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Sunday Salon

Hanoi Vietnam

January 2, 2026 - Toronto ON

It's been a rather low key week with the holidays, jetlag (big time) and a head cold for me!

We did finally unpack our suitcases and did two loads of laundry, it didn't really matter as it as all summer stuff.

I made some oatmeal and raisin cookies and had big plans to bake some other stuff but didn't much have the energy or enthusiasm.

I did catch up with a friend on the phone.

We spent some time backing up photos. John may laugh at my back-ups of back-ups, but it came in handy when our old Asian photos got corrupted and disappeared on my external hard drive. I recovered them on my other external drive and also got that one up to date!

Then John was going to help with blog posts when his touchpad stopped working which required him to problem solve. However, he did solve that and wrote several of our trip posts, as he learned Blogger at the same time.

We also learned how to rotate videos on our phones! And both of us did a year end maintenance on our phones and laptops.

For some reason some of our videos came in as HEVC and needed to be converted. I tried several free online converters and installed some recommended apps to no avail This finally worked Online Converter.com

A couple of things I forgot to mention last week.

When we got back last Monday and we were catching up on sleep, I got up to go the the bathroom, we hadn't closed one of the blinds. I thought to myself, what city am I in, and oh, look the lights look great on that hill over there. It the the condo lights to the west of us!! I also thought, oh the bathroom is in the same place as at home!!

I reached my 10,000 published post while away! December 4, 2025.

We went to Longo's for some groceries twice this week. Only Thursday, New Year's Day is a holiday. It has been very cold due to the crazy winds of up to 70/54 km/mi an hour. 

John tried a new yogurt (because it was on special), it is Canadian and gluten free.

It also started to snow a little. Photo from bus window on Front St.

John poured us a port as I was reading and sniffling on NYE afternoon. And we had a couple of afternoon flat whites as well.

My Christmas cactus (the one I rescued from the garbage room in June 2024) is definitely going to bloom.

Once again, our building restaurant was a winner in the Toronto restaurants.

The building issued a cold weather alert on NYE.

We loved our crab legs this year, and devoured them. I'm hoping they still have some on Friday! Yes, they did!

We stayed up to watch the ball drop and get weepy eyed singing Auld Lang Syne.

NEW YEAR'S DAY

We had a low key day, we didn't even make our mimosas! Although we did spend some time doing more trip posts.

Friday I simply went to Longo's for some items. AND I CAME HOME IN A POLICE CAR!🚓🚓🚓

Got your attention! I caught the 11:40 bus along with one other passenger, whom I recognize from the other building. I was reading but did notice a blue car that was merging on from a ramp, and thinking that he should be moving faster or slowing down as there was a produce truck and a bus passing him/her. 

Next thing, a loud bang and my groceries go flying! The driver had rammed into the back of the truck. The first thing the truck driver asked was if she had got any photo/details about the blue car. I am sure the bus camera will have that.

My first thought was that she had hit the blue car! But it had sneaked between the truck and bus.

She couldn't move the bus over either! Joyce was beside herself, checking that we were okay. Long story, short, the truck had seen the blue car and slowed down so it could pass, it scooted on by while she hit the truck. Police came, one car, one cop. by now, the other passenger realized he had split his lip, cop asks if he needed an ambulance, no. 

We finally ask how we get home, bus company says call an Uber, seriously!?!?! We're on the expressway???? Cop asks where do we live and offers to drive us home. I did get a puzzled look from one of our valets as I stepped out!

COOKING

Saturday turkey leftovers

Sunday ham colcannon or au gratin

Monday hamburger fires

Tuesday ham, Brussels sprouts, mashed potatoes

Wednesday NYE crab legs

Thursday roast pork, roast potatoes, mashed cauliflower, 

Friday steak and potato bravas (our version)

WATCHING

Home Alone...because we have to!
In Plainview meh

We continue finally finished with Mr. Mercedes! Halleluiah and time to move on. I have to admit we had a couple of TV naps!

House of Dynamite When a single, unattributed missile is launched at the United States, a race begins to determine who is responsible and how to respond. What a strange ending!

The Beast in Me

READING

I FINALLY finished Fox, what a strange, long read! It was disturbing and it was also longer than it needed to be. And the fate of Mary Anne is left unresolved.

I finished Funny Girl by Nick Hornby, as a good quick read after Fox!

I started The Trust, although it is book 4 in a series.

Toronto Public Library's most borrowed books of 2025

Tuesday Treasures

Tom the backroads traveller hosts this weekly meme.

June 2018 - Toronto ON


The Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library is a library in the University of Toronto, constituting the largest repository of publicly accessible rare books and manuscripts in Canada. The library is also home to the university archives which, in addition to institutional records, also contains the papers of many important Canadian literary figures including Margaret Atwood and Leonard Cohen.

It is located in the Robarts Library.

Among the collection's items are the Nuremberg Chronicle (1493), Shakespeare's First Folio (1623), and Newton's Principia (1687). Contrary to widespread internet claims, the library does not have Darwin's proof copy with annotations of On the Origin of Species (1859); the library does however have annotated proof sheets of: The Power of Movement in Plants , The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals , and The Effects of Cross and Self Fertilisation in the Vegetable Kingdom . Other collections include Babylonian cuneiform tablet from Ur (1789 BC), 36 Egyptian papyrus manuscript fragments (245 BC), and Catholicon (1460).

Some background on the library, we were here to see a temporary exhibition.

But just look at his amazing place! John had never been here and he was astounded.

Now to why we were here!

Mixed Messages Making and Shaping Culinary Culture in Canada will display a tasty arrangement of rare cookbooks, periodicals (magazines), manuscripts and culinary objects from the 1820s to the 1960s. This exhibition will examine how the culinary culture of Toronto and surrounding areas was made and shaped by those who participated in or were excluded from the making and using of culinary materials. On display will be many scarce items which are part of our collections due to the generous donations of Mary Williamson. Objects on display include a copy of the Frugal Housewife's Manual, the first cookbook written and published in Canada, posters advertising the beloved Canadian Cook Book, and an English curry bottle from the early 1900s (with curry still inside!).

Culinary Treasures St. Basil’s Ukrainian Catholic Women’s League - 1959 Edmonton Alberta.
The recipes illustrate the book’s rich cultural situation. “Mock Strawberries” sit alongside traditional recipes for “Grandpa Boris Cabbage” and dill pickles (one of which is marked “I make these”). The book’s owner was a Mrs. Anderson, an indication that Ukrainian recipes were not always limited to exclusively Ukrainian households. Although fruitcake was common across many cultural groups, these recipes show the influence of more diverse ingredients, including canned pineapple.

Click here to peruse a 1909 digitized copy of a cookbook compiled by a Sault Ste. Marie womens' auxiliary. I really enjoyed the corporate sponsor ads at the beginning of the book.

Margene Recipes was the first cookbook promoting margarine in Canada. Who knew there could be such a battle over margarine or that it would go to the Supreme Court!!!

In Canada, margarine was prohibited from 1886 to 1948, though this ban was temporarily lifted from 1917 until 1923 due to dairy shortages. Nevertheless, bootleg margarine was produced in the neighboring Dominion of Newfoundland from whale, seal, and fish oil by the Newfoundland Butter Company and was smuggled to Canada where it was widely sold for half the price of butter. The Supreme Court of Canada lifted the margarine ban in 1948 in the Margarine Reference. That year, Newfoundland negotiated its entry into the Canadian Confederation, and one of its three non-negotiable conditions for union with Canada was a constitutional protection for the new province's right to manufacture margarine.

In 1950, as a result of a court ruling giving provinces the right to regulate the product, rules were implemented in much of Canada regarding margarine's color, requiring that it be bright yellow or orange in some provinces or colorless in others. By the 1980s, most provinces had lifted the restriction. However, in Ontario it was not legal to sell butter-colored margarine until 1995. Quebec, the last Canadian province to regulate margarine coloring, repealed its law requiring margarine to be colorless in July 2008.

Growing up in Quebec we had a weird law that forced margarine producers to colour their product white if they wanted to sell their wares in Quebec.

This is what it looked like, my mother didn't buy margarine very often, you would squeeze the food dye button to make it yellow!

Before my time! Montreal Daily Star (except Sunday) Ceased with Sept. 7, 1951. Merged with: Standard (Montréal, Québec), to form: Montreal Star.

But I grew up with the Montreal Star, and still have photocopies of recipes from it.

The Montreal Star was an English-language Canadian newspaper that folded in 1979 in the wake of an eight-month pressmen's strike.

La Presse printed the French version of the cookbook.

The solidly impressive building that occupies the southeast corner of Bloor Street West and Queens Park (157 Bloor Street) is a reminder of the great public buildings erected across Canada in the 19th and early-20th centuries. The Department of Household Sciences building in Toronto is one of the finest example of these structures. The funds for its construction were provided by Lillian Massey, whose father was Hart Massey. He was the founder of the Massey-Harris Company, at one time the biggest manufacturer of agricultural machinery in the British Empire.

Lillian Massey was born in 1854 in Newcastle (Durham Region), in Canada West (Ontario). In 1897, in Toronto, she married John Mill Treble. Throughout her life, she remained keenly engaged in social reform, philanthropy and education. A wealthy heiress, she was also a patron of the University of Toronto.

There were two publications with this name. The first ‘Canadian Home Journal’ being published starting in 1895 and ended sometime after 1901. The second version included more fashion began being published in 1905 under the name ‘The Home Journal’, with the word ‘Canadian’ added in 1910. ‘The Canadian Home Journal’ was Canada’s best selling women’s magazine.

Kate Aitken (April 6, 1891 – December 11, 1971) was a Canadian radio and television broadcaster in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s. Sometimes known by the nickname Mrs. A, she was one of the most famous female broadcasters of her era. In addition, she was known as an expert on cooking; she gave many public talks and demonstrations, and her advice was relied upon by millions of homemakers

Jehane Benoît, née Patenaude (March 21, 1904 – November 24, 1987) was a Canadian culinary author, speaker, commentator, journalist, and broadcaster.After studying at the Sorbonne and the Cordon Bleu cooking school in Paris, she started her own cooking school, Fumet de la Vieille France, in Montreal. She also opened one of Canada's first vegetarian restaurants, "The Salad Bar", in 1935.

Best known as "Madame Benoît," she wrote 30 books during her career, including the Encyclopedia of Canadian Cuisine. She appeared regularly on CBC Television's Take 30 and later became a proponent of microwave cookery, writing several books on the subject as well as appearing in television commercials for Panasonic microwaves.

She was a well-known name to me growing up.

INGREDIENTS AND INSTRUCTIONS:
Slit ‘Maple Leaf’ Banded Wieners lengthwise with a small paring knife.
Cut ‘Maple Leaf’ Canadian Cheese in ¼ inch slices and then in strips.
Place a strip of Cheese in each pocket and wind a slice of ‘Maple Leaf’ Breakfast Bacon around the Wiener and Cheese.
Fasten the Bacon with toothpicks.
Place in over 350-375 for about 15 minutes. Serve immediately

(Source: Recipes from Canada Packers Cooking School at the C.N.E. by Brenda York; Mary Williamson Culinary Ephemera, Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library)

Yikes! I remember these atrocities that I refused ever to eat!

Dishes encased in gelatin, which ranged from everything from a vegetable- and sugar-laden concoction called “Perfection Salad” (which was actually a pretty popular dish by the time the 50s rolled around) to one that had lamb chops submerged in it, didn’t actually go out of style until the 1970s, when Jell-O molds (occasionally called “gel cookery”) finally gave way to dishes that people would actually eat. But when they first gained popularity, there were in fact a few reasons why a home cook might have wanted to serve them.

In the early 1950s refrigerators were still quite expensive, and gelatin needs refrigeration in order to set. So in a way, preparing a Jell-O mold was something of a status symbol.

Weekend Cooking

My cousin sent me a note with some photos of her daughter this week. The story was so cute I had to share it here.


My cousin and I grew up in Montreal. Our mothers were sisters. Our Irish grandparents emigrated to Canada around 1960 and settled in Montreal because their three daughters had settled there with their families. My uncle and his family followed soon after.

Our grandparents in December 1961 with my cousin's very blurry  parents in the background. At this point they lived across the street from us in Montreal.

At first we all lived around the same area in the city but then as everyone's family grew some moved to the suburbs at opposite ends of the city. One to Chomedy (now called Laval as the various towns amalgamated in 1965), and another to Pierresfonds (merged into the city of Montreal in 2002).

So to my cousin's email and what this post has to do with food.

My cousin was telling her daughter that after church on Sundays her parents would drive to Grandfather's, from Pierresfonds to Chomedy.

In the mid 1970s our grandfather was living on his own in Laval. He was a widower and now in his mid 70s.
My cousins below around that time.

They would bring in McDonald's for lunch. He would have a pot with oil ready (and her Mom was always afraid he would set himself on fire), and he made these big chips (fries in Canada). 

Then for dessert, he made them Pillsbury Apple Turnovers. My cousins couldn't wait for Sundays...as their Mom never baked!!! 

So after the story, her daughter wanted to make them, and made them all by herself!!!!!!!!

So I asked my cousin if they tasted as good as she remembered? She said that Grandfather's were better, more flaky!!

Do you have any food memories that you tried as an adult and were the flavours the same or were you disappointed?

My Recipe Box - Braised Pork Chops with Cabbage and Red Potatoes

This is all made in 1 pot!!


Braised Pork Chops with Cabbage and Red Potatoes

RECIPE



2 tablespoons olive oil

4 well-trimmed boneless pork chops (8 ounces each)

Coarse salt and freshly ground black pepper

1 large onion, finely chopped

1 medium head (about 1 pound) cabbage, finely shredded into coleslaw-size pieces

1 medium head (about 1 pound) red cabbage, finely shredded into coleslaw-size pieces

4 carrots, sliced into julienne strips

1 clove garlic, minced

3/4 cup apple cider

1 teaspoon caraway seeds (optional)

1 pound small red potatoes, sliced 1/4-inch thick

1. In a Dutch oven, heat 1 tablespoon oil over medium-high heat. Season pork chops with salt and pepper. Cook until golden brown, about 5-7 minutes per side. Remove pork chops from the pan.


2. Reduce the heat to medium-low. Add remaining tablespoon oil, onion, potatoes, carrots, apple cider and garlic; season with salt and pepper. Cook until the potatoes are done. Add cabbages until wilted, about 10 minutes. 

Cooking Tips

Use the leftover condiments that are too good to throw out. Add water or stock to them and use in soups, meat loafs or even pour over a roast.


Need a seasoning for a stir fry? Use Italian bottled salad dressing.


Ends of vegetables go into a baggie to add to soups. Even cooked vegetables such as leftover mashed potatoes can be saved to be used and as an added bonus they thicken the soup.


Use a turkey carcass to make the stock for the next holiday dinner. It cuts down on the work on the day and makes for a much tastier gravy.


Fruit flies? Put some apple cider vinegar into a bowl. Cover the top tightly with plastic wrap. Punch a few holes into the top of the wrap with a knife and set it near to where you are having the fruit fly problem. 




Stale bread makes great croutons. Mix the stale cut up bread with various flavoured oils and some garlic and roast. They can them be frozen.


Storing flour in the freezer keeps the bugs out if you have the room.


Put a bay leaf in an opened bag of flour - it will keep the bugs away.


Use plastic drink bottles as handy dispensers for frozen items. When freezing chopped green onions, put them into an old water bottle that you’ve washed, and use a permanent marker to label the bottle cap with the contents. Freeze. To use, simply remove the cap, shake out just as much as you need, replace the cap and return to the freezer. The clear bottle allows you to quickly see what’s inside, and shaking things out of a bottle is faster than spooning them out of a freezer container. 


A crockpot is a great way to serve something at a buffet. I always take mine to my sister's for Christmas dinner. I make the mashed potatoes ahead of time and then use the crockpot to heat them up and serve.


When using eggs it helps to bring them to room temperature. But if you haven't planned in advance then there is a quick tip to help; you can put the eggs in a bowl of warm water for a few minutes to gently take off the chill out.


Freeze a lemon if you are going to need grated lemon peel for a recipe, it is much easier.


AND for cleaning up:
Spray Cleaner

1 16 oz empty spray bottle
water
2 T white vinegar
3 drops of liquid dish washing soap

Fill bottle with water almost to the top, add vinegar and liquid soap. Top with spray assembly, secure tightly. Turn bottle over about 10 times to mix the vinegar and liquid soap with the water without creating suds.

Recipes to Try - Chicken

New additions at the top.
Asian Orange Chicken

Juiciest-most-flavorful-roast-chicken


Curry chicken


Ultimate-Chicken-Fingers 


Sweet and Sour Chicken

Chinese Roasted Chicken
Tandoori chicken

Graham cracker crusted chicken bites


Sweet chili chicken

Pepper patch pasta with grilled chicken

General Tso chicken

Slow cooker ginger orange chicken Do read Katy's comments about the recipe as well.

Forbidden City Chicken

1 chicken, 17 meals

Quick and-easy chicken- and sausage jambalaya
Sweet and Sour Chicken

smokey-paprika chicken with sour cream biscuit dumplings

Roast chicken with turnips
UPDATE made this on Jan 17 for Sunday dinner and it was very good. Turnips turned out nice and sweet. Would do it again. Will post pictures separately

Curried honey dijon roasted chicken

Roast Sticky Chicken Rotisserie- Style