Two Scoops

2014 St. Andrew New Brunswick

Saturday was quiet as John recovers from his dental surgery, he is still on cold food for another day or two then we move on the soft foods for a couple of weeks.

I had the bright idea to copy Starbuck's caramel frappacino as a treat for John.
Scouring the 'net I found many versions of the recipe.
So I decided to make chocolate sauce for it, that recipe worked well.
Chocolate sauce 


Then I figured we would need caramel sauce to drizzle on top, but I wanted to save my whipped cream for the topping so found a couple of recipes that used milk.
The first one used water with the sugar to caramelize, well that took forever and then the milk curdled.
The second recipe used a timer for eight minutes to start, microwaved the milk, then another eight minutes and the milk curdled again.

Scrap that, back to my original tried and true recipe.

Easy caramel sauce with milk because I wanted to keep my whipping cream.
DIY caramel sauce
Salted caramel sauce should have used in the first place, my go-to recipe with cream. Sent John to get me more cream and success!

Watched an interesting movie/docu drama, Doing Money. Based on a true story,
Anna came to London from Romania intending to study, but first she needed to earn some money. She took temporary jobs - waitressing, cleaning, maths tutoring. Then one day in March 2011 she was snatched off the street, flown to Ireland and put through nine months of hell.

We followed that with a Canadian comedy, Bon Cop, Bad Cop 2. It is funny, but you do need to understand something about Quebec language and culture.

Sunday and John made scrambled eggs for breakfast, the start of his soft food diet.

How cool was this! Paris in July hosted by Thyme for Tea mentioned my post on macarons.
I wanted to call out Jackie, who recently visited France and tried Macarons for the first time! What a treat Jackie.

Monday

John has been housebound since his dental surgery on Thursday so he headed out for a walk along Lake Ontario and of course he took photos!

Water levels on Lake Ontario are high on Monday and then on Wednesday we got torrential downpours.

A new garden.

Across the Gardiner Expressway, there are a row of advertising billboards created with grass and rocks.

The overpass at Roncesvalles.

Looking towards home.

Almost home.

Love that the city put these Muskoka chairs along the lake.

On home ground.

I made these rolls, John is still on soft foods, and these promised to be soft and gluten free and they delivered!
Keto bread rolls and I added some garlic and onion powders.

I served them with my favourite penne with vodka recipe to which I added some fried pancetta.



Tuesday John and I checked out the Museum of Broken Relationships at Harbourfront.

There is an exhibit by Thomas Price. Outside is this large sculpture.

Since 2005, Thomas J Price has focused on creating what he terms ‘psychological portraits’ in sculpture. Ranging in size from small busts to monumental bronze statues, these sculptures depict the bodies, clothing and characteristics typically associated with black men. However, these works are not representations of actual people. Instead, they combine facial expressions drawn from ancient, classical and neo-classical sculpture, stereotypes represented in contemporary news media, and observed individuals—some of whom Price knows personally, others whom he has witnessed in public spaces.

Outside in Canada Square sits Price’s Numen series, 2016, a continuation of the artist’s investigation into Greek, Roman and Egyptian mythology. We had seen this a couple of weeks ago but it was a work in progress at the time, with no signage.

To the west, on the South Terrace, a monumental cast-bronze titled Cover Up (The Reveal), 2019 is presented.

Another exhibit inside was "On Scams" by Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige presenting a series of works never before exhibited in Canada.
.

This exhibition presents works from the landmark series On Scams (I must first apologise), a multi-part project exploring notions of trust and faith across geographical and virtual borders. This series takes as its point of departure an archive of over 4,000 spam emails Hadjithomas and Joreige have received and collected since 1999. They were intrigued by the emotional appeals of these messages, and the manner in which these fictions were grounded in political realities: the messages often contain references to real people, places, and conflicts to legitimize their claims.
.

More of Thomas Price's work upstairs.

The exhibition at The Power Plant, Price’s first in Canada, features a series of sculptures in varying sizes. Inside the gallery, a newly commissioned work is presented alongside several smaller bronzes and photographs that challenge the erasure of black bodies within the traditions of classical sculpture.

You're wondering what happened to the Broken Relationships???

We had seen The Museum of Broken Relationships in Los Angeles  a couple of years ago, we didn't go in. The only other location is the original in Zagreb Croatia.

The Harbourfront Centre marks the 53rd stop in the Museum of Broken Relationships' worldwide showcase of the mementos and memories that are left behind when love ends, organizers say.

The show will feature highlights from the museum's permanent collection in Zagreb, Croatia, as well as about 10 new contributions from lovelorn Canadians.
Museum of Broken Relationships is a physical and virtual public space created with the sole purpose of treasuring and sharing your heartbreak stories and symbolic possessions. It is a museum about you, about us and about the ways we love and lose. Each object is donated by individuals all over the world and represents a symbolic memento of a past relationship, told through the voice of the owner.

Click here to read a magazine article about some of the displays.

I was craving a stir fry and made ginger beef.

Wednesday

I headed out to renew my health card, how hard was it raining?
Photo from news.

I figured that many wouldn't venture out on a day like this and it was quiet everywhere. I waited an hour to update my card and then poked around in the stores.

The rain stopped and I checked out the newly renovated College Park.

Vietnamese noodle soup or pho with shrimp. This was a really quick recipe with lots of spices. I'll admit as I made it, I wondered about the amount of cloves but the combination was perfect. I had bought these noodles but as I was about to open the packet and read that they can't be kept for longer than two days, I hesitated and used rice noodles instead. These are not cheap and I didn't think I would use the remaining in the next couple of days.

Ingredients gathered, excluding the rice noodles and shrimp.

Delicious but I should have used raw (the recipe said raw) shrimp instead of the cooked ones I bought, they were too tough.

Thursday and my BFF and I headed out to an exhibit at Allan Gardens.
Called Red Embers, the banners are designed by 15 Indigenous women artists and dedicated to Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWG).

For the banner Nokomis [Grandmother], multimedia artist Louise (Minowensetchketkwe) Solomon used faux fur, synthetic hair, vinyl and jingle cones. She braided the hair at the top of the banner to represent strength, happiness and peacefulness. Below the braids there is a divide in the banner that represents an assault or conflict that is, she says, “comparable to losing someone close to us, or feeling marginalized and targeted in our own lands; scared for our own lives.”

The hair at the bottom is loose from its braids and is dishevelled and unkempt, representing the MMIWG.

Her banner features a large black heart in the middle, which represents the people that are left here without mothers, daughters, aunts, sister and friends, and is surrounded by jingle cones to aid in the healing of broken and heavy hearts.

20-foot-tall charred cedar logs hold 13 large red banners aloft.

The three co-designers decided to make the cedar posts charred black to represent the “strength and resilience of women, even when they’ve been scorched and hurt.” The banners are symbolic of the 13 Grandmother Moons within the lunar system, and the artists used materials such as animal bones, tin jingles, reflective fabric and moose hide.

The gates sit alongside a newly planted Indigenous healing garden, a first for the historic park, with sage, sweetgrass and tobacco.

And that mural? Click here to see my post on this work by Okuda.

We then found an incredible aboriginal mural across the street.

A quick walk through Allan Gardens.

Friday was hot and humid. A good day for ice cream, this was outside a sushi restaurant in the financial district.

Checked out the sales in The Bay, left empty handed...

BOOKS AND SUCH

Picked up a couple of cookbooks from the library that I had requested. It isn't easy to read a cookbook on a tablet and I can copy recipes from the book to try!

Finished Miss Emily and it was an enjoyable read and gave me an interest in reading more about Emily Dickinson, although this fictional account of her relationship with her maid seemed to end abruptly.

I am completely enjoying David Nicholls and read Us which has made me laugh.


I finished those two online courses a couple of weeks ago and started a new one.
FINISHED
European Painting from Leonardo to Rembrandt to Goya
Age of Cathedrals

STARTED
Modern Art and Ideas by MOMA

LINKING UP WITH

Beth hosts Weekend Cooking where you can post anything food related.

Saturday Snapshots is hosted by A Web of Stories.
Sunday Salon

Seasons

Say Cheese

Monday Walks

Monday Morning Blog Club