Whoa, Nellie!

Yup, that Nellie Oleson - the nasty, blond girl from Little House On The Prairie who terrorized Laura Ingalls and the rest of the kids in Walnut Grove for eight glorious television seasons.

Alison Arngrim is the actress who portrayed Nellie Oleson, ringlets and all. Arngrim was just here in Vancouver to appear at the Fairmont Hotel Vancouver. Way up, at the very TOP of the hotel.

The Fairmont Hotel Vancouver is well-known for great service, a fabulous lobby and one of Vancouver's top restaurants and lounges. There's even talk of a ghost in there, too. However, what many people don't know is that it also has a rarely-used Rooftop restaurant, reserved only for special events.

I didn't know their Rooftop restaurant even existed until I saw it for myself. And here's some proof ... the actual menu from the good 'ol days. Check out the prices - only 1 dollar for caviar or a salmon steak!

(That's a scan of an actual menu from the restaurant - many thanks to local historian Danny for sending it to me)

The Rooftop restaurant was the site of a swishy-do the other night - the Vancouver Men's Chorus 3rd annual Legacy Gala & Auction fundraiser. And the headline entertainer at this fun, charity event was Nellie Oleson herself... a.k.a Alison Arngrim. These days she's a stand-up comedian and I gotta say, she's pretty darn funny.

Alison Arngrim's show is called Confessions of a Prairie B!#*h. Let's break it down: her act is actually very, very funny and really, really crude. This here blog is a family show so I'm going to refrain from relaying her jokes to you, but if you're really curious, check out YouTube and just search for a video clip of this show by entering "Confessions...(rest of name)". But here's a pic of her in action the other night - you can clearly see how easy it is to re-work an old gimmick.

She riffed for a good hour on things like growing up in Hollywood with a father who managed Liberace for a living, a mother who voiced the animated Casper the Friendly Ghost, and being called very bad names by every girl at her school after they saw her play the nasty Nellie Oleson on primetime TV.

She had some good dish on other Little House cast members. She said that while the late Michael Landon (Pa Ingalls) was a great man, he was also a great drinker. And, while "Nellie" was definitely the nasty one on the show, the nasty one in REAL life was the actress who played poor, blind Mary!

The Fairmont Hotel Vancouver was a fantastic venue for this event and I have no doubt will help it continue to become one of Vancouver's must-attend

annual fundraisers.

Here are some pics from the Rooftop restaurant. The first one here shows Vancouver's famous Robson Street, stretching left to right in the photo...

And the next pic shows the shadow of one of the gargoyles adorning the exterior of the hotel, with Sears department store all lit up in the background. A very interesting perspective that was completely new to me despite the zillions of times I have seen both the gargoyle and the store sign.

For dessert, we were treated to an exclusive item on the Fairmont Hotel Vancouver menu, the Chocolate Saxophone with Passion Fruit Mousse, Fruit Coulis and Fresh Berries. Y-U-M. Here's how it is presented:

Last but not least, my friend Andrew and I were lucky enough to have our pic taken with the legendary Nellie Oleson:

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To Qila, With Love

I've been in a pretty good mood these days and I think it's partly because Vancouver has been nice and sunny lately. So the other day I thought I'd take advantage of the good weather and head down to one of my favourite places in the city - the Vancouver Aquarium. I've always loved it there because I'm utterly amazed by marine life and their whole underwater world. It's SO the opposite of our life here on dry land, and I find it all quite fascinating.

My fascination with what's going on beneath the surface was solidified a few years ago when I became a PADI-certified open water scuba diver down in the Caribbean. I'll never forget my first dive. It's an absolutely *insane* feeling to know that you are Breathing. Under. Water. And, everything is so colorful down there that you find yourself believing that every colour ever invented must have found its origins along a reef somewhere. Especially if you dive in tropical waters. I know that sometimes when you look at photos taken underwater it just kinda looks like it's all one colour, usually blue-ish green. But trust me - when you're actually under the water it's more colorful than you can possibly imagine.

The Vancouver Aquarium houses not only marine life, but lots of others as well - reptiles, exotic birds and, I believe, a sloth. Here's some pics of what I saw:

The Vancouver Aquarium also keeps several beautiful Beluga whales (the white ones). And it's just been announced one of the Belugas is pregnant! The lucky girl is Qila (pronounced Kee-lah). Apparently she had herself a whale of a time recently with one of the males and soon she's gonna have a baby beluga.

No word yet on the baby shower although I'm just so relieved that there won't be a decision to make on if I should buy her something pink or blue. I have a feeling it won't matter too much in the all-white world of the beluga. But one thing troubles me ... considering the current pastime of monitoring the physical progress of pregnant famous females (Angelina or J. Lo anyone?) I have a question - how on earth does one play "spot the baby bump" with a beluga? I'd be happy to hear any thoughts you have on that...

One final thing - last year a couple of sea otters at the Vancouver Aquarium gained worldwide fame after a video of their escapades was posted on YouTube by a visitor to the aquarium. There's no question that it's pretty darn cute, and alot of other people must agree since the video has been viewed nearly 10 million times already! Here it is:

There's Salmon Going On Around Here

Unless you live in Vancouver or visit frequently, you could easily mistake that ubiquitous rumbling noise you hear in the city for an earthquake. After all, Vancouver's latitude and longitude place this city squarely in tremor territory. But really, that rumbling you hear is the collective pangs of a hungry citizenry.

Indeed, Vancouverites are always hungry to explore the fabu-licious food scene here and we feel zero guilt when we choose to relinquish the pots and abandon the pans to let someone else to do the cooking.

The other night me and the gang decided to try Salmon House On The Hill, a restaurant I'd never yet been to but always wanted to check out. The Salmon House is actually located in West Vancouver, just above the Upper Levels Highway.

Perched on a slope near the British Properties subdivision, this restaurant has one of the *best* views of the city you'll find anywhere - twinkling lights as far as the eye can see with the still, black waters of Burrard Inlet and English Bay to reflect it all.

Inside the Salmon House, we found quite a comfortable wood décor featuring enormous, traditional, First Nation carvings on the walls. Here's what it looks like from the perspective of the fork on our table:

The Salmon House lounge also has an amazing glass carving set into the wall, along with a few other interesting pieces of wall art:

Even though the dinner menu offered chicken and lamb, of course I had to try their classic alder grilled salmon. Here's what it looked like moments before it disappeared...

Back to the Salmon House decor for a moment, there was also a traditional wooden canoe suspended from the vaulted ceiling, presumably hanging there as a reminder of how the First Nations people were enabled to catch pacific salmon. It's either that, or it's a clear sign of what not to sit under in case that rumbling you hear is *not* from a hungry person after all.

If you'd like to know a bit more about Salmon House on the Hill, click here.