Late October
2018: Off to the DevourFest festival
in Wolfville, Nova Scotia! And then
a few days in Halifax, Nova Scotia and then Montreal. BEWARE READERS: This blog has a lot of photos of food and
wine. Some of my friends refer to such
graphics as “food porn”, but can’t help it …this trip was a lot about good food
and good wine, and of course GOOD FRIENDS!
Here’s
what I saw flying into Nova Scotia on October 22: Water such a brilliant deep
blue that every twinkle of sunlight and every fantasy of cloud is clearly
reflected back from it. And here and there an exuberant burst of red oak trees!
View
from breakfast room at the Tattingstone Inn, Wolfville, Nova Scotia
Beautiful
fall colors, lovely architecture, and — what can be more Canadian than the
Mounted Police — all seen in a quick walk around Wolfville, Nova Scotia.
And so the festival
begins! It’s a big deal, with signs
greeting festival-goers prominently posted at Halifax airport,
First
seminar: Canada produces 80% of the
world’s ice wines, and they are produced to rigid specifications: grapes
picked after the first frost following December 6, picked at midnight,
immediately pressed at 300 Bar more than used for pressing other grapes, etc
etc etc. This lovely dessert wine from Vidal Blanc grapes grown in the
Annapolis Valley in which Wolfville is located (Wolfville = Devour festival HQ)
is made by Lightfoot & Wolfville vineyard. Pairs with bleu cheese,
chocolate, plum pudding etc
“When you think of Nova Scotia, you think of sparkling wines,” said Bruce Ewert, winemaker at L’Acadie Vineyards located in the Gaspereau Valley. This variety, L’Acadie, and other varieties that grow in this cool part of Nova Scotia, benefit from the climactic influence of the Bay of Fundy. You can glimpse the Bay from the lawn at the Grand Pre Winery, where this Devour workshop is being held.
An
interesting way to view a chef’s dinner bring prepared as part of the
Devour Food Film Wine Fest in Wolfville, Nova Scotia this week: cameras trained
on the kitchen prep area. Very interesting and great fun. Count me out of the octopus course and the
French blood sausage, though... can’t eat octopus after reading “The Soul of an
Octopus”!.
It’s
harvest time for wine grapes in Nova Scotia too. Winemaker/owner John McLarty
of Planters Ridge vineyard and Winery in Port Williams moves his crop of
“Lucie Kuhlmann” to the next processing stage. The tasting room looks out on a
gorgeous scene!
BEYOND TERROIR, a program of Devour Festival in Nova Scotia,
explored the connection of the Mi’kmaq people’s to this land of the Gaspereau
Valley from thousands of years ago, to today. At various parts of vineyards of
Benjamin Bridge winery, many aspects were talked about. Here, overlooking the
Gaspereau River, Cheyenne Isaac-Gloade of the Lustuguj Mi’gmaq First Nation
discussed the nation’s relationship with salmon. Smoked over a fire of oak and
grapevines on ingenious holders, the culinary presentation also included herbs
and edible mosses that grow wild near the vineyard.
The geology
of this part of Nova Scotia is interesting on its own merits, in addition
to providing the backbone for good terroir for wines. Archaeologist Dr. Heather
MacLeod-Leslie explained the scientific aspects but the Mi’kmaq have
their legends to support the geological record. Of course a wine and foraged
food pairing rounded this seminar out!
An excursion during the festival introduced us to different parts of the geology that makes up this maritime province of Nova Scotia. It’s difficult to imagine the huge tidal effect on local rivers due to the effect of the Bay of Fundy, but sitting on the deck that overlooks the Cornwallis River in Port Williams, Nova Scotia, you’ll soon see for yourself. Doesn’t hurt that this deck is part of the local brewpub, Wayfarer’s Way, with a wonderful choice of artisanal beer.
Chef’s
Dinner! Let’s start with the Ballotine
of Pheasant or the sausage stuffed chicken wing —those are the food photos here
— examples of the delicious courses at the chef’s dinner in the barrel room
of Lightfoot & Wolfville Winery that is a main event of the Devour
festival
I found
the area around Wolfville very interesting, and found an agreeable student from
the college there would gave me a ride back to Port Willliams. Who could resist ordering fresh P.E.I.
(Prince Edward Island) mussels at the restaurant that overlooks the Cornwallis
River in Port Williams, Nova Scotia... I did not hesitate for a minute! A
wonderful meal while enjoying two aspects of the setting sun here.
So
Pippi Longstocking and I bid farewell to Wolfville, Nova Scotia at Tattingstone
Inn breakfast with my Toronto friend Lisa. It was Lisa’s idea to
come to Devour festival — she has been a devotee for years — and I am glad I
did. You should go too, but bring your own Pippi 🙂
Goodbye
Wolfville and the Annapolis Valley... en route to Halifax with my new
friend Susan Hunter, another DevourFest devotee
Nova
Scotia lobster presented in everyone’s favorite lunch configuration: lobster
roll. Enjoyed this treat at McKelvie’s in Halifax.
Taking a breath of
fresh (and somewhat nippy) air during a walk in Point Pleasant park on
the southern tip of the Halifax peninsula, I’m reminded of the fact that
Halifax is the world’s second largest natural harbor. (The First is Sydney,
Australia). You can see across the harbor — where there are always big cruise
ships docked and container ships being unloaded — and look toward the Atlantic
too. Old artillery batteries in the park provide a backdrop for Shakespearean
plays in the summer. Monuments to the military and navy abound near the walkway
at shoreside; my new Halifax friend Susan Hunter stops at one
A daytrip to Peggy’s Cove - where St Margaret’s Bay meets the Atlantic
Ocean in Nova Scotia, 25 miles Southwest of Halifax, is the site of what is
possibly the most photographed lighthouse in the world. Pippi Longstocking and
I visited this fishing, lobster-ing, and tourist-ing village today. Stunningly
beautiful. We made new friends too, posed with new-style lobster traps behind
them.
Back in
Halifax to have dinner with Dianne Taylor–Gearing, president of NSCAD
(Nova Scotia College of Art and Design). Dianne, a 2011 graduate of the General
Management Program at Harvard Business School, has a career spanning almost 30
years in college and university administration. I am a shameless user of the
HBS alumni database, always making sure when I travel that I have the
opportunity to meet female executives everywhere in the world. Dianne will return
home to England in 2019, but in the meantime, she is spearheading NSCAD’s plan
to be the center of a hub of cultural innovation in new facilities in the
Halifax waterfront which will be Co-located with the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia
(with whom NSCAD already collaborates).
Off to explore Halifax:
and a
very pleasant surprise awaited me at the Canadian
Museum of Immigration at Pier 21. My
ancestor’s information and ship’s manifests etc was retrieved by the friendly
staff
MY IMMIGRANT HISTORY. At the age of 30, my maternal grandmother
Annie Thwaite Taylor boarded the passenger ship Corinthian in London on August
6 with sons Ronald (5) and Leslie (2). During the 12 day voyage to Montreal,
all three got sick and upon arrival in Quebec City (main port of entry for many
immigrants to Canada), they were put in quarantine on the island of Grosse Ile
in the St. Lawrence River. I can only imagine the anxiety felt by my grandfather,
William James Taylor (age 37 in 1913), who had
arrived 15 months earlier (May 1913) on the passenger ship Scotian, apparently
with a British army job in hand. The Family made their way to Brantford
Ontario, where my uncle Gordon was born in 1916, and my mother Mary Elizabeth
and her twin sister Margaret were born in 1923. Annie had tuberculosis when the
twins were born...
Here are what conditions looked like on those ships:
NOTE: My Mother, Mary Elizabeth, also known as “Libby” or “Lib”, never gave up
her Canadian citizenship – – – nor did she have any USA entry papers — but she
voted here and had a drivers license too. She had married my father during his
army furlough in 1944, and she lived in Indiana from the age of 21 and died
there in 2006. I vaguely remember some visits to my grandparent’s home in
Canada when I was very young. Personally, I think the USA is better off for the
presence of all its illegal aliens; those are the people who built this
country.
Next, a
bit of museum exploration with Susan Hunter, who is herself an artist. A deeply moving exhibit at the Art Gallery
of Nova Scotia in Halifax is Kent Monkman’s exhibit “Shame and Prejudice, a
Story of Resilience”. Monkman is an artist of Cree ancestry. In his
introduction of this exhibition, he says: “ My goal is to counter the one-sided
version of art history that exalts European “discovery“ of this continent and
to celebrate and commemorate the indomitable spirit of Indigenous people.”
You can read more about this exhibition here:https://artgalleryofnovascotia.ca/exh…/kent-monkmanmisschief
You can read more about this exhibition here:https://artgalleryofnovascotia.ca/exh…/kent-monkmanmisschief
October 31, time
to go to Montreal! (see that blogpost....search for "Quebec")
What a great short vacation! Wasn't sure I could do it after being flattened by a stoned driver in a San Francisco crosswalk, but I modified my plans to travel more comfortably and give my back and shoulders more time to recover from the impact, and off I went. That's what travelers do...
