Seattle getaway

A weekend trip to Seattle provided an opportunity to browse book shops and the stalls of the Pike Place market. One vendor of the market vendors was cutting slices off a Fuji apple showing signs of slight watercore. He considered watercore a great thing because of the concentration of sugars in the glassy sections. Though watercore is a drawback for apples in terms of appearance and storage potential, it’s a treat when you find it in apples fresh off the tree. A pound of elephant garlic from Oregon won out over his Fujis when the time came to buy, however.

A visit to Lamplight Books (across the alley from the venerable Three Girls luncheonette) yielded two books of essays by poet Sam Hamill of Copper Canyon Press, among other items. Sam’s belief in the importance of poetry, his achievement at Copper Canyon and his ability to write eloquently about the poet’s work (among many other things) makes him an important and inspiring figure. I look forward to the reading the essays will offer.

Rounding out last Friday with friends in Belltown over salad and agnolotti, a bottle of Owen Roe Abbot’s Table (2004) paired wonderfully with the fare. Rich fruit, hints of vanilla and even streak of creamy coffee (induced by the greens we had for a salad) made it a comforting quaff. A blend of nine grape varieties in the bottle make it suitable for just about any occasion or so the winery says. I'd agree.

Running the course

I recently expressed caution concerning the British Columbia real estate market. Comments from some brighter minds at last week’s meetings of the National Association of Office and Industrial Properties and the Urban Development Institute back up my assessment. An overview of both events appears elsewhere, so I’ll limit myself to noting that David Podmore, head of Vancouver-based Concert Properties Ltd., suggested the local condo market is running out of steam thanks to escalating development costs and the exhaustion of equity available to homebuyers. “We’re at a point where a large part of the community cannot afford the multifamily product being developed,” Podmore said.

A recent Google search brought forth a syllabus with my name on it! Quite the surprise. It seems an academic article I wrote during a summer spent researching the life of Robert Bayard (one of the many doctors in my family tree) is on this week’s reading list for history students at the University of Alberta, where I studied English lit.

My own week offers fare more mundane than academic: A profile of Kelowna's Summerhill winery, recent news on British Columbia property taxes and a column for Western Canada bar owners on patio management.

Some history

A courier came to the door late last week with the second volume of the History of the Book in Canada. I was awaiting it: At the very back, just before the appendix, I found my contribution on reading practices in Canada’s north during the 19th century. It is the first to appear of two articles I have written for the three-volume History of the Book in Canada project. The chance to collaborate with Canada’s leading scholars in the field of book history was a welcome change of pace.

This week, I am tidying up stories for the spring issue of Vendor, an Alberta-based magazine for liquor retailers, as well as a story for the farm press on the challenges British Columbia meat packers face as fallout continues from the 2003 discovery of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE, or ‘mad cow’ disease) in a single Alberta cow. The high cost of disposing of waste tissue in a manner that satisfies government inspectors threatens to reduce meat processing capacity in B.C. as some processors opt not to spend tens of thousands of dollars upgrading their plants. The reasons for not upgrading range from the small scale of many of the operations to a lack of trust in the efficacy of the controls the federal food inspection agency has proposed. If you’d like to hear more of the offal details, contact me.

Winter reading

Rain falls as I write these words, pelting down relentlessly as it has for the past 18 hours or so. This morning I began reading Harry Thurston, A Place Between the Tides: A Naturalist’s Reflections on the Salt Marsh. Thurston’s observations of each month’s happenings in a remnant of the Tantramar Marsh of Nova Scotia are arranged by month. I plan to read each chapter as its month comes up, a practice I followed last year with David Helwig's book-length poem The Year One. A reflective style, wealth of detail and intimate warmth (even when describing the depths of winter) make both works an inspiration and an oasis in the midst of the hurly-burly of urban life.

My own work appears in the January issue of Western Investor, including a story originally published in Business in Vancouver on the uncertainty that roiled the income trust market in Canada last fall. The current issue of California trade magazine Wines & Vines features my report on the 2005 wine grape harvest in British Columbia. I’ve contributed this annual report to Wines & Vines since 2000, and always enjoy the chance to cover the B.C. wine industry. (Assignments are welcome!)

Belle de Boskoop

The first week of the new year, and my last stories of 2005 are making their way into print. The most colourful is “Belle de Boskoop,” an article in Good Fruit Grower regarding an apple-themed menu developed at Vancouver’s Raincity Grill. The five-course menu featured the creations of Raincity chef de cuisine Andrea Carlson. Each course incorporated apples, many of them heritage varieties rarely seen today. The article was fun to write, and highlighted the market opportunities fruit growers can tap through relationships with restaurants.

The rest of this week is slated for writing on real estate, including an update on Loreto Bay, a 5,000-unit master-planned community taking shape in Baja California, and prospects for the British Columbia market in the year ahead. Many observers point to another strong year in the province but I can’t help a slight skepticism. Rising construction costs, competition for skilled trades and satisfaction of pent-up demand over the past three and a half years are helping slow growth. Any slowdown won’t be major, however. With a condo ready to rise in front of my office, I can’t dispute the fact developers are still building. Still, I’m open to hearing otherwise.

With any luck, I’ll have a chance to visit the Picasso show at the Vancouver Art Gallery before it ends January 15. That should provide a good counterpoint to reviewing the local real estate market!

Getting started

Welcome to epigraphs, a collection of notes and observations from the desk of Peter Mitham, a freelance writer based in Vancouver, Canada.

In the spirit of the epigraph, traditionally a brief quotation or verse that sets the tone for the literary work to follow, postings will offer brief overviews of the latest writing and reading being done hereabouts. Watch for comments on the food, wine and travel experienced in the course of researching stories. With any luck, you can count on finding something new here each Monday (each week, anyway).

Have a comment on what you read? Want to discuss a story idea? Send your notes this way!