Monday, April 25, 2011

Easter Dinner at Lothar's in Shelburne


 Easter Four Course Gourmet Dinner  
                             
Reservations are REQUIRED!
TWO seatings: first at 5pm, second at 8:15pm
 
**served with fresh Roll and Butter
>Cream of Asparagus Soup
 
>Scallop Mousse with herb sauce
 
>Roasted leg of lamb with garlic and rosemary

served with Duchess potatoes and fresh Vegetables (carrots, broccoli)
 
>Biscuit roll filled with Strawberry parfait
 
Delicious!! Thanks Lothar!
 

Sunday, April 24, 2011

Night on the Town

Saturday evening (April 23rd, 2011) we spent at a concert at the Osprey Arts Centre in Shelburne with our friend Gail. The performers were Erin Costelo and Ryan MacGrath, both musicians with wonderful voices. Erin plays piano while singing, Ryan guitar. They both write their own songs and it's always fun to hear the background of the songs as they are performed. Erin will be appearing at Harmony Bazaar this summer - it will be interesting to see how her musical style transfers to the great outdoors.

Unfortunately the crowd was very small - about 30 people including volunteers, most of them from the Lockeport area so gas-wise it would have been cheaper to have the concert somewhere here. But it was fun and we got to see several friends.

Catching up on news during the evening, I discovered that one of my good friends (Alice) has moved into beautiful downtown Lockeport from the Walls Lake area and that the Shelburne bookstore, The Whirligig, has been sold after being for sale for several years. Betty will finish out the month and then the new owners (more transplanted Ontario people) will reopen May 24th. Hopefully, they will continue to support the Osprey and sell tickets in their store.

Friday, April 22, 2011

What's Happening Now?


 Here are some shots of the work done this spring to bolster the dunes along the beach (work done by Harlow Construction). Stones/boulders have been added all along in front of Ocean Mist Cottages, down past the Little School Museum. On the road side, 2 sections of reinforcing boulders have been added. At the Beach Centre end of the beach, the dunes have been piled higher, apparently by scooping out the beach. Unfortunately only about 10% of the money required to do the whole beach properly was available, but I guess it's better than nothing - hopefully we'll survive a few more hurricanes before becoming an island.







 Peter's renovations of the little store between the Town & Country and the Legion look very nice - helps improve the Beech Street street-scape which is looking very nice along the north side of the street.


On the restaurant scene, The Parrots Pins is the only one operating right now -both the T&C ($79,900) and The White Gull ($1.5M - including the Marina) are still for sale. Peter will be doing something food related with his new building we hope. There of course are some offerings for take-out at The Town Market and Beech Street Studios little cafe.

The Bayman in Upper East Green Harbour soldiers on but rumour has it that The Chef's Table in Sable River will not be opening this year due to Zaari's bad back - hope that is wrong.

In Shelburne, both The Loyalist Inn and The SeaDog are open and offering weekend entertainment. Lothar's is for sale but still operating on occasion (Easter brunch and dinner (going to that!! - Lothar's roast lamb!), Mother's Day) - no word on whether he will open for the entire summer season. Charlotte Lane is firing up - opening Mother's Day weekend. Roli and Kath have had some postings to their revised web-site (did I ever mention that Charlotte Lane won the best small restaurant in NS award last fall? - It is such a gem!!). Luong's, Scotia Lunch, Mr. Fish and Sophia's are still there, as are the 2 pizza places, Subway and Tim Horton's and, of course, The Beandock, one of my favourite places. Don't know yet if the yacht club will have Mr. Fish offerings again this summer. The old Shelburne Pastry?Cafe has been bought by Heritage Hall, which has moved their offices to the top floor. Some of the Shelburne clients will be trained to run the cafe with simple soups and sandwiches (supposedly), no known date for when that part will open.

There don't seem to be a lot of changes around Lockeport since we left at the end of November. Bevin has re-opened Lockeport Pharmacy, totally renovated after the November 11th fire. It is very clean and modern with a generous area for the actual pharmacy work now across the back of the store. Very nice job! Bevin and Tatum now have another son, Daniel - so 3 little ones to bolster the school population in a couple of years.

I've been having foot problems like 7-8 years ago so I haven't really walked anywhere in town since we've been back. I'm relying on Wayne and Tim for pictures and info. I have made it to the Post Office and Harmony Bazaar again has an office on the ground floor of the government building. Good to see the organization keep going and growing. Tomorrow evening they are sponsoring (with Music Nova Scotia) a Bringing It Home concert with Erin Costello and Ryan McGrath  at the Osprey. Erin is appearing at Harmony Bazaar this summer (July 29-31). Advance tickets (which include a compilation CD) are on sale now.

We've attended 2 breakfasts since returning - the first one in Sable River as a fund-raiser for Jurnee Harlow and Kyle who are representing LRHS in August at a school raising in Kenya. The second was the (almost) monthly Legion breakfast here in Lockeport.

In the house, we are working on the north parlour (still) - currently scraping off old paint on trim before repainting. Wisely we have decided to hire Mike McCleod to do the crown moulding for us - 12 corners is just too many, we could waste a lot of wood! Tim did a good job of removing paint from the floor and plastering and priming while we were gone. Wayne just finished the top for the window seat so I now need to try and follow Kristina's instructions on how to make seat cushions for the space. We are working on a colour scheme for the rest of the room - debating painting the old coal fireplace some colour other than black, since it is non-operational it can be painted out. Maybe grey shades with white trim to make the mouldings pop - then do we make the fireplace darker or lighter? Hmmmmm.....

Today is my birthday and I made my wonderful Death By Chocolate cake (17oz of semisweet chocolate plus 4 tbsps of cocoa). Dawn Demings-Taylor is coming over to share some after dinner since it's her birthday too. Happy Birthday to us!