Yellow Tomatoes

Oh my gosh, I haven't posted anything in a very long time.
I have no excuse. I simply forgot.

Recently, I tried many different kinds of tomatoes: green zebra tomatoes, oxford tomatoes, and, my favourite so far, yellow cherry tomatoes.
Yellow cherry tomatoes are sweet and delicious. They don't have a very acidic taste (at least not the ones I had) and they are a nice bite-sized snack.


I made a salad with them: some herbs, garlic, and mini-bocchini cheese. It was so good, I could have eaten four bowls of it.

"Why is the phone ringing?!"

On Saturday, my mum installed a phone in the playroom/TV room/basement so she didn't have to sprint up the stairs every time the phone rang.

I called the house Saturday afternoon. My dad picks up, says hello, and then I hear Jo, my six-year-old sister, on the phone. "Why is the phone ringing?" Jo yells, directly into the receiver.

Okay, I think, it's a learning curve, she'll get over it.

I called the house again the next day. After about half a ring, someone picks up the phone, drops the receiver, picks it up again, and screams, "I got it! I got it!"

It's Jo.

I complain about my eardrums, and Jo finally gives my mum the phone, who assures me she will tell Jo to say 'hello' when answering the phone.

Apparently it worked. My other sister Adelaide phoned about three minutes later. Jo picked up the phone and sweetly said "Hello? Who might this be?" So, Jo did get over that learning curve. Though, it was three minutes too late if you ask me.

What's the difference?

So I'm a little confused.

My post about The Cyclepath on Danforth wasn't accepted by BlogTO because it "reads too much like an ad for the place."

Though, their recent review of Sweet Pete's on Bloor reads almost the exact same way, from what I can tell.

How does mine differ? If anyone can give me specific pointers, I would really appreciate it, because right now I don't understand.

Children's Pencil Obsession

My mom wrote me this email today. It's about my six year old sister, Jo. I have made some edits concerning grammar, typos, punctuation, etc.

Todays' Strange Story:

I was doing some spring cleaning on the front porch "after school" today. Jo was hanging out, enjoying the warm sun, stomping in last bits of snow and talking to passing cats.

She seizes upon an object she sees on Allen's (Allen is the house directly next to ours) lawn and brings it to me asking "Do you know who this belongs to?"

It's a pencil.

I admitted I had no clue and semi ignore her as she babbles on about various ways the pencil might have been lost and by whom. "You know what we should do?" she asks me. Because I am concentrating on some glamorous cleaning task, I didn't think before I spoke and said "No, what?"

"We should draw a picture of the pencil. or maybe take a picture. And put it on a poster and......" Fill in about three minutes of goofy drivel in which Jo describes an elaborate scheme to return the pencil to its, no doubt distraught, owner.

I assured her that wasn't necessary and not to worry, just put the pencil back if she was worried and maybe its owner would pass by and notice it.

I finish the clean up. We go in. I start whipping up some supper and Jo watches TV.

About 45 minutes pass. Then the doorbell rings.

An embarrassed looking Olivia (our neighbour, who sometimes babysits the following two children) is with Ivor and Miranda. Now Miranda (age 5) has the pencil and is waving it at me: "Is this yours? Do you know whose pencil this is?"

I resisted the urge to say "I have no f*%$ing clue and I don't care." Ivor (age 1) comes in to visit the dog and Miranda just keeps going on about this orphaned pencil.

As Olivia was dragging them both back down the steps I told her about Jo's earlier pencil issues. We agreed that it could never be said of the children of today failed to really care about pencils.

Bespoke tailoring in Toronto

I wrote this for my fashion journalism class at Ryerson. Couldn't think of anywhere to pitch it, but it will do nicely on here.

Men's suits have never gone out of style. Just like any other form of fashion, they have trickled down, been influenced by world politics and the economy. They have changed shape, length, width, colour, material, and texture.

These changes and fluctuation come and go in waves, often returning to a style that was popular a few decades earlier. Each subsequent age wants to have their own look. “There's always been a shift between generations,” says Mayan Rajendran, a first-year graduate student at The School of Fashion at Ryerson specializing in street fashion. “Silhouettes are constantly shifting. With each category of age there's always a contrast. You always want to be doing what your dad wasn't.”


Bespoke- a style of extremely specific custom tailoring- was the only thing available 100 years ago. A suit included a jacket, vest, and two pairs of pants. A bespoke suit was created for an individual, for one single person and it would never fit another person the way that it is made to fit the original wearer. But mass-produced clothing became popular during the industrial revolution, and bespoke tailoring became much too expensive for most people.

But now, bespoke tailoring is popular among young New York and London businessmen, and it's slowly effecting Toronto's high-end fashion. Today, lot of young professional lawyers, judges, and news anchors in Toronto have been getting their suits custom made. Bespoke, along with a sort of British Dandyism style (skinny suits, coloured socks, and tapered pants) is becoming much more popular among young Torontonian businessmen.


Terry Beauchamp is the current owner of Walter Beauchamp Tailors, the oldest tailoring company in Toronto. The company started out as a tailor for military suits. Now they do formal wear and the occasional RCMP or police uniform. Most customers are financial workers, TV personalities, musicians, and government officials, but practically all of the suits they sell are bespoke.

Terry Beauchamp, who has owned the store since 1985, has noticed younger men coming in. “It's sort of a nostalgia renaissance,” he says. Bespoke tailoring requires many different measurements, not just the inseam, waist size and shoulder size. “They love shopping here. They're not used to getting looked after,” Beauchamp says of younger men. Mostly, men in their 20s and 30s want to get a suit resized or updated, but occasionally a young man will come in to get a brand new bespoke suit.

One of Beauchamp's recent customers Mike Koncan, 24, is a fourth year RTA student at Ryerson. He has been on RUtv as well as well as Rogers TV in Mississauga. Koncan's parents bought him a custom suit at Beauchamp for his birthday. “I love it. It feels like day and night compared to other jackets,” he says. “I would much rather wear the custom suit and jacket than any of my others.”

But Koncan says he doesn't know a whole lot of people his age ho would wear a custom made suit, most likely because they don't require one for their profession or they simply can't afford it.

Though Glenn Vernie does require suits for his job. He is the network administrator for MicroAge, a Toronto technology company. He is 41 (he said he wouldn't call himself young, but compared to a lot of men who wear or wore tailored suits, he is quite young) and started going to Beauchamp Tailoring about three months ago.

“The issue was I couldn't really find anything that fit properly,” Vernie says. He used to shop at stores like Hugo Boss and Harry Rosen. “I was paying $2,500 for a suit and it still wasn't fitting properly. It was frustrating.”

Vernie had a double-breasted suit made for him at Beauchamp. It was custom tailored to fit him exactly. He also brought in a number of suits that didn't fit him and he had Alfonso Prezioso, the head tailor at Beauchamp, re-do them. “He's a magician,” Vernie says of Prezioso. “He basically tore them apart and remade them. I was just going to throw them out.”

Prezioso was trained in Italy and has been with Walter Beauchamp Tailors for over 40 years. Finding a tailor who has skills as good as his is rare in recent years. Today, suits are usually mass-produced and they don't have the same care and proper fittings put into them. Yet, thousands of people still buy mass-produced suits don't actually fit their body type.

Bespoke suits are completely unlike mass-produced cloths. They are measured and tailored numerous times so they fit the wearer exactly. “We don't think the way the modern world does. We make things too good and they last,” says Beauchamp. “But people appreciate that.” Bespoke suits have an “artisanal quality,” Rajendran says. A suit can be extraordinarily comfortable, but only if it is made to fit the wearer perfectly.

The whole effect is like a morale booster. “You feel like you look better, so you just feel better about yourself in general,” Koncan says. “If your first suit is one of those, it's hard harder to go back,” he adds.

“The dilemma is to convince people that we're not just stodgy old farts,” Beauchamp jokes. He knows that people who value quality and art in fashion will always value custom tailoring. “Knowledgeable fashion people always respect the bespoke tailoring.”


Photo Credit: All photos are courtesy of Beauchamp Tailors.

The Cyclepath Danforth

I originally wrote this post as sample for BlogTO. They didn't like it. But I do. So I'm posting it here, since I didn't do the work for nothing.
When I walked into The Cyclepath on Danforth, I was slightly in awe.

The store is lined from wall-to-wall and from floor-to-ceiling. They stock about 10 different styles of bikes, plus a whole lot of sub-genres that I won't even go into.

They have unicycles, 29-inch wheelers, kids' bikes, stylish and trendy cruisers, fixies, and flashy racing bikes. They also stock fold-up bikes for those who live in tiny apartments, adult trikes for the elderly and disabled, and trailers for pulling kids, supplies, or groceries. They're selection of women's bikes is much bigger than any other cycling store I've seen, and they also have an extensive BMX collection.

The bikes are priced anywhere from $200 for a basic bike on sale, to $3,000 for a nice speed rider.

In the spring, The Cyclepath stocks about 800 bikes, but in the summer months they can stock as many as 950 bikes. They receive weekly shipments, and if you can't find what you're looking for, they will order it for you.

But it's quite rare that they won't have what you need in stock.

They carry hundreds of accessories and parts, priced from $5 to $250, some displayed in an open walk-in safe left over from when the building was a bank.

I got some great ideas on how to pimp up my old clunker. They even have clothing to pimp up yourself.

The Cyclepath also has full time mechanics to help turn your creaky old bike into a smooth glider. They staff four mechanics in the summer and two in the winter. They do break and gear tune-ups for $30, or full tune-up of breaks, gears, lubing gears and chain, plus tightening up head set and bottom bracket for $60. They even offer a whole bike overhaul for $120, which basically makes your bike new again.

The mechanics try to get everything done as quickly as they can, especially for those who need their bikes to get to work or school.

They're currently working on a bike bath station, but an opening date and prices haven't been decided on.

But the main thing that sets The Cyclepath apart from other bike stores is its total accessibility. This goes hand-in-hand with wide variety of stock and its many services. Staff members are open and friendly, and with 20 staff members during peak season, you're almost sure to get all your questions answered. Any type of cyclist can walk into The Cyclepath and feel welcome.

*Photo Credit: All photos taken from thecyclepath.com.

Bjoerling's Larynx: World Famous Opera Houses (Reposted from JRN504 WordPress)

David Leventi currently has a photographic exhibition, titled Bjoerling's Larynx: World Famous Opera Houses, showing at Beau XI gallery. The collection is named after a famous Swedish operatic tenor, Jussi Bjoerling, who has been called the best singer of the century.



The pieces featured are large-scale photographs of famous opera houses from different cities across the globe, taken between 2007 and 2010.

Each photo is taken from the spot at centre stage where a performer would stand, leaving symmetrical spaces on both sides. The photographs are huge, almost mural sized, and they hang on the wall at perfect eye-level. When you stand directly in front of the photo, you feels as if you were surrounded by the building. You are swallowed up by it.

As Leventi writes in his artist statement, the photos “freeze for eternity the instant before a performance takes place.” The photos are meticulous. Yes, they are architectural spaces, but they are also portraits that show the history and wealth of a country.



“I experience an almost religious feeling walking into a grand space such as an opera house,” Leventi writes. And looking at these photos does give me a sense of awe. One of the larger photos, Teatro La Fenice in Venice, makes me feel as if I am standing in the opera house. It is, in a way, intimidating.

The spaces vary in colour, most of them with plush red velvet and elaborate gold woodwork, but a couple are decorated in cool white marble or blue painted walls.

Some famous buildings included in the collections are the Metropolitan Opera House in New York, the Bavarian State Opera in Munich, the Theatre Olimpico in Vicenza, Italy, plus many more elegant opera houses.



The show runs until the end of February at Beau XI gallery, 340 Dundas St. West.

News for Kids

By the way, I've begun writing for TeachKidsNews.com. It's a website that pairs down news stories that kids might be interested in and makes it easier for children to understand.
My first post was about the "uncontacted" tiribes in Brazil.

Canada Reads: Day Three

So, as we all know by now, The Best Laid Plans by Terry Fallis won Canada Reads: Essential Book of the Last Decade. Very big, exciting accomplishment, especially considering the story behind its publication. (CBC 2 calls it "The little satire that could.")

Yes, I realize there is a day missing in between Day One and Day Three. Unfortunately, I had work on the morning of Day Two, so I was unable to rise extremely early, mission down to the CBC and then stand in line for two hours in order to get into the studio.

Plus, apparently Day Two was a little surprising, because Debbie Travis admitted that she hadn't aaacctually read all of The Best Laid Plans, but somehow thought that she would still be an adequate judge.

On to Day Three!

There was a slight change of plans; midway through the line up, I realized I wasn't able to stay the entire length of the live broadcast (had a test to get to). So instead, I stayed in the atrium and watched the majority of Canada Reads from there. (Frankly, it was a little more comfortable on those couches.)

I am happy to report that Jian was again wearing colourful socks. Monday Jian had on blue socks. A little bit of colour underneath a dull black or grey suit can really liven things up.

Ali Velshi, the winning book's defender, kept making fun of Jian's "cheesecloth tie," though I'm not exactly sure what he meant, since the high-def TVs in the atrium aren't as high def as they need to be apparently.

There were two votes within the hour. Unless by Carol Shields was voted off first, creating a stand-off between The Best Laid Plans and The Birth House by Ami McKay. Unfortunately, I had an inkling that The Birth House would be voted off, and indeed it was, leaving Fallis' political satire as the essential Canadian novel of the past decade.

It was certainly an exciting and tense three days. And now it is all over until next year.

*Photo Credits: The Globe and Mail and CBC News, respectively.

Canada Reads: Day One

Today was the first of three days of debates for Canada Reads! It was hosted by Q's Jian Ghomeshi.

The top five books were picked in November. They are:
The Best Laid Plans by Terry Fallis (defended by Ali Velshi),
The Birth House by Ami McKay (defended by Debbie Travis),
The Bone Cage by Angie Abdou (defended by Georges Laraque),
Unless by Carol Shields (defended by Lorne Cardinal),
and, my personal favourite, Essex County by Jeff Lemire (defended by Sara Quin).


Essex County was my top choice. The author lives in my neighbourhood and he comes into the coffee shop where I work, so I feel the need to cheer him on. But it is an amazing graphic novel. It doesn't have many words, but the drawings are spectacular. Yes, they are quite simple, but so much is shown through the characters' minute changes in facial expression. It is a sad, powerful, novel. (And yes, "cartoons" count as novels. There is a huge difference between a cartoon and a thoughtful, in-depth graphic novel.)

Not only did I love the book itself, but Sara Quin was defending it, and I love her. She is half of the musical duo Tegan and Sara. I love them! Love, love, love them! I have most of their CDs (I haven't bought the new one. I'm a little behind in my CD purchasing.) I saw them perform live at Danforth Music Hall a couple years ago. They had great stage banter. Highly amusing.

Sara did a great job at defending Lemire's novel. She had very good arguments, resolute but sound opinions, and she spoke eloquently. She had a lot of punch behind what she said, but she didn't have to swing her arms around or point her finger at people (*ahem* Ali Velshi).

I think Essex County was the first to be voted off because the older generation isn't actually as open minded to a new form of novel as they think they are. Sara and the audience were all of a younger generation, while the rest of the panelists were older. They weren't much older, but there was a definite generational gap.

After the broadcast stopped, the audience got their chance to speak. The majority of the audience was in support of Lemire's novel, and they vehemently defended the book. Several audience members also spoke up, and the panelists looked a little taken aback that everyone was ganging up on them.

Yes, they may have been told to pick the "essential Canadian novel," but they barely gave this newer form of book a chance. They may be hoping for a novel that could change the way Canadians think about reading, but they voted off the only book that is different from the others, the only novel that was a change itself.

Fashionable Parents (Reposted from WordPress school blog for JRN504)

So, you know who you barely ever see in any streetstyle blog? Stylish older gentlemen. Hip mamas. Fashionista parents. So, that's who I kept a lookout for.

I don't know this man's name. He regularly comes into the coffee shop where I work. I can tell you, though, that he drinks a medium house-blend coffee every morning. I chased him out the door to snap this photo because I've always admired his fur hat. I really enjoy the whiteness of his beard against the rich, navy wool coat and dark, fur hat. Honestly, I just wish my dad wore a fur hat like that. (My dad wears an Indiana-Jones hat…)

Kathryn is a musician and mother. She lives up the street from me and I regularly see her in snazzy boots, sparkly tops, and cozy leggings. I accosted her at home and snapped a couple photos. (Okay, I don't want to get arrested. Accost is the wrong word. I called first, I didn't just barge in.) For a mother of two kids under the age of five, she always wears stuff that is comfy and functioning, yet also fashionable.

Katie is the second coffee-shop customer who I ended up chasing down. She has a young (extremely trendy!) daughter but she, like Catherine, always looks really pulled together. She often wears high-waisted skirts or jackets with cinched belts. What I always really admire about Katie, though, is her never-ending collection of shoes.
I love the over-the-knee winter boots she's wearing here. Black, classic, and about as trendy as you can be in -20C weather.

Go-To Fashion Blogs (Reposted from WordPress school blog for JRN504)

I don't follow many style blogs religiously, if at all. If something interesting pops up on TweetDeck or in my Google Reader I might take a look, but there are really just a few that I go back to. The following are blogs that I enjoy reading, but they're in no particular order.

Toronto Bike Chic focuses on trendy bicyclists in Toronto. The postings involve mostly photos and a bit of description. The photos are nice and crisp, and they're of regular Torontonian bikers who have that little bit of extra style. I enjoy this blog immensely because I'm a cyclist. I bike to school, to work, and around the city on the weekends in the good weather. I feel that my bike is an extension of my attitude, my style, and my personality. In downtown Toronto, a bike is part of the culture. A bike can be a fashion statement, and in Toronto it usually is.

Coffee Cycle Chic is by the same person, but focuses on coffee shops and cycle shops in Toronto. Sadly, neither have been updated in a while. This round-up makes me miss them.

Though, Hipster Musings is updated frequently, and it is one that I check often. A small-town girl, who goes to Waterloo University, writes this one. Her style isn't actually necessarily what I would wear myself, but I the outfits she puts together are cool nonetheless, and that's exactly why I read it. I wouldn't wear it, so I read her blog and sort of live vicariously through her. Also, I find that her posts are kind of a blast from the past. The music and movies she writes about, as well as her sense of fashion, are very 90s. Not to mention the writer looks like Winona Ryder so I constantly think back to Girl Interrupted (1999) and all the dark, 90s fashion in it.

Lastly, Cheap and Chic is a blog that similar to a million other blogs, but I read it anyway. Nothing about it is spectacular, but I do read this so I thought I should include it. Even the name makes it hard to distinguish. It has pretty photos, some DIY ideas, and some nice fashions. Though I can't really tell what the cheap part is. Of course, the DIY stuff is cheap, but I the clothes are all a bit pricier than I would personally buy.

Here are the rest of the online fashion and design media that I read (again in no particular order): LENS, The Sartorialist, Worn Fashion Journal, Textstyles, College Fashion, and Eye Weekly Style

Stapleless Stapler

Staplers seem like a great invention, right up until the moment when you are trying to jam those impossibly small and hard-to-handle pieces of bent metal into a teeny-weeny slot.

Staplers just know when the exact worst moment is to run out of staples. It always needs reloading right at that critical moment when you're handing in an assignment, when there are customers waiting in line, or when you need to catch a bus.

But fear not! The days of actually filling a stapler with staples are over.

Check out this stapleless stapler! It basically just punches a hole in the paper, and then folds the punched-out part in on itself, so the folded bit is holding the sheets of paper in place.

I got one for Christmas from my mum, and it has saved my sanity.

I love the library

Whether it's the Toronto Public Library or the Ryerson library, I just absolutely adore the library. They're a great idea in general, a way for people to share and learn using books they might not have necessarily had access to otherwise.

Toronto's public library system is one of the best systems in the world. There are many branches, a huge amount of material, and even some really great building and system updates lately. Library staff (not just the librarians) are usually quite knowledgeable and helpful. Not only that, but the Toronto public library system also offer programs for kids and adults alike, all of which are free.

The Ryerson library is also really great. Librarians at Ryerson really know their stuff, and they know how to help a university student, what kind of texts we're looking for and stuff like that. As a former prof of mine (Prof. Copeland) once said, "For some reason, the librarians really like helping you kids."

Ry library also has computers, ipads, laptops and lots of other equipment that can be taken out of reserve for a few hours at a time. But the best part of the reserve material at Ryerson is that there are text books for each class available to take out. You can sign them out for two hours at a time.

So, this semester I didn't even bother buying my French textbook for $120. Instead, before class, I take it out of reserve. Even if it's a little bit late getting back to them, they only charge a dollar fine per hour that it's late. So, if this semester is thirteen weeks long, and I take the textbook back late after each class, it still only costs me $13.

Wow.
And that is why I love the library.

*Photo Credit: Anais Kelsey-Verdecchia. Figure in photo is my sister.