“Travels to a Different Time” : 26August1990: Cancun, Mexico: The Chef with a Tomato Sauce Obsession

Looks like the Mexican Hotel Shuffle has concluded which was a new room with a huge balcony and great view of the ocean. 4 huge windows and even a refrigerator. I have a feeling this is a time share unit. I have travelled this far and I simply must have an ocean view! As an added bonus you can see the pelicans flying over the ocean.

Buffet breakfast. Custom made omelettes made in front of you too. There is an abundance of fresh fruit including papaya and pineapple. I stay away from the watermelon as it not uncommon for farmers to inject water into a watermelon as when sold by weight it increases the weight. The last thing you want is Montezuma’s Revenge! Enough food and variety at the buffet to keep a hungry man happy. The hot dishes are usually in tomato sauce and onions. I don’t think Mexicans eat tomato sauce as this chef might have us believe. But as sauced up as some of these dishes are the chef knows how to cook!

“Travels to a Different Time” : 25August1990: Cancun, Mexico: The Mexican Hotel Room Shuffle

Back to Cancun yet again. Unbelievably cheap deals can be blamed. This time on a brand-new Canada 3000 plane but it lacked the ambiance of suburbanites excitedly guzzling cocktails and dreaming of Margaritas. Not a bad breakfast of mushroom omelette and potatoes with a hot buttered croissant. Read the Globe & Mail from front to back. There was a lineup at immigration but we were processed quickly. Of on the bus to the hotel called the Tucan Cancun Beach Club. Yet another room fit for a dupe with a view of a construction site. Down to the reception to complain with a promise to remedy the situation tomorrow. I escalated to the Manager and ended up in a big room with an ocean view. Well the ceiling was missing some panels and the bathroom had water dripping near some electrical wires. Again this was taken up the Manager again and yet another promise to remedy again. The Cancun Hotel Shuffle! The hotel, aside from the aggravation of the hotel room shuffle is on a beautiful sandy beach with turquoise waters. Off to good old Blackbeard’s for a delicious red snapper.

RKS Wine: Ontario’s Venerated Le Clos Jordanne: Jordan Village Chardonnay 2019:Pekaboo Time

I sense Ontario’s Le Clos Jordanne (LCJ) is making somewhat of a comeback perhaps now that winemaker Thomas Bachelder is back in the saddle after an absence from Clos Jordanne for several years. He rejoined Le Clos Jordanne in 2019 for the 2107 vintage. LCJ started in 2010 to great fanfare but closed shop in 2016.

How does LCJ Jordan Village Chardonnay 2019 weigh in? On the nose I give it points for not being so easily and immediately recognized as a Chardonnay. Give it a few swirls and the base of that familiar Chardonnay sets in. I mean before you stick your nose deep in the glass it just might remind you of a Viognier. There are definitely toasty qualities on the nose but they are buried deep in the wine not like a flimsy oaked Chardonnay. Ample pear, honey, pineapple, tangerine and mango. Almost tropical. As for the palate indicating some complexity breaking down the components of the palate are not immediately recognizable. What initially seems dilute takes a moment to beguile with a degree of complexity with well ensconced pineapple, Flemish pear and lemon meringue pie. The finish is initially short but give it a moment it swells into a long but subtly long finish. This wine deserves to sit until 2024 in the bottle and then to be consumed by the end of 2027. A thinking man’s Chardonnay yet like a child loves to play peekaboo.

(Le Clos Jordanne Jordan Village Chardonnay 2019, VQA Niagara Peninsula, $24.95, Liquor Control Board of Ontario #20455, 13%, RKS Wine Rating 92/100).

“Travels to a Different Time” : September 1989: Some of Cancun’s Restaurants

Many of the restaurants I ate in were very rustic similar to those in Sosua in the Dominican Republic. Aside from a pooparama incident caused I think by that turkey in black bean sauce at Los Almendros Restaurant thank goodness no Montezuma’s Revenge. Los Almendros was the most interesting with its emphasis on Mayan dishes and it was not 10% gringo like most of the other restaurants. Very strange and exotic dishes for the North American palate but authentic. I loved the black and white tiled floor and the lack of tourist hype. The dark Mayan beer was a break from the light and fizzy mainstream Mexican beer. The snack truck across the street could be counted on to deliver good burritos made with ham, cheese, onions and tomatoes. Blackbirds at Tulum gets a high rating for food but it was relatively expensive. They had a live band with limited numbers. Two waiters in a bull costume terrorized patrons and they had complimentary tequila poppers. Yes pizza cuisine abounds in Cancun with great pizzas at Don Armandos and Pizza Rolandi. For timid Americans there is a Pizza Hut. Actually their pizza was a definite cut above their North American pizza.

RKS Poetry: 55 Years of Unhappy Father’s Days

55 years of vacant father’s days

55 years of no father to celebrate a special day with
never even a chance to say good-bye at a funeral
as that unhealthy event was the thought of many in 1964
not thinking grief could find any door
the end result being numbness and an inability to process
so grief leaks out piecemeal
perhaps solace should be found in a new drill set
BBQ
bottle of single malt
or a lawnmower
Merry Christmas Dad

Robert K. Stephen

RKS Film: “Lodo”: Profound Meaning for Some and Light Entertainment for Others

As a lawyer for many years in negligence cases there is a theory called the thin skulled theory. You take your victims as you find them. If you carelessly back your car in shopping centre parking lot and kill a pedestrian that might have not died had they not had such a thin skull that is no defence to your negligence.

Similarly if you watch a film and you are profoundly effected by it the filmmakers have scored a great success as opposed to those in the audience who view the film as light and interesting entertainment.

Eru is young boy of Mexican descent living in the United States. Eru has lost his mother at an early age. Eru is a soccer nut and after his soccer practice he visits his mother’s grave with his grandmother who he is living with. There is no emotion shown by Eru. Then the same day he is playing soccer with his friend and the ball is kicked over the graveyard fence. The caretaker expresses anger at his sneaking into the graveyard to retrieve the soccer ball. Eru covered in mud from the graveyard returns home to hear his grandmother has been having strange dreams about her deceased daughter. Eru falls asleep and has bizarre dreams about being visited by his mother. Using native medicine Eru’s grandmother tries to cleanse the house of spirits with negative influences. Eru learns that the graveyard caretaker was asked by his mother to acts as his guardian. Eru hears this and hugs the caretaker with tears running down his eyes to end the film. Nice story?

Dig a bit deeper. Eru is a child, like many, who has lost a parent at an early age. How can such a poor child process such a tragic death? That child simply lacks an understanding of the death of that child’s parent. That tragic event can be buried deep in the child’s mind and locked up in a state of numbness for many years if not forever. Through the visit of his mother in a dream Eru understands his mother is indeed gone and grieves with tears running down his eyes.

A particularly sad and touching movie for me. Why. I am just another Eru having lost my father at 9 years of age. Unlike Eru I never had the chance to grieve because the death of my father was an impossibility my mind could never wrap around. If you know of young children who have lost a parent “Lodo” may be invaluable for that child. Grieving upon the death of a parent may be therapeutic instead of eternal postponement.

This short recently played DWF (Dances With Wolves) Film Festival in Los Angeles. The film was directed and co-written by Alessandro Gentile.

While the acting is stiff the message for some will be profound.

RKS Film Rating 93/100.

RKS Wine: Wildass Red: Can the Sum Total Overcome Certain Individual Varietals?

Ontario produces some superb Cabernet Francs. One might say it is Ontario’s red wine strength. There is Cabernet Franc in this obnoxiously named wine perhaps better suited to the rodeo circuit in Florida. But there is also Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon and Syrah none of which individually craft remarkable wines in Ontario. However in the blending game anything is possible as the sum may be far superior to its individual components. Wildass Red did not disappoint the last time tried. What about this time?

The wine has the beginning of a charming, warm and inviting red wine. Some vibrant red cherry swirls about in the glass raising hope for more enchantment. Lesser notes of blackberry and raspberry and a bit of smoke. So far so good but as for excellence at this point more depth on the nose could take this wine over the gold medal finish line. On the palate the feeble black cherry, kirsch and blackberry falls short of a gold medal game. The gentle tannins make this an easy drinking wine and it would suit simple grilled fare such as sausage on a bun or Portobello burgers. The Syrah, Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon don’t create any magic. But I will say so much wine these days is essentially dead wine dulled by chemical baths. This is not a dead wine. It simply lacks class in its assemblage.

(Wildass Red 2018, VQA Niagara-on-the-Lake, Stratus Vineyards, Niagara-on-the-Lake, $21.95, Liquor Control Board of Ontario # 86363, 750 mL, 12.3%,RKS Wine Rating 88/100).

On the Ledge Part Three: Infiltration into Canada: Is There a Future in East German Riesling?

So how did I end up in Canada? It was before our beloved Berlin Wall fell that I was transferred by the Stasi to a post at the Canadian German Friendship League headquartered in Toronto. The goal was to ferret out and neutralize hostile elements to the East German Democratic Republic. I was based in Toronto and lived in a cockroach infested apartment on Victoria Park Avenue 5 minutes north of Danforth Avenue. Being German my cover was a sausage and sauerkraut vendor from a cart outside the Toronto Stock Exchange in the middle of a capitalist shitstorm in front of First Canadian Place. I soon became known by the hot shot capitalists and their toady lawyers and accountants as the Happy Kraut. I  must have served up thousands of the tasty sausages. After coming home and washing the stench of grilled sausages off my body it was a series of nightly events at some dank hall consisting of lectures, propaganda films, East German cinema and beer nights. What a ratty bunch of Canadians. It soon became apparent it was the free beer and food that drew them in. I mean they were not even proletarian but lumpen proletarian unemployed, drug addicts and the like seeking to fill their bellies and not their minds with glorious East German Canadian friendship.

My mission was doomed to fail and I informed my superiors in East Berlin who seemed unable to focus on anything other than a crumbling East Germany and the threat of looming mobs of angry East Germans furious at the ruining of their lives by our mighty security force the Stasi. It was time for a new cover and it involved championing East German Riesling. Well one slight problem and that was there was no drinkable East German Riesling as we had to import it in huge tankers from the German community in Paraguay. It was rotgut but add some sugar and Austrian anti-freeze and it wasn’t that bad.

RKS Wine: Croatia’s Dalmatian Dog

I enjoyed Plavac Mali which is the king of red wine in Croatia with much of the grape being grown on the Dalmatian Coast. The Dalmatian Dog is from the Babić grape also grown on the Dalmatian coast. It is known under more than 30 different names. We get so little Croatian wine due to terrified buyers and management of the Liquor Overcontrol Board of Ontario shovelling the same varietals year after year. Good luck on ever finding any sparkling Brazilian, wines from England, Romania, Bulgaria, Texas and so on. The easy money for a liquor monopoly is what sells well and it sells well as there is so little choice to consumers. There is big money in Chardonnay but no money in Encruzado. The Liquor Control Board of Ontario quite frankly is boring.

How does the Dalmatian dog fare? As for aromatics there is some sweet red cherry hardly ground-breaking but dig deeper there is some intriguing roast almonds and spice, cooked rhubarb and some milk chocolate. On the palate the tannins are moderate with back earth, cranberry, cactus pear, white pepper and a manageable and agreeable dusting of spice. The finish is short.

The LCBO Vintages Catalogue says the wine would pair well with sporki makaruli which features rich beef spiced with cinnamon and clove. I think I can agree with that. I have been in Croatia 4 times over the years and ate many a plate of greasy goulash. Perhaps it was not goulash but sporki makaruli?

Whatever messages this wine is sending you they are clean and vibrant. Yes this is what organic wine can convey.

(The Dalmatian Dog Babić 2018, Organic, Dalmatia, Testament Winery, Šibenik, Croatia, $19.95, Liquor Control Board of Ontario # 18810, 750 mL, 14%, RKS Wine Rating 85/100).

“Travels to a Different Time” : September 1989: Cancun, Mexico: Trip to Tulum

Tulum is a must if one is in Cancun. Booked a tour. Continental breakfast was provided for on board. The Mayan village stopped at was squalid in comparison to the ones near Chicen Itza. Beer and cakes were provided as a snack but given the overcast weather no one seemed to be in a party mood. In comparison to Chicen Itza the archaeological remains were minor but what an amazing backdrop of white sand and ocean. Lunch was at Xelha with excellent fish and the sweetest tomatoes I have ever had. On to Akumel which was a collection of hotels on a spectacular beach. Unfortunately a rain storm made swimming problematic.