Poor Long-Form Written Word

This poor, poor blog!  So few posts compared to the halcyon days of yore.  And yet, I can't stop won't stop.  I won't give up on blogging.  Not now, not ever.  I will hold true.  There is room for the long-form reflective written word and this is my space.  You can't supplant it with all the Snapchats and Instas and FBs and Twitters...you just can't.

What have I been up to?  ONLY HAVING THE TIME OF MY LIFE.  The weekend before this past one was literally insane in the membrane.  That's the technical designation for what I did.

Friday was my day off and I spent the day running around like a maniac.  I helped out at the book fair, went back to the Big Yam's school to do sub lunch, did mad errands, and that night I met my friend M in Kensington and then had tortas from Torteria San Cosme which were DELICIOUS.  We split the chicken milanese and the cubano, and I also bought a cochinita pibil one for home.  The sandwiches are priced at around $9, which is kind of pricey, but they're substantial and so well made and they griddle the bread, which is key.  It's a nice touch.  I'm of the belief that hot sandwiches should be served on buns that have been kissed with some kind of fat and then burnished on a flat top - it provides a texture barrier and just ups the general ante.  Anyway, the space is super-cute - it looks like a little cafeteria lunch counter with excellent floor tile work.  I'm a little in love with it.

That Friday was one of the nicest spring days we've had yet, and I was running around in my very ancient, vintage Mexican embroidered shirt that I've had for over 10 years.  The moms at the Big Yam's school were going apes**t and one of them asked me if I got it from Anthropologie.  There's been a lot about cultural appropriation in the media of late (see: Justin Bieber's dreads) and I was like, damn, am I culturally appropriating?  Should I not be wearing this shirt?  Then at Torteria San Cosme, one of the Latin American women working the grill (and it was super-amazing that the whole crew behind the counter was women - assuming they also have a say in the means of production), pointed at my shirt and mouthed the words, "I love it."  That made me feel a little bit better, but also: am I just being lazy and relying on a "native insider"?!?  WHO EVEN KNOWS ANYMORE.  The point is, those sandwiches, that I might have zero business in the world eating, were freakin' delicious.

Then we saw a Frida Kahlo documentary that was meh.  It was very "classic documentary" which meant long, still shots of the light on a wall and the sound of birds chirping.  It was about this Japanese photographer who went to Kahlo's house and took photographs of Kahlo's stuff and then they framed it by also interviewing women in Oaxaca who produce the embroidered clothing (it was just a random coincidence that I wore my shirt that day, I swear) that Kahlo wore.  I get what the documentary was trying to accomplish, linking Kahlo's embrace of her Mexican heritage and work as a woman artist with the traditionally female craft work and domesticity, but it was a bit of a slog and the thesis could have been tightened up a bit.

Saturday we played in the Regent Park playground with the Wonder Twins and then followed that up with dinner at Bar Isabel with Dr. Rei and Hanbo.  Such a fun time.  I love those guys.  My mum watched the kids and was hilarious about it.

Sunday was Mother's Day.  Mother's Day has been AMPED UP in recent years.  My FB exploded with heartfelt and sentimental tributes to all mothers...it was a bit much for me, to be honest, but the Dotytron was lovely and took the kids away for a couple of hours so I could work on a quilt.  Then we went on a nature walk, and then Momma D came over and watched the kids so we could have dinner at A3 Napoli (one of my favorite restaurants) with JJ and S and then we went to see the Noma documentary at Hot Docs, Ants on a Shrimp.  

This documentary felt like a slog, to be honest.  It's ostensibly about the time the chef, Rene Redzepi, packed up the whole restaurant and transplanted Noma to Japan, for a 3 week engagement.  What emerges is this slavering fanboy flick that doesn't critique anything.  You don't get any sense of the thought processes that go into the dishes, what they're after, how the dishes taste, what the reception of this endeavour was...basically, as a viewer, you're supposed to take it on faith that the stuff tastes good.  It was very acritical and all I got out of it was flashbacks of my time on the line.  There was also all this hyper-masculine, macho stuff: the film opens with the chef de cuisine and the sous chef charged with conceptualizing the menu, both of whom are heavily tattooed dudes, and are shown in the opening scenes of the film doing weird cross-fit type stuff like pull-ups and working on rowing machine until they get blisters.  Just, ew.  Get over yourselves, stupid macho kitchen mentality.

The Don is so magical

Comic book nerds are also magical

Some of the awesome stuff I picked up.  Love that Prince and Bitch Planet poster!

This weekend we had my friend C64 and his partner over for dinner on Friday, then on Saturday we went for a rainy walk in the Don Valley with the Wonder Twins, and hung with SMckay that night.  The Dotytron went to see Lee "Scratch" Perry and on Sunday, SMckay and I hit up the Toronto Comic Arts Festival.  I dragged the Big Yam which was, in retrospect, a bit of a mistake.  Although I was gazing longingly at some of the other parents who had children, seemingly younger than the Big Yam following them throughout the crowded halls, with their noses buried in comics.  Really want to share my nerd interests with my kids, yo.

That being said, the Big Yam has been hilarious.  A few week's ago we went to see Peppa Pig at Boston Pizza.  They were blasting Peppa Pig on the screens and Peppa came around to all the tables.  At a certain point, as she was making her way, the Big Yam craned his neck to see, and announced: "Peppa Pig is coming!  ... Jesus."  LOL!!!  He's so funny.  The other night, we had our neighbours over for dinner and were having a big conversation about wants versus needs.  I asked him, "So, can you think of something that you really need, versus just want?" and he said, "Ummm...wifi?"  Touché.  Can't really argue with that, can we?

Some snaps from around here, lately:

Sleepiest bubbies

B-b-b-b-bath time!

These two.  Finally starting to get along and be friends.  They're doing more collaborating and colluding and are frequently in cahoots.  During their increasingly fraught nap times, I'll hear Quincess test the door knob of their room (we have one of those door-knob protectors which means they can't turn the knob), and report back to Twin B, "It's locked."  So cute.

Eats around here, lately:

Company dinner: tagliatelle with radicchio and bagna cauda, with a poached egg and crispy croutons

Made a pretty kickin' chicken biryani with green beans thoren.  There are some refinements to be made, but it's definitely a good foundation.  Next time I might add some plumped raisins and will make some extra rice.

Saw some stunning artichokes so we roasted them, I made chorizo potatoes, and seared some ling cod and served everything with romesco.  GAH!  Love romesco so damn much.

Fin.

#Views

The other night I had a really hilarious dream about Drake.  I'm not generally into his music.  I've been unmoved by most of what I've heard.

In the dream, I was supposed to be arranging pick up of an item I had purchased off one of those Facebook buy and sell groups.  Then when I finally meet the guy, it's DRAKE.  And in my dream, him being Drake means the same thing as it would IRL, except it's strangely not a big deal, but he's still very famous and very sought after and kind of a beta male.  Anyway, we're talking and I notice he's wearing like, 5 t-shirts layered on top of each other, and I'm gently chiding him about it, and it comes out that he's super self-conscious about his body?!  So the next time I come over, he's wearing a sleeveless t-shirt, and he's very self conscious about it, and his body is okay...like it's fine...he's not overweight or anything but everything is kind of lacking definition in a way that I now know (after a quick - and satisfying! - Google image search) it is not IRL, and in the dream I was trying to be supportive and comforting him and then it turned into FULL MAKE-OUT TIMES AT UNLIKELY PAIRINGS HIGH.  Like, I basically woke up out of making out with Drake.

Maybe this means I'm softening my stance a bit?  Dr. Rei basically curated a list of (two) recent Drake tunes that she said I should listen to and the ones she recommended ARE the ones I'm the most likely to be into...but I didn't think it was enough to send me headlong into Drake apologist mode.

Whereas, listening to The Life of Pablo put me right back into Kanye apologist mode and I was ready to fight anyone who says he's not a musical genius.  The Life of Pablo is so so so good, you guys.  So good.  Singing 'Ye is the best 'Ye.

I've seen two great documentaries this week.

On Monday the Dotytron and I went to see When Two Worlds Collide.  This was a documentary that took 9 years to make.  It follows indigenous Peruvian people living in the Peruvian Amazon who call for the repeal of laws that threaten the land they have traditionally used and occupied.  The laws were introduced by a government that is courting progress in the form of allowing transnational oil and gas interests to set up camp in the Amazon rainforest.  The indigenous people form a coalition and their coalition has a president, Alberto Pizango who is their spokesperson and leader.  The indigenous people start a protest that sees them blocking roads and surrounding oil infrastructure.  The protests are peaceful, but after a sham legislative debate that sees the government refuse to consider repealing the laws, the government sends armed police in to break up the protests and things turn violent.  Indigenous people and police die.  I came away from this doc feeling really bad about capitalism and how capitalism is so relentless - forcing people to submit, whether they want to or not.  

It also made me check my own assumptions and terrible biases and ignorance on indigenous Canadian issues and how we're doing the same thing, here.  I sometimes find myself thinking, "well, why do you even want to live in Attiwapiskat anyway?" and then I realize that this has been their home and that part of living in a just and liberal society is allowing people to live how they choose and honoring those agreements and histories.  It's not for us to decide what's the best way for people to live.  And they predate the f**k out of us.  So how can we make this work?  How can we bridge capitalism and indigenous ways of life?  

I also went to see Sour Grapes with JJ.  This was about the rise of wine auctions during the dot-com boom and this mysterious figure, Rudy Kurniawan who becomes a player in the wine scene and is known for his palate.  He ends up making $35 million from auctioning rare wines from his collection and it turns out that he might have been counterfeiting them.  He basically would bid on wines, drive up the price, and then a month later, auction the same wines at an even more inflated price (parallels to Wall Street malfeasance!)  Well, poor Bill Koch (of the Koch brothers) suspects that some of his wine might be counterfeit and hires a private investigator and things start to close in around Rudy.  Rudy ends up going to jail for 10 years, and his defense attorneys are like, this is ridiculous.  We've seen mobsters with bodies in the ground not serve time like that.  After the lights came on, I turned to JJ and said, "I'm on team Rudy!  I like his entrepreneurial spirit! And are we REALLY supposed to feel bad for one of the Koch brothers?"  

Rudy made friends with Hollywood producers and got invited to these exclusive wine parties that were all white and male and super in the dick-measuring vein.  Anyway, there were interesting parallels with class and race that this film illustrated, as well as the corrupting power of money and these types of interests.  Some of Rudy's friends stay loyal to him to this day and the movie talks about the collusion between the grifter and the mark, but I found the loyalty of these doofus Hollywood, Michael Bay-types to be kind of endearing.  This was really good - I highly recommend it.

I've got two more documentaries this week and then Hot Docs 2016 will be done.  There are so many things going on!  Our May calendar is like a solid block of colour but I'm enjoying every minute of it.  I love all the cultural things we're getting to do and the people I'm seeing.  A talk, raving, Hot Docs, dinners out, the Comic Arts Festival all in the same month?!  That's soul satisfying stuff, my friends.

We watched Beyoncé's "visual album" (aka music videos strung together), Lemonade last night and...well...I have thoughts.  I will say that I'm not a member of the Beyhive - BUT! - I know that people are going crazy for it because as she matures in her career, we're seeing Bey start to take ownership and exercise creative control and try stuff in a way she hasn't before.  So yeah, that's cool.  But also, at the end of the day, it's not THAT cool?  I mean, it's a bunch of music videos strung together and there are some arresting images, but it's not like, high art.  Also, the songs are almost all pretty bad, but I just don't like her music, so fine, I get that.  I like that she goes in different directions and there was maybe 2 or 3 songs that I enjoyed. 

The most important element was how she's using her platform to shine a spotlight on black women artists and black artists in general.  That's incredible and that in an of itself is laudable.  I'm so glad that Warsan Shire is in my life now.  I wish I had watched Lemonade first, in a way.  But Bey is NO Warsan Shire and once you hear Warsan Shire recite her own poetry, then Beyoncé's affected, almost Miss Universe delivery just falls real short.  You can see how hard Bey is trying to be something great and I applaud her, but you can also see the effort and true greatness - you don't see the effort, mang.  So yeah, it did the thing it was supposed to do, which is cause a big hubub on the internet, inspire a lot of gossipy speculation, result in lots of think pieces, and then made Bey and Jigga s boatload of money.  Cool story, bruh.  

I almost think the brouhaha about the who "Becky with the good hair" is was a misstep and a silly distraction.  If Bey wanted to be taken seriously as an artist, fanning those flames was unnecessary and really takes away from her central message - which is that she's too awesome to be trifled with.  Ultimately, that's a message I can get behind, but it's delivered in a forgettable manner.  This ain't no Purple Rain, sons.

Last weekend we went on this amazing nature walk that really made you feel removed from the city.  I loved it.

We also went out dancing and it was incredible, though we barely made it through Sunday by the skin of our teeth.  We were cranky AF and the poor kids suffered.  It was worth the one day's aftermath of hell for the pleasure of feeling like a person again.

Of course our recovery day was rainy and miserable so we took the kids to Pacific Mall and ate a million of those puffy pancake things and some overcooked, hand-pulled noodles.  

Here are things we've eaten lately:

The aforementioned hand-pulled, overcooked noodles

Quickie weeknight freezer meal: meatballs from the freezer, tomato sauce from the freezer, garlic bread and green beans.  Basically the Dotytron-Lagerfeld tots' Platonic ideal.

A rhubarb browned butter pie that I pretty much ended up eating all to myself?  

Squash soup and cheddar sage biscuits

Bacon, squash, and kale risotto with a poached egg

Leftover risotto turned into fresh mozzarella stuffed arancini with tomato sauce, German onion sausages, and zucchini fritters

Banana chocolate chip pancakes and English bacon for a Sunday breakkie

This AMAZING poundcake with the most delectable browned butter glaze.  From this recipe here: Sour Cream Coffee Cake with Browned Butter Glaze. The only thing I think I would change is to omit the cinnamon swirl.  I thought it detracted from the overall butteriness.  I think what I"m after is a basic, bundt or pound cake and that delicious glaze.

Orzo made Spanish rice style with chicken thighs and peas.

Chai-spiced creme brulee.  A throwback dessert.  It's so delicious though!  Why don't people make creme brulee anymore?

Fin.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Peanut Butter Mousse Pie

Serves 10-12

Crust:

1 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs, or chocolate wafer crumbs, or pretzel crumbs

3 T. sugar

1/2 cup of melted butter

- mix all together, press onto bottom and slightly up sides of a 9" springform pan.  Bake in a preheated 350F oven for about 10-12 minutes until lightly golden.

Filling:

3/4 cup sugar 

3 eggs, separated

1 1/2 cups of creamy peanut butter

2 1/2 cups of heavy cream, whipped

- mix the egg yolks with 1/2 cup of  sugar on top of a double boiler until warm to the touch (keep whisking so the eggs don't cook)

- remove from heat and stir in the peanut butter until smooth.  Set aside to cool.

- meanwhile, whisk the egg whites with the remaining 1/4 cup of sugar until it forms stiff peaks.  Fold into peanut mixture.

- fold whipped cream into the peanut mixture and pour into prepared crust.  Refrigerate at least overnight. 

- serve with hot fudge sauce.

Catching Up

Predictably, this post has taken me two weeks to write.

Two weekends ago, I went to Ladies Night with my neighbourhood ladies on Friday night.  We had Middle Eastern food at Tabule.  It was delicious!  I'm super-into Lebanese style food lately and the renditions there are sooo tasty.  Fresh, vegetable-focused, centred around shareable plates and finger foods.  Love it.

Thanks to an armada of babysitters, we were able to keep up our tradition of going to Hot Docs, which has been going on almost as long as we've been together.  This must be at least our 10th year or something.  Our friend L is one of the programmers and hooked us up, large!  We are so lucky to have her and to have such a ground-breaking, world-renown festival in our city.

On Saturday we saw Return to Homs, which is essentially about the gritty, numbing isolation of armed revolution.  It was a Sundance winner.  It's harrowing.  Constructed mostly of amateur footage, it follows a young Syrian football star, Basset, who becomes a leader in the Free Syrian Army.  What started with him leading crowds singing in the streets as part of the Arab Spring movement, it ends up with him leading an armed resistance to the government crackdown on the city of Homs.  People get shot.  It is grim.  The rebels are cut off from food and supplies.  You see the city become a literal shell of what it was.  I was reminded, nonsensically, of Les Miserables and the youthful fire of the young men who lead that revolution, and their disillusionment in the face of losing so many of their peers and the crushing force of the government.  It's so easy to criticize from our cushy remove in the West the seeming chaos and lack of momentum in the wake of the Arab Spring.  When you are a few generations removed from civil war, it's hard to see how entrenched dictatorships can be, and how disorganized resistance movements are.  I kept thinking that this Basset character is just a kid.  A 22 year old kid who is trying to hold a city, with other 22 year old kids.  At a certain point, it's so obvious that they are so weary from fighting, so tired of being beaten into a corner, out-manned and out-armed.  During a lull in the fighting, Basset is asked if he would consider coaching football, when this is all over.  He dismisses it out of hand, "I can't be a coach.  To coach football, you need an education, a degree..." and the irony of the fact that without an education, without a degree, he's trying to re-draw the world order in Syria is lost on him.  This is not the kind of documentary one enjoys, per se, but it is important, and necessary.  

The next day, on a completely different note, we saw a doc called Beyond Clueless, which purported to be an examination of teen movies in the post-Hughes era (late 90s into the 2000s).  I was like, SOLD!  My first misgivings surfaced when at the start of the screening, the "filmmaker" was introduced.  My first thought was like, "who is this kid?" followed by: "oh no, he's British, this can't be good."  Well folks, it wasn't.  Narrated by Fairuza Balk, the film is a stitched-together montage of fare like Bubble Boy, Cruel Intentions, Mean Girls, and The Craft and features analysis that tells us that teens in films are punished when they try to subvert the status quo, or that teens are disempowered by adults, or that teen sexuality is fraught.

UHHH, DUH.  The kid filmmaker as it turns out, is 23.  Soooo, I'm sure you can guess the level of discourse he's capable of.  It was THE WORST.  He must be so loaded.  To get the rights for all those clips (which make up the WHOLE FILM?)  It was so annoying.  If we had stayed for the Q&A we would have torn him a new one.  You know what's worse than British kids?  ENTITLED BRITISH KIDS (Prince George excepted of course).  

So the docs weren't exactly a home run.  BUT!  The Dotytron and I got to participate in a Dotytron-Lagerfeld tradition, and we got to be together, just the two of us, and eat out.  A win all around.  On Saturday we had lunch at my current obsession, Sud Forno.  From the people who brought you the Terroni empire, this place is as close as I've come in Toronto to an Ital-towns experience.  They serve a variety of sweet things, breads, and flat pizzas and sandwiches, and these stuffed flatbreads which are delicious.   We had the sausage pizza type thing, a salami and arugula one, this cold fried eggplant, ricotta, and tomato sandwich (my favorite thing in the world right now), and their flatbread stuffed with proscuitto and more arugula.  This year has been the year of arugula for me.  I love everything there!

Then I went a little bit crazy and spent like $30 on that box you see up there.  I HAVEN'T HAD A BOMBOLONE IN LIKE, 7 YEARS PEOPLE.  THAT'S A LONG A** TIME.  What the heck was I supposed to do?  NOT overpay for delicious, custard filled doughnuts?  Pah!  I also got zeppole which I love, but I could probably make at home (choux paste stuffed with whipped cream and candied cherries), but my favorite thing was the little whipped-cream topped thing on the far right, 2nd row.  It's a little sponge cake with whipped cream and limoncello.  So tasty.  This is what I love about Ital-towns desserts and baked goods: they really know the value of slathering whipped cream on dough.  That is basically the definition of my wheelhouse.  If you were to draw a picture of my wheelhouse, it would be made of dough and an excess of lightly sweetened whipped cream.  The best was that this old school, OG, Italian lady came in and had the internationally recognized grumpy old lady exchange with the staffer regarding how exorbitant the pricing was and all but spat on her way out the door.  She was like, "are you kidding me with $4 bombolone?" and I was like, deeply embarrassed BUT STILL UNABLE TO RESIST.  

The next day we had brunch at The Saint on Ossington.  It's a really pretty space, all sparkling white subway tile, black bar, brass fixtures.  I'm super into that combo lately.  White and black and grey with warm wood and brass with pops of colour.  I tried floating the idea with the Dotytron of painting our downstairs all white and he put his foot down.  We currently have a deep plum accent wall and he loves it.  I'll have to get this black/white/brass fixation out of the way when we finish the basement (so, like, never, or after I'm already onto something new).  

These are more gold than brass and I find the contrast a little jarring.  Maybe if there was more warm wood in there to act as a bridge between the start white and shiny gold?

Kitchen/bath reno is basically a go.  I've got a to-do list a mile long.  There are toilets and tubs to research, fixtures to be brought back from the States (shouts to my sis and Uncle Rico, who are being amazing about acting as a glorified warehouse for me at the moment), a million details to go over (what height for the beadboard in the bathroom?  How to trim the tile?  How to cap the beadboard?  What kind of robe hooks?).  When I've been telling people our (read: my) plan to do the kitchen/bath and then dig down the basement and do the waterproofing all this year, I'm predictably getting a bit of side-eye and bemused-face about the whole thing.  But listen: a flipped house on our street, 10 down from us, sold for $742,000.  THAT'S THREE QUARTERS OF A MILLION DOLLARS, PEOPLE.  FOR A HOUSE OUR SIZE.  The guys who flipped it were super-nice so I wanted them to do well, but when I walked through (they gave the neighbours an exclusive preview), I just thought it was aight.  I actually didn't like the design at all and the finishing was a little shoddy and they didn't even pick high-end fixtures.  The taps were MOEN, people!  MOEN!  FOR $742,000!!!  It was like what a condo designer thinks is a nice layout.  So not my taste.  I'm fussy.  I'm an oil-rubbed bronze kind of a girl, ya know?  I'm a crystal doorknob kind of a person.  I don't want my house to look builder-new.  Anyway, I'm feeling pretty good about our decision.  Even if you figure that $75K of that is due to the market being "hot", we're still going to cover what we're sinking into our renos and then some.  

Where was I?  Oh yes, The Saint.  Food was tasty - the Dotytron ordered the duck egg scramble with duck confit.  His only quibble was that there wasn't enough duck confit.  I ordered the duck egg benny on a cheddar biscuit.  Both come with potatoes lyonnaise, which basically means "potato deliciousness."  I would definitely go back.  The service was nice, they were bumping (we didn't make resos and had to sit at the bar), but they could accommodate kids (saw quite a few families there).  

The rest of my week(s) have been preoccupied with reno business and trying to do some spring cleaning/downsizing/getting rid of baby stuff.  I'm surprisingly unemotional about the baby purging.  I think the fact that in 4 weeks, I'll be bringing in zero money is really helping to motivate me to sell and any lingering pangs watching Bumbos and play mats and such leave the house are attenuated by the cash I'm getting in their stead.  If I have another baby, it won't be for some time, and then I can just re-up all that shiz anyway.  I won't have to buy it because everyone will be in the state of unloading their baby ish.  When you have twin infants, switching over your summer clothes or re-upping the kids' summer inventory or poring over the Ikea kitchen planner for the MILLIONTH TIME will take you weeks of your life to accomplish.  I basically spend my days measuring and writing little notes of measurements and dimensions to myself that I then refer back to, and without any context, then have to re-measure again and again.  FUN.

SMckay came over on Friday and when they Dotytron came home, he became obsessed with trying to sort out a profile to see if he could still get chicks.  This involved him looking through old photo albums to find a TWELVE YEAR OLD photo of himself to use as a profile pic.  This also involved him trying desperately to create his profile with the user name: "URBEINGCATFISHED" which is pretty much the best online dating user name of life.  SO GOOD.  

We also hung with Dr. Rei and Hanbo this weekend and had a hilarious time talking about what 9 out of 10 Serge Tankians would think of anything, as well as how FUBU (for us, by us) Hassidic Jew communities in Montreal are.  There was also an extended, "What the shih tzu" bit that I know means nothing to you all, but I'm recording it here for posterity because that's what this blog is for, and also, because Dr. Rei laughed so hard that she almost had her baby, so it's worth remembering.  

My Mother's Day was pretty boss.  The Dotytron knows what I like, which is to do work, so he made me breakfast and then we went to town trying to get our backyard in order.  It's looking good back there!  I know people probably think we were silly to make such a giant deck, but when we're out there, we love it so, so, so much.  It's like a dock.  It's like having a giant outdoor room.  We moved things around and bought these recycled rubber tiles (Envirotiles) and laid them out on the concrete pad.  We're going to put a kiddie pool and a sandbox there, so we wanted something a little softer on wee kidlet feet than the bare concrete.    I bought a new dining table from IKEA and now we're either going to build a bench out there or have our carpenter do it.  That and a thing to store our recycling/garbage cans and stuff and some plants and we're done.  I can't wait!  

One of the things I asked for was a decent picture of all of us.  The backdrop on this one is horrid, but look at my cute family!!!  Look at how much Quincess' head shape has changed!  

Fin.

Work hard. Play hard.

(Sometimes).

This weekend was life-affirming in so very many ways.  We got so much done and we got to do so much!  It's mind-blowing.  Sometimes I have anxiety that being a parent means the end of all fun but weekends like this past one make all those reservations disappear into the ether.

Friday night takeout night was a Little India blowout.  Somehow we spent $40?!?  The Dotytron bullied me into it.  We went to Bombay Chowpatty - a DVD rental/street snack emporium.  The food was fantastic - we had their paneer kathi, which is scrambled paneer flecked with chilies, rolled up in a flaky, buttery roti.  Ummm...DELICIOUS.  We also got their samosa chat and one of their Indian "burgers" (potato patty).  Obviously, our little Tamil Tiger Big Yam was loving life.  That kind can handle spice like you wouldn't believe.  His face scrunches up and he complains, "Hot!" but then he just goes back for more.  He ate a tonne of food.  The Dotytron was convinced that the snacks I ordered wasn't enough so he got this beef shank curry which was kind of lame - just TWO pieces of beef shank (1.5" cubes) floating in a flavourless, oil-slicked sauce.  Never doing that again (this was from a different place).  He was still worried that we didn't have enough food so then we got kebabs and naan from the Pakistani place on the corner.  Last week Lolly was trying to convince me that we should sell Lil' Ugmo and trade up (which is actually impossible - to get something bigger than our current house in our 'hood, we'd have to pay around 800gs), but when I can have this Indo-Pakistani feast after a 5 minute walk, why would I?  The alternatives are too grim (e.g. moving to a desolate stretch of the East side that borders on Scarborough).  No thanks!

Especially once you consider that we chased the meal with hangs with the neighbs and all the rugrats outside into the early summer evening.  I love my street and I love my 'hood too much.

Saturday morning I woke up at 5am and was UP.   So I banged off a batch of scones so they'd be warm out of the oven when the rest of my household woke up, threw on some laundry, and went to work planning our back deck.  This job was originally one we were going to postpone, but I don't think I can countenance another summer at Lil' Ugmo without the option of entertaining.  Plus, the idea that we'll have three kids with us this summer and the twerps will be so wee just made me dream of filling up a pool of water for the Big Yam and dozing under the shade of the giant tree back there, with a baby in each arm, on a lounge chair, listening to the sound of ice clink in the Dotytron's gin and tonic.  I like the idea that we can just have a day outside in our own home instead of having to pack everyone up to go to the beach (which is like, 5 minutes away, so I don't really know why I'm complaining) or to the pool (which is 2 minutes away, LOL!)  I just miss having people over for big dinners in the summer.  Plus, it'll be a relatively cheap job, I think?  Anyway, I got all the planning and conceptualizing done and was feeling pretty good about life.

We went to the garden centre and picked out our mulch and flowers for the Dotytron's big backyard revitalization project and by that time our babysitter showed up and the Dotytron and I went to see our afternoon documentary.  We saw VH1's Finding the Funk which is produced by Questlove and Nelson George (a prominent author who writes about black modern musics).  This documentary was okay.  It was kind of a primer and didn't really go into any great depth.  The Dotytron knew most of the stuff already so it was kind of a gloss on the genre, but it doesn't make sense because you would think that if you were into funk enough to want to see a documentary, you would already know all the intro stuff.  I think they didn't have the opportunity to clear the rights to the songs, which was kind of a let down, because you didn't get a chance to hear snippets when they referenced particular tracks and so you were kind of working blind.

We went with our friends B & G and then hung out on a patio with them and then split off and went on a failed test-drive mission.  We ended up doing an aimless walk in Little Italy (it is so so so lovely to do an aimless walk with your beau!  It's a treat I rarely get nowadays) and then went to meet Dr. Rei and Hanbo for dinner at this new restaurant, Bar Isabel.  It's opened by someone I used to work with at Canoe and it's a Spanish-influenced tavern-type place.  The vibe is incredible.  I loved the space - it's all moulded wood panels and hanging blown glass lanterns and a beautiful Mosaic tile floor and archways.  As soon as you step foot through the door it's like you've wandered into some European bar - it feels so different from any restaurant in Toronto right now and very uncontrived and entirely original and welcoming.  We ate like pigs!

A sampling of our starts: devilled eggs with blood sausage, salt cod, and hollandaise; the salumi plate; and the boquerones (little teeny tiny boneless marinated fish fillets) - which came with roasted red pepper and thinly sliced pickled chili and with impeccable chips for eating them with.  The boquerones were one of my favorite dishes of the night.  Love little fishes!  

The cheese plate.

Roasted bone marrow - very simply served with salt and grilled bread.  After eating the bone marrow and snails at Porzia, this simple preparation is still delicious, but is missing a little something.

Larger dishes now - fried chicken and sweet eggplant.  The eggplant was like custard and the chicken was moist beyond belief.  The two elements of the dish didn't really harmonize for me, but both components were delicious in their own right.  Just not sure they should be served together.

Octopus (perfectly cooked - so tender), chorizo, and potatoes.  A classic Spanish dish.  All the parts were expertly prepared.  This dish didn't blow my mind, but it's very much a faithful rendition of a Spanish tapas classic.

Tripe with soft boiled egg.

Their "whole fish" ceviche - in this case, it was sea bream, seasoned impeccably with chunks of avocado and served with a tangle of frizzled scallion (I think).  They also fry the fish skeleton for you so that you can pick at cheek meat if you so desire.  I loved the ceviche but found the price a tad steep and also, I'm not used to eating ceviche without some kind of tortilla chip to go along with it.

Overall, I would go back there in a heartbeat.  All that food, 3 cocktails, and 3 or 4 beers came to $242.00, tax included and we were stuffed.  The service was great, the cocktails list was interesting, and my oenophile friends tell me the wine list is equally nice.  My only small quibble is that for certain dishes, like the tripe or the salumi/cheese plate, the server asked if you wanted bread with it.  A side of 5 slices of bread was $4!!!  To me, the tripe and the cheese plate should either come with bread or not.  Don't try to upsell me on the bread!  Jeez.  Even the Olive Garden includes unlimited bread!

Sunday was another lovely day.  I went and grabbed some fresh croissants from Bonjour Brioche - the best croissants in the city, as far as I'm concerned.  Being able to throw on a pair of grubby pants and go braless to bring home amazing pain au chocolat, almond croissants, and croissants (not to mention a superlative baguette) in under 5 minutes by car is one in yet another million reasons why I will never want to leave my 'hood.  We ate them with eggs scrambled with chunks of nduja and shallots:

Then we spent the morning gardening.  Behold, the fruits of my labour:

We splurged on the cacao shell mulch again this year.  Look at how nice and neat everything looks!  Still so much to come - my alliums, my peony, the poppies, the shasta daisies, my echinacea.  

We worked hard and then the Big Yam and I played in the front with the rugrats from the 'hood and they helped "water" the garden and then one of the neighbours distributed freezies and then the Big Yam barfed on my neighbour's steps when I tried to get him to eat a raw whole grape tomato.  Amazing.  After that, the Big Yam and the Dotytron rested and listened to Count Basie while I went to my happy place and assembled the Ikea dresser I had bought for the Big Yam's room.  We were pretty darned productive, I must say, which means we earned our fun that evening - my friend L hosted us at her place in High Park for a Russian Easter feast: guinea fowl eggs, Polish potato salad, roasted potatoes, roasted leg of lamb with gravy, asparagus, grated beet salad, lentils, and an arugula and baby dandelion greens salad (!!!!!)  We started with cocktails and olives on the porch and then moved to the back patio and sat under the shade of a gorgeous tree.  It was lovely - wine and vodka flowing with beautiful, interesting, talented people.  I made two desserts: a flourless chocolate roll cake and that hazelnut brown butter cake with a chocolate ganache.  The Dotytron always forgets to bring wine unless I ask him to, but I feel like if I'm bringing a component of the meal, that I shouldn't have to bring wine on top of it?  Is that weird?  I dunno...I feel like wine as a host present is the default thing you bring when you can't or don't bring anything else.  

We had Hot Docs tickets that night so our friends S & P took the Big Yam back to their place and looked after him so we could see the documentary.  They rule so hard.  P is the youngest of five kids (all sisters) who all have giant broods of their own and S is super-Polish so they are totally comfortable and experienced looking after kids.  It was so nice of them to do!  

We saw a documentary called, Brothers Hypnotic, about the Hypnotic Brass Ensemble.  Here's a link to their song "War" which was featured in the Hunger Games.  No big deal (BIG DEAL!)  We were hipped to them from this Rub mix a couple of years back.  They are all blood brothers and the sons of this musician who used to play with Sun-Ra.  The stuff is amazing.  It was a really interesting look at the family dynamic and their rise to fame.  Their father was really into black empowerment and they grew up kind of poor in Chicago's south side, in a really unconventional, non-nuclear family arrangement.  Two or three mothers gave birth to like, 23 children or something like that (not all the kids are in the ensemble), and two of the three mothers raised all the kids, in a seemingly non-competitive, loving family.  It's kind of awesome, as a model.  The Dotytron's takeaway of an awesome model is that the father started each kid playing on a brass instrument at age 3 or 4.  The kids were indoctrinated and woke up at 5am for practice, which always started with a long tone (the ability to sustain a single tone, in key).  The dad would give a kid a mouthpiece and say that until they could make a sustained tone with the mouthpiece, they wouldn't be allowed an instrument, and the kids were so driven that they would go and practice all day to earn their instrument.  Totally amazing!

This is the tune that the Rub played in their mix (uhh, sorry about the cover photo for the video):

We came home at midnight, completely wrecked, but full of love and gratitude in our hearts.  To be able to do so much in a weekend and thanks to the amazing help from our family of friends, was beyond nice.

This is what we've been eating the past little while:

A fantastic spring bowl: roasted potatoes, roasted asparagus, fried haloumi chunks, all topped with a poached egg and a squeeze of lemon with a pinch of flaky sea salt.

A GIANT oyster po'boy - cornmeal crusted fried oysters on top of a fried green tomato, shredded lettuce, on a buttered toasted bun, slathered in remoulade.  This sandwich was no joke, 5" tall.

Russian dinner courtesy of stuff the Dotytron picked up from this Russian grocery (where the default cashier language is Russian) called Yummy Market.  That potato salad I'm obsessed with (it comes with peas, chunks of pickle, pieces of cooked carrot, and chunks of bologna!), beet salad, sausages we braised with beer and sauerkraut, and perogies we served with sour cream.

Last night we had a simple dinner of cheese tortellini in a sausage rosé sauce with arugula and grape tomato salad.

Fin.