Once again I seem to be behind on my writing here. I have started a few entries over the past several days, none with particularly earth-shattering content, but have been pulled away and ended up doing something else. So I’ll try to capture a few of these stray thoughts in one entry.
Work is being fairly busy – I’m still driving to New York a few days a week. Driving is becoming more routine for me and I’m noticing that it is affecting my attitudes about walking. The more I drive the less patience I have with walking places. Of course this is partly due to my being much shorter on free time than I usually am. I’m usually out the door before 7:00 AM and don’t return until 12-14 hours later between work and the 2 hours or so it takes me to go each way. The last thing I feel like doing when I get home at 7:30 is walking to the market.
Another side-effect that has come from working all of these hours is that I’m dining out much more than usual. This isn’t a huge deal since my project has a per diem to cover travel and meals but the end result is that I am getting home even later than usual. The good news, though, is that I’ve picked up a copy of Cheap Eats Toronto. Not to sound like a shameless plug (and it isn’t, since I haven’t a thing to do with the publishers of the book) but this book has been a godsend. I now keep it in my bag when I travel, and often, after dropping off my car at the airport, I’ll figure out something to eat on the bus ride to Kipling Station. So far I’ve taken a few of their recommendations and have been pleased with every one of them.
One thing I noticed, though, at least in the case of the last couple restaurants I went to was that the cheaper restaurants are more likely to be pretty friendly and family-owned or at least owner-operated. I experienced this a couple times last week. First off, I went to Nazareth Restaurant near Ossington Station. This restaurant is run by the owner and is something of a hole in the wall. When I arrived, the place was packed with people, and there wasn’t a table to be found. No worries, though, as the owner went over and politely asked a couple if they were done eating and then sat me where they were. The menu was fairly straight-forward Ethiopian – a few meat dishes and a vegetarian combo. At the suggestion of Cheap Eats, I ordered the Gored Gored which was described in the menu as beef in a spicy home-made awaze sauce. As I was particularly on about spicy food, it sounded delicious. I was warned that the dish was raw and feeling adventurous, tried it out. The owner, did not stop moving for one second, ensuring that everyone was happy and double-checking that I was happy and didn’t want the music (a mix of east-African and Carribean pop) turned down, or want to turn around and watch the Red Sox game on the TV behind me. The dish eventually came and consisted of a large bowl of meat in a really delicious sauce, two pieces of injera, and three different vegetable dishes and a really nice salad which were described as a bonus. All of this was served on a plate the size of a platter you’d serve your thanksgiving turkey on. There was so much food there I couldn’t finish it all and even then I was asked if I didn’t want more injera to eat the rest of the food with. As I ate, I sat back and enjoyed the atmosphere. The restaurant was small and cozy warm lighting and several pieces of art, pictures, and the occasional advertisement in amharic. Though fairly loud, it had a very warm and friendly feel to it that makes me want to go back sometime in the winter. When I finished, I went up to the bar to pay my bill. Total cost: $8.00 including tax. With a 25% tip, that would be $10 for a huge meal. And that was for what may have been the most expensive dinner on the menu. I can only guess that they sell a lot of drinks to make up for that price.
The next day I was running late again and stopped downtown for what was advertised as one of the cheapest places to eat in Toronto (but still one that gets great reviews). Coconut Grove Roti Shop serves delicious Carribean food at prices that again leave me boggled as to how they can afford to stay in business. The sign outside advertises several dinner combos for $2.99. I decided to splurge, though, and ordered a potato, carrot and cabbage roti from the boy (no more than 9) behind the counter. As the woman started to make my food, she realized that they were out of potatoes and offered me chickpeas instead which sounded fine. The woman behind me then in line pointed out that if she put curry chicken gravy on the veggies it would taste like potato. The boy behind the counter advised me that this woman (who knew the owners of the restaurant and was asking after the boy’s mother who wasn’t in at the moment) was an expert and knew what she was talking about because she was Guyanese and knew all about Guyanese cooking. Given that recommendation I resolved to take her advice. The woman making my food then offered me salad to go with my dinner and I mentioned that I hadn’t paid for salad and the Guyanese cook scolded me for not just accepting it because “of course you won’t have to pay more”. So i left there with a pile of food – veggie roti, rice and peas with oxtail gravy, and a small salad, for $5 with no tip being necessary.
These experiences are making me think that perhaps my joke that it really is possible to dine out in Toronto for as little as it costs to cook for one’s self might not be as far from the truth as it originally seemed.
Fortunately, at least at this point, work isn’t encroaching too much on my weekends. Yes, I do have some work to do today (but I’m glad to do it – it’s a proposal for some work much closer to home) but for the most part this has been a work-free weekend. Most of the time has been spent outside.
Paul has been really interested in Geology lately and as a result has really enjoyed spending his time scouring the beaches for interesting rocks. Saturday we both made the long trek out to Scarborough to the Scarborough Bluffs. The trip there seemed to talk half the day. Just the bus ride – almost an hour from Victoria Park Station was bad enough but once we were there it was another 20 minute walk on a steep road with no sidewalk to get to the park. Fortunately it was worth it, though. For the first part of our time there we tried to get to the edge of the cliffs themselves. walking down a long sandy path through reeds that were taller than we were. Try as we might, though, we saw nothing that actually led to the cliffs themselves.
Eventually we found our way into a swamp densely packed with reeds and mud made from the same light-grey clay that the cliffs are made from.
I think the most amazing part of visiting this park was that though it took a long time to get there, and wasn’t the most pleasant trip, it was accessible and was part of Toronto. And despite actually being in Toronto, there were many places you could be where there was no sign of the city. Most of the time we were on the path we were alone with the only sounds being the crashing of the waves and the sounds of seagulls. There wasn’t a highrise or even any buildings (aside from the yacht club and change rooms for the beach) visible from anywhere in the park. Definitely a good thing after the busy week I’d had. Eventually, the two of us gave up on the possibility of finding a way to the cliffs and decided to h
ead for the beach. Ironically it was then when we found our way to the cliffs. A short walk down the length of the beach would bring us to where the cliffs met the lake. Sadly, when we were nearly there, we found that the way was blocked by a small swarm of wasps that had gathered for some inexplicable reason. And so we headed back. On the way back we stopped what appeared to have been where someone had had a small hangout before – there were stumps gathered around the remains of a fire. Since the day was still hot, I decided to try to see if we could use my glasses to get the fire going again and the two of us tried focusing the light on some tinder we found. Unfortunately, though we could generate a fair bit of smoke, there was no fire to be had. After a few minutes of trying, Paul exclaimed that he’d just been stung by something and looking on the back of his neck I saw that there was a small ant. It was time once again to move further down the beach – hopefully away from the red ants that had decided we were trespassing. We set ourselves up again a hundred metres or so down the beach where Paul set to digging and I sat and watched the waves come in. As I sat there I started to feel something like a cigarette burn on my chest and looked down to see a red ant crawling on me. I wasn’t sure if it was one that had been crawling on me since we’d tried to make the fire or if it was from where we had relocated to but I wasn’t risking it. We decided to head out. And as it was late, we headed out and started walking up the hill back to the bus stop where we arrived just in time to catch the bus back to the subway.
And once again it was tremendously late – almost 8:00 – by the time we got to the subway. And once again, we ended up eating out again. This time we had fish and chips at Duckworth’s Fish & Chips – one of the more highly-recommended fish & chips spots in the city – and I have to say, it lived up to its reputation. For less than $15 the two of us had a ton of food.
Yesterday after a slow start we found our way outside again for an afternoon at
Cherry Beach. While the scenery wasn’t as dramatic, it took much less effort to get there. Not only that, there were tons more rocks for Paul to look at and so we spent the better part of the afternoon looking for rocks, wading in the water, and just lounging on the sand before heading home. And guess what? We
didn’t go out to dinner afterwards. We had brought some sandwiches with us and snacked while we were there. When we got home it was about 7:00 and I started to make
Tofu Curry. Unfortunately it wasn’t long before I discovered that the rice we had had a few weevils in it and it had to be tossed out. So I checked with Sage to see what she wanted to do (and admittedly we strongly considered bagging it all and heading out for dinner) but finally we realized that she could run out to the store to get the rice while I started the curry. And by 9:00 we had our dinner. One recommendation for the curry, by the way: The recipe doesn’t call for it, but I doubled all of the spices, used the whole can of tomatoes and in addition to the onions, ginger and garlic, I chopped up three jalapeños and tossed them in. Yes, the dish was firey but very good. I ate an excessive amount of it (I’m only just getting hungry now) which I attribute to my having not eaten enough home-cooked food recently.
Today I have a few things to do. I have some work to do, of course, and hopefully will start that soon after eating. Paul and I are off again on another rock-hunting trip – and we’ll probably bring our edible plants guide as well so we can snack on the way.
Wow – it wasn’t until I read that that I realized how much we’ve backslid on the eating at restaurants thing. Yes, our family time is being of fairly high quality and quantity despite my working crazy hours, but we’re spending rather too much on food out. I haven’t quite figured out how to balance it all out. And don’t get me started on how to keep up with the grocery shopping. I think some sort of planning is required since right now my response to cooking is very reactive – the decision as to what to do for food usually comes about 1/2 hour after I’m famished and tired. And of course it would help to have a few easy things figured out so that if I’m running late I can have something to quickly make or have Sage start when I get home. I’ve done that to some degree though I have to say that at this point we have one meal that we can agree on in this realm – pasta and some sort of sauce – and that only goes so far. Any other ideas?
Pluto
Today it was declared that Pluto is not a planet but instead is a dwarf planet and as a result there are only eight planets. Of course if things keep going they way they’re going, the solar system will have seven planets, a dwarf planet and a total fiasco.