When our cheap jolly roger motif shower curtain finally gave up the ghost we knew it was time to move just a tick upscale. We’d bought the jolly roger on a whim, hoping it would generate a few giggles and last a few months, which is exactly what it did. And then it got a little tired.

By the time the curtain rings ripped through the third unreinforced hole, we had seen enough of row upon row of skulls and bones first thing every morning, and I’d found our shower curtain woe solution.

In a word, Izola. Izola’s mission is to transform shower curtains into everyday art. They do this by reproducing graphic images, mostly full panel prints, that include objects like feathers, bamboo, and zebra skins, as well as limited edition art reproductions, and black and white shots of iconic travel destinations including the entrance to the Brooklyn Bridge, an overhead view of Paris, and the one we bought, of Venetian canals.

All Izola shower curtains are 72″ x 72″, machine washable, and reinforced with metal grommets.

Prices in US dollars range from $35 to $40, but if you order on the internet and pay with Canadian funds, expect to shell out about $100, including shipping costs and Canadian taxes–maybe a few pennies less now that the GST has dropped.

David Emerson is not the only poobah to be enjoying the sites and sounds of San Francisco this week.

John Furlong also went south. The aim of his trip is to advise San Francisco mayor, Gavin Newsom, how to go about winning the bid for the 2016 Summer Games.

Which is interesting, because when the Olympic bug bit Vancouver, the original plan for our fair city was to win a summer bid. When that became a mountain too high to climb, those pursuing Olympic gold decided to bid for the winter games as a consolation prize.

Perhaps I’m a bit dense about these things, but couldn’t Furlong’s wisdom, whatever it might be worth, have been passed on to San Francisco city council via a conference call, maybe with a video hook up?

In related news, Furlong is hopeful that he’ll be receiving an additional $55 million for the federal government very soon to help offset rising Olympic costs. Let us hope he and his cronies spend it wisely.

Read the SF Gate story here (pop up warning!)

From www.gamesbids.com:
Saturday, July 29, 2006
Vancouver 2010 Head Advises San Francisco 2016
Posted 2:14 pm ET (GamesBids.com)

John Furlong, Chief Executive Officer of Vancouver 2010, in San Francisco this week to help re-open a new Canadian consulate, met with Mayor Gavin Newsom. He said San Francisco has the characteristics that appeal to the International Olympic Committee (IOC). And he had some advice for Newsom should San Francisco be named the U.S. candidate bidding for the 2016 Summer Olympic Games.

Furlong also dismissed the idea that the IOC wouldn’t return to the West Coast six years after the Vancouver Games, reports the Mercury News. “The timing is good”, he said for the Summer Games returning to the United States.

Last year, B.C. Hydro commissioned a poll that said 74% of residents of British Columbia were opposed to coal generated power.

Yesterday, B.C. Liberals announced that up to 28% of new power generation will be coming from coal-fired plants.

The David Suzuki Foundation thinks that’s ill-advised, to say the least, and you can read their press release here.

I’ll just keep scratching my head and wondering who elected those guys.

This press release announces the anticipated and the unthinkable. God preserve us, there is an inflection (known in common parlance as a “turning point” but I guess that wouldn’t sound as good to the heady audience the press release was intended for) on its way in the condo market.

What was our first clue? The lifestyle towers sprouting here, there, and everywhere? The limited appeal of living in 500 square feet, with partner, child, matte stainless appliances, and granite counters? Or maybe it was the thought of paying $450 and more per square foot for the privilege?

Vancouver desperately needs affordable density. Let us hope and pray that our new planning guru, Brent Toderian, brings a broad and imaginative perspective.

David Emerson is jaunting off to San Francisco today to meet with business leaders and other local decision makers in and around the Bay area.

Apparently his assignment is to strengthen bilateral and investment links with California, one of Canada’s significant trading partners. He’ll also be promoting the 2010 Games to that winter sports mecca in the south and discussing port efficiencies.

No word on where he’ll be wined and dined, but I’m guessing it won’t be Denny’s in Daly City.

Is Google going to conquer the world, or go the way of kleenex and xerox?

According to this story in the Guardian, as if we didn’t already know, the verb “google” has become as generic as “search” when it comes to finding things on the internet.

One dictionary publisher suggested that Google may have to come up with a simple and easy-to-use replacement and educate people to use that instead.

I eat meat, but I don’t really enjoy it. Not like the old days before I knew about factory farms, the piles of pig shit that are probably going to bury everything, the beakless chickens that are forced to molt in order to maximize egg production, the hormones and antibiotics that are shoved down the helpless and unaware gullets of protein-bearers, and the soulless way in which they are all slaughtered.

There are always soy burgers, which I have learned to enjoy, though Mr. V. is not quite ready to make that plunge. But my experiments with vegetarianism have taught me that I am designed to eat animal protein at least some of the time.

At home we try to eat meat that is organic, or grass fed, or free range. My consience is assuaged when I think the animal we are consuming was treated like a living being before it was killed for our benefit. But this approach can be costly and inconvenient, and we don’t always manage to live according to our best intentions. We also eat in restaurants, most of which serve factory meat.

If you are concerned about where your protein comes from and how it got to your table, and are looking for a better way to meet your nutritional needs, this article in The Tyee is probably worth a read.

Scientists looking for ways to provide astronauts with protein while they are in space have made strides with stem cells, growing them in a nutrient bath, exercising them with electrical stimulation and mechanical stretching, and harvesting them by scraping them off the plastic sheet they call mommy.

They envision commercialization of this protein–which they believe could be marketed as ethical non-polluting, and disease-free–to be not all that far off.

As Traci Hukill, the author of the article, says:

“…instead of safeguarding our appetites and engineering our meat, let’s safeguard our meat and engineer our appetites. What if real animals were raised humanely and in sustainable numbers, so that their meat cost more — maybe even a lot more? What if people only ate it on special occasions? What if, instead of deciding that the most important thing was to be able to satisfy every idle hankering for a cheeseburger, humanity assessed the resources and made a rational decision about protein acquisition that did not involve divorcing its food source from the life cycle? What if we took the invisible hand of the market, which has all the self-discipline and foresight of a 14-year-old boy, off the job and put a grown-up in charge?”

But I really don’t think it will turn out that way. I can see the future, and it is “two-tiered meat.” The privileged elites will eat animals that are humanely and organically grown on bucolic farms. Butchers and restaurants will tell the life stories and present the credentials of each loin, rack, and rib before it is consumed.

As for the rest of us, we’ll be munching on cultured ground round. Maybe then I’ll be able to talk Mr. V. into trying a soy burger.

Blunt’s 35-city “U.S.” tour will benefit Doctors Without Borders/ Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF). A limited number of “best” tickets will be sold via his website starting August 8.

Read the press release here for more info.

Mr. V. and I were off for a short break to Victoria at the beginning of the weekend, and we had some mini-adventures I’ll be writing about soon. It was hot there as well, but having the luxury of ducking in and out of air-conditioned shops and restaurants, and sleeping in an air-conditioned hotel allowed me to enjoy the heat.

We arrived back in Vancouver late on Saturday night. Sunday was pretty much a write off as far as my brain was concerned. I did a bit of this and that–mostly wingeing to Mr. V. about the heat–but very little thinking and even less writing.

If the forecast for this coming Friday is accurate, with its projected high of 23C, then July 28 will be, for me, a very good day.

Mr. V. is another year older, and on his special day I wanted to take him to Bishop’s. We had last been on my birthday two years earlier, and I was surprised to learn when I called to make the reservation that Bishop’s had instituted seatings, and no we couldn’t come at 7:00, but instead at either 6:30 or 8:45. I deal rather badly with hunger, so I took the 6:30.

Of course, we were late. Having neglected to budget time for parking, we spent the first several minutes of our seating driving around Kitsilano looking for a parking spot.

We arrived with great apologies, clucking about the parking situation, the way people do more and more in Vancouver. The staff greeted us warmly, then seated us at the worst table in the house. It was the only one left, and it wasn’t all that bad. It was in the middle of the lower level, beside the bar and the front door where staff hustle, guests congregate, and regulars air buss Mr. Bishop.

The table was elegantly set with snowy linens, sparkling stemware, and two gorgeous orchids in a simple glass bowl. It was early evening, the ceiling was high, and the room was bright. My seat afforded me an uninterrupted view of an impressive wooden West Coast carving as well as most of the lower level’s goings on and good deal of the upper level’s as well.

Happy guests chatted amiably at every table, but at Bishop’s things never get really loud. It is easy to talk with your dinner companion without raising your voice and to hear them without straining your ears.

Once settled, we were greeted, as is his custom, by Mr. Bishop himself. “Nice to see you again,” I said, and I meant it, though when I noticed the slightly quizzical expression cross his face I realized he probably thought he knew me from somewhere but didn’t have a clue who I was. But that wasn’t it at all: I really was glad to see him in person rather than in one of those White Spot commercials that Vancouver restauranteurs seem to be lining up to appear in.

The amuse was a sort of profiterole, sans chocolate topping, and filled with an exotic chicken salad. It was cute, and would have subdued the hunger pangs of guests dining at a later hour. At 6:30, however, it was merely a nice touch, a subtle prelude to the pleasures that would follow.

We settled in with mineral water and mulled over the menu. Bread came almost immediately. I had been hoping it would be the peach and five spice bread I’d enjoyed on our first visit. But though it wasn’t, I wasn’t disappointed. We were given a basket that contained a multigrain loaf and cornbread; both were delicious and fresh.

Before long, the maitre d’ was at our table. It was a toss up for me between the chicken and the salmon and he told me what I already knew. I wanted the salmon. The chicken I could have anytime. He was absolutely right, of course, and set me straight with a gracious and warm smile.

Actually, it wasn’t the chicken I wanted. It was the sweet pea and pancetta risotto that came with it. And so, to compromise, I chose as a starter the chilled pea soup with Dungeness crab and creme fraiche, it being the tail end of the season for peas that are truly fresh and tender.

Mr. V. selected the special off-menu starter of stuffed squash blossoms. The blossoms came attached to baby zucchini, two to a plate, in a shallow puddle of sweet red pepper coulis. They looked like flowers from a strange planet, and Mr. V. surreptiously passed me a morsel. It was incredibly rich, stuffed with crab meat and marscapone. The starter would have made a filling meal for me.

The soup turned out to be a mistake. It was fine, served chilled, with a couple of lumps of crab nestled under a dollop of creme fraiche–a very nice summer soup. But its brilliant green colour just did not go with the rather austere black and white outfit I had chosen for the evening. There you have it. No matter the setting, I can keep neither soup nor sauce off my chest.

Despite the fact we were a few minutes late and there was another seating just after 8:30, the evening was unhurried, and we had a leisurely wait for our main courses. But there may have been a touch of chaos in the house. Mr. Bishop himself brought my entree, which was delivered simultaneously with Mr. V’s. If things were a bit mad that night, though, the madness couldn’t be surmised from the placid and hospitable staff.

I was glad the maitre d’ had encouraged me to order the salmon. It was a very generous portion, with nice grill marks, and perched on a potato latke which itself was atop seasonal vegetables and sea asparagus. Warm mustard vinaigrette encircled the plate.

The fish was just a touch on the dry side, but had a gorgeous alderwood flavour. The potato latke was dense, and on its own, would have been a bit bland. The sea asparagus was naturally salty, which played well off the fish and the latke. The garden vegetables were fantastic, particularly the baby striped beets, steamed to perfection and served unadorned.

Mr. Vancouverist ordered the duck, and again slipped me a surreptious sample of it and the accompanying sweet potato tart. The duck was cooked perfectly, very lean yet tender, and subtly dusted with five spice. Really splendid. The sweet potato tart was surprisingly light, and played very well off the duck.

We chose a bottle of Naramata’s Kettle Valley Pinot Gris, which is noted for its pinky blush. It was pleasant, and held its own with the flavours of the meal, matching well with both the duck and the salmon.

Did we want dessert? Coffee or tea? Despite our late arrival, and the evident busyness of the place, there was no effort to move us along. We were welcome to stay as long as we liked. And while the salted butter caramel that accompanied the raspberry rhubarb gallette did sound tempting, we decided to end our evening with a chai and a Djarum at the beach.

Bishop’s does not serve food that is experimental or precious. As John Bishop says, they let the ingredients speak for themselves. Everything is local, and as much of it as possible is organic. Likewise, service is impeccably gracious.

A restaurant like this has its fortunate regulars, and it becomes for them a sort of home away from home. The people having dinner next to us left with a loaf of the multigrain bread, wrapped up and tucked under the husband’s arm, and gentle pats on the back from Mr. Bishop. They’ll probably be back in a couple of weeks. At around $100 per person for three courses and wine, we’ll likely have to wait for a couple of years.