Chronicle - Summer 2005

Volume 23 Summer 2005 Liberty Village • King West • King West Central • Entertainment District • St. Lawrence Market Area • Queen Richmond East

The DWL Social Scene

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5 Totum Tunes your Golf Swing

WHITE ON Resident experts weigh in on sipping, storing, cooking and matching summer’s white wines.

6 b Espresso’s Coffee Secrets

8 Mobilia Furniture Trends

PLUS: Neighbourhood Watch, Allied REIT’s new Winnipeg Building

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HOW TO QUAFF, COOK, STORE A

Local experts weigh in on the summe

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hether it’s red or white, a good quaffing wine, says Peter Tsebelis of Brassaii Restaurant on King Street West, is one that is light, aromatic and essentially has enough personality to be drunk on its own.

“Generally, people talk about whites in terms of quaffing because they’re lighter and crisper, and sometimes there’s an effervescence, even a slight carbonation,” he says, Quaffing wines, with their neutral character, also go well with mezes- and tapas-style eating which is common on city patio menus.

Rieslings and Gewurztraminers are among the varietals Tsebelis recommends quaffing, but you could also look at lighter styled Sauvignon Blancs and un-oaked Chardonnays if you just want something refreshing. Of course, another option is to pick a rosé, which in Tsebelis’ eyes, is one of the wine world’s best-kept secrets.

Often made of the same grapes as some red varietals (the skins aren’t left in there as long as for reds), rosés have little in the way of

tannins so you get some of the “nose” of a red but you also get the attributes of a white on your palette.

“I think for a long time, people were afraid of rosés,” says Kim Cyr a sommelier with George on Queen Street East.

“They’re a bit misunderstood,” she offers, explaining that a lot of people associate rosés with fruity and sweet white Zinfandels, when in fact a lot of them can be quite dry and herbaceous (tasting and smelling of herbs).

Cyr recently organized a wine tasting at Verity that focussed exclusively on rosés.

“We poured eight rosés from around the world there and also came up a small list of roses for the summer,” she says of the growing interest she’s seeing in the pink drink.

Michael Fagan, chief product consultant at the LCBO, says rosés are a good alternative to white as there are a wide range of these available on the shelves.

Still, he says Chardonnay continues to be the most popular white wine grape variety. “Because it’s produced around the world, and it’s easy to pronounce,” he says.

Photo courtesy of Wine Council of Ontario

COOL SERVING TIPS FOR WHITE While there are optimal temperatures for serving different grape varieties, what you generally need to know is, serve your Chardonnay cool, your Sauvignon Blanc and Reisling cooler and your Pinot Grigio and Chablis coolest.

• Expensive, high quality white wines should be served at warmer temperatures (8ºC-10ºC).

To generalize even further,

It takes about three hours for a bottle of white to cool down to the ambient temperature inside your fridge. If you haven’t got that kind of time, add a little salt to a bucket of ice water and put it in the fridge, reaching in occasionally to twist the bottle. This will put more of the wine into contact with the cold glass of the bottle.

• Simple and dry white wines are the ones quaffed at the coolest temperatures.Complex and heavier wines should be consumed at a temperature that is warmer than other whites.

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Community Chronicle • Summer 2005

• Less expensive whites generally need to be served at a lower temperature (4ºC-6ºC).

er pleasures of a good glass of white

Storage Tips Most wines are safe at 4º to 18ºC (40º to 65ºF) for the short term, but ideally these should be stored at 13º to 14ºC (55º to 57ºF) says Marc Russell of The Fine Wine Reserve on King Street West.

Other things you should know include: • Don’t store it with items that have strong odours as these can lend themselves to the wine. Some odours to look out for include solvents (i.e. fresh paint, cleaning solutions), or various aromatic food products like onions and garlic.

• The temperature cannot fluctuate more than 2° to 3°C (5°F), once annually because these fluctuations cause the wine and the air in the bottle to expand and contract.

Repeated cycling brings in new oxygen through the cork’s pores – and that new air will spoil your drink.

• 50-80 percent humidity is best otherwise the cork may dry out and let in more oxygen.

• Keep it away from sunlight – ultraviolet light can break down some of the molecules, changing the taste.

Executive chef Susie Reading at the Calphalon Culinary Centre says that, when cooking with wine, it should always be one of the first things in the pan. If you add it too late, she says, it’ll taste like somebody just dropped a glass of wine in there, instead of cooking in the flavour. When it goes in early, you can cook out the alcohol and water so

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that you are left with more flavour, says Reading, explaining that you should reduce it by half before adding other ingredients.

As for what kind of wine to use (plonk or pricey), Reading tells her students just to use the wine you’re drinking with your meal.

“It’s already on hand. It’s open.

8) (For white wine recipes, see page

And it will match the flavours of your meal,” she says.

The danger of an improper match, says Jamieson Kerr of Crush Winebar, is that it will bring flavours into conflict, potentially giving the meal, or the wine, a bad taste.

Always working from the strongest spice in the recipe, a good wine match works to pair like tastes in the food and drink.

In general, match sweet foods with slightly sweet wines (the food will make the wine seem less sweet). Pair sour, acidic foods with acidic wines (using the same principle, the sourness will make the wine less acidic), and match bitter foods with wine that's a little bitter (from tannins). Serve acidic, non-oaky wines with salty foods to cut the salt.

“If you’re having trouble matching a flavour, go with something un-oaked that’s fairly neutral like a Pinot Blanc or Sauvignon Blanc. They’ll tend to work well with a lot of dishes,” advises Kerr.

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Mixing Wine with Food

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AND MATCH YOUR WHITE WINE

Queen Richmond East

Queen Richmond East

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Play Time with DWL DWL is one of Canada’s fastest growing tech firms, and it owes its heart to a playful company culture.

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bout this time last summer, employees at DWL were stirred from their mid-afternoon toiling by the sound of an ice-cream vendor’s bike trundling into the open concept office. At the helm was the software company’s founder Justin Lafayette who spent the next hour handing out Good Humour bars.

While it may seem a little unconventional, the notion of stirring things up and fostering a playful workplace attitude is at the heart of DWL’s culture. Occupying two floors at 230 Richmond Street East, DWL is a leader in an emerging technology space called Customer Data Integration that, according to estimates by the CDI Institute, will become a multi-billion dollar market. DWL provides a market leading solution called DWL Customer™, which allows companies to create a single operational record of customer data and support a single view across an enterprise.

A Fun Place to Work While the mere mention of Customer Data Integration may not necessarily set software engineers’ hearts afluttering, DWL has endeavoured steadily since its start to create a strong employee culture, earning it a much-deserved reputation as a fun place to work.

“We’re big on the work hard, play hard concept,” says DWL’s corporate services manager Linda Jackson.

Community Chronicle • Summer 2005

“Culture is a big part of who we are – and I think that’s why we have such good people that stay,” says Jackson, who also runs the social committee.

Faith in a good time: DWL president John Baumstark (left) and founder Justin LaFayette serve up soft ice cream to staff as part of the technology firms ongoing commitment to fostering spirit.

Good Culture Keeps Good Staff Its emphasis on building a strong employee culture is a function of the climate in which it started, in the heart of the technology boom. But while other tech companies have since packed up the foozball tables and trimmed the social activity budgets, DWL has strengthened its corporate culture by seeing teambuilding as an ongoing activity.

One of Canada’s Fastest Growing Companies Diva Bingo night with female impersonators, staff appreciation evenings at The Docks, a carnival in the office that saw a mini-putt course wind its way through the open concept workplace, and pancake breakfasts are just some of the activities that set the company apart from others in terms of its spirit.

In terms of industry, DWL also stands apart having recently been recognized for a second consecutive year as one of Canada’s fastest growing companies by PROFIT magazine. www.dwl.com

WHAT IS CUSTOMER DATA INTEGRATION? The customer data integration (CDI) market is comprised of process and technology solutions for recognizing a customer at any touch-point — while aggregating accurate, up-to-date knowledge about that customer and delivering it in an actionable form ‘just in time’ to touch-points.

Source: California-based CDI Institute

by Dr. Craig Davies HBSc, DC

On every round of golf, there’s at least one swing where everything comes together, and your ball actually goes where you want it.

But why is it so hard to reproduce that swing consistently? One way to improve your swing is to improve the core strength of your hips and pelvis. If these are not stable, there is no way you can hold your proper position, and most likely you’ll perform the undesired “hip slide”.

Here are a few exercises (and one stretch) to help strengthen the muscle group that makes up the hip’s rotator cuff. Follow these exercises, which can be done fairly quickly, and you could notice a difference in your swing within a couple weeks! www.totum.ca

1. Left Lifts from Kneeling Position WHY: Strengthens your hip stabilizers, lower back and abdominals.

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HOW: From a kneeling position, raise your leg to the side making sure your baby toe is level with your heel. Perform 2 sets per leg at 10 repetitions per set. Increase the repetitions as you become stronger to 20 per set.

2. Side Plank with Side Leg Lift and Hip Dip: WHY: Firms and tightens your mid-section (abdominals, obliques and lower back), shoulders and hips.

HOW: Lie sideways with your elbow directly under your shoulder joint. Your bottom leg should be bent and your top leg straight. Push your body upwards so that your full body weight is balanced between your elbow, knee and foot. Lift your leg to hip level. Lower the leg down to the mat. Complete 5 to 10 repetitions. For the hip dip portion, begin from the same start position as above.

Bring your hip down. Complete 5 to 10 repetitions.

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3. Bridge on Stability Ball WHY: Strengthens the back of your thighs and buttocks, and stretches the front of your thighs.

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TOTUM TIPS: TUNE UP YOUR GOLF SWING WITH CORE STRENGTH TRAINING

HOW: Start by sitting on the ball with your legs hip width apart. Slowly lower yourself into the bridge position by walking your feet forward while you simultaneously lean backwards. The ball should stay in contact with your body as it rolls from your lower back to your head and shoulders. Once the ball is behind your head and shoulders, push your feet to the floor to lift your hips level with your shoulders. With your hands straight out in front of you holding a golf club 12 inches apart, rotate your body, alternating to either side until the club is perpendicular to the ground (shoulders rotate 90 degrees on the ball and feet do not move).

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4. Cross-legged Buttocks and Hamstring Stretch WHY: Stretches the muscles of your buttocks and hamstrings (back of the thighs).

HOW: Lie on your back with your knees bent about shoulder-width apart and your feet flat on the floor. Cross your right ankle over your left thigh and bring both knees to your chest. Bring both hands behind your right thigh and gently increase the stretch in your buttocks by bringing your legs closer to your chest. Then straighten your left thigh and feel the stretch in the hamstrings. Hold for 20-30 seconds. Repeat on the other side.

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For more exercises or treatment tips, or if you have any questions, contact Dr. Craig Davies at drdavies@totum.ca or at (416) 979-2449.

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Queen Richmond East

The Art of Espresso B espresso reveals the secrets of making a good espresso

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t’s the purest form of extracting coffee from the bean,” says b espresso owner Bruno Colozza with an earnest enthusiasm as he describes the art of making a good espresso.

A coffee bean has more than 700 different tastes in it, he says from his 111 Queen Street East café. “Out of those 700 tastes,” he explains, “some aren’t that great, so if you extract an espresso badly, you can bring the wrong flavours into play.”

Above left: b espresso baristas are trained to draw the perfect espresso. Above: the café’s location, in a refurbished chocolate factory, gives it old-world charm.

THE FOUR RULES FOR MAKING A GOOD ESPRESSO THE BLEND: To ensure a good cup of espresso, you need a blend made exclusively of Arabica coffees (flavourful and aromatic, 70% of the world’s coffee beans are Arabica with the other 30% being Robusta). This will provide a harmonious taste that strikes a balance between bitterness and acidity while giving the drink a rich, fragrant aroma and full body.

THE GRINDER: Espresso requires ground coffee that varies from extremely fine powder to grains of about one millimeter in diameter.

One way to figure out the best setting on your grinder is to measure the time it takes to extract the espresso. For home brewing, you’ll want to allow an extraction time of between 15 and 20 seconds.

You can use the measuring tool that comes with your grinder or try six to seven grams per cup.

Given the inherent complexity of making one’s own espresso, it’s hardly surprising that going out for a specialty coffee drink is on the rise. But if you want to try your hand at it, or just learn a bit more about what goes into making espresso, see the adjacent four rules for making a good espresso.

There may be only four rules, but there’s a lot to think about. So while the more ambitious coffee drinker might take on the task and enjoy the challenge of crafting that perfect espresso, the rest of us will likely rather enjoy the drinking part, and leave the handling of a machine that shoots scalding water under high pressure to the professionals. www.bespressobar.com

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THE MACHINE: If you want a real espresso at home, you’re best to have a machine that can heat the water to 90ºC (194ºF) and exert a pressure equal to nine atmospheres (maybe ask a science friend about that part). In essence, this is likely to be a fairly expensive machine. And, like anything worth having, you’ll have to take care of it. Daily cleaning of the filter, filter holder, tubes and rubber seals is also important.

THE OPERATOR: Perhaps the greatest variable of all is the human factor, i.e. the barista’s skill. Generally speaking, his/her’s main function is to pay attention to the other three rules and to tamp down the coffee with just the right turn of hand. (Some baristas learn to apply the exact amount of pressure by practicing on scales.)

King West Central property firm acquires Winnipeg heritage building

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llied Properties REIT, a real estate investment trust that owns a portfolio of predominantly Class I office properties in downtown Toronto and downtown Montreal, has established a foothold in the Winnipeg market with the June purchase of The Brokerage Building.

Allied’s director of acquisitions, Mike Bonneveld, says that although the Manitoba capital is a smaller market than Toronto or Montreal, there are a good number of heritage buildings that fit with the company’s vision.

“We see this as a first

step toward accumulating a more significant portfolio in Winnipeg,” he says. But this is not a general expansion westward, he says, explaining that Calgary hasn’t much in the

way of heritage stock and that Vancouver real estate prices at the current time are simply too high.

Not far from Portage and Main, the three storey Brokerage Building is located in the eastern end of the Exchange district, just west of the Red River in an area with several turn-of thecentury buildings. An adjacent area was recently re-zoned for condo development, and the area stands to see a significant influx of residential, condominium developments.

The building’s largest tenant is Number Ten Architectural Group. Other occupants include IT service firm Online Business Systems, as well as designers and landscape architects.

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Allied Properties REIT Offices Moving West Come mid-October, the Allied Properties REIT offices will be located on the ground floor of 602 King Street West at Bathurst. Allied shares the building with Scholastic Canada and Hammam Spa. The move came as a result of demand for Allied’s existing space. When a prospective tenant expressed interest in the well appointed, top-floor brick and beam offices at 469 King Street West, Allied decided to take the opportunity to make a move, says Allied’s director of acquisitions, Mike Bonneveld.

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ALLIED PRAIRIES

Cossette Captures Top Honours in Cannes Cossette Media returns from this year’s Cannes International Advertising Festival with another Gold Lion, the company’s third Gold Lion win in just four years. This year's win was for work on the Nike “Speed” campaign, which included an innovative “belly band” – a bright red band, wrapped around the front covers of Elle and Eclat magazines that instantly took readers into a Nike magazine double-page spread.

Community Chronicle • Summer 2005

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White Wine Recipes from the Calphalon Culinary Center Wasabi Crusted Atlantic Sea Scallop s

Wine Recommendation from CRUSH Wine bar: 2001 Reisling Harth (Domaine Schoffit, Alsace, France) “This one is very clean with a lot of acidity that will hopefully cut through the taste of the Wasabi,” explains restaurateur Jamieson Kerr. “If you try for something too flavourful here, the flavours can fight. You want something that is steely, refreshing and clean.”

Preparation Time: 30 minutes Serves: 4 Ingredients: 12 large fresh sea scallops 1 tbsp lemon juice

Newport bedroom set

1tsp Wasabi paste 4 tbsp white bread crumbs Salt and pepper to taste

Front Street Furniture Focuses on Function

Olive oil Method: Preheat oven to 400°F. Combine Wasabi paste, breadcrumbs, lemon juice and olive oil in a bowl. Season with salt and fresh pepper. Mix well. Heat a 12” fry pan over medium high heat. Season scallo ps with salt and fresh pepper. Add 2 tbsp olive oil to the pan and sear the scallo ps to golden brown on one side.

Turn over and top with pinch of Wasabi and top with Wasabi crust. Place in a hot oven for 2-3 minutes. Remove scallo ps from oven and keep warm.

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Pan-Seared Arctic Char with Saffron Garlic Nage Wine Recommendation from CRUSH Wine bar: 2003 Fiano di Avello (Feudi di San Gregorio, Italy) “Saffron is difficult to match, but what you have to do is pick the strongest spice and try to work with that,” says Kerr. “So what we did here was pick something that wouldn’t overpower the spice. This un-oaked Fiano is aromatic, has a smokiness to it, but doesn’t have the acidity.”

Preparation Time: 20 minutes Serves: 2 Ingredients: 2x5 oz fresh Arctic Char, filleted, skin on 4 tbsp. unsalted cold butter, diced 2 tbsp. fresh lemon juice + 2 tsp. lemon zest 1 tsp saffron, lightly toasted 2 oz dry white wine 6oz light chicken or fish stock 4 cloves garlic, smashed 4 cups washed and picked spinach

ooking at Mobilia’s fall collection, one thing that stands out is its attention to functionality.

“Rather than just having a sofa and a love seat, we look at how you can make a sectional work,” says the Front Street store manager John Volpe. “There’s lots of opportunity to be functional with these styles, whether you have a small condo or a big home.”

Despite its expansive showroom, this St. Lawrence Market area store is one of the smallest of Mobilia’s 17 locations (a typical company retail space weighs in at 40,000 square feet) across Canada.

For the Fall, Mobilia introduces a number of new items, including Emilia (shown on cover), a sectional sofa system that can be configured in any number of ways. Adding a seating wedge to give it a curved effect, or a love seat to make a right-angled sectional, are just a few of the combinations.

Also new is the Newport bedroom set. Available in 13 colours, this set’s bed frame is adjustable so that you can upgrade to that Queen size mattress without having to buy a whole new whack of matching furniture. www.mobilia.ca

Olive oil Salt and fresh pepper Method: Sprinkle fish with salt and pepper, to taste. Heat a medium fry pan over medium-high heat; add oil and heat through. Add fish; sauté just opaque in centre, about 3 minutes per side, turning once. Transfer fish to plates; keep warm.

In a small saucepan, lightly toast saffron and smashed garlic. Add white wine, lemon juice, zest and steep. Add stock and simmer for 5 minutes. Remove garlic cloves. Whisk-in cold, diced butter. Season and garnish with chiffonade of basil.

In a 10’ omelet pan, heat with olive oil. Add spinach and wilt. Season with salt and fresh pepper. To plate, place wilted spinach in centre of warmed soup plate. Top with fish. Garnish with saffron nage and serve immediately.

Editor: Yvan Marston yvan@gravitydesigninc.com Published four times a year by: Allied Properties REIT 469 King Street West, 4th Floor Toronto, ON M5V 1K4

Design/Layout: Gravity Design Inc. scott@gravitydesigninc.com

www.calphalonculinarycenter.com

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www.alliedpropertiesreit.com