Happy Birthday dear Remy Pannier! Happy Birthday to you! After a certain age, birthday celebrations lose their appeal for many. However, when you’re celebrating a 200th, it’s a huge cause for elation. Such is the case with Remy Pannier who this year celebrates 200 years of winemaking in France’s Loire Valley. The Loire is France’s […]
Category: Columns
The Main Menu: Thank goodness for greenhouses
Kudos to Ontario farmers who use innovation to grow fresh produce in a less than hospitable climate. Greenhouse gardening minimizes the effects of our rigorous climate and allows us to have fresh picked tomatoes, cucumber, peppers and lettuces now. In the past farmers had to rely on outdoor planting and Mother Nature. As a result, […]
Glenn Cochrane: Mae West can’t beat May in the Beach
After a typical Toronto winter which always seems so long and so dour, we are finally heading happily into the Merry Month of May and not a moment too soon, if you ask me. According to my notes the month is named after Mae West, a popular stage and movie performer back in the 1930s […]
Glenn Cochrane: Glenn tells everyone to “Have a nice day.”
Whatever happened to that cheery admonition “Have a nice day?” The time was that a child’s first words were “Have A Nice Day,” strangers would stick their heads in your car window and cry “Have a Nice Day” while you waited for the traffic light to change, and felons would beset you on the street […]
Bottoms Up: Malbec & Torrontes are hot, hot, hot!
What’s hotter than Charlie Sheen’s wild escapades since the departure from his hit TV show? That would be Malbec and Torrontes. Both are flagship, varietal wines from Argentina, one of the top five producers of wine by volume in the world. Malbec is one of the traditional red grapes used in France, but rarely is […]
Try going off the ‘Deep’ end
I remember the first time bravely dog-paddling my way into the deep end of a pool. There was something about the ground disappearing from under my feet. That pool could have been as deep as the ocean for all the good it did me stretching my toes in a futile search for the bottom. And […]
Seniors lack access to dental care
According to published Statistics Canada figures, seniors represent the fastest growing segment of the Canadian population. In 2001, there were an estimated 3.92 million Canadians over the age of 65. By the year 2021, that number is expected to grow to 6.7 million, and by 2041 will reach 9.2 million, or one in four Canadians. […]
An African adventure to remember
In the magnificent movie Out of Africa, Robert Redford and Meryl Streep spend the night together in a tent on the savannah in pre-First World War British East Africa (now Kenya). In the morning he lovingly washes her hair as the sun rises majestically over the mountains. This scene caused my wife Dianne extreme heart […]
Glenn Cochrane: Divesting oneself of winter is not easy
This is liberation time for me in the fashionable Beach pied à terre I share with The Wife. After several months of waddling about town encased like a mummy in several layers of the sturdy made-in-Canada clothing needed to fend off our winters, I am starting to shed my armour piece by salt-encrusted piece. My […]
Bottoms Up: Montgras keeps it friendly
The popularity of Chilean wine is no secret among consumers. They catapulted onto the scene quite a number of years back with their decently made, fruit-driven, varietally labelled, vintage-dated, extremely well-priced offerings. Of course, the pricing has increased over the years, but the quality remains solid. One producer who creates wine that is really consumer-friendly […]
