HicksBiz Blog
Category: Around town
Around town
For three weeks, with Garner Andrews (Sonic FM), J’Lyn Nye (CHED), Gillian Foote (The Bear), Chris Sheetz (CISN), Matt DeBeurs (CISN), Matt Chalut (The Bounce), Liann Cameron (The Bounce), Ashley Sexsmith (Kula Klips), publicist Donna Zazulak, Wendy Mueller, Deb Jakubec (Canadian Diabetes Association) nd Chris Reeve (Edmonton Child Magazine), I have stayed within a carefully designed, 1,800 calories-a-day nutrition program with all the food (three meals and two snacks a day) coming from the Fresh Fit Foods’ kitchen.
As part of the Media Challenge, thanks to Fresh Fit’s sister company World Health, we have all had three sessions per week with a personal trainer. I’ve been exercising an hour a day, six days a week, be it in the gym (resistance), running or biking (cardio) or yoga (stretching).
It’s safe to say the results and the attitude adjustments have been an eye-opener.
Those endless messages about eating a big breakfast, avoiding sugar and deep-fried food, eating lea ...
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Nobody said the Fresh Fit Foods’ intensive three-week nutrition and exercise “re-set” would be easy.
The first four days of the 21 Day Media Challenge, in which I am a participant, were euphoric.
Last Thursday, my body hummed with health, as if cleansed by the re-portioned, pre-cooked Fresh Fit individual meals that feature proteins, nutrient-dense carbohydrates and fresh veggies. I wasn’t feeling hungry at all.
World Health personal trainer Jessi Zelinsky is pushing me in exercise sessions and my body loves it. Exercise is highly recommended as part of the 21 Day Challenge. Fresh Fit Foods is a sister company to the World Health gym group.
But then, just as Fresh Fit Foods’ nutritionist Laura Swan had warned me, over the weekend a few hours of hunger set in.
This is natural, she said. With an accelerated six-day-a-week program of running, resistance training and yoga, my calorie burn-rate has been greater than the carefully constructed 1,800 calories per day I am ...
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Wednesday’s “Cities and the Future of Canada“ annual Hurtig Lecture at the University of Alberta featured Edmonton Mayor Don Iveson and Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi.
The evening has to be analyzed in the context of the seismic shift in political attitude that happened in Canada last Monday.
I was expecting practical, down-to-earth thoughts from these two, both considered leaders of a new wave of Canadian politics where big-city mayors get the same face time and respect as provincial and federal leaders.
And, being old school – witness my woeful misreading of Alberta sentiment as national sentiment in predicting a bare-majority Conservative government last week – I thought there’d be more concern from these two on how to pay for the updated Canadian urban agenda.
Wrong again. The presentations, then discussion by these two mayors – intellectually heads ‘n’ shoulders above your average politician – were in the philosophical and politic ...
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To review restaurants on a weekly basis is, yes, a dream assignment.
Any whining -having to eat out, tiring of rich foods -would be silly in the extreme.
But my weight has sneaking up -from 155 pounds a few years back, to 160, to 165, and, as of Monday, 169 pounds. At 5 foot, 5 inches, I'm porky. My clothes still fit, but the gut is hanging over the belt.
So when Fresh Fit Foods invited local media personalities to participate in its 21 Day Challenge, I jumped at the chance.
BOLD BUSINESS
Fresh Fit Foods is a bold business venture by World Health Club owner David Hardy and partners, a bet that Edmontonians want to be pro-active about their health, that in this deep-fryer world of cream, cheese, fats and sugars here, there and everywhere, we need not look and feel like blimps.
From a commercial kitchen beside the Glenora World Health club, Fresh Fit Foods produces individual meals and snacks that can be purchased on-line and picked up at any of the 10 World Health clubs in Metro Edmonton. The ...
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Tofu House Korean Restaurant
5020-97 St.
780-989-0804
Facebook, no website
Seven days a week, 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. (Sunday 11:30 a.m. opening)
Food: 4 of 5 Suns
Ambience: 2.5 of 5 Suns
Service: 3 of 5 Suns
Dinner for two excluding drinks and tip: Basic, $25; loaded, $40
I guess they don’t need to advertise, when two-thirds of the large Tofu House was taken up by a funeral party and the balance of the Korean restaurant was respectably full for Saturday lunch.
But how sad. This very good, authentic Korean restaurant is unknown outside its Asiatic, mostly Chinese clientele.
On the south side, Tofu House is at 51 Avenue and 97 Street in a former Swiss Chalet. The interior isn’t going to win design awards. The Swiss Chalet naugahyde remains unchanged. Nobody pays much attention to customer service. Inadequate English was an issue with several servers.
But the Korean food is excellent, the best I’ve had in Edmonton.
Don’t be put off by the name. This is n ...
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Evangeline
Book, lyrics and music by Ted Dykstra
Directed by Bob Baker
Citadel Theatre, Edmonton Canada, to Nov. 22, 2015
Ticket information
Review by GRAHAM HICKS
What’s on at the Citadel Theatre for the next two weeks until Nov. 22, 2025, has a real good shot at being a Broadway hit in a few years.
Dare to dream in technicolour. Evangeline could emerge as a hot Hollywood property, a Disney-style animated movie in the tradition of Beauty & the Beast and Pocahontas.
If I’m a Broadway producer, I’m looking for:
A great love story:
• Evangeline is one of the best. Lovers tragically separated, spending their lives looking for one another.
Great tunes:
• Evangeline is full of them.
Happy, happy:
• Multiple scenes of happy village folks leading the idyllic life, singin’ and dancin’ to beat the band.
Sad, sad:
• Tragedy and mayhem besets the villagers and the hard-luck lovers at every turn. Struggles are endured, emotions are deeply scar ...
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Memphis Blues Barbeque House
5317 23 Ave. NW
780-428-6328
(also locations in Sherwood Park and Castledowns)
Seven days a week, 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. (Sundays, noon to 9 p.m.)
Food: 3.5 of 5 Suns
Ambience: 3.5 of 5 Suns
Service: 3.5 of 5 Suns
Dinner for two excluding drinks and tip: Basic, $25; loaded, $50
The Memphis Blues Barbeque House all-meat platter is a delight for the eyes … and for the wallet.
Five hungry adults looked in awe at the Memphis Feast platter as it made its triumphant arrival to our table in the small chain’s Mill Woods outlet.
Clock-wise around the platter, all nice ‘n’ hot ‘n’ looking so tasty, were BIG portions of various meats – a fine slab of ribs, beef brisket, smoked sausage, rib ends, pulled pork, BBQ chicken, French fries, three pieces of corn bread and, in the centre in four bowls, BBQ pit beans, coleslaw, potato salad and the in-house BBQ dipping sauce.
How much food? We were a party of five hungry adults ...
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The Dog
9567A 118 Ave.
780-424-6823
Tues. to Sun. 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.
Closed Mondays
Food: 4 of 5 Suns
Ambience: 3 of 5 Suns
Service: 3.5 of 5 Suns
Dinner for two excluding drinks and tip: Basic, $20; loaded, $35
The lowly hot dog ascends, from a kids’ birthday party staple, to Fat Franks hot dog stands, to the crazy Asian fusion dogs at the It’ Dog.
And now the hot dog arrives to its full magnificent glory.
The Dog is a sit-down hot-dog emporium on 118 Avenue where you can order 23 kinds of hot dogs – at least 14 variations based on excellent locally made beef and beef/pork dogs, then hot dogs built from kangaroo, elk, wild boar and alligator sausage, and even three vegetarian dogs!
The Dog shares its building and ownership with the best BBQ house in town, Sloppy Hoggs Roed Hus, which means it shares the quirky creativeness of over-all owner Bjorn Cochran.
Cochran has had a lot of laughs creating The Dog. You’d associate the ...
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Good news!
Edmonton’s transportation system is in really, really good shape … besides the potholes.
Complain though we will, our new and upgraded roads and bridges, our airport, public transit and private ride-sharing (Uber, not taxis) has never been better.
Automobiles (Roads): The Henday Ring Road is the biggest single improvement, on time, on budget, three-quarters done with completion of the northeast leg next year. The end is in sight for the massive road re-construction on Hwy 216 (the Henday between Edmonton and Sherwood Park) from the Hwy 16/Hwy 216 interchange south to the Whitemud Drive.
The widening and upgrading of the Whitemud’s Quesnell Bridge (across the North Saskatchewan River) has done the trick. Barring accidents, traffic now flows smoothly across that bridge at all hours of the day. Likewise the Calgary Trail/23rd Avenue interchange has cleaned up a former mess.
The Queen Elizabeth II/41st Ave. SW interchange, weeks away from ...
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Cafe Amore
10807 106 Ave.
780-477-7896
www.cafeamorebistro.com
Mon.- Fri: 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. (Friday to 11 p.m.)
Sat. 5 p.m. to 10 p.m.
Closed Sundays
Food: 4.5 of 5 Suns
Ambience: 4 of 5 Suns
Service: 4.5 of 5 Suns
Dinner for two excluding drinks and tip: Basic, $30; loaded, $60
You’d think it’d be easy to run a good restaurant. Cook good food, have pleasant servers, charge reasonable prices. Surely the world will beat a path to your door.
Of course it’s not easy at all. In fact, it’s one of the most difficult businesses imaginable – to have consistently excellent food and service no matter how busy or how empty the restaurant, no matter if the cook just walked out the door in a hissy fit, no matter if hung-over servers don’t show up.
Café Amore is one of the very few restaurants in this town able to do just that – always have great food, always have pleasant, professional servers, always give excellent value ...
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