Monday, November 19th - what a great Jesse Cook weekend!

This morning it's bright stars in a clear, dark sky and -2' but we should reach a sunny 5' later. Pretty much a carbon copy of what we had in Halifax all weekend.
The weekend started out with packing on Friday evening and getting ready to go, and celebrating Patti's birthday by sharing some chocolate cake and ice cream! (Many years ago, when Patti was a teenager, we lived in an apartment building beside a large shopping mall. The three of us would be sitting watching TV and the two of them would start - Lloyd would whisper "Chocolate Cake" to which Patti would reply "Ice Cream". This would then entail a trip to the store for said items so the three of us could enjoy 'chocolate cake and ice cream' - this happened quite frequently!) So in honour of Patti's birthday we enjoyed 'chocolate cake and ice cream'.

Saturday morning bright and early I picked up Brenda and we headed down the road to the boat that was sailing at 6:30. One little glitch - after I got to her place I realized I'd forgotten the folder with all the confirmation stuff in it, so a  quick trip back to my place before heading down the road. Once we headed down the road we almost (literally) ran into a traffic jam. What is this?  Who the heck has a convoy of vehicles coming up the Monahan Road  at 5:30 in the morning? Turns out it was Bernie's hunting friend and his buddies heading for a farmers corn field in an attempt to bag some ducks and/or geese. As we passed the vehicles Brenda recognized the truck so she called his cell phone and inquired just why they were causing such gridlock at that hour of the morning???  After a bit of fun with that, we continued on our way.

Made it to the boat in lots of time and got in line with the other 3 or 4 cars that were waiting. Once on the boat, we ran into a lady that Brenda knew many years ago, so a bit of time was spent catching up with her. Then it was into the restaurant area where we enjoyed "The Islander" breakfast, which I'm told is the islander thing to do when taking the ferry -  2 eggs, bacon, home fries, toast and coffee. It was quite good, enjoyed along with the daily paper. It also saved us from wasting valuable shopping time eating breakfast upon our arrival.

The weather for driving to Halifax alternated between a light drizzle, overcast and then some sun - not really a bad day. At this time of year, it could have been much worse. As we got to town we decided to check out a shopping area called Dartmouth Crossing. It's basically a large shopping mall but without a roof.
It's kind of ironic really, because it's re-creating the downtown shopping experience outside of town, when that's what they had all along, before building the big indoor malls that have destroyed many downtown areas.  We got there a couple of minutes before the stores opened and there were a couple we wanted to check out. Good thing we got there when we did because when we finished shopping the two stores at one end, the parking lot in the centre was packed when we came out. We found a few items for Christmas gifts for various people so that was a good thing but time to move on.

Next stop was the farmer's market. It was located at the seaport and in a large warehouse. It's huge and has lots of really interesting vendors. We had lots of things to sample, including several wineries.  Needless to say, not just produce was purchased at this stop!

A short drive further down the road was a craft sale we'd seen online. There were lots of lovely things but neither of us won the lottery the night before, so pretty much everything there was WAY out of our price range.  But it was nice to look.

By now we were starting to get a bit hungry and it was late enough that we could check into the hotel. We hadn't realized that the Santa Claus Parade was taking place on Saturday through the downtown at 6:00 pm so it was good that we had strategically booked a hotel that was almost precisely half way between the restaurant and the concert venue.  We'd be able to walk everywhere we needed to go.

After parking the car out back, checking in and changing into our good jean (as opposed to our traveling and shopping jeans!) we headed out for our evening on the town. The hotel wasn't fancy by any means but it was comfortable and the location turned out to be perfect.

We headed down to Barrington Street, on foot,  where we had reservations for 5:30 at Chives,  a local restaurant owned by Chef Craig Flinn, who used to be on The Inn Chef with Michael Smith a million years ago.  After checking out several shops along the way we realized it was only 5:00 and the streets were beginning to be lined with people and lawn chairs, and police had closed off the street and were working on towing away those cars that were still in the way. Good thing we walked!  So we went into Chives and they were very accommodating and let us change our reservation to 5:00. Good thing too, because we were starting to get cold and more than a little hungry. We really hadn't had anything to eat since breakfast on the boat.

Chef Craig wasn't there but his fellow chef was. What a treat. We enjoyed our meal immensely.  We started out by sharing an appetizer of SMOKED SALMON BRUSCHETTA - Local smoked salmon, lemon ricotta cheese, grilled garlic crostini, pickled red onions & crispy capers, and fresh cut chives. Two large pieces that were perfect for sharing.

Then the main course. I had the  BRAISED NOVA SCOTIA LAMB DU JOUR
Roasted squash risotto, market vegetables, sherry lamb jus reduction, and pumpkin seeds.

Brenda enjoyed LOBSTER CRUSTED HADDOCK with new garden vegetable hodge podge and lemon fennel salad. Both dishes were beautifully prepared and presented.

The menu made a couple of suggestions for complementary wines with each that made it an easy choice.
For dessert we shared a decadent slice of Flourless Chocolate Cake, with Cinnamon Ice Cream, Port Poached Pears and White and Dark Chocolate sauces. YUMMMMM.


After coffee and tea we waddled out onto the street only to find it clogged with hundreds of parade watchers enjoying the festivities in full swing. It became obvious very quickly that we needed to change our walking route so headed over to University Avenue to avoid the crowds and make our way up to Dalhousie's concert hall.

We made the right decision to walk because a number of people arrived at the concert late due to difficulties in finding a parking spot due to the close proximity to the parade.

As usual, Jesse did not disappoint.  I've seen him a number of times now and this was by far the most high energy show I've seen with the greatest degree of audience participation. I suppose it was helped by the fact that one of the fellows who plays with him, Chris Church, is from Halifax and they really welcomed him back home. It was an amazing show with lots of favorite tunes and some new voices.  He featured an unknown (to us, anyway) female singer from Toronto. Emma Lee was wonderful and Brenda bought her CD at the break. We really enjoyed listening to it on the way home but more on that later.

When it was all over, we walked back to the hotel. It was cold but not windy, so it wasn't really so bad.  A warm cup of tea upon our arrival made all the difference and after so much walking all day we were glad to finally get off our feet for the day.
See you Wednesday.


To be continued.....