December 09, 2005 - Glebe Report

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A German holiday BY LEONORE WILLIAMS Christmas starts early in our house, even though the tree doesn't go up until the 24th. The four Sundays before the 24th are the four Advents. On the first (this year, Nov. 27), friends and family get together, sing carols, drink mulled wine, eat cookies and make the Adventskranz, a ring of pine boughs, into which four candles are fastened and decorated by a ribbon. Each Sunday thereafter, we light one more candle, aiding the countdown and contributing to the growing excitement. Dec. 6 is always St. Niklaus Tag. The children polish their boots and put them outside the door. In the morning they find them filled with nuts, chocolate and an orange. This is our yearly stocking substitute. In our family, the singing part is always the most fun, especially in combination with the mulled wine. The goal is to memorize as many verses as possible by the 24th, when we come together with the larger family for the big celebration. In order of age (youngest first), we each choose a song (English or German). Musical instruments are pulled out and the experienced harmonize. My favourites are the ancient songs: . Es ist ein Ros entsprungen and Maria durch ein Dornwald gin g. Earlier on this day, (Grandpa) Opa went out to the woods with a chainsaw and a helper to choose a tree. Grandkids help decorate the tree. White candles are strategically wired into place above the brightly polished red apples hanging on branches. Single strands of tinsel vie for space among all of (Grandma) Oma's wonderful ancient ornaments. Later, after singing, we open presents, then eat ham with peas and mashed potatoes. Since our family is no longer purely German, our traditions have happily merged with more Canadian ones (and others). Sharing the best traditions has helped us keep this holiday special. Best of all is the glow on the children's faces as they sing carols and watch the bright beautiful tree. I ip s 4Nrbotir TM _ -* .Environmental Shoppe I * .,en dly h 4 le A * * o . o Eco Games #' c c Hemp Clothing Wind-up Radios Stocking Stutters * IN,. 04 Illustrations: Gwendolyn Best lhocky Rc KS Cookies BY VALERIE BRYCE This is a recipe I picked up in Australia years ago. It's easy to do with children and makes lots. My two boys are now adults, but I think I'll make these cookies again this yearand they'll be delighted! 250 g butter or margarine 1 cup sugar 2 eggs 1/2 teaspoon vanilla 2 cups flour 4 cups cornflakes 1 pkg chocolate chips 1/2 cup sultanas Cream butter & sugar together. Add eggs one at a time, beating well in between. Stir in vanilla. Mix in flour, chocolate chips, sultanas and half the cornflakes. Form into walnut-sized balls and roll them in the rest of the cornflakes (slightly crushed). Put on greased tray. Bake at 350° for 15-20 minutes. a n Solar Products Cli Baby Products Books and Music Unique Gift Ideas Rain Barrels Body Care Gardening Products and more! Present this ad with any purchase * and receive a free gift! * LIMIT 1/CUSTOMER EXPIRES DECEMBER 31, 2005 * 800 Bank Street, Ottawa, Earth I. (613)567-3168 www.arbourshop.com 11-i Give a Unique Environmental Gift this Holiday Beason 1-1 Oh Hanukkah! BY 'TEENA HENDELMAN Oh Hanukkah! Oh Hanukkah! Come light the menorah Let's have a party, We'll all dance the hora! Hanuklcah is a time for parties, as Jewish people all over the world celebrate the Festival of Lights. The festival marks the successful defence of religious freedom by the Maccabees against the armies of Antiochus Epiphanes and remembers the miracle of the oil burning for eight days in the rededicated Temple. Each night, we light the hanukkiah a menorah or candelabra with eight branches plus one (the shamash) to light the othersstarting with ont candle and adding one more each night till all eight are burning brightly on the last night. While the candles are burning, we sing cheerful songs in Hebrew, Yiddish and English. Then we give a gift or money (Hanukkah gelt) to the children of the family and to the visiting child or children when there is a party (which is often). On one of the nights, our gifts are donated, in the names of the children and their visitors, to the charity of their choice. What is a holiday without good food? For Hanukkah, the traditional foods are cooked in oil, symbolic of the lit oil lamp (the menorah). We eat potato latkes (pancakes) vvith sour cream or applesauce (or both), chocolate money, and jelly donuts (sufganyot). Then we play dreidel. A four-sided spinning top, the dreidel has inscribed on it the Hebrew letters for 'n' (nun), `g' (gimmel), 'h' (hay) and `sh' (shin). These stand for the Hebrew phrase: nes gadol hayah sham, meaning a great miracle happened there. There is a secondary meaning to the letters for the purpose of the dreidel game. These are in Yiddish and instruct the spinner to: put a penny in the centre, do nothing, take half the pot or take the whole pot of coins. Each player chooses a lucky dreidel from our collection. Hanukkah is on the 25th day of the Hebrew month of Kislev. This year, Hanukkah falls on December 25 and lasts through the New Year. Let's celebrate! Santa Lucia festival from Sweden BY BORGNY PEARSON You don't have to be Swedish to enjoy the Santa Lucia festival of light, Sat., Dec. 10, 1-4 p.m., at Christ Church Cathedral, Sparks Street at Bronson Avenue. This year, Jasmin Berquist Murray, 17, plays the part of Santa Lucia. Wearing a long white gown, with a crown of candles on her head, she leads a procession of girls and boys singing, each girl carrying a candle, each boy a startipped wand. Stella Ellis directs the program. It culminates in dancing around a Christmas tree with everybody singing Yuletide songs from Sweden and other Nordic countries. According to Per Olav Talgoy, president of the Canadian Nordic Society, the society has sponsored the Santa Lucia festival in Ottawa for more than 40 years. Admission is $10 for CNS members, $15 for adult non-members and free for all children under 18. Skor Toffee Chocolate Bars BY WENDY SIEBRASSE INGREDIENTS 3/4 cup margarine or butter 3/4 cup packed brown sugar 11/2 cups all-purpose flour 1 can sweetened condensed milk (300 ml) 2 tbsp margarine or butter 1 pkg milk chocolate chips (300 g) 1 pkg Skor toffee bits (225 g) INSTRUCTIONS Base: Cream first three ingredients until well-blended and mixture comes together. Press evenly into 13" x 9" cake pan. Bake at 350° F for 20-25 minutes or until light golden in colour. Cool pan on wire rack while preparing filling. Filling: Heat condensed milk and two tablespoons margarine or butter in a heavy saucepan, stirring constantly over medium heat for five to ten minutes or until thickened. Spread over baked base. Put back into the oven and bake 12-15 minutes longer or until golden. Topping: Sprinkle chocolate chips evenly over the filling. Bake for two minutes more or until chocolate is shiny and soft. Remove from oven. Spread chocolate evenly. Sprinkle SKOR bits on top, pressing lightly into chocolate. Cool completely. If necessary, chill just to set the chocolate before cutting into bars. Store at room temperature. (They also freeze well.)
FEATURE Glebe Report December 9, 2005 26 Wines for the festive season BY J. PHILLIP NICHOLSON Nasty November is behind us. Whatever leaves didn't get raked up are darned-well going to STAY there over the winter! Time to turn our thoughts to the festive season. And whether it's Christmas, Hanukkah, Saturnalia or Inti Rayma (the Incan Festival of the Sun), celebrating winter solstice calls for too much food and, okay, let's responsibly say "just enough" wine. APERITIFS You can't do much better than Croft's Original Fine Pale Cream Sherry, well chilled. It has all the perkiness that the addition of brandy brings to the base Palomino wine. But "cream" means sweet, so its addition of unfermented grape juice takes the edge off what would otherwise be an austere bone-dry fino. Any white port on the rocks with a wedge of lemon is an equal crowdpleaser: spicy, velvety, zingy. Moscato d'Asti is a gorgeous, fruity, slightly effervescent, low-alcohol (five per cent) wine that can put a smile on the grimmest of grinches. And nothing's complete without a sparkling wine; just make sure it's an authentic Champagne-method wine (secondary bottle fermentation, rather than soda-pop style bubble injection). Spain's Segura Viudas (toasty teabiscuit) and Australia's Seaview Brut (crisp) are delightful and about one-third the price of their upscale (French) competitors. APPETIZERS Rich appetizersfrom ginger shrimps and feta fils to potato latkes and smoked chardemand versatile food-friendly wines. Any Ontario VQA Riesling, typically less than $15, is up to the job, as are those from Alsace (dry, despite the German-style bottle). A crisp Sauvignon Blanc is equally refreshing and versatile (and perfect with goat cheese). Les Baronnes Sancerre from Henri Bourgeois is the metric bar against which I measure all others, although I'm partial to New Zealand versions, ranging from steely gooseberry to wet-hay herbaceous. For a classy light red, try a Cru Beaujolais (one of the 10 top Gamay communes). Georges Duboeuf's Combes au Jacques (Beaujolais Villages classification) is a fine contender. AFTERS For traditional fruit cake, plum pudding, or saillen, any Ontario lateharvest Riesling, Vidal or Gewurztraminer will lend apple, tropical fruit and apricot notes, while Lustau's East India sherry will provide dried fruit, caramel and butterscotch flavours to trigger dangerously delicious explosions. And Walnut Brown sweet sherry from Williams and Humbert simply can't be trusted alone with your favourite dried fruits. Finally, with price tags to match their 10, 20, 30 or 40 years of oak aging, tawny ports offer elegant layers of dried fruit, butterscotch, toffee, licorice and orange peel. In fact, skip the dessert! Vintage (darker) port and blue cheese just love each other. The sweet spiciness of this fortified wine is a perfect foil for the creamy richness and saltiness of the cheese. Get the most expensive true "vintage" (bottled early to trap the flavours) that you can afford. Otherwise, at one-third the cost, opt for any "late bottled vintage," which neither needs nor benefits from bottle aging. (Who wants to wait, anyway?) Dark chocolate and port? In a word: "yup." In two words: "yum yum." Round things off with fresh walnuts, filberts, pecans and Brazil nuts paired with a dry, nutty oloroso sherry. Lustau's Don Nutio is as fine as they come. Zap some almonds until toasty warm and feel the afterglow as you sip. For a special treat, try the rare palo cortado sherry, halfway in style between a bone-dry fino and the more voluptuous oloroso. There is no prettieror more deliciousamber-coloured anything on the planet. Glebe resident Phil Nicholson is the co-founder, first president and now a governor of the National Capital Sommelier Guild and a former Ottawa Wine Person of the Year oP'edble Anne ortin One of Canada's Leading Portrait Photographers Nappy WO &rays From all of us at Von's 14;41 233-3277 232-2703 The Perfect 3-foCiday Gift: Your Portrait Session at Hélène Anne Fortin's House of Photography In the Glebe, see Hélène Anne Fortin's portraits at Glebe Side Kids, Davidson's Jewellers, Berry's Pet Food; and the Wild Oat (to mid-December) www.hafortinphoto.ca 459.2161 819 Bank Street (Fifth Avenue Court) Free Parking at Rear 11 744 to all of you we're ce-lebrating 26 years in the Glebe during the holiday season. We look forward to seeing you over the holidays and wish you and your family a happy New Year!
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Page 3 and 4: I NEWS Abbotsford House Bazaar give
Page 5 and 6: EDITORIAL PAGE Share your memories
Page 7 and 8: ELECTION Glebe Report December 9, 2
Page 9 and 10: ELECTION Keith Fountain Conservativ
Page 11 and 12: GCA Glebe Report December 9, 2005 1
Page 13 and 14: THE GOOD OLD DAYS Thirty Years Ago
Page 15 and 16: On 8 Bank Street (Between Second &
Page 17 and 18: COUNCILLOR'S REPORT 'There's nothin
Page 19 and 20: BUSINESS NEWS Glebe Report December
Page 21 and 22: BUSINESS NEWS Many thanks from the
Page 23 and 24: NEWS NOEL 2005 Glebe Report Decembe
Page 25: HOLIDAY FROM TRADITIONS THAER°WORL
Page 29 and 30: ART Glebe Report December 9, 2005 2
Page 31 and 32: FEATURE Glebe Report December 9 200
Page 33 and 34: Go get the scissors! It's time for
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Page 37 and 38: SCHOOL NEWS Glebe Report December 9
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Page 45 and 46: RELIGION Glebe Report December 9, 2
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December 09, 2005 - Glebe Report

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