Delights
The house the elephants protect
Wandering along the northern end of Acacia Avenue in Rockcliffe Park, you’ll notice a wonderful display of sophisticated embassy residences, from Japan and Korea’s stone mansions to India’s brick Victorian and Iran’s more modern Arabic architecture. And then you come upon a distinctive large white stucco house with two stone elephants guarding the driveway. The […]
Now that’s fortification
There’s so much to know about wine that it’s understandable that we tend to limit our awareness to what we know we like. However, these comfortable and safe choices can be a kind of cage. The dark and murky corners of the wine world deserve to be explored and our palates deserve the pleasure of […]
Armenian cuisine’s complexity
Bordered by the Caucasus and other mountain ranges, Armenia, more or less a high plateau, enjoys fertile soil, a basically temperate climate — though punctuated by extremes — and stunning scenery with many lakes and rivers. Indeed, the country, land of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, can trace its existence from ancient times, as it […]
Terry Fox: Role model and inspiration
In a country that frowns upon self-promotion, Canadians prefer modest heroes. This is true even when a hero’s fame lives on long after him, touches millions of people beyond the country’s borders and when his accomplishment has resulted in almost $700 million being raised for an important cause. Terry Fox was 22 years old in […]
Out of Africa
In 2008, a British journalist named Tom Burgis, who helped cover Africa for the Financial Times, witnessed the mass murder of men, women and children at a place called Jos, along the invisible boundary that separates Nigeria’s Muslim north from its mostly Christian south. But the full effect of what he saw there didn’t strike […]
A home called Ballybeg
Ballybeg is the anglicized version of the Irish word for “little town.” The large stone Rockcliffe house that bears that name may not exactly fit the translation, but it is as much a hub of activity today as it was in the days of admiral Sir Charles Kingsmill, who, during the First World War, commissioned […]
You’ve come a long way, Canada. Cheers!
Canada has come a long way since the early 1800s when Johann Schiller, a retired German mercenary from the Rhine, settled near Toronto and developed a small winery based on the native varietals he found on his property. He sold the wine he made to his neighbours and came to be what is considered Canada’s […]
In Japanese cuisine, tradition prevails
One of the basic principles of Japanese cooking is to capitalize on the food of the seasons — seafood, vegetables and fruit at the peak of their flavours. Add to this Japan’s widely varying climates in each season and you get the famed Japanese cuisine. The archipelago of Japan extends from the northern cool, temperate […]
Aboriginals’ fight for the franchise
Imagine that your family has lived on the same land for generations. Over time, others arrive, take residence and establish a government whose rules now apply to you. But they do not include you in consultations — in fact, they specifically exclude you. This was the situation facing Aboriginal Peoples in Canada for much of […]
Fu Manchu to you too
Here’s a story that’s been passed along in my family — which means that it’s most likely not true. The story is that my grandfather met Sax Rohmer, probably in San Francisco in 1919. Rohmer (real name: Arthur Henry Ward) was the British author of the Fu Manchu short stories and novels that did so […]
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