What's up!

Okay, here goes...

Tamara Kronis of Tamara Designs has joined forces with Kathryn Dieroff and have opened Studio 1098 at 1098 Yonge St. (just north of the Rosedale subway station) Their regular studio hours are Tuesday thru Thursday 11-6pm. Both Susan and I are big fans of Tamara's and wish her the best of luck with this new venture.

The Bay has a cool promo going on right now. It's called the Handbag Trade-In Event. It is on from May 7-9 and what you do is bring in any clean, used handbag and receive a discount on a regular-priced handbag purchase of $60 or more. The Bay will donate your handbag, along with a $20. gift card to a local womaen's shelter through the Canadian Women's Foundation. Check out the link to get all the details.

Foodshare's Executive Director Debbie Field has won the inaugural Green Toronto Award for Local Food!
The award recognizes "leadership in increasing food security by creating, administering and promoting programs that increase the availability of affordable food for neighbourhoods, communities and residents. Kudos to you, all of you at Foodshare!

A Toronto paramedic Rahul Singh has made Time magazine's 100 most influentical list! How great is that!! Check out the Toronto Star article www.thestar.com

There is a new store in Bloor West Village holding their Grand Opening tomorrow L'enveloppe Rouge at 2323 Bloor St. W.

Dupont Artist Open House is being held at Planet Storage, 1655 Dupont St., 2-5pm. Come out and enjoy some light refreshments and support local artists of all mediums.

Winealign.com is this great website that rates wines and then  gives their availability at each of the LCBO locations. They also release a newsletter regularly. They are great about giving nods to the local wineries as well as giving sound advice on all the other wines available in Ontario. Their latest newsletter is titled "Lawrason's Take on the May 1st Vintages Release" by David Lawrason,  the following are the comments on one of our local wineries...

Prince Edward County, Ontario - My backyard wine region gets an airing at Vintages on May 1 with four selections. Three are made 100% from County fruit, which signals advancement of the County into the mass market. To be viable in the LCBO and Vintages, wineries must be able to offer significant volume.  Until recently most PEC wineries could not offer volume from 100% County fruit, so they were importing Niagara juice and having to label the wines Ontario (under VQA regulation), as in Rosehall Run’s tidy 2006 Chardonnay.   Many of the new, tiny operations that have opened in the past 12 months (15 by my count) are still too small to dream of Vintages or LCBO listings. The wines offered this month provide a true portrait of the County, and I like the Closson Chase 2007 CC Vineyard Chardonnay Unfiltered in particular. The always controversial Deborah Paskus crafts her chardonnays deep within the pores of the barrel, so non-oak fans may have a hard time. But this chardonnay has distinctive character, County elegance and quite incredible depth.  

Sounds like it would make a great wine to fashion a Mother's Day dinner around! Check out their site, www.winealign.com the first month is free, if you recommend anyone, you get another month free and I think the fee is really, really reasonable. 

Keeping with the wine chat, Coffin Ridge opens for business for the 2010 season today! Their hours are Thursday thru Saturday 11-6pm and Sunday 11-5pm. They are promising their famous "vintners plate" every day. Check out their website, it sounds irresistible! www.coffinridge.ca

Have a great weekend everyone! It looks like Saturday is going to be the day to get out and enjoy the sunshine!