This is my personal blog through which I share observations about my creative passions — and everything in between.
If you play hockey and don’t score any goals, you lose. If you play baseball and don’t hit any runs, you lose. If you play basketball and don’t shoot any baskets, you lose. If you play football and don’t score any touchdowns or field goals, you lose. However, if you fly fish and you don’t catch any fish, you still win. ‘What?’ the competitive sceptic…
I harbor an aversion to barbers usually reserved for dentists. The cause of this pitiful condition extends back to childhood when my dad, a professional firefighter for nearly four decades, fancied himself an amateur barber. Every couple of months — until I was working and able to finance trips to a barbershop adorned with a Toronto Maple Leafs calendar, assorted outdoor magazines and remnants of pungent…
CAMBRIDGE — I’ve seldom written about food; however, I’ve had the privilege of talking to a trio of Canadian food writing giants. Although we never met, Edna Staebler — author of Food That Really Schmecks and other monstrous best sellers — would occasionally phone me when I was an arts writer for the Waterloo Region Record. She would call in response to an article or review she…
BLYTH — There was a time when, if you traveled to Blyth to see a play at the festival, you had one option with respect to dinner — the home-cooking provided by the Blyth Inn. Then, three years ago, the hometown couple of Peter (Fanshawe College culinary grad) and Sarah Gusso opened Part II Bistro (the II is actually a knife and fork). The bistro…
Scotland, my auld, respected mither! Tho’ whiles ye moistify your leather, Till, whare ye sit on craps o’ heather, Ye tine your dam; Freedom an’ whisky gang thegither! Take aff your dram! — Robbie Burns Down through the centuries, across Scotland’s varied landscape, malt whisky was known in Gaelic as uisce beath — the Water of Life. And with very good reason. I have spent…