August’s awesome crop

3:08 pm

There are no other vegetables more delicious in the summer than the wide variety of Ontario-grown tomatoes. They are a poster food at this time of year. Eating the field or beefsteak, freshly sliced with a little kosher salt, olive oil and balsamic vinegar, can be a meal in itself. I toss the small varieties into my salads, salsas and toppings for fish, chicken or beef. Tomatoes are also a powerhouse of nutrients. They contain vitamin C, which protects us from free radicals; vitamin A, which improves our immune system and eyesight; niacin, which lowers cholesterol and triglycerides; potassium, which can help lower blood pressure; and lycopene, which prevents damage to the cells causing cancer. They come in different colours to make your table bright and they are low in fat and calories. Technically speaking, the they’re fruits, but in the culinary universe, vegetables. Regardless, you can never eat too many so enjoy!

Pesto-stuffed Heirloom Tomatoes

Plum Tomato Soup Shooters

Calamari & Roma Tomato Salad

Rose’s Tip: How to select the best and keep them fresh

The most commonly used tomatoes are the beefsteak, field, plum and the tiny cherry-sized varieties. The yellow varieties are less acidic and have less flavour than the red, but make a dish attractive. When selecting tomatoes, smell them first. There should be a rich tomato aroma. Those that are still on the vine will always taste the best though they do tend to cost a little more. Make sure that the tomatoes you choose are round, full and heavy for their size. The skin should be tight, not shriveled. Store tomatoes in a cool, dark place and use within a few days. If they’re not ripe, do not refrigerate them. They will ripen in a room-temperature environment.

Post City Magazines’ culinary columnist, Rose Reisman, is author of 17 cookbooks, a TV and radio personality and a health and wellness expert. Visit Rose at www.rosereisman.com.

From friend to frenemy

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TEENAGE GIRLS’ NEW word is “frenemy.” It means precisely what it sounds like: Today you are my worst enemy, I hate your guts for life. Yesterday you were my bff (best friend forever). Tomorrow? I will never forgive you.

Imagine you are this girl’s parents. You ask questions: “What was the fight about?” “Why are you mad at her?” Then you try to help: You tell your daughter that everything is going to be all right, and you’re sure she can patch things up with her bff.

At which point, your street cred is in the gutter. Your teenager knows beyond the shadow of a doubt that you are an idiot. What makes you an idiot is that you are failing to understand that, to a teenage girl, today’s emotions are a) overwhelmingly huge, b) seemingly permanent and c) way too freaky to discuss rationally. By failing to acknowledge those three aspects of your daughter’s reality, you effectively end the conversation. She tunes out because you don’t get it.

The other horribly common experience in the lives of teenage girls is being relegated to social Siberia. This happens when your daughter either gets dumped by the cool girls or doesn’t even get to first base with them. To us, it looks as if there’s a classroom (or a camp cabin) with eight nice girls, all of whom are appropriate “friendship targets,” and we suggest that.

When girls hear lectures about branching out, they may nod politely (if we’re lucky), but what they’re thinking inside is: “Grown-ups are so stupid. I don’t even like those girls. And the two cool ones that I do like would never be my friend.” They find our advice ludicrous in the face of their experience of the social hierarchies at work. Same response as in the frenemy conversation: She tunes out.

Conversation over.

What then are adults to do in the face of girls’ social struggles? Seek first to understand. Carol Gilligan’s groundbreaking research at Harvard in the ’80s demonstrated that, while boys tend to be primarily task driven, for girls, relationships come first.

Thus when friendships are not going well for girls, their world falls apart. Unfortunately this tough truth is made more difficult by girls’ tendency to use friendship as a weapon or a power tool when they have feelings of aggression or anger —perhaps because they’re socialized not to act angry out loud. The result is a lot of painful, ugly jockeying for social power and position in groups of girls. We see the queen bees and their handmaidens, the wannabes and the isolated girls.

We see perfectly normal girls who one day have good friends and it’s all good, and the next week they’ve been dumped for someone else … and they’re destroyed.

Our mission as parents is to help our daughters learn to tolerate and navigate complicated relationships. It’s to help them find their voice, to feel more confident that they can build relationships and to help them communicate with each other more openly about their friendship issues so they can start to negotiate getting what they want — instead of going passive when things don’t go right. These relationship skills will take them far in both professional and personal life.

How do you do that? First, sit on your hands and quit giving advice. You can’t fix it for her — and when you try to fix it (or tell her how to fix it), you shut down communication. You can help to grow your daughter’s voice by using open-ended nonjudgmental statements that reflect back her reality to her and thus assist her to gain perspective on her situation.

You say: “That sounds really complicated and hard.” She thinks: “My mom understands me.” You say: “It sounds really painful.” She thinks: “My mom gets it. And ya, I’m really hurting.” You say: “Relationships can be such a struggle.” She thinks: “This one really is.” And so on, till she runs out of steam.

At a certain point, she’ll have done enough venting that she’ll calm down and maybe her brain might kick in and she might start being able to problem solve a bit. And you helped her get there, by being an empathic, non-advising, non-judgmental listener. That’s the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow!

Parenting columnist Joanne Kates is the director of Camp Arowhon in Algonquin Park where she teaches 150 staff to parent effectively and acts as “Mom” to 300 kids at a time, every summer

Where the kids are: on the lookout for new playmates

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WHEN MY SON was five, he preferred play to work. Educators suggest early childhood development is all about learning through play. They believe a preschooler’s future success is largely dependent on being well socialized. When we were kids, finding friends was easy. The neighborhood streets were filled with kids just hanging out.

Socialization happened naturally. These days our kids live in safe bubbles; they can’t even stand on the front porch without parental patrolling. So this yummy mummy had to go on a playmate prowl for Josh.

The first place I expected to find a friend for my son was at his preschool. However the principal refused to allow a class list to be created, citing privacy concerns for some parents. I was extremely disappointed. With many moms and dads working and drop-off and pickup schedules erratic, catching the parents of my child’s school friends was next to impossible.

Josh had a special girlfriend at this school. With his teacher’s help, I managed to connect with this little girl’s mom and invited her daughter to come play. When she arrived, she was carrying a dozen roses. It was clear her mother was as overjoyed as I was to finally connect with another family outside of school.

My son also attended a French immersion public school. I was thrilled to receive a request for contact information for a class list. I’m sure I was the first mom to sign up. Within a month, a mom of one of the students phoned me to set up a time for our boys to cavort.

The first date her son came to our place. Unfortunately, it ended earlier than expected with our guest in tears, sobbing that he missed his mother. So, we tried again a few weeks later. This time the boys played at his house. When I arrived to pick up Josh, I had to pry him from the arms of his friend who wanted to continue wrestling all night. Social success!

Once I dropped Josh off with his nanny at an indoor play area. When I picked them up, Josh ran to me yelling he had made a new friend. I felt a burst of joy, grabbed a business card and made a 40-yard dash to find the mom of my son’s new pal. I think she was a bit surprised when I ran to her, out of breath, pushing my business card into her hand, saying, “I would LOVE it if we can get our boys together sometime.” Sadly, they were visiting from Barrie but would call if they came into town again.

My son’s social life began to perk up after several pieces fell into place. Two other children his age were attending the same two schools as he was, so I formed a car pool with their moms. This new alliance enabled our kids to bond daily in our minivans and formed a triumvirate of yummy mummies. Within a month, the play dates began. It’s no coincidence that I’m noticing a change in my son. His confidence is growing. He’s showing signs of a sense of humour. He’s even nicer to his little sister! And, most importantly, he’s learning how to be a friend.

Teaching your child to play properly can be hard work, but it’s also very rewarding. One way of connecting your child with like-minded kids is through after-school programs. High-energy boys and girls will love Just Bounce (www.justbounce.ca), the largest trampoline school in Ontario. My son had a blast in semi-private lessons with his car pool buddies.

Coach Jeff, a high level trampoline competitor, was amazing with the kids. With eight trampolines to choose from, they bounced for close to an hour. More impressive was the way Coach Jeff kept the kids howling with laughter as he entertained them with gravity-defying jumps, flips and twists.

And remember, yummy mummies need to play, too! If you’re struggling with a lack of adult stimulation, try inviting other parents to your play dates. While kids romp, moms can talk. It’s like meeting new school friends, once again.

Post City Magazines’ parenting columnist, Erica Ehm is the voice of yummy mummies with her playful website yummymummyclub.ca. After all, mommies need to play, too.

Look out France & Italy, here comes affordable Croatia

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KUTJEVO, A TOWN in Slavonia, is the home of Croatia’s largest wine producer, Kutjevo d.d. Their magnificent vaulted wine cellar was built by the Cistercians in 1232. At the centre of this cellar is a circular stone table said to be the site of dalliances between the Hapsburg Empress Maria Theresa and her Slavonian lover, Baron Franjo Trenk. It is also, coincidentally, a fine perch from which to sample the venerable vintages.

Here I tasted Kutjevo d.d. Rajnski Rizling kasna berba 1992. The wine was magnificent, but here’s the problem: how do you order that in a Toronto restaurant? If you ask for a bottle of Crljenak Katelanski did you know that you’ll be getting Zinfandel? Or what about Îlahtina, a crisp white wine grown only on the vowel-less island of Krk?

Believe me, it’s worth the effort to overcome the language barrier because Croatian wine, I predict, will be the next big thing. Rajnski Rizling is, of course, the Rhine Riesling we know.

Graevina, the most widely planted grape in Croatia, is actually Welschriesling or Riesling Italico, which can make wines ranging from stonily dry to semi-sweet to icewine. As a dry wine it can resemble Pinot Gris. The Krauthaker Graevina Mitrovac 2008 I tasted at a dinner in Zagreb went beautifully with a fillet of Adriatic tuna.

BOOZE FOR THE BARBECUE

CASA THAULERO MERLOT CABERNET SAUVIGNON 2008 (ITALY) • $6.95
COLIO GIRLS NIGHT OUT CABERNET SHIRAZ 2007 (ONTARIO) • $12.95
PILLITTERI CABERNET MERLOT 2007 (NIAGARA PENINSULA) • $12.95
CREEKSIDE CABERNET 2007 (NIAGARA PENINSULA) • $13.95
COUSIÑO-MACUL ANTIGUAS CABERNET SAUVIGNON 2007 (CHILE) • $15.45

Plavac Mali (pronounced plahvatz mahli) is a red variety grown in the warmer regions along the Dalmatian coast. The flavour profile is blackberries, black cherries, pepper and spice with bracing tannins. The grape is a cross between Zinfandel (Crljenak Katelanski) and Dobriãiç, an ancient red variety from an island off the Dalmatian coast. These wines, because of their firm tannins, age very well.

Two of them were standouts at a tasting I had at the Westin Zagreb in July: Korta Katarina Plavac Mali 2006 and Dignac Matsuko Reserva 2004.

Croatian winemakers have access, too, to the familiar varieties we know, but it is the indigenous varieties that are intriguing. At Coronica winery, in the village of Koroniki, Moreno Coronica offered me a taste of his carefully crafted Teran 2007, not yet in bottle — a wine that we know as the Italian Refosco. Moreno described it as “an Oxfordeducated peasant.”

In the extreme east of the country, at the border with Serbia overlooking the Danube, is the hill town of Ilok. This is Gewürztraminer country, known here as Traminac. At Iloãki Podrumi, they produce a range of Gewürz right up to icewine level.

Iloãki Podrumi Traminac Icewine 2007, the first icewine made by the winery, is copper-gold in colour with a spicy, rose petal and honeyed nose; spicy and elegant; not too sweet with wonderful balance (92). This was followed by their amazing Iloãki Podrumi Traminac TBA 2006: bronze colour; burnt orange and tea nose, rather like a Tokaji; very elegant, well balanced with a spicy rose petal flavour and a marmalade finish; sweet but not cloying (93).

To add to the pleasure I tasted these wines in the company of Ivana Vasilj, the newly crowned Miss Croatia. How sweet is that?

Post City Magazines’ wine columnist, Tony Aspler, has written 14 books on wine and food. Tony also created the Ontario Wine Awards. He can be heard on 680News.

Lisa Marcos

3:08 pm

NORTH TORONTO’S LISA MARCOS speaks in weighty sentences, and not just for a former model, from whom one might expect simpler-than-Styrofoam sound bites. The female lead of the CTV summer series The Listener meets me for coffee near her Yonge and Eglinton home, and as she recounts her life story — by turns shocking, sad and triumphant — her solemnity and maturity say it all: the young woman sitting opposite has been through enough to fill her 27 years many times over.

At the tender age of 13, when most girls begin experimenting with makeup, separating boys from cooties and taking an interest in their appearance, Marcos was in Milan, Japan, Spain, Germany and beyond, posing for Vogue and starring in commercials as an international model — and all of it without a parent in sight. Every young girl’s dream come true, right?

Not exactly, says Marcos. “I literally had to pay my rent, wash my clothes, do my homework … and my focus was to make money so I could bring it home. And that’s why I never got involved with the parties and the men and the drugs and all that, which is so easy to get sucked into, and knowing that I didn’t have a parent and no one watching me, I could have if I’d wanted to.”

When her parents split, Marcos, then 11, enrolled in a fashion course at her aunt’s urging, to learn about “makeup, how to stand up straight, walk straight and all that stuff,” she says. Soon after, she entered a modelling competition, but the odds of winning were daunting: from a field of 3,500, only a few contestants would be offered modelling contracts. To her surprise, she placed second, and agents quickly swooped in with contracts. The opportunity presented a way to help relieve her family’s financial burden (“we were very poor,” she says), plus it offered a change of scenery from the divorce troubles at home. While teachers, friends and certain relatives outright disowned her for choosing a career some equated with prostitution, Marcos’s strong relationship with her mother (“she’s my girl,” Marcos says, “the strongest person I know”) and her deep faith (“I believe God opens up doors, and sometimes you don’t understand why”) helped to keep her focused and away from the hazards of such an environment.

"I never got involved with the parties and the men and the drugs and all that, and knowing that I didn’t have a parent watching me, I could have if I’d wanted to."

Marcos has no regrets about the decision she made. While it cost her a normal childhood — her last full year in the classroom was Grade 6 — she says the early tumult makes her current success that much sweeter.

“I really feel like, if I hadn’t gone through all of that, I wouldn’t be in a place today where I can enjoy the moment,” she says. “I just remember the days when I was so broke I couldn’t afford a cup of coffee.”

The Toronto-based Listener centres on Toby Logan (Craig Olejnik), a paramedic with a vigilante streak who uses his handy mind-reading ability to solve crimes. Marcos plays Detective Charlie Marks, who finds herself perpetually flummoxed by and privately thankful for Logan’s timely insights.

The mind-reading element of the show unfortunately echoes more established series The Mentalist and Heroes, but Marcos, Olejnik and Toronto’s Ennis Esmer are bright spots as rising Canadian talents. While the show was recently dropped from NBC’s summer lineup, about half of the season did air, giving Marcos and her co-stars exposure in the crucial markets south of the border.

Toronto, which plays itself in the series, also received its close-up, with the CN Tower skyline, montages of passing TTC streetcars and buzzing downtown intersections linking scenes. In one episode, Det. Marks responds to a crime scene in Chinatown, where the “905 crew” is suspected of foul play. In another, Esmer’s and Olejnik’s characters debate whether they should go out to the Rivoli (“bands, ten-dollar cover, but it could suck,” says Esmer) but then opt for the Madison House.

Marcos relishes the chance to work in and show off her hometown. “There was a picture of our city in the newspaper the other day and I kept it. We really do live in a beautiful city,” she says. “For years, we’ve been playing it as something else. I think we have a great opportunity to let people around the world know what we do here.”

Marcos’s Yonge and Eglinton condo puts her within walking distance of her favourite breakfast spot (the name of which she’s reluctant to divulge for fear it’ll become too known), the Mount Pleasant Cinema, great antiques shopping and world-class restaurants. She loves the Taste of Eglinton festival and the nearby parks, and she goes out of her way to drive along the Rosedale extension. “It’s home,” she says of Toronto, “a place where, no matter how bad they treat you anywhere, when you’re home, it’s almost like a safety blanket.”

But for 10 lonely years, home for Marcos was whatever hotel the modelling agency had put them up in that week. When Marcos touches on such memories, her delivery slows and her lips purse ever so slightly, signs that the trauma of having had to grow up far too fast still lingers. “There are stories I don’t share with everyone,” she says at one point.

Still, she reveals partial anecdotes of some of the perils she faced as a youngster abroad — memories of roommates who got hooked on hard drugs, others who sold themselves to further their careers and of creepy male predators lurking at every turn. “I’m the girl who got locked in a train car by a strange man in Germany,” she says. In another instance, a photographer asked her whether she would call the cops if he touched her (“Yes,” was her reply). And when she was 15, an agent told her she should consider cocaine to keep her weight low.

“These people … are like hyenas. They come in packs and they just want to tear every piece of skin off of you,” she says. “When you’re that young, even if you’re 18, 19, that stuff eventually wears you out, and if you’re not strong enough, it will have you thinking differently. That stays with you. That scars you. So you really have to get in the frame of mind where what they say really doesn’t change who you are.”

If anything is certain, it’s that Marcos, like her strong-willed character, has a clear sense of self.

Coffees nearly empty, I ask if there’s anything else she’d like to add. Often it’s a request for a plug (“Can you say something about my new fragrance/clothing line/movie?”), but Marcos offers a suitably weighty closing remark:

“For every person who’s had it rough or every child who’s dreaming, if it can happen to me, it can happen to anybody,” she says. “Just keep your heart in the right place and make sure it’s open with love.”

The Renaissance volunteer

3:08 pm

For Richmond Hill’s Michael Yarlett, the York Regional Police motto “Deeds Speak” is not just a phrase, but also a way of life.

For the past 28 years, Yarlett has dedicated his time and talent to the York Regional Police Auxiliary Unit, rising through the ranks to staff sergeant while also volunteering as part of the bicycle and search and rescue units.

And now, with more than 7,000 hours of service under his belt, Yarlett has been chosen as this year’s recipient of the York Regional Police Volunteer of the Year Award, in recognition of his contribution to the service and his local community.

But Yarlett remains modest when it comes to talking about his impressive record.

“There are tons of these stories out there,” he says. “I’m not a hero, I’m just another volunteer.”

As part of the York Regional Police Auxiliary Unit, volunteers are trained to assist full-time police officers in their day-to-day duties and even act in the role of a police officer if the need should arise.

Over the years, Yarlett says he has done everything from knocking on doors and handing out pamphlets to assisting with arrests. He has also helped police during two visits from the Pope, Rolling Stones concerts and national and provincial police memorials.

“It’s been a lot of fun,” he says. “When I started, I’d just moved to the York Region. And I said, ‘Sign me up, I’ll give you two years.’ I hadn’t been in a police station in my life, and I’d never held a gun.”

Yarlett says he credits his parents, who were active in the church community, as well as the blood donors he met as a teen through local blood drives, for inspiring him to become involved with his community.

“I saw people giving their time,” he recalls, “and I was impressed because they weren’t getting paid, and they were donating their time to help out.”

“I said, ‘Sign me up, I’ll give you two years.’ I hadn’t been in a police station in my life, and I’d never held a gun.”

On top of his volunteer work with the police auxiliary, Yarlett is also passionate about his involvement with the York Regional Police Male Chorus, which he joined in 1991.

The chorus performs at community events across York Region, and over the years, he has dedicated more than 2,000 hours as a tenor and assistant chorus marshal.

“I love it,” he says. “There is great camaraderie there, and it is very uplifting to be part of it. We go to seniors’ homes; do fundraising concerts for churches, police funerals and the memorial in Ottawa each September.”

And now, as Yarlett eyes retirement from some of his more demanding volunteering duties, he says he will continue his work in the community as a canvasser with the Canadian Cancer Society as well as Out of the Cold, an interfaith group dedicated to helping the homeless.

“I’ll always be volunteering to some degree,” he says. “I also plan to continue being a volunteer for the chorus and search and rescue.”

Of course, Yarlett says none of this would have been possible without the support of his family — his wife, Cathie, with whom he will celebrate his 40th wedding anniversary this September, and his five daughters.

“Obviously the biggest thing is to have somebody behind you,” he says. “My wife is a very good lady.”

Dawn Langstroth

3:08 pm

MEETING DAWN LANGSTROTH for an interview over spicy tuna rolls feels a little like a blind date.

All I know about the singersongwriter I learned from her website. She’s toured with the Rankin Family, performed at Roy Thomson Hall with John McDermott, written songs with Ron Sexsmith, recorded two fivetrack EPs and has a full-length album due in the fall. She paints — my knowledge of art doesn’t extend much beyond dogs playing poker, but her playful miragelike images, in a semi-cubist illustration style, Wikipedia tells me, are beautiful.

While her site listed no likes or dislikes (walks on the beach or black widow spiders, for example), there are plenty of photos, from stunning black-and-white portraits to candid girl-next-door snapshots. And there are tracks from her records: soulful pop songs tinged with a country music melancholy, failed relationship tunes “You Don’t Want Me” and “Elevator Music,” the jazzy uptempo “New York,” the more radio-friendly “It’s All Good.”

Among a handful of video clips is one of Langstroth in the studio recording “Mother’s Child,” a song with deep autobiographical significance. Langstroth is the daughter of the legendary Anne Murray and Bill Langstroth, who hosted the CBC musical variety series Singalong Jubilee in the ’70s. Langstroth sounds a lot like her superstar mother on “Mother’s Child” while on the other tracks her voice, at turns soaring and sweet and low and crisp, evokes Jann Arden, Shania Twain and k. d. lang with just a soupçon of Carole King.

Thus informed, I meet Dawn Langstroth over sushi.

Your mother is a musical icon, I begin, testing the waters. Did that give you any reservations about becoming a singer? Langstroth laughs, a good sign.

“You consider things, you certainly do consider,” she says with a wry smile, the corners of her mouth tugging downward ever so slightly. It’s her mother’s smile. “That’s the reality of it. People are always going to compare you to other people, judge you, no matter what job you do or who your parents are. And people might say I’m riding her coattails, or whatever, and it might be hurtful, but I can’t control that. I can only do what’s right for me.”

What’s right for Langstroth is making music (she sometimes writes while watching TV) and painting (her father taught her to draw when she was young, and it’s become something of a second profession for her). “There’s part of me that wants to be honest and real in as much of my life as humanly possible, to be as authentic with myself and others as possible,” she says. “The more yourself you are, the more people will relate to you and the music.”

For the next 45 minutes, over bites of sushi with lots of ginger, Langstroth talks about life, music, art and growing up in Thornhill. It was a “pretty normal” childhood, she says, aware how strange that sounds, given who her mother is.

She loved to hang out with her friends at the Promenade Mall, down burgers and fries at Lime Rickey’s. “With the little jukebox at the table, that was the greatest thing ever. I think they tore it down, and there’s a Mercedes dealership there now,” she says with a laugh.

Langstroth laughs easily and often, as when she recalls her first public performance. As a stand-up comic. When she was 11. “That was interesting,” she says, drawing out the word in the way someone who’s spent a lot of time on the East Coast often does. “I did it for school. My mom and dad helped me write the jokes, making fun of teachers, mostly. I thought it would help me gain friends.” She pauses. “It didn’t.” Ba-dum-ching!

Not that the conversation doesn’t occasionally turn quite serious. Langstroth has battled anorexia and was the subject of a People magazine story 10 years ago when she was 20. “I was really sick for a lot of years,” she says. “But my family helped me get through it. You do what you gotta do. You just go on, you keep fighting, doing what you do.”

Langstroth says she didn’t plan on becoming a singer, even though there was always music in her home growing up. She toyed with modelling for a while, but ultimately, she thought she would be an actress. “I was at Young People’s Theatre for a long time, and I have auditioned for things since then,” she says.

But, to employ a cliché, music is in her blood. “I started writing music at 18 or 19. I used to write poetry. I’m sure I’ve written some really horrible poetry, and the music came from there,” she says.

Langstroth is a fan of Sheryl Crow and Nirvana and Aretha Franklin, but if there’s one song she wishes she’d written, it’s “What’ll I Do,” by Irving Berlin. “It’s the greatest. So simple,” she says. The key to a great song like “What’ll I Do,” she says, is that everybody can find their own meaning in its lyrics and melody.

Surprisingly, as honeyed as it is, a lot of her own music is inspired by things that tick her off. When I mention that I don’t really hear any “Jagged Little Pill”s among her music, she retorts, “Did you hear ‘Dark and Twisted’?!” Sure, that country-bluesy song is a bit dark and, um, twisted, with its deliciously vengeful tale of being done wrong, voodoo dolls and pins and knives and such, but mostly, Langstroth is as cheery offstage as she is on.

“I think the happiness onstage for me is when I’ve gotten things right, hit the notes I wanted to,” she says. “There was a performance with my mom in Ottawa, and I got an embarrassingly long ovation, and I didn’t know what to do. I started to cry. It was a really strange, wonderful experience.”

For the next hour, we talk about the really important stuff, our favourite Simpsons episodes and movies. Langstroth mentions her awesome aunt Ethel, marvels at the hilarity of the criminally underused Catherine O’Hara, raves about the latest Coldplay album — “I just wanted to hear it non-stop, I hope people find that with mine” — and the best-selling book Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (“How funny is that premise?!”), and waxes about the joys of Twitter. While her mom is currently writing her memoirs, Langstroth is sharing her life with friends and fans in 140-character installments. “It’s so addictive,” she says. “And such a great way to just keep in touch with people.”

In 1973, pioneering rock critic Lester Bangs famously gushed over Langstroth’s mother. Without a trace of irony or hint of sarcasm, he wrote that Murray possessed a smoldering sensuality and that her music was “about SE- X with a capital X.” I’m curious what Bangs would’ve thought of Langstroth, but I suspect he would’ve had a bit of a crush. Listen to her music and you just might, too.

Centre Street’s new Italian diva

3:08 pm

AT THE HEART of the restaurant infused intersection of Centre Street and Disera Drive beats Di Manno, Richmond Hill’s newest upmarket Italian hot spot. Those who want to see and be seen pack the sidewalk patio, giving privacy to diners inside who prefer a calmer, more romantic ambiance.

The room is striking with its black-and-white colour scheme, highlighted in places with a splash of vibrancy: here a pink bouquet of flowers, there a coloured glass bottle. The open bar acts as a sort of focal point, with its unique glass overhanging and bright lighting and its bustling bartender who turns out crafty cocktails to the Blackberry burdened.

Tea lights twinkle at immaculately set tables, reflected in both the doors of stainless steel and glass and in matching wine storage panels. Beautiful crystal water glasses and wine goblets and heavy silver cutlery complete the chic look.

The fancy-pantsy black bound menu divides into antipasto and salads, pasta and risotto, and meats and fish — with seafood, mushrooms and cherry tomatoes making frequent appearances throughout. Prices are steep from start to finish: Caesar salad appetizer ranks as the cheapest at $12 while New York Angus strip loin entree rings in at $48.

“CHEQUE PLEASE”
DI MANNO RISTORANTE
11 Disera Dr.
905-707-5888
Dinner for two excluding tax,
tip and alcohol:
$100

Raw meats and fish comprise a third of the appetizer list. Beef carpaccio ($17) brings a mound of peppery arugula topped with overlapping layers of thinly sliced USDA beef tenderloin under a blanket of Parmesan shavings. Although the assembly’s truffle oil seems amiss and the splash of lemon slightly understated, the marbled meat is plenty flavourful and the cheese incredibly rich and sharp. This meaty, bountiful starter, coupled with a few slices of marvellous still steaming house-made loaf from the breadbasket (crusty on the outside, airy on the inside), could easily sate as a main.

A lighter opener comes in the form of buffalo caprese ($18). The fresh heirloom tomato remains almost intact, with slabs of excellent buffalo mozzarella resting between the partially sliced fruit. A sprig of basil contributes colour and welcome pungency while drizzles of olive oil and droplets of balsamic vinegar add complexity.

Many dishes tempt from the list of nine homemade pastas and risottos (whole wheat or spelt pasta available). Crab ravioli ($26) sees plenty of half-moon pasta sandwiching intensely flavoured filling. Some of the ravioli noodles are cooked just so, others not quite enough. The robust crabmeat stands up to the tang of the generous helping of rosé and basil sauce while stewed halved cherry tomatoes add texture and sweetness.

Chicken supreme is the cheapest item on the meats and fish list at $29. Other offerings include Cornish hen; rack of lamb; sushi-grade tuna with mango, red pepper and pine nut salsa; and blackened sea bass.

Exceptional paddy pan squash, grilled zucchini and roasted yellow and red pepper quarters all cooked to perfection; hearty but not too buttery mash; and moist, tender chicken are artfully combined in the chicken supreme. Regrettably, the stuffing doesn’t deliver: not enough goat cheese, sun-dried tomatoes and brandy cream sauce leaves the assembly bland, and undercooked oyster mushrooms make mouthfuls chewy.

Service, like the dishes sampled, succeeds in some areas and not in others. Intentions are good, with general friendliness and affability dominating. But execution leaves something to be desired, with unfilled water glasses and an unpolished approach to ceremony.

Ratings are on a scale of one to five stars

Elvis Stojko

3:08 pm

IT’S HARD TO be certain, but I seriously doubt that T.S. Eliot could ever land a quadruple toeloop.

Likewise, and in all fairness, I doubt if Elvis Stojko could pen written works that would afford him a Nobel Prize.

Then again, perhaps jumping to such a conclusion about the famous Richmond Hiller is a mistake. Talents seem attracted to the 37-year-old — a former Canadian kung fu champion, stage and film actor, author and now musician as well — like moths to the light. And yet the two share an important and intrinsic connection, for it was Eliot’s words that changed Stojko’s life.

In March 2006, while awaiting a flight in a Florida airport, Stojko was approached by a fan for an autograph. Afterward, Stojko realized the fan had left behind the book she had been carrying. The image of a figure skater on the bookmark clutched between the pages caught his eye, but it was the words below that grabbed his attention:

What we call the beginning is often the end / And to make an end is to make a beginning.

The quote seemed to say exactly what Stojko needed to hear at that point in his life.

Canada’s focus had last been fixed on Stojko at the 2002 Olympics in Salt Lake City, where he finished eighth, a disappointing follow-up to silver medals in 1994 and ‘98. After the games in Salt Lake, Stojko decided to retire from the amateur circuit and follow the path to the professional skating world as Canadian predecessors Kurt Browning and Brian Orser had done before him.

During the 2002-2003 season, Stojko travelled the United States as part of the Champions on Ice tour, completing roughly 65 shows from April through August. In the same year, he did his own Canadian tour, SK8, as well as one-off shows for television, including Kurt Browning’s Gotta Skate.

Over the next few years, as the weeks and months fell off the calendar, and as the kilometres piled up through touring, something happened: skating lost its magic.

Despite the glory of the titles, the podium climbs at Lillehammer in 1994 and Nagano in 1998, the recognition and renown, the simple fact remained: Stojko was miserable.

“At the time I wasn’t loving skating anymore,” he says. “I wasn’t getting the same feeling. It was numb to me. You can’t lie to the crowd. They know when you really love to be out there, and the last little while I wasn’t feeling the same connection I had had to the sport.”

For Stojko, the words on that bookmark — to make an end is to make a beginning — seemed directed at him. And so, a few months later, after a charity show in Barrie, Ontario in 2006, Elvis said goodbye to the rink.

Elvis had left the building. Returning to Mexico, which had become his home, Stojko also returned, perhaps unknowingly, to the pastimes and activities of his younger days in Richmond Hill years before.

“I came from sort of a country boy background,” he says of the 50-acre farm he lived on before a move with his family to Richmond Hill in 1983, where his father owned a landscaping company.

“It was a small town, and the energy there was great,” he recalls. “I used to dirt bike around the area. Richmond Hill was absolutely fantastic to me. I think [it] was the perfect place for me to grow up. I’m not a city guy, so being north was great. I’d go in [to Toronto], do my work that I needed to do, train, and then I could go home and relax.”

In Mexico, Stojko spent time dirt biking and hiking, camping and simply roaming around the countryside. He spent a lot of time with friends, and even more time on his own “just rediscovering a love for life away from the rink,” he explains.

Part of this rediscovery included reconnecting with a love for music. Stojko’s father, a classically trained tenor, had been a singer for 40 years, so the younger Stojko was always surrounded by song as a kid.

He started to dabble with lyrics, and he found the experience liberating. “It really showed me that it’s not always about being number one, and always pushing the envelope,” he says. “Just to express how you feel is very, very fulfilling. And after a while you’re like, ‘I don’t want to have a shield on anymore.’ You know, you want to be vulnerable. You want to be open. And then you really understand that you are strong, even without the armour.”

Today, he is working on the release of his first album — title yet to be disclosed — which he describes as “adultcontemporary.” The album was recorded in Fenwick, Ontario, with studio owner Mark Lalama, who has worked with artists including Susan Aglukark, Amy Sky and Kalan Porter. A release date of September 1 is in the works, pending securing a distributor.

Stojko is well aware that such a undertaking will come with its detractors, the people who think that a skater should stick to skating.

“Some people are not going to like it, and that’s fine,” he says. “But you can’t follow that. Then you’re trapped in a prison of what other people think.”

Such a description might well capture the mental and emotional constraint that Stojko was feeling when he left skating back in 2006. Luckily, one Sunday evening in 2008, following a 12-hour day of dirt biking though dried lake beds in Mexico, Stojko found himself in front of his computer screen, searching for the author’s quote that had had such a profound impact on him two years before.

Typing into the search engine, Stojko couldn’t believe the first return that crossed his screen.

And with the end of all our exploring / Will be to arrive where we started / And know the place for the first time.

The next morning in Mexico, Stojko strapped on his skates for the first time in two years. “I had no idea that I was going to go back and skate, but it’s sort of like it came full circle,” he says. “I got back on [the ice] and it felt different. Really different. There was a newness to it.”

The king had returned.

A number of shows and circuits have already been lined up for the fall across both Canada and the United States, as well as Europe. “Interestingly enough, the path has led me back to skating,” states Stojko, “And I didn’t expect that. But I’m going by my feel.”

With a forthcoming album and a fresh outlook on skating and on life, it looks like a new beginning for Stojko. Or perhaps an end, depending on how you look at things.

Harland Williams

3:08 pm

IT’S NO EASY feat to get a serious quote out of Toronto-born funnyman Harland Williams. Just try asking the Midtown native what his favourite thing is about growing up in the city.

“I spent many of my days spearfishing in the Don River with a dandelion remover,” he says during our chat at Toronto’s Diesel Playhouse. But he never ate what he caught … right? “No. No. Nobody eats Don River fish. You might as well have a nuclear cheeseburger.”

A tad quirky? That’s Williams for you. The 45-year-old’s streamof- consciousness rants have become his trademark, and his stand-up routine is full of stories about everyday occurrences, which inevitably get turned on their head.

He jumps from Mickey Mouse to whales to America’s Next Top Model all within 20 minutes. Even if you can’t quite wrap your head around what the heck he’s talking about, it’s a sure bet you’ll be kept in stitches.

In fact, you might have enjoyed this comedy king in his most recent release, My Life in Ruins, alongside Richard Dreyfuss (Jaws), fellow Canadian Nia Vardalos (My Big Fat Greek Wedding) and Saturday Night Live veteran Rachel Dratch.

A romantic comedy set among the ruins of ancient Greece, it was the first movie ever allowed to shoot in the historic Greek Parthenon.

The film, which was released in June, centres on a travel guide (Vardalos) who rediscovers her mojo as she leads tourists around Greece.

Williams describes his character as “an over-the-top American tourist who never shuts up,” a role he has surely injected with some mojo of his own. What was it like working with the legendary Dreyfuss? “Oh my god, it was just fantastic!” says Williams.

Although these days he’s based in L.A., Williams calls Toronto home. The comedian-actor grew up on a little Midtown crescent. As irreverent as Williams is, he comes from a family pedigree that is anything but. Williams’ father, John Reeser Williams, was a member of provincial parliament who briefly served as Ontario’s solicitor general.

While the junior Williams certainly has the charisma to be a politician, it seems evident that comedy was his natural calling. When I ask him a second time what else he loves about our city, he responds, with a straight face: “Probably the blueberry picking.” It’s difficult to tell whether or not he’s joking.

Williams isn’t the only entertainer in the family. His cousin is Kevin Hearn, the keyboard player for Canadian rock band the Barenaked Ladies. Hearn grew up not far from Williams and his five siblings. Actually, “four sisters and one werewolf” he jibes, “but we don’t talk about him.”

Williams appeared in the band’s video Falling for the First Time, and the two even released their very own tongue-in-cheek CD, fittingly entitled The Cousins, the Love Song Years.

“He does all the instruments, and I do all the singing,” Williams says. “It’s our little rock ’n’ roll project.”

Williams’ brother, Steve “Spaz” Williams, chose the bright lights of show business as well. A director, his most recent project was Disney’s The Wild.

“I’m a little bitter toward him because he got a really welldefined chin, and I got no chin,” says Williams of Spaz’s physical attributes. “That was a bit of a drag.”

Har, as he is fondly called, loves discussing his high school days. “I was more of the class sniper,” he says when asked if he was the class clown. “I would wait for the class clown to jump out, and as soon as he did, I would try to trump him, hit him back with a joke that was better than his.”

While working toward a degree from Sheridan College in animation, Williams had a brief foray working as a forest ranger in Fort Francis, Ontario, giving him the chance to “plant a few trees” and “get charged by a moose,” he recalls. “I did it during the spring and summer, to make ends meet, and loved it up there.”

After school, the next seven years were spent honing his stand-up act in Canada before planting himself in L.A. “Once I felt ready and I was confident, I said, ‘It’s time to make the move,’ and I did.” Success followed.

Williams made his big-screen debut alongside fellow Canadian Jim Carrey in Dumb and Dumber in the early ’90s. He has since had a lucrative acting career, appearing in The Whole Nine Yards, There’s Something About Mary (seven-minute abs!) and the stoner comedy Half Baked, filmed here in Toronto. He is currently taking up the directing chair, directing Wing Man, a comedy about the lengths men will go to to hook women.

Despite his success on the big screen, stand-up and sketch comedy are still close to Williams’ heart.

He continues to appear in live stand-up acts and plans on releasing a live DVD in October called Child Wild, which features a taping of one-night-only standup, along with brand new wacky sketches.

He just may be the hardest working Canadian in Hollywood. The man wears so many hats it’s difficult to keep count. In addition to playing actor, director, comedian and musician, he’s a regular radio personality and a favourite of late-night host Conan O’Brien’s. Just last year, he served as judge on ABC’s reality show Wanna Bet?

The show featured celebrities making wagers on various stunts, tricks and challenges performed by average Americans — the perfect venue for Williams to show off his comedic prowess. Adding one more notch to the post, he is also the mastermind behind a series of children’s books (which he wrote and illustrated) about a dinosaur called Lickety Split.

“I just sat down one day, and I thought, ‘I love dinosaurs and I want to write a little story.’ It’s a cute catchy name, and I remembered seeing a movie called Jericho Mile with Peter Straub way back in the ’70s,” says Williams of where he got his inspiration.

“It was a jail movie, and the inmates gave him the name Lickety Split because he was a runner. When I started writing my kids’ story, it jumped out.”

How does he feel about his jack-of-all-trades status? “I love it all. I’m like a master medium maniac.… I love to jump in and at least try it. I don’t know if I’m good at it, but I like to taste the buffet.”

One can’t help but inquire about his personal life. After all, at 45, Williams makes no secret of his affection for kids. Is there a family in the future?

“I love kids” he says, flashing a mischievous smile, “I’m looking for a breeder.” He looks my way again and leans in: “Helllllloooo, magical interview that turned into a family … Helllllloooo.…” He does admit to being single at the moment. “I gotta find a good person,” he says.

“I would love it if it was a Canadian girl, but if you find someone with a good, kind heart, it doesn’t matter who they are. So hopefully it’ll come my way one of these days.… We’ll see.”

Certainly the funniest character to have come out of Midtown in recent history, Williams’ star is continuing to rise.

Red wine without the headaches

12:00 am

TRY THIS EXPERIMENT at home. Take a bottle of Beaujolais and pour out two glasses. Cover each with a piece of plastic wrap and put one in the fridge for an hour. Leave the other out at room temperature. Taste them both, starting with the chilled glass. I guarantee you will not recognize them as the same wine. (The act of chilling lowers your perception of sweetness and heightens your perception of acidity.)

This is what makes Beaujolais so versatile and appealing — you can serve it at room temperature with meat or lightly chilled with fish.

Beaujolais is the foster child of Burgundy that gets no respect. It’s the cheerleader of red wines that is not taken too seriously. Probably because half of the annual production of the region, some 49 million litres, is released as Beaujolais Nouveau on the third Thursday of November. Beaujolais Nouveau, or Primeur, is an amusing little beverage that my colleague in California, Karen MacNeil, has likened to eating cookie dough.

SPRING WINES BLOOMING

HENRY OF PELHAM GAMAY 2007 • $14.95
GEORGES DUBOEUF BEAUJOLAIS • $12.25
CHÂTEAU DES JACQUES MOULIN-À-VENT 2005 • $33.95
BOUCHARD PÈRE & FILS BEAUJOLAIS-VILLAGES • $12.95
CHÂTEAU DES CHARMES GAMAY NOIR DROIT RESERVE • $16.95

But Beaujolais at its finest, and when it is made in great years, can last as long as red Burgundy. I tasted a 1947 Mommessin Moulinà- Vent 40 years later, and it was superb, reminiscent of a mature bottle of Beaune. But then, not all Beaujolaises are born equal.

There are basically three quality levels. Simple Beaujolais that is grown on the flat southern part of the region in limestone soil, Beaujolais-Villages in the hilly north grown on granitic soils, and the top wines that bear the names of ten different northern villages: Brouilly, Chénas, Chiroubles, Côte de Brouilly, Fleurie, Juliénas, Morgon, Moulin-À-Vent, Régnié and Saint- Amour. These are the named growths of the region known as Beaujolais crus. By law, Beaujolais Nouveau can only be made in the appellations of Beaujolais and Beaujolais-Villages, never from grapes grown in the named villages. Simple Beaujolais is light and fruity with cherry, plum, strawberry and pepper flavours. Beaujolais-Villages has more intensity and depth. The crus have a richer flavour and a more substantial mouthfeel. If you see the term “Beaujolais Supérieur” on a label, this has nothing to do with a quality designation. It simply means that the wine has one per cent more alcohol than the basic minimum requirement of nine degrees for the appellation.

Unlike red Burgundy, which is made from Pinot Noir, the variety used for Beaujolais is Gamay. Incidentally, there is a wine that is made in Burgundy using twothirds Gamay grapes and onethird Pinot Noir called Bourgogne Passe-Tout-Grains.

Beaujolais is produced by a unique process called carbonic maceration — the secret of Beaujolais Nouveau and virtually all other Beaujolais wines. If you react badly to red wine you are probably reacting to tannin. This method of production cuts down the amount of tannin that ends up in the wine. And a wine with little tannin does not need to age to soften it up. So, if you suffer from red wine headaches, switch to Beaujolais and see if that alleviates the problem.

Post City Magazines’ resident oenophile, Tony Aspler, has authored 11 books on wine and food, including The Wine Lover’s Mystery Series. He is also the creator of the annual Ontario Wine Awards and a co-founder of the Grapes for Humanity charity. He can also be heard each week on 680News.

Good things come in threes for news anchor

12:00 am

BY DAY, SHE’S a barely showered mom trying to create order from chaos with one-year-old triplets. By night, she’s the well-puttogether, incredibly intelligent coanchor of Global TV’s 6 p.m. newscast. Anne-Marie Mediwake has the uncanny ability to transition between her two worlds seamlessly. Naturally, I took full advantage of chatting with her to get some advice on balancing life and babies.

“My key to survival is being in the moment,” says Mediwake. “Driving down the highway at 2 p.m. on my way to work I’m all about the day’s headlines, meetings and what’s on the show today.”

As we chat, it’s clear we have a lot in common — both living in and out of the public eye while dealing with the stress resulting from wanting to have it all. I relate to her pragmatic personality and ability to focus on the task at hand.

It’s hard to imagine what it must have been like for Mediwake and her husband, Global reporter Darryl Konynenbelt, to hear the news she is carrying three embryos. While dealing with that shock, she’s then told to spend 10 weeks in hospital on bedrest to help her babies gestate. Not an easy task for anyone, especially someone as energetic as Mediwake. But, she took it in stride. “I’m all about setting goals,” she says. “All I thought was, ‘What is it going to take to keep them all healthy?’ I would have stood on my head for three months to keep them all in.”

What’s it like to be pregnant with triplets? “I gained 80 pounds, and it literally took me seven minutes just to roll over near the end!” she says laughing.

For most women, myself included, making the transition into motherhood is difficult to say the least. For Mediwake, who went from working woman to instant mother of three, the shift was surprisingly smooth — although not easy.

She’s quick to point out she couldn’t have gotten through the early days with triplets alone. In fact, the biggest piece of advice she has for new parents is: “Don’t be afraid to ask for help. In the small town I used to live in, neighbours and the church would help. In big cities like the GTA, we don’t get a lot of help.”

“My mom was awesome. I could not have done this without her. The difference between having two and three babies is that it’s almost physically impossible to take care of three babies by yourself.”

Not one to do things halfway, Mediwake tells me she breast-fed all three babies. “Basically you nurse non-stop all day with maybe a 15-minute break between shifts.”

After a few weeks of this new life caring for three newborn babies, Mediwake and her husband agreed they needed more help. They sold their car to pay for a night nurse and bought her sister’s 10-year-old rusty minivan for a dollar.

“It was the best decision we made,” she says. “I was worried about postpartum depression because the risk increases with the number of babies you birth. My mental health is worth the money for a night nurse. It’s the difference of enjoying the first year.”

After eight months of a yearlong maternity leave, Global called to ask Mediwake to return to work four months early. “I had to do a lot of snot and tears in our living room,” she says. “I felt I was putting a price tag on my kids’ heads. I felt horrible.”

That is, until her husband surprised her by suggesting he take a four-month paternity leave so she could go back to work guilt-free.

Being a busy mom has forced Mediwake to make some personal adjustments, the biggest of which is learning to let go. “I am such a perfectionist,” she says. “If my house didn’t look perfect, I wouldn’t let anyone come over. That stuff doesn’t matter now.”

When once she had fresh cut flowers and a perfectly manicured lawn, today her dining room set is gone, replaced with an inflatable ball park, a four-foot-high circus tent and collapsible tunnel.

She laughs. “I never wanted to be one of those people whose house was overrun by toys. I used to think, ‘That’s disgusting!’ Instead, we outdid all our friends.”

Post City Magazines’ parenting columnist, Erica Ehm is the voice of yummy mummies with her playful website yummymummyclub.ca. After all, mommies need to play, too.

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Rose’s Tip: How to select the best and keep them fresh

BOOZE FOR THE BARBECUE

“CHEQUE PLEASE”DI MANNO RISTORANTE11 Disera Dr.905-707-5888Dinner for two excluding tax,tip and alcohol:$100

SPRING WINES BLOOMING

“CHEQUE PLEASE”
DI MANNO RISTORANTE
11 Disera Dr.
905-707-5888
Dinner for two excluding tax,
tip and alcohol:
$100