Arts & Culture

Don Mills is touting rare wines as part of a fundraiser for Feed Nova Scotia, called Case of Compassion.

Gerald Doucet, who died this week at age 80, was the first Acadian cabinet minister in Nova Scotia’s history when then-Premier Robert Stanfield appointed him as education minister in 1967, 50 years ago.

Editor’s Note: The Macdonald Notebook from now until Christmas will feature Atlantic Canada products that would make novel and neat gifts to loved ones.

For almost four decades, Nova Scotia has sent a balsam fir to the Boston Commons to help that city celebrate Christmas, and as a thank-you for Boston’s tremendous help following the Halifax Explosion in 1917 that claimed 2,000 lives.

In the last couple of decades, brunch has become a standard feature of urban life. The idea of a light, weekend noon meal is said by culinary historians to have originated with Englishman Guy Beringer whose only claim to fame was a hangover that inspired him to write a brief article Brunch: A Plea that was published in 1895 in the now equally obscure Hunter’s Weekly.

Monday morning, I participated in a classroom panel at Saint Mary’s University with former cabinet minister, political commentator and author Graham Steele, and Global News journalist Marieke Walsh.

Carlton Munroe, a giant promoter of the East Coast music scene, is being remembered as a fun loving family man — a devoted husband and great father of three children — and a friend to many.

Some of our finest dining rooms have historically been found in the inns with which the Maritimes abounds. One of the best known was the Sword and Anchor in Halifax, on South Park Street where the Park Victoria apartment building now stands.

Let’s face it, visitors don’t come to Halifax for the view of Fenwick Tower.

Talented crooner H. James MacPherson was described in his hometown of Antigonish as the Voice of God, a reputation burnished after he sang for Pope John Paul II.