Move along kiddies, no surprises here.

Hate those Viacom bus shelters? Me too. Maybe we need something like this to happen in Vancouver.

I've kept this one under my hat till we got our tickets, which went on sale today.

The great, the one and only, Mr. Mose Allison is playing Vancouver on June 26. Show's at Capilano College, tickets thru Ticket Master, boys and girls.

If you love the blues, do not miss this show.

Apparently Vancouver is to host the world sand art championships next month, which may or may not cause blessings in the form of tourist dollars to rain down on our fair city.

The sand artist most likely to win, Sudarshan Pattnaik, does seem to have his heart in the right place.

Correction: The sand art championships will be held at Harrison Hot Springs.

Rumoured-to-be-business-genius and Minister of Trade, David Emerson, has made a valiant effort to get a fair deal for Canadian softwood.

Emerson's effort sees a refund of 78% of the $5 billion in duties the US has collected and future access to 34% of the US market. US lumber producers seem to think the deal is “okay”, but it's a different story in Canada.

Provinces with trees for sale don't like it. Many analysts don't like it either. And the markets do not appear to be amused. Canadian forestry stocks, which had been rallying in the lead up to the announcement, apparently wobbled when the details came out.

For this Mr. Emerson crossed the floor in order to remain Minster of Industry. The people needed his talents, and this deal couldn't have been structured without him. It is clear evidence of why he had been worth over $3 million a year while CEO of Canadian lumber company, Canfor.

On a related note, Mr. Emerson was recently in Vancouver to address the British Columbia Economic Forum. Emerson is bullish, to say the least, about Asia's prospects of becoming the world's economic center of gravity.

That's why he thinks it's pretty wonderful that we import over $24 billion from China, while exporting only $6.7 billion. In the old days that would have been called a trade deficit, but Milton Friedman and friends taught us not to worry about those.

So now we can get rid of all our extra trees in Asia. And keep our dollar stores full, too.

The world lost greatness this week when urbanist Jane Jacobs died in Toronto just days before her 90th birthday.

Jacob's vision encompassed everything cities can and should be. Her influence was felt far and wide, and she cared about and loved Vancouver.

Her last public act was a letter of support written to the Eagleridge Bluff protesters.  

Here's new evidence that Vancouver is a "world class city." The Canadian Gaming Association's Gaming Summit will be held at the Trade and Convention Centre later this week.

John Furlong, CEO of Vancouver's 2010 Winter Olympics, will be the opening speaker. It should be an exciting event. "The trade show will be alive with the lights and sights of the newest in gaming equipment."

Does this mean that poker and slots will soon be Olympic demonstration sports?
 

Cook Studio Café, a culinary training program for street youth who may be “at risk” or just in need of a little guidance, was featured some months back on Michael Smith's Chef at Large show on the Food Network. Memories of the Cook Studio program participants featured on Smith's show have stayed with me.

One young man, who had previously been forbidden by the Court to go near knives, had learned to appreciate and work with them in an entirely new way. Everyone featured on the show demonstrated the passion, focus, and love of food that are pre-requisites for survival in a restaurant kitchen.

A few weeks ago, my partner and I dropped into the 45-seat café at 374 Powell for lunch. We found the room cheerful, despite a barebones budget décor that included a black and white checkered lino floor, occasional splashes of contrasting bright colour, and walls hung with photos taken by the talented Albert Normandin.

Cook Studio Café's regular menu features an extensive range of fare including soups, salads, sandwiches, burgers, and pizza. Additional specials are featured on a four-week rotation. Everything is made from scratch and reasonably priced.

My partner settled on a shrimp bisque, followed by basil chicken rotini. The shrimp bisque was served piping hot, and reported to have a perfect consistency and delicate flavour. Similarly, the basil chicken rotini was described as perfectly al dente and very tasty. It was attractively presented, with a nice balancing of colours from the broccoli and peppers that had been folded into the dish.

I decided to order French onion soup and wilted spinach salad. It had been decades since I'd ordered French onion soup, and I found this one to have a rich beef flavour and plenty of onions. Its croûton topping was deftly garnished with gruyère. Thankfully, the heavy, tacky, cheesy toppings that came with French onion soups of old was long gone. My wilted spinach salad was generously topped with grilled portabella mushrooms, three perfectly crisp rounds of pancetta, a garnish of crumbled blue cheese and walnuts, and a nicely balanced balsamic dressing.

Our lunches were very substantial and very good, and the tab for everything was under $20. Service was prompt, courteous, and cheerful.

Although we arrived for a late lunch, the café was still crowded, and we noted several people had ordered the Fisherman's Bowl, another special that looked to be chock full of a variety of shellfish. The Café is located in Vancouver's Downtown East Side where it was easy to find metered parking. Mr. V. and I are looking forward to a return visit.

For those inquiring minds who might want to know what I've been up to for the past several days, let me assure you it's been interesting and not all bad.

Mr. V's friend, Henry, who had been promoting the show, gave us tickets to see Mavis Staples and Taj Mahal on Friday night at the Queen E. Mavis rocked the house with traditional gospel, putting the good back in Good Friday. It was a perfect counterpoint to the appropriately austere service I'd attended that morning.

Taj, of course, performed like the consummate veteran bluesman that he is. At the end of the show we ran into Fretworks guitarists Don and Thom, who were in seventh heaven after Taj's performance.

On Saturday we attended a wedding in White Rock. Since we didn't check Google Maps before setting out, we had no idea where we were supposed to end up, and spent a good while driving through Surrey. For some strange reason traffic was very light (as it had been on Friday, as well) and the trip over “the bridge that Kevin must twin” was quick and easy.

The drive through Surrey was another story. It being the day of Vaikasi, there was a lot of traffic. Slow driving gave us plenty of opportunity to see the handiwork of ex-Mayor McCallum, who had played fast and loose with Surrey's urban development. The place is a mess, at least the parts we saw. With no discernable coherence in the way things are laid out, Surrey may be the region's best example of not-so-smart growth.

We were late for the wedding, pulling into the parking lot just as the bride was about to enter the hall. This enabled us to make a quiet and unnoticed entrance, and take our seats in the back before the service officially began. Despite our lapse we were allowed to stay for the dinner, which turned out to be an Indian buffet featuring all the usual good things—saag paneer, dahl, alu gobi, naan, butter chicken, and a standout tandoori chicken.

Easter Sunday was busy so dinner was just a slice of take-out pizza and a shared apple cardoman Baby Cake from Terra Breads. They are my favourite bakery in Vancouver.

Mr. V. Cooked his beloved (14-pound) turkey on Monday, and we've pretty much been enjoying it every since. Turkey dinner, left over turkey dinner, hot turkey sandwiches, and, of course, turkey pasta casserole. The things I do for love.

Tuesday morning I was at Jimmy Pattison's Pavilion for a high tech test that was a cake walk for the doctor who did it, but a pain for me. Some of the technology that has been developed for our medical delivery system is impressive, but in some ways it seems to create or heighten walls between doctor and patient. At least that was my experience, though I know I received technically very good care.

I left the hospital later that day with fairly sketchy instructions about what to expect next and a photocopied sheet describing serious complications that included abdominal pain and instructions to get oneself to the nearest emergency ward if any complications occurred during off hours. And so just after midnight, early Friday morning, on advice of a VGH resident I was able to reach on the phone, I ended up at Burnaby General's emergency ward.

I was there about four hours, and though I had to wait for a while to get a bed, I have no complaints about the care. I left at the end of it with the clear understanding there was nothing seriously wrong, and I was processed efficiently through urinalysis, blood tests, and x-rays. The one doctor that was on duty was, I think, a little over-worked, but kind and efficient. I learned that night that x-ray plates are now loaded into a digitizer and their images are uploaded onto a network that displays them in whatever ward the patient happens to have been admitted to. And that there are x-ray beds now that don't require plates at all, but are themselves wired into networks into which the images are directly uploaded. Impressive.

Because I was ambulatory, I made a couple of trips to the restroom past a bank of beds that were occupied by people who were very elderly, and looked very frail. These, it was explained to me, are people who are waiting for a regular hospital bed and eventual admission to a care facility. They are the real victims of the efficiencies the Campbell government has introduced into our heath care system. Although they appeared to be sleeping like babies, and were watched over by attentive nurses, there cannot have been any quality in their waking lives. Just boredom, waiting, and hospital food. Meanwhile, emergency beds for true emergencies are in shortened supply.

Lucky me, I was able to leave, and having sent my overworked, overtired, and darling partner home earlier, took a cab home. I am fine and walking around, though I haven't really been out of the house much and sleep a lot. I haven't had to lift a finger. For the past few days my brain hasn't worked well enough to type anything that made sense, but even that is apparently clearing up now. I'm even back to playing my chef role in the kitchen, explaining to Mr. V. that he needs to season this and stir that. I am going to be fine, and for better or worse will soon be back to my old self.

Tonight we watched the last episode of Six Feet Under. We've been renting them from the video store, rather than waiting for them to play on Showcase. And now it is over. It's sad for me, because I realized how attached I've become to the characters, and to the series itself. There really has been nothing like it in television, or in the movies for that matter. I will miss it. I cried, and vowed to view the entire series again, but I know it won't be the same the second time around.

And that's just the way it is.

I'm on the sick list this week, thanks to another visit to Jimmy Pattison's Pavilion and a little more prodding courtesy the pubic purse.

I hope to be back with some new posts fairly soon.