Five dollars for a cup of coffee? Oh yeah, baby! And get in line. Café Artigiano’s award-winning blend is in high demand at Vince Piccolo’s five coffee houses. Caffeine addicts are queuing up for a taste of the Brazilian bean that won first place over 533 entries at the World Cup of Excellence. Piccolo and his brothers Sammy and Mike paid a record $50 US a pound for the Bourbon bean, hand-picked in Brazil’s mountainous Carmo de Minas region. Media, friends and java junkies had a chance to sample the prized blend recently at Piccolo’s West Hastings locale.

Twenty-two design students showed off their school work at Helen Lefeaux’s 2006 Grad Fashion Show. Apparently less is more for this group of would-be-designers—scantily clad, stick-thin models with big ’80s hair worked the dubious collections on the catwalk. The town’s fashionistas, hipsters and trendsetters were out for the 25th anniversary wingding produced by Malinda Allanson at the Roundhouse Community Centre. Henry Chow’s creative use of thrift store garments was a show highlight.

Speaking of scantily clad, the B.C. Cancer Foundation held a fashionable event of its own. Several hundred walkers and runners turned out for the inaugural Underwear Affair—a 5K walk/10K run—to shed some light on devastating cancers below the waste (or every cancer that your underwear covers). Dressed in undies, and other revealing costumes, participants exposed themselves for charity, raising awareness and $500,000 in support of research in the fight against prostate, colorectal, ovarian, testicular, bladder, cervical, and uterine cancers. B.C. bands Lillix, the Brandon Paris Band, A Sheep at the Wheel and Calvin Klein fashion show headlined the EXPOsed afterparty at B.C. Place.

Vintropolis Wine Bar’s Connie Marples hopes lady luck is on her side as she takes over gambling Bodog bigwig Calvin Ayres’s former Quay Restaurant. With ink barely dry on the new lease, Marples, with muse, gal pal and co-owner Lizette Dureault, opened the Yaletown doors betting their new Bardot Waterfront Bar and Grille (with former Coast executive chef Dorbrosov Kovasevic in the kitchen) will be a winner with Yaletown locals.

Granville Street’s sexy Sanafir Restaurant continues to be the hip and happening place. The gorgeous Mediterranean room with Arabic accents by designer David Nicolay and Robert Edmonds was the perfect backdrop for the Vancouver Home and Interior Design Show kick-off party. The city’s scensters, designsters and do-it-yourselfers gathered for the cocktail schmoozer and elbow- rubber.

Hundreds of fab and unexpected finds including furniture, accessories, art, jewelry, and helpful hints await all the Martha Stewarts, Lynda Reeves and Domestic Divas in the city.

Varietals is the spice of life for Inniskillin winemaker Sandor Mayer.
The Okanagan viticulturist poured from the winery’s Discovery Series at a recent wine pairing dinner at Cioppino’s restaurant. The new group of wines embodies a spirit of exploration for the veteran winemaker as he pursues high-level wines made from grape varietals that many may not have considered appropriate for the Okanagan.

Have an event, opening or just plain gossip you’d like to share or something cool, hot or trendy you’d like to show off? Email me at yvrflee@hotmail.com. Fred’s weekly funcast Stepping Out can be heard every Monday morning on CBC’s The Early Edition.