Top 5 People You Should Always Invite to the Cottage

When you plan a group trip to the cottage, you need to choose your guests wisely. Screen them. Hand out surveys. Hold auditions. However you do it, make sure you have a mixed bag of top quality cottage guest material.

Here’s a guide to help you select the 5 people you definitely want to invite to the cottage:

Syrup without maple is Like Pancakes without Syrup

This past week was “Fat Tuesday”, or “Pancake Tuesday”, or as I affectionately refer to it, “every day of my life”. Any excuse to devour a stack of pancakes is a good excuse, am I right? So of course I did just that! Some friends and I got together bright and early for a homemade pancake breakfast, complete with what we call “the Tower of Power”. Read: a whole lot of pancakes stacked so high it becomes a physical challenge to eat them. We had all kinds- blueberry, banana, chocolate chip, weird experimental fusion flavours...it was delicious! As we sat down to eat, my friend asked me If I wanted some maple syrup. “Obviously!”, I chirped in reply.

And then something scary happened. Something truly shocking, that rocked me to my very core. I don’t know if I can even say it.

(Deep breath)

Winter Time and The Livin’ is Not So Easy

This morning a very strange thing happened. As I stepped outside, all bundled up in my winter coat and scarf, my eyes were immediately assaulted by brightness; some kind of yellow orb was shining rays of light and warmth down on me!

Then I remembered: oh, the sun. It still exists!

Top 10 Crazy Christmas Songs (with a Canadian bent)

When I’m with family, I love to listen to charming Christmas tunes of yesteryear or the more typical renditions of festive favourites by popular musicians.  But when I’m with my friends, nothing beats a bit of Christmas comedy.

Want to magically unite your friends in a chorus of merry sing-a-long up at the cottage this year?  Pull out a couple of these top 10 crazy (and loved) christmas songs of every year...

Top 10 Popular Christmas Songs

After the rest of the family saw my lovingly prepared list of Top 10 Christmas Songs of Yesteryear, I was bombarded with a number of rather salubrious requests for changes to the list. (Okay, salubrious may be pushing it.  We are in the decade of epic fails and twerking, after all.)

Rather than sacrifice the sentiment and originality of that inaugural list, we decided to compromise on the creation of a brand new list.  So here we go, our family's Top 10 never forgotten - and always loved - Christmas songs of every year.

After all, it's Christmastime, pretty baby...

Top 10 Christmas Songs of Yesteryear

When I was a child, I used to love to listen to my mother's four album Reader's Digest "Joyous Noel" song collection.  It was special to me not only because I was only allowed to play it in the month of December - under threat of death from my, shall we say, slightly less-than-joyously-spirited big brothers - but because it had a quality of songs and singing that I rarely heard otherwise. Suave voices of the 1940's and 50's, mixed in with 30's big bands and soulful singers of the 60's. When you're in the middle of the Big Hair 80's, hearing someone sing with passion and soul, accompanied by real instruments rather than electronically generated sounds, is like an ice cream sundae for the ears.

For most of my adult life, I've been parted from my beloved Reader's Digest collection and I recently found myself trawling high and low in what is clearly the 21st century's version of a dusty, old attic - the Internet - seeking tunes that evoke the same sense of childlike wonder and awe for the quality of the sound and the innocence of the message being sung.

I have stumbled across a number of beauties and I thought it would be appropriate at this sharing, caring time of year to give a little back to the Internet, and you, in the form of my personal Top 10 list of perhaps forgotten - but always loved - Christmas songs of yesteryear.

Here's hoping you and your loved ones will enjoy sharing them, each and every one!

Just in Time for Maple Syrup Season, This Cookbook Puts Canada on the Global Map While Boosting Canadian Pride

Did you hear about the Canadian cookbook containing only maple syrup recipes which took top honours in the Cookbook of the Year?

Chef and author Martin Picard, author of Cabane a Sucre Au Pied de Cochon,
with the book that took an international cookbook competition by storm