75th
Significant ingestion
Well now, THAT was a fun weekend. Lindsay’s brother was in town, and we squeezed a whole lot of fun (and somehow a fair amount of relaxation) into less than two days.
We picked him up at the airport Friday night, and after dropping his stuff at our place, we went straight to White Lily. He’d heard about it. It lived up to his expectations. “Absurd” is what he said, I think. We relaxed at home and introduced him to Fargo (the TV show, not the movie).
The next morning I got a haircut and brought home peameal sandwiches for all some and jumped into the Fargo episode they were watching. After a bit we made our way to Boxcar Social, walking through the first few minutes of Eats & Beats, to sample some cortados and tasty beers.
After that we walked up Broadview to Good Cheese, took a picnic basket of cheese and meat and baguette and cole slaw and some drinks, and walked up to Riverdale Park East where we sat and enjoyed a perfect day.
We left there, grabbed another cortado at Rooster across the street, walked a little further for the full view (best in the city, in my opinion), and then walked home.
After a little more Fargo we got on with the reason for the visit: an Anderson .Paak concert at Echo Beach. We arrived just in time to catch the last 30 seconds of Thundercat‘s set, then watched NoName kill it, and then saw Anderson .Paak absolutely torch the place. I wasn’t expecting much — I was more tagging along than anything, and have never been super into his music, but holy shit what a show. Huge spectacle technically. Amazingly locked-in band. Insane energy. Maybe a little too much “Torontooooooooooo” pandering. Fantastic vibes though. And I had no idea he’s such an amazing drummer. Anyway, it was better than I expected, and actually a pretty fucking remarkable show. Bonus: after days of thunderstorm warnings it barely even rained…there was just got this bad-ass fog that rolled in during the encore. Anyway, we were glad it seemed worth a flight to Toronto — “Absurd Plus” was the assessment, if I recall.
[Setlist]
This morning we got ourselves out of bed for some massive replenishing breakfasts at Eastbound (we all got the fork + knife fried chicken sandwich) and then had to have a little nap before heading to the airport. What a fun visit. What a killer concert.
What a great weekend.
Game six
Last night I was lucky enough to be a witness to the greatest moment in Toronto Raptors history. I’d lucked into some tickets — good ones, too, just six rows up from the floor, and within handshake distance of Pinball Clemons, Aaron Sanchez, Dallas Green, Gerry Dee, and others — to game six of the Eastern Conference finals.
For the second game in a row, the Raps — underdogs in the series, given the Milwaukee Bucks had been the best team in the NBA this season — overcame a huge deficit. The bench was great. Kawhi was a beast. The crowd was deafening. And the Raptors won, advancing to the finals in six.
While this is the highest peak the Raptors have ever reached, everyone’s now wondering whether they can scale the next one. It won’t be easy. They’ll play Golden State in the finals, and the Warriors have been a dynasty in recent years. They’re well-rested too, having swept Portland in the Western Conference finals. But Five Thirty-Eight has the Raps as slight favourites (as of today anyway) and Chuck likes them, so…who knows? For now I’m taking a deep breath to revel in the feeling, then getting myself psyched up for game one on Thursday.
Oh, and just before the game we had dinner at the now-revamped Carisma. Gone are the cave-like feel and TV-based fireplace of the old space; it’s now bright whites and soft blues and a buzzier open space, but the food is still stellar, and my wine guy remembered me, so it was a pretty great meal. We had the burratina & sparkling wine, then agnolotti & steak, and a delicious bottle of Morellino.
All shows must die
More than eight years ago, when brother #2 was visiting, he saw an ad for a new HBO show that got him really excited. It was a TV version of a book series he’d been reading for years, but I’d never heard of. The book series was called A Song Of Ice And Fire. The TV show would be called Game Of Thrones.
It quickly became my favourite show. Not the best, mind you — it was always only high-production-value fantasy escapism — but my favourite. I’d anxiously await new episodes, re-watch every new episode the next day, and consume reviews, critiques, and podcasts about it. I ended up reading the books, and — once the show caught up and passed the books, and diverged from them to a yet-unknown degree — felt the same mild thrill of discovery as everyone else watching.
It ended last night, obviously, with more of a whimper than a bang. The last two seasons, as have been well-documented, felt rushed and absurd, given neither the room to breathe nor the grounding in brute reality afforded the earlier seasons. I still felt compelled to watch, and was engrossed in every second, but it didn’t resonate with me, didn’t affect me the next day. No character was developed in these final two seasons, and ultimately the characters were what drew me in.
That said, if they decide to make a spin-off series about Robert’s Rebellion, I’m cancelling all of my Sunday night plans for three months.
Chateau Musar
Last night, after a quick drink at Boxcar Social with CBJ, I met Lindsay at The Civic. We hadn’t been back since they switched up their chef, and I was anxious to try it. We demolished the following:
- bread & butter
- lightly cooked scallops w/ cauliflower, raisin, sherry vinaigrette
- glasses of champagne
- Perth Farms pork chop w/ potato pavé, savoy cabbage, king oyster, sage jus (Dan)
- grass fed dry aged ribeye w/ savory bread pudding, charred rapini, shallot (Lindsay)
- a bottle of Chateau Musar 2004
The sommelier picked that bottle, but I’d been eyeing it already. That winery was featured in a book Lindsay got me a while back called Around The World In Eighty Wines (amazon). In it the author talks about Serge Hochar, son of the original winery owner, who produced vintage after vintage even in the face of war and violence in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley. So it was a draw of curiosity for me, but ended up being a goddamn delicious bottle of wine in its own right. Tons of fruit, strong spice. A special wine for sure. Made the dinner, really.
“If I tell you what happens, it won’t happen.”
We had a bit of a day yesterday. After a nice lazy morning of movie-watching, we set out for…uh, more movie watching. But a movie this epic deserves more of a day plan.
So yeah, we saw Avengers: Endgame (imdb | rotten tomatoes), like most of the rest of the earth’s population, apparently. First, though, we had lunch at Peter Pan Bistro, which Lindsay knew well but somehow I’d never tried. It was still brunch — barely — so I had the scrambled eggs & lox while Linds had the shakshuka. We were then just enjoying our cocktails when lo and behold, an order of fresh baked Madelaines w/ lavender lemon curd shows up, courtesy of an acquaintance of Lindsay’s who also works there. How sweet. (Delicious too, obviously.)
So, then, the movie: it was as good as I expected, but also more than I expected. By which I mean, they somehow managed to pull together even more threads than I expected. I won’t say much in case you’re like me and struggled to find time to see it, but it was pretty satisfying as a MCU fan.
After the movie (and a quick, awkward drink at the Hilton’s Tundra bar) we walked to our reservation at Momofuku Kojin. It’s been high on my wishlist since before Toronto Life named it their best new restaurant in the city. And when Lindsay said earlier this week she was craving steak, I saw an opportunity, and lucked into an open table. Here’s what we ate:
- NB & PEI oysters w/ cucumber & green hot sauces
- Griddled corn flatbread made from local K2 Mills cornmeal & hominy, paired with Drew’s grass fed butter & spiced honey
- glasses of Baud Crémant du Jura
- 14oz boneless ribeye, dry-aged minimum 32 days (Lindsay had shaved foie gras added to hers)
- Tita’s mash (whipped cheese curds and potatoes topped with crispy Gouda)
- Crispy Brussels sprouts
- Ridge Estate Cabernet Sauvignon 2013
- Ice cream pie made with chocolate, peanut butter, and maple
- cappuccino
Everything was amazing. The steak was perfect, the sides were delicious, and that corn flatbread with the butter and honey almost melted my brain.
.:.
Cover photo from the Momofuku Kojin site
“How can you run and plot at the same time?”
We’ve just finished watching the film The Death Of Stalin (imdb | rotten tomatoes) by Armando Iannucci. It was as sharp, dark, and hectic as everything he directs. I loved that none of the actors did Russian accents, just their own, so somehow Field Marshal Zhukov sounds like he’s from Yorkshire.
Highly recommended.
“Sweet birthday baby!”
About a week ago we finished Russian Doll (imdb | rotten tomatoes) which was maybe the most enjoyable, inventive (even though it seems like a well-worn plot device), sharply funny series I’ve seen in a while. It’s only eight half-hour episodes so you can blaze through it, but man, is it good. Natasha Lyonne’s incredible, but as a bonus Greta Lee steals every scene she’s in.
Just go watch it.
(Warning: once you do, the following song will be stuck in your head forever.)
Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together…mass hysteria.
Something monumental has happened. A seismic shift in my thinking. In my very being. Something I never thought would happen. But it has.
I’m rooting for the Toronto Maple Leafs.
While I’ve lived in Toronto more than half my life, the Leafs have always been my sworn enemy. I’m a Montreal fan, remember, so for me no team is as despised as the Leafs and Bruins, and my annoyance at the deluded nature of Leafs fans these past two decades has — if anything — made the Leafs and Bruins 1 and 1a respectively. Not to mention my dread at how insufferable this city becomes if they win so much as a playoff series. So the Leafs may be the only team I have actively cheered against for most of my life.
But things have changed. At least for this year.
First of all, despite collecting 96 points during the regular season (which would have comfortably earned a playoff spot in the Western conference) the Canadiens missed the playoffs. That Columbus, the team who barely squeaked into the #8 playoff spot, swept the #1-ranked Tampa Bay Lightning in the first round makes it particularly disappointing. Anyway, all today: I don’t really have a dog in this playoff fight.
Second: I would very much like to see a Canadian team win the cup again. It hasn’t happened since Montreal (yay!) won it all in 1993, and of the three Canadian teams who did qualify Toronto seems to have the best chance. Calgary, the #1 seed in the west, has already been knocked out. Winnipeg, certainly the team I’d have loved to see win it all, went into the playoffs cold and got knocked out in six games. Toronto, on the other hand, is leading in their series and — given the sweep of Tampa and the Pittsburgh Penguins — has a real chance to come out of the east.
Third, the Leafs are playing the Bruins in the first round, and the enemy of my enemy is my friend, even if in this case I’m being selective about it.
Fourth, and this is how I can justify the hypocrisy of the previous point: I actually like some of the players on the Leafs. That has not happened in the past — in addition to disliking the team, I disliked many of the players as well. But I like Auston Matthews. I like Patrick Marleau. I like John Tavares. I really like Mitch Marner. And I wouldn’t hate to see them hoist a cup.
So while I don’t like the idea of disrupting the natural order of things — which is that the Leafs should stumble and miss the playoffs and always have the longest Stanley Cup drought forever and ever — the idea of some nice players beating the Bruins and maybe bringing the cup back to Canada makes it at least palatable.
So, uh…go Leafs, I guess?
UPDATE: never mind.
Also, here’s where that title comes from:
Skirl | Dan Dickinson 