Sunny. 19 degrees. First patio of the season. On beer #2. I am more than a little bit happy about this.
Category: Food / drink
Garbage in, garbage ou…uh, actually, I guess in this case garbage stays.
Not long ago, on the way home from work my Zen randomly played “Eat Junk Become Junk” by Six By Seven. While I listened I studied the subway ad in front of me. It was an ad for an MTV reality show. I couldn’t help but make the connection.
“Eat junk become junk” is just another way of saying “you are what you eat”, something we’ve all heard since we were kids. No one really doubts that the badness of what we eat affects our overall health. It’s not the sole determining factor, obviously, but it does matter. Doctors, medical studies, common sense…they all tell us so.
So why doesn’t the adage apply to music? Why not books? Why not movies or television? Aren’t the worst of these just empty calories, the Twinkies and triple-bacon cheeseburgers of culture? Aren’t people just jamming the same crap into a different orifice? I would think we would consider these toxic materials as harmful to the mind as we consider toxic food harmful to the body.
And yet, we hear people describe the benefit of vanilla TV (Two and a Half Men, anyone?) being that they don’t have to think, they can just have a laugh. They describe “beach books” the same way…something you just read but don’t have to think about. Worse yet, “reality tv” deliberately misleads viewers, making them think these shows are actually happening unscripted, trying to warp the viewer’s idea of reality rather than try to find entertaining reality to film. Music so banal and oversampled there’s no shred of musical innovation or feeling left at the heart of it. Movies slapped together to lampoon scene after 30-second scene of fleeting pop-cultural references funny mainly, and especially, to those whose news-gathering begins and ends with TMZ. At best these are vapid space-fillers; at worst, mind-numbing distortions. Alone they do not make you stupid. But they certainly lean that way.
Let me preempt the usual cry: that I’m arguing against fun. That’s a weak case, unless you would suggest “fun” can only equal “stupid”. Millions of things are fun, and funny without being weakly, patronizingly so.
Let’s maybe try showing this graphically. FlowingData recently posted a chart titled “Music that makes you dumb” courtesy of a CalTech grad student. It doesn’t show that listening to crap music makes you dumber. It just shows that people who listen to music like Lil’ Wayne, Carrie Underwood and Taking Back Sunday do worse on their SATs than those who listen to stuff like Radiohead, Bob Dylan and Beethoven.
Look, I’m not saying people should stop watching American Idol or listening to Nickelback any more than I’m saying they should avoid eating at Carl’s Jr. three times a day. I’m just saying that everyone knows they shouldn’t eat at Carl’s Jr. three times a day. For some reason they just haven’t figured out that it’s harmful to put other kinds of junk in their bodies too.
That apt description
Ever since it last October we’ve enjoyed the restaurant at the corner of Front & Jarvis called That Corner Spot. After our first visit I blogged about the good beer (all local: Amsterdam & Mill Street), good food (good breakfast, excellent veggie burger), good produce (all procured from St. Lawrence Market across the screet) and good music. In the last month or so, though, it’s really taken a turn. Granted, it’s probably a turn for the more profitable — there are far more people in there now than before — but it’s also a turn for the generic. Gone is the small, local-focused menu; there’s now page after page of food available. The local beers, though still available, are now relegated to a small, mis-printed subsection of the menu. The simple tables, arty decor and interesting music have been replaced with generic tablecloths, Audrey Hepburn prints and light jazz. It hasn’t become a bad place; it’s just become every other place and lost what made it interesting. Like I said, it probably means they’ll survive a little longer, but I won’t be going back.
I always thought the generic name seemed out of place for a cool spot like that. Now I guess it fits perfectly.
The first single from Born To Rind
Somebody needs to stop us from going shopping around Church and Wellesley. Between the meat we bought at Cumbrae’s this morning and the cheese we bought at About Cheese (Le Mont-Jacob pasteurised cow milk from Quebec, Parmigianno Regianno raw cow milk from Italy, Thunder Oak gouda) we’ll be well-fed, but much poorer. We also got some tasty bread at About Cheese, as well as some spruce beer and maple beer. Very interesting indeed.
Crazy shakes
I had a lot to do. I was supposed to work out. 30 Rock was on. The apartment’s messy. I have stuff to read. The cats are (presumably) feeling neglected. I had all this to take care of and much more, and yet…
We had dinner at beerbistro. And a drink. Or two. And “two” might have been Delirium Tremens. Which might have been tasty.
Evaluations
The new Neko Case album is excellent. The new Alela Diane album is fantastic. The new Dan Auerbach album is pretty good, but the song “Heartbroken, In Disrepair” is kickass. Listen.
Watchmen (imdb | rotten tomatoes) was ok but not great. I didn’t read the comic so I can’t judge how well they translated the story, but I do know they forgot one cardinal rule: make it fit the medium. 2h43m was just too long…it’s hard to sustain interest and excitement over nearly three hours with a story that dense and jumpy.
Innis & Gunn oak-aged beer is very tasty indeed.
I couldn't C5 things on the menu that I wanted
Last night five of us (it should’ve been six but one of our party took one — a kid’s fever, specifically — for the team) had dinner at C5. We had booked dinner with the intention of participating in the Crosstown Kitchens event Stop For Food, but when we arrived we were disappointed to find that, unlike Winterlicious, there was no choice in the courses. Since the lone price fixe menu option didn’t impress, the five of us opted for the regular menu. So much for going easy on the pocketbook.
The food we ordered from the regular menu was good, not great. The buffalo mozzarella amuse-bouche was excellent. My pork belly and calamari starter was decent…really, I’ve had better pork belly and the calamari may as well have been left out. My venison was quite good, and the other touches — sweet potato puree, beets, etc. — were delicious. Our wine — a Morgan Pinot Noir — was excellent. Nothing on the dessert list appealed so I passed. Nellie enjoyed her meal less than I did. I got the sense that our other dinner companions were up and down as well, and no one seemed blown away. I feel like what I had wasn’t the best that C5 had to offer, especially given that Toronto Life just ranked it the 10th best restaurant in the city, but compared to a recent visit to Nota Bene or yet another return trip to Canoe (which TorLife ranked #1 this year) it just doesn’t stack up.
However, in such pleasant company, the evening was still more than enjoyable. And the space, it should be noted, is spectacular. I would happily come here for drinks, especially if my other option in the immediate neighbourhood is Lobby.
Decongested
Good start to the day: went out on a beautiful winter morning to pick up bagels at St-Urbain, pretzels from the north market and a nice warm drink from Hank’s. The cold and the early hour made for a pretty pleasant Front Street too: not many impromptu cocktail parties or aggressive stroller-pushers to contend with on the sidewalks this morning.
I’m really happy to be out from under this cold, so it feels good to have an active, productive day planned. I didn’t even mind staying late(ish) at work last night…it felt good to be functional and not hell ass balls congested. Nellie finally seems to have turned the corner on her cold as well. She’s taking advantage of a lazy Saturday to sleep it out.
Right, I’m off. More errands to run and lovely February day to enjoy.
How do I get Rideau this cold?
As my brother has been blogging, his wife surprised him by flying him to Ottawa for a long weekend with friends and, as an added surprise, Nellie and I. He flew back to England this evening; Nellie and I returned to Toronto yesterday. It was a fun few days for us. I’ve known many of his friends since 1996 when I lived there with him for the summer, and it was good to hang out with all of them again. It was good to see Ottawa again too; I’ve not been there in a while, but it still feels a little like home. Best of all, though, was getting to help celebrate my brother’s 40th birthday in such great circumstances.
Highlights: an awesome Porter flight to Ottawa; surprising (kinda) my brother at our hotel; the food and drink at the Wellington Gastropub, including the Beau’s and a 2005 Raymond Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon (also overheard a great Grant Lee Philips cover of Echo & The Bunnymen‘s “The Killing Moon” on the stereo there); getting silly (where exactly did “chicken sodomy” come from anyway?) and reliving some memories at a Royal Oak (warning: awful, obnoxious music embedded in site); struggling the next morning until I could get some sausage and toast into me at the Elgin Street Diner; Winterlude ice sculptures; marveling at just how far Lego has come since we were kids; awesome homemade pizzas at mblogler/imspycat‘s place; playing the Wii with the kiddies; breakfast at the Metropolitan Brasserie with our aunt (where we loudly berated the Senate, even as Art Eggleton dined next to us); more pizza and beer at the Prescott where people who used to work with my brother were invited out to see him (funnily enough, three of them walked up and started talking to me, thinking I was him…by the third I just said, “Hey, how are you? That’s Tim over there.”); cheap pub breakfast at the Aulde Dubliner in the market; walking (not skating…couldn’t be arsed) down the Rideau Canal to the hotel before flying home.
That’s obviously an abuse of the word “highlights” but it really was a great weekend. My biggest problem with it was that I got very, very sick. Saturday night I felt a cold coming on; by Sunday morning it was severe, and by Monday morning it was brutal. It kept me in bed most of Sunday, made me miserable for all of Monday, and made our plane’s descent into Toronto excruciating. But it could have been worse: I could’ve been sick the entire weekend, or worst of all, my brother might have been sick. So it all turned out for the best. I didn’t even mind the cold; chilly as it got, the sun stayed out most of the time.
It was a great weekend. I’m really glad I got to be part of it.
[UPDATE: Ooh, ooh, almost forgot: the brother and sister-in-law brought me some Pierre Marcolini chocolate from Belgium. Zowie.]
I do have two whole years to make up for, after all
I’m hungry just thinking about it.
Last night, in an early celebration of Nellie’s birthday, we had dinner at Jacob’s & Co. with T-Bone and The Sof. And what a dinner it was. After a drink downstairs in the bar we settled around a big comfy table. More drinks — beer for the guys, sparkling wine for the ladies — followed before we opened our menus. Our server Harry walked us through the details and intricacies of each cut of meat they had that night and we made our choices.
I started with the lobster bisque (which contained, like, half a lobster). T-Bone had steak tartare, The Sof had oysters and Nellie ordered the Caesar Salad. That salad was prepared tableside and tasted, according to Nellie, better than any Caesar’s salad she’d ever had. All our wines were paired nicely as well. So far, so good.
Then…oh, then, the meat arrived. T-Bone and The Sof split a 28oz USDA Prime Black Angus bone-in ribeye. I opted for the 14oz version. Nellie had an 8oz Wagyu striploin. My ribeye was so tender my knife just slid through it; Nellie’s was almost like butter. Amazing. A lot to handle, too…I’m not sure how I finished it. I guess it might have been that I largely stayed away from the sides of mushroom, broccolini and duck fat french fried potatoes, though I did enjoy the pureed potatoes quite a bit. The whole affair went down with…I think the sommelier said a Cabernet, but I can’t really remember. It were tasty.
No one had a lot of room for dessert, though I did feel like having a single scoop of house-made coconut ice cream and Nellie got some sorbet. T-Bone had port, natch. The Sof skipped dessert, and concentrated on trying to digest the 14 ounces of meat he’d just eaten. Before heading back downstairs for one last drink, Harry dropped off four house-made muffins for our breakfast the next day. Nice touch.
Jacob’s is a beautiful space, and the food was spectacular. So, as one would expect, were the prices. Economic downturn be damned, though – that room was full last night. We enjoyed our experience there thoroughly. And, in a perfect little coda: the muffins this morning were delicious.
Skirl | Dan Dickinson 