Give Peas a Chance

Saturday and the start of Thanksgiving weekend.
A gloomy morning and the city chooses a long weekend to close the Gardiner for winter preparation.

Some cheerfulness.

I bought a turkey just for us! Getting the neck and giblets ready for roasting as a base for the gravy.

Gluten free stuffing.

Traffic onto Lake Shore West builds in the afternoon.

Loaded cowboy cookies' batter, this time I got 90 cookies out of the mixture. I used gluten free flour. They contain oatmeal, coconut, chocolate chips and nuts.

Roasted Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, onion and tomatoes. We didn't love the balsamic vinegar on them this time.

I can't believe I didn't take a photo of the turkey!


Sunday we had a big breakfast of black and white pudding, bacon and eggs.

The Gardiner was still closed but that didn't matter to us as we took the bus to the subway. John reminded me that the subway was also closed from St. George to Woodbine.
So we got on at Old Mill and off at St. George and walked over to Bloor and Yonge.
But the traffic on Bloor was incredible, it also runs east and west, just as the Gardiner does, so it was a driver option across town, but add in all the extra shuttle buses to take subway passengers from St. George to Woodbine and it was bumper to bumper.

We were heading to a theatre at Yonge and Bloor to see Piaf Dietrich.

The theatre was plastered with Dietrich and Piaf performance posters.

This review of the play says it all, as does this one.

Piaf/Dietrich

We decided to walk south to Queen St. and catch the streetcar home.

When, steps in front of us, this falls on a man's head and gives him a good cut on his scalp! We convinced him he needed to report it and John called 911, who advised to stay with him and keep people away from that piece of sidewalk.

A fire truck, sirens blaring, responded. As the man spoke to the fire fighters, John and I, stood, mouths agape, at the most beautiful woman we had ever seen, in uniform! There were three female responders, but this woman was stunning!

Back on our way, demolition has been clearing the site of a planned 38-storey condominium tower on Yonge Street, north of College, in Downtown Toronto. Known as Halo Residences on Yonge, the architectsAlliance-designed project will come with a noteworthy restoration of the heritage 1871-built Fire Hall No.3’s clock tower, most recently associated with the St Charles Tavern.

Further south, this condo is almost complete, incorporating two heritage bank buildings. John thinks the new building resembles a piano.

I mentioned the building on the left recently, in a post about Spadina House. It was the Bank of Toronto and on the right was the Bank of Commerce.

I will have to get a photo looking this way now.
.

Image Source

The long-vacant bank at 197 Yonge Street was built in 1905 for the Canadian Bank of Commerce, the same year that its companion, the Bank of Toronto went up. Separate architects were responsible for the design of each building, but both feature a neo-classical style that includes Corinthian columns and ornate detailing.

The sky changed dramatically as the sun set.

Monday, Thanksgiving.
I baked lemon cheesecake bars and pumpkin cheese bars to take to a family Thanksgiving dinner.

Tuesday and John golfed and I walked Queen St. West where you can always find something interesting.

Ugly!

I took the streetcar home and was entertained with a typical Toronto story.

There was an Asian woman with a stroller and two children, a toddler, still in diapers and a new born. The toddler was crying and pulling at his sweatshirt, so she finally let him take it off although you could see she felt embarrassed. He was then a happy camper, standing on a seat with a Mediterranean grandmother type, saying to the mother, "don't worry, I will watch him so he doesn't fall", as the new born started to whimper. This man, a Russian got on; he had the Russian flag on the back of his jacket and other Russian pins on the lapels. The toddler was whimpering, so he whipped out a balloon, blew it up and said "don't cry, bambino, there will be plenty of time for tears, later" and played ball with the delighted toddler. He looked and the grandmother and pointed at the toddler and said "this is our future generation".

We have a federal election next week and he said as he left "vote New Deomcrata"!
The New Democratic Party, NDP, is headed by Jagmeet Singh.

I made this pimpkin apple harvest bread to use up some leftover pumpkin and a lone apple, I also have been stocking up on fresh cranberries.


I made another batch of these gluten free biscuits and they were great.

Thursday was very cold, John even cancelled his golf game. I met my BFF and we decided we would be happy staying underground and shopping. It was one of those days where we could have bought so much, but we restrained ourselves and just looked.

I did come across the perfect ugly Christmas sweater.

I picked up what we needed for the weekend and then we decided on an "at home" day.
John had bottled wine this week and was saying we needed a wine rack, so I repurposed some cabinet drawers in the living room into one for him.

I reorganized some of my baking supplies and wanted to use up some of the various flours I had.
I tried this grain free and vegan chickpea sandwich bread, it turned out well. John tested and said it would be great with soup.

BOOKS

Bloor St. W Toronto

Appropriate as I am on my second Atwood book in a row. I finished a Handmaid's Tale which I had read years ago. Having watched the series, the book felt like a recap of season one.

I decided on a change of pace, but another Canadian author, John Moss and the first book in a trilogy, Lindstrom Alone.
But how odd was this, a reference to Margaret Atwood in the first chapter!

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