Stir Pairing: April long-weekend edition
A musical, a mouthful, and a Malbec make up this grouping to celebrate spring
Waiting for Garbo: A Musical.
Pascual Toso Winery.
The Pie Hole.
Every week, Stir Wine Pairing suggests locally available food and drink to go with a local arts event.
The event
Waiting for Garbo by Curious Creations Collective in association with PHT Creative Hub, April 15 to 29 at Presentation House Theatre in North Vancouver. Livestream performance takes place April 24 at 1:30 pm
The food
Mini Egg Chocolate Cream Pie from The Pie Hole
The wine
Malbec from Legacy Liquor Store, Marquis Wine Cellars, or Everything Wine
The lowdown
Whether you’re marking Easter, Passover, Vaisakhi, cherry-blossom season, or simply the fact that spring seems as though it’s here to stay, the local arts and culture community has heaps on offer for celebration and entertainment this long weekend. (Check out Stir’s Spring Arts Guide for more, but if you’re finding things to be just plain overwhelming these days, rest assured you’re not alone.)
Waiting for Garbo is one show to add your cultural calendar. Originally performed at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival as a one-act, it was turned into a full-length musical during the pandemic, with book and lyrics written by Dawn Moore and Desmond Price.
Performed by multitalented cast members who act, sing, dance, and play ukuleles, violin, melodica, cajon, and even saw (featuring master sawyer Doug Cameron), the play centres on the meeting of two wildly different groups: the Catadores, garbage pickers at the world’s largest dump; and the Garbo Seekers, three Magi intent on finding salvation through the lost films of their goddess, Greta Garbo.
With themes of consumerism, plastic pollution, and the climate crisis, the production brings real-world issues to light in fun, funny, and thought-provoking ways. Don’t expect a lecture, a release promises: “Expect music, absurdity and comedy as we dig through this ‘Festival of Garbage’!”
A talk-back with Devyani Singh, a local scientist specializing in climate and energy policy, happens April 23 at 7:30 pm.
The food
We love anything that comes out of The Pie Hole, but we’ll take Easter as an excuse to indulge in chef-owner Jenell Parsons’ Mini Egg Chocolate Cream Pie. Enveloped in the double butter crust is a layer of Mini Egg chocolate ganache topped with chocolate cream and finished with candy-shell infused whipped cream and crushed Cadbury eggs.
Jenell Parsons founded The Pie Hole in 2011, initially selling her sweet and savoury desserts at farmers markets and food truck festivals. In the spring of 2017, the culinary artist opened her first brick-and-mortar storefront and within three years, she had three more. In 2020, Parsons published the best-selling cookbook You Wanna Piece of Me?
Hot Cross Pie is another seasonal favourite; it has spiced frangipane with rum-and-orange-spiked fruit and is topped with the signature cross and an orange marmalade glaze. One of the shop’s most popular items of all time is the Blueberry Goat Cheese Basil Pie.
The pairing
Here’s another reason to celebrate: Malbec World Day is on April 17. Developed by Wines of Argentina, the event commemorates the date in 1853 when that country launched an aggressive expansion of its wine industry following the import of Malbec grapes from France. Malbec is Argentina’s flagship red varietal, and makers there produce a range of food-friendly wines.
To mark Malbec World Day, which is taking place in more than 70 cities in 54 nations, a handful of BC shops—Legacy Liquor Store, Marquis Wine Cellars, and Everything Wine—are celebrating Argentine wines all month long.
To go with your freshly baked pie, consider Bodega Norton 2020 Barrel Select Malbec with its deep violet shade, sweet aroma, and round body ($17.90 at Marquis); the rustic Andean Vineyards Malbec, which has flavours of blackberry, cedar, and smoke ($24.04 at Legacy); or Big Red Malbec ($23.99 at Everything Wine), a full-bodied wine with a subtle oaky character.
Marquis will donate $1 from every bottle of Argentine wine purchased in April to the BC Hospitality Foundation (BCHF), which supports workers in the hospitality and tourism industry facing financial crisis due to a health condition or a loved one’s health condition.
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