Lezlie Lowe is a foodie.
She is also, among many things, a teacher, a mom and a journalist.
Those three things play a role in her being a foodie. In our last post, we spoke with Lezlie about the beginnings of her relationship with food, and her family’s relationship with food. Here, Lezlie talks about how her work as a journalist fed into her world as a foodie.
In 2007, I moved to Creighton Street, in Halifax’s north end. I had rented a large moving van and needed a place to park. My new neighbour came out of her house and asked if we needed her parking spot. It was Lezlie.
Lezlie writes for The Coast and has a weekly column in The Chronicle Herald. I knew her by her work, but I got to know her through food. More often than not, I would find myself knocking on her door, asking to borrow a couple eggs or some icing sugar for something or other that I was making. Grateful, I would soon return with whatever I had made – lemon curd, stews or even a birthday cake, made for her.
But it wasn’t just the fact that she was a nice nieghbour with good taste in food that made me like her. It was her politics about food that made me respect her. Lezlie gets up early on saturday mornings, so that she can go down to the market and buy meat, cheese, dairy products – more on that later – bread, you name it. If she can buy it locally, she does.
I’ve also always enjoyed my conversations with Lezlie about food. So I called her up and asked her if I could interview her for Passable. I met up with her as she was making cheese sandwiches for her kids. In her case, gouda cheese from That Dutchman’s cheese and bread from Julien’s.
This weekend is the Seaport Beerfest. In fact, I only recently got back from the festival’s first night of chugging tiny brews. Tons of beer lovers Bobbed and Douged their way through brews from across Canada, the US and Europe, waiting in lines that were sometimes dozens deep to try some of the craft beers and imports that had been brought in just for the festival. And I have to say, some of them were so tasty that it was hard not to end up with a tear in my beer after finding out that they aren’t available locally.
After I have the chance to collect my thoughts I’ll write some specifics. For now let me just say that after three hours of sipping my way through the event, I thankfully managed to find the self control to leave before it started to look like this:
Picnicking is more than a titillating renaissance painting. It’s more than Edwardian haircuts, white linen and wicker baskets. It’s more than a Truffault movie with bicycles, love triangles, bottles of wine, bread and cheese. Of course, it is all that, and more, but a picnic is a state of mind. It’s event and escape, a mix of the senses. I see picnics as outdoor gesamtkunstwerk: total gastronomy pieces set in the outdoors. Sometimes you plan them, other times they are random performances that happen to you.
If you can’t get behind that, you probably shouldn’t picnic. Or, you should leave the picnic to professionals. In the spirit of giving, I have planned three imaginary picnics you can try to do on your own. Each one is a set piece involving place, time, food, music and literature. (More …)
Thanks, MB! Hey – I forgot to mention the CKDU picnic we all love so much!
CKDU’s Annual Picnic & Concert — Sunday, August 8th, 2010 — noon-6pm — Fort Needham Park. Featuring:
*Kid-friendly games, build-yer-own-instrument, face painting, prizes — noon-2pm
*FREE BBQ 1pm-4pm
Could be.
bún cha giò: vietnamese bbq pork - rice noodles in vinaigrette - julienne vegetable salad - crispy spring roll - chili - peanuts
gnocchi: ricotta & mascarpone gnocchi - crispy prosciutto - fresh pea purée - wilted swiss chard - red wine jus - blue cheese crème fraîche
peel me like a banana: baked banana chocolate mousse - chocolate chibouste - sautéed bananas - malted milk sorbet & chocolate nest
I often waver on what the best restaurant in town is. I feel like there are obvious picks — an easy top three or top five — but it’s hard to really nail it down. After a meal like the one I had at Gio last week, it definitely seemed easy to yell “this is the best restaurant in town!” from any nearby rooftop, but is it? Next time I eat at Fid, I might want to yell the same thing. Hell, next time I eat a burger at the Westcliffe I might very well want to yell the next thing.
Is Gio the best restaurant in Halifax? It sure was on Friday afternoon.
I totally agree. My girlfriend and I did the 5 course menu sampler last month and it was sublime! Love the atmosphere too.
MB are discussing. 
Honest to god, Andy, this sounds like the best picnic ever. I would have been happy with just the cheese and onion tartlets. You win the gold medal in alfresco living. You also win the gold medal in not eating the cupcakes within the first five minutes of getting them.