I first heard about caramelized white chocolate Last January, when I had the good fortune to attend the Ecole Chocolate Graduate Luncheon in San Francisco.  There, we were treated to samples of fabulous chocolates and bonbons, one of which was made with Valrhona’s “blonde chocolate”, Dulcey . According to the company’s executive chef and director, Frederic Bau, Dulcey was created by mistake, after he left white chocolate in a bain marie. After 10 hours, he discovered that it had turned blonde and smelled of shortbread, caramelized milk and unrefined sugar.

I have never done anything quite like this for a show.  I have built a few props in my time.  Props are the things actors carry around and use in a play, full name:  properties. For my students’ shows in the past I have built things to look like food:  a foam rubber three tiered chocolate brown birthday cake, double decker plaster ice cream cones and the occasional foam rubber and fabric chicken drumstick, but for this year’s play, I am creating something edible that will look as though it should never go near a person’s mouth.

I have always been slightly afraid of chickens … until now. Last weekend my partner and I had a long overdue opportunity to visit my sweet friend, Georgia and her backyard chickens.  I’ve been meaning to go and see “the girls” ever since she got them, but have never actually been organized enough to catch Georgia while she had some spare time, being the vibrant, involved, active person she is.  She recently finished a cross Canada bicycle journey – the chickens stayed home to bond with her Dad.

I have been immersed in my “other life” for the past four weeks, and have neglected everything else except learning lines, blocking and finding characters for the multiple roles I (and my acting partner) play in Harvest, a sweet play for two “mature” actors, by Canadian playwright, Ken Cameron. Although all kinds of misadventures happen to Allan and Charlotte (our two main characters) in the story, including moving to the city, retirement downsizing, having their home being turned into a marijuana grow-op by renters,

I have just returned from San Francisco. I adore San Francisco.  I remember it as one of the first “big foreign cities” I ever visited as a child.  In the summer of 1968 my family moved from London, Ontario to Vancouver and Dad decided to make it a big driving adventure vacation, with a trip to visit family friends who lived in San Francisco, as the penultimate stop.

I have a friend who swears he can get me to like scotch. I can’t stand it, although it is supposed to run in my veins, being of Scottish ancestry on both sides. Why would I want to imbibe something that burns my throat and makes me cough? Might as well smoke. I did visit a distillery, once. Years ago, my newly married husband and I were holidaying in the Highlands, and found ourselves with a few hours to while away, while waiting for the sun to re-appear. It was, as my cousins say “chucking it down” that day on the Isle of Skye.

I’ve had the extraordinary opportunity in the past few months, of learning to audio describe theatre performances for visually impaired patrons.  The group I work with, here in Vancouver, is Vocal Eye. I had the opportunity to meet with and talk to some of those patrons, who have eloquently told me how much the service means to them, which makes me feel good, but even more so when I hear them laugh out loud in a performance as we are describing it.

When my kids were in elementary school, I used to look forward to Hanukkah, even though I am not Jewish. But we are fortunate to have dear friends from Isreal whose kids are the same age as ours, and every year, the wonderful Havi would go into the kids’ classrooms to tell them the Hanukkah story (she didn’t pull any punches – they got the whole story of Mattathias and the Maccabees) and to prepare a feast of potato latkes, and the most delicious jelly doughnuts I’ve ever tasted, that Hanukkah special – Sufganiyot.

It is December 1st.  The cats woke me up early, even though this is a Saturday, and I would have liked nothing better than to sleep in, since this is a two-show day ( I am currently performing in the Arts Club Theatre’s production of It’s A Wonderful Life), and I am doing everything I can to recover from a nasty bout of laryngitis. But, since they did manage to get me up at a dark 6:45am, once I had fed and watered them, and given them their required stroking attention, it seemed fruitless to go back to bed, only to have them meowing at the door in indignation.

Well, it’s cold, again.  That “crawling up your back, hunching up your shoulders, why didn’t I put on the big bulky sweater, I can’t feel the ends of my fingers” kind of cold. November has come to us in full force and although I wouldn’t normally welcome facial hair, I have been looking almost enviously at my male friends who are sporting moustaches for this month, in support of prostate cancer research and programs and men’s mental health initiatives. 

Today is Remembrance Day here in Canada. Our coats are sporting the poppies I remember from childhood, sponsored by the Royal Canadian Legion – I don’t think the poppies have changed in all the years I can remember, and the challenge is always to get them to stay on your coat without poking you, or falling off. Part of the fondness I have for this ritual is buying the poppy from the veteran who is more than happy to patiently guide you through the technique for poking the pin back through the poppy itself.