03/31/2010

In the Port Hawkewbury office for today and tomorrow. 625-0302

Tags: Where's Maggie?
You can reach me in the office for the next 2 days, 8:30 - 4:30.

03/31/2010

Two More Weeks Of Service At The NSCC Culinary School Restaurant

Tags: Food and Wine
From Dawn:

Hello Everyone;

  I know that some of you were thinking we were finished of service in the dining room…..but…..WE HAVE TWO FULL WEEKS LEFT!!This week’s menu is a collaborated effort by the entire Second Year Culinary Group. We begin with a “Triple Seafood Chowder”, topped with Lobster! Our other soup is Roasted Garlic and Brie, the PERFECT combination. There is also a “Smoked Salmon Crêpe Torte “,under the Appetizer List, which would be even more delicious with a glass of Montevina Pinot Grigio or Woodbridge Sauvignon Blanc.

          For our Entrees we are offering  “Pan Seared Salmon”, with Black Olive Couscous, and Tomato Salsa. There is also a Grilled Ribeye Steak with Chasseur Sauce. Last but not Least, under  the Dessert selections  we have an “Almond Macaroon Torte with Chocolate Frosting and Orange Compote. Or you could try “Tarte Tatin with Brandied Caramel Sauce and Dark Rum Ice Cream. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.   

          We offer a well rounded wine list that has something appropriate for each and every course. Since we serve our wines by the bottle and by the glass, it gives our customers the option of trying a different wine with each course selection.

If you are interested in a reservation for The Dining Room @ The Strait, I strongly suggest booking through our emailing system, as I check it regularly, and I would be happy to book a table for you. We hope to see you soon!!

DINNER Wednesday & Thursday One Seating @ 6:00p.m.

LUNCH Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday 11:30 – 1:00 p.m. Friday

* CLOSED * for “GOOD FRIDAY”

Call Dawn for a reservation 625-4296

03/30/2010

Jaguar Sighting

Tags: Wild Things
On the way home this afternoon a beautiful, sleek, black cat the size of a Labrador Retriever ran across the road in front of me. What a beautiful animal it is! Its shoulder were sinuous and muscular and moved independently of its haunches, with a long, lithe torso in between. It was a true treat to see that animal today.

03/28/2010

If I've done one thing right in my life, I'm glad it's this

Tags: Family
We got this unsolicited message in our email today about our children, one of whom flew into a local airport a few days ago.

"I just spent a wonderful half day with Leah and Neil. I watched them land at Cambridge. ... I like Neil. He seems to make Leah happy, and he seems intelligent, focused and ambitious. I also think he has wisdom about him. He was telling me about how the friends he has who came to this party, were unable to get there until 6 because they had to work. He seemed to understand the dilemma of balancing work, money and time for ones self. He seems content with his choices. And to hear Leah talk about buying clothes from Goodwill, was refreshingly un materialistic. I don’t know if I have told you this enough, but I like the way your kids have grown up. You guys did a good job."

03/17/2010

Happy Saint Patrick's Day! Erin Go Bragh

Tags: Holiday
It's the wearin' o the green day. I have mine on.

Today's menu is classic Irish: leftovers. Later, dogwalking, yoga and the hundredpushups program. Funny, Kit is losing weight and I am gaining weight. Go figure.

03/14/2010

On This Lovely, Sunny Day

Tags: Life In General
I long to go outside for a long, refreshing walk in the warm sunshine. It can be a long, long time from breakfast to midafternoon. 3:00, hurry!

03/12/2010

Oh no, not again - the Atkins Diet is back

Tags: Food & Health Well-Being
From what I have been reading in the news, the Atkins Diet is making a comeback. This time it will allow more salt, more fat - and possibly more veggies, though I doubt that's what entices dieters to follow the plan.

For the record, if you are on the Atkins Diet, please stay far away from me until you come to your senses and DO NOT invite me to dinner, then feed me a chunk of dead animal and nothing else. Puh-leez. Everyone I know who has been on the Atkins Diet is heavier than when they started, with the exception of one person who has been lately following Weight Watchers.

I am flabbergasted that this is coming back. How can otherwise intelligent people be so dumb as to follow this nonsense? I think I'll go stick my head under a pillow, unplug the phone and bolt the doors until it becomes passe again.

03/12/2010

Preparing For Beach Season

Tags: Fitness & Life
Today's regimen includes making up what we didn't do yesterday, so we did 15 min yoga, 113 pushups, 170 situps, 153 squats. Pumped! It's much easier to stick to the plan if we do it first thing in the morning.

Today's Breakfast menu: whole grain blueberry pancakes, sliced fruit, coffee & tea.

Lunch: leftovers.

Today's Supper menu: chicken Parmesan, garden risotto, arugula and garden lettuce salad with sliced pears and blue cheese. Dessert, nah. Then again, maybe more butterscotch pudding with banana slices. So tasty.

03/11/2010

Are there any houses to rent within 15-20 minutes of Port Hawkesbury?

Tags: Life In Cape Breton Real Estate
Yesterday a couple came in to the office looking for a place to rent, lease or rent-to-purchase. They are living away and will be moving into this area. The house needs to have 2 roomy bedrooms. Apparently they have plenty of furniture that needs to fit into the rooms. It could be in Lower River, Long Point, West Bay, anyplace no more than 15-20 minutes from Port Hawkesbury. This is a really nice couple, from what I can tell from talking with them, and I'd like to help them out. Please let me know if you know of anything local. We don't normally handle rentals but I really feel for this couple, it's hard to shop for a place to live in a new town when you're on a 2 day visit.

03/11/2010

GOLDEN PHONE

Tags: Humor Life In Cape Breton
A photographer on vacation was inside a church taking photographs when he noticed a golden telephone mounted on the wall with a sign that read '$10,000 per call'.

The American, being intrigued, asked a priest who was strolling by what the telephone was used for.

The priest replied that it was a direct line to heaven and that for $10,000 you could talk to God.

The American thanked the priest and went along his way.

Next stop was in Atlanta. There, at a very large cathedral, he saw the same golden telephone with the same sign under it.

He wondered if this was the same kind of telephone he saw in Orlando and he asked a nearby nun what its purpose was.

She told him that it was a direct line to heaven and that for $10,000 he could talk to God.

'O.K., thank you,' said the American .

He then traveled to Indianapolis, Washington, Philadelphia, Boston, and New York.

In every church he saw the same golden telephone with the same '$10,000 per call' sign under it.

The American, upon leaving Vermont, decided to travel up to Canada to see if Canadians had the same phone.

He arrived in Canada and in the first church he entered there was the same golden telephone but this time the sign under it read '50 cents per call.'

The American was surprised so he asked the priest about the sign. 'Father, I've traveled all over America and I've seen this same golden telephone in many churches. I'm told that it is a direct line to heaven, but in the US the price was $10,000 per call. Why is it so cheap here?'

The priest smiled and answered, 'You're in Canada now, son ... it's a local call.'

03/07/2010

Taking A Break

Tags: Food Fitness & Life
Lest anyone thinks we're goody-two-shoes, we are taking the day off today. No yoga, no situps, no pushups, no squats. Butterscotch pudding for breakfast.

03/06/2010

The Other Scenic Trail Tour

Tags: Life In Cape Breton
Today we took advantage of a beautiful day and did a little drive-around trip through Antigonish to Malignant Cove. The scenery around that road rivals the Cabot Trail in places and we had the road almost completely to ourselves.

We took the dogs for a little walk on the beach. The waves were rolling in, foamy. That didn't stop my intrepid Border Collies, they plowed on into the waves. Lily especially was into fetching sticks from the water, paddling furiously on into the Atlantic. At one point a big wave washed over her and she momentarily disappeared, only to pop back up to the surface, stick in mouth. Then back out into the surf she went, on yet another fetch.

03/05/2010

Too Funny Junk (not really) Food!

Tags: Food & Entertainment
How about this for a portable snack food? http://www.sushipopper.com/default.aspx

03/04/2010

NSCC Culinary School Menu For This Week

Tags: Food & Wine Local Business Local Talent
This is what is being offered at supper time Wednesday, Thursday and lunch on Friday. If you make a reservation, please honor it or cancel it so someone else can enjoy dining in the restaurant.

SOUP:

Potato Bacon and Sweet Corn Chowder/ $4

Mussels and Vegetable Cream Soup/ $4

APPETIZER:

Shallot and Wild Mushroom Tart/ $6

Baby Spinach and Goat Cheese Salad/$6

ENTREE:

Trio of Beef Mini Burger, Beef Stew, and Steak/$16

Pan Fried Digby Scallops with Barley Risotto/ $16

VEGETARIAN:

Caramelized Butternut Squash, Sweet Potato and Ricotta Lasagna with a Roasted Pepper Coulis/ $10

DESSERT:

Maple Chiffon Cake with Old Fashioned Boiled Icing and Blueberry Sorbet/ $5.

Annapolis Valley Apple and Buttermilk Tart/$5

_______________________________________________________________________________________ Here is the lunch menu for Wednesday and Thursday.

START:

Daily Soup Creation 3

Sweet Potato Frites with Curry Mayonnaise 3

Romaine Hearts with Caesar Vinaigrette, Reggianno Chards, and Buttered Croutons 4

Panko Crusted Onions with Grilled Striploin Steak, Champs and Scallion Caper Green Sauce 7

Homemade Fettuccine with Spicy Butterflied Shrimp, Tomato White Wine Cream Sauce, Basil and Feta 6

Beer Battered Haddock Loins, Frites, Classic Tarter Sauce, and Slaw 7

Roast Turkey Panini with Sweet Peppers, Grainy Mustard Aioli, Caramelized Onions, Provolone, and Frites 6

Smoked Ham Panini with Tomato, Spinach, Mozzarella, Basil and Frites 6

FINISH:

Butterscotch Meringue Tart 4

Chocolate Sticky Toffee Pudding 5

Dawn 625-4296 "We are fully booked for our evening service slot for this week, but do have lunch openings for Wednesday and Thursday."

03/02/2010

What An Interesting Weather Day

Tags: Life In Cape Breton
This morning we turned around in Lime Hill and went back home. The wet snow was getting deeper and we decided to stay at home after all.

By the afternoon, the weather had warmed, all the snow and sleet melted and there was a definite look of spring around us. The perennials, biennials, herbs, bulbs and rhizomes have sent up fresh shoots and greened their leaves. The trees and shrubs are forming pale buds. The snow is gone, the grass is starting to grow and the lettuce is getting frisky in the cold frame. Spring has sprung and it's early this year. The weekend is forecast to be cold but that's temporary. We could be in for a balmy St. Paddy's Day.

03/02/2010

Goings On Nearby

Tags: Culture & Traditions
Saturday night we attended a dance that was held in the Bras d'Or Lakes Inn. It was a Winter Festival activity sponsored by The Municipality of Richmond County and the Destination Richmond Tourism Cooperative.

From 8:30-9:00 there was a refresher of the Grand River set that we had learned a couple of weeks ago. We also did the Inverness Set, as it is done locally, which we had muddled through a couple of years ago. We had a lot of fun and laughs as we danced our way through the sets. Our caller, Claire, is new to much of the figures as are most of the participants, with only the older folks having some memory of how the sets go. The older gents did some discussing, arguing and memory-prompting as they tried to get the order of the figures as they danced them in the past.

The idea is to record the various dances, while we still have folks among us who know them, so they will not be lost forever. In the process, there has been no small amount of tweaking - during the dances - and that makes for a certain amount of chaos. At one point, all three sets were doing something different and there was even some inadvertant intermingling of people in the sets when a grand chain went off on an unscheduled tangent. Add to that a woman dancing the gent's part and you get some confusion, which explains 5 women moving clockwise and 3 men going counterclockwise around the set. Hoo boy. As long as we all remember to laugh instead of getting our britches in a twist, all is well. This is supposed to be fun.

In the book "The Flowing Tide" Pat Murphy recorded the Inverness South Square Set in Halifax in 1996 but it is not the same as the Inverness Set we do here. More confusion. This appears to be the only Nova Scotia square set he recorded in either of his books.

Yesterday was Gaelic day. We met with several other folks to do our level best to become conversational in the old language. Some folks are doing better than others, I'm not making much progress but Kit is coming along nicely with it. No matter what, it is always fun and we are good at laughing at ourselves and with each other in a good-natured way. This seems to be a particularly humorous bunch, which helps, not to mention using a unique variety of stuffed animals as props (platypus, weasel, mooing cow, cur, sheep).

I hope our postmistress is feeling better after her bout with the flu.
Download File things-to-do.asp

03/01/2010

An Incendiary, Provocative Concept

Tags: News
I found this article in this morning's CNN Health. It is sure to prompt some heated debate. Unless it gets squelched instead.

"... Political, religious and sexual behaviors may be reflections of intelligence, a new study finds. ... people who identified as liberal and atheist had higher IQs."

Read the rest of it here. http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/02/26/liberals.atheists.sex.intelligence/index.html?hpt=C2

03/01/2010

New, Improved Flexitarian Lifestyle

Tags: Food & Health
For 2010, we have taken on a flexitarian lifestyle (I say we but mostly it's Kit who has changed). We are getting good at changing our diet in favor of more vegetables, less meat.  

Last night's menu: Curried duck breast, pan-roasted potatoes, braised lettuce with peas and glazed root vegetables, cooked on the wood-burning Jotul cookstove.  

72 pushups, 107 squats, no yoga, 2 mile dog walk late this afternoon. We be buff old farts.

03/01/2010

What's Going On In The Area?

Tags: Being Neighborly Entertainment News Entertainment News In Marble Mountain Family Fitness Fitness & Life Food & Entertainment Local Business Local News
If you have an event to promote, enter it in the Around The Lake calendar. http://www.marblemountainvillage.com/calendar