The Toque Girls

Phew! Does anyone else feel like this has been the longest week ever? The Toque Girls have a date tonight to blow off some steam. We’re going for sushi and to see A Separation. Wine will be had. On Saturday, Chris will spend the day at Lake Louise and plans to indulge in a wee bit of Ireland during après-ski. Michelle will spend some quality time in cafes, writing and writing some more. And then she too will indulge in a wee bit of Ireland après-work.

On the list for this week:

• Now, just in case a wee drink is in your future, check out One Hope wines, which just arrived at Highlander Wines. With every bottle, money goes to a local charity.
• We’re smitten with Ox And Angela, a Spanish-inspired restaurant and bar on 17th Avenue. We checked out their La Cena party this week and are hooked. We’ll have a standing order of mojitos, please.
• Chris relished this Calgary Herald article on cat-skiing at Island Lake Lodge. That’s where she and S. were married in 2010!
• Looking to get your hands on the Diane Von Furstenberg collection for GapKids and babyGap? It’s available in Calgary only at Chinook Center.
• One of our favourite designers, Lara Presber, is selling pieces at wholesale prices at a pop-up store in Fashion Central until Sunday.
• Michelle is dabbling in Bobbi Brown makeup for the first time and she’s digging it, especially the Natural Finish Long Lasting Foundation with SPF and the Face Touch Up Stick. Great coverage, natural finish. Yep, they named it well.
• This list of 31 Salad Recipes is fantastic. We like the sounds of the California-Sushi-Roll Salad and the Baked Goat Cheese and Apple Salad.
• Speaking of salads, try mixing this Sparrow Lane D’Anjou Pear Vinegar with a bit of olive oil and use it as your dressing. The Toque Girls thanks their fab foodie friend, Gwendolyn, for introducing them to the wonders of pear vinegar.
• The Toque Girls love hockey. So we’re giving our full support to the world’s longest game, scheduled to take place in Chestermere on May 6. Forty players will play hockey for 250 hours to raise funds for pediatric cancer and the Alberta Childrens Hospital. Should be fun! Find out more and donate here.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

~The Toque Girls

p.s. From Michelle to Chris: Love that photo of you. You are a gorgeous Toque Girl.

p.p.s. From Chris to Michelle: Awww, shucks, Michelle. Thanks. I have terrible posture, don’t you think?

I hate to say, “It’s been one of those days,” but, it has. I tend to write this weary-sounding post every quarter, which not so coincidentally coincides with hectic times at work. It’s now 11 p.m on Wednesday. I just got home from work. I’m sipping on a glass of wine. So forgive me if my writing is uninspired.

I’m going to distract you from my “no-brain-cells-left-to-write syndrome” with the oldest trick in the book: nudity.

You’re welcome.

I discovered these ultra-soft, funky bamboo Bia Boro undies when I popped into Gingerella in Canmore last weekend, while doing some research for an upcoming magazine story I’m writing. Research, schmesearch. I was easily distracted when I spotted the Bia Boro goods, which hail from Nelson, B.C. Though I didn’t pick up a pair, I will the next time I’m in town.

Now, I’m off to bed. Enjoy today’s nudity and I promise to plan better for this time next quarter.

~Michelle

{Photo via Bia Boro site.}

Here’s how it broke down: we skied, we ate, we skied some more. Over and over.

And it was glorious.

To start, we drove from Calgary to Whistler. That’s the part of the trip that I regret. Next time we fly. No one should have to travel through this:

Egad big time. That’s the highway!

But we got there alive and safe. Stress disappeared instantly when we checked into Nita Lake Lodge.

It’s a new luxury boutique hotel close to the base of the Creekside gondola. Our balcony opened out onto a lake – a very, very snowy lake. Skier hearts a-flutter.

Oh, and there’s a rooftop hot tub that looks out at the mountains.

Sigh. Why am I back at work?

The boy also wants you to know that Nita Lake has Victoria’s Philips Brewing Company on draft in the lounge, along with side orders of beef jerky.

Now, onto the skiing. It snowed like crazy our first two nights there. S. woke up at dawn the first day and waited in the snow like a little kid for the lifts to open. He had first tracks and waffles for lunch that day. It was, he says, “THE GREATEST DAY EVER. EVER.” (The caps are his, not mine.)

Whistler-Blackcomb is enormous, like 8,171 acres enormous. Even with four straight days of skiing, we barely scratched the surface.

Some highlights:

(*) The Peak-to-Peak Gondola – a 4.4-km ride that hangs 450 meters in the air. I had to pull out some intense yoga breathing to keep from freaking out. I didn’t even know I was afraid of heights.

(*) Favourite end-of-the-day run: Peak to Creek. It’s a 5.5-km run from the highest point of Whistler right to the bottom of Creekside, so we could ski right into our favourite après ski pub, Dusty’s. The kilometers are marked as you zoom down the hill. We could tick them off – “3 km to Dusty’s”, “2 km to Dusty’s.” That’s the best motivation I’ve ever had to get my sore legs down a hill quickly.

We’d celebrate at the bottom with a jug of Whiskey Jack Ale from Whistler Brewing Co., and a veggie platter with fresh naan bread and chunky hummus.

Which brings me to the other key feature of this vacation — the food. Food and skiing go hand-in-hand. Everyone knows that.

On Day 1, we fell in love with the Irish pub, the Dubh Linn Gate. I ate a grilled veggie salad with goat cheese and salmon. The boy ate their house specialty — Guinness Beef Pie. T

Then, there’s Creekbread Pizza. I now declare myself officially head of the “Open a Creekbread in Calgary” lobby. They do thin-crust pizzas and build-your-own salads. We had their winter veggie special topped with butternut squash, cranberries, caramelized onions, goat cheese and asiago cheese. And a sausage pizza. We were hungry.

Our server complimented us on our ability to eat. I’m still not sure how I feel about that.

Our hands-down favourite (and our splurge) was Araxi Restaurant + Bar. Let me sum it up like this: homemade peanut butter ice cream sandwiches.

It happened almost a week ago and we still talk about them every single day. I was so in love that I didn’t take a photo.

Instead, I’ll leave you with a yummy waffle. Happy Wednesday!

~Chris

Ever since Michael Bernard Fitzgerald’s amazing concert at the Jack Singer a couple of weeks ago, my ears have been happy, happy campers. At the show, we picked up a handful of albums to check out — all of them by Canadian musicians. We’d never been lucky enough to hear from these singer/songwriters before. I’m so happy we rectified the situation.

Let’s have a look at these fine Canadians, clockwise from the top left.

Chris Austman: Chris is a Calgarian who recently released the album above, called Primary. I’m in love. I’d describe his music but I’ll let his Facebook page do the talking: Chris Austman pursues a much needed merging of forms between the dust bowl and the digital. “Anything that makes a noise is able to make music.” He also says his genre is “somewhere between Paul Simon and Bjork.” That settle it? I didn’t think so. I recommend picking up the album to check it out.

Layten Kramer: Layten is another Albertan, another fantastic musician. His album, Lost In The Woods, was released last year and produced by MBF. His process is outlined on the back of the album cover: “After two days of recording, consuming coffee and brownies, a Star Wars marathon, and multiple high-fives, we bring you ‘Lost In The Woods.’” We’ll take it.

Noel Johnson: Noel’s album, Spirit of the Day, makes us want to cruise with our windows down in the summertime. Not surprisingly, this Calgary-born/Toronto-based musician collaborated with MBF on the album, which was released in 2009. And speaking of summer, it was a pivotal time in young Noel’s life, as he writes on his website: Noel “never grew up in a musical family nor was he nurtured into becoming an entertainer. It wasn’t until one summer afternoon when he came across an old Fender acoustic sitting in the back alley that he decided to pick up an instrument. Being sixteen and stubbornly refusing to get a summer job he decided to learn how to play. By the end of the summer, Noel had written half a dozen not so good songs but he stuck with it because of his passion to write powerful and moving music one day.”

Whether you check out one or all of the above, I’m sure your ears will say, ‘Thank you.’ And then they’ll say, ‘Play it again.’

~Michelle

I’m back! Whistler was a thousand kinds of awesome — fresh-snow awesome, sunny-days awesome, peanut-butter-ice-cream-sandwiches awesome (Oh yes! That happened) and more.

I’ll give you my rundown on Whistler later this week. Right now, I’m in spring mode. I woke up to birds this morning. The sun’s a-shining. I smell BBQ from somewhere and I received dozens of emails this week on the latest spring fashions.

I’ve put together a very good outfit for a BBQ and would love to take it out of the house. So, if you’re planning a BBQ, please invite me. I’ll bring ice cream sandwiches.

This Ry Angora Knit Sweater by ACNE looks so comfortable. I’m drawn to anything in mint or jade this spring — fits right in with tulips and sunny days.

I’m bringing out the white skinny jeans like these ones from Vince. Yes, they do get dirty. No, I don’t care. (I own a white couch, remember?)

I spotted these Ash Jalouse lovelies on pinterest sometime ago. I’ve yet to find them in real life but am hoping that the Easter Bunny can get his bunny-hands on a pair for me.

Finally, methinks this ‘raindrop’ scarf is perfect. It might not be as practical as an umbrella but surely you didn’t come to this blog expecting practicality.

~Chris