Fifteen Minutes With Local Actress Camille Mitchell, The Graduate’s “Mrs. Robinson”

Camille Mitchell is an award-winning stage and television actress who was born in Los Angeles and raised in Canada. She makes her home in Vancouver now. Her most notable television character might be that of Sheriff Nancy Adams on Smallville, but on stage she’s currently owning the complex, archetypal “cougar” role of Mrs. Robinson in the Arts Club Theatre Company’s production of The Graduate.

Three things about West Vancouver that make you want to live there: Peaceful, pastoral with great espressos nearby.

The thing that you eat that is bad for you that you will never stop eating: Store-bought vanilla birthday cake.

Last time a work of art stopped you in your tracks: Woman Waiting by Joy Zemel Long. [look]

All-time favourite play: Arthur Miller’s The Crucible.

If you could perform on any stage in the world, which would you choose? Karnak Playhouse, Queensland, Australia. [see]

What has been your favourite role to date? Titania in Midsummer Night’s Dream directed by Robin Phillips.

Tell us your pre-curtain rituals: Go over script, meditate, vocal warm-up, coffee, make-up, costume, go!

Favourite Vancouver bridge: Lions Gate.

Best Vancouver patio: Saltaire.

One thing you’d like to change about Vancouver: Fewer gray days, s.v.p.

Favourite place to see live music: Backstage Lounge, Arts Club, Granville Island.

Cheap place for dinner: Vera’s Burgers.

Last place travelled: New Mexico.

Biggest fear: Falling.

Favourite Mr. Robinson line - “Benjamin, I’m beginning to think sleeping with younger men has its disadvantages.”

Vancouver green space you most often make a break for: Ambleside Dog Walk.

Best sneaker in the world: Sketchers.

Your ancestry: The Ish Tribe – Irish, Amish, Jewish.

Under what circumstances would you join the army: If Canada was invaded.

Your paternal grandfather’s personal story: Pennsylvania Dutch, minister who gave all proceeds back to his parish, father of 7, promoted labour reform.

Aspects of Mrs. Robinson’s character that you might want to hold on to: Taking time to put on nail polish and (most important) the time to let it dry.

Dumbest purchase ever: Above-ground swimming pool for my son and his friends in kindergarten (a friend commented, “We all have our lapses of taste…”).

What are you proud of: The times I’ve been able to actually forgive.

The thing that makes you the angriest: Deliberate cruelty. Read more

GOODS: West Vancouver’s “Fraîche” Hires On Jefferson Alvarez As New Executive Chef

Fraîche is located at 2240 Chippendale Road in West Vancouver, BC | 604-925-7595 | fraicherestaurant.ca

The GOODS from Fraîche

West Vancouver, BC | One of West Vancouver’s most popular dining rooms is about to get a new infusion of flavour from up-and-coming chef, Jefferson Alvarez. Following outstanding reviews of his menus at Divino Wine Bar in Vancouver magazine, Nuvo magazine and the Globe and Mail, Alvarez has packed up his knives and headed to the hills of West Vancouver to share his magic with a new audience. Read more

Smoke Break #822: A Message To West Vancouver’s Bald Real Estate Cheeseballs

Your Australian brethren have graduated from putting their faces on the backs of buses. Your move…

Random Photo #609: How To Get Down In The Great White North

65 year old Abel demonstrates an Inuit Blanket Toss at West Vancouver’s Spirit Square, February 18th, 2010.

Random Photo #608: In Opposite Land, This Is How Today Appears

A memory as the first snow says hello, courtesy of Dundarave Beach (July 31st, 2009).

Feenie’s Weenie Rising Again?

If you’ve been looking for Cactus Club food concept architect Rob Feenie around the test kitchen at the Ash and Broadway location this week, you likely didn’t find him. He’s been in West Vancouver, at the Village Taphouse, helping to develop a new pub menu.

Formerly a Steamworks, the place was bought late last year by the CC chain, and the plan has always been to turn it into – according to manager Trevor St. James – a pub that’s fun and very different from Cactus Club with great food and a killer beer program. This past Monday it closed for renos, and the ambitious plan is for a soft re-opening tomorrow (Friday).

Right now, it’s a worksite, with plenty of noise and sawdust, but there’s no hiding the excitement on the part of St. James, Feenie and the rest of the team who are in there, pulling all-night shifts to get it ready.

Twenty local beers (seasonal ales, lagers, wheat ales, IPAs, brown and cream ales from all over the province) will flow through a Perlick Century beer system and out of taps mounted on the brick wall behind the bar. The focus for the 20 bottled brews is on unusual imports from global beermakers in places like Singapore, the Czech Republic and Brooklyn.

Beer lovers can opt for a Salt Tasting Room-like sampler, featuring three drafts, served with a big old homemade pretzel.

The rest of the menu is still undecided but at a CC media event on Tuesday the Food Concept Architect himself said it’s possible that some of the dishes from Feenie’s may find their way onto the Taphouse menu: that decadent burger, Feenie’s Weenie, and my favourite, his shepherd’s pie made with duck confit.

That’s good news for me. For years, I pestered Feenie about bringing his food to the North Shore. Even in print I may have whined about his disinclination to open in the community where I make a living as a food and restaurant writer. (The mandate where I work is local, local, local. So while I am able to slip in a Vancouver story once a month or so, it’s a lottery win for me whenever a restaurant opens on the Shore. Especially a good one.)

Well, from my keyboard to God’s ears, my friends. Or maybe it was to Cactus Club owner Richard Jaffray’s ears. Whatever. Semantics.

Of course, the strangest part of the tale is that the Village Taphouse is just steps away from a very busy Cactus Club, and it might seem odd to pit them against each other. Truth is, the pre-reno Taphouse has been doing fine, picking up the overflow from the often sardine-squeezed restaurant across the street.

So maybe it will work in reverse for a while. Which is nothing to cry in your tasty local microbrew over anyway: the new dishes created by Feenie for Cactus Club are exceptional, especially at the price point. Not all of them are at every location, but look for tuna tataki in a yuzu vinaigrette for $13.50; a generous plate of beef carpaccio for the same; airy butternut squash and mascarpone ravioli for $18; and a huge serving of braised Angus beef shortrib — that at the touch of a fork falls apart like Britney Spears off her meds — served with celeriac puree, baby carrots, sweet green beans, nugget potatoes and shaved pecorino, for $30.

Say Hello To Lighthouse Park

When the weather is right and the kids are not in school, Michelle and I do our best to take our boys out for walks in the nearby woods of Lighthouse Park. With wellies on and lunch packed, we pile into our trusty (knock on wood) Westfalia and go, as the kids call it, “adventuring”.

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Jack and Pip know the trails pretty well, and though Pip is sometimes frightened of the occasional bird rustling in the bushes (the “Beware of Bears” sign doesn’t help), a smashing good time is had and the lads are primed for an early night. This usually means a bottle of wine for us, and a few hours of husband-wife quietude. A rarity indeed. Parks are multi-faceted in their awesomeness.

Anyway, it’s time for us to venture further afield from adventures in our own backyard. Once a week, we will go on a field trip and report back with photos and information of the green spaces visited in a new feature called: Know Your Green Spaces. The photos I’ve uploaded above are of this morning’s exploration at Lighthouse Park. As for next week, we’re totally open to suggestions…

Lighthouse Park info from BritishColumbia.com:

By a twist of fate, the dark background provided by a stand of old-growth rain forest on Point Atkinson’s shore in West Vancouver turns out to be its saving grace. If it weren’t for the contrast that it provides for a powerful lighthouse beacon built here in 1888, this primarily Douglas fir forest would have been logged long ago.

As it stands, Lighthouse Park contains the largest uncut, coastal-elevation trees in the Lower Mainland. And what a beautiful environment in which to view them. Waves crash against an outcropping of granite as the ocean breeze whistles through the boughs above. All this within a 10-minute walk of the parking lot. The trees are so large and, in places, poised at such precarious angles to each other that one walks past them with bated breath. The sight of an occasional bench hewn from the trunk of a downed predecessor helps to steady one’s nerve. Pause here under the shelter of their moisture-trapping limbs (some cloaked with an estimated billion or more needles) and marvel at the lushness of the understorey.

Follow along the seaside trail, part of a 3-mile (5-km) network of pathways, from the lighthouse to Jackpine Point, where you’re sure to find a smooth rock on which to pause again, beneath the polished, mahogany-coloured branches of a strawberry madrona, or arbutus as this broad-leafed evergreen tree is known in Canada. In late summer, paper-thin scrolls of bark peel off and drift with the tide, revealing a smooth, red trunk. Visit here on an autumn day to experience the Zen-like peace that pervades this oceanside scene.

Lighthouse Park is tucked away off Marine Drive in West Vancouver at the south end of Beacon Lane. To reach it, travel west on Marine from the heart of West Vancouver. The park turnoff is marked by a wooden sign; turn south on Beacon Lane and drive to the parking lot. There is regular bus service from Park Royal Shopping Centre to the park; take the Horseshoe Bay (#250).

An interpretive sign at the end of the parking lot provides a large map of the park and some natural-history notes. A concise map of park trails is also available here, complete with a suggestion for a self-guided walk to some of the more significant natural features in the park. For information, call West Vancouver Parks and Recreation, (604) 925-7200.

PS. The drive from downtown Vancouver takes about twenty minutes, but the views along the winding way (especially the last 2 kilometers) are well worth it.

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