when we left Toronto last Friday, but not so much that our flight from the island was delayed. We landed in Boston with no problems, fat fresh snow falling on banks built high in the previous week’s blizzard. My sense of direction is usually pretty good, but I was more than a little disoriented by the time our cab reached our hotel, the XV Beacon. Luckily, in addition to a ton of space and a nice gas fireplace, our room had a great view of Boston Common, so I was centered again. That fireplace, it turns out, would come in handy.

We were already hungry, so we homed in on a nearby place known for both good food and good beer for a late lunch. We took the long way, walking through a bit of the Common where we saw kids ice skating and guided tours of the Freedom Trail starting, before finding ourselves a barstool at Stoddard’s.  Our food was great, and they had some serious American craft brew on tap: I had a Narragansett porter and and a Left Hand milk stout, while Nellie had a Harpoon UFO Belgian white and a Brash “The Bollocks” IPA. We left there pretty fat and happy.

We walked a tiny bit of that off by circling the Common and Public Gardens, getting our bearings, figuring we’d do the heavy-duty touring the next day. We saw a little more of Beacon Hill, and had dinner at Bin 26, a wine bar not far from our hotel. It was okay, but didn’t blow either of us away. Still, any place with that many wines by the glass has to be commended, even if the wine list is like a puzzle. We walked back to our room in the chilly night, past the golden dome of the State House to our hotel, and planned our adventures for the next day while  the downtown lights gave us a little reminder of home.

Plan, schman. Turns out something the Weather Channel called “winter storm Plato” decided to show up and pelt Boston with a wicked (see what I did there?) blast of snow and cold. We set out with every intention of trying to see some of the Freedom Trail, but it was just too cold and windy…we got maybe a few blocks before the ice pellets stinging our eyes drove us inside. We couldn’t bear the thought of retreating to the hotel though, and decided to jump on the subway.

Needless to say, I had The Kingston Trio’s “MTA” playing in my head from the moment we bought that ticket. We decided to go way out to Allston, in the middle of Boston College and Harvard and a bunch of other schools, to try a place called Deep Ellum…the top-rated beer place in Boston. It was a long, brutal walk through the storm from the train stop to the pub; getting through a door never felt so good. It was packed with students scarfing down hangover brunch, but we found two seats at the end of the bar. Despite being twice the age of anyone else in the place we got asked for our ID. Incroyable!

The beer selection was impressive: the draft list alone consisted of a couple dozen American craft brews I’d never even heard of, and we  took full advantage. I had a Jack’s Abby “Smoke and Dagger” smoked lager, a Pretty Things “Saint Botolph’s Town” rustic dark ale, a Rising Tide “Daymark” rye APA, and a Jack’s Abby “Saxonator” dopplebock, while Nellie had a Wormtown “Petite Belma” IPA, a High and Mighty “Beer of the Gods” German ale, a Pretty Things “Baby Tree” quadrupel, and a Green Flash “Palate Wrecker” IPA. Food-wise we had a nice soft pretzel, some sausage & mustard, and poutine (!) with duck gravy. We wrapped up with one more (another Palate Wrecker for Nellie, and a stout on cask that I don’t quite remember) before starting the return trip. It was still brutally cold, but at least the ice pellets had stopped hitting us in the face.

We got back to the hotel and made full use of it for the rest of the afternoon, taking long hot showers, curling up in front of the fireplace, watching travel shows about warm destinations. We weren’t up for another excursion when it came to eating dinner; luckily Mooo (a new steakhouse) is in the hotel’s basement, so we ate there. It was pretty decent: Nellie had lobster bisque and filet mignon, while I had short rib croquettes and prime sirloin, paired with a 2007 Heitz Cabernet Sauvignon. After spending the whole afternoon at Deep Ellum we needed that food in our stomachs too.

We went out the next morning with every intention of doing at least some of the sights on the Freedom Trail, but didn’t get far…it was still fantastically cold. We got as far as the Boston Massacre site and turned back for the hotel. A shower and some packing later and it was time to go. I have to say, the whole process of flying out — from getting to the airport (in the hotel’s Lexus SUV house car) to checking in (no lineups, and friendly, funny TSA agents!) to waiting to board (lunch at a Vino Volo and painless boarding) to the super-smooth flight — was one of the most painless travel experiences we’ve ever had. Always good when a trip wraps up like that.

So, while it wasn’t a bad trip — indeed, we had a lot of fun — it was certainly limited by the weather. Clearly we’ll need to go back, not just to see what the city is like in the warm sun, but also to further explore a feeling we both had almost immediately about Boston…that it feels an awful lot like Halifax. I guess that makes sense — both are old North American cities, not terribly far apart, designed largely by the British around the mid-18th century — but we still both had the strong feeling of familiarity almost immediately upon arriving. The commons in the middle of the city, the public gardens, the waterfront, the wealth of colleges (though Boston’s are certainly more prestigious), the unusually strong ties between the cities with traditions like the annual Commons Christmas tree and the love of Boston sports teams in Nova Scotia…it all made Boston feel familiar to two people who consider Halifax kind of their spiritual home. And just as we’d never assume good weather before travelling to Halifax, but trusting to find its’ charm indoors and out, so we’ll plan a return trip to Boston someday.

.:.

Photo by Oefe, user under Creative Commons license