Will there be fries with that charity?
Last week I was all about the size of our waists. This week I’m all about supporting McDonalds. I’m not suggesting you run out and supersize yourself. Far from it. And if you know me, and some of you truly believe you do, you know I would never blame a fun-food/fast-food establishment for the shape […]
The basics
There’s a basic process for making wine. Grapes are grown all summer and harvested in the fall. The exact harvest date is a last-minute decision by the winemaker. They have to manage four things: sweetness, flavour, weather and labour. As summer turns to Fall, grapes begin ripening faster and faster. Every few days the winemaker […]
Bossy
I’m going to get all bossy, again, this week. I know you’ve got a junk drawer in your kitchen. Yeah, you do. Dig around and see if you have a measuring tape, and not one of those metal measuring tapes you’d use for drywall and two-by-fours. The fabric tape, it’s flexible. Tape in hand, haul […]
Let the bells ring out, let the banners fly
When I was a little kid, our Grade three teacher asked our class if we knew what “the elephant in the room” meant. Who knows why she asked? I didn’t. For sure, a classroom full of eight-year-old students didn’t know. Miss Cruise urged us to think about it. I remember sticking my hand up and […]
Meeting Meter Number 2
I have bone to pick. With a parking meter. In particular, with meter number 2 in the Market Lane parking lot in Picton. The meters are a recent addition to what used to be free parking space, but I’m not denying the County the right to charge for parking. What I’m upset about is the […]
Lazy hazy day
Ahh, the dog days of summer are here. In the summer days of my youth, I remember spending the early morning hours being outof- doors either biking or playing move-ups or hide ’n’ seek or pop-tag with my siblings and the kids in the neighbourhood. Around noon, the neighbourhood moms would call their brood in […]
The Shark Week surprise
Just when you thought it was safe to venture back into the chilly waters of municipal politics without having to think about the size of council, along comes a shark in the form of Premier Doug Ford and his plan to shrink Toronto’s council effective this fall. Appropriately, he announced it during Shark Week. Many […]
Topsoil therapy
When our kids were much younger and dependent upon LOML and me for meals and a roof over their heads, I discovered the serenity of gardening. (Don’t even think of doing a drive-by to see what a gardener’s garden looks like these days.) I’m not now, and never have been, very good at gardening or […]
Smell? What smell?
I remember about 15 years ago I was staying in an apartment hotel in Toronto’s Chinatown district when I was almost overcome by the stink emanating from down the hall. Venturing nervously towards the source of the odour, I found myself in the presence of an oddly shaped spiky vegetable-like thingy that I now know […]
Cake, Atomic Number 900
On my birthday, last week, I served up an epic cake failure to my family. I wanted to bake my own birthday cake this year. I like baking. It’s one of those things I usually do fairly well. Baking is one of those things I enjoy doing. So I asked LOML if he’d mind not […]