Category: toronto

Sheryl & the Chocolate Factory

Every year, Toronto holds a city-wide festival during the last weekend in May called Doors Open where the public gets to go on free mini-tours of places they might not otherwise have the opportunity to see. Many of these buildings are ones that the public can get into if they have a reason to be there, either because they’re on a paid tour, or because they have business of some sort in the place. Few people have reason or opportunity to wander through a chocolate factory, though, so when the news came out that Cadbury was going to open the doors of its Toronto factory as part of Doors Open, people were excited. Unfortunately, while the concept of Doors Open is a good one, designed to encourage an appreciation for historical and architecturally unique buildings, what we got at the Cadbury’s factory doesn’t really even count as a “tour”.

Now I didn’t go expecting to see Oompa-Loompas. I didn’t expect to be greeted by Johnny Depp in a top hat. I didn’t figure there would be a river of chocolate. But on a “tour” of a chocolate factory, I do kind of expect to see some chocolate getting made.

At least put in a nice plate-glass window so we can watch the bars of chocolate whizzing by.

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How Sweet It Is

At first, we weren’t sure we had read it right. Scrolling across the screen on the 24-hour news channel was information about a Sweets Expo at the Toronto Convention Centre. It took some investigating to finally find the website: http://www.sweetsexpo.ca. No, Beavis and Butthead, not “sweet sex po”, get your minds out of the gutter. Sweets Expo, aka, a room full of candy.

Bright and early, there we were, headed into the convention centre, the smell of sugar surrounding us. However, had it not been for two things, the Sweets Expo would have left a rather sour taste in my mouth.

First of all, it hadn’t been especially well-promoted, as far as we could tell. That fast-moving news scroll was the only mention we had seen of the thing, and judging by the turnout, not many other people knew about it either. And apparently, the same amount of effort that went into promotion went into attracting exhibitors. It was considerably smaller than we expected, and with a couple of exceptions the calibre of product wasn’t that great. None of the many Toronto area chocolatiers were present; Stubbs, Soma and JS BonBon were not to be found. There were also none of the chain, or indie, candy stores – no Sugar Mountain, Tutti Frutti, Nutty Chocolatier or Candy Island. Also, no big brand names – no Nestle, no Cadbury.

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Little Bitter Things

Our groovy multicultural supermarket had stacks of amaretti in their Italian section last night when we were buying groceries. I bought two packages and am considering going back for more.

The word amaretti is Italian for “little, bitter things”. Problem is, most amaretti are made from sweet almonds which are not really bitter at all.

My first encounter with the meringue-based cookie came in the late 80s when my then-boyfriend lived next door to an Italian bakery. We would buy huge boxes of their amaretti, along with delicious marzipan. These amaretti were larger, crunchy on the outside, soft and almost pasty on the inside. Like most amaretti made in North America, they were made with almonds.

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King of Fish

MAAAACKrel! MAAAACKrel! MAAAACKrel!

As a small child I was fascinated with mimicking the mackerel man. We lived in a suburb of Halifax that verged on rural and the small fishing villages that dot the Nova Scotia coast were only a few miles away. While most of the Atlantic fishery is based on massive ships far out to sea for days or weeks on end, the area around Halifax harbour abounds with fish as well, and during mackerel season, small-scale fishermen with one small boat can make a regular month’s wages in one day simply by heading out to the mouth of the harbour in the morning to catch mackerel and then driving through the residential neighbourhoods at mid-afternoon, selling mackerel from the back of his car or truck – just in time for supper. (This is not exclusive to fish, although the mackerel man is the most memorable. It is still not uncommon to buy strawberries, corn or even lobster from the back of someone’s car in suburban Nova Scotia.)

The mackerel man who frequented my Grandmother’s neighbourhood had a distinctive nasally voice and during the last weeks of June (when the mackerel started “running”), I would wait impatiently for his wood-paneled station wagon to make its way slowly up the street. I would then run out to greet the mackerel man, following along behind him, yelling “Mackerel!” at the top of my small lungs until we got to the point on the street where I was not permitted to go beyond by myself. Then the mackerel man would wave good-bye, and I would make my way home, continuing to yell “Mackerel!” until my Grandmother stuck her head out the window, demanding that I shut the hell up.

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Living Out of Boxes (of Food)

It’s been quiet in these parts, and the food has been unexciting. Too much stuff out of packages and too much stuff out of take-out containers. There’s two more weeks of this to go, and I swear, once we get moved and settled, I never want to see another frozen pizza again.

I mean, it’s not as if we’re moving far – a whole five blocks east. But it’s still easier to weed down your kitchen cupboards and buy new, rather than moving all your groceries, particularly perishables. So we’re trying to use up and clear out, which means no trips to Whole Foods, or the markets (Kensington and St. Lawrence), or swank and lovely Pusateri’s.

Instead, we eat the crap. Salads out of tubs, the ubiquitous frozen pizzas, store-bought frozen vegetarian lasagna, and many things from soy made to resemble parts of dead critters. The plan is to eat the crap for now, and once we’re in the new place, unpacked, and have had time to hit all the grocery places for fresh grub, to do a two-week detox to clear all the gunk out of our systems.

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