Toronto + Gay = BFF

HAPPY PRIDE!!!

love S & E

The Psychics are Out and About

With temperatures close to the thirties and the fact that our house is a sauna, one has little choice but to spend all evenings out and about with friends, taking in the summer and cooling down; ice-cream in Yorkville, sangria in Little Italy. The patios are full, the sidewalks are congested, and while garbage has not yet totally taken over the asphalt, psychics have! With tables and chairs set up and undercover cops surveying the readings from afar, the psychics are taking advantage of summer's pulse to step up their livelihood.


And, they all know each other! The business-savvy psychic in Little Italy (corner of Shaw and College) knew about the psychic on Cumberland and referred to him as kind of a newbie to the business- ie; not that great. How do I know this, you ask? Well, I went to them both. I've always wanted to go to a psychic. There was a psychic on Bathurst near Bloor, Natasha's psychic, who I passed by every single day for over a year now, but she closed down recently so I've been left to my own devices to seek other psychics down. Thus when it costs $10 to have my tarot cards read on the streets in Yorkville, $12.50 to have my palm read in Little Italy, I give in. Double each of those prices for a full "life reading". You might be curious to know about the content of Mr. $10's readings:

• The same stuff he told the customer beforehand. I know this because I asked her.
• The number of children I'm going to have. (I'm actually going to have kids?)
• That he had holy water from the Vatican and by putting it on the back of my palm and forehead I was going to be protected.
  
• The age I'm going to live until. Yes, he read my life-line on my palm, and I said that I wanted to know.
  

My friends have gasped and given distraught looks when I revealed that I knew the age that I was going to die. But remember I don't fully believe these guys, and wanted to know if it rang true amongst other clairvoyant individuals. So that's how my friend S & I got our palms read in Little Italy...and guess what? She read the same number. And no, it's not a multiple of 10, nor a multiple of 5, so it's pretty specific. Isn't that quite the coincidence? Conclusively, there is a science to palm reading, and whether it's your actual fate written on your palm is a different story.

The Little Italy psychic told me other interesting tid-bits as well, including the colour of my aura. She told my friend much more information, including the initial and zodiac sign of the love of her life- all from the lines on her palm. Whether or not these psychics can see what is written in the stars for me or not, these incidents have sparked an interest in learning how to read tarot cards, and people's auras, which apparently just take a bit of practice and are not an innate 6th sense. By the end of the summer I'll have both down-pat, so come by Bathurst for a reading.


S.

Is this art?

It's a little (ok a lot) overexposed but hopefully you can still make it out. I've seen a few telephone poles on Bathurst Street with buckets of paint spilled around them. Nothing else nearby seems to be painted. The buckets are sometimes still there, and sometimes not. If you look closely, the paint is blue and purple swirled.

What do you all think? Is this art? Or is College Pro hiring just anyone these days?

e

Eat Eat! You're skin and bones

Brunch at Aunties and Uncles



Sorry kids, I forgot my camera when I went out to brunch last week (Sorry...but you try snapping pictures of everything you do. It's not easy). So I will make this review short, because I know while words are sweet and all, a picture requires way less effort for the reader. ;)


Brunch place Aunties and Uncles, on Lippincott St. near College and Bathurst, was voted best brunch in the city by readers of blogTO, so I thought I'd give it a try. (And apparently Sook Yin Lee is a big fan, and you know me and brunch-time celebrity sightings) Everyone said I'd have to wait forever for a table because A&U only opens from 9am-3pm, the space is relatively small, they don't take reservations, and it was a lovely day last Saturday, but it actually wasn't that bad. I got there at 1 or so, and we only waited about 20 min, which really isn't that long.


Again, this place was quite the scene. I saw lots of pretty young hip kids, including several blasé girls in short cutoff jean shorts (apparently that's the new in thing??). We were given a table inside beside the kitchen where we were surrounded by kitchy art and books about the Beatles. It was cute, lots of stuff to look at. The outside patio looked really nice too, but alas there were too many people!


The menu was one page long, with lots of really delicious looking options including breakfast sandwiches, waffles, eggs, and french toast. My friend J and I decided to share two items: the breakfast tacos with meat, cheddar, and cilantro sour cream served with hash browns, and the daily special cubano sandwich with spiced pork, avocado, and swiss cheese and dill potato salad. I got some black coffee and she got apple cider.


We had to wait a bit for the food to come, but it was well worth the wait (and the kitchen was pretty small, so I can see why). The food was really delicious and the portions were large. The tacos were messy to eat but tasty, served on soft corn tortillas. The cubana sandwich was served on a focaccia bun and had lots of chunky avocado and thick slabs of pork and the right amount of sauce. You could choose between hash browns, mixed greens, and potato salad, so we went for the two potato options. The hash browns were rustic chunks of white and sweet potatoes nicely charred in places, and the potato salad was tossed in a dill and mustard dressing that wasn't too heavy. The food had just enough grease to feel like a tasty brunch, but not so much that it was overly decadent.


The bill came out to only $23 for the two of us!


Aunties and Uncles gets three and a half cheek pinches out of four.






e

To market to market, to buy a fat pig....

The St. Lawrence Market

I have these two cute friends, M & J. They spend their Saturday mornings at the St. Lawrence Market. Yesterday in the warm sunshine under the blue sky, I tagged along with M to check out their wholesome routine.


The St. Lawrence Market is really neat; a hustling, bustling, hub of deliciousness and constant activity in one of Toronto's historic districts located close to the waterfront. Sigh, que romantica! Did you know that the main building was Toronto's first City Hall?

Now it's home to over 100 vendors, and you can find everything from fresh produce to handmade soap, and over 1o different kinds of home-made hummus! I'm so hooked on the latter that I never want to purchase store bought hummus again!

You can even throw in lunch while you're at the market. M's lunch included a peameal bacon sandwich, for which there was a big line-up! She said that it was really good and that "it had a lot of peameal bacon, but the bread could have been better." She's one of those "people who prefers European fresh bread to Canadian bread". Agreed...who would not choose baguette over Wonderbread?



Other highlights included:

• Browsing the fresh produce section of the farmer's market where I indulged in Ontario-grown bunches of asparagus. It opens at 5 am and closes early so if you're a late riser, like myself, you might want to make an effort and get out early.

Scanning the artisan crafts for birthday gifts for our friend J. We both picked up handmade cards with Ontario & Toronto-inspired photographs from one artist's stall. (J appreciated our cards).

The Sausage King! If you know my habits well, you know that I love meat. I struggle daily with my love for meat, often wanting to adopt the more socially conscious, responsible, and healthier lifestyle of the vegetarian. I eat veggie food all the time. Sometimes I buy 'green' meat products and feel better about not injecting my body with antibiotics, and being spiritually affected by poor farming practices. But, bottom line is I love meat, and even more so, I love sausages. Yum Yum and Yum. The Sausage King boasts fresh, all natural sausage meat from local small farms, so I had to take the plunge. I bought lamb sausages spiced with coriander and turkey sausages and am really excited to cook them up today!

T'was a fun, delicious and wholesome way to spend a sunny day with friends. I encourage you to bring visitors to the city there. I guarantee that you'll be dancing your way home again home again, jiggidy-jig.

S.