Arts & Culture

I have a fondness for pickles, so I was delighted when a friend introduced me to this remarkably quick and simple method of making delicious Bread and Butter Pickles. I often give bottles of these away, either at Christmas or as something to take along to a dinner party at any time in the year.

When Mary Fraser — Scottish through and through — married my uncle Moise Chiasson, we referred to her, in the Acadian tradition, as Mary Moise. It was so she could not be confused with the other aunt, Mary Phonse, who married — you guessed it — my uncle Phonse.

You can ditch the steak sauce with this fabulous companion to a steak dinner.

It’s that special time of year for small Nova Scotia businesses. Around the holiday season, anything giftable can create a major uptick in sales, but particularly chocolate.

Forced out of the Royal Canadian Navy in 1970 because he was gay, Frank Letourneau quickly found a new career with Industrial Estates Ltd.

Many venerable Halifax institutions have stories to tell about how they were affected by the city’s worst disaster, the Halifax Explosion, that occurred a century ago this week. Few, however, are as multi-faceted as those surrounding what is now called the Maritime Conservatory of Performing Arts.

A hot glob of orange molten crystal pulled from a 1,400-degree oven dangles at the end of a long metal pipe called a blowing iron. Wielding the pipe with one hand, a craftsman uses a metal scoop to manipulate the lava-like glob. When it is uniform, he plunges it into a mould.

Soup’s On!

As days shorten and temperatures fall, our appetites crave heartier, more filling food. It’s time to bring out the soup pot.

If you write an obituary for Halifax-born Joe Purcell who died last week, it’s not complete unless you also mention his best buddy, famed marine artist Jack Gray.

Marine and landscape artist Joe Purcell, who died recently at age 90, captured a romantic period in the 1940s and ’50s of schooners fishing on the Grand Banks.