Would you believe, 30 gallons of stew? From just one contestant?
Ron Eade, The Ottawa Citizen
Tucker’s Marketplace took top honours with judges at the 21st annual ByWard Market Stew Cook-Off, part of the opening Winterlude festivities that drew a record crowd of almost 800 hungry participants on Friday.
Tucker’s winning entry was a hearty beef, sausage and vegetable stew. And the People’s Choice award went to Social Restaurant and Lounge for its venison, chipotle and sweet potato stew.
For full story, go to:
Would you believe, 30 gallons of stew? From just one contestant?
Byward Market Square was a mighty busy place at annual stew cook-off Friday.
Photo courtesy of Ron Eade, The Ottawa Citizen
Taste of Winterlude will tickle your taste buds
PAULINE ANDERSON / METRO OTTAWA
Photo courtesy of the NCC
Taste of Winterlude features some of the best cuisine that Ottawa and the Gatineau region has to offer.
You can sample cuisine at some of the area’s top restaurants and venues, learn new cooking techniques from local chefs, and tour local restaurants or shops with top chefs or sommeliers as your guide.
Full story on the Metro Ottawa website: Taste of Winterlude
And a Nuit Blanche for Ottawa is born . . .
Peter Simpson, The Ottawa Citizen
The truest thing said at La Nouvelle Scene on Tuesday night was this: “Ottawa deserves a Nuit Blanche.”
And it does. Ottawa is all grown up now when it comes to visual arts, not as grown up as New York City or Paris or Florence, admittedly, but grown up nonetheless. It has a base of national institutions – the National Gallery, the Museum of Civilization, the War Museum, and the National Portrait Gallery (ha! Just kidding, Stephen Harper, go back to your cutting).
Ottawa has a determined if ill-housed city art gallery, and – this perhaps most significant – it now has at least three clearly defined art districts, those cluster of smaller, private galleries that have popped up organically wherever the growing conditions are best; the Byward Market, Wellington-Westboro, and Bank Street in Centretown.
Ottawa also has established, annual events that draw attention to visual arts of various types, most notably Festival X, the photography biennial. There are smaller events, such as Chinatown Remixed, the weekend of art installations in that neighbourhood, or the monthly “First Thursdays” gallery hop in Wellington West, or the formerly named Art in the Park in the Glebe (a neighbourhood that, despite all its affluence and education, has seen all of its art galleries/shops close in the past two years).
Read more on the Ottawa Citizen website: And a Nuit Blanche for Ottawa is born…
Ottawa StoryTellers Presents the Following Events for February, 2011
February 8
Finding Your Wings
Featuring recent graduates from OST’s Beginner Workshop
Stories and Tea
The Tea Party, 119 York St.
7pm-8:45pm
Pay what you can
February 17
Beyond the Bounds: Outlaws and Vagabonds
Katherine Grier, Tom Lips, and Phil Nagy
7:30 pm, NAC 4th Stage, tickets at the NAC box office: $20/$12 students and seniors
From the wilds of Australia to the forests of Britain and beyond, outlaws have always been a subject of fascination. We condemn their crimes and sing out their virtues, we turn them over to the law and hide them in our cellars. We can`t seem to decide if they`re villains or heroes. Tonight, you can decide for yourself as we share stories and songs about the outlaws that have captured our imaginations.
February 22
Roomates
Gail Anglin and Robert Carter
Stories and Tea
The Tea Party, 119 York St.
7pm-8:45pm
Pay what you can
February 25
Once Upon a Slam
Featured Performer: Kim Kilpatrick
7:00 pm, Mercury Lounge Underground (aka Bar 56) 56 Byward Market, $7 cover charge for listeners (slam participants get in free)
Once Upon a Slam is Ottawa’s new monthly story slam series! A story slam is much like a poetry slam, except for it festures narrative stories of all kinds. Each performer has 5 minutes to TELL a story (and we do mean tell, no reading). Judges are randomly selected from the audience to give a score to each story. Highest score of the night takes home all the marbles. Fairy tales, ghost stories, personal stories, whatever kind of story you like, as long as you tell it in your own words. There are 10 spots available, sign up starts at 7PM, show starts at 7:30PM. This month, OST will be presenting featured teller Kim Kilpatrick. Kim has been a storyteller unofficially for all of her life, as she grew up in a family who liked to tell stories. Officially, Kim has been a storyteller for the past 10 years. She tells autobiographical stories in an entertaining and humorous manner to audiences of all ages, specializing in autobiographical tales which depict the trials, triumphs, and adventures of experiencing life as a person who is totally blind. She has performed on the NAC fourth stage every year since 2004, and has performed at storytelling festivals in Ottawa, Montreal, Toronto, and Saint Mary’s. She is also an artist with MASC, bringing the art of storytelling into schools and facilities for seniors, and has performed in cafes, museums, libraries, pubs, parks, and many other venues.Having recently fallen in love with the story slam format, she has performed and placed at each session of Once Upon a Slam since its beginning in October, 2010.
For more information on our programming, visit www.ottawastorytellers.ca
Join the Ottawa Storytellers facebook group to get invites to our events, or follow us on Twitter @ottawastory.
OST programming is supported by the City of Ottawa, the Ontario Arts Council, Heritage Canada and Canada Council for the Arts.
20th Annual Byward Market Stew Cook-Off
The event will take place outside, so dress warm!
Event Info
Winterlude Stew Cook Off!
Friday, February 4, 2011 at 12:00 pm
South end of ByWard Market Building
On the side of George & William
55 ByWard Market Square
Cost: $10 / per person
All funds will be donated to the Youth Services Bureau
Door prizes, coupons, celebrities & endless amounts of STEW!
For more information, please contact 613.562.3325 or email events@byward-market.com
Christmas and New Year’s in Ottawa
So maybe you’re planning a visit to Ottawa over the holiday season… or maybe you live here and are looking for some suggestions of what to see and do. This is a starting guide of what awaits — watch for updates as December progresses!
FREE STUFF
Christmas Lights Across Canada – last year’s launch on Parliament Hill
Everybody loves free stuff, especially when there are so many other demands on your wallet! Be sure to wander the downtown Ottawa and Gatineau streets between December 2, 2010 and January 7, 2011 and admire the Christmas Lights Across Canada program — more than 300,000 coloured lights decorate Parliament Hill, the National War Memorial and other scenic sites.
Read more at letsgoottawa.ca
Gallery’s Pop Life exceeds expectations
Peter Kovessy, Ottawa Business Journal
Rabbit, by Jeff Koons (Image courtesy the National Gallery of Canada)
While that’s on par with other temporary exhibitions, Gallery officials say they only forecasted 45,000 visitors, adding the strong turnout is “encouraging.”
The exhibit was “front and centre” in tourism marketing materials this summer, says Jantine Van Kregten, director of communications at Ottawa Tourism.
The gallery also sponsored the Bluesfest stage in the ByWard Market, a partnership Mr. Shaughnessy calls “unprecedented.”
Ms. Van Kregten says she hopes the Pop Life exhibit raises the profile of the Gallery’s diverse offerings, as well as the abundance of smaller galleries and studios throughout the city.
Plase read the full story on the OBJ website: Gallery’s Pop Life exceeds expectations
The ByWard Market has the only Bluesfest shows today!
Bluesfest enthusiasts need not wonder what to do tonight. The ByWard Market offers the only Bluesfest concerts this evening (Monday)at the FREE POP Life Stage on York Street (at Sussex) followed by live entertainment inside ByWard Market venues – the Chateau Lafayette and the Rainbow Bistro.
FREE programming starts at 6:00 pm. Live on stage tonight:
6:00 pm – JW Jones – One of Canada’s top blues guitar stars.
7:15 pm – Jason Collett – Canadian indie-rocker known as the ‘wise big brother’ figure in Canada’s Broken Social Scene, he’s currently on a solo tour with his backing band Zeus.
8:30 pm – City and Colour – Dallas Green vocal, guitar and piano – better known
as the dulcet voice of Alexisonfire, is presenting his solo material in this intimate performance.
FREE programming continues until tomorrow (Tuesday) night. For additional information please visit www.byward-market.com.
O Ottawa. When did you get so hip? Discovering Canada’s cool capital
Michael Kaminer, Special to The Washington Post
In fact, if anything now characterizes the city, I’d say it’s an unselfconscious cool. There’s a proudly indie aesthetic in its neighborhoods, but without the hipster posturing of Toronto. Unlike language-obsessed Montreal, the city has a relaxed attitude toward bilingualism — everything here comes in both official languages — that lends Ottawa an easy cosmopolitanism.
Oh, yes: Ottawa also boasts Canada’s Parliament, along with the National Gallery, the Royal Canadian Mint, the Canadian War Museum, Rideau Hall, the Canadian Museum of Nature, the Canadian Children’s Museum, the Canada Aviation and Space Museum and the Canadian Museum of Civilization. They’re all gleaming, serious attractions, with collections often lauded as some of the world’s best.
They used to be the reason for a visit to Ottawa, with restaurants and shopping an afterthought. These days, don’t be surprised if you find the opposite to be true.
Read the full article in the Washington Post: O Ottawa. When did you get so hip?
Cisco Ottawa Bluesfest forms new partnership with the National Gallery of Canada
The Cisco Ottawa Bluesfest organization and the National Gallery of Canada—which features their exciting summer exhibition Pop Life: Art in a Material World—have formed a partnership. Pop Life will become the presenting sponsor of the sophomore edition of the Cisco Ottawa Bluesfest ByWard. This popular, free music programming on an outdoor stage in the ByWard Market was introduced for the first time in the summer of ’09. It was a big hit bringing in almost 75,000 Ottawa residents and visitors to Ottawa to see a wide variety of acts. Pop Life is also a key new feature on the Cisco Ottawa Bluesfest website that allows patrons to preview the exhibition and add its dates and surrounding events to their personal Cisco Ottawa Bluesfest calendars.
Pop Life Presents the Cisco Ottawa Bluesfest ByWard from July 8 through July 13. Pop culture enthusiasts can check out Pop Life: Art in a Material World at the National Gallery of Canada then stop by the Cisco Ottawa Bluesfest ByWard Pop Life Stage on York Street for some free musical entertainment! Officials from both organizations feel that this partnership adds an extra dimension to their respective events and creates a “win win” situation for music lovers and art enthusiasts alike.
The Ottawa Bluesfest ByWard line-up includes: City and Colour; Doc Walker; Taj Mahal; Wintersleep; Stereos; Tokyo Police Club; Junior Brown; Born Ruffians; Amanda Rheaume; Peter Voith; the Mighty Popo; Jhevon Paris; JW-Jones; Jeff Rogers; and Abandon All Ships.
Go to: www.ottawabluesfest.ca for a link to all the Cisco Ottawa Bluesfest ByWard programming details.
Pop Life: Art in a Material World
June 11 through September 19, 2010
SPECIAL EXHIBITION GALLERIES
Pop Life: Art in a Material World explores the complex relationship between contemporary art, commerce, marketing and the mass media that has evolved since the late 1980s when Andy Warhol uttered his provocative maxim that “good business is the best art.” Featuring artists often known as much for their notoriety as for their art, the exhibition traces how Warhol, Jeff Koons, Richard Prince, Keith Haring, Tracey Emin, Damien Hirst, Takashi Murakami, Martin Kippenberger and numerous other high-profile figures from the international art world from the 1980s to today have developed iconic, at times even famous, signature “brands” using their artistic persona as much as their art.
Organized by Tate Modern, London, in association with the National Gallery of Canada.
For more information and Gallery hours, visit the exhibition website: www.gallery.ca/poplife/
