Halifax Oyster Festival
Fri Oct 4, Sat Oct 5
1521 Lower Water Street
oysterfest.ca

D avid Burns is the founder of Maisy's Pearl, an oyster-focussed catering company in Hamilton, Ontario that focuses on education as much as consumption at its pop-ups, parties and private events. (And, cutely enough, is named after his two daughters, Maisy and Pearl.) This year he's bringing his bivalve know-how and shucking skills to Halifax Oyster Festival for the first time. So, naturally, we had some questions.

Do you remember your first oyster?
"I was 15 and out for dinner with a good friend and his family. His dad was like, 'You've gotta try these.' I was like, 'How do I do it?' and he was like 'throw a bunch of Tabasco on! Down the hatch!' I didn't chew it, just swallowed it. It was clearly just a vessel for sauce, I didn't think too much about it. Then, I started working at Rodney's Oyster House around 2011 or 2010—I've always loved seafood and had an appreciation for seafood. I met some really cool people there and they were like 'Have you ever had oysters?' They opened it properly, it was pristine, and said: 'Add a couple of drops of lemon to cut the salinity, chew a few times and swallow.' And it was unreal.

It's funny, I moved to Hamilton and there's nothing really going on in the city. My wife was like, 'start a catering business, educate the people on how they're supposed to be perfectly shucked, how they're supposed to be consumed.' And I did. People have been really receptive. Now I'm educating people from my first experience to my first real experience."

What was it that made you want to bring oyster culture to Hamilton?
"This city is very communal, they’re very hard working. The nickname for the city is Steel Town, and these people will not spend their money on anything unless they see value in it. Before moving here, I went to different bars and restaurants and tried to sort of what I would do for a job. I’m going to these places and ordering oysters and I thought, this is just a way for restaurants to boost up their cheques, or bills. There’s no real experience involved. I think enjoying oysters is all about experience and its a very social thing. And not that they’re bad restaurants, they just didn’t know what they were doing.

I’m very good at what I do when it comes to opening an oyster and educating people about it. So I was like, 'I’m going to bring that to this amazing city. Quality product the way it’s meant to be.' "

Why is proper shucking important?
"You think about the person on the other end who's put the hard work, time and effort in to making sure this product is alive and well when it gets to us, and then to have someone massacre it? It's almost an insult. I always try to make people aware these people are working hard, that it takes a lot of time for an oyster to get to your table. I'm the last guy to touch the product, so I want it to be perfect."

What's your advice for someone trying an oyster for the first time?
"It's my favourite thing to do. My go-to is: 'Listen, if you've haven't had an oyster, today's your lucky day, and you're going to experience an oyster the way it's meant to be.' And then I show them the gills, the mantle, the belly, the adductor, how it's all been severed properly, the way it's supposed to be. As opposed to if you're drunk at a restaurant with your buddies, feeling daring on a big bold red wine. It's smooth and crisp and exotic and it has a nice mouthfeel, when it's been opened properly. 

Interview has been edited for length and clarity.

• KYLEE NUNN

The closest thing to getting inside Ian Matheson's brain is spending some time at the Propeller Arcade. The Propeller Brewing Company staffer and resident pinball nerd was the champion behind the north end brewery's no-frills, ultra-lax basement bar, which opened about nine months ago. Now he's helping it level up.

"We thought it would be so cool if we could use the brewery floor for something. Fifty percent of the people who come down here are in shock and awe of these games they haven't seen in a long time, but so many others are taken aback by the brewery itself. When people see it, so many want to go down and explore," says Matheson of the idea to expand the Propeller Arcade offerings—and square footage—for one weekend only. After calling up some friends and collectors ("I love to get stoked on this stuff, and so do they," says Matheson) the brewery is ushering in fall by hosting Level Up—three days of maximum fun. Think black lights, disco balls, classic arcade basketball, air hockey, driving games and a claw machine, plus the usual old school classics you can always find at 2015 Gottingen Street.

The XL Propeller Arcade experience takes place Friday, September 20 and Saturday, September 21 (from 4pm to midnight) and again on Sunday, September 22 (from noon to 6pm for all ages, and until 10pm for the 19+ crowd) when Hopyard Beer Bar will join in on the fun, with snacks on hand.

"It's all about having fun really," says Matheson. "I just really wanted to fill a room with fun stuff, and thankfully they let me." 

• SUBMITTED

September is good for crowding enjoyment into late summer days, much in the same way that the Bay of Fundy's rising tidal waters push beach-goers together onto shrinking patches of sunlit shore. Domaine de Grand Pré's Moscato ($25), launched in the height of summer this year, is my choice of wine to accompany the glow of late summer afternoons.

The wine's peachy colour matches the long sunset hours of September, thanks to the skin colour of New York Muscat, of which Grand Pre's new wine is made. I was surprised the winery, which makes table wine from the same grape, would be able to source enough to craft another single-varietal wine. New York Muscat is notoriously frustrating to grow. The vines' yield tends to be very inconsistent. Plus, it is an in-demand ingredient in many Nova Scotian wineries' Tidal Bays due to its signature aromatics of lychee, rose and pink grapefruit.

"We've figured it out," says Jürg Stutz, winemaker at Domaine de Grand Pré, when I ask him about the winery's ability to commit to another wine style featuring the grape. "We give it a high trellis, let it droop over and let it go. It's difficult to maintain, looks wild, but it seems to work."

Then again, at another vineyard, Grand Pré uses vertical shoot positioning, a more traditional trellising method, to grow New York Muscat. "We've learned over the years which methods to use where," says Stutz, reminding me how specific the demands of viticulture can be, and that Nova Scotia is still very much in the learning and experimenting phase of this fast-growing industry.

Domaine de Grand Pré's latest experiment is a delicious one and, so far, a success.

"We're down to the last couple of pallets," says Stutz. "There's big demand for the Moscato because of its low alcohol and effervescence...it's a great summer sipping wine."

This Moscato is beautifully aromatic, with a perfect balance of acidity, sweetness and fizz that calls for a dip in the Bay of Fundy, or a bag of salty potato chips if you don't have the bay at your toe-tips. The bitter endnote of New York Muscat gives this wine an added dimension of body that fully satisfies, leaving beach-goers and chip-munchers licking from their lips the flavour of gratitude. a

• Find Sphair’s schedule on Faceboook.
• Carolina Andrade

T here is a very friendly baker at the Seaport Farmers' Market who you should pay a visit to. Elaine Sphair wakes up at 4am to bake delicious the Brazilian treats that she sells every other week, on Mondays and Tuesdays at the market. There you'll find her spread of freshly made pão de queijo (a gluten-free Brazilian cheese bread that is the tastiest snack you'll ever discover), brigadeiros (dark chocolate and coconut truffles), gooey coconut cake and doughnuts filled with doce de leite or custard cream. These delicacies are so rare to find in Halifax, let alone Nova Scotia, and Sphair is happy to be sharing the taste of Brazil with her customers.

Her new business, Elaine's Brazilian Bakery, is a part of Immigrant Services Association of Nova Scotia's Bridge to Entrepreneurship pilot program, which supports immigrant entrepreneurs in bringing their businesses to life. Sphair immigrated to Canada in 2017 with her family and comes from a bank management background, but a love for baked goods fed her drive to switch careers months before she arrived in Canada.

"I was already planning on changing jobs when I got here. So a few months before my move to Canada, I started working in my brother-in-law's bakery where I could learn several baking and cooking techniques," she says. "The opportunity to open Elaine's Brazilian Bakery came along with the ISANS organization, where I study English every day in the morning."

She also attends business-based courses four times a week through the pilot entrepreneurship program, which provides space at its incubator table/market stand at no cost to clients. This is where you can find vendors like Sphair selling their products and practicing their English in conversation with market-goers.

"I do everything with a lot of love," says Sphair of her one-month-old business. Over time, she hopes to work towards running a permanent market stall and, eventually, a stand-alone bakery. "I love cooking and I believe that food brings people together."

Nothing decorates a deck party better than glasses of pink wine glinting in the sunlight. And no wine checks all the boxes of refreshment, food-friendliness and affordability like Nova Scotian rosé.

Rosé suffers the unfortunate misconception that it is cheap, sweet wine, a rap left over from the '80s when white wine was more fashionable than red, and producers in the US were trying to find a market for their red grapes. "White" Zinfandel was crafted into an off-pink, off-dry guzzler from red Zinfandel grapes, a massive success for its producer and a massive disservice to those who would like rosé to be considered serious wine in North America.

The French take rosé seriously and have perfected the dry rosé, especially in Provence and the Loire, where rosé is drunk merrily as a thirst-quencher and heartily as a food wine. Rosé is traditionally made by crushing and immediately pressing red grapes, separating juice from skin, giving the juice little opportunity to absorb the skin's purple pigments (and flavours and textures). The result, pink wine, is technically a blush, or vin gris.

Nova Scotian rosé tends to be intense magenta and cranberry rather than the delicate pink and salmon hues of European rosés. This is because our thick hybrid grape skins have more pigment, so even immediately pressing skins off juice leaves it deeply stained. (As Nova Scotians grow more European varieties of grapes, you will see more lighter-coloured rosés on the market.)

But this deep pink colour does not signal a syrupy wine, I promise! Nova Scotian rosés are beautifully dry, and if the winemaker does leave a little residual sugar, it is usually just enough to balance the acidity that makes these wines so good with food.

Eileanan Brèagha's 2018 rosé ($19, NSLC) is made primarily from Marechal Foch and Marechal Joffre, two hybrid red grapes grown at the Cape Breton winery's estate vineyard in Marble Mountain on the Bras d'Or Lakes. The wine comes across with softness on the first sip but finishes dry, acidity and bitterness in just the right amounts washing the mouth clean. This crisp rosé tastes like sour cherry and cranberry, buoyed by a hint of tannic texture that is the mark of rosé for me: just mouth filling enough to remind me that wine, too, is food.

For many, National Doughnut Day will just be any other day, but this year nine cafes and bakeries in Halifax are hoping it will be busier than usual. The first Halifax Doughnut Crawl will start and end on June 7, to coincide with and celebrate the legacy of deep-fried dough covered in icing. Organized by Scanway Catering and Grafton Street Cafe (1567 Grafton Street) the hope is to get more people out and about to their favourite local spot and to "highlight the growing foodie culture in Halifax."

Die-hard apple fritter and Dutchie purists may feel like there is no need to reinvent the wheel, but hate it or love it, doughnuts have now become experiments in design and flavour combinations. Although it is safe to say that Tim Hortons enjoys its steady dynasty, doughnuts are gaining popularity with smaller coffee shops, becoming more Instagrammable as the topping combinations get more artistic.

All participating businesses will try to outdo each other via the creation of one specialty doughnut for the crawl—and half of the proceeds from the sales of these speciality doughnuts will be donated to the Phoenix House.

Competitive local foodies know the drill: There will be a passport and stamps to be collected. One location, one doughnut, one stamp. The most ambitious and adventurous of stomachs who can knock off each location, and collect all nine stamps will be entered to win a $500 goodie bag. Completed passports can be handed in to the Grafton Street Cafe by June 10 for the draw. For a full list of participating spots (from Rinaldo's to LF Bakery) find the event on Facebook.

• “Uplifting the female bartending community is something I didn’t know I was doing,” says Chick.
• SUBMITTED

Drink Atlantic
drinkatlantic.com

"Even if you're the best bartender in the world, if you're a shitty human, no one wants to sit at your bar," says Evelyn Chick, frankly, over the phone from Toronto. The decorated bartender and boss behind Pretty Ugly (a "chill Parkdale gem" that was recently named number four on Canada's 100 Best Bars list) is gearing up to head to Halifax for Drink Atlantic (presented by The Coast, if you didn't know) where she'll share her expertise at industry seminars on cooperative, safe workplaces and booze-less cocktails.

From the drinks she makes to the atmosphere she fosters, Chick's end goal is making sure every person in her bar feels supported, comfortable and heard. ("We have a ton of female clientele come in to Pretty Ugly alone because they feel safe in that space," she says.) A groundbreaker, boundary-pusher and inspired leader, her creativity behind the bar goes well beyond flavour profiles and garnish. Take Pretty Ugly's placebo cocktail menu—a much better name for a mocktail—for instance.

"It all stems from wanting to make the space really inclusive. A lot of bars are missing that, so we created a menu that's not only for people for who are nerdy about cocktails but anyone who comes in," says Chick, who plays with texture and complexity to create non-alcoholic drinks with depth. "Why should someone who isn't imbibing sacrifice the experience? It's also stigmatizing when you order a mocktail."

She says keeping inclusivity top of mind makes her bar strive to be better—it's not just a watering hole where people get drunk. Providing that supportive culture isn't a stretch for Chick, who's inadvertently become a mentor for women in the industry, working with Speed Rack (a female-only cocktail competition) and alongside bartender Christina Veira (a fellow Drink Atlantic presenter) to help push women further in a fairly dude-dominated industry.

"Uplifting the female bartending community is something I didn't know I was doing, but now I have the responsibility to really be listening and really find out what the the issues the community faces are. I'm socially responsible to make sure everyone's voices get heard," she says. "I think it's just opening the line of communication and getting people talking is a great start."

This weekend, she and Veira will dig into the importance of having real conversations about the realities of the bar biz via Cultural Mise-en-Place, a seminar on building a progressive hospitality community.

"Christina and I—we just really need people to be woke," says Chick with a laugh. "Everyone can hone in on their craft—yes it's your job, yes it's your career—but you are still just people. You need to be good, functioning people in society."

• “I have something to offer that isn’t being done,” says Daoust of her treats.
• SYD DAOUST

Syd Delicious
Alderney Farmers' Market
2 Ochterloney Street
Saturdays, 8am-1pm

Few things can match the comforting goodness of a warm cinnamon bun, fresh out of the oven. But finding this thrill outside of your own kitchen can prove a challenge. Syd Delicious, the Alderney Farmers' Market's newest vendor, is filling that void.

"I have something to offer that isn't being done—cinnamon buns right out of the oven. I have my own oven and takes 20 minutes to make a batch," says Syd Daoust, the brains, namesake and magic baking hands behind Syd Delicious. "I know why people don't do it—it's time-consuming, you need to make them the night before to double rise, it's tricky keeping them cold at the market—this is why people aren't doing it, but it's great and worth it."

Daoust's first market day was last Saturday, and business was booming—the stall sold out of most items by 9:30am. In addition to hot cinnamon buns, Syd Delicious also sells vanilla and chocolate cupcakes, chocolate chip cookies and brownies. It's a compact little menu.

There's something else setting Syd Delicious apart from other treat stalls, but Daoust doesn't really advertise it while she's selling: All the items are vegan. "There's been a growing need for vegan food, it's popping up all over the place," she says. "I have no vegan friends. My whole family, we aren't activists in any way, we just enjoy it, we aren't judgemental. On our table we don't have it listed as vegan, it's not a secret, but from my own experience, when I say I made vegan cupcakes, some people steered away," she says. "I want the food to be good—not just good for being vegan. Some vegan groups came on Saturday to support me, but some people were just walking through and got a cookie and I didn't say a word."

There are no secretly healthy ingredients in Syd Delicious' roster, no hidden veggies or tofu. It's just an indulgence, and if you can't clock it as vegan, then all the better. "We had a test market at our house and it was great, a lot of people didn't know it was vegan. I'd tell them and they'd say, 'No way!'' says Daoust. "I just want people to enjoy my food."