Cops Doughnuts

 Linking up at Marg at The Intrepid Reader 

Weekend Coffee Share

Sunday Salon

Adelaide St. Toronto

Saturday was a lazy, sleep in kind of day.

Sunday we were up bright and early with bacon and eggs for breakfast. John heated the leftover fries (fish and chips last week) in the air fryer.

Then it turned into a day of chores, stripping bed, three loads of laundry, baking, putting the winter coats away, clean the vacuum filter etc etc.

Gluten free blueberry scones definitely a keeper, perhaps make them a little smaller? BTW we finished them at breakfast topping them with yogurt.

Monday I went for a haircut on probably the only nice/warm day this week as temperatures began plummeting in the afternoon and would reach 0 zero as the week wore on. Some areas even got snow.

I also shopped (didn't buy anything) and browsed in the bookstore.

But the spring planters are out.

Yes, it was nice enough to wear your bathrobe and slippers outside the Royal York.

She had matching socks to go with her Hudson Bay shopping bag.

 John had physio and used the golf simulator a couple of times.  

John picked up the repaired ($80) vacuum, turns out it was clogged with broken glass........................

And just like that my 52 game streak on Wordle ended this week.

Thursday we went to Benares to pick up Indian for dinner. We never drive downtown, and picked 5 PM for pick up as we knew the Blue Jays were playing at 3 and the Raptors at 7 so we thought we could avoid traffic! Nope, it took us over an hour to get home!

Waiting outside for my late food order.

Entertaining myself on the slow drive home as John muttered about traffic.

These two were obviously dressed up for a photo shoot (engagement?) as there was a photographer with them carrying props.

Friday John took the car in to get the snow tires changed, buy new tires, total check up, brakes etc $2,500. It cost $80 to fill up.

We both also had to pay our income taxes!

The money is just leaking  bleeding out this month (fridge, washer/dryer, deposit for dishwasher)! 

And we still haven't received the bills for the plumbing jobs.

I had my coat on to go shopping and then decided against being out in crowded stores. We dodged a bullet Easter weekend with my cousin and family. All three came down with Covid last week, Wednesday, Friday and Monday.

COOKING

Saturday slow cooker pot roast. Provided a lunch as well, and then into the soup bag.

Sunday BBQ chicken quarters roast potatoes and broccolini.

Monday Creamy salmon curry, not a bad recipe but nothing to write home about. I skipped her step of cooking the salmon in the oven and just dropped it into the sauce to steam. I made homemade croutons with a gluten free baguette from Bread Essentials (that we thought was too hard) for a Caesar salad.

Tuesday spaghetti and homemade (frozen) meat sauce with garlic bread.

Wednesday pork belly tacos were delicious, I was looking forward to the pineapple but when I opened the can it was crushed pineapple! Now I need to find something to bake with the pineapple.

Thursday Indian take-out. Onion bhajis, vegetarian pakoras, lamb curry, chicken vindaloo (no - too sweet for us), lamb kebabs (yes, please first time ordering!), butter naan. Will provide a few lunches as well.

Friday steak frites with chimichurri.

WATCHING

Saw a few good/interesting movies.

Cleaner is a 2007 American thriller film. It stars Samuel L. Jackson as a crime scene cleaner who thinks he has become part of a cover-up. 

The usual corrupt cops and a plot we figure out easily.

Restless (French: Sans répit) is a 2022 French action thriller film. Good, sometimes funny, storyline.

Silverton Siege is a South African film directed by Mandla Dube in his feature directorial debut. It is based on the real life siege that took place in Silverton, Pretoria in 1980. Very disturbing and merits more reading on the subject.

Black Crab is a 2022 Swedish action thriller film. It is about a speed skater (Rapace) conscripted to join a team of soldiers for a dangerous mission to skate across sea ice behind enemy lines. The team is tasked with delivering a secret package to an island research base, which they are told could end the war. Entertaining.

READING

I had forgotten how much I love Val McDermid's books! 1979 was a fantastic read with a new protagonist Allie Burns.

McDermid herself was a journalist in 1979, and in this novel, she brings the newsroom to life, typewriters, carbon copies, flash bulbs and print presses, all things of the past. I loved the descriptions of the newspaper librarians clipping articles from the papers and filing them, while having to make copies if an article pertained to another story as well.

In 1979, she captures the atmospheric, dismal, and gray atmosphere of 1979 Scotland. Political strife, class struggles, sexism, and sexuality are some of the themes at the forefront of this novel. To be gay in 1979 in Scotland was still a crime.

The references to music, books, TV shows, and movies put me right into the time.

One of my favourite passages - no internet in 1979!
Danny wished phone books were illustrated. It would be helpful to see the houses attached to the addresses, just to give forewarning of the kind of person you were dealing with. It was a mad idea, he knew that. The books would have to be impossibly cumbersome, and they’d take forever to compile.

Probably my favourite book of 2022 so far!

I finished another McDermid, Still Life, #6 in the Karen Pirie series. Enjoyable.

I was looking for The Long Weekend by Gilly Macmillan at the library and put it on my wish list. Two other books popped up with the same title, so I borrowed The Long Weekend by Clare Lydon, and it is long on drama! Fun read but I not interested in reading any more of this series.

Canadian Artist of the Day

The Chicken Run

Mary Wrinch c. 1925

Weekend Roundup

 Welcome to The Weekend Roundup...hosted by Tom The Back Roads Traveler

1. Starts with "Q"
2. A Favorite
3. QUARTER - chosen by Tom

Starts with "Q"

FAVOURITE

Adelaide Australia

QUARTER

New Orleans LA

Canadian Artist of the Day

Spring on the Bow

Janet Mitchell 1979

Signs 2

  Joining Tom at Signs2.

Random-osity

Wordless Wednesday Wordless Be There 2day

Arizona - Route 66 near Seligman

Reading Tom's post reminded me that I had seen signs like the ones he posted.

Read Tom's blog about these ads by Burma Shave. 

You can also find a lot more of their slogans here.

So what happened to this iconic bit of advertising? Well, Burma-Shave was bought by the American Razor Company in 1963 and the signs started to come down after that. Only one complete set of original signs remain, and those are housed in the Smithsonian.

But, you might ask, what about my photos here from State Route 66 near Seligman? Well, it's all a part of the town's carefully crafted aesthetic to recapture the magic of the mother road. Several sets of signs were set up along the highway and permission was even obtained to use some of the original Burma-Shave messages, though they are a five-sign variant instead of the usual six-sign sayings. These signs are also kind of ironic, as Arizona was one of the five states not to have Burma-Shave signs before the company was bought out.

 

Canadian Artist of the Day

The Wedding Tray

D.P. Brown 1968

Daniel Price Erichsen Brown, painter, printmaker (b at Forestville, Ont 21 Aug 1939). D.P. Brown's interest in art was sparked on frequent childhood sketching trips with A.Y. JACKSON and Will OGILVIE near Georgian Bay, and continued on his annual vacation visits to the great art collections of Europe while studying abroad. He was encouraged by Lawren P. HARRIS to return to Canada in 1958 to study at Mount Allison with Alex COLVILLE. After graduating in 1961 Brown moved back to Ontario to paint full-time.

The wide variety of his subject matter appears to be the mundane familiarity of his rural surroundings recorded with an almost photographic accuracy. But closer examination reveals the creation of carefully controlled compositions with a larger purpose - hidden juxtapositions, relationships and comparisons of intense philosophical insight and social commentary in the tradition of the finest classical and Renaissance masters he so greatly admires.

His major works include images of farmers and city dwellers interacting at a farm auction (The Auction, 1975); the nude artist startled by a skeleton hanging in a doctor's office (Nude and Skeleton, 1978); a majorette posing too proudly before a draped Canadian flag (The Twirler, 1979); and aging Orangemen parading past a monolithic Catholic church (Orangemen's Parade, 1984; seeORANGE ORDER).

He paints exclusively with egg tempera and prints all his serigraph stencils by hand, creating one composition at a time and producing a total of only 3 or 4 works per year. In 1985 he was the subject of a 6-city retrospective exhibition: "D.P. Brown; Twenty Years."

Tuesday Treasures

 Tom the backroads traveller hosts this weekly meme.

Travel Tuesday

Image-in-ing

My Corner of the World

Postcards

Toronto ON

Yonge Street is a major arterial route Ontario connecting the shores of Lake Ontario in Toronto to Lake Simcoe, a gateway to the Upper Great Lakes.

Until 1999, the Guinness Book of World Records repeated the popular misconception it was 1,896 km (1,178 mi) long, making it the longest street in the world; this was due to a conflation of Yonge Street with the rest of Ontario's Highway 11. Yonge Street (including the Bradford-to-Barrie extension) is only 86 kilometres (53 mi) long.

These brass plaques can still be found at the bottom of Yonge St. Harbourfront, just east of the Hilton Hotel at the edge of Lake Ontario although in bad shape.

Ontario's first colonial administrator, John Graves Simcoe, named the street for his friend Sir George Yonge, an expert on ancient Roman roads. 

This historic sign is also at the bottom of Yonge St. One Yonge where the Toronto Star was headquartered.

Yonge Street is a commercial main thoroughfare rather than a ceremonial one, with landmarks such as the Eaton Centre, Yonge-Dundas Square, and the Hockey Hall of Fame along its length. The Downtown Yonge shopping and entertainment district is named after it.

This sidewalk map outside the Eaton Centre wrongly refers to Yonge St. as the longest in the world.

Canadian Artist of the Day

Granville Street at Night

Jack Shadbolt 1946

Jack Shadbolt was born in Shoeburyness, England, in 1909. When he was three his family immigrated to Canada, finally settling in Victoria, British Columbia, in 1914. Exposure to the art of Emily Carr and the Group of Seven, combined with a burgeoning interest in outdoor sketching, led to his decision to become an artist. He later studied in New York, London, and Paris, and in 1938 began teaching at the Vancouver School of Art.

He enlisted in the army as a signalman on 28 October 1942. Preferring to paint, he devoted time during training to recording the setting and activities of Little Mountain Camp, B.C. In May 1944 the Canadian War Artists' Committee identified him as one of a number of suitable candidates for commission as an official war artist, but there were no vacancies in the army. Instead, he became a "narrator," with the rank of major, on the staff of the Director of Historical Services, Ottawa, pending a vacancy in the war artist establishment.

Beginning on 23 October 1944, he spent three weeks painting and sketching at the German prisoner of war camp at Petawawa, Ontario. The 32 works on paper he produced there form the main body of his art at the Canadian War Museum. Executed in watercolour and pencil, Shadbolt's subjects include portraits of the Veterans Guard of Canada, the German prisoners, work parties, and several detailed portrayals of the bleak camp itself. In these camp studies, the barbed wire fences, the watchtowers, and the ramshackle wooden huts document with chilling thoroughness one aspect of Canada's war on the home front.

T for Tuesday

 T Stands For is hosted by Elizabeth and Bleubeard

Watching a movie set in Berlin reminded me of our breakfast at the Riechstag, German Parliament.

Click here for all the details of this day in Berlin. This will give you the background to the security checks you go through before you can enter the building.

It was constructed to house the Imperial Diet (German: Reichstag) of the German Empire. It was opened in 1894 and housed the Diet until 1933, when it was severely damaged after being set on fire. After World War II, the building fell into disuse; the parliament of the German Democratic Republic (the Volkskammer) met in the Palast der Republik in East Berlin, while the parliament of the Federal Republic of Germany (the Bundestag) met in the Bundeshaus in Bonn.

The ruined building was made safe against the elements and partially refurbished in the 1960s, but no attempt at full restoration was made until after German reunification on 3 October 1990, when it underwent a reconstruction led by architect Norman Foster. After its completion in 1999, it once again became the meeting place of the German parliament: the contemporary Bundestag.

The Reichstag is now the second most visited attraction in Germany, not least because of the huge glass dome that was erected on the roof as a gesture to the original 1894 cupola, giving an impressive view over the city, especially at night.

Canadian Artist of the Day

Sunset Sky

Tom Thomson 1915

Canadian Artist of the Day

Tour De Force

Charles Pachter 2008

Monday Mural

 I'm linking up at Monday Mural

April 2022 - Hamilton ON

We spotted this too late and came back later to get a photo. I can't find out anything about it other than it is on the side of a pharmacy.

Canadian Artist of the Day

The Vaughan Sisters

William Brymner 1910

Birds and Beans

 Linking up at Marg at The Intrepid Reader 

Weekend Coffee Share

Sunday Salon

April 2022 - Lake Shore Blvd W Toronto ON

I'm very glad we went grocery shopping relatively early on Easter Saturday. The Longos (Maple Leaf Square) that we go to is located next to the ACC Scotiabank Arena (Raptors playing tonight/Maple Leafs hockey tomorrow).

Game 1 of the Toronto Raptors vs. Philadelphia 76ers playoff series is tonight and 

following a two-year hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the so-called “Jurassic Park” tailgate area has returned home to Scotiabank Arena. The outdoor space has seen thousands of Raptors fans cheer on the team during playoff runs of the past while watching games in real-time on a massive screen.

This year’s viewing party is a little different in that fans will need to obtain free mobile passes to enter Maple Leaf Square. Each guest can obtain as many as four passes which are available 24 to 48 hours before each confirmed game. Doors open at 3:30 PM for Game 1.

The Skydome Rogers Centre is down the street and the Blue Jays were playing this afternoon. The CN Tower and the Aquarium are next door, so the area was teeming with people.

These photos don't reflect the number of people milling about.

The Toronto FC soccer are playing Philadelphia tonight as well in the same area. Their stadium is just south of here. 

I had promised to bring gluten free cannolis to my cousin for Easter dinner, but when I checked the website I was a day late for Easter orders. On an impulse I messaged the store on Saturday morning while shopping to ask if they had any and she said YES! So we headed there and it was busy! But I got two orders of 8 each and bought most of their stock, two women came in behind me and I knew they were hoping to get some gluten free.

On the way home, solidary flag outside the Polish embassy.

The side wall of Birds and Beans coffee shop pictured above.

I received Easter lilies from John!

A week later they are all open!

Easter Sunday we finally got together with my cousin and her wife. We also got to meet Joey!

She did a raclette. We had talked earlier and asked if we wanted traditional, BBQ or raclette! We decided on raclette and brunch, although it was 8 PM when we finally left!

Monday we went to a local appliance store listed on the Bosch website as carrying the dishwasher we need. We put a deposit on it but due to the supply chain issues it could be 6 months before we get it. Such is life, as least we are now on the waiting list.

And then we had snow! Seriously? It is mid April and after Easter!

Tuesday and we had an email saying the washer/dryer steam kit was on its way to us from LG.

I baked blueberry banana bread and repotted a plant. I also did all the paper shredding that was piling up.

John went to the golf simulator on Tuesday and Thursday.

My favourite (read expensive) butcher shop Sanagan had a chicken quarter special 10 lbs for $40 and I got it delivered.

Wednesday the vacuum was acting up and overheating. Yet another!

We headed out to Hamilton for fish and chips.

Keto Kravings  also carries gluten free products.

Cannabuzz

We love pho (Vietnamese noodle soup) and love this name.

Thursday John took the vacuum in to Dyson, the Vacman thinks he can fix it for around $75, we'll see.

Inspired by a blogger (sorry, not sure who it was) who complained about an appliance and received a new one, I sent a note to Crock Pot that my slow cooker (bought December 2020) panel letters were wearing out.

This is the less than satisfactory response I received.

Hey there, Jackie. We are sorry to hear that the control panel letters are wearing off. We are glad to offer to our consumers 1 year limited warranty. Based on the information provided, your product is outside of the designated warranty period. Unfortunately, in this case, I am unable to provide a free-of-charge replacement. I wish I could provide you with more favorable response. Thank you and please stay safe! Karolina CrockPot

We picked up another from the Scotch club, Whisky Drop. It's actually an Irish whiskey.

COOKING

Saturday ham, mashed potatoes and Brussel sprouts.

Sunday Easter brunch at my cousin's.

Monday BBQ chicken quarters curry chicken and naan bread (new recipe) not a keeper! 

Tuesday fish chowder slow cooker pork belly (new recipe also not a keeper) and sauteed broccolini tomatoes mushrooms and onions.

Wednesday Chinese salad with hard boiled eggs, ham, cheese, beets

Thursday hamburger patty, mashed potatoes, beans and gravy

Friday steak, broccoli and garlic bread

WATCHING

We saw the first episode of The First Lady an American anthology drama television series created by Aaron Cooley which premiered on Showtime on April 17, 2022. It stars Viola Davis, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Gillian Anderson, among others.

Outer Range is an American supernatural mystery thriller streaming television series created by Brian Watkins for Amazon Prime Video. It stars Josh Brolin in the lead role as a Wyoming rancher. The first season will consist of eight episodes, with two episodes premiering every week starting from its premiere on April 15, 2022.

Passer By is a 2004 British television film broadcast. Stars James Nesbitt (Bloody Sunday / Bofur in The Hobbit) whom I love.

A definite moral dilemma. 

We started season 5 of Queen of the South.

READING

Thanks to Tina, I borrowed Chowderland from the library.

Each recipe also offers salad, side, or dessert pairings that are also found in this book, so the book is kind of a one-stop-shop for all your soup eating needs.

Tina has a copy of the Vineyard chicken and corn chowder on her blog.  

I like the idea of a day after Thanksgiving chowder!

I didn't know you could use evaporated milk in a chowder!

How about mussel chowder with light curry

Click here for an article with a few of her recipes.

This recipe is practically a duplicate from her book - Bermuda fish chowder.

I read Buried - The gripping first book in a brand-new thriller series by the Queen of Crime Drama, Lynda La Plante. I can't say I am a fan of this new protagonist DC Jack Warr. I enjoyed the book but it is really a continuation of the 25 million pound train robbery series with Harry and Dolly Rawlins. I'm not sure if you could follow this book if you didn't know the history. 

I devoured The Good Son - opening sentence:

“I was picking my son up at the prison gates when I spotted the mother of the girl he had murdered.” What an opener for Jacquelyn Mitchard’s new book, The Good Son!

While I did get a little bored with the mother's overprotectiveness and did figure out the plot well before the mother, it was still a great read about domestic drama, life after jail and guilt.

I started The Banker's Wife it appeals to me because it is about computer crime, money laundering and politics. Is it well written and constructed, not really.