Earlier this week we did a thing. And then I did two things.
Tuesday
We went for an early dinner at The Wren (pro tip: if you don’t get there by 5:15pm, you won’t get a table, even on a Tuesday), ate delicious food — a fried chicken sando and their take on a crunchwrap supreme — and some killer beer.
After dinner, we subway-ed down the Danforth and walked to the Comedy Bar to see Jacqueline Novak. We saw her on her Fall On Your Knees tour four years ago, but tonight was a different show type. She was doing three nights at this venue; we were clearly catching her on night one, as she tried stuff out, looked stuff up on a laptop at the edge of the stage, refamiliarized herself with standup timing, etc. Still very funny, I thought, and a good venue apart from the air conditioning condensation that kept dripping on me.
Wednesday
I was invited to a wine tasting — the first tasting for Common Ground Wines, a new wine import agency co-founded by a friend of mine. Well, a friend who hasn’t really spoken to me in ten years, it should be said. I was glad she invited me, even if it was hard to shake off the weirdness. Anyway, Laura came with me, and we eventually found the venue inside a pen store. Another long-ago friend who was helping pour made sure our glasses stayed full, but we didn’t get to try most of the portfolio. Still, a few from Savoie enchanted me, so I’ll probably buy some.
I left there and took a streetcar over to Blue Jays Way, where I had a chance to watch a Jays game. I was hoping and they wouldn’t get blown out for a third straight night, and they didn’t — but they still lost thanks to Jeff Hoffman. Gone is the magic of last November.
Brother #2 and the S-I-L have been visiting since last Wednesday, when they landed late at night after numerous delays.
Thursday, after reintroducing themselves to Bianca, they drove out to Guelph. Once they got back and the rain stopped, we grilled up some chicken from Butchers of Distinction and drank an exceptional Chard.
Friday they drove out to Ajax for breakfast with their kiddo. When they got back and I’d wrapped up my work day we walked down the street to Reid’s for some cocktails and bites and to watch the World Cup match. Then we walked up to Gerrard for dinner at East End Vine where we had crudo, mushroom toast w/ quail eggs, crispy brussels, chorizo sausages & bell peppers, and apple/fennel/radicchio salad, and maybe something else. We had plenty of fun wine too, including a glass of Bellone, an Italian white that was new to me.
On Saturday three of us went to Maha’s for brunch. The S-I-L was excited because, since their last visit, Maha’s has introduced a Feteer Meshaltet to their menu, and she hasn’t had one since they left Cairo seven years ago. When we got home we ventured out to two parks near us which we’d never visited: Leslie Lookout Park, which took about 45 seconds, and Biidaasige Park, which was way bigger than we expected. We walked around the trails there and got decent sunburns. Once home we found some more caffeine around the corner at Maha’s Cafe, watched England-Norway, and ate pulled pork tacos & drank Pinot before they drove to Ajax to collect the kiddo. Upon returning home they joined us for the second half (and extra time) of Argentina-Switzerland, before we all crashed.
On Sunday we all got up, went to Avling for brunch, and then chilled for a while. Once the brother and S-I-L got home from returning the kiddo to Ajax, we picked up Revolver pizza, watched last week’s House Of The Dragon, and went to bed early.
This morning, between meetings, I drove them to the airport, and wished them a much smoother flight home than the one that brought them here. The house feels quiet now, and Bianca seems a little confused.
Earlier this week I had a work dinner at Black & Blue steakhouse. Lindsay and I had visited the Vancouver location seven years ago* and quite liked it, but I’d heard mixed things about the new-ish Toronto outpost. Here’s what I ate:
* It recently occurred to me that perhaps the two best Wagyu experiences I’ve ever had — that one at Black & Blue Vancouver, and one more recently in Victoria — were on the east coast. I am slowly forming a theory that the Wagyu is amazing when it arrives in BC and becomes slightly less magical as it makes its journey east to Toronto. Still amazing…but just marginally less amazing.
.:.
Because it came amidst the NHL playoffs andthe opening round of the World Cup, I didn’t make note here of the NBA finals. While I have been a Raptors fan since moving here the year after their inaugural season, the two teams I identified with in the 90s were the Knicks and the Spurs. The Spurs had a team personality that I liked, a hall of fame coach, great bigs like David Robinson and Tim Duncan, and they ultimately became one of the more successful franchises of the past few decades. The Knicks had been more of an underdog story, not having won a title since before I was born, in large part because they kept running into the Bulls, or later the Rockets. But I loved players like Patrick Ewing and Charles Oakley and John Starks and Anthony Mason, and the NY grit they brought. So it was great to see them play in the finals, and even better to see the Knicks win their first title since 1973.
.:.
The past week has been insufferably hot, not just in Toronto but all across North America (and Europe, apparently). I woke up feeling like the heat had finally broken; that it already felt like 27 degrees with the humidex at 9am shows just how hot it was earlier in the week. It was so hot that we couldn’t really even go to the top floor of our (flat roof) house. Thank goodness for air conditioning.
Right after I got back from Halifax we had some special house guests: Tess & Aravind (och barnet) visiting from Sweden, by way of Halifax.
We hosted them here for four nights, and it was great fun. We caught up and cooed at the baby. We got coffee and bought gifts. We ate dinner in our backyard and at a few restaurants (Avling, White Lily). We watched the World Cup and had a picnic in Riverdale East Park. The visiting baby delighted in Bianca; the visiting adults did not care for her. The baby also took bites out of some cork coasters and gnawed marks into our coffee table. It was good for our souls to have them here, and we’re hoping to see them again when we visit in July.
This past week I was in Halifax for two different work purposes. Just one day out the five I was there was kind of damp, otherwise it was a gorgeous week.
Sunday: Vino Volo, an easy flight sitting next to someone I knew, a long commute into downtown Halifax because one of the bridges was shut down, the Prince George Hotel (my home for the next five nights), Stillwell (where 2 beers and a large Japanese fries was $21 and I was asking myself why I don’t live there) and then, much later, Rosie’s Burgers.
.:.
Monday: classic Halifax weather (fog like a blanket), day one of a conference, lots of trips to the Weird Harbour on Barrington, then EDNA for dinner:
Tuesday: gorgeous weather, day two of the conference, more Weird Harbour, Gahan House with a big crew, and a sunset sail around the harbour on the Tall Ship Silva.
.:.
Wednesday: the other Weird Harbour, a walk down Spring Garden and back through the Public Gardens, a full day of meetings, dinner at Salt + Ash, wine at Peacock (they let me pick the wine, so Slovenian Cabernet Sauvignon it was!) and more perfect weather.
.:.
Thursday: day two of meetings, still more Weird Harbour, another gorgeous day, and after the meetings wrapped a colleague and I walked to brother #1’s house for a bbq and the Canada/Qatar match with brother #2.
.:.
Friday: hotel breakfast, one last Weird Harbour visit (along with what I think was the Spanish SailGP team), airport, terrible pizza, and an easy flight home.
Last night we had dinner at Carisma, using a gift card that had given to us as a Christmas gift. We arrived to find it nearly empty — I guess everyone was avoiding downtown because of the World Cup?
Spaghettini w/ black tiger shrimp, brandy tomato cream
Mediterranean sea bass w/lemon, extra virgin olive oil
bottle of 2020 Chardonnay Umbria Cervaro della Sala Antinori
Dessert
Molten chocolate cake
glasses of 2015 Recioto Della Valpolicella Domini Veneti
Normally dessert would be a compromise on something not quite so chocolate-y, but I got to choose because Lindsay accidentally fired sauce all over my shirt when she dismantled a shrimp.
I returned home yesterday from my latest trip to Moncton, the first in a while.
Monday I had a coffee meeting at Epoch Chemistry. That evening, my mom & dad, brother #2, and the S-I-L came over for dinner at The Gahan House.
Tuesday I did a full day in the office, before a bunch of us drove over to Shediac for dinner at Captain Dan’s. It was too chilly to sit outside and fully enjoy the shore setting, but a beer, a chicken sandwich, and good company went a long way.
Wednesday we spent the afternoon outside making beds for kids, so felt like we earned beers on the patio at Monk 10, followed by a big team dinner at The Bunker and a nightcap at St. James Gate.
Thursday was another full day of work events, so I was too introvert-tired to do much other than crash in my room with takeout, especially since I had to be up at 4am to catch a flight.
So: nothing groundbreaking in terms of restaurants, but it sure is a lot more fun being there for patio weather.
Brother #1 was in town this week, so we got to break bread together a few times. Monday night Lindsay and I met him at Bar Ardo, which I’d been to once before, but Lindsay hadn’t.
I don’t remember everything the brother had, but Lindsay and I had:
Grilled Mediterranean octopus, cucumber, cannellini beans puree, mint
Grilled sourdough bread, whipped butter, Sicilian anchovies (we didn’t order this, but our server accidentally punched this in, so she gave it to us anyway)
Not a great dining experience, overall — wrong things ordered, food coming out at random times, Lindsay’s pasta wasn’t great, etc. But somehow it was still $220+tip. for the two of us. Anyway.
Later in the week I was downtown after a meeting, so I met up with the brother for lunch near his hotel at Som Tum Jinda. Cool little spot, and the food was fantastic. I had the Massaman duck confit; I don’t remember what the brother got but he seemed quite pleased with it. He left there and flew on to Ottawa, promising to say hi to his friends who I became close with when I lived with him for a summer.
Also, on the walk there, I tried a new (to me) coffee spot that he’d tried the day before: Black Wolf. It was good — my acid test is always asking for a cortado to see if they get the flavour and temp right, and they did.
That same day, I ended up at a work dinner at yet another new place: Notte. Well, it’s a new incarnation, but certainly not a new location for me: I spent so many dinners there when it was the wine bar, and next door at Hank’s for breakfast, that I couldn’t even count them. Anyway, the food was pretty decent:
Housemade focaccia w/ parmesan butter & chive oil
Grilled lamb speducci w/ herb marinade, anchovy, spiced yogurt
I had the roasted cavatelli bianco w/ roasted semolina, pork & lamb sausage, butter, pecorino, toasted hazelnuts
glasses of Orvieto Classico and Lazio Bianco and Cannonau
I brought home a piece of lemon olive oil cake for Lindsay but she didn’t want it, so guess who did? This guy.
Shortly after leaving Frank we turned north and began the long, boring drive up to Calgary. There was plenty more snow, and a few more deer.
Driving into Calgary was kind of annoying. Lots of bad drivers on the highways. Still ice in the underpasses. Knuckleheads cutting me off and forcing me to miss turns — which, in a city with as many one-way streets as Calgary, is a serious pain. Parking lot full of slush. And then we couldn’t get into our friend’s condo, as someone had…glued her lockbox shut. What the hell is wrong with people? And why did Calgary hate us so much? Anyway, we spent about 15 minutes trying to scrape the glue out of the lockbox before giving up and checking into the Calgary Le Germain.
We didn’t have long to shake that whole encounter off, though, as we were meeting our friends Stevie & Sarah at PARK by Sidewalk Citizen. Sarah had booked it, and what a find she made — food is listed below, but the decor, the vibes, the staff were all terrific.
Three Cuts of Beeswax Dry-Aged Lamb (12-day dry-aged sirloin, 12-day dry-aged ribs, 21-day dry-aged leg) w/ house garlic fries, garlic toum, red pepper jam
Dessert
Daily Donut (strawberry + almond)
“Turtles” Ice Cream
Chocolate Hazelnut Layer Cake
Drinks
Various beer, wine, cocktails…at this point of the trip I wasn’t keeping track
I’ve never heard of dry-aging lamb in beeswax, but my god…it was incredible.
We walked home, chatting, and then Lindsay and I staved off crashing long enough to drink some Burrowing Owl “Athene” (which was tremendous) and change our flight.
Sat Apr 18
After two weeks in the west, in which we’d encountered every type of weather possible, it was time to go home. We showered, packed, and scooted over to Kensington. Our plan had been to leave the wine we’d accumulated along the way at our friend’s condo as a means of payment, but since that plan fell through and we hadn’t the spare kilos in our luggage to bring them home with us, we gifted them to Sarah & Stevie along with some treats from COBS. But really, it was just an excuse to see them again and play with their level-10 adorable dog.
We left them, drove to the airport, dropped the rental car, checked into our flight, and had an easy flight home. There we found one very happy, snuggly cat.
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And so: thank you, BC. Despite nearly killing me in a mountain pass, you remain my second-favourite province.
While Lindsay had a virtual meeting, I went and got us breakfast sandwiches, muffins, and coffee/tea at Queen Of The South. By the time I had the goods her meeting was ended, and we finished packing up.
The next phase of our plan was to drive across the bottom of BC, ending up in Fernie. I’d never been through that part of BC before, and TBH didn’t have much time to research anything in between. I figured we’d just stop somewhere for lunch, and otherwise blast on through to Fernie in a day.
We left Osoyoos, and headed east on the Crowsnest Highway. We immediately started climbing, taking in beautiful views as we crested Anarchist Mountain, and passed through farmland and forest. We drove through a bit of snow at a high mountain pass but quickly drove out of it, and paused to take pictures of Christina Lake.
A few minutes after leaving the lake, we began another climb. We saw signs about needing winter tires through the end of April, but given how warm it had been when we left Osoyoos we figured it didn’t apply that day. Silly us. Not ten minutes later, we found ourselves in the middle of a snowstorm. Five minutes after that, as we drove over the Paulson Pass, we lost control of the car in the snow-covered road at least once. (It turns out we had all-weather mud + snow tires, but not full winters.) We managed to keep it on the road, white-knuckling until we descended toward Castlegar and the snow turned back into rain.
We pulled into the Lion’s Head Pub, and ordered beers to soothe our jangled nerves. While we drank those and waited for sandwiches to arrive, we looked up traffic conditions for the rest of the Crowsnest. Turns out the next section of highway, Kootenay Pass, was already much worse, and would remain so until Thursday morning. We found a live webcam of the pass, and instantly knew we didn’t feel safe driving through it, so we hurriedly changed plans: we booked an AirBnB in Castlegar for two nights and shifted our Fernie AirBnB to Thursday night. Luckily our post-Fernie plans were very fluid, so we had little to reschedule there.
We finished our meals and killed some more time at the pub (they were awesome, and we resolved to return the next day), stopped for coffee, got some groceries, and drove to the AirBnB — they were fantastic and had the place ready for us in ~90 minutes. It had lots of space, a mountain view, laundry facilities, and a comfy bed — for us, at that moment, it was a palace. And most importantly, we were safe. We assembled a charcuterie board and drank sparkling wine from the Okanagan, barely remembering the 20 degrees that had welcomed us just three days before.
Wed Apr 15
Obviously we had no plans, considering we weren’t expecting to be in Castlegar. We took the opportunity to sleep in, relax at the AirBnB, and catch up on emails (and blogging). Eventually we went out for coffee & pastries at Crumbs, then to a park by the Columbia River (I was humming Woody Guthrie all day).
It was pretty cold, so we popped back into the Lion’s Head for some food & drink. Too much food, honestly — their portions are out of control. Bursting, we drove back to the AirBnB, drank a bottle of Tantalus Chardonnay, and tried to save up energy and luck for Thursday.
Thu Apr 16
We had a pretty sleepless night, honestly. We kept looking at weather updates and highway conditions and live webcams of Kootenay Pass. Around 3am Lindsay worked out a plan to avoid it, while I worked on plan C: abandon the south of BC and strike north for Revelstoke.
When we finally got up for good, we were pretty sure plan C was what we’d go with. But our Fernie AirBnB host messages to say their roads were fine, and we decided to go with plan B: take the Kootenay Lake ferry instead of driving over Kootenay Pass. We collected snacks and coffee at Crumbs, said goodbye to our safe haven of Castlegar, and drove north.
Driving along the Kootenay River was beautiful — it was hard to keep my eyes on the road. We eventually made it to Balfour, where the ferry crosses the lake. Unfortunately, the larger ferry was out of service, and we didn’t make it onto the smaller one, so we’d have to wait 90 minutes. Just enough time to eat some lunch at The Landing. When the ferry returned we got right on, and enjoyed a gorgeous 35-minute trip across the lake. Lindsay commented that it might have been a blessing in disguise to be delayed and rerouted this way — when would we ever take such a picturesque ferry ride again?
That’s not sunshine on the mountaintop. It’s last night’s snow.
On the other side of the lake we had a lovely, winding drive. Lindsay curated a mountain-themed playlist. We spotted lots of deer on the roadside. The weather was lovely, save one really bad spot along Moyie Lake between Creston and Cranbrook. Eventually we reached Fernie, grabbed food from the first place we saw (Subway), and got to our AirBnB. We drank a bottle of Nk’Mip Pinot Noir and slept like the dead.
Fri Apr 17
I woke up early, and caught a glimpse of the mountains before they became shrouded in fog. We packed up and moved on, grabbing a late breakfast on our way out of town at The Bridge Bistro.
We drove east, thinking it would be an easy drive, but once again hit miserable weather at Crowsnest Pass. Luckily, we got through it, and then stopped somewhere I’ve wanted to visit for decades: the Frank Slide. I’ve read about it. I’ve sung along live to the Rural Alberta Advantagesong about it. But it’s not the same as actually seeing it.
We drove up to the interpretive centre to see the slide from above. We didn’t go through the full tour, but we did chat with one of the guides for a bit, and go out onto the catwalk to see it up close. You can’t really grasp the enormity of it until you see it up close, and that makes it fairly unique in terms of natural disasters: explosions last for an instant, hurricanes pass, fires go out, etc. But this pile of rock would take a century to move, so there it’ll stay forever, reminding us of the town buried beneath it.
Anyway, somewhere in the snowy mess of Crowsnest pass, we’d entered Alberta. It was in this godforsaken province that our journey would end some 24 hours later.
Skirl | Dan Dickinson 