Daily Archive for February 16th, 2006

Can I bug you to try this salsa?

From Niagara This Week:

Jeff Stewart takes pride in feeding insects to others.

It’s not that he has any perverse intentions. He’s not in it the business of cooking up critters for the shock value. Rather, he wants to use his creepy-crawly culinary skills to open cultural boundaries in Canada and wants North Americans to consider swerving from the straight and narrow approach he said we’ve become accustomed to when talking about and consuming food.

“It’s not about the shock factor,” said the Niagara Falls chef who was at the Niagara Parks Butterfly Conservatory over the weekend for the first International Insect Food Festival. “I want to try to create more open minds as to what food is.”

NPC plans Table Rock House revamp

From the Niagara Falls Review:

Sprucing up Table Rock House and developing an interactive hydroelectricity museum at the Canadian Niagara Power plant are among the ideas the Niagara Parks Commission will consider this year, says the agency’s chairman Jim Williams.

The commission has been under pressure to increase revenue, but has learned local residents expect “creative, yet tasteful” attractions, Williams said during a speech at a chamber of commerce reception Wednesday.

“Table Rock is a prime locale and destination for five million visitors who come to Queen Victoria Park,” Williams said.

Despite the unrivalled view from the second-floor Table Rock restaurant, it is “unknown to many visitors” who shop in the ground-floor stores, Williams said. Its retail stores haven’t kept pace with changes in that market.
The last renovations to the building, which sits metres from the brink of the Horseshoe Falls, was 15 years ago.

“It is no longer the stately facility it once was,” Williams said after his presentation.

Hotel’s makeover bringing largess of furniture to area’s nonprofit groups

The purpose of the Niagara Falls Blog is to cover the scene on the Canadian side of the Falls. But as a follow-up to the posting about the Crowne Plaza hotels in both Niagara Falls, ON and Niagara Falls, NY, the Buffalo News has a nice article:

Nearly a million dollars in high-quality hotel furniture is being donated to nonprofit organizations in Niagara and Erie counties by the developer transforming the Holiday Inn Select on Third Street into a Crowne Plaza Hotel.

The contents of 160 of the hotel’s rooms have already been placed in homes and with organizations throughout the region, and a large-scale pickup of more furniture is planned for today.

By the time the hotel is renovated this summer, the total gift will include the contents of the hotel’s 425 rooms, from beds and dressers to irons and artwork.

Casinos’ cigarette promotion rejected

From the Globe and Mail:

In a decision heralded as an important victory by anti-smoking advocates, the Federal Court of Appeal has ruled that casino patrons can not accumulate loyalty-program points and redeem them for cigarettes.

Three judges ruled unanimously that two casinos in Niagara Falls, Ont. run by Falls Management Co. shouldn’t allow members of their Players Advantage Club reward program to use their points to buy tobacco products.

Club members at Casino Niagara and Niagara Fallsview Casino Resort earn points when they play slot machines, video poker games, or table games. The points can be redeemed for meals, hotel rooms, store merchandise and — until this ruling — cigarettes.