Friday, October 5, 2018

Coffeed Out

September 2018 - Spadina St.



Saturday

Six Word Saturday
A Photo A Week

I walked to a local grocery store for some groceries, we're almost at the end of our eating from the freezer challenge.

Not a bad walk...





A perfect Saturday afternoon for me, my knitting for when I am watching something on my laptop, external hard drive for blogging inspiration, headphones for listening (at the moment, to Elton). Missing is my e-reader. There's also the TV should I want it. And of course, my phone was my camera.


There's my reader, beside the bed.




Sunday
Inspired Sunday
One Word Sunday Monochrome
Lens-Artists Photo Challenge Look Up
In the Pink Final

Between football, golf and working out John was a happy camper. I finished watching The Split (sigh) but it appears there will be another season. Worked on out Spanish trip, and discovered Masterchef Australia 2018 is streaming so out came the knitting needles.

We have a lot of chicken wings so that was dinner with fries.


Monday 
Foto Tunes

Monday Mural

A rainy cool day so I headed out for a roast chicken for dinner, but Longo's only had organic chickens at $20 each, so small it would only make one meal and then soup.
Chicken legs were $1.99 a pound so for $10 I ended up with six legs that will do for three meals. Works for me!

Using up yet more of our freezer/pantry items I loosely used this apple cake recipe. I didn't have enough frozen apples so I added frozen berries. I had an opened jar of apple sauce so I substituted 1/4 cup for 1 egg. And it worked! Served with whipped cream.

Tuesday

John went off to Spanish class and I did household management (laundry, cleaning etc).

I had decided on mushroom bolognese and wanted salad with it so headed out to pick up the ingredients.

Wednesday

I made up for my lack of walking today. I could have taken the subway to Ossington or the streetcar along Queen St. West, but I took the shuttle bus to Union and then walked to Queen St. West, then continued to Ossington where I Had the bright idea to walk to Bloor and get the subway, forgetting how far it is and also how very boring the walk is from Dundas north!


Front St. and John.


Adelaide - I wonder how long this block of historic buildings will last?



The Cinema Tower (this is the entertainment district) on Widmer has this odd entrance.


The exterior entrance of the Lobby is framed by a stunning sculptural metaphor – “Strata”. Created by internationally renowned artist Peter Powning, “Strata” will act as a canopy over the entrance and will fuse an eclectic grouping of artefacts cast in bronze and illuminated aquifer veins made of reflecting slumped glass.

And then as I turned onto Adelaide I found this intriguing piece of art.


Known as Dr. George Robert Grasett Park, the project reimagines an 80' x 20' space at the southeast corner of Adelaide Street West and Widmer Street, occupying a portion of the same plot of land as Toronto’s first brick hospital.


The park is named in honour of the 1847 Chief Attending Surgeon at Toronto's Emigrant Hospital, who helped treat the thousands of Irish migrants suffering from a famine and typhus epidemic that were causing catastrophic loss of life in Ireland. Dr. Grasett's contribution to the treatment of these new migrants was important, though short-lived, as he himself would succumb to the epidemic less than a month after being appointed. In addition to Dr. Grasett, the park recognizes several of the individuals who perished while treating these new Torontonians, also honouring the site's heritage as a former part of the Hospital Reserve, a medical property from early Toronto history.




Using black granite as a canvas, the park's pavement bears an etching of the 1842 Cane’s Map of the City of Toronto.






I had to cut through the lane back to King as I tried to figure out was this was. There were two cops not allowing anyone to park here and it appeared you needed a ticket to enter.




Queen St. West at Portland, will these survive?


Portland south of Queen at edge of Graffiti Alley.



 Chocolate Loft was originally built at the corner of Queen St. W. and Massey as a plant for The Patterson Candy Co in 1912. Specializing in chocolate, The Patterson Candy Co. continued to expand and operate in that location until the late 1950's. 


Built in 1907 as a garment factory, the building became home to Ce De Candy Co. in 1963. For years workers there turned out the little rolls of pastel-coloured candies known as Rockets. After the company moved to the suburbs in 1988, the building stood vacant for years. Around the late 90s plans were made to convert the factory into the Candy Factory Lofts.


Table for two?










John was at his golf banquet so I decided to "cook " tuna for myself. Anyone who knows me knows I have a passion for ahi tuna! I used this recipe and served it over chopped salad ingredients. It was fantastic, although I think I would prefer another dressing instead of the sriracha mayo.  I want to try this recipe next time!


Thursday
Thursday Doors
Kammie's Odd Ball Challenge

Finally a sunny warm day! I took this as I waited for the bus.


I met John and we went to lunch at Labora, a Spanish tapas restaurant on King at Spadina.




We started with this:

San Simeon cheese, double cream white mould Brie.
Manchego made in the La Mancha region of Spain from the milk of sheep of the manchega breed

Jamón serrano a dry-cured Spanish jamón (ham) 

SALCHICHÓN Similar to chorizo, salchichón is made from ground or finely sliced pork and slowly cured with salt and often smoke. The difference is in the spices. While chorizo is red from the paprika, salchichón is usually a light pink spotted with black pepper. Both have salt and often garlic added in as well.


We decided to order one more dish to share.


Rubia gallega refers to a breed of cow that hails from northwestern Spain, but Labora’s is actually an Ontario rib-eye. “We cure it with sugar, salt, spices and orange zest for about seven weeks, and then it air dries. It’s basically the beef version of Iberian ham,” Served with mushrooms and truffles.


Just a gorgeous day and we couldn't not take a CN Tower photo!



And the light streaming through the Skywalk, it looks like stained glass.





We watched a great French-Canadian movie The Passion of Augustine. It was especially interesting to me as I grew up in Quebec going to an all-girls Catholic school with nuns. I watched as the nuns went from full habit to the "new" Vatican II endorsed uniforms and change their names from Mother St. NNNN to Sister LASTNAME.

My nuns wore this outfit.



Storyline
In a small convent school in rural Quebec, Mother Augustine provides a musical education to young women no matter their socio-economic background. However, with the looming changes brought by Vatican II and Quebec's Quiet Revolution, the school's future is at peril.


Friday

Weekend Roundup
Weekend Reflections
A Photo A Week Gilded

That gorgeous weather was short lived!

John went to Costco and I went to get a haircut,
The fall flower arrangements are everywhere.



I checked out the Spanish cheese as I plan on doing a tapas dinner.


John had requested prime rib on the weekend and bonus! I scored a deal!



Friday means steak and we made frites.

A long weekend, Canadian Thanksgiving!

BOOKS

2018 - Dundas St.

It is an odd thing to be a Torontonian,” Shawn Micallef writes in Frontier City: Toronto on the Verge of Greatness. “We are always longing for the city we don’t allow ourselves to have.” Meandering through several of the city’s wards, accompanied by 2014 Toronto council and school board candidates, Micallef confronts Toronto’s big questions, primarily: how do we confront the fissures in our civic landscape brought to light during the years Rob Ford reigned as mayor.
It is really meaningful as we (not me) voted his brother Doug as our premier, which scares the crap out of me!

And on my phone The Dark Tide, about white collar crime, which intrigues me. As does how does one disappear? The writing and dialogue could certainly be better, but a decent read for commuting

.
I finally updated my book count for 2018 - 62 to date.





SHARING WITH:

Beth hosts Weekend Cooking where you can post anything food related.
Saturday Snapshots is hosted by West Metro Mommy.
Sundays in my City
Seasons
Monday Walks
Monday Morning Blog Club
Through My Lens Monday
Our World Tuesday
Wanderful Wednesday #wanderfulwednesday
Wednesday Around the World at Communal Global
Travel Photo Thursday
#WeekendWanderlust

8 comments:

  1. Those old buildings in the midst of the high-rises . . . I hope they survive. I love that map in the granite. Your tapas dinner sounds and looks delicious. Good job on the roast too. Finally, I too have been knitting lately; it must be the change in the weather.

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  2. The Grasett Park concept is one that I'm familiar with. It must have been a year or so ago that I saw a model concept for the idea on display here. It might have been at the Ireland embassy event here during the Canada 150 celebrations.

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    1. I worked in the building next to where TIFF is now. When they started the 2007 construction in the parking lot they had to bring in archaeologists as ecavations were required to determine if remains of the hospital had survived.
      http://asiheritage.ca/portfolio-items/toronto-general-hospital/

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  3. I was in Toronto once when my kids were little and we visited the tower!

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  4. I think Toronto has enough tall buildings and these few old buildings should be kept. Pretty cool new header picture.

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  5. Those old buildings look full of character. I do hope they remain for you guys.

    Your tapas dinner sounds good. If I lived closer I would be rocking up at your front door for a try! ;)

    Thanks for sharing with #MMBC.

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  6. I hope Toronto doesn't get rid of all it's old buildings, especially if they're still solid and useful. I like how they turned the chocolate factory into lofts. I love how Toronto embraces art in all forms.

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