Today’s agenda was set by Gillian who decided she needed a dose of urban to counter all the quaint we’ve had this trip. So we are off to Toronto! We started with a lovely breakfast of local peaches stuffed with nuts, ricotta and crushed pineapple followed by individual frittatas with spinach, caramelized onions and Havarti cheese accompanied by braised grape tomatoes and smoked bacon.
Top down and sunscreen on, the convertible rolled into the city with native sons Rush playing on the stereo. We arrived in the middle of a triathlon (yeah!) which unfortunately snarled traffic (boo!) but we eventually found parking downtown. Then next decision: Hockey Hall of Fame or street festival in Dundas Square. Since Gillian was deciding it was no contest and we were off to the street festival stopping at various stands and popping in and out of various shops along Yonge Street. One Tshirt purchase completed, we went to attend to the main event of the day – lunch with my personal stalker!
Walter and I met several years ago – he’s one of the wonderful members of IASSIST but luckily is the only one who has made an art form of following me around taking embarrassing (yet tasteful!) photographs of me that inevitably make it to Flickr or the annual IASSIST slideshow. Earlier this year, the IASSIST conference was in DC and Frank finally got to meet my stalker in our town and now they got to meet again in his town – this time we each had daughters in tow. Unfortunately Walter’s wife was under the weather so we were only 5 but a merry bunch we were!
We wandered through the St. Lawrence market area to the Distillery District – restaurants and artsy shops housed in old distillery buildings. We had a wonderful lunch at the Pure Spirits Oyster House. Sitting outside in the unusually warm Toronto sun, three of us enjoyed mussels and two had salads (mine was Niçoise – lovely!) and enjoyed sharing stories of swords, books, and childhood antics which might have embarrassed the two girls who were so patient with us old folks. (Note: they are pretty self-possessed young women. It didn’t work.)
Then a wander back toward downtown with a stop at a fabulous book store Nicholas Hoare where I discovered, much to my chagrin, that Camilla Lackerberg has at least 6 books translated into English and I have read only three – I refrained from purchasing the next three yet. I hope I do not regret that decsion. In the end, an earth shattering event occurred: Frank bought a book and I didn’t. I’ll give you a minute to recover….it’s a weighty tomb describing 1001 whiskeys so it will not actually be used as light reading but more as a checklist for a life quest. I’m going to enjoy watching this!
Eventually we had to say goodbye to our Canadian companions and within minutes of their departure on the subway, the skies opened up and it began to teem down rain. We ducked into a Canadian Tire store (which I am convinced sells everything but tires) and are now the proud owners of three new Canadian umbrellas. I wanted one with a Maple leaf but alas…
We tried valiantly to do some more shopping but the torrential downpour was too much for us so we retrieved the car from the underground car park, sadly put the top up and headed back to Grimsby. There we realized (or confirmed) two interesting facts about this part of Ontario: first, there is a distinct lack of ethnic restaurants for take away options. We could find only one Chinese and there was nothing I could eat on the menu. Second, there seems to be a great love for sign boards outside businesses. You know the ones: black background with neon letters and numbers announcing the important specials of the day. Nary a shopping plaza did we pass that did not have at least one (but usually several) of such sign boards out front. Unfortunately none of them announced Indian or Thai food that we could carry out and enjoy with our Cayuga white wine in the fridge.
So we dashed through the down pour to the Judge and Jester – a faux British pub which actually did a pretty good job getting the ambiance right. Frank and
Gillian partook of traditional fare (fish & chips and steak pie) and I had the special blackened tilapia which I know would never appear on a chalkboard in a Scottish pub but it was delicious nonetheless. Gillian was thrilled to be enjoying a favorite of hers (but still “admitted” that my steak pie is better) but since Frank will be heading out to sample the real thing in less than a week, there wasn’t quite the same effect for him.
And then there was the mad dash back through the rain to get to the car and back to the B&B where our chocolate pizza slices and a bottle of Homegrown Red from the Megalomaniac winery were waiting to help us dry out. Given that we did quite a bit of hiking in the urban jungle before the rain, we did manage to clock 17,986 steps or 7.75 miles today. Interesting food fact of the day: it is way easier to eat 5 ounces of chocolate containing nuts and assorted other goodies when it is shaped like a slice of pizza….
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