Someone once said to me that that the flowers of spring are the most beautiful. I don’t know if it’s because the contrast to winter’s muted colours heightens their beauty, or because they are more delicate and less obvious than the big, blowsy blooms of summer, but spring flowers are my favourites, too.
Now that the trees are in full bloom, it’s time for the Cherry Blossom Festival, including Bike the Blossoms and the Cherry Jam.
How does your community celebrate the first blooms of spring?
When we think of the soundscape of a city, we think of engines and sirens, footsteps and voices, and car alarms, always car alarms. But each city has its own catalogue of sounds that help to define it.
I was reminded of this a few weeks ago, when we went through a period of unusually heavy fog. Fog horns sounded through the night, confusing some. Vancouver is touted as a recreational paradise of mountains and seaside, but it’s also a working port.
Those fog horns are a fickle, seasonal addition to our soundscape, but we have a few more reliable components. There are two, in particular, that define Vancouver’s soundscape. The Nine O’clock Gun can still startle me after all these years of living in the city, if I happen to lose track of time. It can be heard across the city and beyond its borders into the surrounding municipalities. The Noon Whistle, which you can hear in the video at the top of this post, brings daily relief to office workers downtown and serves as a rallying cry to weekend late sleepers. They aren’t as famous as Gastown’s Steam Clock, but they pace out life in this city for its residents.
Other Vancouver sounds that come to mind for me: the beeps and whirrs of our trolley buses, the sound of trains moving, the Carnival Band, and the roaring of the cranes at the Port of Vancouver. Oh, and I can’t forget crows. There are so many here that they’ve become a sort of emblem in art and music.
I’ll leave you with a video that uses more Vancouver sounds and a question: What are the sounds that define the place you live?
It may seem counterintuitive, but January and February are busy months in Vancouver. Years ago, restaurateurs got together and created Dine Out Vancouver to help combat slow post-Christmas sales. It’s become a tradition and there can be fierce competition to get reservations for the discounted, set course meals at some of the swankier tables in town. One of the most anticipated events, though, is not all that swanky. Street Food City is a four-day gathering of some of Vancouver’s hottest food trucks and many of them have added Dine Out exclusive dishes. I suspect there will be line ups around the block again this year.
Other events have grown up around the Dine Out frenzy, like Feast Van, which offers prix fixe meals at a nice selection of mid-range restaurants, with $1.00 from each meal benefitting the Strathcona Community Center Backpack Food Program. I admire their model – great food for a great cause.
Another favourite of mine is the Hot Chocolate Festival, which runs until the middle of February. It’s a great way to wait out the last of the chill and sample some of Vancouver’s finest chocolatiers.
It’s not all about food, though. This weekend, the Museum of Vancouver is presenting their annual Winter Wander, which allows you to visit all six Vanier Park venues for a total of $5.00. It’s a great way to explore these out-of-the-way attractions and I suspect a lot of people buy yearly memberships after their visits – a boon to venues and patrons alike. It’s also time for the PuSh Festival of Performing Arts, which seems to get bigger and more innovative every year.
In sadder news, the legendary Ridge Theatre will be screening its very last films in the coming weeks as they present their Last Film Festival. Vancouver has lost so much of its cultural capacity and heritage to out-of-control, cookie-cutter condo development. The Ridge and The Waldorf are just the latest casualties.
Though it’s true that venues come and go, in Vancouver they seem to go and go and go. Affordable space for upcoming musicians, actors, and dancers seems increasingly endangered. I don’t think the solution is for ‘everybody’ to move to New Westminster, either.
My worries about the future aside, I’ll leave you with something to look forward to – the 2013 Vancouver Poutine Festival has just been announced and it’s going to be bigger than ever. You might want to make some travel plans for early March, as at least one of my out-of-town friends is trying to arrange.
The snowdrops are blooming and the crocuses aren’t far behind. There’s a threat of snow in the forecast, but winter’s essentially over. Soon, the rest of the early flowers will emerge and my favourite season here will begin. Summers in Vancouver are lovely, but summer’s magic lies in seducing each place into taking on its form – summer is itself a place, anywhere and everywhere.
It’s only in spring that I become homesick for Vancouver when I’m away. The air becomes softer and a little warmer, the evergreens develop pale green tips, and there are green shoots and flowers everywhere. Then, the cherry blossoms, Vancouver’s crowning glory, transform streets across the city into ornamental gardens.
I’m itching to get into the garden, to dig compost into the beds, divide my vegetable patch into its square-foot allotments, and plan my planting schedule for the year. As many have said, spring is the season of hope for gardeners. I’m also looking forward to more long walks with the dog, looking for flower patches and enjoying the blossoms.
Now tell me, what’s your region’s season?
On Sunday, Kevin and I visited Vancouver’s first (annual, I hope) Gluten-Free Expo. I didn’t take any photos there, as I’d intended, because the crowds were huge. Around 3,000 people attended, so many that some booths ran out of stock and had to send for more. Some of our favourite gluten-free vendors were there and we discovered some new ones, too. Things are looking up for those with celiac disease and gluten-intolerance.
Inspired by the expo, I thought I’d do a round up of some great gluten-free goods. I’ve posted about a few favourites before, but the list just keeps growing. As does the awareness of how to serve gluten-avoiding customers safely in restaurants.
Gluten-Free Bakeries
Gluten-Free Grocers
All Choices stores label gluten-free goods with a blue shelf tag and stores like East End Food Co-op, Donald’s Market, Nestor’s, and Drive Organics carry gluten-free goods, but there’s only one store in Vancouver that is dedicated to gluten-free goods entirely – Ed’s Gluten Free Specialty (which has sadly gone out of business, now).
If you’re looking for gluten-free flours, though, my first choice is Famous Foods. They have a huge selection of flours, along with tonnes of grains, nuts, and seeds.
Gluten-Free Dining
Vancouver is a great city for gluten-free eating. So many establishments get it. I’m listing a few that we’ve had good experiences with, but there are many more. Call ahead and ask if the restaurant you’re interested in can accommodate a gluten-free eater. You’ll be pleasantly surprised at how many places, even if they don’t have a dedicated gluten-free menu, know how to take care of people who avoid gluten.
Gluten-Free Resources
The Canadian Celiac Association
All the photos in this week’s post are gluten-free dishes from past posts. Here’s the list, if you’re interested:
This summer seems especially full of community events. Part of it is Vancouver’s125th Birthday, with events like this past weekend’s Summer Live. Another part of it is that there’s been a groundswell of community creativity around public events that’s been supported by the current City government. Organizations like Vancouver Public Space Network, websites like Vancouver is Awesome, and initiatives like Car-Free Vancouver are helping to drive this movement. Public Dreams pioneered such community-making, espousing a grassroots ethos that includes making these events free of charge.
I think this atmosphere is inspiring traditional institutions like Tourism Vancouver to follow suit. This May, they ran a promotion of local attractions called Be a Tourist in Your Own Town, which was open only to residents of Greater Vancouver. Each day of the promotion, residents could download coupons good for a range of destinations around Greater Vancouver, ranging from the well-known to the obscure.
I managed to take advantage of two of the offers, admission to Vancouver Lookout and Dr. Sun Yat Sen Chinese Garden. The first was one I’d never considered, while the second was a chance to re-visit one of Vancouver’s treasures.
Vancouver Lookout sits atop Harbour Centre’s tower, which was Vancouver’s tallest building until 2009. It still gives a clear 360° view, looking out over downtown, the west and east ends of town, and toward the North Shore. Even on a rainy day, the views were compelling. It made for a nice exercise – trying to identify our neighbourhood from that height and distance; seeing the roofs of most of the downtown’s buildings; getting an aerial view across the water.
I went to Dr. Sun Yat Sen Gardens on another grey day, but the rain held until near the end of my visit. The Vancouver Tourism offer coincided with the garden’s 25th Anniversary celebration, so we were treated to tours, activities and goodies. I loved watching the koi feed, hearing the history of the garden, and contemplating the symbolism of elements in the scholar’s garden. The garden is not just a contemplative space, providing a venue for theatre, music and conferences.
I try to approach living in this region, where I grew up, in the same way I do unfamiliar places. Looking at one’s home through traveller’s eyes means trying to discover both the surprising and delightful, along with what’s most authentic. But tourism has its rewards, too. Thanks Tourism Vancouver, for reminding me of that.
It’s often been said that Vancouver lacks a civic centre. We have no town square or any pedestrian malls. For many years, the closest thing to a city gathering place has been the steps and courtyard of the Vancouver Art Gallery. Many protests and celebrations have wound up there over the years, but it doesn’t replace the street-level culture that exists when there is a dedicated public space.
Travelling to Europe or Latin America (or even Montréal) shows us what we’re missing here. Even the smallest town in Mexico seems to have a zócalo where cafés line the perimeter and couples promenade in the evenings. For the traveller, it can provide an anchor from which to spin out one’s explorations; for the resident, it’s the centre of public life.
Vancouver gets a small taste of what this can be like when the annual Car-Free Day closes down streets in several neighbourhoods across the city. Street hockey, dance parties, roller derby and jump rope are just some of the activities folks were able to engage in, once the traffic was re-routed and pedestrians flooded the street.
This model temporarily assuages the city’s need for an outdoor public life, but it’s not enough. The temporary nature of the squares means that the permanent architecture of city squares can only be approximated. Street parties can also be an able-bodied only affair, with buses re-routed as well as private cars. A permanent city square would be physically accessible, as transit would be built around it, not diverted from it. Vancouver Public Space Network has been arguing for a public square in the city for some time now. They’ve got a number of posts on the subject, which I encourage you to explore.
This isn’t to say that I don’t love and support Car-Free Day, it’s just that it’s a tantalizing, fleeting experience of what our city should have every day. Beyond the vision of a public square for Vancouver, Car-Free Day also suggests some other interesting possibilities – what about closing Commercial Drive to traffic altogether, while running accessible light rail along its length? The Drive is already famous for its café culture; wouldn’t it be lovely if the city turned the street into a sort of plaza, where people could enjoy our mild weather for much of the year? Extended awnings would of course be necessary in our rainforest climate zone, but that’s no barrier.
Car-free day every day? I’m in.
Ribs and summer weather are a good fit. They bring up thoughts of potato salad, corn on the cob and lemonade. Since summer hasn’t exactly started here, it’s good that ribs are also a good match for sports. The Canucks [Seriously, WordPress, you don’t recognize the word Canucks?] are in the Stanley Cup finals and the whole city is in thrall to its televisions…with some notable exceptions. I’m sure they’ll be commenting to that effect on this post.
I’m a fair weather hockey fan. Bring me to a game and I’ll be watching every play. Otherwise, I don’t follow it until the playoffs. Even then, I only pay enough attention to make sure I don’t miss anything exciting. (The Canucks in the finals – exciting.) My family despairs of me. I was raised in a hockey-loving clan. My grandfather cheered for the Canadiens and some of my earliest memories are of three generations of my family crowded around the television in my grandparents’ living room. The decibel level was impressive. I was already a suspect fan; my favourite part of the broadcast was Peter Puck.
All of this is to say that I’m paying attention to hockey right now and this week’s French Fridays recipe is a perfect fit. Cola and Jam Spareribs, steamed bok choy, mashed potatoes and Gewürztraminer, plus a winning home team game. Not bad for a Friday night at home. At least that was the plan. As of this writing, the ribs have just come out of the oven and we’re planning to eat them tomorrow, though we may have a few as a late-night snack, just to make sure they’re acceptable.
The aroma from the kitchen certainly promises that they’ll be more than acceptable. This isn’t a typically saucy rib recipe. The meat is rubbed with five spice powder, ground ginger, salt and pepper, then marinated in apricot jam, mixed with orange and lemon juices. Late in the roasting process, cola is added to the pan. It’s a long cooking time, with regular basting, but the meat is awfully tender looking. I’ll let you know in the comments how we liked it.
You can find many other blogged descriptions of this week’s FFWD recipe here: Cola and Jam Spareribs
I’m good at figuring things out and learning things on my own, but I like taking classes and learning in a group environment. It not only exposes you to the knowledge of instructors and other students, but I also find my own thoughts and ideas quickening when I’m sharing them with others. So, when I started this blog, I knew at some point I’d want to do some learning away from my computer screen.
This weekend, I did just that. Northern Voice is a social media conference based in Vancouver and is in its seventh year. The conference is organized by volunteers and has a grassroots ethos to it. You won’t find corporate swag bags, but you will find media professionals, artists, amateurs and enthusiasts gathering to learn from each other. The participants are drawn mostly from around BC, as well as the Pacific Northwest in the US.
I knew that I was going to like this conference as soon as Day One’s keynote speaker began her presentation. April Smith of AHA Media spoke about using social media to democratize media and to provide coverage of Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside as a member of the community. Beginning a conference with such a dynamic, grassroots perspective is so different from what professional/corporate events provide. It’s a much needed perspective.
Day Two’s keynote speaker was Chris Wilson of Google. His presentation was well-tailored to the audience, too, bringing a technological perspective to the idea that the social media and blogging worlds cater to the long tail of interests – there’s room for a lot of diversity in these spheres.
Highlights from Day One:
The Courting Controversy session:
Don’t be controversial for its own sake, because you’ll be called on to back up your claims.
Photocamp:
– Leah Gregg’s photos
– Roland Tanglao’s exhortation to shoot daily
– Jeremy Lim’s advice to shoot less so you can notice more
Communities that Rock:
There was more information in this session than a newish blogger like me could even get down on paper, but what stuck with me most was that you need to work at making your blog visually appealing, giving your readers opportunities to interact beyond comments and keeping your blog posts fresh by varying form and content.
Highlights from Day Two:
Grassroots Campaigns
It was fascinating to hear the evolution of the presenters’ various social media and offline campaigns.
– Keeping your message simple, then translating the interest and support into offline actions is key
– Complexity can come later
– Simplicity doesn’t have to cancel out diversity
Looking Through the Lens
Alan Levine led us through a presentation of gorgeous photos and discussed the impact of aperture, shutter speed and ISO on photo quality. He also encouraged us to shoot daily, through communities like The Daily Shoot, which provide feedback as well as incentive.
DS106
The DS106 Radio crew took a university course and turned it into a Wild West of internet radio experimentation. Great storytelling.
Awesome-izing Your Podcast
v, an experienced broadcaster, gave us a wealth of information on best podcasting practices. What it boiled down to, though, was creating a sense of intimacy in your recordings.
I encourage you to click through to the Northern Voice conference schedule link at the top of the post – there were many more sessions and the schedule has lots of links to the fantastic presenters’ sites.
And lest you think it was all session and no play, I’ll leave you with a photo from the wine tasting room.
One Wet Foot 