Propeller Coffee

 Linking up with Marg at The Intrepid Reader

Weekend Coffee Share

Sunday Salon

January 2024 - Toronto ON

January 2024 The Well Front St. Toronto

In a statement, the City of Toronto said there were two misspelled signs that were installed as part of more than 500 cycling signs in December 2023.

I finished up some leftover wool from last year's blanket, it made a small lap blanket that can go into the charity bag.

Dire weather warnings for Tuesday, that never happened. However, it is now forecasted for Friday night...

It was rainy and windy as I went downtown to meet an old friend (hadn't seen in ages) for a long coffee break! It was fun catching up.

We decided to explore Toronto's independent coffee shops, trying a different one each week. So far, we are 2 for 2. 

Our destination this week was Bevy at The Combine in the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the same as BBC or ABC) building. We cut through CBC as it was bloody cold out.

Miniature model of the building.

Schitt's Creek's motel sign! It was produced by CBC.

The Combine is a collaborative space dedicated to nurturing local creatives.

 Although commonly confused for the short form of "beverage," the name "Bevy" according to its founder, Phil Song, is taken from the word meaning "a group of like-minded individuals." 

Thursday was a foggy day, I had planned on going out but by lunchtime I felt like baking, so I tried a recipe I had pinned but never made, spice cake with a spicy mocha frosting. It is a little too sweet, would reduce sugar, increase spices and add more coffee to the icing.

Then I made the potato salad for dinner, after a 2 hour chat with my BFF!

Friday we did a quick jaunt to Longo's for weekend supplies.

COOKING

Saturday slow cooker pork loin, mashed potatoes and parsnips with broccolini. Leftover pork was lunch sandwiches.

Sunday Alfredo with spaghetti and bacon

Monday lamb chops, mashed potatoes and carrots

Beef keema (spice mix gifted by bus driver) and gluten free 2 ingredient naan. First time making this naan, I think I should have flattened it more as it was a bit thick and gummy. I will use this recipe next time - 3 ingredient naan.

Salt and vinegar potato chips haddock with fries and sliced tomatoes.

Thursday chicken tenders with dip. tomatoes and potato salad

Steak fajitas - these are the best gluten free tortillas!

WATCHING

We watched CBC Gem D.I.Ray season 1, 4 episodes, it was so good and maddening!

Fool Me Once 2024 Netflix series - Following the murder of her husband Joe, Maya Stern was given a nanny cam by a friend to watch over her daughter Lilly. However, after watching nanny camera footage, she sees Joe, who was presumed dead, visiting his daughter. Meanwhile, Abby  and Daniel, her niece and nephew, seek to find the truth about their mother's murder and the possible connections between both cases.

Society of the Snow 2023 movie -  is a 2023 survival thriller film centered around the Uruguayan 1972 Andes flight disaster.

Money Heist Berlin - nope, we gave up on it.

Giri/Haji 2019 serries - A detective from Tokyo scours London for his missing brother, who's been involved with the Yakuza and accused of murder.

READING

I read a quarter of Wrong Number, skimming many pages, until I gave up on it, too boring. I did enjoy her delving into the darknet.

I started 11 Missed Calls and am enjoying it.

Weekend Reflections

Posting at Weekend Reflections


June 2019 - Toronto ON

Tuesday Treasures

Tom the backroads traveller hosts this weekly meme. 

July 2017 - Toronto ON

Outside the CBC building on Front St was this sidewalk drawing.

Andrew Stuart McLean, OC, journalist, professor, radio host, author, humorist (born 19 April 1948 in Montréal, QC; died 15 February 2017 in Toronto, ON). An Officer of the Order of Canada, Stuart McLean created The Vinyl Cafe and was one of the CBC’s legendary radio personalities.

We loved to listen to his show The Vinyl Cafe.

Stuart McLean created a radio program called The Vinyl Cafe in 1994 as a summer replacement show. With his signature understated humour, McLean recounts the exploits of a fictional family whose patriarch, Dave, owns "the world's smallest" record store. Aside from McLean’s story telling, a portion of The Vinyl Cafe is dedicated to musical performance.

By autumn 1997, the show was broadcast every Sunday at noon. In print as Stories from the Vinyl Cafe (1995), the book became a bestseller in Canada. A series of bestselling Vinyl Cafe collections followed. Home from the Vinyl Cafe won the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour in 1999 and Vinyl Cafe Unplugged won the award for McLean again in 2001. A third Stephen Leacock Medal was awarded for Secrets from the Vinyl Cafe in 2007. McLean has added to the series with Extreme Vinyl Cafe (2009), Revenge of the Vinyl Cafe(2012), Time Now for the Vinyl Cafe Story Exchange (2013)and Vinyl Cafe Turns the Page (2015).

In 1998, Stuart McLean began taking the Vinyl Cafe on the road to theatres across the country. It is broadcast every week on CBC Radio and is also heard via satellite radio around the world and on public radio stations in the United States.

Here's a small sample, YouTube has many more.

Toilet Training The Cat

First Day of School

Sculpture - Front St area

Since I've developed an addiction to my book Creating Memory I have learned more about sculptures I may have shown randomly on my weekly recaps. Now that I know more about them I am featuring them again along with some new ones in the same area.


I first posted this in my Canada Day 2017 post without knowing anything other than I had seen it in the CBC building on Front St. West.

Passage - Serge Dery, 2002 commissioned by the CBC

Outside the CBC sits Glenn Gould, not matter what the weather.

Glenn Herbert Gould (25 September 1932 – 4 October 1982) was a Canadian pianist who became one of the best-known and most celebrated classical pianists of the 20th century. He was particularly renowned as an interpreter of the keyboard music of Johann Sebastian Bach. His playing was distinguished by remarkable technical proficiency and capacity to articulate the polyphonic texture of Bach's music. He is widely considered one of the greatest pianists of the 20th century.


Commissioned in 1998 by The Glenn Gould Foundation Artist Ruth Abernethy

Probably too warm in his trademarked hat, gloves, scarf, and rubber toe boots on a summer's day.

On the same block is the sculpture 100 Workers which I showcased in the highlighted link.
The second part of the monument, The Anonymity of Prevention, is a bronze sculpture of a worker wearing full safey gear, appearing to chisel into the wall of 100 Workers. This sculpture was done by Derek Lo and Lana Winkler.

On Wellington, one block north of the CBC is Metro Hall and this sculpture.
This is an odd sculpture and people often refer to the bunny dogs!

.
Remembered Sustenance, as it’s called, was created by artist Cynthia Short, and is made up of 19 bronze animals. Some of the animals seem to be walking towards a bronze dish, which sits below a curtain with bronze birds perched on top of it. Others are walking away from it.

Inside Metro Hall is a favourite of mine which I've featured several times.
One Word Sunday - Inclined
Friday Finds - Letter V


LEXIER, MICAH

Consists of 25 custom-made aluminum ladders of various heights. The rungs of each ladder consist of different words that have been waterjet-cut out of a bar of aluminum. Each of the 350 separate rungs is a word selected from the "Synopsis of Categories" section of Roget's Thesaurus. The work merges an image of physical construction (ladders) with the elements of intellectual construction (words).

Piece of Cake

As usual, we chilled out on Saturday, a nice rainy day.

I took this rather odd looking photo as the rain stopped late in the afternoon. We were surprised to see all the wires as I really zoomed this photo, I also took it from our bedroom.

I received the blender/food processor I bought online the other day. Earlier in the spring we had bought an inexpensive blender for our smoothies. It worked well but last week it started to smell like the motor might have been burning out. The internet is amazing

 as I was googling what would be the best to buy up popped an ad from the Hudson Bay (Canadian department store) for a deal on a Cuisinart blender/food processor which I then ordered. That was Tuesday and it was delivered on Friday.

Sunday I strolled out to pick up some vegetables for dinner and snapped a few photos along the way.
Spotted this in the distance and had to walk down to see what it was. Googled it and learned it is called Bubble Football.

So where am I? This photo is from our building. I had just walked down from the store and the kids were playing across the street from the red umbrellas, which is a pub. I stayed on that side of the street to get home and walked on those paths closest to the lake. The sidewalk on that side is usually crowded with cyclists on the weekend.

You can tell by the colour of the grass that we have had very little rain this summer.

I decided to try gluten free baking again this time using an all-purpose gluten free flour from the Bulk Barn. I also added Xanthan gum as the label recommended it, also bought at Bulk Barn. I had lots of blueberries in the freezer and plenty of Greek yogurt. All in all this recipe worked out well.

Lots of goldenrod around.

It was a funny kind of day after yesterday's rain. It felt coolish and overcast when I stepped out but then the wind completely died and the sun came out. City looking pretty hazy.

Monday I went downtown for a haircut, some pizza stuff and also found two pairs of jeans!!


Hockey fever is everywhere.

I came across a recipe that I thought was easy and would use up some stuff in the cupboards. I had a jar of Nutella that we had bought to try and neither of us liked it. Then a jar of peanut butter (I hate the stuff) that John wasn't crazy about so we decided it was good enough for cooking.

This is the recipe for nutella fudge cups, it is not going into my recipe box. I did make some adjustments based on what I had on hand. I mixed the peanut butter with the Nutella as I didn't have enough to make two cups. I didn't like the look of them and thought they were too greasy. John took one bite and valiantly said he would eat them since I made them.  But really, they went in the garbage.

Tuesday John was on a mission to get a pair of jeans so we headed down to his favourite store and salesman who had already picked out several pairs for him.
I loved this display of socks.

Then I met up with my BFF for a good old chin wag over lunch. My fish tacos.

Wednesday I went for a mani pedi and took a couple of photos. So quiet and peaceful on a weekday morning at 9:45.

Decorations for fall at our building, so nice to have someone else do my gardening.

Thursday John had gotten tickets for a new local TV show. It was the first week of taping for The Goods. Was a lot of fun even though the hour long show took about three hours to tape there is always something to keep you entertained, from draws for prizes to contests by the audience.

Check out my new crush, new kid on the CBC block Shahir Massoud, delivering cupcakes around the station.

After a quick lunch of Chinese food we headed home as friends were coming by. I did stop and pick up a Japanese cheesecake that created so much hype last year when they opened up to stupid-long lineups.
From the Globe and Mail:
The first Uncle Tetsu opened 25 years ago in Hakata, Japan. The company’s cheesecakes have become an international phenomenon in the years since; those two-hour lineups aren’t an only-in-Toronto exception, but the rule. Outside Japan, the brand has more than 70 shops across China, as well as in Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, Philippines and Cambodia. (Some of those are franchises. In Toronto, it’s owned by the company.)

First bite was a little weird but then it grew on me. It is so light, more like a souffle, it is baked in a water bath. It also tastes more eggy than cheesy. At $10 for a cake it is a good deal as well. Would I line up for it, not likely.

Still on my quest to reduce and use the food in our fridge and freezers! It doesn't seem to be going down.
How did I decide what to make for dinner before Pinterest????
None of the new recipes went into my recipe box this week. The meatloaf and tikka masala were good, but not memorable, even though John enjoyed them both.

Saturday - burgers and fries with a change up in the ketchup to which I added hot sauce and chili sauce to it.
Sunday - used the rest of the ground beef to make this meatloaf with colcannon.
Monday - pizza (GF crust in freezer)
Tuesday - buttery garlic lime salmon (frozen) and salad
Wednesday - chicken breasts (frozen) made into chicken tikka masala
Thursday -  spaghetti with veal meat sauce (frozen)
Friday - steak (frozen) sauteed green peppers, onions and mushrooms with frites.

BOOKS
I didn't include an update last week.
Finished:
A Free Life I gave it 2 stars out of five. Wanted to finish it just to see what happened.
In The Skin of a Lion I was sorry to give this 1 star as it was recommended on last week's lost breweries tour, but I just couldn't get into the main character.
The Grownup Seriously don't even get me started!! What a waste of time! 64 pages, really????
Twisted River 5/5 loved it. Didn't want it to end.
My Name is Lucy Barton 2/5 I so wanted to love this one... but it was just ok.

I started Fates and Furies and enjoying it so far.

Friday Photo Journal

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

Make My Saturday Sweet

 Saturday Snapshots is hosted by West Metro Mommy. 

Scenic Weekends


Weekend Snapshots


Seasons


Petite Pudding


Monday Morning Blog Club


Whatever the Weather - Wednesday - Friday


Through My Lens Monday


Life Through the Lens


Tuesday Travel


Our World Tuesday


City Trippin'


Wanderful Wednesday


SNAP on Wednesday


Outdoor Wednesday


Wednesday Around the World at Communal Global


Worth Casing Wednesday


Travel Photo Thursday


Weekend Travel Inspiration. Done


The Weekly Postcard


Weekend Wanderlust