Free-thinking and Espresso: A Rich History
When was the last time you went out for coffee? I don’t mean get a coffee and run – you probably did that already twice […]
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Wine on the Go
Last week I was cornered by someone who asked what her options were for taking wine along on a paddling trip. For me, part of
Late Night Dogs
Dave Fraser is wearing a huge smile on his face as he hands out six grilled cheese sandwiches thick with bacon, tomato, onion and pickle.
Cranberries For Health
It’s time to bring fresh flavour into our long winter season! Bursting with colour and flavour, wild cranberries (Vaccinium vitis-idaea), or lingonberries, are one of
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Copying the Oldtimers
Everything tastes better at Pete and Mary’s. Beets have bite, tomatoes ooze with tart juice, and the chocolate cake is moist and thick with flavour.
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Pancakes and Pie
It’s a sunny Sunday in Dawson, the first day of a new month. I am standing by the window at our kitchen counter eating a
Aerating a Red (and a Money Diet Suggestion)
Drinking inexpensive wines does not have to mean you are missing interesting wine experiences. This was brought home to me this past Sunday evening, when
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No Reservations About These Reserves
Holy cow, it has a cork!” These were the exact words I exclaimed to a friend when I went to open a bottle of Australian
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Coffee Beans On The Rise
To paraphrase Bill Maher on the subject of rising oil costs: It’s not that oil is too expensive, it’s that it is too cheap when
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Coffee: A Medical Miracle
Iused to hate coffee. A close friend has just reminded me that as a teen, I could not stand the stuff and was more content
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Exploring Gray Monk Estate Wines
Several weeks ago, I had the happy opportunity to explore a significant portion of the range of Gary Monk Estate wines. A friend of mine
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The Customer Is Often Wrong (and That’s Okay)
I’m not Katya McQueen and I do not work in the coffee trade. But this is to your advantage. What I am is a writer
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EA Wine Triple Treat
I was asked by some friends to participate in “An evening of Art, Wine and too much fun” presented by The Artist Relief Fund Society,
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A Walk Through the YLC Wine Store: Part 2
The third Thursday of November, chalkboards across France announced, Le Beaujolais nouveau est arrivé! (literally, “The new Beaujolais has arrived!”). This annual event is the
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Washington Comes to Yukon
Most Canadian wine drinkers are pretty familiar with California wines. Their Pinot Noirs and Chardonnays have been celebrated in such movies as Sideways and Bottleshock,
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International Potluck Party
Aman with dreadlocks dangling down his back sips a New Zealand-inspired kiwifruit cocktail. He’s deep in conversation with a companion clothed in a gabbi (a
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A Walk Through the Wine Store: Part One
Several years ago, my then-editor at What’s Up Yukon asked me to do a walk-through tour of the Yukon Liquor Corp. (YLC) store in Whitehorse,
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Trying Some Malbecs
After more than a month of grey skies and rain, the sun finally made a re-appearance over my lake. Still, it feels like it is
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Wine Money Diet: Part 2
One of the delights of wine is that there are always surprises to be found and bargains to be enjoyed, if you are open to
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Bunny Love
Contemplating moving from Toronto to Dawson, I thought a lot about what I’d be giving up. I didn’t anticipate all the “firsts”
An Evening of Fine Pairings
For at least 4,000 years, wine drinkers have chosen food to accompany certain wines and vise versa. When I imagine trying a good wine, it
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A Walk Through the Wine Store: Finale!
Several articles ago I promised to finish my tour of the Yukon Liquor Corp. (YLC) wine shelves before the snow melted. With the rains coming
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What Your Favourite Candy Says About You
Uncover what your favorite candy says about you. Discover personality traits linked to Halloween candy choices.
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One-pot Luck
Brussels sprouts: the tiny perfect brassica. Could anything be better than a side of miniature cabbages oven-roasted with prosciutto and homemade croutons and finished with
A Walk Through the Wine Store: Part 4
In January, I wrote part three of a wine drinker’s walk through tour of the Yukon Liquor Corp. (YLC) store, covering Australia, and wanted to
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Swim Out, or Drown
Like most chefs, Gedas Pabritsa says it was his mother who inspired him to start cooking – but not for the usual reasons. “Being honest
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Fine Pairings for a Birthday Treat
I’m not looking to expand my writing into the restaurant review arena, but I couldn’t help but relate an excellent dining experience I had last
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A Walk Through the Wine Store: Part 3
It is amazing how the experiences and passion for wine that I have shared with friends has come to colour and enrich my life, and
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And the Winner Is …
I was reminded again recently of the role that sharing wine can have in igniting enthusiasm and making new friends. As I mentioned in my
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Gluten–What’s the Big Deal?
‘Gluten-free’ – these words are becoming more and more popular these days, from bread and desserts to snacks and sauces.
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Random Acts of Sunlight
This summer I learned that random acts of sunlight, a broken lawnmower and tolerant neighbours can lead to a lot of delicious, surprising salad ingredients
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A Taste for the Arts
Love of (and interest in) wine has opened wonderful doors for me in my life. Tasting wine has been the lens through which I have
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Treats for Summer Evenings
It took until the middle of July, but it seems (I don’t want to jinx us) that summer has arrived in the Yukon! The past
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The Other Side of the Andes
In my last several articles, I have been reviewing a number of inexpensive, yet tasty Malbec and Malbec blend red wines from Argentina. The high
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Food (in)Security
I’m worried. No, scared. No, terrified. At first it didn’t seem all that frightening. When the washouts cut us off from civilization a few weeks
Argentine Finds on the Money Diet
As mentioned previously, I’ve been on a “money diet” these past months, but still want to be tasting interesting wines to go with meals I
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Learnings from a Wine Tasting
In my last article, I told you about the wine tasting I was planning at Bombay Peggy’s in Dawson City over the May long weekend.
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Sammy the Yeast
It took me several months living in the Yukon to figure out what was bugging me. One Saturday, after holding nails while two Yukoners and
Dinner with Jerome
My cousin’s husband, Jerome, died in his sleep at home in Paris on December 18, 2003. He was 45 and had been diagnosed with lung
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Tasting the Money Diet
It wasn’t until I moved to the Yukon six years ago that I heard the term “money diet”, but I immediately liked the concept. Sometimes
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Hey! My lager is clear, light and fizzy!
So this week, Beer Cache is brewing a Marzen. Märzenbier is the beer style that is served at Oktoberfest in Germany. It’s usually begun in
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The best burger in town
When foodies get restless, they debate “the $100 hamburger”. It’s an intellectual exercise that asks the question, “What would you have to do to justify
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Barbecue in the Winter! Are You Nuts?
The primeval need to flash-up the grill is totally irresistible … an innate, desperate need passed down through time. The outside temperature will never deter
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A New Find From Argentina
This weekend, I had friends up to my cabin for a dinner of pasta with grilled vegetables and chorizo sausage. I stopped at the liquor
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The Bad Influence Of Cracker Jack
When was the last time you walked into the store to grab some beer, stopped and looked around, then picked up the package with the
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A Quick Tour of Our Local Liquor Store
My most rewarding experiences working in a wine store were sharing my enthusiasm for wines with customers and helping a few of them to overcome
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Good Ribs Start With a Boil
“We want Mojo pork butt in a bag,” is an unlikely dinner request to emanate from your regular backyard barbecue clientèle. I won’t even mention
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Beer Can Chicken: The End Justifies the Means
“When the meat is gone, we’ll eat the vegetarians”. This is the rallying cry of a barbecue herd from B.C. that takes the grilling of
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Where There is Smoke, There is Flavour
Cedar plank barbecuing is becoming all the rage … for some very tasty reasons. This is an ancient method of cooking used along the Pacific
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Old Thinking on Young Drinkers
Time Magazine recently did a story called, Should You Drink With Your Kids?. While the data contained in the story is generally U.S. based, we
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Two Sugars, A Little Cream and Lots of Zen
My favourite coffee mug still sits in a place of honour on my shelf. It’s cracked, full of brown stains that will no longer surrender
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The Greeks Know Barbecue
On a trip to Greece, we set up camp just off the beach at the bottom of a huge cliff; to reach this location we
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Espresso: From Italy With Love
Would an espresso by any other name still taste as sweet? Espresso, not EXpresso, describes three different things; a method of making coffee, the drink
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The Basic, Perfect Hamburger
“Bob, stop pouring beer on the meat; the kids have to eat that,” my mother would yell to my Dad in the backyard, scolding him
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This Bud is For the Highest Bidder
The great, gobbling beer merger beast is, here in the summer of 2008, most definitely alive and very well. Some of the mergers that we
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Chicken on a Stick on Ceramic
Discussing which features you might want in a barbecue, a friend of mine stated a ceramic grill is the only way to go. This friend
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Beer Can Be Eaten
For the most part, this column is used to keep folks abreast of contemporary beer issues and educate Yukoners in craft brewing culture. Often times,
A Taste of Beer-Making
It used to be the Chilkoot Brewery; now it’s the Yukon Brewing Company. Either way, it’s the only craft brewery that outsells Molson and Labatt
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Your Coffee is 97 per cent Water
OK, by this point you have bravely gone to the local roastery/coffee store, chosen from the myriad of names and flavours and arrived home clutching
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The Best of Both Worlds is Best for Our World
As most people know, the use of glass beer bottles is extremely environmentally friendly. Something like 98 per cent of those brown bottles we know
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Open Letter To the Mayor and City Council
This is a request, nay, a plea, to seriously consider this amazing opportunity to better the City of Whitehorse. I call for the substitution of
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This Restaurant is for the Dogs
Just when I thought I had reviewed every restaurant in the Yukon, I found out about a place called The Feed Store. “They sell food
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One Way or Another
As you emerge from your dream, your senses start warming up; first you hear that familiar hiss, snap burble, then that sweet aroma reaches into
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If the City is Full, When Does it Get Dark?
The level of education of the coffee customer has moved well beyond the expectation of the beige-coloured dishwater from the corner gas station. Along with
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A Whole Latte Love
Many of you may recall the first time you ventured to order a latte and were astounded that the cashier wanted four bucks. “For a
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Words Aren’t What They Used To Be
Do you find that words somehow start cropping up all over the place? Words that you never really ever heard before … at least not in
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