Tag Archives: Travel

Culture

A Dollar For Compressed Air – Are You Getting Gouged?

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The Silo does a lot of travelling and we take notice of the highs and the lows that go along with working in parts of four counties.  Some standouts are the comparative condition of the roads, the comparative prices of gasoline and diesel and one thing that surprised us: the rising cost of compressed air and the variations in the amount of time you get for the compressed air.

But why do we notice these things?

You see, we live in a wonderfully exotic environment. In just a few months time, air temperatures can vary between -20 degrees C to + 25 degrees C and this temperature jump combined with a (seemingly) growing number of potholes means checking your vehicles tire condition and pressure is a must. If you want to drive safely and economically and comfortably.

And that’s the rub

The vast majority of service stations are no longer Ma and Pa operations that cater to the automobile enthusiast. Sure they have candy and coffee and DVD’s and scratch lottery tickets. But what about putting the word ‘service’ back into service station? None of us on staff are old enough to remember a time when pulling your car into a gas station meant at a minimum a check under the hood. None of us are old enough to contemplate a time when your car was jacked up and inspected like a ship in dry dock. But all of us are aware of the rising cost of not only fuel but compressed air.

As we make our way around the different county lines and roads, our vehicles are taking a toll. On average, the roads are spotty and checking tire pressure has become a bit of an obsession. [If any of you are driving a vehicle with Nitrogen or another gas in your tires, please let us know if you’ve noticed a difference]

We are shocked by the rising costs of air pumps. The average cost of filling your tires is now 1$. The fill rates vary between pump manufacturers and it’s plausible that station owners may adjusting the length of time that 1$ will buy. We will report back our findings.  In the meantime- visit Burcham’s Service on Main St. in Port Dover for FULL service gas [sorry no diesel] and FREE compressed air. Pay attention to the warning sign above the air pump- this is a high pressure nozzle but when used properly, does a great job of filling your tires at no cost.  CP

 

Culture

Terroir

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Wine and cheese pairing is not just for the snobby connoisseur or the elite diner. Anyone can be a part of this wonderful dining experience and spend an evening savoring it yourself. Since all of us are different and more importantly, all of our taste buds are different, what master vintners and world class fromagiers may say is a correct pairing, may not work for the rest of us. By all means listen to what they might suggest, because they have a lot of experience with taste –but, remember they are just suggestions.  It’s the differences that make life interesting.

Cheese and wine by their very nature are even different from vat to vat. You may be making the same product, but in the food world, there are many variables to production. Terroir plays a significant role in both wine and cheese.  Grapes taken from sunny slopes of Italy have a different terroir than grapes taken from valleys in France. It’s the same with cheese. Milk coming from animals in Swiss Alpine regions possesses distinct flavors that differ from milk from animals on Canadian Prairies.

Understanding the basic concepts of flavors and how they pair, will give you a platform to make your own pairing decisions.  Cheese influences the taste of wine more than vice versa. Wines with lots of flavour work with cheese that also have lots of flavour.  Subtle wines work with delicate cheese; therefore hard cheese with red wines and soft cheese with white. Fruity wines pair nicely with tangy acidic cheese. A sour salty cheese makes a wine taste milder. Sometimes, pairing wines with cheese from the same area works well together. Spicy flavored cheese work well with sweet desert wines.

Sometimes a heavy sugar wine works with a blue cheese. But, in the long run, it’s all up to you to try it out, and find out what sits well with you.  Your goal is to create a balance of flavors of wine and cheese together.

Here are a few pairings of wine and cheese that you might care to try out.

Florence Estate Winery from Langton has a delightful chardonnay -with its light oak and hints of fruit pairs well with the Swiss Alpine Gruyere from the Canton of Fribourg. The subtle textures of the cheese draw out the fruity hints of the wine.

Villa Nova Estate Winery has a Riesling that is clear and floral, and the terroir of their region adds a slight twist of richness that differs slightly German Rieslings. This makes pairing with the English Double Gloucester a true experience. The saltiness of the cheddar takes the edge from the sweetness of the wine.

I am looking forward to sampling the other Norfolk County wines from Burning Kiln, Burning Mills Villa Nova Estate and Wooden Bear-L , when I get the chance. Maybe this weekend I can give it a shot with some close friends and a board of cheese. For the Silo, Scott Jensen. 

 

Reviews

Moon

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Art imitates rural life.

If you’re like me and grew up on a rich diet of 1980’s science fiction films, you should walk (no make that moonwalk) to your nearest video store and ask for MOON. This little gem is an existential journey into the mind of a lonely farmer-astronaut and hits close to home. Sure there’s the usual high contrast and gritty sci-fi production values, but there are also some poignant connections to our rural habitat. Picture a massive, rambling, white combine harvester gathering hay under a full, late fall moon, except that in this case the moon is the earth. A tiny, lonely man is hunched over the controls in an elevated and sealed cockpit. Now remove all semblance of colour, add a few craters and hills, and you get part of what makes this film so familiar and, dare I say, rural.

Growing up here as a boy I imagined that the once plentiful silos and drive-sheds in Norfolk (especially the aluminum ones) were rocket platforms and moon bases. Even the large, four wheeled crop sprayers had a space age look to them. And that is why I felt especially connected to Duncan Jones’ incredibly moving MOON. It pulled me in and felt familiar.

If I had to bet the farm I’d say the production designer looked at both farms and farm machinery while working out the aesthetics of this movie. But more than that, the story pulls at your heartstrings.

Sam (played by the remarkably versatile Sam Rockwell in a breakthrough role) is a lonely astronaut working on the moon, farming the soil for energy until he begins to suffer from extreme isolation- complete with lucid dreams and hallucinations. What follows next is one of the finest surprise plot twists in contemporary cinema.

Satisfying space fiction from son of iconic rocker David Bowie. For the Silo, Jarrod Barker.