A Taste of Naples

Wednesday last week (March 23rd) was probably the nicest day I have experienced all winter. The sun came blazing in the windows all along the backside of the Think! office and filled the entire space with warmth and natural light! It finally started to feel like spring (although that’s changed now that the weather has reverted back to being grey and dreary).

Some of our colleagues were in snowy, cold Vulcan, a small Alberta town, so we gave them the Vulcan salute in the sunshine on our way to the restaurant

Earlier in the week Ben had invited everyone at the office out to lunch at a newly opened restaurant on East Cordova in Gastown called Nicli Antica Pizzeria. We had planned to go on Wednesday, and since it was such a beautiful day, instead of driving we decided to walk (Thank God I wore comfortable shoes, the walk took us 25 mins!)

For those of you (like myself) that have never heard of Nicli Antica Pizzeria, it is probably due to the fact that they opened about 6 weeks ago. They make authentic and traditional wood-fired pizza in the Naples-style (Neapolitan pizza…I’ll explain later on, and no it has nothing to do with the ice cream). They make their pizzas using only the finest and freshest traditional ingredients and their wood-fired oven, is authentic too – made from the stone of Mt. Vesuvius. Nicli’s pizza is formed by hand and cooked in a 900ºF wood-fired oven for roughly 90 seconds. This creates a pizza with the following:

• A light and fluffy crust which has a tiny bit of crunch
• Flame blackened blisters may appear along the crust
• A soft thin centre
• 27-30 centimetres in diameter

This is the wood-fire oven in the back of the restaurant. I liked being able to see them make the pizzas

We got three different pizzas to split between Ben, Paul, Helen, Robyn and myself. Originally we only thought to get two pizzas…but they all looked so good that we figured we’d get the extra one and just have some excellent leftovers…but as it turned out there were no leftovers! The first pizza we ordered was the Capricciosa made with pomodoro, parmigiano, fior di latte (soft type of mozzarella made from cow’s milk), prosciutto cotto, artichokes, funghi, black olives, and basil. The second pizza we ordered was the Diavola with pomodoro, parmigiano, fior di latte, sopressatta (hot salami), parmigiano, basil, and finished with chili oil. And my personal favourite was the last pizza we ordered, the Bianca with extra virgin olive oil, parmigiano, roasted garlic, roasted onion, oregano, and gorgonzola.

From left to right: Robyn, Myself, Helen, Paul (nearest) and Ben (furthest away)

An interesting thing to note is that with the Nicli pizzas (or any authentic Neapolitan pizza) the addition of sauce, cheese and other toppings creates a pizza center that is generally soft and moist.  Because of this, Napolitanas traditionally eat their pizzas uncut with a knife and fork, or tear them apart manually and eat them folded “libretto” style. Now if you’re eating a pizza by yourself I’m sure this is a great way to do it…but when you’re sharing pizzas in a group this is a little awkward…I think we all would have appreciated a pizza cutter!

 

Ok, so now to explain a little more about Nicli’s and traditional Italian pizzas…what is Neapolitan pizza or pizza Napoletana? This is Naples-style, traditional pizza…nothing to do with the Neapolitan that is associated with Neapolitan ice cream. In Italy, there is a bill before Parliament to safeguard the traditional Italian pizza, specifying permissible ingredients and methods of processing (e.g., excluding frozen pizzas). Only pizzas that followed these guidelines can be called “traditional Italian pizzas” in Italy.

The owner of Nicli’s – Bill McCraig wants to have Nicli certified as a Vera Pizza Napoletana establishment (there is only one other certified VPN in Canada and that’s Libretto in Toronto so Nicli’s would be the only one of its kind in Vancouver). The first step of this journey is to go down to California and take the Vera Pizza Napoletana Americas Association course – which McCraig has done. According to the Vera Pizza Napoletana Americas Association, a genuine Neapolitan pizza must consist of the following:

• Dough consisting of wheat flour (usually type 0 or 00 – all this means is how finely ground the flour is and how much of the bran and germ have been removed), natural Neapolitan yeast, salt and water.
• The dough must be kneaded by hand or with a low-speed mixer.
• After the rising process, the dough must be formed strictly by hand, and may be no more than 3 mm (⅛ in) thick.
• The pizza must be baked for 60–90 seconds in a 485 °C (905 °F) stone oven with an oak-wood fire.
• When cooked, it should be crispy, tender and fragrant.

Quite a few of these guidelines are things that Nicli’s already does, so in my books they shouldn’t have any trouble getting the VPN certification (if they don’t have it already).

The following are a couple other pictures I took of around the restaurant. They’ve furnished it quite nicely even if it’s a little small (and always busy!)

Right across from us was the Bar, complete with wine selection

Off to my left was the storefront and the row of tables against the wall where we were sitting

 

Cool things at Think!

So now that I’ve been at Think! for a week I’ve come to like quite a few things about the office and the people of course.

Today, I finally got to meet William Bakker, one of the chief strategists at Think! although not for too long since he had something else to go do with Rodney. I also got to meet Ben Vadasz last Friday, although that wasn’t for too long either, since I had to leave to catch the ferry for the Island.

The urgent "To Do" list

At the office they have some really cool knick knacks floating around! Such as this really cool “To Do” list:

Most awesome stamps ever

And there is also their really cool Facebook “like” and “dislike” stamps! Needless to say I’ve stamped a couple things…

I also finished off quite a few tasks, on my first week so far I’ve done:

1. 11 pages of tourism and business media in North America, Canada, British Columbia, Alberta, Vancouver and Vancouver Island.
2. A media list of supporters and opposition for the Calgary Stampede.
3. Tweets and Facebook posts for Camping and RVing BC Coalition and the Travelling in BC pages.
4. A list of blogs in the Calgary area (similar influence as Miss 604 in Vancouver).
5. Researched the locations, contact info and dates of State Tourism Conference’s and/or Governor’s Tourism Conferences for every State in the USA.

So it’s been a great start. I’ve enjoyed working at Think! so far because I haven’t been given menial tasks to do! No paper shredding, coffee runs, or other secretarial tasks…I’ve simply been handed a real task and that’s that…as you can see in the list above. We all work in one big off so I have no problem asking questions if I have them. Everyone has been super friendly to me and they’re quite a fun, and easy going group considering all the work they do!

I have some pictures of the work space at Think! so here they are:

View from the entry way of Think! The office space and extends more to the right around the corner of the Boardroom. The Kitchen is on the left around the corner of the counter. Through the little doorway you can see 2 of the team members at Think! Phil, and Rodney.

This is the view to the right of the above image, the main workspace at Think! and I sit at the back right corner of this table

And this the view to the left of the first image, showing a bit of the kitchen space. This is also the view from my seat.

First Day At Think!

Part of my PR program’s second year requirement is for the students to spend a month of their last semester doing an unpaid internship (sometimes it can be paid…but rarely). So the second year  get increasingly stressful until BAM you’re on your practicum…plus you’re responsible for finding your own practicum. So far this semester we’ve planned a huge event (where we raised over $10,000) and had the regular 4 months worth of classes and projects crammed into 3 months. This is then followed by our month-long practicum/internship and then a couple more projects due in April before we’re done! So the practicum basically signals the end of our schooling…which is a combination of “Hooray!” and “Oh shit…” So there’s an interesting mix of excitement and nervousness!

Carrying on…with all that said, yesterday was my first day of my practicum! This year the ‘month’ goes from March 7th to April 1st. So here I am!

I’m working with Think! Social Media for my practicum, a small, fun group based out of a building in Yaletown just up the street from the Yaletown-Roundhouse Skytrain stop. They’re a social media agency with a focus in the tourism industry. On their website it very accurately describes that they provide “Social Media solutions for the Tourism industry”. About 90% of their work is in BC and rest is spread through Alberta and a couple other locations.

Yesterday I was tasked on compiling a media list for them, including some of the major media sources and tourism/marketing media from North America, Canada, BC, Vancouver area, and Vancouver Island…so far I’m on 7.5 pages and I haven’t even started on Alberta yet! Overall yesterday was a great start! I felt productive and got a fair bit done.

On a more casual note Rodney Payne, the founder and executive director, took Robyn, Phil and I out to lunch at the Hurricane Grill in Yaletown. I’d never been there before and it was quite good!

I also wrote Happy Birthday on a whiteboard for Will one of the other Think!ers.

Myself, Robyn, Rodney and Phil

As for today, my second day at Think! I believe it will be more of the same = working on the media list and a couple other tasks. It is Rodney’s birthday today and Phil brought some balloons and little Happy Birthday hats that we were wearing…but everyone has gradually taken them off (Mine was the last one standing, hahaha).

Anyway, back to work!

A Night of Make Believe

Last night was the big night for my PR Event Management classmates and I. It was the final event we’ve been planning for over a semester now – A Night of Make Believe. We had to choose a non-profit, then plan and host a fundraising event for them. Fortunately the class isn’t graded on the success or failure of the event…but on all the little aspects that go into the planning stages, such as contracts, food, theme, entertainment, and sponsorships/donations, etc.

Since this is a yearly thing the PR students do there is also some competition to see if the current PR class can out do the year before. Last year the PR students raised $8,000 for their non-profit so that became our minimum goal for this year. However our class secretly hoped to make about $10,000 since no PR class had ever made that much before. At the end of the night, after all the calculations we done and even after we subtracted all the expenses…we made over $10,000! However this didn’t only come from the event, we’ve done mini fundraisers all semester, had a couple cash sponsors and we even did a bake sale.  From the event evening we made proceeds from our substantial collection of silent auction items, ticket sales and even a candy table where you could buy bags of candy, or make a donation to guess how many jelly beans were in the jar (There were 536…we counted!) We were also fortunate enough to have Mark Madryga from Global TV as our speaker for the evening!

We wanted something child-oriented since Small Talk is a school for pre-school aged children. Initially we started off with the theme of “Back to your childhood” but when we settled on the event name of A Night of Make Believe the entire theme shifted to that. We wanted it to be about the fun and fantasy of youth, of reminiscing about playing games and make-believe. The picture to the left is of the finished poster the PR Marketing team made up for the event.

To go along with the theme the dress code for us was to all wear black clothes and then either wear a top hat or tiara…the guys wore tops hats and some of the girls managed to find very cute, small top hats too. I, however, wore a tiara. (right)

 

The following pictures are of the silent auction tables and the candy table.

My favourite TED talks

One thing I would like to do is spend more time listening to talks on TED. It’s basically a website that posts talks and all kinda of presentations and their motto is “Ideas worth spreading.” I haven’t had the opportunity to listen to many of their talks…but the ones I have listened to I’ve enjoyed. The talks I’ve heard range from topics on funny things like the significance of “4 am” to things like Seth Godin talking about standing out. I’ve been exposed to these TED talks through my various classes in PR and my four favourite talks are the following (in no particular order):

1. Elizabeth Gilbert on nurturing creativity/genius. (She’s the author of Eat Pray Love) (19:32 mins)
2. Rives on 4am (One of the more funny presentations) (9:09 mins)
3. Seth Godin on standing out (He’s a marketing guru/genius) (17:04 mins)
4. Tony Robbins on why we do what we do (I’d love to hear a full talk of his) (21:48 mins)

I strongly urge you to take the time and watch these presentations…or cruise TED for yourself. It’s a very cool website!

I would also love it if you would like to share a particular talk you found hilarious or inspiring! I’m always open to recommendations.