Stir Pairing: Vancouver craft cider makes a perfect wintry match for Western Front podcasts
We’re taking in the artist-run centre’s new podcasts for its Thought, Outside exhibition with Windfall’s barrel-aged cider and La Grotta del Formaggio panini
Melinda Mollineaux, whose work Cadboro Bay: Index to an Incomplete History (1998/2020, 91.5 x 122 cm, gelatin silver print) appears at the Western Front’s Thought, Outside exhibition, joins curator Amy Kazymerchyk in a newly released companion podcast. We’re going to tune in with a glass of Windfall Cider’s Sweater Weather and a panino from La Grotta del Formaggio.
Every week, Stir Pairing suggests a BC wine and food to go with a local arts event. This week, it’s cider.
The event
Thought, Outside runs at Western Front until January 30 (Wednesday to Saturday, 1 to 5 pm), with new two accompanying podcasts available via Western Front
The drink
Windfall Cider’s Sweater Weather
The food
Panini from La Grotta del Formaggio
The lowdown
Thought, Outside is a group exhibition of lens-based artworks by Craig Berggold, Marlene Creates, Kiss & Tell, Roy Kiyooka, Laiwan, Ken Lum, and Melinda Mollineaux that were produced between the 1970s and ’90s. The pieces explore the boundaries between “inside” and “outside”.
From the Western Front: “Movement across geographic, economic and cultural boundaries is explored in Kiyooka’s photographs of discarded work gloves at Expo ’70 Osaka, StoneDGloves (1970); Lum’s performance along the periphery of the Trans-Canada highway, Entertainment for Surrey (1978); and Berggold’s documents of immigrant farming and union organizing in the Fraser Valley, A Time to Change (1984).
“The social inscription of the out-of-doors is closely observed in Creates’ documents of her solitary journey in Sleeping Places, Newfoundland 1982 (1982); Laiwan’s reflections on a contested ruin in African Notes Part 1 & 2 (1982); and Mollineaux’s pinhole exposures, Cadboro Bay: Index to an Incomplete History (1998/2020). The ideological processes that censor permission and prohibition are contested in Drawing the Line (1990), Kiss & Tell’s expansive installation on the representation of lesbian sexuality.”
To accompany the exhibition, curator Amy Kazymerchyk has recorded conversations with some of the participating artists, which can be heard here.
In Podcast # 1, Laiwan and Mollineaux talk about the historical context and conditions within which their artworks were made, along with what kind of formal and technical restoration was required to present them anew.
Podcast # 2 explores the social and cultural climate when Berggold and Stewart were working on their projects. The artists share thoughts on how they were motivated to create their pieces out of the need to make marginalized experiences more visible.
The pairing
We hear it’s supposed to snow this week, so we’re going to cozy up with those podcasts one afternoon in our reading socks. Because we love all things hyperlocal, we’re opting for a beverage from Windfall Cider, Vancouver’s only urban craft cidery. Bonus: Windfall delivers throughout Vancouver, Burnaby, and North Van.
Sweater Weather is its newest addition, made from B.C. apples (as always), fermented with B.C. honey and red currants, and aged in Woodenville Rye barrels. “Beautiful, dry, and perfect for the cold, wet nights ahead,” Windfall Cider co-founder Nathaly Nairn tells Stir.
Sweater Weather has vanilla and caramel notes with a bit of pepper and might remind you of a medium-bodied Chardonnay—only it’s lower on the alcohol front, at 8 percent. We love that it has a bit of bite, which brings us to our next point.
The menu
Nairn suggests pairing Sweater Weather with strong cheese, and who are we to argue? You could make your way to long-standing Vancouver gem La Grotta del Formaggio on the Drive, which has been in business for more than four decades. Pick up some taleggio. But if you’re looking for something heftier and you don’t want to leave home, its panini are legendary—stuffed with everything from pickled eggplant and banana peppers to salami and roast beef to provolone and Havarti. Best pandemic pivot? Those sandos are now available for delivery via Uber Eats.
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