Vic West Corn Roast

Every year, for the last ten years, in September the community comes together to celebrate and what a party! This is one of my favorite events with live music, zucchini car races, art making and of course corn on the cob. - Fern

Spiral Cafe

A primary supporter of the Vic West Community is the Spiral Cafe. Here is a coffee shop slash restaurant that actually is everything that Starbucks and Tim Horton would like you to believe they are. The Spiral Cafe is a real community resource that showcases and highlights local artists and musicians, supports Victoria West community events like the annual corn roast, and in general serves as an unofficial community centre. It's all home-grown and my hat's off to the owners and staff. Hey, the coffee is great too!

---

Spiral Cafe, in Vic West at 418 Craigflower Road.

Victoria West Community Corn Roast

I mentioned in yesterday's post that I'd spent the afternoon at a corn roast in my neighborhood and above is the poster announcing it. I very much enjoy these small neighborhood events and I am happy to live in a city where most neighborhoods have something similar a couple of times each year. This kind of event is more typical of small towns and contributes a great deal to building a real sense of community in this city. My hat's off to the Vic West Community Association for making this happen. Thanks.

Below, two of the event's organizers finish off the corn maze they constructed with the corn shucks. I did not take this photo. A gentleman more intrepid than I scaled a nearby post box to take his own photo and was kind enough to snap this one for me also. The corn roast events took place under the awnings visible on the top left.Below on the left is the corn pot full of delicious sweet corn. On the right is one of the entrants for the Zuchini Nascar Race.

It's a neighborhood that is rich with talented musicians and below are only two of the groups that performed.

Children of Celebrities

Balkan Babes
This event also celebrated the sixth anniversary of the Spiral Cafe, a great place that I'll write more about soon. Well, there were other good things to eat including some great apple pies, and interesting neighbors to meet and talk with, including our local member of parliament (Denise Savoie), a brief rain shower, guinea pigs, rabbits, chickens, a farmer's market, face painting...but I imagine that if you have read this far and you're not from Vic West, your eyes are glazing over. So I will just let you imagine just how nice it all was on this warm afternoon in late September and leave you with the photo below, when some of the local children came up to draw the winning tickets in the raffle.