Weekend Stuff

On Saturday morning we were slow to get going. John woke up really early and I slept in a bit. I made bacon, egg, avocado and cheese sandwiches on English muffins for breakfast and tidied up the kitchen and then John went back down for a nap to see if that would clear his headache from the night before. It was probably about 1pm before we were both up and dressed and ready to go.

We had made a whole list of things to do and explore in the downtown core today, but we didn't get anywhere near through them all. We started by trying to find the school I would be going to in the fall if I got accepted. Like each of my last three ventures out into the city, we got lost first, ending up finding Hooters instead, but eventually we found the school.

It was mostly closed up because it's a weekend in the summer, but the security guard was kind enough to let us in to look around.

I fell in love. The downtown campus is spread over three buildings but the chef school is all in one building, about half the size of my high school. There place is filled with lecture rooms cooking demonstration stations as well as practice kitchens with rows and rows of ovens and mixers. Everything was modern and the pastry section was undergoing renovations. I almost started to tear up as I realized just how much I want this. I left feeling glad that I'd seen it but sad that I may not get accepted this year.

From there we went to a huge farmer's market that is right across the street. It's open every day but is bigger on the weekends as the displays extend outside of the building and in a building across the street. We meadered around and saw all different kinds of food. There were huge sections of produce, seafood, baked goods, meat, and a few restaurants. There were whole pigs and skinned rabbits that still had their eyes. That creeped me out quite a bit. In the middle, there was a kitchen supply store that had the most amazing display of baking pans and moulds I had ever seen. I don't know why I love baking pans so much, but I do. We bought some biscotti and coffee beans and looked around for some lunch.

We had some sandwiches at the deli there and headed off into the city. We walked from there to the Harbourfront Centre. It was quite a long walk but we got to see a lot of downtown that we hadn't seen yet, so it was nice. I could't get over how empty it was for the heart of downtown Toronto. John assured me that it was just because we went on a Saturday so it was all tourists, but that during the week it was packed. We passed the CN tower and the skydome just as a game was getting out, so hundreds of people were streaming out onto the street. We eventually made it to the shore of Lake Ontario and crossed a cute little walking bridge to get to the Centre for the Southeast Asian food festival.

The festival was a disappointment. We had been expecting an array of foods from all different ethnicities (the advertisements had boasted "flavours you can't find anywhere else") but all we saw were kiosks serving Indian food. There were probably at least ten different stands, all serving Indian food, except one that offered a single Malaysian dish. We had been hoping to sample a cuisine we hadn't tried before so we weren't really feeling Indian food. So we skipped the food and instead walked through the Centre, looking at the art exhibits that are there all of the time, not a part of the festival. Our friend Alisha works there so we looked for her jewelry in the displays and the gift shop, but sadly we didn't find any of it.

It was getting late into the evening by then, so we hopped onto a streetcar and went home. We were the kind of tired you get from being out in the sun all day, so we just vegged once we got home. Later that night we popped out to get some fresh air and a panzerotti from the Pizza Pizza across the street (thanks Erin!) and then came home and watched TV. We have full cable here which is an upgrade from the five channels we had in Halifax. We stayed up too late watching food network challenges and stumbled off to bed.