Eating In Winnipeg

I recently travelled to Winnipeg and North Dakota as part of my annual-ish hockey road trip. While I plan on writing several different posts about the trip, this one focuses on food. Yes, today, I'm going to be a food blogger.

For our first night in Winnipeg, we ate dinner at Feast Cafe Bistro as recommended by Taylor at Tourism Winnipeg. Taylor and I go way back...to earlier in October. Feast is a 100% Indigenous-owned and operated restaurant using local ingredients. I split a bison ramen noodle bowl and a fire-roasted buffalo lasagna. Both were delicious and not something I would normally eat. 

We went to dinner at the Hargrave St. Market on the second night, adjacent to the Canada Life Centre where the Jets play. I really enjoyed the Hargrave St. Market concept. It's a modern-day food court which seems to be becoming more prevalent. There were about 8 different food and drink restaurants serving pizza, tacos, Japanese bowls, burgers, and more, but it's not like Taco Bell and Sbarros that they had at the Monroeville Mall food court growing up. This was much more upscale.

On day #3, we went to the Forks Market. I want to live there! First, outside of the market is The Forks where Winnipeg began at the meeting of the Red River and Assiniboine River. (Please don't ask how badly I mispronounced this name which is all over Winnipeg.) The Forks Market has dozens of restaurants and shops. While there were many dining options, how could I not eat at the best named restaurant in all of Winnipeg? (And they had poutine too.)

On the third night, we ate at the James Avenue Pumphouse. Really cool venue. The building is over 100 years old and served as the pumping station distributing water to area fire hydrants. Much of the machinery is still there. I got the Dan Dan Thai plate. It was good but not great. A little too much tofu for me. Think I would go for something else next time.

I probably should have started this post with the view from my hotel.

Of course, I had a donut from Tim Hortons! I also visited a Real Canadian Superstore. When I told my brother that I traveled thousands of miles to visit a grocery store, he said, who are you, dad? I like going to new grocery stores. Although I didn't buy anything, I like seeing my normal Rold Gold pretzels in a darker yellow packaging and in French.

I was also intrigued by a strawberry milkshake flavor of Frosted Flakes. I almost bought one before going on my phone and realizing that they are sold in my area. Sure enough, there are boxes at my local Wegmans.

Consider this part one of the 2024 hockey road trip. More posts to come.

Friday Video: Praying

Coldplay has a new song out with Elyanna, Little Simz, Burna Boy, and TINI titled "We Pray." 

I'm amazed at the number of people listed as the songwriters according to WikiPedia. Here's the list: Guy Berryman, Jonny Buckland, Will Champion, Chris Martin, Simbiatu Ajikawo, Shawn Carter, Elian Marjieh, Max Martin, Damini Ogulu, Mauricio Rengifo, Davide Rossi, Ilya Salmanzadeh, Martina Stoessel, and Andres Torres.

That's 14 people! Seems like a lot for a song, but I'm not in the music business, so maybe this is somewhat common. You know who's not given a writing credit? Stanley Burrell, better know as MC Hammer. 

I feel like the choruses for both songs are similar. Enough so that MC Hammer should get some credit here. And if this doesn't happen soon, please Hammer, don't hurt 'em!

Hill I'm Willing To Die On: Baseball Edition

For much of baseball history, there was the National League and the American League. They were completely separate entities with the winners of each league facing each other in the World Series. Otherwise, teams from each league would never meet during the regular season. There were separate league presidents, and umpires were employed by either the AL or NL. Limited interleague games started in the mid-90s with each team playing teams from the other league for a handful of games, but the percentage of interleague games during the season was still fairly small. Now, although there are still separate leagues, there are no league presidents, umpires are employed by Major League Baseball, and every team plays against each other each season. For the 2024 season, each team played 46 interleague games. That's a substantial number. So why are there still separate awards (MVP, CY Young, etc.) for each league?  The hill I'm willing to die on today is that there should be one baseball award winner. Period. 

Instead of Shohei Ohtani being the National League MVP and Aaron Judge being the American League MVP, there should only be one like in every other American sport. (The MVP debate this season would be unreal!) Look at the NBA for the 2023-2024 season. Nikola Jokic won MVP while Shai Gilgeous-Alexander finished second and Luka Doncic finished third in the voting. All three play in the Western conference. If this was baseball, Giannis Antetokounmpo would have been the Eastern Conference MVP which seems a little ridiculous. 

In football, Lamar Jackson easily won the NFL MVP last season. Would Dallas Cowboys fans really celebrate Dak Prescott being the NFC MVP? The answer is probably not. Let’s stop this two MVP and two Rookie of the Year award nonsense in baseball and just have one award winner for the entire sport.

Please click here to see more of my extremely sporadic Hills I'm Willing To Die On series.

New Family 5K

Over the weekend, the boys and I ran a 5K for a good cause in honor/memory of a former teacher at their elementary school. This is the first time all four of us ran a race together, so the plan was for The Moose (13) to run ahead, and I would stick with Pedro Tulo (10) and especially Luigi (7). It was a contained race course without any cars/traffic, so I wasn’t worried about splitting up, but I still wanted to run with my youngest. I also figured that I could use him as an excuse to take a break and walk because he would need to take a break and walk.

I figured wrong. 

The race started with the experienced runners going first. The Moose declared that he should be in this group, so off he went. About 20-30 seconds later, the remaining runners started (including us) followed by those walking the course. Luigi went ahead of Pedro Tulo and me, but I could still see him. As we continued, it was Pedro Tulo (and me) needing to take breaks and not Luigi as I expected. At a certain point, Luigi was too far ahead of me to see. On the second lap of the course, I spotted The Moose ahead but no sign of Luigi. I started getting a little concerned. I kind of figured that The Moose would have eyes on him even if I didn't and thought that maybe Luigi stopped not realizing that you had to run the course twice.

When I got to the finish line, Luigi was there with his brother. He ended up finishing at least a minute or two ahead of The Moose. (This wasn't a formal 5K with anyone tracking the time, so we don't know the official time.) Luigi was just fast. As we were drinking Gatorade, a guy who is probably in his late 20s or early 30s introduced himself to us and said that he ran a good portion of the last part of the race with Luigi. He said that he passed him at the end, and I replied that I would do the same thing since I wouldn't want to get beat by a kid. I mean, that was my motivation down the stretch in the last 5K I ran with my family.

I think Luigi is excited to run another 5K. While I'll join him, I know that I won't be able to keep up with him!

Photo from Fairfax Memorial Funeral Home

Shana Tova From NFL Teams: Part III

Welcome to my third annual post of NFL teams sharing Happy New Year messages on their social media sites for Rosh Hashanah. Here we go:

While I don't like to give the Ravens any credit, I appreciate that the organization posted a nice new year's message. Same with the Jets, Bears, and Vikings. This is a significant decrease from the 9 teams last year. Four teams posted messages in 2022. The Jets and Ravens are the only two teams that posted greetings all three years.

Happy Rosh Hashanah 5785

It's an odd time for Rosh Hashanah. I mean, the Jewish New Year is always in the fall and the start being in October is a little later than usual, but the world is different this year. Except for three posts in October and November last year, I have not written about the Israel-Hamas war. I have not written about the protests at many college campuses across the United States or what appears to be the start of wider war between Israel and Hezbollah and Iran. I have lots of thoughts and opinions, but either I don't know how to express them here or don't really want to. (It's much more of the second option.) I don't want to write something and then get drawn into a debate about the history of the Middle East or Israeli politics. While I'm certainly thinking about what is happening in and around Israel and hope for a peaceful resolution with the release of hostages in Gaza, I want to wish those who are celebrating a Shana Tova (or Happy New Year).

Here are some maybe happier videos.

Six13 is back, all right!

 

Disposable plates are the way to go.

Here are two recipes that I will never make.

This video doesn't really have anything to do with Rosh Hashanah. It's just someone taking an hour worth of videos around Jerusalem.

This is a few years old but still funny to me.

Finally, check out this video from the amazing show Parks and Recreation. Starting around the 3:00 minute mark is the reason why.

I share this because there are hundreds of videos every year about the rapture being on Rosh Hashanah. Seems to go perfectly with the Parks and Rec video. Save yourself some time and don't search for those videos on YouTube. They'll be around next year too.