On Saturday we went to the wedding of Mr. Michael Trink, and it was a very nice affair indeed. It was at the Westfield Heritage Village which has all sorts of old buildings and a train and fancy gazebos and is surrounded by forests and fields so it is very secluded and peaceful. It was a really good venue. The reception was good too: decent food, fabulous cupcakes and lots of fun games and singing and stuff. Michael and Laura looked great and it was awesome to see them again. I can't wait to go out to Burlington to visit.
To get to Rockton for the wedding we got a minivan from Zipcar and split the costs with Matt, Adrienne, Adam and Nicole. As usual, the Zipcar thing went really well, although the Mazda 5 is a very strange vehicle indeed. Calling it a van is a bit generous as it's very short, both vertically and horizontally. It has three rows of seats but is too tall to be a station wagon. Anyway, it did the job (ie. transport six adults to Rockton and back) adequately.
Today I went with Rob, Will and others to the Summer Cask Festival at Victory Cafe. They had 16 different Cask Ales which are unfiltered beers that are both fermented and served from a cask without any additives or extra carbonation. Thank you Wikipedia. Anyway, there were some very fine beers on hand. For $15 I was able to sample 3 different half-pints, get the most amazing sausage on a bun I've ever had and keep the glass I used for the drinking! I feel this was exceptional value. The beers I sampled were: Black Oak Summer Saison (Marmalade Edition), C'est What? Caraway Rye, and Cheshire Valley IPA. All were good. I'm not so much into the India Pale Ales though so I think I enjoyed the other two more. The Summer Saison was definitely a good starter as it was light and fruity and I don't normally start drinking at noon. The Caraway Rye was pretty special. I've never had anything like it before and very much enjoyed the unique flavour. The sausage on a bun was also a major highlight. It was good German bratwurst with lots of sauerkraut and this spectacular homemade beer mustard. All this was on a bun that was made from soft pretzel dough. Mmmm....good!
After enjoying the cask ales I met up with Kim and we went out to speak with a designer at Made You Look about wedding bands. It's a pretty cool place which represents local independent jewelery designers who do custom work. We talked with Karen Macrea, our designer, about our ideas. She showed us some samples and was very quickly able to get some designs drawn up. I had looked at rings in normal jewelery stores and was mostly unimpressed (both with cost and look). Going the custom route looks like it will be less expensive and much more likely to get us what we actually want. Also it's always cool to support local artisan-type people. So I guess that's win-win-win. Right?
For supper tonight we made Pistachio Asparagus Pesto on Penne and it turned out really well! I think that guy's food blog is quickly becoming one of my favourites. He is very prolific and the fact that he's located in Toronto means that when stuff is in season for him it's in season for me too!
Anyway, that's enough words, here are some pictures from the last little while.
