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Canada’s Top Chef coming for Cornucopia

Cornucopia is returning for another year of epicurean indulgences from Nov 10 to 13. Chefs from across Canada and around the world will bring their culinary expertise to the four-day-and-night festival in the mountains. We will eat until our bellies are rounded to perfection and sip the finest wine until our noggins are adequately gassed. Ah, Cornucopia.

This year, organizers have landed a special guest...err, okay, many, many special guests because we're all special in a "no two snowflakes are the same" kind of way. But there'll be one very special guest in Top Chef Canada champion Chef Dale MacKay, who won the television competition earlier this month. MacKay will feature his winning cuisine at an exclusive 50-person luncheon held at one of Whistler's many gloriously gratuitous mansions.

There will also be six to-be-named chefs from Quebec featured at a number of events, including Masquerave, which is returning (finally) after a five-year hiatus. Details for the event are still being finalized but organizers are calling it "entertaining" and "positive." This is bad news for people looking for seedy, decadent amusement and good for, well, everyone else who can get their hands on a ticket. It'll sell out fast.

For the wine connoisseurs, Araxi will be hosting two events to mark its 30th birthday. First will be the lengthy-titled Big Guns Winemakers Dinner: Icons of the Wine World, which will feature a brand new multi-course menu and a showing of 10 wines, one from each of the world's foremost wine regions. Second will be the annual Bubbles + Oceans Afterparty, showcasing 30 of the world's top Champagne houses and sparkling wine producers.

And this is just the tip of it, man. There's so much going on and so little room to write it all. Go to www.whistlercornucopia.com for all the tasty, juicy details.

Poo Font hits daytime television

Speaking of food, Arne Gutmann, mastermind behind the beloved Poo Font - which is poised to tackle Helvetica's stronghold on the graphic design industry any day now - appeared on the Shaw TV talk show Urban Rush last week.

Gutmann, sporting a blinding neon blue, yellow and pink track jacket, discusses the creation of the "most organic-based (font) in the world" with hosts Fiona Forbes and Michael Eckford. Much of what's discussed has been featured in this paper, but everyone should check the video out at www.poofont.com. Best quote of the segment: "I'm not manipulating this. I'm not using chopsticks."

There's something surreal about watching Gutmann discuss his excrement in such detail on daytime television...but then again, Real Housewives of New Jersey is a hit television show, so there you go. To-may-toe/to-mah-toe, really.

Go to Whistler olympic Plaza...

Details for the Whistler Presents Concert Series kicks off Friday Aug. 5 with a three day bender of music and love and people standing huddled together on tha wonderful brand new lawn in the centre of the village under what everyone hopes will be clear skies.

The program will run every weekend throughout August, leading up to the official opening of the pavilion on Saturday, Aug. 27, and will resume Friday, Sept. 9, after Jazz on the Mountain at Whistler ,to coincide with the GranFondo.

Performances on those first three weekends will held on the temporary stage that was used last week for the Crankworx concerts. The opening of the new pavilion will feature considerably better sound and shelter from the skies, should it decide to never show us the sun again.

Entertainers have yet to be announced but the RMOW promises that the series will feature "some of the biggest names in music" that the family can enjoy. Here's hoping for Butthole Surfers. Or Anthrax.

...and then go to the Two Acre Shaker

The Best Party of All Time of 2011, the Two Acre Shaker, is happening in Pemberton on Aug. 13 and everyone should go. Unless you're a meany. Meanies are technically welcome but they won't be well received.

The third installment of this epic party is bigger than last year, with live music and DJs over 12 hours and a giant disco ball. I've seen that disco ball, man, and I tell you it's worth the cost of entry.

The line-up this year includes Smalltown DJs, The Funk Hunters, Topless Gay Love Tekno Party, Erica Dee and Honey Larochelle, The Root Sellers, Vinyl Ritchie, The Librarian, Casa Rosa, DJ-Surgeon, Phroh, Tessa Amy, Cheeky Disco and DJ Lonny Cash.

Tickets are on sale now for $40 at Pemberton Bike Co. and Mt. Currie Coffee Co. in Pemberton; Evolution in Whistler; Trinity Romance in Squamish; and Sitka Surf and Skate Shop in both Vancouver and Victoria.

Onsite camping will also be available for $5. Visit www.twoacreshaker.com and its spacecraft-operating llama (you'll see) for more information.