First Draught: a German wheat beer from the world’s oldest brewery

By

-

12:21 pm

The best way to win bar bets with non-Germans this week is probably by making a wager as to which month most of Oktoberfest takes place. The two-week Bavarian beer-fest has already started, having opened on Saturday to take advantage of sunnier days and milder nights. So, to celebrate Oktoberfest, we’re taking a look at the Kristall Weissbier from Weihenstephan, which bills itself as the world’s oldest brewery.

The festival’s six million attendees — Oktoberfest is the world’s largest fair — will go through a lot of giant one-liter mugs of beer, and most of them will be filled with a style of lager called Märzen. That beer takes its name from the German word for March, which is the month when it was traditionally brewed. To last through the summer it was brewed at a slightly higher strength.

This weissbier is lighter in colour than most Märzens, but it does come in at a generous 5.4 per cent alcohol.

“Kristall” means that this beer has been filtered to be absolutely clear —ones that are left unfiltered, and are therefore cloudy, are called “hefe” — and that stands off nicely against the generous, snow-white cap.

The hops that went into this beer were definitely chosen for their light, floral touch. The flavour is all cloves, lightly-toasted nuts and banana bread. A fine and persistent carbonation is complemented by a dry, almost tannic lingering flavour.

That acidic finish would pair perfectly with the rich sausages and fried potatoes one would expect from a Bavarian celebration.

The LCBO’s website lists the Kristall Weissbier as discontinued, but there is still a good supply of bottles on the shelf, so as a last reminder of lighter, summer beers, pick a few up while they last.

Weihenstephaner Kristall Weissbier, $3.10 for a 500 ml bottle, LCBO #271783

Toronto’s own Bond girl

By

-

11:23 am

0

REPORT CARD

STUDENT:
Bronwyn Cosgrave
GRADUATED:
Leaside High School, 1984
BEST SUBJECTS:
English, History
WORST SUBJECT:
Math
CURRENT JOB:
Writer, 007 exhibit curator

A flair for fashion has always been a forte of Bronwyn Cosgrave’s, the woman behind this month’s Designing 007: 50 Years of Bond Style exhibit at the TIFF Bell Lightbox. But until her final six months of high school, she wore a uniform every day.

Ultimately the strict nature of St. Joseph’s College School didn’t agree with her, so Cosgrave transferred to Leaside High School, for her last semester of high school, where she flourished.

Heavily influenced by her friends’ stylish mothers as well as her own family’s neat and tidy taste, Cosgrave took her love for fashion and turned it into a career.

After high school, she did a degree in history and film studies at Western though she didn’t know how to make a career of it.

So even though she had no interest in business writing, she took a job working under Desmond Smith at the CBC who “saw something in me and just encouraged me to go for it.”

Later she applied to City University’s masters of journalism program, moved to London, England, and from there things snowballed.

She got a job covering fashion for the Globe and Mail, and after finishing her education, she worked at the British newspaper the European where she covered both the fashion and film desks, allowing her to travel all over Europe.

After building a name for herself on the arts scene, jobs seem to just fall into her lap. “People come to me and they say, ‘Is there something here?’ and generally, I find something very exciting and can really help people realize projects not just as minor but as major kinds of landmarks.”

She has since been the host of a CBC reality show called Host Hunt, has written a book about Coco Chanel and is the founding chairperson of the Dorchester Collection Fashion Prize.

Now, though, Cosgrave is taking on a whole new challenge as the co-curator of Designing 007: 50 Years of Bond Style at the Barbican Centre in London, which is travelling to her hometown at the end of this month. The exhibit will show at the TIFF Bell Lightbox until Jan. 20 and features the fashion, gadgets and behind-the-scenes memorabilia of the James Bond films.

When she was approached by Eon Films, she was on board immediately. She says, “This is probably the project I am most proud of because it just worked out beautifully.”

Striking liquid gold

By

-

11:17 am

0

REPORT CARD

STUDENT:
Eric Brass
GRADUATED:
Forest Hill Collegiate, 2001
BEST SUBJECT:
History
WORST SUBJECT:
Everything else!
CURRENT JOB:
CEO of Tequila Tromba

It was a hot day in Mexico, and tequila was her name. While on an exchange with the Richard Ivey School of Business in 2005, Eric Brass fell in love.

Brass had previously never visited Mexico. He didn’t speak Spanish and didn’t know a thing about Mexican culture. Then, driving in a rented pickup en route from Puerto Verde to Guadalajara, a “tromba” forced him and his roommate-turned-business-partner, Nick Reid, out the road in a small town to wait out the storm.

Realizing that he had an economics classmate who lived in town, Brass made a phone call. While spending the night at the friend’s cottage, he looked out the window and saw a field of what he thought were cacti. He was quickly informed that they were agave plants — what pure tequila is made from.

“That’s the day I fell in love with tequila,” says Brass. “If it weren’t for the tromba that pulled us off the road, this would have never been possible."

“Tromba” refers to the seasonal rainfall that arrives in Mexico every spring, which provides nourishment to the agave plants.

Brass learned that tequila isn’t just the disgusting shot that you knock back at last call. It can also be a terrific spirit that can be sipped and savoured — but many of us in Toronto never have that experience.

“Back home I could go to a bar, get a really low-quality tequila or something that is perceived as high quality because of its price point,” says Brass. “There was nothing that was accessible, in the middle, that was terrific tasting and had the ability to be mixed into a quality cocktail.”

He and Reid decided to fill that void, and an exciting new business venture was born. Tequila Tromba is now behind the counter in over 150 bars and restaurants in the city.

Brass’s keen business sense can be attributed to lessons learned back at Forest Hill C.I.

“Mr. Zambrano was my economics teacher and he inspired us to look behind the surface of why things are done in the world of economics and business,” Brass explains. “He had some pretty radical views on things, he was inspiring.”

Brass has come a long way since graduation in 2001. Claudio Aprile’s Origin restaurant even named a drink after him.

“Origin did this about two months ago and surprised me,” says Brass. “It’s pretty darn cool.”

Dollars and sense

By

-

11:17 am

0

REPORT CARD

STUDENT:
Suzanne Kleinberg
GRADUATED:
York Mills Collegiate Institute, 1982
BEST SUBJECT:
Math
WORST SUBJECT:
Gym
CURRENT JOB:
Author and career consultant

It’s been said, “It’s all about the Benjamins.” Well, here in Canada, it’s all about the Elizabeths. But while they certainly covet “Elizabeths,” teenagers rarely have money management on the mind. Enter Suzanne Kleinberg, who has just released her third book on smart saving strategies for adolescents, It’s All About the Elizabeths.

Watching her niece and nephew grow up, Kleinberg started worrying about their financial and job security. “Hearing the way they talked about their careers and what their expectations were when they got out of school, what they were going to earn, their lifestyles, I realized that there is a real disconnect, and schools aren’t teaching reality to these kids. So that was when I decided I’m going to write about this.”

So Kleinberg used them as inspiration for her books, which have become go-to resources for parents trying to encourage their kids to be smart with money.

Elizabeths is Kleinberg’s third release, following the successful From Playstation to Workstation and Employee Rights and Employer Wrongs.

Although she is very clear-headed when it comes to careers nowadays, that wasn’t always the case. Back in high school, Kleinberg had no idea where she’d end up.

“In high school, I didn’t know what I wanted to be, so if you saw my resumé, it would have like 19,000 different careers on it,” she says. “I changed careers with the wind. I couldn’t nail down what I wanted.”

But eventually, she learned to exercise those decision-making skills, and it started when her mother gave her the choice of either going to French immersion or mainstream school, and she chose mainstream, ultimately attending York Mills Collegiate.

There was also a great variety of class choices. She took accounting to make her parents happy, but also took literary satire to fulfill her own interests.

After high school, she got an economics degree and became a stockbroker’s assistant, eventually leading her to a job in career counselling at the Bank of Montreal. After that job ran its course, she was well equipped to start her own career guidance company, called Potential to Soar.

Now that she has “been in the trenches” and knows how difficult and confusing it can be to build a career when there are so many options out there, Kleinberg is happy to share her knowledge and empower the youths she hopes to reach through her books.

Grab of the Week: a pair of early fall booties from Sigerson Morrison

By

-

11:04 am

0

Although we have officially entered fall, it’s still hard to completely give up on what’s left of warmer, sunnier days. It is a style trap set by the weather, filling the streets of Toronto with off-kilter combinations of winter boots and tank tops, socks and sandals, parkas and jean shorts. This time of year, the city is one big sartorial mess.

Looking into our own wardrobe, we realized that we were lacking was a good pair of (early) fall boots to wear right now. Ones that don’t show toes, but still show a little skin; something to wear with a great pair of jeans that would also look great with bare legs. We found the answer in these booties by Sigerson Morrison that are made even more special with their touch of western flare.

Belle by Sigerson Morrison Felicia bootie, $375. Available at eLUXE.ca

Gracie Carroll is a Toronto-based freelance writer whose work has appeared in ELLE UK, ELLEcanada.com, Plaid magazine and FILLER magazine. Keep up with her daily blog at www.graciecarroll.com.

Morning Throwback: once upon a time, football and city politics were separate

By

-

10:39 am

0

Remember the days when juvenile football had nothing to do with city politics or a schmuck who peaked as a fifth-grade bully?

The mayhem and my New York minute

By

-

4:45 pm

0

When I wrote a blog post for the online portal mommyish.com, I had no idea it would erupt into a fever pitch of proselytizing and pandering that would spread across North America faster than a mustard stain on my cashmere sweater, culminating in my five minutes of infamy in Times Square during Good Morning America.

And it was all because I thought it wise to write about leaving my 10-week-old baby in the care of my mother and nanny while I took a short vacation. Oh the controversial life I lead.

“You are so famous,” my friend wrote to me in e-mail. She continued, “The whole of Times Square is talking about you!”

I was at the hospital when the e-mail arrived. So, yes, I missed the discussion about me on Good Morning America. But I already knew what was coming.

Soon enough my e-mail was burning up. Apparently, a lot of people watch Good Morning America. Another friend wrote, “A Real Housewife of New York is backing you up!!!”

I was actually already on vacation when the story was posted online, but by the time I got back almost every media outlet wanted me as a guest to talk about “When is too soon to leave your baby behind?”

Not that I’m a stranger to controversy, but this was beyond anything I had experienced.

On Good Morning America, the host began by saying, “This story is burning up the mommy blogs and our office is talking all about it. One mommy blogger boasting about leaving her 10-week baby behind to go on vacation raises the question of how soon is too soon to leave your child in someone else’s hands. One thing is for sure, her writing has sparked a fierce debate.”

The day before it aired I had received a request from Good Morning America to be interviewed (I was already back from vacation.) Since it was Good Morning America, I gladly accepted not really anticipating the “firestorm” that it would cause afterwards.

They somehow managed to arrange a camera crew to come to my house (no easy feat since they are based in New York) within two hours.

The cameraman was at my house for over an hour, taking video of me playing and feeding and interviewing me about my son Holt (the little dude I left behind.)

But Good Morning America was just the start.

I had already read numerous comments on the post I wrote for mommyish.com (more than 200 and counting). Half were in my corner saying, “Who cares? As long as the baby is well taken care of.” The other half posted comments such as “You’re self-indulgent. If you need a vacation after 10 weeks, you weren’t ready to be parents.”

I watched two people discuss the “debate” afterwards. One happened to be Jill Zarin, a former Real Housewife of New York City, whom I had been watching for years. I found it hilarious that she was taking my side, saying that it was hypocritical of people to judge me, mentioning that no one would have a problem if a husband had to go back to work or go away on business. “The baby is going to be fine,” she stated. (Seriously, how cool is that!)

The banner on TV read, “Mommy Wars.” “The debate rages on, even here,” the host finished up.

But the best (and worst) was yet to come — Inside Edition, the tabloid entertainment show that millions watch every evening.

I turned down their offer to be interviewed, which didn’t really matter, since they just took the video clips from my Good Morning America interview and flashed photos of my fiancé and me numerous times across the screen. I will say, however, I never thought my name would be uttered in the same sentence as Prince Harry and Taylor Swift. The introduction to that night’s Inside Edition began with, “Prince Harry pulls his pants down in Vegas! Taylor Swift crashes a wedding! Rebecca Eckler ditches her baby!” I couldn’t believe it!

I love how Americans (and Canadians for that matter) edit tabloid shows. Yes, I suppose, as they said, I did “ditch my baby.”

But they made it sound as if I had ditched my baby in a garbage dump, as opposed to leaving him behind in my house with his grandmother.

Soon after, the Globe and Mail picked up the story, and I got calls from CTV, Citytv, Talk1010 and numerous other Canadian media outlets, which I turned down.

Alas, after walking around with a hat and sunglasses for a week, I realized that I was yesterday’s news.

Blake Lively got married! Avril got engaged. Alas, my five New York minutes were up.

Post City Magazines’ columnist Rebecca Eckler is the author of Knocked Up, Wiped!, and her latest books, How to Raise a Boyfriend and The Lucky Sperm Club.

Chef Matthew Sullivan is heading up the menu at Skin and Bones, an upcoming Leslieville restaurant

By

-

4:30 pm

0

Since leaving his gig as executive chef at Maléna and L'Unità, chef Matthew Sullivan has been focusing his energy on Boxed, his pop-up concept. But we’ve now found out that he’s been appointed as chef at an upcoming Leslieville restaurant called Skin and Bones. Details are scarce, but we do know that it’s going to be a large, wine-focused restaurant set inside of a historic warehouse.

The owners of the place haven’t been revealed yet, and neither has the exact address, but the restaurant is set to open before the year is out. Stay tuned for updates on this intriguing concept.

UPDATE: Oct. 10
Skin and Bones is opening at 980 Queen Street East, near Carlaw. The proprieters are Daniel Clarke (who was previously a co-owner of Enoteca Sociale) and Harry Wareham, who was a manager at Enoteca Sociale and Pizzeria Libretto. The restaurant is aiming for a November opening.

Woodpigeon delivers an awe-inspiring performance at Music Gallery

By

-

4:04 pm

0

Mark Andrew Hamilton chose to name his band Woodpigeon because, when written in cursive, it resembles a roller coaster. Rather fitting for the sweeping loops and orbital reverb of the Vienna-by-way-of-Calgary singer-songwriter’s brand of folk. Besides, anyone who can dedicate a song about gay pirates to Stephen Harper in a church is bound to deliver an awe-inspiring performance — and Tuesday night’s set at the Music Gallery was no exception.

Previous forms of Woodpigeon have seen Hamilton working with up to eight other bandmates, and he has collaborated with the likes of Iron & Wine, Grizzly Bear and Broken Social Scene. Last night, Hamilton went solo and played to full pews at the Music Gallery, a.k.a. St. George the Martyr Anglican Church (in which we were admittedly cautious of drinking a beer, especially since there was a simultaneous church meeting happening in the bar’s adjoining room).

It’s been two years since Hamilton last toured in his native country — a rare treat for those part of his cult following, one that was further sweetened by the debut of his tour-only album, Diamonds. International critics, however, have long admired his work, and he was recently bestowed a New Talent award in the UK.

Perhaps it was because he was backed by hallowed stained-glass or because of his formidable facial hair (what is it with folk singers and their menacing mutton chops?), but Hamilton’s show felt transcendent and spiritual. It was punctuated by his characteristic banter, such as asking the crowd whether they’d rather hear a song about regrets or a song about gay pirates (no competition), then proceeding to dedicate the song to our prime minister. And only Hamilton could make us laugh when describing the death of an elephant.

This one-man-with-a-guitar show lacked the production value and instrumentation (including glockenspiels, lap steel guitars, strings, flutes, choirs) that backs almost all Woodpigeon records, but Hamilton made up for it with a loop pedal machine, allowing for a fully-realized set that was brimming with guitar reverb and Hamilton’s own whisper-singing that echoed up into the rafters of the sacred space.

Much to our delight, Woodpigeon cherry-picked from all three of his full-length albums, offering an unapologetically romantic performance. While many of the tracks, such as “Our Love is as Tall as the Calgary Tower” and “For Paolo” can come off as sickly-sweet, even to a fault, Hamilton countered with the darkly macabre “Redbeard” and a song inspired by a 12-year-old who drowned in a river trying to save his friend. Think wistfully lachrymose rather than cheesy sentimentality.

Woodpigeon – For Paolo from Boompa Records on Vimeo.

Groundbreaking comic Phyllis Diller created a lasting legacy

By

-

1:58 pm

0

The death of Phyllis Diller last month at the age of 93 marked the end of a true pioneer in stand-up comedy. Experts, including me, weighed in on Diller’s legacy in the world of comedy, but none of the sound bites really did her justice.

It may be hard see from such a distance the enormous impact she made on comedy. It would not be an overstatement to say she virtually invented womens’ stand-up. Before Joan Rivers, before everybody, Diller was the groundbreaker.

It was not without a price, however. She had to swallow a lot of dignity to get where she got, and the freakishness of her image — the fright wig, the garish muumuus, the cigarette holder, even her signature braying laugh — spoke volumes about the way women had to present themselves to get a laugh in pre-feminist times.

Today, comics from Tina Fey to Sarah Silverman can affect an everyday demeanour and find an easy acceptance from both sexes.

This was, sadly, not always the case. Female comics were threatening and had to unsex themselves to get the laughs.

Diller made herself up like an unattractive clown, but I met her, back in the ’80s, without her war paint and costume.

I found her to be an attractive, classy and chic lady.

But those were the times. Her contemporary, Totie Fields, was morbidly obese, then famously lost her leg to diabetes. Her fame soared even more — no sexual threat there.

Diller’s countless TV appearances proved her to be the mistress of the one-liner — cleverly crafted and perfectly timed. Many male comics had mined their domestic life with joke after joke about their wives, but Phyllis was the first to make her husband, Fang, the target of her jokes. Women making sport of their husbands? Now that was revolutionary. Fang, incidentally, never existed, but was a hybrid of her multiple husbands and a great imagination.

Of course, Diller didn’t exactly emerge from a vacuum: there were a lot of sketch and film comediennes since the age of vaudeville and silent movies. But the only antecedents to her remarkable career were the ribald, outlandish stag comediennes of Miami Beach such as Belle Barth and Pearl Williams.

Barth and Williams are forgotten today and were ignored by much of society in their heyday in the ’50s and ’60s. They were never on TV because they performed in a style that was too sexy and “dirty” to ever put on the mass airwaves.

We could go back even further to Jean Carroll, who performed a very genteel version of female stand-up in the ’40s and early ’50s. Carroll, who died at 98 in 2010, worked fast onstage, cramming a ton of jokes and observations into a short TV-friendly set. An attractive woman dressed in couture clothing, she may have been the real pioneer, but an early retirement shunted her out of the history books.

Not the case with Phyllis Diller. Her influence is massive, her jokes remembered and quoted. She will live on in the media and in our collective memories.

Miss ya!

Post City Magazines’ humour columnist, Mark Breslin, is the founder of Yuk Yuk’s comedy clubs and the author of several books, including Control Freaked.

Area doctor rescues child on charity climb

By

-

1:58 pm

0

Emergency room doctors are trained to keep cool during the most stressful of situations, and local doctor Howard Ovens had his fair share of them while serving as the chief medical officer on the Summit for Sinai last month. The 10-day journey saw two doctors and 13 participants scale Mount Kilimanjaro in support of Mount Sinai Hospital. Altogether, the charity climb has raised $1.3 million to date.

The journey started off quietly, but on the fourth day the participants found a six-year-old boy who had been wandering the mountain, lost and alone, for three days. When Ovens arrived on the scene (he hung back with their slowest climber), the child was dehydrated, hungry and cold. He only spoke in single words, but said his name was Emmanuel, he was from a town called Moshi and was cutting grass for his family’s livestock when he got lost. Once Dr. Ovens and his colleague Dr. Bjug Borgundvaag had treated the boy, a porter set out to take him home.

But the drama didn’t end there. The day before reaching the summit, a group member fell extremely ill. He couldn’t breath. Even after some rest, his condition continued to decline so Dr. Ovens, again, sprang into action.

He stayed behind and treated his companion while everyone else reached the summit: “There was no doubt in my mind about what I had to do, so there wasn’t a moment’s hesitation.”

Residents at odds over observatory tribunal

By

-

1:58 pm

0

After stretching over four weeks, the hearing deciding the fate of a hotly-contested piece of green space in the Town of Richmond Hill came to a close, leaving one resident’s group asking if it was necessary at all.

The hearing before the Ontario Municipal Board (OMB) tribunal ended Sept. 12. It concerned an agreement mediated between the town, landowner Corsica Developments, Inc. and residents’ groups. This agreement would preserve 99 of the 189 acres of the David Dunlap Observatory lands from development, but the Richmond Hill Naturalists (RHN), who seek to save it all, objected, prompting the hearing.

However, Karen Cilevitz, chair of residents’ group the David Dunlap Observatory Defenders, said she was particularly upset the RHN’s brief closing arguments seemed to boil down to altering a single boundary line and removing a small piece of land from the settlement. She said such issues should have been resolved in mediation, which RHN did not attend. “Practically everyone I spoke to since then is actually quite shocked, if not aggravated,” she said. “If that was all their concerns, if that is what they came to, then everything that was discussed, for the 12 days prior, was really a waste of everybody’s time, effort and money.”

RHN president Marianne Yake disagreed, defending bringing her group’s evidence for preserving the site’s wetlands, wildlife and overall designated historical landscape before the OMB. “I think if that is how they would characterize it, I would differ on that,” she said. “I think it is the evidence that is before the board that is more important.”

She said RHN did not want to “give up” any of the site in mediation behind closed doors, adding an OMB hearing was crucial to keep the public involved in a process that has been going on for five years.

“That is why this [OMB] process has been helpful to the public,” she said. “People that were interested can go to the hearings and hear what the evidence is.”

The final ruling is expected to come within weeks.