Fun in Niagara on the Lake

Cooking class with Jason Parsons

 Wine Tasting - Yum!

 Ice Room at Pellar Estates Winery

Accessorizing your back garden, deck or patio

A trip to Homesense will surely get you in the mood to decorate and accessorize your outdoor spaces.

A little wine with your cheese?

Guest Post by Natalie McLean

6 Quick Tips: Pairing Canadian Wines and Cheeses:

1. The easiest to pair are mild-flavored fresh and semi-fresh Canadian cheeses, such as mozzarella. They go especially well with light whites, of 12 percent or less alcohol, that have bright notes of fruit and crisp acidity, such as Prince Edward County Riesling.

2. The classic match of French goat cheese, or chèvre, is Sauvignon Blanc from France’s Loire Valley, as both carry the essence of fresh air and wild meadows. Try Canadian goat cheese with Niagara Sauvignon Blanc. The racy acidity of those wines cuts through to the chalky heart of this cheese, and enhances the grassy notes in the cheese.

3. Double- and triple-cream cheeses are tough to match with wine because their creamy texture can smother wine and make it taste thin. A good match is a robust white wine, such as a barrel-fermented or barrel-aged Okanagan Chardonnay. Both the cheese and the wine have creamy, buttery aromas and texture.

4. Another good match is Nova Scotia Sparkling Wine—a great fall-back for many tough-to-match foods and many Canadian soft cheeses. Bubbly helps to diffuse salt and cut through fat with its palate-cleansing acidity and effervescence.

5. For hard cheeses, such as cheddar, try a Niagara Cabernet Sauvignon or Cabernet Franc. Their flavors even mimic some of those in mature, full-bodied reds, such as notes of earth, nuts, and coffee.

6. The most difficult cheeses to pair with wine are the blues, as their strong taste and powerful saltiness tends to make red wine taste bitter and hot. The best foil for salt is sweet, so avoid dry and off-dry wines and go straight for the sweeter ones like a Quebec Icewine or Hard Cider.

Best Canadian Wine & Cheese Pairings?

Wine drinkers battle over the best Canadian bottles for Canadian cheeses

Ottawa, Ontario, May 12, 2015 – The search for the best Canadian wine and cheese pairings launches today with The Great Canadian Wine & Cheese Match at www.nataliemaclean.com/wine-cheese-pairing.

Wine lovers from coast to coast are voting via social media for their favourite Canadian wines to match with Canadian cheeses to get ready for July 1 celebrations and summer entertaining.
  
“The Great Canadian Wine & Cheese Match puts the glass in the hands of the people for the grater good,” says Natalie MacLean, editor of Canada’s largest wine review site at www.nataliemaclean.com. “We’re breaking the mould from Coquitlam to Chance Cove to show Canadians the whey forward.”

Unlike traditional competitions judged by experts, The Great Canadian Wine & Cheese Match allows wine and cheese lovers themselves to choose their favourite pairings via real-time, online voting. The Twitter hashtag is #CdnWineCheese.  
  
Participants can nominate and vote for their favourite Canadian wines to pair with Canadian cheeses in six categories: cheddar, feta, mozzarella, goat cheese, creamy cheese and blue cheese. Voting ends May 31 with the top wines in each category named the best match with each Canadian cheese.
  
“This is a coast to coast toast to celebrate our own wines and cheeses,” says MacLean. “I think we can all drink to that.”

Niagara Icewine Festival

Ontario Icewine is one of Canada’s most cherished products. Celebrate for three weekends in January as the Niagara Region is transformed into a wintry wonderland.

Celebrating 20 years this year, the Niagara Icewine Festival offers plenty for every taste, from elegant gala evenings to irresistible wine and food pairings and outdoor activities from exploring Ice Street Villages to marshmallow roasting along the famed wine route.

If you haven't attended the Niagara Ice Wine Festival and you love wine then you must  plan on going next January.  There are still many events happening next weekend as well.  I was there this past weekend and what a fun time.  All of the wineries host special events and one in particular that we attended was at Pellar Estates where there were tours, and several different events taking place.  We went for the ice wine tasting and wine infused marshmallow roasting.  Need I say more -  yum!   

Over the weekend the town closed a portion of the main street and all of the different wineries were set up in their own booths as well as the different restaurants who had many delicious food offerings.  Great idea so no driving involved.  There were ice sculptures including 'cruiser' type ice tables and and fire pits set up with chairs around them for a little relaxing if you were so inclined.

At the Ice Wine Cocktail Colntest

 Roasting my marshmallow

After a fantastic dinner at the Grill on King, www.grillonking.ca  we headed out from our room on the main street to enjoy the evening of Sparkle & Ice which is a celebration with Niagara-on-the- Lake Icewinemakers and their VQA wines paired with Icewine inspired tastings and contest. While tasting the offerings, we had a live band to keep the spirits happy.   Such fun!n evening of Spa

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas.....

I have been checking out just a few of my favourite shopping spots and and they are all decked out in their finest for the upcoming holidays...

Sheridan Nurseries

 Pottery Barn

 Homesense

 Wicker Emporium

 Urban Barn

Bouclair

 Interior Design House

Bowring

 Watch for a future post dedicated to the wonderful displays at Sheridan Nurseries

The great Beauty of Paris,

I recently vacationed in France.  As with other European cities I have visited, it is filled with history and wonderful architecture.  Having studied this in college, I am of course incredibly interested in viewing it first hand.  My first stop was Paris and nothing can quite compare to that!  Loved it and will be going back.  So much to see and not enough time.  What I did see was amazing.  I had a list and was able to accomplish some of it.
The buildings, the bridges are all so old and so fantastic.  I was really taken away with the intricate carving I saw everywhere.  Imagine our very industrial and practical bridges in comparison to the intricately carved bridges all along the Seine. Statues everywhere. Very ornate, very beautiful!

A stop at the  Galeries Lafayette  offered much more than expected.  Consisting of several buildings along Boulevard Haussmann.  It was so huge I only really visited one of the buildings. Must go back there for sure - lots of goodies!  From the second floor there is an amazing view of all the other floors with once again intricately carved and painted balconies.  The top of the building has a beautiful stained glass dome.

All of the floors viewed from this point  

Of course one must see the well known tourist attractions - The Eiffel Tower, was named after the engineer Gustave Eiffel, whose company designed and built it.  Eiffel lived in an apartment at the top of the tower for many years. 

A statue of Mr. Eiffel at the base of the tower                                                                                

Views from the top of the Eiffel Tower

Entrance to the Louvre

On a stroll up the Seine we were able to view the 
intricate details of he bridges.  So magnificant!

Notre Dame 

 

After our visit to the Cathedral we made our way down to the Archaeological ryps of Notre Dame which links to the Paris Catacombs which run for miles under the historical secton of Paris.

A view from the crypt out to the river

Looking out at the river from down in the crypt

Jardin des Tuileries

Versailles

A visit to Versailles is definitely worth the lineups.  Having studied this I was prepared for it's grandour and beauty but wow!! it is overwhelming in person.

 Famous Hall of Mirrors

An intimate dining space 












And set up for formal

entertaining

Above is a baby bassinetteA view of the gardens

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Champs Elysees - The famous shopping boulevard was all and more than expected. We spent out last night in Paris after returning from Cannes and strolled down the boulevard with a light rain falling,  just like in movies and art. Unfortunately all my lovely photos are on my tablet which is out there somewhere unknown...

Keep reading for part two - Cannes