Our friends at DoMatcha must really like casinos.  Or maybe it’s the Cirque shows?  Or maybe they’re huge fans of the original CSI?  Either way, they want to go to Vegas and they need our help!

Today is the last day to vote for their DoMatcha-tini in the Best Tea Cocktail competition. Finals are in Las Vegas in May, and they need to stay in the top 15 finalists in online voting to get there. Right now they’re in 10th place, but they need more votes! In Vegas they could be selected for the top 5, and with any Irish luck they could win the finals! Voting ends today so if you haven’t voted yet please give them a hand. Thanks for your support!

Here’s how to vote:

1. Go to the World Tea Expo website
2. Under Top Tea Cocktail Voting (down the left hand side of the site)
3. Vote for DoMatcha-tini by adding a checkmark

That’s it! Good luck DoMatcha!

Officially first day of Spring occurred this weekend, and I thought this would be a good time to start the photo-documenting process of our vegetable garden!

This is what the space looks like now from my loft window. The roughly 25′x100′ plot of land is behind our building, as you can see it’s fenced in on two of the other three sides. Our immediate issues as we rookie gardeners see them are:

• • Roots of blackberry bushes: we now know that ripping as much of the root out as we can then covering the ground in black plastic works well, but isn’t very environmentally friendly. We’re currently looking into a more earth friendly option; someone suggested a gardeners black fabric material, that when doubled or tripled over underneath the garden beds might work. Key word at this point is ‘might’. Will most likely need to rent a rototiller, and we have boys who are looking forward to this part which is good.
• • Soil: where do we get organic weed-free soil?! Currently researching how to garden without using pesticides, chemicals, and other hazardous stuff.
• • Sunlight: this photo was taken on the second day of Spring at 4pm, so you can see by this point there’s not much sunlight getting back there. We figure come Summer time the plots on the east end (top of the photo) will get the best and most light, while the plots on the west end might not do as well. There is potential for eventually constructing some sort of small shed at this west end to keep gardening tools, a hose, etc.
• • Uneven ground: you can see the one side of the plot is quite a bit higher than the other side, so we need to decide where exactly to build the beds and how to deal with this raised area. Right now we’re thinking building the beds right up against the wall of the building so light & heat will reflect back on to the plants would be our best bet.

There seem to be some great resources out there for new gardeners, especially in the Mt.Pleasant/Main Street neighborhood we’re in:

• • West Coast Seeds is an online and Delta-based garden center specializing in heirloom, heritage and certified organic seeds for your organic growing, and we stock over 500 varieties of Untreated no GMO, open pollinated and hybrid seeds. They also have a monthly garden calendar for up to date garden advice which I have found particularly handy, and a garden resource page with such things as a planting chart and a gardening glossary.
• • City Farmer is a great resource and news site, I think the news site is their more recent page.
• • The UBC Botanical Garden and Center for Plant Research has a great and extensive forum page on their website with lots of info on workshops, organic gardening and garden design.
• • Salt Spring Seeds have a page of great links surrounding organic gardening in Canada.
• • Do you know of a resource that could help us and other start/continue their own personal or community garden? Please leave the details in the comments section!

And The White House is doing it, so the more the merrier!

We hope to get started on this very soon, and I will be back with more photos and progress shortly.

Cheers,

Jackie

The building I live in is awesome in so many ways. To start, Artech is where I live and work, so commuting is a non-issue (yay!) except of course when I have to shoot on-location, but that happens just enough to mix things up a bit. Then, our building has amazing recycling facilities downstairs which was a major plus coming from the old-school apartment we were living in last year. And now, on the heels of Mayor Robertson’s new garden, we’re building one of our own! There is this long and somewhat narrow plot of unwanted city land behind our building, right up against the concrete wall of the building actually, that a bunch of us in the building have decided to figure out how to make this work for growing our own food, and I am totally pumped about it! Divided up into individual plots, possibly as big as 10×10, in the coming weeks we’re going to research, build, plant and grow.

A huge thank you to Megan for taking the reins in getting this going, and I’m sure we’ll all have to put in alot of blood, sweat and tears (are there blood, sweat and tears in gardening?) for it to be successful but I know we can do it! I promise to photo-document the entire process, from the ridding of the blackberry bushes that currently reside there (apparently a rototiller will be needed), to the first sprout of a bean or a squash or a strawberry, to the first home grown meal we’ll have this summer. And everything we learn about gardening along the way I will of course share. First up on the list: this March snow needs to stop.

I’m an Irish girl, not 100%, but it’s the part of me that I most identify with. And it’s the country that tops my list of ‘Must travel to before I die’ destinations. Why do I identify with being Irish so much? I think it’s my personality.

• Love a party? With friends - check.
• Raucous sense of humour (with a glass of wine) - check.
• Self-deprecating jokes? Partial check.
• Never back down from a fight? Double check.

So, when I had the pleasure a great conversation with extremely talented local Italian artist Silvia Dotto, both lovers of all things food and travel, I felt like we had much in common despite our different backgrounds. She allowed me to borrow (with great care) some beautiful, hand made clayware of hers to shoot several Italian recipes for a stock shoot; here are some of my favourites from that shoot.

As we were getting to know one another I saw some of these traits in her; clearly she was a great host and had a loud and fabulous sense of humour. We never got so far as the self-deprecating jokes, and maybe that’s where the similarities end between the Irish and the Italian, but nevertheless I greatly appreciated her trusting me with her art for the weekend.  If you’re ever in the need for gorgeous, locally crafted clayware now you know where to go.

Enjoy!

Wow, did I really just allude the title of this post to a popular and ever-so-cheesy boy band of my youth? I guess I did. Oh well, moving right along to more relevant topics of the day…

While shooting my latest photo column for Urban Diner, Value Meals Part 2, I got to meet the guys and gals at Gastowns newest diner, Deacon’s Corner. Last week I returned to shoot a few more breakfast and lunch dishes from their menu, as well as interiors, all for their website (soon to be updated).

Here’s the scoop about Deacon’s: if white linen tablecloths, condiments served up in delicate ceramic ramekins and a dash of snootiness during your breakfast is what you’re used to, get ready for a severe dose of…well, basically everything except that.  And in a good way.

The definition of what a diner should be, Deacon’s Corner is casual, screams of that good ol’ neighbourhood feel, and Tyson and his crew serve up home cooked meals that won’t leave you feeling hungry. Seriously, look at the size of that french toast breakfast plate. I was full just shooting it.

For more info, and photos coming soon, visit their website here. And head to Deacon’s next time you’re craving eggs and sausage, french toast, a burger and crispy french fries…anytime between 7am and 3pm during the week and 10am-3pm saturday and sunday.

Jack Bernard and his bar team, along with everyone else that has been working hard to get LUX at Caprice known as one of Granville Street newest and most popular hot spots since it opened this past November, must have the inside scoop. The Georgia Straight’s Golden Plate Awards aren’t being announced until their March 12 issue, but somehow Jack knows they’ve done pretty good.

In this case, pretty good translates to 1st Place - Vancouver’s Best New Restaurant Downtown and 2nd Place - Most Imaginative Cocktails. A huge congratulations everyone at LUX, you deserve it.

To see more of the food, beverage and restaurant interior photography we have shot for Lux, visit here and here.