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6- The Oakville Beaver Weekend, Saturday May 3, 2008 www.oakvillebeaver.com The Oakville Beaver 467 Speers Rd., Oakville Ont. L6K 3S4 (905) 845-3824 Fax: 337-5567 Classified Advertising: 905-632-4440 Circulation: 845-9742 The Oakville Beaver is a member of the Ontario Press Council. The council is located at 80 Gould St., Suite 206, Toronto, Ont., M5B 2M7. Phone (416) 340-1981. Advertising is accepted on the condition that, in the event of a typographical error, that portion of advertising space occupied by the erroneous item, together with a reasonable allowance for signature, will not be charged for, but the balance of the advertisement will be paid for at the applicable rate. The publisher reserves the right to categorize advertisements or decline. Editorial and advertising content of the Oakville Beaver is protected by copyright. Unauthorized use is prohibited. Commentary NEIL OLIVER Publisher DAVID HARVEY General Manager JILL DAVIS Editor in Chief ROD JERRED Managing Editor DANIEL BAIRD Advertising Director RIZIERO VERTOLLI Photography Director SANDY PARE Business Manager Metroland Media Group Ltd. includes: Ajax/Pickering News Advertiser, Alliston Herald/Courier, Arthur Enterprise News, Barrie Advance, Caledon Enterprise, Brampton Guardian, Burlington Post, Burlington Shopping News, City Parent, Collingwood/Wasaga Connection, East York Mirror, Erin Advocate/Country Routes, Etobicoke Guardian, Flamborough Review, Georgetown Independent/Acton Free Press, Harriston Review, Huronia Business Times, Lindsay This Week, Markham Economist & Sun, Midland/Penetanguishine Mirror, Milton MARK DILLS Director of Production MANUEL GARCIA Production Manager CHARLENE HALL Director of Distribution ALEXANDRIA ANCHOR Circ. Manager WEBSITE oakvillebeaver.com The Oakville Beaver is a division of Guest Columnist Julia has a knack for serving smiles Jill Davis, Editor in Chief, Halton Division can't remember the first time that I actually met her, but what I do know is that she made an impression, Jill Davis most likely a vivid impression. She is vivacious, highly expressive, a smart entrepreneur who just happens to have a heart of gold. The fact she is a culinary expert with a knack of being able to 'read' people are among the reasons, I believe, that make her so successful. My husband, John, and Julia enjoy a special bond because of their love for food and a shared opinion that a good meal is more than the sum of its ingredients. John's beloved mom, Irene, who has long since passed away, was an absolutely amazing cook. She was happiest when preparing a large family feast. Rarely did she sit down with us as we polished off dish after dish. No, she would prefer to lean on a counter or chair watching the happy faces appreciate her labour of love. And love it was. Irene could prepare a Lake Erie perch dinner that makes me salivate just thinking about it. Her lasagna was a work of art as were her strawberryrhubarb pies and angel food cake. To this day, I still use her battered tin pie plates, but no matter how much I try the results of my baking never quite match Irene's creations. When John first met Julia, the savvy entrepreneur, they began a conversation that has lasted to this day. The two truly believe that an enjoyable meal can bring people together. Children and their parents can have the best discussions over dinner. The family that eats together truly does stay together. If any of you readers were fans of HBO's Sopranos you will know that every episode involved a meal or two - people coming together to share the day's events or what was going on in their lives. Julia was impressed that John spoke so lovingly of his mom even though more than 22 years have slipped by since Irene left us. Last year, John told me he wanted to give Julia his mom's prized cookbook. It was a 1940's hard-covered American book with more than a few dog-eared pages that led the reader to the best recipes. I was surprised that my husband wanted to give up such a treasure, but, in all honesty, it's not like I ever opened it. Julia was taken aback when she received the cookbook. She said she would cherish the book and give it a place of honour in her culinary library. Fast-forward to this year and Julia is busy working on opening another restaurant. It will be located in north Oakville and will offer a menu that focuses on all that is great about Italian dishes. John says he can already smell the homemade lasagna. Julia called me recently -- she has an uncanny ability to know when I need a sympathetic ear -- and asked if I had a photograph of John's mom working in the kitchen. "Why?" I asked. Her answer stunned me. She wants to use the photograph as part of a collage of pictures for her new restaurant. It won't be just any collage. Julia wants pictures of all the women who have made a difference in the lives of their families. What a great honour for John and me. I just know Irene is smiling. Jill Davis can be reached at jdavis@haltonsearch.com. IAN OLIVER Group Publisher Media Group Ltd. Canadian Champion, Milton Shopping News, Mississauga Business Times, Mississauga News, Napanee Guide, Newmarket/Aurora EraBanner, Northumberland News, North York Mirror, Oakville Beaver, Oakville Shopping News, Oldtimers Hockey News, Orillia Today, Oshawa/Whitby/Clarington Port Perry This Week, Owen Sound Tribune, Palmerston Observer, Peterborough This Week, Picton County Guide, Richmond Hill/Thornhill/Vaughan Liberal, Scarborough Mirror, Stouffville/Uxbridge Tribune, Forever Young, City of York Guardian RECOGNIZED FOR EXCELLENCE BY: Ontario Community Newspapers Association Canadian Community Newspapers Association Suburban Newspapers of America I THE OAKVILLE BEAVER IS PROUD OFFICIAL MEDIA SPONSOR FOR: United Way of Oakville TV AUCTION Ladies and gentlemen: the fax, er, facts as he sees them D o I have to spell it out for you? I do? Okay, I am one of the world's worst spellers. When it comes to orthography, I'm the protagonist in a famous novel by Dostoevsky. I'm The Idiot. These are not just the self-deprecating pronouncements of an insecure writer. These are more or less facts. At least, that's what one of my early editors told me (or, rather, screamed at me) when I wrote a column in which I witlessly called the perennially boring Super Bowl, the Super Boar (instead of the Super Bore). Ah, a spelling mistake that transformed the Super Bowl into, well, the Super Pig. Mind you, my editor was livid mostly because he'd (moronically) missed the egregious error: Super Boar made it into print, and he was duly chewed out by his boss. I contend I was a poor speller at birth, and I only got worse with age. At first this worried me because I knew early on that I wanted to be a writer (if the whole `rock star who couldn't play an instrument thing' didn't pan out), and yet I was dreadfully deficient in a basic skill I thought all writers needed to possess for success. Then I discovered that many famous writers, including literary lion F. Scott Fitzgerald, could not spell "boo" if their reputations and royalties depended on it, even if you spotted them two letters; in personal missives, Fitzgerald often misspelled the name of his good friend and great rival, Ernest Hemingway, giving Papa's last name an extra `m'. You have no idea how impressed (and how jealous) I was when I recently stumbled upon the Canwest Canspell National Spelling Bee on television and found Andy Juniper grade-eight spelling whizzes rhyming off words like bibelot (huh?) and desquamate (huh?). You have no idea how blown away I was when Emma Brownlie of Ottawa coolly spelled hamadryad (a dry ham sandwich that would benefit from the addition of mustard?) to win the competition and pocket a $15,000 RESP. I mean, this is the generation for whom spelling is supposedly a lost art. This is the generation we hear (and fear) is being done in by the invention of the spell check and by the proliferation of text messaging -- it's estimated that some five-billions text messages are sent around the world each day -- wherein kids Emma's age ignore conventional spelling in favor of creative spelling, odd abbreviations and their own personal shorthand. OMG. ROFLMAO. Yet, according to Eric Paulson, associate professor of literary education at the University of Cincinnati: "We often don't give kids enough credit with their control over language." He says kids are often (and easily) able to shift from short-formed texting to writing well thought-out essays "without getting discombobulated." Now, I have no idea what this means, and I certainly don't know how to spell that big word, but as you can imagine, I've always wanted to use `discombobulated' in a column. By writing every day for the past 100 years (or so it sometimes seems), I've been able to upgrade my spelling skills (although, admittedly, not to young Emma's level). Still, when my kids come to me with spelling questions, I feel the rising angst of ortographobia (fear of making spelling mistakes). "Dad, how do you spell segue?" "Well, hon, I spell it s-a-g-w-a-y, which is why it might be wise if we just looked it up in the dictionary to see the correct spelling." Andy Juniper can be visited at his Web site, www.strangledeggs.com, or contacted at ajuniper@strangledeggs.com.