• America's National Rifle Association sets its sights on Halifax history with the Wild Game Donair.

The National Rifle Association’s ongoing efforts to make guns a totally normal lifestyle choice in the USA have now taken aim at Halifax’s official totally normal lifestyle choice, the donair.

An NRA magazine called American Hunter published a recipe for Wild Game Donair on its website this weekend. Apparently meat from moose, deer and elk works “exceptionally well” in donairs, writes Brad Fenson, as long as you remember “it’s critical to emulsify the meat by grinding it three or more times or using a food processor to break the meat down into a paste.” Which sounds appetizing-as-heck and all, but the real reason this recipe caught my eye is its snide attitude towards east coasters.

On the subject of the donair’s background, American Hunter is not content to acknowledge this particular beef-and-sweet-sauce spin on a kebab is a true Halifax dish. Instead, the recipe blends some vague dispute about where the donair came from, with a sweeping generalization about the famous lying nature of people in the Maritimes, to deny the Haligonian heritage of donairs:

A restaurant dubbed “King of Donair” in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada claims to be the inventor of this east coast donair delicacy, but there are others who allege the same. Maritimers are great storytellers, and rumor has it a Greek immigrated to Atlantic Canada and opened a traditional restaurant with the Mediterranean flavors of his native country. The old standbys at home didn’t seem to hit the mark with east coast Canadian appetites, so recipes were adapted using beef and spices preferred by locals to create a unique meal. Add a sweet garlic sauce to the mix, and you have an authentic Canadian donair.

Avondale Sky Winery just released a new vintage of its Benediction, a traditional (Champagne) method sparkling wine made from Geisenheim 318—a grape hybrid bred at (and named for) the Geisenheim Research Centre, from parents Riesling and Chancellor.

The grape may have originated in Germany, but the wine is all Nova Scotia. Apple cider and rising bread on the inhale, and in the mouth green apple and a long, clean finish with a slight bitter pop at the back of the tongue. Though the wine was finished with 24 grams-per-litre of residual sugar, you’d never know it; The balancing acidity makes it feel entirely dry. This wine packs a gentle punch.

One of three grape varieties permitted to be the majority grape in the province’s appellation wine Tidal Bay, Geisenheim is an important varietal in Nova Scotia. (The others being l’Acadie Blanc and Seyval Blanc.) Avondale Sky uses Geisenheim in its Tidal Bay and in other wines, such as its oh-so-popular Bliss, a light, gentle white.

Notes from the vineyard describe a brutal vintage with a happy ending for the Geisenheim-based bubbly. That’s because 2014 saw a colder than average winter that damaged buds, a late spring frost that killed shoots, a tropical storm that destroyed flowers and an average summer. But a good autumn can turn any vintage around, and in 2014 the fall was warm and dry, allowing grapes to ripen fully before frost.

Get it while you can—the last vintage of Benediction sold out years ago—at Avondale Sky’s winery in Newport Landing or the Halifax Seaport Farmers’ Market on Saturdays. It’s $30 a bottle.

Introduction to Wine
Tuesdays July 31- August 28
Obladee, A Wine Bar, 1600 Barrington Street
eventbrite.ca or reserve@obladee.ca. $285

For its population, Halifax graduates an impressive number of sommeliers. Nova Scotia is also a very young wine region and most local drinkers of wine are new to the beverage. Starting at the end of this month, a course in Halifax will bring those worlds closer together, giving people the opportunity to learn the basics of wine and ask all the questions that neither Google nor Robert Parker seem willing to answer.

"I'm really interested in helping people navigate the wine world on their own, instead of relying on 'experts,'" says Heather Rankin, owner of Obladee. As one of the co-creators of the course, Rankin designed it "for real world application, for people who are really interested in wine and will be drinking it themselves and serving it to friends and family."

The five-week introduction to wine course starts July 31, and runs every Tuesday night 6-8pm at Obladee. Classes will be capped at 12 students, the "magic number" for wine education group dynamics, says Rankin, who regularly hosts wine appreciation nights at the downtown Halifax wine bar.

Wine education is not new to our region; Sommelier certification began in Nova Scotia in 2000 when Adam Dial, son of Roger Dial, widely held to be the father of Nova Scotia wine, taught the first course at Mount Saint Vincent University. That year, Dial's graduates earned the top two marks in Canada on national exams.

Sommelier certification today is offered through the Canadian Association of Professional Sommeliers-Atlantic Chapter. The courses, taught by Mark DeWolf, Carman Mills, Simon Rafuse and Alanna Steele, are rigorous and rewarding. They generally take two years to complete and cost just under $4,000, clearly aimed at those who seek a profession in wine stewardship.

A recent graduate, Erin Beazley, is the co-creator of Obladee's wine course, which complements the region's formal accreditation in that it extends wine education to people for less investment. Beazley will be leading the first series of classes, using a manual she designed with Rankin, who is particularly keen to teach the economics around wine.

"I think it confuses a lot of people, they think still that the best wines are from France and the best wines are expensive," she says.

Obladee's course, intended to be fun and inspiring, will also give students a comprehensive sense of wine from people who are deeply knowledgable.

"You need the foundation to understand things on a basic level. It's difficult to glaze over such a complex topic, so you have to go there a little bit," says Rankin. "This course is professional, and comprehensive, and it's also very practical and inclusive, and current. We're in it, we know what's going on and we're passing that on in real time."

• DYlan Chew

The partners in life and baking sell their dairy-free cinnamon rolls—and other treats—under the name Two Dumb Vegans at the Historic Brewery Market and, occasionally, the Halifax Forum Farmer’s Market. “Once upon a time at the original Historic Market, there was an almost cult-like following for Mary’s Bread Basket cinnamon rolls. I’ll be the first to admit that when I was young I was in that lineup, which was 20 people long, just to get this mythical cinnamon roll. And it was great. And then Mary’s Bread Basket closed. My whole market experience was based around the cinnamon roll so I set out not to replicate it, but to fill that void,” Grove offers. “I took a really long time developing the recipe, reworking it until I had an incredible cinnamon roll that just happened to be vegan.”

The pair originally met when Sharp got a job at Grove’s now-shuttered Quinpool Road restaurant Red Lunchbox. Though the plant-based eatery didn't last long (its doors were open from February to April of this year), the spark between Sharp and Grove did.

“It was just like, ‘Well that’s it, we can’t run a restaurant so now we’re just two dumb vegans forging forward’,” Grove says. While their visions of the future include launching a subscription service of simple, meat-and-dairy free meals, for now it’s all about the cinnamon rolls.

“I grew up in a quasi-Jewish household where challah was a big deal, and I used to live across the street from a Hong Kong bakery, so something in me wanted to make something with the texture of like a steam bun but the rich, almost umami-ness of egg bread,” Grove says of the pair’s signature roll. “But also a big part of it, too, is the cinnamon,” Sharp adds, estimating that each layer of the four-layer rolls uses at least a quarter cup of cinnamon. (Grove guesses it’s higher.)

Maybe the most special part of all, though, is the eating. Grove says it’s “turned into a huge community. It’s almost like a church, honestly, in that it’s a wonderful community of people that just sit and drink coffee together and eat cinnamon rolls and everyone knows everyone’s name.”