Arts & Culture

Little Acadian villages scattered along the west coast of Cape Breton feel winter’s roar like few others. Vicious winds called Les Suêtes scream through the highlands behind Cap LeMoine, prompting visions of witches howling near the corners of the house, wailing and moaning and screeching through the night.

The solitary oyster safely dominates the list of such mysterious aphrodisiacs as ground reindeer antlers, garter belts and black silk stockings.

It is said that the crafty Casanova devoured dozens of them before setting out to prove his masculinity.

One flag you won’t find at my favourite Halifax flag store is the Confederate flag.

The Macdonald Notebook received permission from Fitzhenry.ca, publisher of How To Make Love To A Lobster to re-publish select shellfish recipes from its seafood cookbook.

This recipe on oysters is from Chef Chris McNulty.

Guinness and Oyster Soup

As Shag Harbour prepares to host a UFO symposium and a celebration of a 50-year-old UFO mystery, at the end of September, a university student is writing his thesis on the strange and bizarre and even out of this world incident from October 4, 1967.

A ‘must read’ among lovers of shellfish is the quaint cookbook, How To Make Love To A Lobster, first printed in 1988.

A neat way to forecast a grand and glorious day at the beach is to survey the morning lawn – when it is covered with dew.

Brig-Gen Colin Curleigh (Ret’d), who died last week at age 81, led an active retirement life after settling in Parrsboro’s Green Hill, and was largely responsible for rescuing the summer cottage known as Ottawa House, once occupied by Sir Charles Tupper.

As summer wanes, a key discussion around the cottage is the transfer of the favourite property oasis to the next generation.