In Ottawa, to see Cynthia's family, on our way to Mont-Laurier to see mother. Left Toronto in the night, to avoid the looming storm that was to strike southern Ontario the morning after, an all-day snow-and-wind hit that left 20 centimetres of the stuff on the ground, and made driving on the 401 an impossible challenge!
We took advantage of that unexpected day in the National Capital to do a favourite thing: go to the National Gallery, this splendid gothic style museum, built according to Safdie’s design, 20 years ago. (http://www.gallery.ca/english/index.html) Temporary exhibition featuring Bernini: the Birth of Baroque Portrait Sculpture, a remarkable collection of his busts of many of his patrons, popes and others including Scipion Borghese, to whom we owe Villa Borghese in Rome, which is furnished by some of the most poignant sculptural work of Bernini, “Apollo and Daphne”, and “Pluto and Proserpina “. (Coincidence: the night before, listening to “Ideas” on CBC, on the long road from Toronto, to the second part of a 2-hour program, “the Love Song of Ovid”, the famous (or infamous as one wishes) love poet of Rome, going back two thousand years ago, whose work, "Metamorphoses", would have been Bernini’s inspiration for these two extraordinary sculptures). Exhibition serves as a reminder of the importance of Baroque, in sculpture, yes, but also in architecture and painting, for much of the 17th and 18th centuries throughout Europe, starting late 16th, the best architectural examples ranging from Bernini’s work in Rome (the colonnade of St-Peter’s square, Piazza Navona, etc.) to include Phillip II’s Escurial near Madrid the century before, and Louis the XIV’s Versailles, the century after.
Ottawa is cold and damp: minus 27 centigrade, and windy. Awful! Reminded me why I left this country to live most of my professional life under the tropics!
Had a most unexpected dinner, at The Wellington Gastropub, that is a pub that features “high-end” food, a concept I am told by Shane Weldon, one of the 2 owners, that was launched a few years ago in London (UK that is), and that is now spreading around (I wonder if it has reached Toronto?) Very original menu – I had selected a duck moularde, but they had run out of duck, so they simply replaced it by a filet of pork; on a bed of wild rice and Toulouse sausage. Delicious. The other owner, Christopher Deraiche, (thought with such a French name that he might have been from afar, but no, he is born in Milton, Ontario!) is the one responsible for these delights, manning a busy kitchen from what I can see from our table. Unusual wine list as well, one page only, tightly scripted, but a well selected lot. Intrigued by their offering of an exceptional selection under the “enomatic” wine rubrique, enomatic being a wine serving system that allows to open a bottle, serve by the glass and keep the wine fresh, we are explained by Shane, by inserting a inert gas in the bottle that keeps the air out. This way a taste of the wine 3 or 4 weeks after the bottle has been opened is as good as if it had just been uncorked– ingenious! Most unusual place, well worth the drive from downtown. (http://www.thewellingtongastropub.com/main.html)
Ottawa, Dec 19, 2008
