What A Difference a Year Makes

About a year ago, I blogged with pride about not being a cottage person - how could we even think about leaving the city with so much going on here in the summer - from jazz festivals, to fringe theatre, to dusk dances, to Shakespeare in High Park? Enter COVID, stage right, and nearly all the activities that make summer weekends in Toronto so special have been cancelled. Suddently, the idea of getting in the car and exploring the many parks, lakes, vineyards and farms around Ontario was a compelling one. We've gone on four pandemic road trips so far this summer: to Niagara-on-the-Lake, Mulmur, Crystal Lake in the Kawarthas and Kingsford Lake in Frontenac Provincial Park. Each destination offered different experiences - wine tasting and garden grazing, storytelling and toasting by a pond, swimming and hiking, postcard writing and stargazing. Now I can't imagine summer without a road trip or two. Looks like it's time to retire the #notacottageperson hashtag...

TIFF 2019 Round-Up

That's a wrap on another Toronto International Film Festival! 10 days, 36 films and many hours in dark theatres later, I've emerged with a round-up of my favourites, in no particular order: (1) The Two Popes, for the laugh out loud opening that carries through to the final scene and the on-screen chemistry between Anthony Hopkins and Jonathan Price (2) I Am Woman, for transporting me back to my feminist roots and for Tilda Cobham-Hervey’s breakout performance as Helen Reddy (3) The Personal History of David Copperfield, for its colourblind casting, fantastical story and Wes Anderson-esque scenes (4) Black Bitch, for depicting colonialism and racism in contemporary Australian society while illustrating the beauty and complexity of Indigenous communities (5) And The Birds Rained Down, for Quebecois actress Andrée Lachapelle’s performance of an older woman’s second chance at life and first opportunity for love, as well as the many beautifully shot, tender scenes between her and actor Gilbert Sicotte n (6) Hearts and Bones for the outstanding performances and juxtaposition of the lives of a war photographer and a refugee from a war-torn village that was the subject of a series of photographs (7) Judy for Renee Zellweger’s tour-de-force performance of Judy Garland (8) Harriet, for lifting Harriet Tubman off the pages of history books and showing us what a fierce and fearless woman she was (9) Portrait of a Lady on Fire, for its beautiful love story, sumptuous costumes and scenery, and absolutely brilliant final scene (10) Three Summers, for cleverly and humorously depicting the economic divides in Brazil and the resiliency of the working class (11) Keussipan, for giving us a compelling glimpse into the realities faced by children growing up on an Innu reserve in northern Quebec (12) A Herdade, for its fascinating story of the fate of three generations of a prominent land-owning family in Portugal that parallels the history of Portugal post World War II and the outstanding cast. Other films I’d recommend seeing: How to Build a Girl, Arab Blues, The Perfect Candidate, Frankie, Jordan River Anderson, Incitement, Lyrebird, Flatland, The Burnt Orange Heresy, Proxima, American Son, Bombay Rose, Our Lady of the Nile and Heroic Losers.

Not wanting to sacrifice good eating in between films, let me also share my favorite restaurants within walking distance from the TIFF Bell Lightbox and Scotiabank Theatres - most are places I go to year-round. Again, in no particular order, (1) Byblos has amazingly delicious and innovative Mediterranean food ideally shared by a group (I pretty much always order the Geographer gin-based cocktail, Turkish dumplings, fig salad, truffle pide, fried chicken and roasted lamb shoulder) (2) Pai has a lively atmosphere, speedy service and tasty Thai fare (the squash fritters are a MUST) (3) La Carnita serves Mexican street food in a fun setting (don't miss the Mexican street corn, Baja shrimp tacos and pitchers of Sangria!) (4) Yuzu No Hana is one of the best reasonably priced sushi spots in town and if you're a sea urchin fan like I am, they usually have melt-in-your-mouth uni from Japan and BC (5) Aloette, the lower-brow but delicious diner-ish cousin of Alo (one of the best restaurants in Canada) has several stand-out dishes, including crispy oyster mushrooms and stracciatella cheese served on sourdough with burnt honey, piquillo pepper and pine nuts. Last but not least, staying caffeinated during TIFF is essential! My "go to" coffee spot is Dark Horse on John Street. It's a few steps down from the street and easy to miss, but well worth it for the espresso drinks, ham and cheese croissants and two unisex bathrooms with no lines!

#NotACottagePerson

On summer weekends, when half of Toronto it seems is up north at a cottage on a lake, we have the city to ourselves. As a result, a number of activities have become not-to-miss summer traditions. This is by no means an exhaustive list, just some of my favourites. If you have others to highlight, please leave them in the comments section!

Jazz Festival: At the start of summer, the Yorkville neighbourhood becomes ground central for all manner of jazz music, and I do mean jazz defined very broadly, including blues, funk, hip-hop/rap and genre-bending improvisations. The festival line-up always includes famous headliners (this year, Diana Ross and Norah Jones, for example) but also lesser known but amazingly talented performers from Toronto, Canada and beyond. Stand-outs for me this year included Grammy award-winning vocalist Cécile McLorin Salvant, accompanied by Sullivan Fortner on piano, whose voice I'd put in the same league as Sarah Vaughn's and Ella Fitzgerald's - and Montreal-based Milla Thyme, whose fusion of soul, hip hop, and jazz contains calls to action for social justice. A great feature of the festival is the literally dozens of free outdoor concerts on offer, taking over the Village of Yorkville Park and on the first weekend, two stages set up on a pedestrian-only stretch of Bloor.

Shakespeare in High Park: Some years the pay-as-you-wish productions are stellar, sometimes a little lackluster, but they're always entertaining and loads of fun. We pack up a blanket and a picnic dinner (typically curried chicken salad, caprese salad, elote, mixed berries, pre-mixed gin and tonics in a thermos, a couple of cans of Fresca and a bottle of wine) and arrive about an hour before the show to get a good seat (pro-tip: don't forget the bug spray!). Two shows on alternating nights are on offer each season, and this year's Measure for Measure and Much Ado About Northing are both excellent. There are still a few weeks left to catch them before they close on Sept 1.

Dusk Dances in Withrow Park: Celebrating its 25th anniversary of bringing contemporary dance to public spaces, Dusk Dances is a wonderful evening for dance lovers and skeptics alike. Often featuring world premieres and specially commissioned works, the innovative program involves having the audience move around the park to view each dance in a different setting. Professional and amateur dancers perform work that ranges from humorous takes on love to emotional pleas for a peaceful world.

Fringe Festival: For 10 days in July, in over 35 venues across the city - from conventional theatre spaces to pubs and churches - the Fringe Festival features over 150 productions, including solo shows, multi-media performances, ensemble theatre, improv and cabarets. The shows can be hit-or-miss, but for less than the price of a movie ticket (with all proceeds going directly to the performers), flipping through the program (printed or online) and choosing which to see feels adventurous and fun. (Pro-tip: follow NOW Toronto's and Mooney on Theatre's real-time reviews).

Summer Music Festival: This classical music-focused festival provides a platform for established and emerging musicians to share their talents through free and ticketed concerts in and around Yorkville and the University of Toronto that include both music by famous composers of the past and new music by some of the most exciting contemporary composers active today. The festival had two innovative features this year that really stood out for me: first, for a number of ticketed evening concerts, they offered the chance to sit in on a rehearsal earlier in the day for free - a fascinating opportunity to see the "behind the scenes" dynamics between the performers and how they approach preparing for their shows. Second, the final day of the festival (a Saturday) featured a series of fabulous free one-hour concerts that started at 10 am and ended at 6 pm.

Summerworks Festival: On now through August 18, this annual summer festival celebrates new works of theatre, dance and music in intimate, general admission settings. Striving to be as accessible and inclusive as possible, Summerworks shows are often created and performed by women, LGBTQ2S individuals and people of colour, and "pay what you decide" ticket prices start at $15 ($13.50 if you purchase an 8-ticket pass).

This year, I'm especially looking forward to two shows: Rochdale, a new play about the legacy of Rochdale College, Toronto’s greatest experiment in cooperative housing and alternative education written by celebrated playwright David Yee, winner of the 2015 Governor General’s Award for English Drama, directed by Factory Theatre’s multiple award-winning Artistic Director Nina Lee Aquino and performed by the graduate class of York University’s Theatre Department and Audible Songs from Rockwood, a song-cycle based on case files of people incarcerated at Rockwood Asylum for the Criminally Insane between 1856-1881 that songwriter Simone Schmidt spent two years combing through.

Yeah, it's hard to leave the city in the summer!

Best of Niagara

I've decided to resume this blog, over 8 years (!) since my last post. I don't have a well thought through reason for doing so, other than an urge to write more than twitter-length prose and to get back into the habit of sharing highlights of my adventures around Toronto and beyond.

This past weekend, we visited Niagara-on-the-Lake for probably the seventh or eighth time since moving to Toronto in 2007. Through those many trips, we've settled into somewhat of a routine that makes for an enjoyable and relaxing getaway. While there are many quaint bed and breakfasts to choose from in the area, we always opt for the White Oaks Resort because of its fabulous fitness centre and spa. If you look past its absolutely hideous exterior of gold-bronze glass, you'll discover a hotel with terrific service, comfortable rooms, good breakfast options, beautiful grounds, a "real" gym with steam and redwood saunas, a pool and jacuzzi, and skilled massage therapists.

We usually leave Toronto by 12 noon on Friday (avoiding the worst of the traffic), arriving in time for a workout, a massage, and a picnic dinner under the gazebo of dishes we prepared the day before and fruit picked up at the Hildreth Farm Market in Beamsville on the drive down (pro-tip: call room service for place settings and grab the wine glasses and wine opener from the room).

Saturday starts with a la carte breakfast (an outdoor table if possible), a quick workout, stops at a few of our favourite wineries (tasting Southbrook's rosés, Five Rows' sauvignon blancs and Big Head's reds are high on the list), a matinée show at the Shaw Festival (this year we saw Rope, a thriller adapted for the screen by Alfred Hitchcock), some downtime at the hotel and dinner at the Backhouse restaurant (in the space where another fabulous restaurant, the Stone Road Grill, used to be). The three-course menu is a good deal and with three choices for each course and three of us dining, we were able to try everything on the menu! Stand-outs included the heirloom tomato salad (all ingredients fresh from the chef's garden), the "cream puff" stuffed with duck liver mousse and the corn ice cream. Rather than bottles, this time we opted for glasses of wine served all at once - 3 whites and 3 reds - so we could taste more and see which paired best with each dish. Seeing how much we enjoyed wine, the sommelier brought us a 7th glass with instructions to guess the grape and region. After many sips and much discussion, we narrowed it down to bordeaux varietals, likely from a domestic vineyard, given the restaurant's extensive Canadian wine list. The answer: petit verdot from Ontario!

Even after these many trips to NOTL, there is always more to discover. A friend recommended we stop for dim sum at Ma Cuisine in St. Catherine and we're so happy we did! The place is tricked out for crowds, but on this summer Sunday at noon there were only a few tables being served. Joined by friends, the 5 of us ordered shrimp dumplings, mushroom and pea shoot dumplings, pork soup dumplings, pork potstickers, pork buns, and a spicy eggplant dish. Everything was hot and delicious, and while we left full, we didn't experience the usual post-dim sum carb haze. Didn't even need a coffee to stay awake!

Heading back to the city, we stopped for farm-fresh veggies and chatted about our next Niagara visit, an abbreviated one at the end of September on the way to a friend's wedding in upstate New York. Hoping to catch the fall colours!

Swish Splash

There's a block of Wellington Street E that I always make a point of walking along when heading home from St. Lawrence Market. It runs the length of Berczy Park, right by the Gooderham, one of my favourite buildings in the city (flatirons always makes me smile). There's a surprisingly high concentration of bars and restaurants in the red brick rowhouses that line the block (Lucien, Trevor, Pravda Vodka Bar) but Swish by Han, at #38, caught my attention and curiosity the moment I peeked in the window. The interior of reclaimed wood and contemporary art, with a communal table running down the middle, is warm and inviting. The menu, hanging on the door, presents an interesting modern take on Korean cuisine.

Always in a hurry to get home with my shopping cart filled to the brim, I never had time to just pop in for a bite. So for months I only imagined what the smells and flavours might be like, until we bought tickets to see a play in the Distillery District and wanted to have dinner nearby. Truth be told, we drove by Guu on Church Street first, hoping to snag a table at the perennially popular spot since we were eating so early. But with a crowd hovering around the entrance, we were skeptical about the reported 30 minute wait and continued on to plan B.

From the moment we entered through the thick curtains protecting diners from the cold, we knew we were in for a treat. The aroma was amazing - a mix of sweet and spicy scents swirling (or should I say swishing?) around us. We proceeded to enjoy what we both agreed was one of our best meals to date in Toronto:

Spicy pork buns - little pulled pork sandwiches on ciabatta-type bread

Tempura onion rings - fried in just enough tempura batter to make them delightfully crispy

Crunchy octopus - the actual name of the dish escapes me - deep fried and served with a spicy mayonnaise-y dipping sauce

Short rib ssäm set - literally meaning "wrapped," ssäm refers to a Korean dish that wraps meat in leaf vegetables. This set came with a stack of crisp lettuce leaves, grilled beef short ribs, hoisin sauce and a spicy fermented soybean paste

...all washed down with Sapporo beer on tap (it was tempting to order a soju cocktail, but I was worried I'd snooze through the show)

The service was excellent, the tables spaced well for intimate conversations, and the bill a pleasant surprise: under $80 for two. There's not much buzz about this place on the internet, but there should be! NOTE: Sadly, Swish by Han closed in 2014, but fortunately, the Han brothers have opened a bunch of other restaurants that are all excellent: Hanmoto, OddSeoul, Pinky's Ca Phe and Seoul Shakers.

It's Getting Better All the Time

We popped into the Rosedale Diner for a bite before going to a New Year's Eve party and were once again blown away by the quality of the food, the warm ambience and the friendly, attentive service. The Diner was one of the first restaurants we went to when we first moved to Toronto in 2007 and it's only gotten better over the years. We almost always order the same combo: hummus and calamari as appetizers and the chicken dijonaisse and a special as mains - a recent special was homemade sausage with truffle frites. We're lucky living right around the corner, but it's well worth a trip!

Http://rosedalediner.com

Single Issue Voter

If I was able to vote in the Toronto mayoral election (which alas I am not, as a non-citizen resident), one issue would top my list of concerns: the abysmal state of the street food situation in Toronto. I've opined about this before (http://yyzine.blogspot.com/2009/01/i-take-it-all-back.html), but my recent trip to Portland, Oregon, named as the top street food city in the WORLD by Frommer's Budget Travel Magazine has left me positively steaming.

Let's run the numbers, shall we?

Portland:
* Population - 582,130
* Demographics - 78.6% white
* The Portland public school system has over 1,800 students who come from homes where over 60 different languages are spoken.

Toronto:
* Population - 2.5 million
* Demographics - 53% white
* Half of Toronto's population was born outside of Canada
* No single nationality or culture dominates Toronto's immigrant population, placing it among the most diverse cities in the world
* 47% of the population has a mother tongue other than English or French
* The city's 911 emergency services are equipped to respond in over 150 languages
* The Toronto District School Board is the most multilingual and multicultural school board in the world. More than 50% of 270,000 students speak a language other than English at home

Where would you expect to find better quantity and quality of street food?

Well, you're wrong.

Number of street food carts in Portland: 500 (e.g, Southern pulled pork buns, Mexican burritos, Korean bulgogi, Thai-style Hainan chicken...) - $25 propane permit and a couple of hundred bucks for a health inspection.

Number of street food carts in Toronto: 310 at designated spots with annual permits costing $5,000 or more. Street vendors are prohibited from selling any meat that isn't pre-cooked, and hot dogs are pretty much the only thing they can legally sell. Also banned are any toppings or sauces that require refrigeration, hence no mayo or cheese. (and no espresso carts with milk, either...)

According to a glowing article in the June 11, 2010 issue of the Vancouver Sun, "Here in Portland, we have a couple of agencies who offer micro-lending to carts who wouldn’t normally qualify for standard business loans...Allow the carts to sell a quality, safe product without the owners having to hurdle red tape with multiple agencies.”

And in Toronto? It's basically socialized street food. A pathetic food cart "pilot" competitively selected 15 street food vendors, the final stage of which involved review by a small panel of food experts who judged the proposed food items from the standpoint of diversity, quality and culinary excellence. Only 8 vendors decided to proceed. The verdict? A recent Toronto Star article cuts to the chase: "ethnic street food offerings bland."

Visit my "Portland or Toronto?" photo album at http://on.fb.me/uX21zw