Sheryl Kirby

Sunday Brunch – Henhouse

Henhouse
1532 Dundas Street West
416-534-5939
Brunch for two with all taxes, tip and coffee: $32

Skinny jeans, plaid shirts, iPhones… when did crusty old Dundas West become the land of the hipster? Or is it because the area is still kind of crusty that the hipsters flock to it? In any case, throughout our entire meal at Henhouse, we are the oldest people there, save for a table with two girls and one of their mothers. This much hipster-ness could be overkill. The bright space is full of old 1950s tables and chairs (mis-matched, of course) and a fabulous selection of kitschy decor, including fun salt and pepper shakers, bunches of flowers on each table and mis-matched dishes. It could scream “look at us, we’re trying SO hard!” but it’s actually fun and comfortable (maybe because I can remember actually having those old tables with the chrome legs as real, non-ironic furniture).

In any case, we arrive just in time (10:30am on a Saturday), because by 11am, the place is packed and people are being turned away. Those of us with tables heave a sigh of relief and lift our bingo-themed coffee cups for another swig of non-ironic Joe ($2).

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It’s a Shar-Pei Thing

Anyone who has ever met my little brown dog has undoubtedly heard me moan about her behaviour. Particularly the stubbornness. Tula doesn’t do what Tula doesn’t want to do. If this happens to including crossing the street, well then shes not crossing the street – it’s not uncommon for her to stop dead in the middle of a crosswalk and refuse to move, oncoming traffic be damned.

We always thought this was just a Tula thing – that we had adopted a headstrong creature with a determined personality.

Until last night as we were walking past Trinity Bellwoods park and watched a young woman dragging a shar-pei across the road. We recognized it immediately – the exact same “planted to the ground” stance, the same taut shoulders and neck, the pulling with the head. Not going, no how, no way. No reason, either, other than “I’m a shar-pei and I don’t want to”.

It was reassuring in a way – to know that it was a breed thing. That it wasn’t our poor dog-training skills or that we had somehow gotten a broken, disobedient dog. Like the wrinkly skin and the absolutely fear of rain or wet grass, this sudden desire to simply stop turns out to be a shar-pei thing.

Doesn’t make it any less frustrating (or terrifying when a truck is barrelling at you), but at least we know where it comes from now.

Spring Things

Due to the mild winter and early spring, we are about 3 weeks ahead of the season here in Toronto in terms of plants and gardens. I’m hearing stories of fiddleheads and asparagus showing up at farmers’ markets already, and the lilacs (which usually are in bloom for Victoria Day) are fully in flower and smelling amazing. So I grabbed the camera when I was out doing errands earlier – here’s what the neighbourhood looks like right now.

I sometimes call this time of year “confetti season” because as the winds blow the petals off the apple trees, it makes the sidewalks look as if they’re covered in confetti. This apple tree on Gwynne Avenue is particularly fragrant.

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Not What You Want When You’re Sick

My very first job was delivering meals in a hospital. It was the 80s, and it was Nova Scotia, so we’re not taking Michelin 3-star cuisine here; the food was straightforward, comforting and fairly bland. But it was all made in-house, in a massive kitchen that (between patients and cafeteria) cooked 1200 meals three times a day. For hospital/cafeteria food, it was pretty decent, and as reasonably unprocessed as you can get working with that quantity.

Hospital food has always gotten a bad rap, but in the mid-90s, in order to cut expenses, almost all hospitals switched from in-house food prep to using contracted services. From a business standpoint, it totally makes sense – even dietary aides and cafeteria workers are unionized – back when my friends were making the late-80s minimum wage of $3.50 an hour, I was making $8.10. Holidays got me double that. Paying a flat per meal rate to an off-site caterer winds up being a lot cheaper. And that space where the cafeteria used to be – well, why not rent that out to fast food chains, since that’s what people like to eat anyway?

That 80s hospital food wasn’t gourmet by any means but at least there was a notion, a pretense, of it being nutritionally sound. My bosses were nutritionists and dietitians, not marketing wonks looking to save a buck.

The result was that hospital food’s reputation got even worse. I know plenty of people who have friends or family bring them food from home while in hospital, because the stuff from the contracted caterers is just inedible.

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Have You Got the Guts?

The Toronto Star ran a piece this morning about how Torontonians have the lowest rate of organ donation in the province.

The theory as to why this is comes down to the size of the community – it’s easier to ignore the issues of your neighbours in a city, whereas in a small town, specific occurrences of someone needing an organ tend to be widely publicized, and people know one another so there is more empathy.

The article also suggests that many people don’t register because it’s too difficult, especially if you have an older-style health card. But it’s not, really – to register to be an organ donor go to the Trillium Gift of Life Network, where you can download forms to register and get a donor card.

And while you’re at it, why not consider also donating you body to medical research? Generally organ donation precludes this option, but if you can’t be an organ donor, you can still be a crash test dummy, or have your tissue studied, or maybe your feet can be used by chiropody students to learn how to do nail extractions. I know, some of this sounds kind of creepy… but remember, you’ll be dead anyway. The best way to do this is contact the anatomy department of your university of choice. They’ll send you the necessary paperwork to register.

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The Ghost of Careme

I’m not being haunted exactly, but in the past month or so, the number of references to Antonin Careme popping up in my life are really, well…beyond coincidence.

Careme was, of course, the world’s first celebrity chef. Know as the King of Chefs and the Chef of Kings, he began cooking as a teenager and worked his way out of poverty to eventually cook for Napoleon. He was, first and foremost, a pastry chef, and with his pièces montées (huge structures and centrepieces, often in the shape of buildings) is likely responsible for their ongoing popularity to this day – all of those crazy cake competitions on The Food Network – Careme started that trend.

It may just be that I watch far too much British food programming. In March, there were 4 different UK shows that mentioned Careme.

The most Careme-focused was a series called Glamour Puds in which pastry chef Eric Lanlard traces the history of Careme from his childhood home to some of the castles and estates where he worked, even cooking in the historic kitchen of Valencay Palace where Careme worked for Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord, right-hand man to Napoleon. Lanlard also offered demos and recipes of some of Careme’s most famous pastries, from the Mont Blanc to the famous macaron tower.

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Stuff It

It’s almost like a secret shame but I’m ready to admit it to the world. I’m addicted to those “hoarding” TV shows.

First it was Hoarders on A&E, and now Hoarding: Buried Alive on TLC. Yes, I know TLC is often totally exploitative – both hoarding shows are, to be fair, but I can’t stop watching. It’s like rubbernecking while driving past a car crash.

I think my fascination with the shows is that they terrify me so much. Especially the ones where people who were formerly neat and tidy suffer some huge emotional loss and then are inclined to surround themselves with stuff – and not just good stuff, but piles of old newspapers and soft drink cups. The people who were already happy to live in clutter – you expect that they’ll live in their own sloth – but when the neatfreaks have their brains snap, that’s some scary shit.

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Bixby Says Reeeelaxx!!

I am not good at doing nothing. I can sit still – to watch a TV show or a movie, or read a book. I can enjoy a day at the beach, or a walk in the woods. But I’m really not good at doing “nothing”.

I am supposed to be “on hiatus”. This was supposed to be a break from a pretty constant 3 years of running TasteTO without a real break. Because even when we took breaks – over the Christmas holidays when site traffic is slow, for instance – we were still fiddling around with stuff; cleaning up the back end of the site, planning for new stories, columns, etc.

The plan was to take at least a week and do “nothing”. That would probably include lots of reading. Maybe some shopping, or lunch with friends. But not work. There was work to do, and the plan was to start mid-month. Instead I started this week. My days of doing nothing consisted of 2 days of being sick with a cold and sleeping. Then it was back to work, because I can’t seem to not turn this damned computer on.

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Trauma Farm

Trauma Farm
Brian Brett
Greystone Books, 320 pages, $21.95

I almost didn’t give Trauma Farm a chance. Salt Springs Island farmer Brian Brett is also a poet (it’s his main source of income, in fact, and he jokes throughout the book that it supports his farming habit), and the first couple of chapters came off as overly-flowery. After stacks of tomes on farming and sustainable food that are dry and full of statistics, Brett’s descriptive, poetic style seemed too disconcerting.

Likewise, the style of arranging the book – stories that comprise the “18-year-long day” of life on a B.C. farm, can be confusing at first, as Brett bounces back and forth to different points in the farm’s history, while loosely arranging the chapters along the lines of a typical day at the farm. A story about the death of a cherished pet or animal will be followed by another story on a different theme where the same animal plays a role. Until the readers gets all the characters straight, and accepts the non-linear train-of-thought style, the whole thing can be hard to follow. Settling in and pretending that you’re sitting on Brett’s back porch while he sips tea and shares stories of the farm seems to be the best way to approach the book.

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The Window at Rhino

My neighbourhood is an interesting place. Run down rooming houses full of run down people sit side-by-side beautifully renovated Victorian and Edwardian homes with $15,000 stoves in the kitchen. We have a high end toy/gift shop but the swankest coffee chain is Coffee Time – we don’t even rate a Tim’s. A seasonal, local, nose-to-tail restaurant looks out across Queen West at a community drop-in centre and soup kitchen. Rich ladies with sweaters over their shoulders emerge from vintage Jaguars to cruise the junque shops while trying to avoid used condoms and syringes on the sidewalk.

Sitting in the front window of Rhino, our local watering hole, it’s interesting to watch this diversity wander by.

Across the street at Public Butter, a vintage clothing shop, a rack of plaid jackets sits on the sidewalk. Priced as much as a new one from somewhere like Mark’s Work Wearhouse, they’re meant for the hipsters putting together outfits featuring the latest flavour of ironic. They’re less ironic when a pair of rocker guys, complete with mullets, walk past the rack, wearing those same jackets with utter seriousness.

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