Archive for Pictorial

2010 Olympic Postcards ~ Icehole’s Golden Ownapodium Week!


The city was awash in nationalism as long repressed flag waving urges exploded and poured onto the streets of Vancouver like some giant billion dollar champagne beer bottle spraying out thousands of rabid superfans yesterday; the symbolic final battle (a.k.a. Greatest NHL script ever imagined) against our fellow continental bully brothers in a dramatic game of ice hockey swiftly sabrered off the lid of our bottled up conservative nature and unleashed terrific pandemonium, thus revealing ourselves in full patriotic bloom as a nation proud, strong and free, and quite capable of consuming more beer in 17 days than any other winter loving people. Wow, what a party that was. Go Canadian Iceholes, eh! ~  PK

EDITOR’S NOTE: A HUGE thank you to all the service people and volunteers who manned the front lines of this most epic party, including all the police from around the country who kept us safe during this most memorable experience.

Read the rest of this entry »

2010 Olympics Postcards ~ Week 1

Come inside and take a look at some images taken during the first weeks of the 2010 Vancouver Olympics.

Read the rest of this entry »

On the Beer Trail: Saltspring Island Ales Pt 1

It started out innocently enough with a single bottle of beer; a nice drinking session with an alluring and tall vessel of Saltspring Island Ale’s dark porter. Not long after that, it was the last drops of their award-winning golden and pale ales that I had also brought home as well, that further prodded me out the door in search of more.

By then, I was fully swept up in the beginnings of a beer adventure that would have me driving, sailing and eventually flying my way right to the source, wanting to learn more about this self-described ‘cottage brewery’ located in the heart of the Gulf Islands.

Read the rest of this entry »

Chef Gagnon Makes his Mark at The Teahouse

Francois-GagnonI have a confession to make: the last time I stepped foot in The Teahouse in Stanley Park was for their Easter Sunday brunch in 1987. Clad in the matching doily dresses and patent leather shoes my mother made my sister and I famous for as children, we sat quietly and ever-so patiently in the sunny conservatory eating crab eggs benedict, patiently biding our time until we’d be excused from the table to go and wreak havoc on the unsuspecting Stanley Park gardens with our ninja-like Easter egg hunting skills.

Read the rest of this entry »

Cooking with Dale and Stephane

dale_stephan

(All photos courtesy of Tracey Kusiewicz of Foodie Photography)

Long ago, I worked as a dishwasher for a couple of years in a very busy restaurant and was on the verge of being “promoted” out of the kitchen to go bus the floors with the better smelling front of house crowd, when some strange sense of kitchen loyalty kicked-in and I hesitated, long enough to have the job offer with the clean shirt revoked, thus leaving me to toil in the dish pit for another 6 months before finally coming to my teenage senses and bolting from the restaurant altogether for the mall next door to sell women’s athletic shoes for slightly more money and better scenery. That was the last professional kitchen I worked in. And that was close to 20 years ago.

The love of cooking and kitchens remain. So, when an opportunity came up to play in the million-dollar Lumiere kitchen for a day with Chef Stephane Istel of DB Bistro and Chef Dale Mackay of Lumiere, I could not resist; it’s like being asked if you want to go for a joy ride in the Millenium Falcon. The answer is always yes.

Read the rest of this entry »

Next entries »