Childfree Winnipeg group gives women without kids a place to gather

Katelyn Sawatzky founded Childfree Winnipeg Women in 2021 to bring together women who don’t have kids — be it by choice or circumstance — and do not plan on raising children.

The group is designed to help them share experiences and build meaningful friendships.

The community welcomes cisgender, straight, transgender, bisexual and lesbian women. Parents, including empty nesters and men, are turned away.

“Our group is a safe space where women can hang out with other women without being asked when you’re going to have kids or why you don’t have kids … where you don’t feel like you have to validate or defend your choices in any way, because everyone gets it,” Sawatzky says.

Shtetl story: Rainbow Stage, WJT stage classic Yiddish tale 'Fiddler on the Roof'

Reb Lazar Wolf (Dov Mickelson) marched down Selkirk Avenue last Friday afternoon to collect sustenance for his Fiddler on the Roof castmates, who’ve spent the past two weeks rehearsing at the Ukrainian National Federation Hall.

“Rugelach?” Mickelson offered after making a quick stop for a bag of sweet pastries at the 89-year-old Gunn’s Bakery, following in the footsteps of his parents’ and grandparents’ generations, those Jews who sought refuge in this neighbourhood after the world they once knew in Eastern Europe was obliterated by continental campaigns of anti-semitism which ultimately led to the Holocaust.

The pre- and post-war focal point of Winnipeg’s Jewish community, the North End became for thousands of refugees and immigrants a stand-in for shtetls — the small, yet sprawling communities that existed under tenuous and ever-threatened autonomy as satellite communities across the Pale of Settlement, the region within the Russian Empire where Jewish people were allowed to reside.

Under the rule of the Tsar — pheh — opportunity was scarce and any expression of Jewish joy or celebration — a bar mitzvah morning, a wedding night or a bris for a newborn boy — could occasion brutal suppression by either the ruling class or by the villagers at the gate.

U of M study shows female entrepreneurs have it tough on dating market

Xiumei Li had a friend who had been on the dating scene for a while.

He’d been seeing an impressive woman, a startup founder building a successful business. She was a good conversationalist. She was interesting.

She sounded great. So why didn’t it work out?

Some gentle prodding revealed he was intimidated by her, but also felt that “there was a gap between what he expected for a partner versus what this female entrepreneur had to offer,” Li says.

Complex dual production 'R+J: Closing Night' brings theatre audience in on panicked process of putting on a show

Theatre Projects Manitoba will attempt to pull off an extraordinary feat of live performance next week with a metatheatrical experiment that walks the tightrope between on-stage drama and backstage chaos.

Designer building following making models of everyone from celebs to ordinary Winnipeggers

Kevin Takatch was getting groceries in Los Angeles when he stumbled into an art sale celebrating 25 years of Jackass.

The Winnipeg designer behind BeLove suddenly found himself surrounded by famous faces, carrying one of his own jackets and wondering who he could get to wear it.

Then he spotted comedian Eric André, who appears as himself in the reality stunt/prank franchise, and asked him to model the jacket.

“I knew I couldn’t (wimp) out, like I did with the first celebrity I saw,” says Takatch, who declined to give his age.

Chefs gather in St. Boniface to see whose version of jollof is best

Chef Alex Bockarie is bringing an age-old African culinary battle to Winnipeg.

On Saturday, five local chefs hailing from Senegal, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Ghana and Nigeria will go head-to-head to determine who makes the best jollof — a rice dish simmered in a savoury tomato-based stew.

“Jollof rice originated from Senegal but it has spread throughout West Africa and every country has its own method of cooking it,” Bockarie says. “It’s a long-standing fight; even among the communities here in Winnipeg, everybody’s always saying that Sierra Leone’s (jollof) is the best, Ghana’s is the best, Nigeria’s is the best.

“It’s a friendly competition; friendly, but very serious too.”

Finding simple pathways to happiness

We can all agree that everything feels dire right now. The Earth is on fire. Warmongers are in charge. AI slop is replacing art. The second season of Heated Rivalry isn’t due until 2027.

So how do you find happiness? What combination of yoga, meditation, high protein, low stress, weight-bearing exercise, moisturizing and scented candles will be the magic bullet?

The answer is perhaps not so complicated: It’s the little things.

In this monthly feature, the Free Press collects small actions, including reader suggestions, that can have big results. Some of them will be hyper-specific — a song, a meme, a movie, a meal — while others are general nudges toward mindful behaviour that can bear rewards.

Rare and tough to notice, sarcomas may lurk in the body

Last summer, Michelle Finley was going about a normal day.

She had just dropped her car off at a garage and was walking back to her office building downtown when, suddenly, she was stopped in her tracks by a searing cramp on the bottom of her right foot.

“It was so painful it took my breath away,” says Finley, now 52. “I stopped and held on to the side of a building for a second — like, it was bringing tears to my eyes.”

Finley thought she had a really bad case of plantar fasciitis. Nine months later she would lose her foot to sarcoma.

Getting schooled in cool-climate Chardonnays

In mid-July, winemakers, winery owners, those in the trade and the wine-loving public convened in Niagara to celebrate wines made from the noblest of white grape varieties — Chardonnay.

Try these veggie burger options around Winnipeg

This summer, a quest to discover Winnipeg’s finest veggie burgers unveiled a surprising array of creative and delicious options. From the structural integrity of buns to thoughtful toppings, the article explores standout local eateries, each offering unique takes on plant-based patties that are as flavorful as they are engaging.

Arts & Life team taste-tests new Kraft concoction

Prepare your tongue for the ultimate thrill, as Kraft Dinner has once again veered wildly out of its box and into new territory.

Thespian has lofty goals for province’s theatre scene

Daniela Smith-Fernandez has had an eventful summer.

Her debut play, the verbose sex comedy Jean-François: plus que parfait premièred at the Winnipeg Fringe Theatre Festival in July (earning 4 1/2 stars in the Free Press).

And just a week before, in early July, Smith-Fernandez joined the Manitoba Association of Playwrights as its new company manager.

“I don’t want inclusion to be tokenism anymore. I want people to be including Manitoba plays because they’re amazing, not because they feel like they should support local,” says the 41-year-old trilingual Chilean-Canadian artist. “(At MAP) I feel like I get to be myself in a way that definitely didn’t happen when I was working in insurance.”

Free Press arts team shares books for passing the dog days

When most people mention a “summer read” or a “beach book,” the types of writing they’re referring to is lighter fare most of us would consider enjoyable but not overly profound: think cosy mysteries, historical bodice rippers, otherworldy romantasies, fast-paced whodunits, chilling (but not too chilling) horror and, notably as of late, romance novels of all persuasions — perhaps, say, between two hockey players?

But not everyone dives into such popular picks over the summer months. Here’s what the Free Press arts and life team has been poring over in the past months…

Temporary Palaces, by Jeff Miller

If you spent your youth in the late 1990s/early 2000s going to protests, making zines, DIY art or punk rock — or, failing that, reading about it all in Adbusters magazine — and consider yourself a hopeless romantic, this new novel from Nova Scotia’s Jeff Miller is for you. Themes of idealism, artistic integrity, heartbreak and shared trauma are all on the menu for this will-they-won’t they pairing of punk rocker Ben and visual artist Alex, set amid the squats of Ottawa and the art lofts of Montreal.

Winnipeg’s postwar architecture well-documented by online archive

We live in a city rich with Chicago School high rises, mid-century modernism and much more. And, for the past three decades, Paul Clerkin has amassed arguably the most comprehensive archive of this architecture.

Cinematheque celebrates LGBTTQ+ director’s catalogue

As a distinct and important voice in queer cinema, director Gregg Araki’s sex-filled, nihilistic films about LGBTTQ+ life have left a lasting impact on indie films.