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Vancouver’s Hot
Chocolate Festival

Bringing warmth to winter

By Allie Davison, Staff Writer

eed to escape that blustery
Nene Why not do yourself
a favour and step into
one of the 15 cafés and chocolate
shops participating in this year’s
Vancouver Hot Chocolate Festival?
As I’m personally not much of
a coffee drinker, the chance to
embrace everybody’s favourite
wintertime beverage in festival
form was right up my alley.
The festival started on January
14, and will run until February 14—
with each venue offering two to
four unique and delicious varieties
of the tasty treat. I got to check
out two of the featured shops, and

it sounded less sweet than my

previous drink. While I initially

thought the Raspberry Cheesecake

drink was, “the best thing ever,”

it was here that I found myself

mistaken. The Mermaid’s Choice

was excellent; it was the perfect

combination of sweet and salty. I‘d

never had salted caramel before,

so I didn’t really know what to

expect, but I was delighted, to say

the least. If I hadn’t already been

on my second hot chocolate of the

day (more accurately, of the hour), I

probably would have gotten a refill.
The Hot Chocolate Festival

is hosted by CityFood Magazine,

a West Coast-based magazine

that focuses on food, beverage,

“The festival started on January 14, and will run until February
14—-with each venue offering two to four unique and delicious
varieties of the tasty treat.”

was pleasantly surprised by the
different flavours offered.

My first stop was Leonidas
Chocolates, located at the
Vancouver Convention Centre;
they had four options to choose
from: Raspberry (dark chocolate),
Tosca (dark chocolate and rum),
Frozen Noisette (milk chocolate),
and Raspberry Cheesecake (white
chocolate). With each drink,
customers received either a piece
of Leonidas’ delicious Belgian
chocolate (a personal pick) or
a liege waffle sample. I chose the
Raspberry Cheesecake-flavoured
hot chocolate; upon my first sip,

I thought, “this is the best drink
ever.” The drink tasted exactly

like cheesecake and raspberries!

As I neared the end though, the
sweetness gave me a bit of a
stomachache, but I still managed to
enjoy my drink.

Next, I hit up Mink A Chocolate
Café, located on the corner of
Hornby and Hastings, just a few
blocks away from Waterfront
SkyTrain. They had two drinks
to offer: the Sheba—milk or dark
chocolate ganache hot chocolate
with pistachio—and the Mermaid’s
Choice—milk or dark chocolate
ganache hot chocolate with salted
caramel and a hint of rosemary.
Whichever drink you chose, you
also received a 72 per cent dark
chocolate wafer.

I went for the Mermaid’s
Choice, in part due to my love
of mermaids, and also because

hospitality, and agro-tourism
industries. Some of the proceeds
from each drink go to the
Downtown Eastside Women’s
Centre, so not only are you getting
a great beverage, but you’re also
donating to a good cause!

My first two experiences with
Vancouver’s Hot Chocolate Festival
were immensely successful, and
I’m excited to say that I’ll be
sure to check out some of the
other host shops. For a full list of
venues (and their respective hot
chocolate drinks), check out their
website at: www.cityfood.com/
events /hotchocolate. You won't be
disappointed!

 

 

The recurring movie trends

of January

By Angela Espinoza, Arts Editor

anuary has to be the worst
month of the year. The season
of giving has since passed,

esolutions are being failed left and
right, and the nearest holiday is
Valentine’s Day—the anti-Christmas
(Succumas, if you will). Naturally,
you'd like to do something to take
your mind off all these gloomy
realizations, like see a movie. But
with the cut-off date for Oscar
consideration being December 31,
that means all the garbage films
held over from last year need to be
released... sigh.

To be fair, it’s not just January
that gets the creme of the crap;
generally, from January to March,
decent films tend to be far and
few between. That said though,
January really does get the worst
of it. | looked around the Internets
for all the information I could get
on January film releases from 2008
to 2012, and several patterns within
the crap film realm checked out.
Didn’t we just have Halloween?

This trend is without question
the one everyone has noticed by
now. Every January within my
five-year timeline has averaged
no less than two horror and /
or supernatural film releases.
Twelve horror movies in total saw
wide releases in the span of five
January’s, and if that wasn’t baffling
enough, the number of horror
films released around Halloween
has been uneven, if not steadily
declining in that amount of time.
Almost all of them are awful, of
course, and in the cases of Legion
(2010) and The Devil Inside (2012),
it’s to the point where they’re
hilarious. While certainly not great
though, two gems have popped
up in following this trend: My
Bloody Valentine 3D (2009) is a great
time just waiting to happen, and
Daybreakers (2010) succeeded in its
goal to portray vampires seriously
(thank God).

So, like, girls are kind of... you
know?

I’m not going to start a whole
“the portrayal of women in film”
thing here, but I find it necessary to
mention this particular trend. Each
January there’s one big film with
one or two female leads, and both
the film and lead(s) tend to come
off as completely and unabashedly
idiotic. In watching them, you can
practically see the lack of a thought
process in the eyes of the actors on
screen—and half the time, they’re
legitimately good actors. Bride

Geib rrs

 

Wars (2009), arguably the worst of
them all, featured Anne Hathaway
as one of the two leads, and even
last year’s No Strings Attached
had Natalie Portman... granted,
that thought alone was intended
to fulfill how many fantasies?
Without going into an essay-long
tirade, these films simply portray
women as one-note stereotypes;
stubbornness is used to insinuate
self-respect, and even then their
characters have to flip flop on
everything they believe in to obtain
their forced happy ending. These
movies are stupid and the women
in them are stupid, let’s move on.
The acceptations

The “good ones” so-to-speak
are usually either re-releases or
wide releases of excellent English-
language foreign films from the
year prior. This year for example
sees Beauty and the Beast (1991)
re-released in 3-D; it’s so well-
loved it’s often forgotten how
groundbreaking the film was for
animation standards back then.
Then there was The Dark Knight
(2008) re-release back in 2009;
the reason for this being Warner
Bros. wanted to hit the billion-
dollar mark in ticket sales (which
they did). Eventual wide releases
include the ridiculously underrated
Canadian film Barney’s Version
(2010) and the British film Fish
Tank (2009), both winning multiple
awards in their limited release runs,
but not seen by many until the next
year. The only year that breaks this
pattern though is 2008, which saw
a January release for Cloverfield;
people either hate or love the film,
but regardless, its release proves
there are surprises from time to
time, such as with Haywire this year.

I'll end this piece with the hope
that some of you will check out
Haywire or Beauty and the Beast 3D as
opposed to The Devil Inside or Joyful
Noise before the month ends.