Fall Colors - Cafe Artigiano comes to Victoria · Wednesday October 22, 2008 by colin newell
People tell me that the cafe market in saturated in Victoria B.C. Canada. Nonsense! I keep saying that there is a lot more room for coffee in Victoria. And with that…
Caffè Artigiano President Willlie Mounzer has announced the opening
of its first Victoria location – 1140 Government Street.
The Piccolo family created Caffè Artigiano which opened in Vancouver, BC in December 1999 – their branding included “Latte art” on their sidewalk signs. On some level, few people took much notice. It was the actual quality and consistency of the beverages that sold Vancouver residents.
Like the Girl next door that we do not always pick up on right away, Artigiano slowly built a following looking for quality joe, a comfortable environment with a bite of sass built in. In my many trips to Vancouver in the first part of the 21st Century, a stop at an arti used to be absolutely necessary.
Within the last two years, the Piccolo brothers sold off the enterprise to Earl`s creator, Willie Mounzer – and with that, speculation that the success and sexiness of Arti would tank. Did it? Not for me to judge. I still pop in from time to time when I am in Van – and yes, some of the jive is off the vine – and that could possibly be a psychological effect of something beloved being tarted up and branded out – Mini-Starbucks style. I mean, this is what Starbucks used to be; sexy and tasty.
Anyhow – Cafe Artigiano is finally coming to the city of Victoria B.C. – and yes, we might be some of the first caffeine-addled in line – if only to criticize what we had come to love – Caffè Artigiano will be located on Government Street – Victoria… in the lobby of the Bedford Hotel. They will be brewing premium cups of joe with the Clover single cup brewer and churning out at least some of the energy that has taken Vancouver by storm.
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Canadian Color - Mousse abuse self-help clinic · Tuesday October 21, 2008 by colin newell
Popped by the Chris and Steven show webpage – linked here.
The CoffeeCrew maven of all things caffeinated, Sara Lee Spector, did a really nice spot on their show and the video is now online. How to find it?
-Head over to the Steven and Chris page here
-Click on Watch more Videos over on the right.
-Click on All Video Clips under categories
-Click on Shopping as a category
-Click on The Smart Shopper Coffee Episode
Yea. Sara is hot and turns up the heat on great coffee.
When it was originally telecast a month ago, we were shocked and dismayed that there was no credit for Sara, her cafe roastery or the CoffeeCrew website. They fixed this oversight and we thank them. My faith in the CBC has been, at least, partially restored.
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Canadian Color - The unmeasureable hipness of Habit Coffee · Saturday October 18, 2008 by colin newell
I sat in Bubby Roses Bakery Cafe this morning and chowed down on a spectacular serving of Challah French Toast – a half-order in fact. Baker-owner and Socratic master, Mark Engels and I mused… “I wonder what the average age of your clientele is?”
I continued, “I figure there is a big block of kids in their mid-twenties… a gap… lots of 50-somethings and then those over 60s-young and beyond…”
Mark injects, “I wish I knew that information…”
Truth is, there are some remarkable looking young people that hang out at Bubby’s on Saturday morning. A young lady in particular stands out – she has the face of a child and is obviously in her twenties – her buff stud dude has biceps twice the size of my legs and they cuddle in the warm October Sun. They are a picture of youthful and unspoiled purity – at least on some perverse level…
Flash forward a few hours. If Bubby Roses is the sanctuary to youthful maidens with gorilla sized gentle giant boyfriends, Habit Coffee and Culture is a missing chapter out of a modernized Hunter S. Thompson novel. Habit Coffee and Culture oozes an impossibly rich sap of hipness and has caffeinated beverages brewed to heighten already jaded slackers to unheard levels of awesomeness.
As a reasonably jaded 40 something on the eve of my 5th decade on Planet Earth, I watch with muted amusement the funky social dance performed by these naive critters of the Z and Millennial generations. We are on the leading edge of an economic crash – where we will pass from an era of excess and endless employment opportunity – where a slacker job (high paid) incorporates chill time, face book time, spa time and, well, simply not showing up for work if they do not feel like it… and like whaddya gonna do about it anyway?!?
The Z’s and Millennial`s fail to realize that once this current bubble bursts, they will be ill equipped to deal with the realities that us 30-somethings and 40-somethings survived so well 10, 15 and 20 years ago.
I laugh. Ha. Ha.
Kids these days remind me of growing up on the farm in the 70’s and eying giddy fatted and rambunctious lambs gamboling from one stump to another…
moments prior to the slaughter. They have no idea. None.
Pass the mint jelly.
Fall Colors Canadian Style - among the living legends · Thursday October 16, 2008 by colin newell
It is the summer of 1943. You are in Burma. As a POW (Prisoner of War). You are being held captive by the Japanese Empire. You are working on a railway. You work in unthinkable conditions working harder than you will ever work in your life – for no salary and hardly enough food to get through the day. Your brothers in this task are Australians, Brits, Dutch, Americans, fellow Canadians, and ethnic Asians enslaved by the empire for the express purpose of building a railway. You are 19. Your name is Peter.
In 1942, Japanese forces invaded Burma from Thailand and took it from Britain rule. To maintain their forces in Burma, the Japanese had to bring supplies and troops to Burma by sea, through the Strait of Malacca and the Andaman Sea. This route was vulnerable to attack by Allied submarines, and a different means of transport was needed. The obvious alternative was a railway. In June 1942, the empire of Japan set out to do the impossible. They needed labor and they got it from almost 300,000 slaves and POW’s. You survive because you are young and strong. Your American buddies who survive call you Pete. The Australians call you sir.
The estimated total number of civilian laborers and POWs who died during construction is about 160,000. About 25% of the POW workers died because of overwork, malnutrition, and diseases like cholera, malaria, and dysentery. You celebrate your 20th birthday with a bowl of rice in one hand and a pick axe in the other.
In the year 2008, I look at a flat-screen monitor struggling to boot Windows XP. I wonder if the OS is corrupt of whether or not the hard-drive is on its last legs. I unplug USB devices and switch off unneeded ports in BIOS to free up resources in memory. There seems to be little that I can do to unfurl this mess.
Over my shoulder, a very encouraging Peter B. gives me the odd clue as to the demise of his cherished PC. He enjoys his e-mail, his web browser and the photos of his grand-children and great-grand children. Peter and his wife are in remarkable health and embrace this modern technology. And yet I cannot wrap my mind around the visual… a teenage boy slashing his way through a tropical jungle, warding off disease and tolerating hunger while older men fall around him.
There is something about helping a veteran from another era that is sobering and humbling – when men and women fought for the very survival of freedom and democracy and paid the ultimate price.
Words escape me. They really do. On November 11, 2008 (Remembrance Day in Canada) – think about Peter, the survivors. And those that did not survive.
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