The Vancouver Hot Chocolate Festival returns this month as over two dozen local purveyors offer up almost sixty delightfully tasty and creative cocoa concoctions that you can order between January 17th and February 14th.

Photo credit: stephbond on Flickr

Vancouver Hot Chocolate Festival

Vancouver’s best chocolatiers, pastry shops, bakeries, gelato and ice cream shops draw on their talent and imagination to create the Vancouver Hot Chocolate Festival.

Organizers sent out a list of trends and some of the most unique flavours you’ll find this year which include salted caramel, Earl Grey tea and coconut. Ready for something a bit more adventurous? Mink Chocolates will incorporate crickets; Soirette will stuff one of their drinks with hints of potato, sage and cinnamon; Koko Monk Chocolates’ “Mona Rosa” will have chocolate, anise and bay leaf; also look for apple cider and scotch, wasabi, and even more twists on hot chocolate.

Traditional, high quality favourites like Bel Cafe, Thierry, Thomas Haas and Chocolate Arts are back this year along with new participants such as 49th Parallel Coffee Roasters, Butter Baked Goods, Diva at the Met, Chez Christophe, and Glenburn Soda Fountain and Cafe.

Bella Gelateria and Schokolade Artisan Chocolate will serve up scoops of gelato and Lauren Mote will be shaking up chocolate cocktails incorporating Bittered Sling bitters at Uva Wine & Cocktail Bar.

Profits from festival sales will be donated to The PHS Community Services program for Downtown Eastside women’s employment and job skills training programs, as run by East Van Roasters.

Look for the new self-guided walking map online, which will be available after January 17th and read up on the Social Media Contest. Follow CityFood Magazine on Facebook and Twitter with the tag #HotChocolateFest for Vancouver Hot Chocolate Festival updates.

The Cinematheque presents Canada’s Top Ten Film Festival, starting January 8th and running until January 18th, featuring the best Canadian films from the last year. Established in 2001 by the Toronto International Film Festival, this celebration of excellence in our national cinema showcases Canadian achievements in both feature-length and short-form films.

The festival also includes a special onstage conversation with award-winning film and television actress Sandra Oh (Double Happiness, Sideways, Grey’s Anatomy) on January 18th at The Cinematheque.

In Conversation With Sandra Oh

At TIFF’s first-ever presentation of its popular In Conversation With event series in Vancouver, TIFF Artistic Director Cameron Bailey will sit down with Sandra Oh, as well as Vancouver filmmaker Ann Marie Fleming, to talk about Oh’s career and her upcoming animated feature with Fleming, Window Horses.

What: In Conversation with Sandra Oh
When: Sunday, January 18, 2015 at 6:00pm
Where: The Cinematheque at 1131 Howe Street in Vancouver
Tickets: $21 online. Cinematheque membership not required. No passes accepted for this special event.

Sandra Oh grew up in Ottawa and studied at Canada’s National Theatre School in Montreal. She is celebrated for her Golden Globe and Screen Actor’s Guild Award-winning work on the popular TV drama Grey’s Anatomy, and for her work in groundbreaking independent films from both sides of the border, including Mina Shum’s Double Happiness and Alexander Payne’s Sideways.

Win Tickets

I have a very special opportunity to give away a pair of tickets to In Conversation With Sandra Oh at The Cinematheque. Here’s how you can enter to win:

• Leave a comment naming your favourite Sandra Oh character or quote (1 entry)
• Post the following on Twitter (1 entry)

I will draw one winner at random from all entries at 12:00pm on Wednesday, January 14, 2015. Follow The Cinematheque on Facebook and Twitter for more information.

Update The winner is Karen!

The weather is always a hot topic in Vancouver, especially when it comes to what’s happening either up high on the mountains or down low by the water. When it’s sunny downtown it could be snowing on the north shore. When it’s cloudy, it could be bright and beautiful at the top of a ski run. Today we had a temperature inversion, so while it was 7C and covered in cloud in Vancouver, it was a sunshine-filled day and 11C up on Grouse Mountain.

Photo courtesy of Grouse Mountain

A temperature inversion is a thin layer of the atmosphere where the normal decrease in temperature with height switches to the temperature increasing with height. An inversion acts like a lid, keeping normal convective overturning of the atmosphere from penetrating through the inversion. [Source]

The Grouse Mountain team passed along the following images of today’s blissful view of their snow-covered slopes with the hidden city tucked under a blanket of pillowy clouds:

Inversion Photos from Grouse Mountain

Photos courtesy of Grouse Mountain

Photos courtesy of Grouse Mountain

Photos courtesy of Grouse Mountain

Photos courtesy of Grouse Mountain

Photos courtesy of Grouse Mountain

Follow Grouse Mountain on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram for more awesome pictures like these and their latest news.

Realwheels, an award-winning, disability-based professional theatre company, presents Re-calculating from Thursday, January 22nd until Saturday, January 24th at CBC Studio 700 in Vancouver. This new play by Lucas Foss and Liesl Lafferty is a one-man show featuring quadriplegic drummer Dave Symington (drummer for Spinal Cord, Bodi Rose, and co-founder of Vancouver Adapted Music Society).

Re-calculating will take you on one man’s personal journey as he navigates his way through identity and relationship struggles, a drum kit his constant companion. Directed by Jeffrey Renn, Re-calculating will give audiences a rare glimpse into the lived experience of disability. Audiences are also most likely to leave the theatre doing some ‘re-calculating’ of their own. “Able-bodied actors typically portray characters with a disability; this is a rare opportunity to experience a stage character played by a person who has lived with disability for twenty years,” says director Renn.

There will only be three performances of Re-calculating, at 8:00pm on January 22nd, January 23rd, and January 24th, 2015. Admission is by donation on the 22nd and tickets are $15 for the 23rd and 24th.

If you would like to experience this unique local show, I have a pair of tickets to give away to the performance either on January 23rd or January 24th (winner’s choice). Here’s how you can enter to win:

• Leave a comment on this post (1 entry)
• Post the following on Twitter (1 entry)

Find out more about Realwheels Theatre by following the company on Twitter and Facebook for information about this show and others. I will draw one winner at random from all entries at 12:30pm on Tuesday, January 13, 2014.

Update The winner is Tara!

This morning Major League Soccer (“MLS”) revealed the 2015 schedule for its 20 teams, which includes the lineup of matches for Vancouver Whitecaps FC. With two new expansion teams (and minus Chivas USA who folded last season), the Whitecaps will play newcomers Orlando City SC in Florida in March, and host New York City FC in September.

I’ve highlighted a few matches against our Canadian and Cascadian rivals, and the reigning MLS champions, that are bound to have an electric atmosphere and great competition:

Vancouver Whitecaps FC 2015 Schedule

I have listed all of the MLS away matches as well since individuals and groups do travel to cheer on our team, with destinations like Seattle, San Jose, LA, and Portland being easy getaways for traveling supporters. Also from June 6th to July 5th, the FIFA Women’s World Cup will take place in Vancouver, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Montreal, Ottawa, and Moncton with the Whitecaps on the road during the Vancouver matches.

John and I are going into our third year of being season ticket holders, and members of the Southsiders, and we absolutely love supporting this team. You can still purchase your Whitecaps season tickets and experience the amazing sporting atmosphere at BC Place. Follow Vancouver Whitecaps FC on Twitter for more information about the schedule and single game ticket purchases.