Montreal Cinema & Smokehouse

 fig. a:  hog wild

Yes, ma'am!  Yes, siree!

Tonight (July 17th) there'll be another chapter in an ongoing series of film, dj, and food events at Place de la Paix, right next door to the Société des arts technologiques (SAT) [1201 boulevard St-Laurent].

Our hosts tonight are Film Pop, Pop Montreal, and the SAT.

The 9:00 p.m. screening will be Andrew Bujalski's 2013 film Computer Chess (with a video intro by none other than Wiley Wiggins [of Dazed & Confused fame).

And I'll be serving up smoky chopped pork sandwiches and BBQ tofu sandwiches (?!) from 7:00 - 9:00 (or until supplies last).

Sandwiches:  $5.

Screening:  FREE.

In case of rain:  this event will be moved inside the safety and comfort of the SAT.  In other words, this thing's a go, rain or shine.

Hope to see you there!

In smoke & film we trust.

aj

Pop Rocks

Yes, it's that time of year again. Pop Montreal is in full effect and that can only mean about 478 things (seriously--every edition is a veritable cultural deluge), including Puces Pop. Sadly, we here at "...an endless banquet" won't be participating in this year's D.I.Y. extravaganza because we've just had too much on the go, but we will be attending, and we encourage all you out there in cyberland to check it out too.

Puces Pop
Canadian Grenadier Guards Armoury
4171 Ave. de l’Esplanade
October 6th & 7th

aj

Too Pooped to Talk Pop

Phew! Things were so hectic last Sunday, it's taken us a few days to recover.

If you weren't able to join us because of other commitments or because you're part of our virtual community somewhere hundreds, even thousands, of miles away, this is what you missed:



Michelle, in action, serving up our very own communion of sorts to the ravenous shoppers who turned up at the Canadian Grenadier Guards Armory that glorious Sunday. Crab apple jelly. Ketchup aux fruits. Fig preserves. Plum chutney. Red currant jelly. Marmalades galore. & c. A bewildering array of advertisements. And samples, lots and lots of samples (in this case, kumquat marmalade).

That was early in the day. By the time 7:00 p.m. rolled around, we'd been largely cleaned out. Gone were the oignons confits, the plum chutney, the red currant jelly, and a whole host of other Švestka specialties. Gone were most of the crisp, orchard-fresh apples we'd been giving away all day. We'd seen lots of friends and made lots of new friends (including visiting New Yorkers, Los Angelenos, Bostonians, Torontonians, Vancouverites, and various other out-of-towners). And we'd had some pretty vivid conversations with some of our patrons. You think bartenders hear some tales? You should try working a jams and jellies booth at a crafts fair. The blue-ribbon story? Well, one particuarly enthusiastic customer, having just paid for a jar of Michelle's raspberry preserve, proceeded to tell us that she'd bought it in honor of her first son, who'd been conceived in a raspberry patch. I kid you not. Don't worry, we very politely refrained from asking, "Who with?" "He hates it when I tell that story," she told us. Thankfully, he wasn't around. These events are always an experience, and this one didn't disappoint in the least.

If you're having a hard time imagining the scene, here's what it looked like from the balcony at about 5:00 p.m., with the late afternoon sunlight streaming through the massive windows:



If you look closely, you can see Michelle in brown right in the center of the photo, giving a couple of greenhorns the hard-sell, dazzling them with her witty repartee and her formidable powers of persuasion.

If you're thinking to yourself, "That's not an armory, that's just some big ole gym," think again. That "big ole gym" was very much an armory, very much a vestige of Montreal's past as a garrison city. In fact, the place was haunted with all kinds of ghosts, like this dashing old fuss 'n' feathers



and these brave souls



And lest you forget that the proceedings were part of pop festival, there was the odd performance to liven things up a little, like the performance by Patrick Watson (no, not the knob-twiddler in front, the guy behind the grand piano belting out a tune) in the "Puces Pop Lounge" captured below:



Anyway, thanks ever so much to all of you who stopped by (like this trio of bright-eyed and thoroughly satisfied customers).



We had a great time and we hope those of you who made purchases are enjoying your Švestka preserves.

aj

Pop Goes The Banquet

There was a time when the Washington, D.C., area, where I grew up, was utterly devoted to The Dead. The Grateful Dead. Not only was R.F.K. Stadium an annual stop for the band, but they always played multiple shows there, and for some reason many who lived in the region found this to be cause for celebration. Colloquially, these performances were known simply as "The Shows." As in, "Hey, bra, got tickets for The Shows yet?" "Phil-side, dude." This "culture" manifested itself in all kinds of strange ways, one of which was that you used to see a lot of ads for shared dwellings in the D.C. area that billed themselves as crafts-oriented. "Crafts" here was a euphemism. It meant that this was an entrenched Deadhead household where people supported themselves in large part by making jewelry and other trinkets to be sold at The Shows. It was also not uncommon to find a home-grow operation among the "crafts" practiced in these houses and apartments. My knowledge of these hippy holes, for lack of a better term, was strictly peripheral. I had one friend who'd found herself living in such a house through some shady health food store connections that I never fully understood. The patriarch of this particular household was a self-proclaimed Buddhist named Doug. Doug had an extensive hydroponic operation in their basement that ran on power that was being illegally tapped from the local utilities company. He also sold veggie pitas by the hundreds at The Shows. Every year Doug wore the same outfit to The Shows: knee-high lace-up moccasins + purple unitard + turquoise Star of David pendant + facepaint. Apparently this outfit had helped Doug sell thousands of veggie pitas over the years. Apparently that's not the only thing it had helped him do.

All this is to say that I've come to understand an element of the frenzy that led up to The Shows. For the second year running, Michelle and I have found ourselves busily preparing not for The Shows but for that annual dose of rock-n-roll mayhem known as the Pop Montreal Festival, and specifically their arts and crafts division known simply as Puces Pop. Švestka Preserves Inc. has been in high gear since the summer and we'll have all kinds of jams, jellies, confitures, and chutneys to offer TO YOU, dear reader. The music'll be rather different, there won't be any friendship bracelets or hand-blown pipes or purple unitards (that's what Tam-Tam, Montreal's weekly love-in, is for), but it should still be a lot of fun.* Puces Pop, the "fairest of fairs," runs from October 7th to October 8th. We encourage you to attend both days to take full advantage of the vendors, the fashion show, the "Indie Science Fair" (?), etc., but please keep in mind that our "...an endless banquet"/Švestka Preserves Inc. booth will only be in operation on October 8th. Got it? October 8th. Location: Canadian Grenadier Guards Armory, 4171 Esplanade (corner of Rachel), directly facing Parc Jeanne-Mance. Time: 12 noon - 7 p.m. (or while supplies last). Pop Montreal, as the image above attests, lasts from October 4th - October 8th. We encourage you to indulge in the Dionysian excess. Sensibly, of course.

For more information:
http://www.popmontreal.com/
http://www.puces.popmontreal.com/

aj

*note understatement

Total sell-out!

Michelle demonstrates the method she uses for chopping her ingredients
Originally uploaded by michelle1975.

I mean that in the best sense possible.

Michelle showed up at the Puces Pop festival this morning with close to 50 jars, and by 5:30 PM I sold the very last jar we had. We sold out completely and Puces Pop was still 1 1/2 hours from shutting its doors for the day (!). Needless to say, we were pleasantly surprised (not quite to the point of paraphrasing Sally Field's infamous, "You like me. You really like me," but close). And we had a great time, too. I'd never seen the Fusiliers Mont-Royal armory building hall look so appealing and so alive (I'd been there for a couple of record fairs in the past), there was a nice vibe to the day's events (including live music, DJs, and a full-on fashion show), and we met a lot of really nice people. Hats off to Sarah and everyone else who took part in the organization.

Anyway, we're back in production so that we can show up tomorrow, give away some more free samples, and meet some more people. I'm not sure exactly what we'll have on offer from our "švestka" line of preserves, but if you're planning to come on out and pay us a visit you might find oignons confits, pear-vanilla-bourbon butter (definitely one of today's super-hits), and l'Autrichienne, which is an apple, walnut, and raisin preserve that was originally devised for the Archduchess Maria Theresa in order to console her after the humiliations of the War of the Austrian Succession, and that has been a closely guarded secret handed down from generation to generation within a very small Prague-based circle for some 200+ years, that we would now like to offer to you.

Thanks again to everyone who came out to visit us today, and any of you who might be planning on stopping by Puces Pop tomorrow, we look forward to meeting you, too.

For more information on Puces Pop, check here.

aj

Note: We'll be manning our booth from noon on today--aj

Buy my preserves!

You may have been wondering why I've been a little slow to post lately. It's all because when I haven't been at work, I've been locked in my kitchen making preserves to sell at Puces Pop, Pop Montreal's Indie Fair, coming up this weekend. (Well, OK, I've also been playing with the cats a lot.) I've got plum-honey jam, carrot-cardamom confiture, rhubarb-grapefruit preserve, confiture de lait (a.k.a. dulce de leche), pear-vanilla-bourbon butter, white peach and raspberry preserve, Seville orange maramlade, and l'Autrichienne, an apple-walnut preserve which was a favourite from last year's Christmas gift-giving. There may even be a few jars of Meyer lemon marmalade available (!).

You can stock up on preserves this Saturday and Sunday, October 1st and 2nd, from 11:00-7:00, at the Les Fusiliers Mont-Royal Armory Building, 3721 Henri-Julien (& Pine, or "Avenue des Pins," if you like). There will also be local clothing designers, publishers, and record labels selling their wares.

Of course, if you just want to stop by, taste some of my FREE SAMPLES, and meet me, my sister, and maybe even Anthony, that's cool, too.

this beautiful jar could be yours, all yours
Originally uploaded by michelle1975.

For more information on Puces Pop (in case you're wondering, the name refers to marché aux puces, French for flea market), check out their website: http://puces.popmontreal.com/index_e.html

See you there.

m