Last month, a team from Bridgehead traveled down to Guatemala to visit the sources of their coffees. They traveled throughout the countryside, meeting growers and visiting cooperatives. One of the highlights? A cupping competition to determine the best coffees produced by CODECH, an umbrella cooperative that represents 300+ farmers in rural Huehuetanango. Here, we get a glimpse into the wonderful world of cupping – coffee beans are ground, brewed, smelled, tasted, spit out and analysed by judges. Some of the best end up here in our city – that medium... | Continue reading article

The National Capital Region has a lot of blogging parents.  In fact, after viewing more than 600 local blogs, I would argue that there are more family-friendly sites in our region than those that focus on hockey or politics.  With this in mind, this week’s column contains a round-up of family blogs. Recommended Starting Points The Ottawa Mommy Club is a fantastic source of information for parents and anyone else interested in family-related posts.  Their list of bloggers alone has dozens of sites that cover everything from parenting to home... | Continue reading article

Listen here or on iTunes. Ryan and Katie started the show off with an interview with provocative local photographer Jonathan Hobin. Though his images of children in metaphorical representations drawn from world issues may be familiar to Ottawans, his work is starting to make waves (and draw criticism) internationally. He is currently about to have his first solo exhibition in Toronto, but he took the time to call in from a hotel lobby in Hogtown. Next, they chatted with Lee and Janik, who are both a part of this weekend’s... | Continue reading article

The Ottawa Public Library recently announced the winners of the third annual Teen Tech Week Video Contest.  Teens aged 13 to 18 were invited to create a one-minute video about their favourite book. The video could be a book trailer, parody, review, dramatization of their favourite scene, or anything related to their book of choice.  Below are the top three videos. 1st Place: (Curious George Rides a Bike).  Directed by Zachary Spence, a graduate of Canterbury High School, and starring his two friends, Max Spence and Ryan Graves. 2ndPlace: (Silver Wing).  Directed... | Continue reading article

Apt613 is busier than ever! We need some help to make sure we can continue to cover the events, news and arts that we love. We’re looking for a part-time blog coordinator to help out with the day-to-day operations of the website, which include: assisting our volunteer writers and editors by editing and posting daily blog articles; promoting articles on social media; responding to inquiries about coverage and partnerships; programming our weekly radio show, Apartment613 Live; helping to plan events. If this sounds like something you’re interested in taking on,... | Continue reading article

May 4 has for long been a landmark date for Star Wars fans. But recently, it’s moved beyond being a reason for private snickering between sci-fi devotees with a penchant for wordplay, becoming a holiday of sorts for geeks of all stripes. If this sounds like you, be sure to take part in a double dosage of geeky revelry by hitting local comic book stores for Free Comic Book Day on Saturday, May 4. The Comic Book Shoppe promises to give away a selection of free comics, complete with photo opportunities... | Continue reading article

I transplanted here from New York in July 2012 and I have a confession to make. In my first few months in Ottawa I dragged my partner into various random places (often on Elgin St.) for a drink, and then complained that, “no one in this town knows how to make a proper Negroni!”  He would simply roll his eyes and tell me not to say that too loudly. Yes, I know it sounds a little pretentious and obnoxious, but it seemed to be the sad, honest truth.  Part of... | Continue reading article

Former Ottawa resident Gloria Song is a lawyer practicing in Cambridge Bay, Nunavut. She also keeps a blog about life in the far north.  Even though Nunavut is a Canadian territory, living in the Arctic can feel like a foreign country or another planet. Soon after my partner and I got married, we left Ottawa to start up a new life in Cambridge Bay, Nunavut. Since then, one of the things that I’ve fallen in love with here is the local arts culture. Even though all of the communities in... | Continue reading article

Every year Apartment613 works with Jane’s Walk Ottawa - a festival of free neighbourhood walking tours - to give a tour of an area where we love to hang. We pull together some of the business owners we know (and some we want to know better) and ask them the sorts of questions we’d ask if we were interviewing them for the blog. We lead a group of walkers door-to-door to listen in on the conversation. It’s a neat opportunity to see a neighborhood close-up and meet some of the people that we think are... | Continue reading article