Showing posts with label ceramic. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ceramic. Show all posts

19 November 2019

Tuesday Treasures

Tom hosts Tuesday's Treasures.
Travel Tuesday
Our World Tuesday
Image-in-ing
My Corner of the World

November 2019 - Toronto ON

The Gardiner Museum is a museum dedicated to ceramic art in Toronto. It was founded by George and Helen Gardiner in 1984 to house their collection of ceramic art. It is located on Queen's Park just south of Bloor Street, opposite the Royal Ontario Museum.

Click on Gardiner or ROM in the tags below to see more of these museums.

There is a new exhibit at the Gardiner.

Food and dining were transformed in Europe during the age of Enlightenment by profound changes that still resonate today. What many of us eat, the way food is cooked, and how we dine continues to be influenced by radical changes that occurred in France from 1650 until the French Revolution in 1789.




Food Culture in the Age of Enlightenment is organized by the Gardiner Museum and curated by Meredith Chilton, C.M., Curator Emerita. Works of art and objects from major North American museums and private collections, as well as key pieces of contemporary ceramics and knitted art, will come together in a delectable feast for the senses designed by Opera Atelier’s Resident Set Designer, Gerard Gauci.




One of the great surprises in the exhibition Savour: Food Culture in the Age of Enlightened are these knitted objects by Madame Tricot. A work of art on their own, these trompe l'oeil pieces give visitors the opportunity to see how 18th century serving vessels may have been used.

On January 16, 1660, a French spy returning from a mission in Italy caused quite the sensation at Versailles when he presented Louis XIV with a basket of fresh peas in the dead of winter. Soon after, Louis XIV acquired the services of horticulturalist Jean-Baptiste de La Quintinie, who successfully expanded the growing season of many fruits and vegetables in the king's garden by carefully selecting seeds, using gloss cloches to protect tender young plants, and implementing enclosures and raised beds—methods familiar to many modern farmers and gardeners today!
 
















Baking and cake decorating with instructions.



There were several statements made regarding slavery.




I watch a lot of TV cooking contests and was impressed with the new "cool innovative" ice creams they came up with. But obviously these "new" flavours have been around a long time!


Pineapples were all the rage in 17th- and 18th-century Europe. Rare and expensive to grow, they quickly became a status symbol, with confectioners renting them out by the evening to the fashionable elite. For those who couldn’t afford the real deal, cooks often used pineapple-shaped moulds for jellied or iced desserts as a way to bring the essence of the coveted fruit to the dining table.
Would you try Parmesan-flavoured ice cream shaped like a pineapple?

In 18th century Europe, confectionary chefs delighted in making Instagram-worthy fruit and vegetable-shaped ice cream creations using a variety of moulds and unusual flavours. At a banquet in 1780, the Queen of Naples bit into a slice of cold turkey that turned out to be lemon ice!




Famed Italian adventurer and notorious womanizer, Giacomo Casanova, counted on two specific foods that heightened his sexual pleasure and those of his partners: oysters and egg whites. Neither were sexually stimulating on their own—rather, it was the way that Casanova ate them with his lovers that transformed them into aphrodisiacs.

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Diner a Deux is a contemporary piece basd on the late 1700s with a modern twist.










Check out these funky take on these 1700 tapestry chairs. Yes, a sundae!



Fries, anyone?



And a final reminder, to mind your P's and Q's!


16 November 2019

Hot Chocolate

November 2019 - Toronto ON


November 2019 - Gardiner Museum Toronto


Saturday we decided on cheeses, pate and cold cuts for dinner, it's been a long time since we did this.

Sunday slow cooker lamb shanks stewed in dark beer with mashed potatoes.

Monday's forecast was dire with snow warnings. Fake news! It was more like rain. We did get a little accumulation but nothing much in the city.

I had a book to pick up downtown.

Toronto's soccer team, sadly we lost in the finals to Seattle on the weekend.


Coming up on Remembrance Day ceremonies on the steps of Old City Hall.




The modern glass tower in the centre is the Eaton's Centre.


Funny enough, later in the day I received an email from Andrew with a photo asking me if I knew the location. It happened to be almost the same spot as the photo above.
The white building was the iconic Eaton's department store.


Reading the Prayer of Remembrance.



Walking to the library branch in City Hall. Only banks and government offices are closed for Remembrance Day, oh, and the LCBO (Liquor Control Board of Ontario) only opened at noon, go figure.



I walked inside back to the bus. Inside the Eaton Centre.


Taken at Union Station.


Settled on bus.


Interesting patterns from our window.


Made my mother's gingerbread and we had it with spiced whipped cream for our afternoon coffee.






Decided to make a chicken pot pie and settled on this recipe (sorta) with the biscuits (gluten free flour) baked on top. Filling was delicious with white turnip, carrots, onions and peas. The biscuits were good, not great.


Tuesday

I decided to stay in for a change.

Made this naan bread  and gave up in frustration it was so sticky I threw it out.
I did make homemade tzatziki using John's recipe from years ago, but I used sour cream instead as we always have some since we get it from Costco. It was delicious. We had it with the lamb sausages I had bought a couple of weeks ago on the Danforth.


Wednesday John and I went downtown for an appointment and we picked up pork chops for dinner with broccolini and vegetable mash.

Thursday I met my BFF and we went to the Gardiner Museum, a ceramic museum. 

A new outdoor sculpture.
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Now covered in a blanket of snow, click here to see this garden in its green glory.




The crisis surrounding murdered and missing Indigenous women, girls, trans, and queer community members continues, with thousands of documented cases in both Canada and the U.S.

The Gardiner presents the Canadian premiere of artist Cannupa Hanska Luger’s Every One, a monumental social sculpture commemorating victims of the crisis. Every One visualizes the data behind the MMIWQT crisis, transforming large and abstract numbers into a representation of individual lived experiences. Responding to data collected by the Native Women’s Association of Canada, Luger created a call to action video shared through social media that invited communities across the United States and Canada to make 2-inch clay beads, each one representing a unique person who has been lost. Hundreds of participants held workshops, both with Luger and on their own, making the beads in studios, community centres, universities, and private homes. These experiences generated over 4,000 beads, as well as numerous conversations, stories, and occasions for healing through clay.

Every One references and stands in solidarity with the photograph Sister by Kali Spitzer. Spitzer explores the individual stories behind the MMIWQT crisis through portraiture and self-representation. She works in the medium of tintypes, a photographic process popular in the 1860s and 1870s, particularly with settlers in the Canadian and American West. Spitzer reclaims this process, adapting it to create images of contemporary Indigenous survivance.

Interesting that spell check doesn't recognize the word survivance. Wikipedia has a description.








The main exhibit was Savour. I will only include some highlights here and save the rest for Tuesday Treasures.
Food and dining were transformed in Europe during the age of Enlightenment by profound changes that still resonate today. What many of us eat, the way food is cooked, and how we dine continues to be influenced by radical changes that occurred in France from 1650 until the French Revolution in 1789.






Checking out some of the permanent displays. A French dessert typical table setting.








Gorgeous!





One Word Saturday.

Out the window from the museum, the ROM, Royal Ontario Museum is across the street.


Only the top two rows are real ceramics, the bottom three shelves are trompe d'oeil images.

The shelves are awaiting the Rosalie Wise Sharp's collection.



The Diana Reitberger Collection of Modern and Contemporary Ceramics stands out for both its breadth and focus. Its arrival at the Gardiner Museum significantly enhances the institution’s representation of Canadian artists across an extraordinary spectrum of contemporary approaches, including vessels, figurative sculpture, and abstract forms. The Reitberger Collection is significant also for revealing new connections between Canadian artists and leading international makers from the United States, the United Kingdom, and Japan. As a whole, it presents an overview of recent activity in the field of studio ceramics with an emphasis on Canada, yet an eye to the world.






Outside the museum.



The front of the ROM.


New and old at the University of Toronto.



Behind Union Station.



I had leftover brie that I wanted to use up so did a combination of this bacon brie pasta and this chicken mushroom brie fettuccine. I used the brie (natch) bacon and mushroom and added the chicken broth and cream to make a thicker sauce.

John said it was really good.


Friday we met an old friend for lunch on the Danforth.


BOOK ENDS

November 2019 - Gardiner Museum Toronto


I finished He Said She Said and I must say I was blown away by the outcome. Never saw it coming. One of the best books I read this year.



I'm not a big Anna Quindlan fan, but this popped up on my library wish list as available so I thought I'd read one of her later books.
Alternate Side was a good quick read with many provoking thoughts on marriage and parking spots. It focuses on first world problems of very rich New Yorkers but it was still a fun read.

Almost finished The Flight Attendant  which is an interesting thriller with the main character so incapable of making a smart decision that I am left shaking my head.


LINKING UP WITH
Beth hosts Weekend Cooking where you can post anything food related.
Sunday Salon
Seasons
Say Cheese
Monday Walks
Monday Morning Blog Club

Signs

   Joining Tom at Signs2 August 2026 - St. John's NL