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 Rapure, sometimes referred to in English as "Rappie Pie" is a traditional Acadian dish made from potatoes from which the starch have been removed, reconstituted with meat broth, then baked in the oven until golden brown. In this photo is the finished pheasant rapure, served with pickled root beet and solomon gundy (pickled herring).

 There is no "one" recipe for Rapure.  Subtle cultural differences between Acadian Regions have lead to many variables.  Some regions prefer a soupier rapure while others prefer a dryer, firmer potatoe pie. Some regions vary the coarseness of the grate, ranging from the finely pureed potato stock used in this recipe, to loosly grated potatoe. 

  One this is constant: the potato is grated or pureed, starches removed, and reconstituted with boiling meat broth. 

  For this recipe, I am using a small pheasant, and the potato pulp is a commercially available product made specially for rapure and potato dumplings. It is found in the frozen food section of MOST Nova Scotia grocers. 

  Preparation time:  FIVE HOURS. 

 First, you need a bird, in this case, pheasant. Also, butter, salt, pepper, fresh basil, fresh parsley, small greens, potato (cubed), garlic and onion, diced.

 Brown all of these ingredients in a large soup pot.

 Once the ingredients are seared enough to favour a stock, add six cups of water and boil the hell out of it.

 When the meat is cooked, remove it from the broth and cool it.

 DO NOT DISCARD THE BROTH.

 Allow your potato pulp to thaw at room temperature. never attempt to thaw this stuff in the microwave. It looks rather unassuming, and so do the salted onion greens.

 Carefully debone the pheasant, saving all possible edible meat. Rapure is intended to be a very frugal dish, making the most of its ingredients with very little waste.

  Salted onion greens are traditional in Nova Scotia, but some variations of the dish in New Brunswick and the Magdeleine Islands use salted marsh grasses.  Parsley is more commonly used in Nova Scotia, but in New Brunswick, you will likely see summer savory, particularily in the areas where the plant grows wild. 

All of the Rapure's peices ready to come together: potato, pheasant, salted onion greens, onions and parsly. 

Gather the potato, onion greens, chopped onion and parsley in a large bowl. Mix it all up together with your hands, making sure there are no large frozen potato clumps. A wooden spoon is the essential mixing tool. 

Bring broth to a roaring boil.  Add water if you need, because for this next part we need seven to eight cups of broth.   

Add the boiling broth to the potato mixture two cups at a time.  Mix together with the wooden spoon until consistant.  Repeat for each two cups of broth. 

DO NOT ADD ALL THE BROTH AT ONCE. 

Continue adding two cups at a time, mixing thouroughly each time.  Through the wooden spoon the mixture will at first seem to harden, then become runnier as more is added. This is where most people stop adding broth, and that is the most common mistake for a failed Rapure.  Continue adding two cups at a time until the mixture begins to set. This happens because the potato has began to cook from the heat of the broth. At this point, when your mixture is ready, your arm will be sore.  If it isn't, you have not mixed it enough.    Because the potato has become more solid, the wooden spoon will have no problem standing up by itself. 

 Butter a large baking dish liberally. Fill halfway with the potato mixture. Add the pheasant meat. Do not mix.

 Finish with another layer of potato, completely coverng the meat.

 Bake in a 385C degree oven for at least three hours, or until the dish is covered by a deep brown crust.

Serve with molasses, butter, salt and pepper. 

Rogues Roost is an isolated cove, with narrows  only a few feet deep in some places.

It is located in the vicinity of the villages of Lower Prospect and Prospect, Nova Scotia. The Rogue's Roost and Snow's Cove of Rogues Roost are the sheltered anchorages in the narrow passages between Roost Island and the mainland. 

Notorious for it's unique geological features which trapped many a Pirate and Rum Runner. 

According to some websites, the Roost was popular as a hideout for privateers during the War of 1812. Legend has it that Young Teaser, a soldier and his boat of the same name, now haunt the route.

Notable shipwrecks in the area include the SS Atlantic in 1873 & the HMS Tribune in 1797.

ROOST ISLAND

  Roost Island features a small inlet only accessible by kayak during high high tide.

  This "hidden lake" is one of the most quiet spots, but don't be surprised if a kayak tour pops in at high tide. A colony of terns nests here.

SNOW'S COVE

Named after a long-time stewart of the area, Capt John Snow, Snow's Cove of the Rogues Roost features a tight exit into Cub Basin. 

During high tide, it allows a sheltered route for kayaks and canoes.

A bronze plaque affixed to a granite cliff face reads as follows:

“In Memory of John Snow, 1914-1970; keen small boat enthusiast, founding member of NS Schooner Association, leader of many organized cruises, an outstanding shipmate; [this plaque] erected by his many friends on this the site of his favorite anchorage, Snow’s Cove of Rogue’s Roost, ‘…and all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow rover, and quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick’s over’; Erected July 15, 1972”. 

John Snow drowned in a a tragic car accident in Halifax's Northwest Arm in 1970.

More Lore

Legend has it that the Rogue's Roost was more than just a sheltered anchorage. 

During all the great oceangoing eras, from pirates, to the exile of the the acadians, to the turn of the century rum runners, the Rogue's Roost's clever geological design was the rogue captain's worst enemy.

For once you had found safety in the anchorage of Snow's Cove, there was only one narrow exit... and the impassable backdoor into Cub Basin. Like a mousetrap, an entire ship and it's crew, could find themselves trapped, with very little effort on the part of the assailant.

 Even as recently as the last prohibition, this safe-haven was notorious for police - and bootlegger raids. 

Evading by Salts & Corks

  Local lore recounts tales that rum runners knew exactly how many corks it took to float a bottle of rum, and exactly how many pounds of salt it took to sink it.  Armed with this knowledge they soon starting evading the hunter by throwing burlap bags filled with salt, rum and cork to the ocean depths.

  While their ships were examined by officers, the rum was safely stowed on the ocean floor. 

   No sooner were the officers gone that the salt had dissolved enough to let the cork float the rum. Another speakeasy could continue to thrive... 

  The universality of this rum running legend is not limited to Nova Scotia culture. In fact, it would seem that the exact scene is shown in an acclaimed Indian film, Nayagan, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nayagan which is on Time Magazine's Best 100 Films of All Time list.  This bollywood blockbuster even won an Academy Award.

  Take a look at this Music Video http://is.gd/4Doxc where the dumping of good under the sea takes place. At 2.50

   In October of 2009, East Coast Outfitters, a local tour guide company which focuses on tours of the area, recreated the scene.  Using water conditioner salt, a plastic burlap bag, and a mason jar equal in weight to the rum.   Sure enough, the legend stands true. The loot remained submerges for over an hour, before slowly floating back to the surface, unharmed.

Sailing through the Revenue Act

Excerpt taken from a sailing journal dated 1907, a ship returning to Newfoundland from a Trouting expedition:

Topography, Fauna & Vegetation

The area is mostly covered in heathers, low grasses and evergreens. Berries abound nearly all seasons. The landscape is rough, and barren. Glacial Striations are noticeable on the top of Roost Island and surroundings. Deep narrow channels were carved out by retreating ice sheets tens of thousands of years ago. In many areas the topsoil has eroded to weather. Large erratic boulders and glacial anomalies salt and pepper the landscape.  Areas inhabited by the Double Crested Cormorant appear as lifeless patches in the evergreens, destroyed by the birds messy occupation.

 Deer, mink, and a variety of other small game inhabit all the surrounding lands.

Hawks, Grey & Common Gulls, Terns and Bald Eagles are common sight in the Audubon life. 

The Great Blue Heron also makes the Rogue's Roost it's home and is a certain sight, particularly in the evening when the sky is overcast.

Visiting the Rogue's Roost

 There is no land access to the Rogue's Roost. It is one of Nova Scotia's marine features. Accessible by sailboat, pleasure boat, canoe or kayak. 

 The local outfitter offers sunset tours at reasonable rates http://eastcoastoutfitters.net  

Coordinates

Entrance into the Roost

•  44 28' 18.2" N

•  63 45' 24.7" W
  

 Snow's Cove

• 44 28' 14.0" N

• 63 45' 2.0" W

   

  Shipwrecks in the vicinity
  

     RMS Atlantic

  Year: 1 April 1873

  Location: The Atlantic struck an underwater rock called Marr's Head 50 metres from Mosher Island (Meagher's Island), Nova Scotia. 

  Stats:  562 died with a total survivor count of 390 people of the 952 aboard

     HMS Tribune

  Year: 16 November 1797

  Location: Thrum Cap shoal, in the vicinity of Chebucto Head

  Stats:  12 survived of over 240

   More Photos 

  

  A sailboat in Snow's Cove. Foreground is Roost Island. Background is the mainland. With secret passages like this, a smuggler could sail an entire schooner right through the Revenue Act

   

   

   

   

   

  
  

  A sailboat leaving the Rogues Roost

   

  

  On Roost Island, the double crested cormorant drying its feathers, doing the chicken dance

   

  

  Sea kayaking from Hearn Island to Roost Island

   

  

  Bottom, right - Hearn Island Beach
  Top, left - Roost Island

  Top right - Cub Basin
  

   

   

Insight into low-energy, low-cost public access solutions for the Halifax Regional C@P Site network

< Linutop has had mixed reaction at our site. The size and "all in one" package seems to impress people the most. What I hear the most, and I agree, is that it's sluggish - especially with video. The children that use our site usually jump on Youtube to listen to music while they chat on MSN and Facebook - and maybe even play a game online at the same time. And they quickly figure out when a computer is slow and switch to another.

I did have one user who jumped on the Linutop to send email and for basic surfing and didn't even notice that she wasn't on a Windows machine. >

An Asus EEEpc also entered the picture.  Having used the Asus netbook extensively in our daily office operations for over a year, we were impressed by its performance.

This EEEpc runs on the factory installed Ubuntu, however in order to obtain maximum performance, we have broken out of the <user friendly> GUI and now run a normal version of Ubuntu. The processor is overclocked and many features have been tweaked for performance.

Despite having gathered the attention of the manufacturer directly through our Facebook Group, it seems that support for this generation of EEEpc is limited, and the manufacturer has already moved on to differant projects.

For the purposes of testing the EEEpc netbook, we used it with the solid state 3M MmPro 110 LED Projector, seen in the photo.  Both the EEEpc and the LED projector have stellar performance - but the limited support removes it as a contender.

The next two systems that we tested was the WIN Enterprises PL-1030 with the AMD Geode LX 500Mhz Processor and the FitPC 2. Photo: (smallest) FitPC2, (middle) Linutop 2, (largest) PL-1030. 

 The Win Enterprises PL-1030 is by far the most robust thinclient we tested. Performance is great, fast system. 

This system is by far the best fanless/diskless thinclient we have seen but the price makes it prohibitive, landed here it is over 800$. 

Nonetheless, we dissembled the 1030 to show you it's innards. Everything about this computer is designed to make it last, from a sealed case and heavy metal chassis, this one is made for though commercial applications.

Here are some images of the PL-1030 chassis.

Finally we received the FitPC 2 for testing.

 
Manufactered by CompuLab, FitPC 2 is the ultimate Green computer.  Our test model was the FitPC2 Linux which comes standard (as a MiniPC) with a Intel Atom Z530 1.6GHz processor and 160 GB hard drive.
At idle this thinclient is rated at 1 watts, and a staggering 8 watts at peak performance. The energy savings alone will soon pay for itself. In addition, fit-PC2 has no hazardous substances and at 313cc / 370g is so small that electronic waste is negligible.

The Fit-PC2 body is industrial-grade, die-cast aluminum with no venting holes. The body itself is used for heat dissipation. fit-PC2 ability to withstand a high level of shock, vibration and extreme temperatures - depending only on the type of disk used - with an SSD, fit-PC2 is one of the most rugged PCs for industrial and automotive applications. As a thinclient, the unit is noiseless and heatless, and truly solid-state.

In terms of price, FitPC as tested was under 400$, and as a stand-alone thinclient, would be under 200$ per unit. This is the first in our research that fits our goal for price.

Drawbacks include no VGA output (DVI only), and as a PC is is not solid state (it uses a spinning drive), and the lack of a standard SD card reader (though any USB card reader will circumnavigate this drawback).

After speaking with Stephen Kelly, the projects retained consultant, it appears that FitPC 2 is "the one" that best meets our original targets of low energy consumption, low price, and no moving parts.

FitPC 2 is only four inches by four inches, less than one inch thick. It is easily mounted to the back of any LCD Monitor, completely eliminating those bulky PC's and tangled cords. Our test unit is currently installed at theHub Halifax for further testing by patrons in the IT community. The photos shows the installation of the thinclient.


The Greening of Lake Echo C@P begins here.  The critical part of the process was to first identify a thinclient that suited our needs. The next episode now involves careful deployment, optimization and testing in a real-life C@P Site.

Enter our second consultant, IT Greening expert and owner of tintedGreen Technologies, Mike Lovell - a proven leader in Green IT Solutions.

We can save energy by replacing old generation PC's with thinclients - but we can eliminate many more ongoing costs with virtualization of the software through a dedicated server. Green computing is not just about becoming more environmentally friendly. It is also about using Green Computing technologies that can benefit an organization's Information Technology (IT) and solve real problems. Using virtualized workstations can save on hardware, software, and energy.

Virtualization removes the computing power from the end-terminal, which gives us a rare opportunity to recylce ailing PC's as "terminals" - which will communicate with the mega-powerful server. Even the operating system is on the server! This changeover to terminal can be done as simply as inserting a pre-formatted USB key, and restarting the computer. Instantly, the old againg PC will come to life as a powerful, open source public access kiosk. 

This eliminates all the need to software license renewals, amd on-site technical support.

Our guinea-pig for this new concept of virtualized kiosks rather than stand-alone PC's is the Lake Echo C@P Site located in the Lake Echo Community Center.

The greening of Lake Echo C@P will begin with a comprehensive energy audit. In order to properly measure the success of this new system, we need to be able to know precisely the energy consumption of the C@P site both before the refit, and after. This IT Greening Study will provide concrete data on the kilowatts hours economised.  Extensive further savings will be noticed when usng the USB reformat for old computers (rather than purchasing new ones) as well as in the low cost of the thinclient, under 200$ per unit.

Once installed and fully tested in Lake Echo, we will begin to migrate other sites onto the new virtualized environment. What this means is that although the server will be located in Lake Echo, any site in our network can log into it - as easy as inserting a USB stick and turning the power on.  Instantly, an operating system will provide you with all the basic functions of public access to the World Wide Web.

The greening of Lake Echo C@P will include thr retrofit of it's current public access PCs to all-new energy saving LCD monitors and FitPC clients.

NRHA Retail Innovator of the year -Green Marketing

"Inaugural Retail Recognition Program Sponsored by Vermont American"

Ten home improvement retailers are being honored for outstanding achievement as owners and managers of independently owned hardware and building supply stores in the United States and Canada. They are honorees in the 2009 Retail Innovators of the Year program. Sponsored by Vermont American, the program is organized by the North American Retail Hardware Association (NRHA) and Hardware Retailing magazine and is dedicated to honoring independent retailers who are setting the example for retail innovation in the home improvement industry.

"These retailers are leading the industry by example in what can be achieved by independent retailers across the home improvement industry. Their example encourages other independent retailers to continue their pursuit of excellence in hardware/home center retailing, and we applaud their efforts."
— Bill Lee, NRHA managing director and publisher of Hardware Retailing magazine

This year’s Retail Innovator Award recipients will be showcased at the upcoming NRHA Annual Convention and All-Industry Conference, which will take place July 13-15, 2009, at the San Antonio Marriott Rivercenter in San Antonio, Texas. The Retail

Innovator Awards program will be held on July 14, where the honorees will be recognized for their accomplishments. They will also be featured in the August issue of Hardware Retailing magazine. 

Marc Robichaud, of UJ Robichaud TIMBR Mart is named NHRA Retail Innovator of the year in the green marketing category. 

When other retailers were crafting their green strategies, this fifth-generation retailer was already living them … at home and in his 140-year-old business. For the past decade, Robichaud has been an expert at helping his customers live greener lives.

Through his efforts, he continues to save customers money, reduce their carbon footprint and make them loyal customers.

For more information on the 2009 Retail Innovator of the Year Awards or the 2009 NRHA Convention and All-Industry Conference, log on to www.nrha.org.

Click here to view NRHA press release.  (PDF Format)

Click here to view TIMBR Mart press release (PDF Format)

Marc Robichaud to receive Retail Innovator Award

TIM-BR MART DEALER’S GREEN MARKETING EFFORTS RECOGNIZED ON BOTH SIDES OF THE BORDER

Monday, June 15, 2009 (Calgary, AB) –  It’s no secret within TIM-BR MART that Marc Robichaud of U.J. Robichaud TIM-BR MART in Meteghan Centre, Nova Scotia is ‘greener’ than most. And now he’s being recognized on both sides of the border. Today the company announced that Robichaud, a 5th generation retailer, will receive the North American Retail Hardware Association’s (NRHA) Retail Innovator of the Year award in the ‘Green Marketing’ category.

Over 10 years ago, Marc felt strongly that taking the company in an environmentally friendly direction could define them in the decades to come. Since then, he has worked to carve a niche for the company as leaders in ‘green’ and has been recognized locally, provincially and now internationally for his efforts.

Robichaud’s approach to being an eco-minded business is all-encompassing and doesn’t stop at the wide variety of future-friendly products he stocks on his shelves. He’s implemented store policies and practices (like ‘no idling’ for the delivery fleet and using wood scraps as a heat energy source for on-site buildings), he employs online selling and marketing tactics, and of course, walks the talk himself outside his store—literally—during his daily walks to work and a whole host of other personal practices that are green. Marc has become a ‘go-to’ person for customers, organizations and businesses seeking green speakers, and even the local radio station (they’re considering having him host a series of environmental clips on-air).

Marc’s view on eco-consciousness conveys a long-standing awareness: “I think my generation understood at an early age that we would have to create the change we wanted to see. We did not just wake up one day and say, ‘hey, we have to do things differently,’ but we grew up thinking that way. We realized that the planet could not survive if we did not treat it with more respect.”

A key plank in Robichaud’s multi-pronged eco-strategy is EnerGrade, a TIM-BR MART initiative which helps customers improve the energy-efficiency of their home. Marc and his team grabbed onto this program quickly and established themselves as the destination for people looking to undertake efficiency projects. They now help customers all the way from project planning, to home energy audits (essential to access government grants) to the project completion; he has also embraced EcoChoice, TIM-BR MART’s designation for products that are better for the environment.

“Marc is a fantastic Ambassador in bringing our retail environmental initiatives to life,” commented Steve Stremecki, Vice President, Retail Services at TIM-BR MART, adding: “He shows what can happen when a retailer chooses to see things a little differently and sticks to a vision and path. What’s admirable is Marc is trending to the future in a family business that’s over 140-years-old. To walk that balance between history and change—and be successful at it—that’s ‘retail innovation’.”

The NRHA’s Retail Innovator Awards are intended to honour the outstanding achievements of owners and managers of independently owned hardware and building supply stores in both Canada and the U.S. Marc Robichaud will receive his award at the NRHA’s annual conference in San Antonio, Texas next month.

In business since 1967, TIM-BR MART represents more than 740 Dealer locations across Canada, over $2 billion in annual purchases and over $3.4 billion in retail sales. TIM-BR MART’s focus is to be the buying group of choice for independent retailers, commercial dealers and manufacturers in Canada by combining their volume and purchasing at the lowest cost, understanding the needs of their Dealers, and offering a menu of value-added services. To learn more about TIM-BR MART, visit www.timbrmart.ca.

-30-

photo accompanies release

For more information:

Aimee Feaver                           

aimee.feaver@timbrmart.ca      

website: http://ujr.ca