Themed Thursday : Birds a Plenty

In going through my list of random shots recently I began to see a theme, in that I seem to have gathered quite a few images containing birds lately. So it made sense to post them all up as a series, which I hope you enjoy!

Inside a Beautiful Old Building

My friend recently sent me an email about a pop-up sample-sale she had heard about that was located in my neighbourhood. I decided to check it out though I should have expected what I found ... everything nice was way too small. It seems that this is the case for any sample-sale I've been to in recent years, that they only carry very tiny sizes, and if there is one thing I know about myself it's that I am not is a size 0-2! The woman running the sale tried to help me find things that might fit, however I wasn't interested in wearing a t-shirt that looked like a large sack with holes in it for my hands to poke out of. What I really wanted was those tailored ink blue cuffed shorts with the tuxedo-style black stripes down the side. But the ones they had would have fit on one of my legs, so ...umm. no. I'm kidding, but the clothes were quite extreme on the small scale.

All was not lost though, as I got to have a peek inside the old building in which the sale was being held. Located on King Street West, it was erected in 1904 and would have probably originally been used in the creation of textiles and clothing, as this strip of Toronto was the garment district. While the lovely chandeliers would not be original to the building, they were very pretty none the less.

A Fancy Dinner Out

A week ago Friday Nick came home from a walk with a nice surprise! On his way he had stopped by a restaurant that we have been wanting to try, and booked us a table for 7pm that evening. This was a so good to hear as we hadn't been out to a 'fancier' restaurant since April, when my sweet parents treated us to a meal at our favourite place in their town.

Nick and I are rather simple folk when it comes to restaurants, most often dining at casual places when we go out. But we do very much like to get dressed up and go somewhere nice to celebrate special occasions. On this particular night there was no special occasion, so we told ourselves it was for our last anniversary (back in November!) when we couldn't go out because I had badly sprained my ankle.

Anyway, the place we went last week is called 'Beast' and we actually had walked by it many times thinking that it would be heavy on the meat, with such a name. (We do eat some meat but not that much.) However we had recently stopped to take a look at the menu posted near the sidewalk, and saw that it wasn't at all just about meat. The menu sounded scrumptious so we vowed to give it a try. And so Nick decided that sooner was better than later!

Beast features a 'tasting menu' filled with many choices of small plates, meant to be shared. They use locally sourced and sustainable ingredients whenever possible and the small details, like the subtle and unique seasoning in the sauces garnishing a plate was noteworthy.

We dined on a homemade pickle plate, a lovely salad with heirloom cherry tomatoes and the creamiest of cheeses, some crab cakes under a mountain of pea shoots, a bowl of delicious gnocchi, some strip loin of beef, and a serving of wonderful sticky pudding for dessert. To drink we had a bottle of Lotus 2009 Cabernet Sauvignon.

Wild Flowers or Weeds?

↑ Thistle ↑I'll answer my own question in the title ... Anything pretty that spontaneously appears in my yard is considered a wild flower and is encouraged to stay, as long as it’s not harmful in any way. I love them as much as I do the 'real' flowers that I have planted (some seen in this post). In fact, I love some of them more because they require no watering, fertilizer or extra work on my part. They appear because they are happy in the spots that they have chosen for themselves! Not like the numerous plants that I have paid for and put in the ground over the years, only to have them die after a couple of seasons! That's not to say that everything I have planted myself has died, but many species just didn't make it in my maple-tree dominated yard.These pictures are of my wild flowers, taken throughout the spring and summer.

Little Lord of the Manor and The Forsyte Saga

This chair is located in our dining room, about 2 feet from our table. Edward has taken to sitting there lately as we are eating. It's not that he is expecting a treat to come his way because he never eats human food.

Well, that's with the exception of the water from a can of salmon or tuna, and that only after it has sat around for at least a day. Sounds gross, but that's how he takes his salmon water! Only after it has reached its perfect point of staleness will he slurp it down until the bowl is completely empty. Yes, this means we have a bowl of warm fish water in our kitchen for a day, but hey, the things you do for love!