A Garden Party for Two : Lunch and Crocheting with Julie

I'm not sure if it's the same all over, but here in Toronto, "summer hours" are a common thing -- that's when employers let staff have Friday afternoons off. As self-employed people, Nick and I usually treat ourselves to summer hours, too.

So, a week ago Friday, after she'd finished up at work, my friend Julie came over for a little r and r on our patio. We had lunch followed by a crochet lesson.

At the AGO Toronto – Summer 2019 : “Brian Jungen Friendship Centre” and More

No doubt, there is plenty to see at The Art Gallery of Ontario this summer! I was invited for a look around last week and took a bunch of photos to share with you here. However, of course, with art, pictures just don't do justice, so, hopefully you'll have a chance to go and see it in person if/when you're in Toronto. It's a perfect opportunity to partake in their new admission fee, where those 25 and under always get in free, and others pay $35 once a year for unlimited visits.

I'll just dive right in, beginning with photos of the solo exhibition, "Friendship Centre" by Brian Jungen.

A Summerlicious Lunch at Northern Maverick

Toronto "Summerlicious" is a food festival organized by the city, which encourages people to try out different restaurants by offering special three course fixed-price menus. Now in its 16th year, this year it runs for 2 1/2 weeks, from July 5th to 21, with over 200 restaurants participating, many offering both a lunch and dinner "Summerlicious" menu. There's an application and vetting process, with the city selecting which places may participate, to make sure that people get to enjoy only the best food.

I believe that Simmerlicious menus are to include three or more choices of an appetizer, a main course and a dessert, and at least one dish in each category must be a vegetarian option. Restaurant offer their 3-course meals at three price-points : $23, 28 or 33 for lunch and $33, 43 or 53 for dinner.

While Nick and I make a point of getting to at least one new-to-us restaurant during the festival, I find that there's an added ongoing benefit, in that it gives me a chance to easily check out a whole bunch of tantalizing menus, for a wide variety of restaurants in and around our neighbourhood, on their site, giving us lots of ideas for places to try in the future.

This year, we chose to have lunch at a relatively new restaurant -- it opened in the fall of 2017 -- called Northern Maverick, located at the corner of Bathurst and Adelaide Street West.

Artistic Photography at The Image Centre

Back in May, I posted a few stories about exhibitions I'd seen, that were part of The Contact Photography Festival. I really enjoyed that month-long event, which featured artistic photography shows in galleries, large and small, located all over the city. (My previous posts on the subject are here, here, and here.)

While the actual festival ended on May 31st, there were some shows that extended beyond that. Today, I'd like to talk about a couple of those, both conveniently located in the same building, and both quite wonderful.

The venue is "The Image Centre", which is home to the School of Image Arts, on the campus of Toronto Metropolitan University, located in the heart of Toronto, near the corner of Yonge and Dundas. (That's a popular area that most anyone coming to Toronto would go, so, with The Image Centre being a very short walk from there, it would be the perfect place for visitors to find a quiet spot and a free injection of curated art, amoungst shopping and sight seeing.)

A Field Trip for Grown Ups at Black Creek Pioneer Village – Part II

Hi! Here is Part Two of the story about the fun evening we had at Black Creek Pioneer Village, at the "Field Trip for Grown Ups" hosted by Peter and Paul's Hospitality and Entertainment Group.

If you'd like to know more about this interesting immersive museum located to the northwest of downtown Toronto, and the very nice party they had there, please check out Part I first.

So, we left off at one of the food stations. From there we went to the "Making Music" activity, where we met a friendly music historian who was a talented fiddle player. She told us about the type of music the early settlers to the area enjoyed. (In Part I, there's also a short video we made about the evening, which features a tune performed by her, if you'd like a listen.)