Cheers to Yellowknife

I spent my afternoon sampling orphan wines from the local Opimian Cellar. Here I'm on the deck of the house where the event was held. It's at the tip of Latham Island, jutting between Back Bay (in the photo) and Great Slave Lake.

This part of the city is amazing: very old buildings and architectural wonders compete for space among the rocks. Water is trucked in during the winter, then water lines are opened up to the houses around now. Septic tanks are in the basement and get emptied weekly.

Houses are built in and around the huge boulders. I got a chuckle out of this guy watering his "lawn"--a few tufts of grass between the rocks.

It was a glorious day--in the high 20's, which I'm warned is not seasonal. After the tasting, a few of us, mostly from the CBC, headed to the WildCat cafe and ate dinner on the outside deck. I had the whitefish, which was fabulous and the veggies were well prepared. I vow to eat my way through the menu there. Think I'll get the wild game satay next time ....


Speaking of wild game I picked up some interesting food from Northern Fancy Meats this morning: a muskox steak ($7.80) and caribou sausage ($3.44), as well as a Wild Cohoe salmon steak ($5.58). This store has everything, from organic Alberta beef to stuffed char. It's within walking distance of where I live.

Given all my attention to food, it's anybody's guess why I bought "The South Beach Diet" and companion cookbook this morning at the giant flea market held in the Multiplex, a sports centre. The vendor offered the two books for a loonie--how could I resist? I bought too many books, I admit. I had gone in search of kitchen stuff but, other than a Braun handblender which I bought for two bucks, I didn't find anything much. So I've got lots of food, a cookbook and not much to cook with...