Various pictures
I uploaded a bunch of pictures off of my camera and phone today, and some have little stories.
llamech was complaining he could never find organic wild blueberries. I pointed out that wild blueberries aren't organic because they're wild and thus not farmed in the first place, which satisfied him, but now I've found these and I don't understand at all.
nyxie and I discovered this (big) park, St. Alban's Park, just north of the coffee shops we often go to near Bathurst and Bloor here. It's got a big church just to the left of the frame, lots of shade trees, many many many friendly dogs, and a bunch of benches set way back from the path. And its' always full of activity, which makes it a great park to just flop in with a coffee. The city was smart -- if you look at this map you'll see that the sidewalk from the streets east and west of the park goes straight through the park even though cars have to detour around, and an active park is a great one.
Related: I'm reading Jane Jacobs' The Death and Life of Great American Cities right now and she's explaining to me all of the reasons I loved Montreal and Toronto and didn't feel much for Ottawa. The parks thing is a great example: in Ottawa, the big parks were all incidental, stretched way out along geographic features like the Ottawa River, and thus never had a centre or a place to just hang out there. They were more like conservation areas where you could go to engage in an activity, rather than social nexuses. On the other hand, I spent so much time at Carre St. Louis in Montreal...
And finally, speaking of Montreal:
thedeli reminded me here about the wonder that is pizzaghetti, so of course I had to introduce nyxie to at least the veggie version. It wasn't quite right: the spaghetti was whole-wheat, so it wasn't mushy enough, and the sauce really needs "meat" in it. (And I needed a pitcher of Boreale. But alas.)
llamech was complaining he could never find organic wild blueberries. I pointed out that wild blueberries aren't organic because they're wild and thus not farmed in the first place, which satisfied him, but now I've found these and I don't understand at all.
nyxie and I discovered this (big) park, St. Alban's Park, just north of the coffee shops we often go to near Bathurst and Bloor here. It's got a big church just to the left of the frame, lots of shade trees, many many many friendly dogs, and a bunch of benches set way back from the path. And its' always full of activity, which makes it a great park to just flop in with a coffee. The city was smart -- if you look at this map you'll see that the sidewalk from the streets east and west of the park goes straight through the park even though cars have to detour around, and an active park is a great one.
Related: I'm reading Jane Jacobs' The Death and Life of Great American Cities right now and she's explaining to me all of the reasons I loved Montreal and Toronto and didn't feel much for Ottawa. The parks thing is a great example: in Ottawa, the big parks were all incidental, stretched way out along geographic features like the Ottawa River, and thus never had a centre or a place to just hang out there. They were more like conservation areas where you could go to engage in an activity, rather than social nexuses. On the other hand, I spent so much time at Carre St. Louis in Montreal...
And finally, speaking of Montreal:
thedeli reminded me here about the wonder that is pizzaghetti, so of course I had to introduce nyxie to at least the veggie version. It wasn't quite right: the spaghetti was whole-wheat, so it wasn't mushy enough, and the sauce really needs "meat" in it. (And I needed a pitcher of Boreale. But alas.)