Hello! I hope you’re having a good summer so far. (I won’t ignore the fact that there has been a lack of posting on these pages over the past several months but I’ve experienced a major life event that made updates difficult. However, all is fine now.)
No question these Covid years have been terrible for everyone, but I’ve had one really lovely thing come about because of the pandemic. That is, right from the very beginning of lockdown, my friend Julie and I have had a scheduled weekly phone call every Thursday morning. This has now amounted to hours and hours of talking, when, prior to the beginning of this routine, we’d probably spoken on the phone for about 10 minutes in total. During all those conversations I’ve discovered all kinds of interesting things about her life before we met in a line up nearly 10 years ago, plus we’ve had lots of laughs (she’s a very funny story teller). This has very much brightened my life up, for sure.
While these phone call dates have been great, it sure was a pleasure to switch it up and see her in person this week, when we went to a very nice coffee shop in my neighbourhood, Cafe 23 at 728 Queen Street West in Toronto (on the north side between Bathurst and Trinity Bellwoods Park).
Here are some pictures of this inviting place …
↑ I didn’t want to disturb the vide with my camera so I quickly took this shot, thinking to myself, “Cool, they have a print of the Robert Mapplethorpe photo of Patti Smith” (I’m a big fan of both and had the opportunity to see some of the original pieces during this visit to the Olga Korper Gallery). But, when I got home and reviewed the pictures, I thought, “Hold on, that’s not Patti’s face. That’s Frida Kahlo. What is going on there?” After some searching, I got to the root of this mysterious image. It turns out that it’s a print of a photoshopped montage by photographer Robert Toren aka Angry Lambie, created in 2012. ↑
We went out back to the gorgeous hidden garden. Someone at this cafe sure is gifted with the art of plant care.
↑ We both had a Macha Latte which was very nice, both in presentation and taste. ↑
Thank you for checking out this post. If you’re in Toronto, I hope this has gotten you thinking about a visit to Cafe 23!
It’s a 3-Day weekend here and the weather is forecasted to be gorgeous. Wishing you a good one. xo loulou
