And That Was Irish Too

I am terribly sad to have missed the Annual Singing of the Saint Patrick's Day Song, as I was out of range of the phone's ringing this evening.  Making... Irish soda bread!   So happy (bread), but so sad (song).

The Canada House is seriously lacking in kitchen tools: the only measuring devices in the house are 1/4 and 1/3 cup dry-ingredient measuring cups.  I do a great deal of approximation.  I didn't have a round baking pan/tool, so I put the dough into the Teflon-coated pie-plate that my roommates use for everything.  The pan worked out really well actually, though the bread does resemble a UFO. 

 

The bread was super-easy to make.  Despite the lack of fancy tools, all the people present in the house (Flatmate Andrea, Canada Steve, and Canada Steve's girlfriend Justine) agreed that the bread was good.  I offered some to the TunaEater, who mumbled something like, "Greasy greasy pizza," in response and then proceeded to sit on the couch and eat popsicles as he stared at the Simpsons.  Unsurprising.

To the North!

Hye-Sung and I are heading to Quebec City (known as Quebec to the franco-Canadians - they can tell if it is the city or the province depending on the articles used in relation to said word - the province is masculine and the city is feminine, I believe).  The other in the usual party were invited, but they all declined.  Adventures to be detailed Monday/Tuesday-ish.

Spoils of Toronto

Though I did not purchase the John/Paul/George/Ringo as Christmas ornaments, I did get some spectacular items in Toronto.  The most interesting are briefly outlines below.

A cookie cutter in the shape of a hand.  They were selling this at the Big Apple.  Naturally.

This lovely, demure diamond.  Purchased at the ROM's special exhibit on diamonds.  We all  (excepting Fabian, again of course) purchased one of these babies.

Chinatown.  One dollar.  A bracelet made of the saints.  Photographed on my wrist against the lurid green satin background of the huge downy blanket I've been living under since late October.  

I love it, but it kind of makes me upset that I can't ID all of the saints.

The Big Apple, and Llamas!

 

Somewhere along the Highway 401, about an hour east of Toronto, is the Big Apple.  We had noticed the Big Apple on the way to Toronto, but on the way back, since I was driving, I decided that we were stopping.  Observe below: the Apple is peeking out from behind the pie-factory and apple-kitsch-store.  Also, deer, bears, and moose cross the road here.

More precise directions to the Big Apple?  Try 'center of the world'.  Clearly.

So what can you do at the Big Apple?  You can climb up to the top of the Apple, but unfortunately the Apple was closed when we visited.

You can get pennies smushed and stamped with the Big Apple logo.  The Francophones (excepting Fabian, of course) found this fascinating.

You can purchase Moses in puppet-form.  

You can get apple pie.  Magnetic pieces and real pieces.

You can feed the llamas, of which there are two.

Hye-Sung enjoyed the llama-feeding but was somewhat freaked out by their large teeth.  I told Fabian that llamas don't like boys.  (True: Grandpa would get spit on by a llama every time we went to the Farmer's Inn.)

It was very James and the Giant Peach.  I wish the apple would have been open.

Toronto Miscellany

Rainy Toronto from the upper stories of the Art Gallery of Ontario.

The Fab Four.  As Christmas ornaments.  I'm kind of regretting not purchasing them.

The Royal Ontario Museum (ROM)!  Has dinosaurs!  And a traveling exhibit on diamonds!  Everything a girl could want.

In the ROM, Marie crouching in the turtle costume.  The ROM has a large collection of ceramics and stuff like that, but we spent our time in the galleries containing the natural history collection.  It was really fantastic, and would be especially fun for kids.

This store, Honest Ed's, takes up an entire city block and contains nearly everything imaginable.  We tooled about a portion of it, as it is a Toronto landmark.

Everything.  At a bargain.  Case in point.

The Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO).  They have a large collection of works by the Group of Seven, a major group of Canadian artists (some pictured below).

This, Ruben's  The Massacre of the Innocents, circa 1611, is one of the most expensive paintings ever.  In 2002 the painting sold to a private collector for $76.2 million dollars: the collector then donated it to the AGO.

At the AGO.  A few sculptures here, but most of it is just for chilling out, I suppose.

Nicolas Baier, alternately titled, Showing at a Toronto Near You! Beginning in February 2009!

Hye-Sung and I had been planning to go to MOCCA - the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art, pronounced like the coffee drink - since December when we saw the works in the newest Nicolas Baier exhibit in temporary storage at the National Gallery of Canada (see Coming to A Toronto Near You!  In February 2009!).  Pictured above, please note that we're both rocking the proud V, happy to be seeing the exhibit installed in a gallery space.

This is kind of a strange show in that it is sponsored by the National Gallery of Canada but completely organized by a small museum someplace in Quebec.  The works came to the Gallery only for a few days in December in order for conservation to do their condition reports.

Marie and Soloman (photo from Marie).

If you'll recall, this glowing lightbox had been disassembled when last I saw it.

Two-inch-think sheets of aluminum.  There are four of these and they are really heavy.

Favorite piece, Vanitas, installed in the galleries at MOCCA.

This work is 'new' every time it is shown, as it is attached directly to, and therefore is flush with, the gallery wall.

Toronto and the Truth About Fabian

Happily, the trip to Toronto went fantastically.  Hye-Sung, Marie, Fabian, and I stayed with Hye-Sung's roommate Esmeralda.  Most of Saturday we also spent with Marie's friend Soloman  (they interned together in curatorial at a museum in Paris).  Fortunately for us, both Esmeralda and Soloman grew up in Toronto, so we had two excellent tour guides.

Here is a blurry Hye-Sung, giving the camera what she calls, 'a proud V'.  This is opposed to a smaller version known as the 'shy V'.  (The proud V is present because she's delighted to be in Toronto.)

It turns out that while I had originally thought that Fabian hated me because I'm American and that I was alone in my dislike of him and his North American Hating Ways, that he was driving everyone crazy!  Hye-Sung told me that it was good that I don't speak French, because Fabian was always making her 'down' when she wanted to be happy.  He apparently is terrible at social interaction, never wanted to come to North America (a shocker, I know), and hates everything including Paris.

Unless you are using a swipe-card, the metro in Toronto only excepts these little tokens.  Esmeralda said that the metro recently made a switch from paper tickets to these little metal tokens.  More environmentally friendly, I'm sure.  And, also quite charming.

Marie, Hye-Sung, and Esmeralda on the metro.

Eaton Center interior.

The Art Gallery of Ontario: the building had just been completely remodeled and many major new acquisitions added to the collection.  It's a Frank Gehry design.

The Ontario College of Art and Design.

Chinatown (photo from Marie). 

We walked all over downtown Toronto and did lots of good eating, especially in Koreatown and Chinatown.  The Koreatown had light-up blue outlines of Korea attached to every lamp-post.  Fantastic.

An art supply store situated beneath part of the Ontario College of Art and Design.