I love soul food...working at Gratiot and McDougall for 3 years exposed me to some goooood food! This is real food and I hope this is as good as I think it may be.........
Windsor's Namaste Corner Cafe offers meals for $5
Corner Café hopes it'll pay off
THE WINDSOR STAR HEADLINE NEWS
Gallery: Toronto Santa Claus Parade
The Toronto Santa Claus parade has been a tradition since 1905 and is thought to be the longest running children's parade in the world. Photos by Staff...
For some odd happenstance I have had a spike in readership and all have seemed to go to the same page.
Its my hope that the new readers stick around and read about some of the great things going on down here. So here is a primer for people who know little of this area.
Wine: This is a cool climate area like Burgundy or Bordeaux. We are actually about as far south (42nd parallel) as Northern California so our winters are usually not too bad and our summers are long and warm. The wines come stylistically like French wines. Leaner and more complex than a hot region and minus the jamminess of hot growth areas. The French grapes all are grown here...Cab Sauv, Cab Franc, Merlot, Syrah, Pinot Noir, Sauv Blanc, Chardonnay, Pinot Blanc (soon), Gewurztraminer, Riesling along with Nebbiolo (soon), and Pinot Grigio. Quite diverse and along with some hybrids, the wines here can be a little bigger than expected but they are not big jammy fruit-bombs. Alcohol content is close to the ideal 12.5% so they are “right”. No 15% Pinots here, and you get alot more complex tastes and more of the good wine stuff like anti-oxidants as they do better in cooler climates.
Golf: 2 Donald Ross courses (1 city owned) and an amazing number of courses throughout the county. Many are old so they have real trees and most are public.....great ones out near Kingsville (wine area).
Pizza: yup, the best in Canada and maybe North America. The best ones can trace their heritage back to the old Volcano, even if they don't have direct roots, style wise they are there. Thin crust, good sauce and yummy stuff. Chains try but with real Windsorites, we all fight the fight for our favourite pizza joint. Me I've always been a Sam's guy but now that I spend most of my time in the county, I can't get there...booohooo..had my first date with Terry there though.
Foods: down so south alot grows local and finally the restaurants are getting it. It took time but they do. Good ethnic food, but the best is getting local meats and produce and doing a 10 minute meal. Now thats cool!!!! 100 miles is just too easy.
History: we got it too....end of the Underground Railway, battlefield of the War of 1812, and Prohibition. Everyone down here has their stories. For some reason alot of whiskey got exported to the Bahamas in open boats by the Purple Gang.....they had a pipeline from East Windsor to Detroit under the river for whiskey.....and of course there is La Salle which was smuggler heaven (the river is really narrow there). Its fun stuff.
Nature: Point Pelee had the birding...don't quite get it but thats ok and its a Carolinian Forest (don't know what that means but it sounds good) and with water on 3 sides fishing and boating are big here.
Well thats my primer. Our wine is hard to get outside the area and with a certain Toronto sommelier buying up lots of the wine I like I am getting to hate TO even though I loved living there.
tootles
We recently held the inaugural meeting of the Cottam Wine Society. There is no Presidente for Life as this is an organic fun group.
The meeting was held at where else...the hub of the Cottam dining world and the home of the best local wine list....Calabria, in beautiful downtown Cottam.
There Terry and I dined with Gary and Wanda Killups from the Essex Wine Review and were often joined by our happy restauranteur John Driedger.
Wine brought was 2001 (my last bottle from Opimium)Grand Alsatiannnan Riesling, Sanson Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc, Flat Rock Chardonnay, Aleksander Chardonnay and one other I forgot. John relaxed his corkage a wee bit after we bribed him with the Riesling. We later bought 2 bottles from John so they made out well too.
Our guest speaker was Gord Mitchell from Sprucewood. Actually he stopped by and said hello as he was having dinner there with his wife, but I still treat him as a friend and of course our inaugural speaker.
Dinner was pizza and we ate and drank far too much but we enjoyed it. Good friends and good food and wine...what more can you ask for.
We are arranging our next meeting soon and well it will be fun too I bet...anyone can come
We will remember them. In France , at a fairly large conference, Prime Minister Steven Harper was asked by a French cabinet minister if Canadian involvement in Afghanistan was just an example of "empire building". Mr Harper answered by saying, You could have heard a pin drop.
'Over the years, Canada has sent many of its fine young men and women into great peril to fight for freedom beyond our borders. The only amount of land we have ever asked for in return is enough to bury those that did not
return.'
A Canadian Admiral was attending a naval conference that included Admirals from the Canadian, US, English, Australian and French Navies. At a cocktail reception, he found himself standing with a large group of officers that included personnel from most of those countries. Everyone was chatting away in English as they sipped their drinks, but a French
Admiral suddenly complained that, whereas Europeans learn many languages, North Americans generally learn only English. He then asked, 'Why is it that we always have to speak English at these conferences rather than speaking French?' Without hesitating, the Canadian Admiral replied 'Maybe it's because the Brits, Canadians, Aussies and Americans arranged it so you wouldn't have to speak German.'
'You have been to France before, monsieur?' the customs officer asked sarcastically.
Mr. Whiting admitted that he had been to France previously.
The official replied, 'Then you should know enough to have your passport ready.'
The Canadian said, 'The last time I was here, I didn't have to show it.'
'Impossible, Monseur. Canadians always have to show passports on arrival in France !'
The Canadian senior gave the Frenchman a long hard look. Then he quietly explained, 'Well, when I came ashore on D-Day in 1944 to help liberate this country, I couldn't find a single Frenchman to show a passport to.'
You could have heard a pin drop.
Very amazing answers...and very true.
Remember our veterans and those that serve today.
Just finished racking my cider and of course tasting it. I was exceptionally careful in mixing the apple types (yeah right....it didn't quite work the way I thought it would) so the apple distribution has no effect.
Please follow the link and see/hear this music video. Only a person from the east coast could be so right. http://www.terry-kelly.com/pittance/pittance_en.htm
Our Appellations, Lake Erie North Shore and Pelee Island are the home of the Essex Scottish Highland Light Infantry, a regiment which my father and many other local men and women served in and liberated Holland from the Nazis. Prior to that they were involved in the infamous Dieppe Raid which was a disaster and decimated so many neighbourhoods in the area. In the Regimental system the regiments were located geographically so a disaster like Dieppe had horrible effects. About half the regiment was lost, but there was the “honour” of getting the furthest inland.
The Generals said that they learned alot and it saved thousands of live at D-Day. Well it is humorous that a member of the Royal Family was utterly incompetent and it took a dirt poor farm-boy from Missouri to get it right (well he made a great President too). I wonder how many silent cheers there were in the Legion Halls when Mountbatten was blown up by the IRA.
With our finest in Afghanistan, risking their lives and the tragedy at Fort Hood, I think that at 11:00 am tomorrow we should all bow our heads and pray for our brave lads and those who have served so proudly before them.
We need to remember with great pride how our brave men liberated the Dutch in 45 and maybe we can in time turn Afghanistan into a proper country.
So raise a toast to the brave ones and if you see an elderly man selling poppies ask him if he wants a coffee, he deserves it.
I always find it odd when local wine geeks refuse to try local wine, but are so quick to buy from any new wine region which the lickbo is promoting. True our region only has a limited number of wineries with limited to no support from lickbo or the local hospitality industry, so trying them requires effort...much more effort than it should btw.
So what happens when we take a local wine and have it go against a Sonoma, then a French wine. How can it hold up?
Last night we bbq'd some lamb, so what goes with this??? Syrah of course. Add to that we made an Herbes de Provence infused olive oil to marinade the chops and the Rhone wine should shine..right??.
We started with the Californian, Cline Syrah. This is a fine wine that Vintages carries all the time. It lacks that burnt fruit tastes and seems a bargain at the price.
Next was the Syrah from Ruthven via Mastronardi. My review tells what I think of it. Lean, not burnt fruit (basically can't happen here). It goes to say that I like this wine. Syrah can't grow here of course...but I love the local ones who somehow defy the spoken truths of the wine snobs.
Third was Venus Lauree, Cotes du Rhone Villages from of course the Rhone Valley in France. A very nice wine.
All are about the same price so there isn't a ringer.
The lamb chops marinated for about 2 hours. The oil was an extraction from Herbes de Provence and garlic. I was saddened that we didn't get local lamb but this was still good. We grilled them with pecan wood chips. Frenched green beans in garlic butter and a free form gratin aided as sides.
So how did it go? All 3 were great with the lamb and what was interesting was that all were fairly similar and none either stood out nor fell behind. That is interesting as the three regions are very dissimilar, but they had basically the same grape ( the Frenchy was a Grenache-Syrah blend which is typical from the Rhone). All blended well to the next.
It just confirms what a local winemaker keeps telling me. He believes that this area is wonderful and is the best area other than Napa and Sonoma in North America. He points to the development of the grapes which mature completely at harvest time. In hot areas the grapes may have the sugar, but they aren't mature therefore the have to hang and the sugar goes way up and the acid falls way down. The result is a 15% Pinot that is all fruit and no subtleties. Here the acid stays up and the sugar is there but not too high resulting in12-13% Pinot which is right in the sweet spot. Besides that, the good stuff in wine is more abundant in cool climate wines so the local wine is really good for you.
So it was fun and good to see that the local champion held its own . A winner wasn't chosen but I liked them all.
We just have to keep screaming that our local wine is as good or better than the imports. Just wish that the lickbo would support them rather than Yellow Penguin.
Tootles
CIDER UPDATE
getting ready to rack it as the primary fermentation looks to be almost done. Maybe Thursday
Since I see alot of my readers are not from Ontario I would like to add a little to the Cellared in Canada post.
CIC wines are blends of up to 70% foreign wine and 30% local juice. The odd thing is is that the only wineries allowed to make it are wineries with pre 1993 licenses. What is odder is that most of these (except the LENS ones...local) are now owned by Constellation Brands which is American. Constellation bought up Vincor, which was the largest Canadian group thus getting access to this market segment which was there to keep the industry viable.
The real problem is that the LCBO (gov't liquor stores) or lickbo as “the Prodigal One” refers to it, likes to harp that it sells ~ 52% Canadian content, but VQA is only 1/5 of this amount. So the CIC is the bulk of the wine.
So let's do some cipherin as Jethro Bodine would say. If VQA is only 20% of wine sold and CIC accounts for 80%.....lets see....30% of 80% is..naught goes into nought.....my goes-intos aren't that good ...so lets say 24% of the grapes are from Ontario. So lets say that 20% (VQA) and 24% (CIC) results in 44% of the grapes in Canadian wine sold by the Licko are actually Canadian. More grapes are sourced from outside Canada than from in.
Add to this, the fact that only a handful of the BIG wineries can make CIC legally, I wonder how we have a wine industry.
Go into the lickbo and you see Cellared in Canada prominently and the VQA sign. Well at least CIC wines are cheap but they are a fraud. I don't have a problem with them as they do create wealth and employment, but to the average person they think as these as Ontario wines, which they aren't. But remember they absorb more than ½ the grapes sold (and generally the poorer ones). Eliminating the program would severely harm the grape growers, and we as wine lovers need them.
So why does the lickbo do this???Nobody really knows but I bet they make more money on importing cheap wine and marketing it than working with small wineries. They want volume and are so proud that they are the 'biggest single buyers of wine and spirits in the world”....well Tesco (England) and Costco (US) may disagree. They seem to not be interested in the local craft wineries. True they will be more work to sell, margins would be more variable, but it would create jobs and local wealth.
So buy your wine from the wineries and **** lickbo as the don't care about us. Most wineries will ship so don't let dalton's gang stop you from buying our wine.
Tootles
On Grapes
The harvest is over, and alot of grapes were left unsold. I wonder if I could have been able to buy grapes from a grower. Per what I know they can't sell to me as I don't have a license to buy.
So I can buy grapes from California but seem to not be able to buy Ontario grapes.....better to let them rot.
So why not let the uncontracted grapes be sold to the public and......and.....U Brew wine shops. Yes could you imagine Drunken Dalton's being able to sell local juice. I am sure that that pressing could be arranged for the bulk juice and then the could sell fresh juice as a special. There easy peesy.... wouldn't it be cool if hobbyists could use all the extra grapes. And think of this one...we could deprive Dalton and his gang of the taxes.....hahahaha
tootles
Cider is going good....bubbling away
The harvest should be done and yet alot of grapes remain unsold. The current system is just basically wrong.
Most wine lovers want Cellared in Canada wines to be boycotted and the program cancelled. The problem with this is that the impact on the grape growers would be devastating. I am not a fan but eliminating this product would be disastrous.
If you didn't know, you have to have a pre- 1993 licence to sell Cellared in Canada Wine (CIC). This is basically unfair and gives the big players a real advantage. It was designed to allow the wineries to survive bad crop years, but has become a cash cow for Lickbo and the big wineries.
If it was cancelled many grape growers would be bankrupted. These are family farms which would be lost and remember the investment for grapes is huge. You just can't switch to soya beans for a year or two if you grow grapes. So to ban it would cause chaos and would have severe impact on the business.
So, how do I propose to solve the problems related to CIC. This is easy.
1)simply relate the percentage of local grapes to vary per the crop. If it is a bad year lower the content and if its a good crop raise it. The long term goal is to eliminate CIC but do it slowly.
2)allow all wineries to make CIC if they choose. Most won't but this is only fair.
3)make labelling to show what CIC is and that it is not VQA
4)allow Appellation Wine stores which sell only VQA wine from that Appellation. Put this outside the Lickbo so they can't torpedo it
5)make the Lickbo feature CANADIAN WINE...go to Michigan and California wine is featured. You can buy wine from all over the world but American wine is featured. Why does our gov't who owns Lickbo hate local wine. Well the make more money selling Yellow Penguin but it would be nice to feature what we sell and create jobs.
6)reform VQA and remove the tasting element. Keep technical rules, but let the winemakers make weird and wonderful wines. Make it fair and get the Lickbo out of VQA. Make rules that help the industry grow and create jobs.
CIC isn't evil, and it does move grapes. We need reform to make the industry grow and prosper. I don't care about exports as I'd like us to drink mainly local and drink everything made here. Wineries are a great vehicle to increase tourism and diversify the economy. With St Catherine's and Windsor down and out any new jobs should be promoted but my pal Dalton just doesn't seem to get it....bet he drinks Yellow Penguin.
tootles
Links
Emancipation Day Celebratio...
Emancipation Day Celebration once the largest outdoor cel...
Amherstburg Ice Cream Festival
This Canada Day, the town of Amherstburg will celebrate C...
Tours and more
Trolley Tours ~ Windsor Ess...
cool people doing wine tours
inemaker’s Notes: Lovely, dry red wine, rich, with dark f...
Recent Comments
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D. Clark said:
[this is good]As a French Citizen, living in Canada, I'm embarassed by the actions of the french officials in all your stories.... read more
on I was sent this and decided it needed to be posted -
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BBS said:
Some simple but elegant answers. I've repost this at The Torchhttp://toyoufromfailinghands.blogspot.com/2009/11/simple-and-to-point.html read more
on I was sent this and decided it needed to be posted -
Simeon said:
[this is good]I hope you haven't forgotten me ...............lol read more
on Cider Update -
Awesome concept!!! I hope it works Kim, I'll be routing for you!!!! You should be proud!!!!