September 16, 2010: New York City - Green Roofs

Green Roofs for Healthy Cities was running a 'boot camp' on green roofs in New York City, and since one of my sabbatical goals is to learn more about them, I signed up for the first day.

I took the bus down and stayed with my friend Jenn at her new place in the Bronx. It's a great neighbourhood - people walking dogs, some cute restaurants and take-out places, and a good-quality grocery store - which can be a rarity in the Bronx. It's also convenient to two different subway lines, which is great for getting around the city.

Day 1 of Green Roof boot camp was good. I'd been doing a fair bit of reading over the summer, so I didn't learn anything radically new, but it was very encouraging to hear how excited everyone there was that I live in Toronto. It turns out Toronto is well-regarded in North America for its governmental support for the growing green roof industry. There was a mix of attendees - a landscape architect leading the course, a horticulturalist from Colombia (where living walls are the big thing), a couple of nursery growers, a roofing specialist, and some generally interested consumers like myself. One thing I come away convinced of is the importance of good waterproofing, and the need to have experts work on it. The other is the great benefit to municipalities of using green roofs to mitigate and control storm water run-off. If that was the only thing green roofs were good for, it would be enough, but air quality, cooling, insulating and habitat improvement benefits also add to their value.

September 11, 2010: Toronto - Edible Tree Tour

Mark and I went on an Edible Tree Tour, organized by LEAF and Not Far From the Tree. What a great idea!

We started at a public park at the Eglinton West subway station where a community orchard has been planted - fruit trees that, as they mature, will be harvested. Hard to believe, but some neighbours vigorously protested the fruit trees, concerned that there would be bees swarming the park. Joe Pantalone was instrumental in helping to navigate the unusual request by a community group to plant fruit trees in a public park - I want Joe to be our mayor.

Next was a walk through parkland, noting edible trees and plants en route. We ended up in a residential neighbourhood, historically Italian, where everyone was excited to note fruit trees in people's yards. Not Far From the Tree was harvesting one apple tree, on a property where the fruit would have otherwise fallen to the ground and gone to waste.

September 10, 2010: Toronto - Terracotta Warriors, Semi-New Bat Cave

With a free pass to the ROM in hand (courtesy of Toronto Public Library's Museum Arts Pass program) I went to see the Terracotta Warriors exhibition. Pretty good, although they missed out on the opportunity to convey the feeling of discovering all the thousands of warrior statues massed together, which is one of the most extraordinary things about the find. I can understand that they couldn't transport thousands of statues overseas, but why not include some sort of photographic imagery or multimedia display that would give that same feeling? Isolated individual statues just didn't have the same impact, as their quality isn't that high. The Crystal, as always, was an irritating space to visit - chopped up in weird angles, with dispiriting, confusing staircases to get anywhere. It's a building that doesn't like people. Or art.

September 2, 2010: Port Stanley

While home for a visit with my mother we took a day trip to Port Stanley. It's a pretty sleepy little town now on the shore of Lake Erie, but in its heyday it was a bustling beach destination, with a train line direct from London for the party crowd. The Stork Club was the biggest dance hall in North America, with all the big band musicians playing there. Mom remembers staying in a rented cottage next to the club when she was a little girl, but it's been torn down since. However, we had the good luck to ask a man passing by if he knew where it used to stand - turns out his family owns Mackie's (99 years of serving hotdogs, ice cream, etc) and they had photos and memorabilia from the good old days up on the walls at their restaurant.

August 31, 2010: Toronto - Eating Well

We've been eating well since getting home. The first evening we rummaged through the garden for a pasta dinner with a medley of fresh vegetables. It was just really exciting to discover what was growing, instead of going shopping.

Saturday morning's trip to St. Lawrence market resulted in a dinner of barbecued fresh corn (better than any corn we were able to get in Washington - they don't have the peaches and cream variety), salmon (there's a record run of sockeye in the Fraser River, so Mark was very excited to get some of that while it's on), two small eggplants from the garden, and a salad of mizuna, tomato, basil and cucumber, also from the garden.

And yesterday I went on something of a cooking marathon, which was odd since the weather was up to 34 degrees and I had the oven going for hours. Nevertheless I made a peach pie, with fresh peaches from the market, and pastry made from scratch using Cook's Illustrated's recipe using vodka as the secret ingredient for great flakiness. Then for dinner I roasted plum tomatoes and shelled bush and purple pole beans with thyme and rosemary (all from the garden) plus some pancetta, served with chard (also from the garden). It's great to have so much time to cook up ambitious meals, and to have so much fresh produce to work with from that's right at our doorstep.

In the works: figuring out how to use our bumper crop of chard!

August 27, 2010: Toronto - A Return To The Great Outdoors

So nice to be back in a temperate climate. Had a frenzy of outdoor activity, trimming hedges and pruning bushes. It feels amazing to be able to stay outside for hours without overheating. Washington was great, but I did feel cooped up indoors in the air conditioning by the end.

August 26, 2010: Washington - Home Again, Home Again

Today we returned to Toronto, flying home from Reagan Airport. It was an easy $1.60 subway ride to the airport (how I wish we could do that in Toronto!). We enjoyed watching Zombieland on my iPod Touch on the way (the flight was too short to fit it all in, but we finished it off on the subway ride across Toronto).

We made ourselves a pasta meal with a harvest from the garden (chard, roasted Hubbard and summer squash, tomatoes, purple pole beans) and enjoyed the novel sensation of sitting outside without oppressive heat, and having ready access to private green space. Washington was great, but it's so nice to be home.