And how’s the Garden doing?

The first picture is from one month ago and the second is from tonight:

So there has been some progress. I know it probably doesn’t look that exciting, but when you walk by this scene everyday and you can see the subtle changes taking place, it is quite rewarding. Starting at the far end, we planted peas, spinach, cilantro, onions, lettuce, carrots, peppers and tomatoes. I dont think that the peppers are going to make it, we had started them indoors and then moved them outside where it then rained for 3 straight weeks. But the weather the past 3 weeks has been perfect.  Lots of nice hot days, with a handful of cooler days with showers thrown in.  Incidentally, so far all my watering of the garden has been out of the rain barrel, it is still 3/4 full, awaiting the next rain day.

The real winner so far, besides the mint of course, are the peas:

Most of that growth seemed to happen in the last 5 days.

We also have a little strawberry bush in another part of the yard that is showing signs of life. When I planted this thing last year, I wasnt really expecting anything. But then I started to see little strawberries forming and I got really excited. Every day when I came home from work I would check on them and give them a little more water, just waiting for the right moment to pick them and taste their sweet juices. When the day finally arrived that I was going to eat them, I went to the bush and found that they were not there. So I assumed that Abbey had picked them and brought them inside. But that was not the case. It seems the birds that like to hang out in the tree right next to the strawberry bush had been eyeing my prize as well. They beat me to the punch and gobbled up my delicious strawberries. So this year, Im not taking any chances and I have a net around the strawberry bush up early. It doesn’t seem like much of a deterrent actually. But if I dont get to eat my strawberries this year I may have to go bird hunting.

Cyclist controlled crossing

I was biking to work the other day and I stumbled upon a welcome sight:

A crossing signal designed just for cyclists wishing to cross 50th Ave SW from 5th St SW (map). There is a pedestrian button in the usual place as well, but this one is closer to the road than the sidewalk, and set at the perfect height for a cyclist to slow down and slap it without ever leaving the street. As far as I am aware, this is a first for Calgary. I remember when I saw something in Geneva last year, I was so surprised I actually took a picture of it.

I’ve actually never had a problem crossing this street on my bike, but if this little button gets more people riding their bikes, then it was money well spent.

6/27/08 Update: here’s a more recent pic, from bikecalgary.org

Broken Plate restaurant - food that even Daedalus could love

I would not normally try to do restaurant review unless I can manage to write it the very next day, but in recognition of Greek Fest taking place in Calgary this weekend, I thought I’d do a quick write up of a Greek restaurant we went to last week. My memory is not what it used to be, so bear with me.

The restaurant was none other than the Broken Plate in Willow Park Village. It’s been there for as long as I can remember, but this was my first ever visit. It was a packed house on a Friday night and I think we were lucky to get a last minute reservation, so definitely plan ahead if you decide to go.

For a starter we shared the Feta Bruschetta and I had the Kleftico (braised lamb shank in a tomatoe based sauce) for my entree. I’m not usually a big lamb person, but I wanted to try something new. The appy was good and the bruschetta - feta combo went very well together. Although I’m not sure if bruschetta is really a greek dish or not (but it is mediterannean, so close enough) and next time I’ll probably try the hummus or tzatziki instead. The lamb was really tender and was falling off the bone perfectly.

As this is a greek restaurant and the name of it is Broken Plate, there was even some plate smashing and screams of Opa! going on. I’m not sure if the customers pay extra to smash a plate (done under controlled circumstances near the bar) or if they were celebrating a special occasion, but it definitely added to the atmosphere. Overall the food was good, service was excellent and I’d recommend this place for a greek food fix.

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Broken Plate (map - there are multiple locations, I’ve only been to the Willow Park one)

590, 10816 Macleod Trail S.E

(403) 225-9650

did somebody say free WiFi?

The promise of free WiFi blanketing entire cities has not really materialized. A few cities that tried it out, like Philadelphia and San Francisco, have had issues and may now be giving up. Even though it sounds good in theory, it never proved to be practical or effective. The last time I was in San Francisco, I tried to connect to what I thought was the city’s free WiFi network at the airport, but all I got was a dead end.

Calgary never jumped on that bandwagon, but we do have some free WiFi downtown. I’ve used it at the downtown library and it actually came in handy. I believe it was restricted to a certain amount of time per day to make sure no one camped out at the library all day using it. You may even need a valid library card now to use it (…so I guess it’s not really that free after all).

Recently, I tried out the free WiFi that Southcentre mall is now offering. In order to use their WiFi, you must register the first time you try to go online and they will send you a text message with a username and password to use (or register yourself at Customer service). It was fairly slow, but fast enough to do a quick email check or something light like that. I’m not sure if the Starbucks inside the mall offers WiFi for a fee, but this will probably put an end to that.

While I am unlikely to be always carrying around my laptop to make use of this often, with more and more cell phones now containing WiFi (like the IPhone for instance, or the IPod Touch for that matter), I think these free WiFi hot spots will finally start getting some more usage, at least from me.

The only thing negative that can come of this - more teenagers hanging out even longer in malls.

Update 6/30/2008:

I noticed that people have found this post by searching ‘free wifi calgary’, so for those who are interested - off the top of my head, there is also free WiFi in Eau Claire Market, the Beltline Safeway, and the downtown Calgary Public Library/Stephen Ave/Olympic Plaza area and all Calgary Public Library locations (with a valid library card).

Book Review - Kitchen Confidential

As you may have noticed by now, I don’t exactly read books that are currently on the Best Seller lists. I usually end up reading books that were on the best seller list many years ago. This particular book was published in 2000, but it only entered into my radar a couple of years ago and onto my night stand a couple of months ago.

It is part autobiography by Chef Anthony Bourdain and part behind the scenes expose on the restaurant industry. It starts off very entertaining as Anthony Bourdain tells the tale of how a family trip to France when he was a young bean sprout got him turned onto cooking in the first place. The pinnacle of the trip was eating live oysters right out of the ocean in a little fishing boat, much to the disgust of his parents and hence the delight of young Anthony. Later, he had some very eventful summers cooking in the Hamptons before winding up at the Culinary Institute of America followed by a very hectic time in New York (cooking French food of course).

The time frame for most of this is the late 1970s and 1980s. Based on the experiences he described, it would seem that the sex, drugs and rock and roll of the 1960s shifted right to the kitchens of restaurants all over the east coast in the 70s and 80s. Chapter after chapter is interspersed with tales of drug use and alcoholism in restaurant kitchens. Even some mob connections in one kitchen he worked at. It all gets a bit tiresome after a while.

Thankfully, there is some genuine insider restaurant information that saves the book for me - such as why you should never order fish on Mondays (the reason is obvious if you think about it - it is the least fresh fish, the leftovers from the weekend just past). Or if you’ve ever wondered if the bread at your table that you do not eat is just being recirculated to another table, the answer is ‘of course’. Also, his descriptions of what it is like in the kitchen makes it clear that everyones current favourite Chef, Gordan Ramsay may be an accurate depiction of the way it is. There is a pecking order in the kitchen, the language is vulgar and women need to be tough to survive in that environment.

Yet, I still have a hard time imagining that every kitchen behaves in the way he describes it and every chef out there is like him or Gordan Ramsay. I have a feeling the restaurant industry has changed so much since the 1980s when it seems most of this book is set that Kitchen Confidential may just be an interesting look into the way it was, not the way it is now. Take Jamie Oliver for instance, could you imagine him yelling at anyone? I think if I was a lowly potatoe peeler in Jamie Oliver’s kitchen, I would probably get a lollipop after a job well done; whereas Anthony Bourdain would ask me if I wanted a toke.

Anyway, still a good read and good for a laugh or two.

Anthony Bourdain
ISBN: 158234082X
Chapters
Calgary Public Library