Arts & Culture

A hot glob of orange molten crystal pulled from a 1,400-degree oven dangles at the end of a long metal pipe called a blowing iron. Wielding the pipe with one hand, a craftsman uses a metal scoop to manipulate the lava-like glob. When it is uniform, he plunges it into a mould.

Soup’s On!

As days shorten and temperatures fall, our appetites crave heartier, more filling food. It’s time to bring out the soup pot.

If you write an obituary for Halifax-born Joe Purcell who died last week, it’s not complete unless you also mention his best buddy, famed marine artist Jack Gray.

Marine and landscape artist Joe Purcell, who died recently at age 90, captured a romantic period in the 1940s and ’50s of schooners fishing on the Grand Banks.

Don Mills is touting rare wines as part of a fundraiser for Feed Nova Scotia, called Case of Compassion.

Gerald Doucet, who died this week at age 80, was the first Acadian cabinet minister in Nova Scotia’s history when then-Premier Robert Stanfield appointed him as education minister in 1967, 50 years ago.

Editor’s Note: The Macdonald Notebook from now until Christmas will feature Atlantic Canada products that would make novel and neat gifts to loved ones.

In the last couple of decades, brunch has become a standard feature of urban life. The idea of a light, weekend noon meal is said by culinary historians to have originated with Englishman Guy Beringer whose only claim to fame was a hangover that inspired him to write a brief article Brunch: A Plea that was published in 1895 in the now equally obscure Hunter’s Weekly.

For almost four decades, Nova Scotia has sent a balsam fir to the Boston Commons to help that city celebrate Christmas, and as a thank-you for Boston’s tremendous help following the Halifax Explosion in 1917 that claimed 2,000 lives.

Monday morning, I participated in a classroom panel at Saint Mary’s University with former cabinet minister, political commentator and author Graham Steele, and Global News journalist Marieke Walsh.