two eight on twenty

1 invitation to dîner en blanc

2 kidnapped to a market

3 surprise dinner number one at diana's oyster bar & grill

4 surprise lunch at goody's diner

5-8 surprise picnic dinner and shakespeare in high park

9 picnic & paint party with my signature lychee raspberry lemonade

10 homemade paint

11 painting competition

12 drying canvases

13 one happy birthday girl

My birthday weekend was a whirlwind of surprises, painting, and picnics. It was a roll-out-of-bed-no-make-up-don't-brush-your-hair-and-wear-comfy-clothes kind of weekend and I must say, I loved every moment of it! I have the most fantastic friends in the world who are always willing to embrace and participate in all my silly ideas - even if it involves using jelly paint under the hot sun. I don't think there could've been a better way to celebrate adding another tally to my age :)

p.s I am definitely going to blog about number 3 and 4, but have way too many restaurants on my to-blog list dating back to January. Where does the time go?

♪ :: simple plan featuring sean paul :: summer paradise

boo!

Ever since I was little, I have always loved Halloween. You get to dress up, eat free candy and chocolates and sometimes, if you're brave enough, you can even walk through a haunted house! I'll be honest and admit that I only stopped trick-or-treating after second year university (I was always in costume too!). Since then, I've stopped taking candy and have been giving back by spoiling all the kids who ring our doorbell with handfuls of the good stuff. Partly because I owe it to my neighbours, but also because the kids who trick-or-treat are dwindling in numbers and I'm afraid of what will happen if I'm left alone with boxes of chocolates.

Aside from the costumes and candy, when I think of Halloween, I think of a big orange pumpkin. This year was the third year I hosted a pumpkin carving competition at my house and I was determined to win, so much so that I rigged the scoring card so that my biggest competitor would be at an obvious disadvantage. I decided to go for a more unconventional design, hoping to score some creativity points. It was a crude replica of a painting by Edvard Munch entitled The Scream. I think I was a little too ambitious this year. Next year I will probably pick something that is a little less detailed so that I don't give up half way through. In the end, I didn't following the points on the rigged score card due to my conscience...okay, the real reason is because the prize was comprised of candies, chocolates and cookies that I couldn't afford to eat due to an upcoming wedding and a dress I had purchased one half size too snug. After the fair version of judging, I came in second with only three points less than the winner! Next year will be the year...

enjoy acting like a kid again and stuffing your bellies with sweets without feeling guilty
have a happy halloween everyone!

merci merci merci

 photo credit goes to my talented friend Jamie

This past weekend was Thanksgiving and like all holidays, everything that I did and everywhere that I went, revolved around food. The festivities started off with a good dose of food poisoning that I mentioned in this post. I suppose it was a blessing in disguise because it cleared the way for much overindulging the entire weekend. By entire weekend I mean 12pm Saturday straight through to Monday 6pm.

 taken at the lobby of the Royal York Hotel

Saturday was spent high tea-ing with two of my lovely ladies at the Fairmont Royal York Hotel. We stuffed ourselves on crumpets and sandwiches (couldn't quite fit the scones in near the end) and washed it all down with a nice big pot of tea. I chose my absolute favourite tea at the moment: Cherry Blossom Sencha tea. It's a very mild green tea with a hint of sweetness to it; perfect for a sunny afternoon. After tea, I was off to Nathan's family Thanksgiving dinner at his cousin's place. The next evening was Thanksgiving dinner with my family, and since no one in my family wanted to cook this year, we decided to go shopping and eat out instead. We had our family's favourite sticky rice stuffed chicken at Maple Yip's and by the end of the night, I didn't think I could ever eat again...

best stuffing in the world (recipe from Giada)

...somehow, I found myself eating more turkey the next day at a friend's place in Oakville.

I've only felt physically ill from eating one other time in my life and that was after an a.y.c.e sushi date with Nathan when he was still working in Calgary. This weekend, I revisited that awful feeling but if I had to do it again, I probably would have ended up in the same state.

I asked Nathan to take a picture of me for my blog and this was the result...

une amie pour toujours

A real friend is someone who will let you bribe her with sushi in exchange for her Saturday night. She will also help you with an assignment when all your group members have deserted you. And when you break one of her beautiful wine glasses, she will be more concerned about you getting hurt than the fact that she now has one less glass in the set. When you can spend 6 hours straight with each other with nothing but The Food Network and The Shopping Channel, you know you've got yourself a keeper ;)

food trucks and popsicles

Several weekends ago, I decided to drag Nathan and the boys down to the Distillery District so that we can bake under the hot sun while we all lined up for hours, separately, to eat pork belly buns and catfish tacos.

Okay, so that wasn't the initial plan, but that's what ended up happening. This was Toronto's (actually, Ontario's) first Food Truck Festival and it was hosted by a food writer named Suresh Doss. Since this was sort of a pilot event, I was more forgiving of the long lines. I can even forgive them for running out of Korean chicken wings 1 hour into our wait...

Despite the crazy lines and no shade from the hot sun, it was definitely an event worth checking out. I ended up tasting a pulled pork sandwich, 3 homemade popsicles (grapefruit & ginger, watermelon, and piña colada), a catfish taco, a spicy pork belly bun, a lobster slider, a mystery spicy dish,  and the most delicious grilled cheese I've ever tasted thus far in my life - no exaggeration.

I believe another Food Truck Festival is scheduled to happen closer to September. This time, I hope they extend the hours and make it an entire weekend event. 11am - 3pm on one day is definitely not enough time for foodies to try out all the trucks and vendors. This small window of time also makes the venue jam packed since all of Toronto is trying to squish in all at once. Continuing with the theme of the weekend, I also went to the Scarborough Ribfest at L'amoreaux Community Centre. I am happiest when I am surrounded by friends playing mom to a food baby.

walking walking walking

After several weeks of nagging, Lillian and I finally promised the boys to go for high tea at the Windsor Arms Hotel. Okay, so it was really us who nagged the boys, but the end result was that both Nathan and Jeff agreed to come along! This may be due to the promise of yummy deli meats at Caplanky's or maybe the promise of a visit to MEC. Who knows!



The day started off with some tangy lemonade and a lot of food. Deli sandwiches for the boys, poutine of gargantuan size for Lillian and mac and cheese for myself. After filling our bellies, we had some time to kill before tea time at 5pm. We decided to hit a few bike shops because Jeff had to look for a bike part and we eventually ended up at MEC and spent a good amount of time walking around there.

By the time we made it for tea, Nathan was exhausted and miserable and for some reason, his tea seemed to make him even sleepier! He really is a grandpa. Luckily, he enjoyed the pastries and mini sandwich rolls. Hopefully that will be enough of an incentive to go back in the future. I better keep my fingers crossed...

                        ♥

I am a messy eater

We ended the night strolling around the U of T campus and looking for bathrooms.

wires and beads

 

tools that look like little chimney sweeper brushes

Roughly 3 weeks ago (I am playing catch up on my blog), my thoughtful and super fantastic friend, Shannon, took me out on a surprise birthday celebration. Although my birthday isn't actually until the middle of July, the "thing" that she wanted to do was only offered once every several months which is why we celebrated a tad early. Where did she take me? To a jewelry making class! I had thought about starting this new hobby roughly a year ago, but like with many of my hobbies, I tend to start and not follow through with any of them - not out of lack of interest, but more because of poor time management and my surprisingly busy life.

the Devil's Workshop is the little black shop on the left 2 doors down from the green Fresh shop

She enrolled us in Wire Work Basics at The Devil's Workshop. It was a small class with only 3 other people that day. The instructor was friendly and most of all, very encouraging. It seems that I am a natural at working with wire! It must be from that one independent project that I did in high school for my art class that involved making a head our of wire. We were taught how to make 2 types of earrings (I should maybe consider getting my ears pierced one of these days...) and 1 ring (we had seen a similar one being sold at the One of a Kind Arts & Crafts show for $20+).

Shannon hard at work at her workstation

What made the day even more wonderful was knowing that Shannon is not one to participate in such activities but she took the time and effort to plan the event and actually go through the class with me. I later told Nathan about Shannon's birthday surprise and told him that he has a lot to live up to. He then said that he wouldn't be able to top Shannon's gift so he's decided to just not do anything for my birthday this year. Men...

 our unfinished rings

kicking it old school (at the R.O.M)

 Nathan's birthday clues

I had planned out a pretty packed day for Nathan's birthday. He was actually able to guess one of the places we were going with the hints I gave him, but of course I lied and said that he was way off.

First stop was at the R.O.M for their Water exhibit! It was a fun exhibit but we didn't have enough time to wander around the rest of the museum because we had short films to catch (Bromance series). After the movies we went for burgers at Craft Burgers. I had the organic burger paired with some Boylan's Root Beer. It was pretty tasty! I only have pictures of the R.O.M because cameras weren't allowed in the theatre for the short films so we had dumped them in the car.

This was the first time I've visited the R.O.M since they built the crystal during my camp counselor days. I was a bit unsure of the whole crystal when they first decided to go through with it, but I have to admit that it really lights up the museum on the inside.

 staircase shot

 the gang

I swear we didn't plan out our outfits 

♥