Deb's Lunch … and dinner and breakfast too

It’s off to work we go. It’s Thursday afternoon and I’m sitting in my office waiting for a screen capture demo for my online searching course to upload to YouTube. I kind of have a headache, and the building is shaking from all the construction work outside, but there’s no point in leaving early, because I need to pick up my CSA box on the way home, and it won’t be here till 4:00. Although – it’s a good box – tomatoes, broccoli, delicata squash, lots of sweet peppers and one hot one, one giant onion, fresh oregano, and a big bag yellow & green beans.

I had to login to answer student questions on chat at 5:30, for a different course, so as soon as I got home, I wolfed down a bagel with swiss cheese and one of the tomatoes from the box. That wasn’t quite enough, so I had grahams & Nutella, too, and a large iced coffee. Now I have to head out to a 7:30 meeting, Willy St. Board – my very last one, so that’s a comfort, but it’s waay too late in the day for me.

Graham’s & Nutella – a little blurry – how I feel by this time of day!

Friday we had an 11:00 a.m. movie and a 6:00 p.m. movie. The early one was Much Ado About Nothing, modernized, filmed in b&w at Joss Whedon’s (of Avengers & Buffy the vampire killer fame) house in 12 days. We liked it a lot. Came back to the apartment for egg sandwiches, and then Mark headed out for coffee while I recorded demos for my class.

The evening show was The Paperboy, our last Red Carpet, where we were again surrounded by screaming girls trying for a glimpse of Zac Ephron. Meanwhile the director, Lee Daniels, slipped in entirely unnoticed. I liked how all the actors (except Zac) were playing against type: John Cusack as a slack-jawed, back woods yokel, Nicole Kidman trampy – one of the other characters calls her a 40-year-old obsessed with jailhouse cock. Matthew McConaughey as a closeted gay man, who likes it seriously, dangerously, life threateningly, kinky, but actually keeps his shirt on most of the movie. I do agree with Mark that the movie was kind of a mess – gothic in every sense of the word, and in real need of editing. Oh, yeah, and I really liked Macy Gray as the narrator and the help, too.

We walked back to Carlton St. and caught the streetcar to Little Italy, and had a late dinner at a place called Marinella’s. It was a lot like Lombardino’s in Madison – traditional Italian fare, but updated and using local ingredients. And very Canadian. We split a salad, and, after noticing all the seafood shells on everyone’s plates, I got the seafood risotto. Mark had a pasta with red sauce and 2 kinds of house-made sausages and meatballs. Between our salad and main courses, our waiter came over to tell us that he was done for the evening, and other servers would take care of delivering the rest of our meal. He came back with his backpack and street clothes on to say goodnight to some his friends who were at the bar, saying, “ciao, guys”.  We walked back to our apartment, but we probably didn’t completely walk off the dinner.

Saturday was sex-comedy movies. We started early with another delightful indie film in the AMC theater – My awkward sexual adventure. Seems like it was a partnership between the writer/star, Jonas Chernick, and the director, Sean Garrity, who were both present for the screening. I really like the cute Indian guy – Vik Sahay. And we both liked that it was filmed in an area that looked an awful lot like our adopted Toronto neighborhood – high rise condos, lots of clubs, gay couples with their dogs.

At noon, we went to see The Sessions, with John Hawkes as Mark O’Brien, the poet in the iron lung. With and Dan Dority as his night attendant Rod, and Calamity Jane as his last girlfriend, although probably Helen Hunt as the sex therapist and William Macy as his priest were more memorable. And his taciturn Chinese day helper got some of the best lines, since she was the one booking them into a room in a motel for the sessions, and explaining what was going on to the also Chinese desk clerk.

We debated about what to do after, since we were all done with movies by 1:30. In the end we decided to eat a little lunch back at the apartment, another version of egg sandwiches – egg salad this time – then Mark went for coffee and I worked a little more. We made Saturday night our big night out for a fancy dinner. We wanted to go back to a restaurant we had liked when we were last in Toronto in 2008. We remembered it was up north of University of Toronto and had a lower level entrance, under an apartment building. And when you got inside there was a terrific view of the city. We thought it was Sorrel – but now I think it was Scaramouche. As soon as we got close we knew it was a different place – but we went in anyway and had a perfectly nice meal. It only took me until about midday Sunday to get over the missed opportunity – I guess we’ll just have to go back to Toronto sooner.

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Yesterday, after Detroit Unleaded, we hit up the market, and found it almost closed – understandably – it was almost 5:00 p.m. and it closes at 6:00. We got some fruit and cheese (a creamy “American” Asiago) and salad greens. We came back to the apartment, did some work, and I texted with Al & talked to John – about job prospects, both of them. Dinner was pasta carbonara, with ham, bacon, egg yolks, and that Asiago, and a big salad. Then we just relaxed & watched Canadian TV.

This morning, I got up to work some more, and decided that the itchy, like I’d been brushing up against something toxic, feeling I’d been having in my hands was from working on the industrial wood top of the work island we’ve got in the apartment kitchen. It makes a good back drop for food photography, but it is sticky and nasty. I thought my reaction was from walls in the streets of Toronto that I’d been leaning against whilst in movie lines – but I’ve stayed away from the island and not from walls all day today, and I’m not feeling itchy.

Movie #9 was Great Expectations, with Voldemort as Magwitch, directed by Mike Newell. We were both embarrassed that we looked at her and thought she was familiar the whole film, but didn’t recognize Lucrezia Borgia as Estella until we checked IMDB afterwards. The production designer – I think someone named Jim Clay – was true to Dickens – the ordinary people in 18th century England were living in crumbling ruins, and both rich and poor were living in filth. Manure, bloody carcasses carried through the streets, and lots and lots of mud.

We went and got giant sandwiches at the Brick Street Bakery in the Distillery District for a late lunch, and a nice walk. Now we are fortifying ourselves with various forms of bread & cheese before heading out to movie #10 – Suicide Shop.

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Yesterday, the rainy Saturday of TIFF 2012 – Johnny Depp was in town but we didn’t see him, even though the theater where the film he supporting – West of Memphis – is probably closest to our apartment – it’s part of Ryerson University.

We walked past another (probably not as huge crowd) trying to get a glimpse of Emma Watson at the same theater. We were on our way back from our first film of the Fest, with a red carpet, but on Saturday afternoon at 2:30 because it was the animated Hotel Transylvania.

An impressive line-up of the stars showed for it – but as I said to Mark as we walked away past screaming fans, “I think Adam Sandler’s a fucking genius (& apologies to the little kid I was behind when I said the F-word, but I’m pretty sure he didn’t hear) but I have zero desire to stand in line for his autograph”.

We cooked a hunk of salmon for dinner; we got it for $4.99/lb. at the close-by gourmet-ish grocery store. I made a glaze for it with butter and soy sauce and maple syrup, the latter 2 ingredients scrounged from the fridge here at our airbnb apartment – the soy sauce was in a little packet with the name of a sushi restaurant on it. Darned good $5 salmon.

This morning we got up and went for a walk to David A Balfour Park – and then back south to our apartment, past some of the priciest real estate in Toronto. We had fried little new potatoes, and eggs and bacon and toast, to fortify us for our 2nd TIFF movie, End of Watch

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So my bro says he’s shutting down 327Words, but will continue his regular Thursday/Friday reports about riding with the bike gang …. I guess he’s been mirroring the two blogs for awhile, I just didn’t know because I only looked at the 327 side. He says there’s gonna be a book, but I can’t tell if he’s kidding or not – here’s the purported title, whaddya think? Yoga, Cycling, and Pot: Ninety-Nine 327-Word Essays On Bending, Biking, Baking, and More.

I’ve been noticing a similar lack of blog-writing-enthusiasm in myself, but unlike my brother, I don’t think I’m done. I’m just too busy to write good. Like my brother, I started with blogging on the early side, in 2006. Six years later there are bajillion good food blogs, with great photography, and step by step reflective processes to teach you how to cook and bake and eat and buy good produce.

But I’ve always thought the best food writing is not really about the food – it’s about everything, just using the food experience as the way to get at it. And when I hardly ever get at it, I get disappointed and that low motivation for posting sets in.

I worked at home today and didn’t get nearly enough done on my classes, although I did figure out how to point the slide recording software to a different power point, which was satisfying. I rode my bike over to the good butcher and got brats and a pork roast for the grill, but I’m not sure who’ll be around to eat it. And I realize I made a pork roast on 4th of July, too. I cooked a lot tonight, first, 2 buckets of ratatouille for the freezer. Then stuffed peppers, with some of my #2 grade red peppers from Tipi, that I will be roasting and pickling and freezing over the long holiday weekend, and I think making pepperonata, too. I made a peach and raspberry pie, too. And I’m going to put a pot of baked beans into the oven to cook while we sleep – I just can’t decide if I’ll make them vegetarian or with bacon.

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