20 minute read
FOOD
FOOD Dine Out Vancouver food trucks make comeback
by Charlie Smith
Advertisement
Street Food City is returning to this year’s Dine Out Vancouver Festival.
The food-truck pod was a fixture on the north side of the Vancouver Art Gallery at the annual event dating back to 2011. But in 2021, due to the pandemic, organizers cancelled Street Food City.
This year, there will be 13 food trucks ready to dish up meals in the giant square bounded by Hornby, West Georgia, and Howe streets. Participants include: Chickpea, Disco Cheetah, Mama’s Fish & Chips, Melt City Grilled Cheese, Mom’s Grilled Cheese, Mr. Arancino, Old Country Pierogi, REEL Mac and Cheese, Salty’s Lobster Shack, Shameless Buns, Super Thai, Taste of Malaysia, and Via Tevere Pizzeria Napoletana.
Street Food City will be open from Saturday (January 15) to next Sunday (January 23) from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. on weekdays and 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekends.
“Absence makes the heart grow fonder, so we’re especially excited to bring Street Food City back this year—and we’re sure the public shares our enthusiasm for its return,” Dine Out Vancouver Festival manager Lucas Pavan said in a news release. “We and the participating food truck oper-
As part of the Dine Out Vancouver Festival, a baker’s dozen of Vancouver’s food trucks will pack the square north of the Vancouver Art Gallery, serving meals from grilled cheese to lobster. ators look forward to welcoming guests to the Square for some delicious food and good times. It’s a great way to kick off the new year and for Vancouver to reignite its love for our local food trucks.”
The Dine Out Vancouver Festival is produced by Destination Vancouver and runs from Friday (January 14) to January 31. It’s Canada’s largest food and drink festival and is celebrating its 20th year this month.
As part of the Dine Out Vancouver Festival, hundreds of local restaurants, breweries, and winemakers offer multicourse, fixedprice menus, which can be viewed online at dineoutvancouver.com. On this website, it’s possible to search by name, menu price, cuisine, and neighbourhood, as well as make reservations. In addition, visitors to the site can choose whether they’re interested in menus for breakfast/brunch, lunch, dinner, takeout, and vegetarian or gluten-free dining. Participating hotels are offering a $50 Mastercard prepaid gift card per night that can be used to cover some of the cost of dinner, a room, or for shopping. There’s a threenight maximum on the gift-card offer.
Dine Out Vancouver also has a long list of events planned to coincide with the festival, including a return of the Vancouver World Chef Exchange.
On January 25, Toronto-based celebrity chef Rob Gentile, Toronto pasta chef David Marcelli, Oliver’s Phantom Creek Estate Winery chef Sarah Fiore, and Giovane Bacaro chef Scott Korzack will prepare a $250 all-inclusive multicourse dinner with wine pairings at Giovane Bacaro in the Fairmont Pacific Rim.
The next chef event takes place on January 26 at Alimentaria Mexicana on Granville Island. There, chef Joaquin Cardoso of Loup Bar in Mexico City will collaborate with the team at Alimentaria Mexicana on a $100 all-inclusive meal with an optional wine pairing for an additional $50.
The final three World Chef Exchanges are at Salmon n’ Bannock Bistro on January 28, 29, and 30 with the team there welcoming Odawa chef Joseph Shawana from the Wiikwemkoong Unceded Territory reserve, followed the next day by Algonquin Anishinabe chef Marie-Cecile (Cezin) Nottaway from Ottawa, and then Enoch Cree chef Shane Chartrand from Edmonton. They will create $175 all-inclusive meals. g
These work.
People tell us that our Blundstone CSA boot is the lightest work & safety boot they’ve ever worn. Pretty incredible when you consider that these rugged boots are more durable than most heavy clunkers. All-day comfort even on concrete. Pull-on, kick-off laceless convenience. These work overtime.
NEW #180 Work & Safety Waxy Rustic Brown $229.95
Seniors are facing diffi cult times. Our JSA Friendly Visitor Program offers peer-to-peer social support to all kinds of seniors including lesbian, gay or trans seniors wanting more connection to their own communities. We need volunteers to match with isolated Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans, Queer, Two-Spirit, Asexual and Intersex (LGTBQ2SAI+ ) seniors. Isolated seniors are waiting for your call. Volunteers are trained in our Friendly Visitors Program to connect by phone (and after the pandemic, to visit senior’s homes, long term care facilities or accompany seniors on small outings). Jewish Seniors Alliance is nonreligious & inclusive. Many LGTBQ2S+ seniors say they feel lonely, disconnected from loved ones, or suffer from age-related health challenges, grief & loss, or cognitive impairment. Are you interested in learning new communications, self-awareness and boundary-setting skills? Join our inclusive team of volunteers at Jewish Seniors Alliance. TRAINING TO START ON TUESDAYS 4 PM- 8PM STARTING IN FEBRUARY 2022. TRAINING is on ZOOM at NO COST
CONTACT JSA Charles Leibovich - charles@jsalliance.org Facilitator Grace Hann - grace@jsalliance.org 604.267.1555
LIQUOR St-Remy’s Roudaut balances innovation and tradition
by Mike Usinger
Endlessly informative as she is today as the master blender at St-Rémy in France’s scenic Loire Valley, Cécile Roudaut had some learning to do after deciding to enter the wine and spirits industry. Her journey to the celebrated French distillery started with the decision to study biology. That led to laboratory work in the cosmetics industry, where she began in quality control and then moved into research and development. Roudaut remembers the first time she saw a product she’d worked on appear on a shelf.
“I was so proud,” she says in charmingly accented French, interviewed at Vancouver’s Rosewood Hotel Georgia. “It was a real revelation for me—that I wanted to work doing something where I was creating things.”
A stop in the pharmaceutical industry drove home the importance of precision and keeping to rigorous standards, after which Roudaut decided to step out of her comfort zone with a jump into a job with a Loire Valley winery.
“At first in wine, I knew nothing,” she says with a laugh. “When I had the interview, I said ‘Well, when they are in
Cécile Roudaut has discovered that small casks create big flavours in the brandy world. transparent glasses, I know white, red, and rose. But that’s all.’ ”
That might be a bit of exaggeration for comedic effect. Born in Saumur in the Loire Valley, Roudaut’s introduction to the region’s wine industry came through her father.
“He taught me things about wine, but only from the Loire Valley,” she reminisces.
*$99.00 Zoom Whitening
Aarm Dental Group
We’re in your neighborhood to make you smile…
Aarm Dental Group on Denman
917 Denman Street Vancouver, B.C.
(across the street from West End Community Center) 604-647-0006
Brighten your teeth up to 10 Shades Whiter!
#STAYSAFE
Dr. Firouzeh Malekian
STOP COVID
#STOPCOVID
OPEN 6 DAYS A WEEK • MONDAY TO SATURDAY
WE DO NOT CHARGE ABOVE BCDA FEE GUIDE WE ACCEPT MOST MAJOR DENTAL INSURANCE PLANS NEW PATIENTS & EMERGENCIES ALWAYS WELCOME
www.aarm-dental.com
– master blender Cécile Roudaut
“I had no idea about wines like Bordeaux or Burgundy other than I liked them. But they gave me the chance to do training, which I did every evening and Saturday for two years. I learned about grapes, about tasting, and blending, and it was marvellous. I learned a lot.”
That led Roudaut to the Rémy Cointreau group in the mid-’90s, and a research and development role for everything from wine and brandy to whisky to tequila. Over the years she would become a trusted sounding board to St-Rémy’s legendary master blender Martine Pain.
“We worked together on limited editions, and in 2016 when Martine retired, Rémy Cointreau group proposed to me the position of master blender,” she recalls. “I accepted with a lot of happiness.”
On this day, Roudaut is in Vancouver for a launch of her St-Rémy Signature brandy. Over the course of an hour at the Rosewood Hotel Georgia, she’s part educator, part historian, and part endlessly enthusiastic raconteur. What comes through immediately is that she’s immensely proud to be part of a brand-making tradition that dates back to the late 1800s.
St-Rémy’s brandy-making process starts with the harvesting of select red and white grapes from France’s most distinguished wine-growing regions, including the Loire Valley, Rhône, Champagne, and Languedoc-Roussillon. First comes the distillation where wine is turned into eau de vie by heating in signature copper columns.
“Copper is a tradition for St-Rémy for cognac—it is very important,” Roudaut says. “Why? Because copper has two properties. The first is for heating—it is a very good conductor, and second it’s a very good catalyst for chemical reaction. We don’t know exactly how it works, but we do know if you put wine in stainless-steel columns you don’t have the same results as copper. The eau de vie is fatter, not fruity, and not elegant the way it is when you put it in a copper column.”
After distillation, complex eau de vie is matured in small virgin oak casks before finishing in traditional oak casks. A key word for Roudaut when it comes to the creation of St-Rémy brandy is “small”.
“The maturation process is done in small casks of 350 litres,” she relates. “That’s very important—the ratio of contact between the wood and the liquid is high at 70 square centimetres. Competitors in French brandy often use big vats, and the contact ratio for them is only 16 square centimetres. After one year in small casks, you obtain marvellous results. It takes eight-and-a-half years to obtain those same results in big casks.”
While innovation is important to Roudaut, she places just as high a value on tradition as St-Rémy’s master distiller. Both came together with Signature.
“I wanted to put St-Rémy in new barrels to see if the results were good or not,” she says. “And the results were good—lots of coconut and vanilla. But the DNA of StRémy wasn’t respected, so I had the idea to do the second maturation process using our traditional casks. And that led to Signature.”
As for what’s inside that bottle, Roudaut couldn’t be more excited to break things down at the Rosewood. After pouring two glasses she says: “Explanations are good, but it’s better to smell and taste. Inside your glass you have a beautiful golden amber colour and a richness. You can see the legs on the glass, and on-the-nose vanilla and coconut with no aggressivity—it doesn’t burn.
“On the front notes there are apricots, peach, and almond,” Roudaut continues. “On the back, again no aggressivity—it’s very smooth with no deception between the nose and the palate. What you smell is what you have in the mouth—the virgin wood, coconut, charred fruits.”
The beauty of St-Rémy Signature is, she suggests, its versatility. We’ve been conditioned to think of brandy as something to be consumed neat.
“Signature is a very versatile product— so smooth and balanced that you can easily use it in many cocktails,” Roudaut opines.
The key to changing perceptions is education. On that front, swap out whisky for St-Rémy Signature brandy in an Old-Fashioned and prepare for a whole new experience.
Understandably, Roudaut gets excited when she talks about possibilities on the cocktail front. In fact, excitable, not to mention endlessly enthusiastic, are pretty much perfect descriptors to describe her in person. Some life decisions pay off more handsomely than others, with Roudaut a great example of someone who took a chance and dove into an industry that was a mystery to her at first.
Asked if she loves her job, she takes a sip of Signature, laughs, and then beamingly says: “Look at my face. And then tell me what you do you think?” g
PuSh FEST How to Fail as a Popstar sends a positive message
by Charlie Smith
Titles are extremely important to Calgary-based singer, theatrical performer, author, and visual artist Vivek Shraya. She takes great care in naming her works, whether it’s with previous books like I’m Afraid of Men and The Boy & the Bindi, or her new book, People Change, or her stage show, How to Fail as a Popstar. To her, a title can be evocative. It can be terrifying. It can challenge people. Or it can draw people in.
“I really think about the title as its own form of art, if not an extension of the art,” Shraya tells the Straight by phone.
In fact, she says that the title of How to Fail as a Popstar, which will be performed at this year’s PuSh International Performing Arts Festival, is what persuaded her director, Brendan Healy, to take on the project. Described as a theatrical memoir, the show sees Shraya sharing through anecdotes, song, and dance how she hoped to make it big in the music business. It received rave reviews when it premiered in Toronto in 2020 shortly before the pandemic turned out the lights in theatres across the country.
“I think the play is an opportunity for people to not only bear witness to my failure but to think of their own and honour it,” Shraya says. “To really think of their own and [say to themselves], ‘Like, wow, this thing didn’t work out and that kind of sucks. It kind of hurts. Here’s a space where I can sit in that feeling as opposed to needing to project a kind of resilience,’ if that makes sense.”
As a nonbinary South Asian kid born in Edmonton in 1981, Shraya gravitated to pop music, taking inspiration from Madonna, Whitney Houston, and other divas. It’s no coincidence that there’s a great deal of ’90s and early 2000s pop music in her show.
“When people think of pop music, it’s sort of seen as trivial,” Shraya says. “But when you’re a queer brown kid in Edmonton, I think pop music is an escape. It was for me. It’s how I felt I was going to get out and survive, by getting on a stage and performing.”
Shraya devours music biographies and, along the way, discovered how stars like Timbaland, Mariah Carey, and Joni Mitchell became so successful. Shraya hoped to write a similar autobiography but realized that few people were familiar with her music.
On a certain level, it troubled her that the biographies of successful music-industry figures so often followed a similar narrative. These celebrities would convey a message that they always knew that they were destined for success: the stars would align if only they worked really hard and just believed in themselves. But Shraya realizes that there are many thousands of “not-success stories”, where people had the same belief in themselves and also tried their very best but didn’t break through in the way they would have liked. So through her show, she has created a pathway for such people to process those emotions.
“I was really thinking: what does it mean to tell an anti-success story and the importance of telling an anti-success story?” Shraya says. “Especially in a time of social media where everything is about, ‘Look at me, I’m amazing.’”
She said the title How to Fail as a Popstar suddenly entered her head. And she felt that theatre was the right art form because audiences don’t need to be familiar with a back catalogue for it to work on-stage.
Nowadays, in addition to writing and performing, Shraya is an assistant professor of English in the creative-writing program at the University of Calgary. Even though she loves being on-stage, where audiences can look at her as a nonbinary performer, she actually downplays this side of herself in the classroom. Her new book, People Change, reveals that she prefers wearing a “uniform”—a white dress shirt with black leggings—so that she’s approachable to students while not overexpressing her gender.
“Being at the front of the classroom, my job inevitably involves being looked at, but when you are gender non-conforming, you are also prey to a particular kind of omnipresent fixation, a perplexed gaze,” Shraya writes in People Change. “So here I choose assimilation as a means of self-preservation, because the freedom to express my interiority through my external choices is a privilege I don’t always have.”
She wants to take attention away from her appearance so that more emphasis will be placed on education and learning. It’s a deliberate choice born out of consideration for her students. In her interview, Shraya also comes across as an exceedingly considerate person, thanking the Straight for covering her work and expressing gratitude to audience members courageous enough to attend live theatre in the midst of the pandemic.
Her new book and the stage show both acknowledge that, in her younger years, Shraya was a devotee of a popular Indian guru, Sathya Sai Baba, who died in 2011. With his giant afro and bright orange robe, Sai Baba presented a rock-star aesthetic to the then impressionable Shraya.
“That was, like, one of my early introductions to a public persona,” she says.
Sai Baba also talked a lot in his life about being the embodiment of masculine and feminine energy. That prompts Shraya to suggest that it’s “not a leap, in some ways, that I’ve ended up who I am and with the life that I have chosen when these were some of my earliest experiences”.
“This was someone who was not only talking about in a lot of ways being gender nonconforming but in a lot of ways he was beloved, right?” Shraya adds. “And so when you’re a 13-year-old kid and you’re trying to figure out how to be loved and how to be safe, he made sense as being aspirational.”
Because Hinduism is entrenched in this idea of devotion, Sai Baba was, in a way, the first love of her life, even though she no longer prays to him. But she does reveal that she sings a bhajan (a Hindu prayer) in the show and that as a child, she was fascinated with Bharatanatyam dance.
“You know, people will always cherish and remember the first love of their life— and the love of their life will always be part of their fabric,” Shraya says. “Sai Baba will always be part of my fabric.” g
Calgary’s Vivek Shraya created How to Fail as a Popstar as a pathway for people to process the reality that not everyone gets to be a Madonna or Timbaland. Photo by Vanessa Heins.
What does it mean to tell an anti-success story?
– Vivek Shraya
Vivek Shraya’s theatrical memoir, How to Fail as a Popstar, will be performed on February 1 and 2 at Performance Works as part of the PuSh International Performing Arts Festival.
THEATRE DANCE MULTIMEDIA MUSIC
Jan 20 - Feb 6, 2022
DETAILS AND TICKETS AT PUSHFESTIVAL.CA
FOLLOW US
@ PUSHFESTIVAL
CAPITALISM WORKS FOR ME! TRUE/FALSE
STEVE LAMBERT (USA) Capitalism: what has it done for you lately? This interactive installation project requires nothing from participants but the push of a button and an honest personal reckoning. Have your say! JAN 20–24 | VANCOUVER PUBLIC LIBRARY
CENTRAL BRANCH
PRESENTED WITH THE VANCOUVER PUBLIC LIBRARY & LIVING THINGS FESTIVAL
RUBY SINGH’S VOX.INFOLD
RUBY SINGH (VANCOUVER) This ensemble vocal performance features rich, varied, and supremely evocative compositions, as well as sound design so immersive that the music can be felt as well as heard.
JAN 20-23, 25-30 | LOBE STUDIO
PRESENTED WITH INDIAN SUMMER FESTIVAL
SE PRENDRE
LION LION (MONTREAL) Two women come together in an acrobatic dance that evokes tenderness and tension. A psychodrama played out in physical terms, Se prendre is a truly haunting experience. JAN 29-31, FEB 2-4 | WATERFRONT ESTATE,
DEER LAKE
PRESENTED WITH SHADBOLT CENTRE FOR THE ARTS
AALAAPI |
COLLECTIF AALAAPI | LA MESSE BASSE (NUNAVIK | MONTREAL) Set in Nunavik, and ingeniously combining the aesthetics of radio and theatre, this collectively created work is an interrogation of language—and a forward movement towards true reconciliation.
JAN 29-30, FEB 1-2 | WATERFRONT THEATRE &
SELECT ONLINE PRESENTATIONS
AT PERFORMANCE WORKS
THE FRANK THEATRE COMPANY @ CLUB PuSh
This soiree features a One Hit Wonder costume contest, as well as musical acts, a DJ, and some drop-dead-gorgeous drag artists. It’s the perfect cure for the late-pandemic blues!
FEB 2
OUR FATHERS, SONS, LOVERS AND LITTLE
BROTHERS BY MAKAMBE K. SIMAMBA A TARRAGON THEATRE AND BLACK THEATRE WORKSHOP CO-PRODUCTION (TORONTO/MONTREAL) Portraying the afterlife of a Black teenager, this show is a spiritual inquiry and a protest for Black life which goes beyond the headlines to examine the reality of injustice. | FIREHALL ARTS CENTRE
PRESENTED WITH FIREHALL ARTS CENTRE AND TOUCHSTONE THEATRE
BORN TO MANIFEST
JOSEPH TOONGA OF JUST US DANCE THEATRE (UK) Laced with krump, popping, and martial arts styles, Joseph Toonga’s dance performance is a kinetic expression of defiance, with racial identity as the site of both oppression and pride. JAN 25-27 | PERFORMANCE WORKS &
SELECT ONLINE PRESENTATIONS
VIOLETTE
JOE JACK & JOHN (MONTREAL) In this audacious combination of live theatre and Virtual Reality, viewers are invited one by one to enter a woman’s apartment; don a headset; and embark on a dark, magical journey... JAN 26–30 | ROUNDHOUSE COMMUNITY ARTS
& RECREATION CENTRE
SUPPORTED BY THÉÂTRE LA SEIZIÈME & REALWHEELS & ROUNDHOUSE COMMUNITY ARTS AND RECREATION CENTRE
DO YOU MIND IF I SIT HERE?
THEATRE REPLACEMENT (VANCOUVER) This multimedia allegory tells the story of social planners working to repurpose Vancouver’s Russian Hall 30 years from now—and dares us to reimagine our city’s future. JAN 26-29 | RUSSIAN HALL
PRESENTED WITH THEATRE REPLACEMENT
HOW TO FAIL AS A POPSTAR
CREATED BY: VIVEK SHRAYA (CALGARY) COMMISSIONED AND PRODUCED BY: CANADIAN STAGE
In this catchy, cathartic theatrical memoir, Vivek Shraya recounts her journey to the edge of pop-music fame and back. Blending songs, stories, and more, the performer offers us a tale of unlikely heartbreak.
PERFORMANCE WORKS
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE’S AS YOU LIKE IT: A RADICAL RETELLING BY CLIFF CARDINAL
CROW’S THEATRE (TORONTO) With this subversive updating of the Bard’s classic, cultural provocateur Cliff Cardinal aims to surprise and provoke. FEB 4-6 | YORK THEATRE
I SWALLOWED A MOON MADE OF IRON
A MUSIC PICNIC (TORONTO) PRODUCTION, IN ASSOCIATION WITH POINT VIEW ART AND CREATIVE LINKS (MACAU) Based on the poems of an immiserated factory worker, Njo Kong Kie’s song cycle uses imagery, piano, the human voice, and more to create a tragic but beautiful cry of protest. FEB 4–6 | WATERFRONT THEATRE &
SELECT ONLINE PRESENTATIONS
LA GODDAM VOIE LACTÉE
MAYDAY (MONTREAL) Five women conduct a pagan mourning ritual in this wildly eccentric performance. From the rich colours, trance-like dancing, and animalistic utterances emerges something truly cathartic: a ceremony for our grievances. FEB 4-6 | SCOTIABANK DANCE CENTRE
PRESENTED WITH THE DANCE CENTRE
TALKING STICK @ CLUB PuSh
This evening of genre-blending madness mashes the music of Indigenous ancestors with the breaks, cuts, and booming bass of contemporary dance grooves.
FEB 3
IMPACT @ CLUB PuSh with IMMIGRANT LESSONS
This dance tournament features teams of four squaring off in a thrilling, genre-defying spectacle that draws on the ethics of street battling. May the best team win, and may boundaries be broken!
FEB 4
An innovation for these times of COVID, and an invitation: walk safely with artists through the urban spaces that have given them inspiration. This series of adventures serves to complement, and enhance, the creators’ works through guided tours of their home turf. PUSHFESTIVAL.CA/WALKS TICKETS
Purchase tickets on the PuSh website. Some single tickets are sold through our partner box office outlets, and our website will direct you there. PuSh Festival Patron Services is here to make sure you get to the right place — just call 604-449-6000.
PASSES
Buy tickets to four shows and save 20%! Book your shows at pushfestival.ca or call us at 604-449-6000.
