Category: Trips

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.

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

Photo by moviesinla, used under Cerative Commons license

“You have poor social skills”

Dan Dickinson1 Comment

We’ve been on vacation for a week now, and it’s been a damn good one. I’ve already posted pictures summarizing our time on my family’s farm: basically, it was lots of food, dogs, family, gifts, cribbage (final tally was 11 games for me vs. 6 for my dad), and quiet time.

We ended up returning to Toronto a few hours early on the 26th to get ahead of the storm headed for Ontario and Quebec, and so were well-rested for the 27th. A good thing too, considering how busy it got. We did more cleaning, bought Nellie a Samsung Galaxy S3, had some poor beers and super-hot wings at Les 3 Brasseurs,  watched Silver Linings Playbook (imdb | rotten tomatoes) which was a little better than I was expecting, finalized the sale of our old condo by picking up our cheque from the lawyer, and cracked open a bottle of Moet & Chandon Nectar Imperial before heading to dinner at Jacobs & Co.

Said dinner, by the way, was as exquisite as we’ve come to expect from Jacobs. We split a 20 oz. Wagyu ribeye from Wagyu Sekai right here in Ontario. We’d both had Wagyu beef here before, but this one was a whole other level of buttery richness. Between us we could only eat 7 of the 11 slices of steak; we  had to give up and bring the other four home. The sommelier suggested a nice Barbaresco to complement the beef. I’d never have thought to make that match, but it worked nicely.

And, after all that, we still have a four-day weekend (more or less) coming up. Bitchin’.

.:.

Photo by moviesinla, used under Cerative Commons license

"Everybody loses the thing that made them. The brave men stay and watch it happen. They don't run."

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

One of the best parts about transatlantic flights is a chance to catch up on some movies. And for all the grief I give Air Canada, their in-flight entertainment and magazine are pretty good ways to kill long flights. On my recent flights to London and back I saw six new ones:

  • 12 Angry Men (imdb | rotten tomatoes), a classic I’d somehow managed not to see before. Deserving of the “classic” status.
  • The Amazing Spider-Man (imdb | rotten tomatoes) was a waste of time. Emma Stone was the sole bright spot in this entirely unnecessary re(re?)boot.
  • Away We Go (imdb | rotten tomatoes) was better than I thought it was going to be. It always seemed like it was going to be too slow. It was certainly precious, but man, what cool leads. And there was a scene where I laughed so hard I scared the guy next to me.
  • Beasts Of The Southern Wild (imdb | rotten tomatoes) was an art piece, to be sure, but beautiful and somehow adorably  inspirational. Or inspirationally adorable. Not sure.
  • Safety Not Guaranteed (imdb | rotten tomatoes) was just fun. And I have a bigger crush on Aubrey Plaza than I thought.
  • Seeking A Friend For The End Of The World (imdb | rotten tomatoes) carries a bad rating, and I guess I can see why, but I kind of liked it. I mean, based purely on the likeability of Steve Carell and Keira Knightley, you smile at least a few times. So yeah, kind of a perfect airplane movie.

I also watched Casino Royale (imdb | rotten tomatoes) on the flight there, mainly because I will always always happily watch that movie.

.:.

Photo by thomas lieser, used under Creative Commons license

Photo by Bill in DC, used under Creative Commons license

"She's a Longhorn, the oldest pure breed cattle in Britain."

Dan Dickinson4 Comments

I’ve been doing a fair amount of travelling for work lately.  Luckily I was able to avoid the pitfall of eating shitty food on the road. Here’s what stood out.

Washington, D.C.

When I first landed in Washington (interesting city, by the way) my hotel wasn’t ready so I needed to kill a couple of hours. I was starving and went looking for a bite. I was about to give up and eat a Starbucks snack, but happened upon Graffiato and took a seat at the bar. I was pretty happy with where I’d landed: cool spot, nice staff, excellent music (Led Zeppelin, Tool, Queens of the Stone Age, White Stripes, Nirvana, old Smashing Pumpkins, etc.) on the speakers, and an interesting beer & wine list — I had a Southern Tier IPA and an Anne Amie Amrita Cuvee 2011 Viognier blend from Oregon. I ended up back there the following night; I had the Brooklyn Oktoberfest and Shipyard Pumpkinhead while listening to The Talking Heads, Rolling Stones, The Pixies, and The Proclaimers.

I got to hang out at the POV Lounge for a while, overlooking the White House and Treasury and other Washington sites, and have dinner at The Hamilton. And when I kind of couldn’t take any more interaction at my conference I went down the street to Brasserie Beck to have some excellent beers: I know I had a Van Eecke Cuvée Watou and a double dry hopped Poperings Hommelbier; after that I stopped keeping track.

Finally, after an airport snafu had me waiting in Dulles airport for several hours, I was lucky to come across Vino Volo, a wine bar in terminal B. I had a Tabali 2011 Reserva Viognier from Chile and an Emerson 2009 Willamette Valley Pinot Noir from Oregon, and a Chardonnay that I forgot to write down. Between that, free wifi, excellent food, and a perfect view of the runway, it was a miraculous find.

London

It’s been seven years since my last visit to England, and unfortunately I didn’t have much time to really enjoy London this time around. However, the company I was visiting had arranged some excellent meals for us…some excellent coffee too, as I was able to have a flat white or three for the first time since our visit to Australia last year, courtesy of Taylor St.

Most impressive was The Hawksmoor, a restaurant with the menu and decor of a classic steakhouse, but with a badass young staff. We ate as a large group, meaning the apps and wine were communal, but the Tamworth belly ribs were the the standout starter. My enormous & rare bone-in sirloin covered in Béarnaise sauce was tremendous, as was the sticky toffee pudding. We all left nearly bursting at the seams…what a great meal.

The next day most of us had lunch at the nearby Jamie’s Italian, but none of us really had much room.  Still, I managed to somehow force down some tagliatelle bolognese before heading to Heathrow for my flight home.

All this travel happened in the span of about nine days, so I was pretty wiped when I arrived home late Friday night. I’m just glad I got to try some decent new places and avoid fast food.

.:.

Photo by Bill in DC, used under Creative Commons license

Photo by bobolink, user under Creative Commons license

How Porter might have blown it

Dan Dickinson3 Comments

Oh Porter. I loved you. Like, a lot. For those of us who travel a fair amount and dislike most airline experiences, you were a breath of fresh air. I talked you up every chance I got. I always chose you over Air Canada if possible, even after AC began flying off the Toronto island airport. But Thursday’s experience — albeit it at Dulles, not your YTZ home — may have cost you a die-hard customer.

I was already booked on PD728 to Toronto at 8:45PM. As luck would have it I was able to end my day early so I thought I’d see if I could catch an earlier flight. My assistant called Porter, who told her it would be much cheaper to switch to PD726 (leaving IAD at 4:20PM) in person at the airport. So, after my presentation I jumped in a cab and arrived at IAD at 3:15. By 3:20 I was in a line of three people waiting to be checked in at the Porter desk. There were two people working the desk, so I figured I was in good shape.

I was wrong.

One of the two employees working the desk was new, and unable to process new check-ins. The other wasn’t at the counter, but rather in the room behind the desk making phone calls on behalf of a customer having Visa problems. Now, I do not begrudge her this; the customer needed help, and she was trying to provide it. But was there no way to have the other employee — who couldn’t process new check-ins — handle the phone call? Was there no way to call for additional staff? Was there no way to prioritize people like myself, and the passenger in front of me, as we rushed to make an earlier flight?

However, like good Canadians, the two of us waited patiently while the newly-returned Porter employee checked in the first passenger in line (and her family) and finished with the customer experiencing Visa problems. This took twenty minutes. TWENTY MINUTES. By the time the customer in front of me, also trying to get on the 4:20PM flight, got to the desk he was told that he was too late, and that the flight was boarding in just ten minutes. I had been standing in line for twenty minutes; the customer in front of me had clearly been waiting longer than that. If the counter had been properly staffed, or had the staff allocated work correctly, or had they prioritized in some way, we both could have made it easily, even at an airport as complicated as Dulles.

What made the experience even more frustrating was what followed: the poor passenger in front of me was told to return at 6:45 — more than three hours later — to check in for the next flight. He, being a nice guy and aware that I was also trying to make the flight, turned and told me the situation — that he’d have to wait three hours in the departures area just to check in to PD728, and then proceed to the gates. I felt sorry for him, but also felt relieved that I already had a seat confirmed on PD728 — Porter had emailed me 24 hours before — and assumed the staff would check me in so I could at least proceed to the terminal A gates, which are infinitely nicer than the departures level at Dulles. However, before I had a chance to do so, the two staff members put out a sign saying the counter was closed and disappeared into the back. I called to them; no answer. I waited a few moments; they did not return. I was incredulous. They didn’t even speak to me; they simply assumed I was in the exact situation as the passenger in front of me (who I didn’t know) and closed up shop.

About an hour later I realized my email from Porter actually contained the boarding pass and barcode I’d need to get through security. Luckily I could now kill three hours in a better part of town than Dulles departures. I should have realized that sooner, but I also shouldn’t have had to figure it out on my own…I should have already been sitting in an airside lounge, having been checked in by an agent.

I realize I was asking a lot to move my flight up, and that extenuating circumstances (a passenger wrestling with visa issues) made it difficult, but never in my experience has a challenging thrown a Porter employee. If Porter had lived up to my expectations of them — well-deserved expectations, I must say — I’d have been on the 4:20PM flight and home in Toronto by 6:00PM, instead of sitting in a Dulles airport bar for three hours.

I’ve been a long and loyal Porter advocate, but on Thursday my faith was shaken. I’m not sure how long it will be before my trust is restored. What I do know is that I will not defend as loudly, nor promote as proudly, the Porter service as I have in the past. And that’s a shame.

.:.

Photo by bobolink, user under Creative Commons license