Osheaga Recap

I just sent in another draft of my thesis. If this one doesn't cut it, I may have to stab myself with something. Entirely with frustration, not grief. This pack of 40 odd pages of drivel is slowly driving me nuts...

Moving on!

Osheaga was awesome! I managed not to get sunburned and got some shopping and museuming into the weekend. Complete success. Picture time! And a super heavy picture post for the bonus.

First, the festival. The weather held out for us until Sunday afternoon. I had packed my rain jacket and umbrella, which sadly didn't do much for the mud that ran all the way up to my thighs by the end of the day. It was like Glastonbury North (I'm going on what other people tell me about Glastonbury, having never been). I barely took any pictures since I was rocking out most of the time. Highlights were definitely Florance + the Machine and Metric, especially the lullaby acoustic version of Gimme Sympathy. Amazing.

 Fuzzy Florence!! She doesn't hold still much.

Snoop Lion made an appearance.

 Osheaga Hill.

Little muddy after the rain...

M83, very late at night.

As per usual with vacations like this, the much better photos of the festival were taken by my friend Rob, who got a press pass this year and was able to bring the good camera. Check him out, but don't steal his photos, on his flickr feed.

Museum time!

The McCord, one of my favorites.

 The Mary Pickford exhibition, that was actually in Toronto at the TIFF, but I completely missed it due to school. It features posters, playbills, artifacts, costumes and several clips from her movies in a telling of her life, before, during and after the screen.

Moose. And some trees.

And then there this place. The Little Shop was fairly unassuming as I came around the corner from the Metro. But holy crap the inside...

It... just kept going! Vintage and antiques as far as the eye can see! That first picture is from inside the bathroom. You have to push through a lot of stuff to get there, but there is a working bathroom. A stuffed first floor, crammed basement and an overflowing top floor has been under the watchful eye of Jill, the Little Shop's owner, who will get you to sit down for some teas and cookies after your purchase. I think I was still in shock of much of a handle she had on everything in there. A stylist came in while I was there looking for specific material, and Jill found it for him in a second. The Little Shop is open Wednesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, from 2-5pm on those days. Exclusive much?

I lucked out with a dress, a walrus broach made of either bone or ivory (not sure which), and Fred. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with him, but he had to come back to Toronto with me. I don't think he liked the suitcase very much, but my options weren't great for return travel.


 And this is the only food I took a picture of. I kind of suck at this. Bite Me. We were hungry.

And this is Rob and girlfriend being cutesy with their PDA. Just makes you want to barf in the corner doesn't it? I love you guys.

Counting down to Montreal, Osheaga and maybe a Fab Gabs win?

Handed in one of the last drafts of my thesis on Monday. I am now ignoring all emails, especially ones from my reader. (insert smiley emoticon here)

I am now going to celebrate by gettin' the hell out of dodge, and packing my bags for Montreal! I get on a bus far too early Friday morning and hit the city around noon. I've got my list of restaurants and vintage shops ready to go, went to Bulk Barn this morning for snack and am doing some last minute laundry later today (Thursday). I'm hoping to clean my place up a bit before I go, give the dust a chance to settle while I'm gone!

I have, miraculously, managed to cook a bit in the last little while, inbetween thesising. One of my favorites is a recipe that my mom has made for years in the summer heat. Needs very little cooking and is mostly raw cold veggies, so perfect for this "feels like 40 degrees" crap that we've got going on in Toronto now. I'm sure there is actually a recipe for this at my parents place, I have the tendency to make it up according to what vegetables I have at the time.

Pasta Veggie Salad
(Makes a hell of a lot)

1 to 1 1/2 cups of lightly blanched broccoli florets
2-3 green onions, chopped
1 -2 roma tomatoes (depends how many you like)
1/2 cup finely chopped red onion
2-3 tablespoons of pesto
450g of rotini (aka half a bag of it when it was dry, whatever that works out to when it's cooked)

-Boil salted water to a rapid boil and lightly blanch the broccoli florets. Remove from water with slotted spoon and either rinse with cold water or place in a bowl surrounded by ice cubes. You may need to drain the florets again after five, ten minutes to get rid of any excess water that drains off of the broccoli.
-Cook pasta until al dente in same water as broccoli. Drain, rinse in cold water and place in bowl (or in a large tupperware, which is probably a better idea since this is going in the fridge anyway and will take days to eat, unless you're having a party of four to five people).
-Chop you veggies, mix with pasta and mix in the pesto.
-Refrigerate for a bit and enjoy!

I also threw a few a hotdogs in the pasta water to make a dinner version. I love hotdogs. I am not ashamed of that sentence.


Two random things: Friday was the going away party for one of my American friends and classmates since classes have ended and thesising are more or less done. This is a blurry picture of two of my other classmates, and Tipsy the Moose, the mascot of the evening. May she travel well into America.

Second side note: Fab Gabs of Etsy fame now has their own website! And they're doing a contest for a gift certificate! Fuck to the yeah! 

C'mooooonn, Mama needs some more vintage!

They're are also taunting me with a 30% off sale on a lot of the stuff in the Etsy shop. I missed a dress I would have gotten cheap, but there is still a beautiful 50s bed jacket that is now quite reasonable with shipping.... God I need a job.

needless posting..

These need to be shared... and I don't have a tumblr.

How to make proper Tea. Just remember the 6 golden rules, form 1940!

Marilyn Monroe, dressed as Lillian Russell. Sigh...
Stolen from here, Historiful's Tumblr.

Canadian Music Festival Awesomeness!

 Yep. I have finally manned up and am actually going to a big music festival, one of Canada's biggest, Osheaga!!

 This one is stolen from the Osheaga website.

This one's stolen from here.

Also, before you ask:

I'm also looking forward to some Montreal food! I'm cheaping out for the most part, breakfast is included where I'm staying and I plan to do a bulk barn run and get some fruit for snacks at the fest, but the people I'm going with are all about food too, so there will be some restauranting. The last time we went we managed to find and actually get into Schwartz's for some smoked meat goodness.

All pics stolen from my friend Rob, taken on our last big trip to Montreal.

One more draft to go, a formatting draft on top of that and then the fun can begin. Ugh...

Toronto Foodist

In a desperate attempt to get out of the apartment this past week, I decided to have lunch at a newish restaurant in downtown, Cheesewerks, for some "artisan grilled cheese." I do love my grilled cheese, in a variety of formats, and the Beijing sandwich was hard to resist!

Pretty much everything listed in the Beijing seemed like a great idea for a grilled cheese, especially a more non-traditional one. I was a little caught off guard by the $13 price tag for a sandwich and potato chips, so I was expecting a lot from this sandwich.

The chips were actually a surprise, I thought it was just a sandwich at first since the menu board in the restaurant didn't hint at a side being included with a sandwich. I was happy to discover that when I couldn't order any juices (they only had homemade sodas, and while they did sound tasty, I'm not a fan of fizzy drinks), the water I ended up getting was free and unending in a big glass decanter. It was super hot that day in Toronto... has it has been for days, so I was a bit dehydrated by the time I got there. The sandwich was awesome! The bread was nice and thick and had a great crunch to counteract the gooey cheese and mostly soft BBQ pork. Some of the pork pieces were a little too thick, but they tasted great none the less.


On a side note, Summerlicious is back! From July 6th to the 22nd in the Tdot, several restaurants offer a fixed price lunch and dinner menus as a way to bring in us cheap people for a meal!

Some friends and I are getting a short list together of places for lunches and dinners, we love Summerlicous, and its snowy counterpart, Winterlicious! In the past I've been to place like Canoe, Spice Route and 360 at the CN Tower, the tower was great for the view too! Hopefully we'll we enjoying the spoils of the restaurants soon!

Fudgy Chocolate Raspberry Brownies

Oh, Canadian Living. You haven't failed me yet.

A few of us got together recently to have a games night with a friend who was recovering from surgery. I had a lot of raspberries in the fridge, and decided to do some baking. A recipe I found for Fudgy Chocolate Raspberry Brownies that seemed perfect for the occassion.

Fudgy Chocolate Raspberry Brownies

Ingredients:

1 cup of packed, fresh raspberries, or thawed, frozen raspberries,
4 oz of unsweetened chocolate, chopped,
1/2 unsalted butter, cubed,
3 eggs,
1 & 1/4 cups granulated sugar,
1/2 tsp of vanilla,
3/4 cup of all-purpose flour,
1 tsp icing sugar (optional).

Grease 9-inch (2.5 L) square metal cake pan and set aside. (I don't have a 9-inch pan, I have an 8-inch glass casserole dish, and I found that this worked absolutely fine. I just cooked the brownies a little longer since they were deeper and kept an eye on them.)

In food processor or blender, puree raspberries. Pass through fine sieve to remove seeds. Set aside. (You will not be able to get all of the seeds out, that's okay. It'll just leave some crunchy surprises in the brownies.)

In separate bowl over saucepan of hot (not boiling) water, melt chocolate with butter; let cool slightly. (I used my makeshift double boiler, and it worked fine.)

 
In bowl, beat eggs with granulated sugar for about 5 minutes or until pale and thickened. On low speed, beat in vanilla and chocolate mixture and beat in raspberry puree with wooden spoon, followed by the flour. Spread batter in prepared pan.

Bake in centre of 350°F (180°C) oven for 25 to 30 minutes or until cake tester inserted in centre comes out with moist crumbs clinging. Let cool in pan on rack. Sprinkle with icing sugar. Cut into squares. Can be refrigerated for about a week and frozen for a month.

 Huzzah for crappy photography and being to hungry to wait!

Aside from the surprise crunchy bits from the raspberry seeds that I couldn't get out of the puree, the brownies were fantastic and were devoured by all! We got stuffed at Dim Sum for dinner before the games night, but suddenly had room for desert when the brownies were pulled out. 

 
On a side note, I'm attempting to find more free/cheap stuff to do in Toronto this summer. I'm slowly going broke with the lack of employment (I am trying to find a job, honest), and spending cash to go out is not always my best option. Summerlicious is coming up, so if I can save some cash for a lunch or dinner during that, all the better. Fortunately, TIFF is putting on free movies this summer, right in downtown!

This past Wednesday, my friend and I grabbed a blanket and enjoyed Ernst Lubitsch's Trouble in Paradise from 1932. It was a lovely way to spend an evening, and great weather was a bonus. This week, it's My Man Godfrey, with Carole Lombard and William Powell. I've seen half of this movie already and I wouldn't mind camping out for the second half.

Apart from Thesising, I'm still cleaning up my place. Fred's been very helpful has a holder of things.

He's very good at it, doesn't complain or anything.