Uninhabited Spaces

Just around the corner from the southern end of our street is the new "Food Hub" of the West End Food Co-op . They just opened in October, and while we actually went in on their opening day, we only just became members today. The Cooperative is committed to creating a sustainable local community food culture in the Parkdale area. They opened a Farmer's Market in 2008 in Sorauren Park, and a Community Cannery in 2010.  The Food Hub is home to both a grocery store as well as a Community Kitchen, home to the Cannery as well as educational opportunities, events, training, and workshops. For our first purchases we decided to get a pound of organic Nicaraguan medium roast from Alternative Grounds - a roaster of certified fair trade coffee located in neighbouring Roncesvalles, and a baking mix of Oat Scones (with whole ground Red Fife, oats and spelt) from Grain Storm , a company that produces baking mixes using only organic heritage grains (as opposed to modern commodity whe...

A loyal reader recently chided me for not having updated my blog in quite a while. I  have actually surpassed the 500 posts mark, which is pretty darn impressive, yet my publishing rate has decreased in direct proportion to my work volume. So, firstly, apologies dear readers. I will endeavour to be more productive on the blogging front. And, secondly, I was curious to know more about my readers. Blogger tells me that I've had over 47,000 page views since I started this blog; that the top-5 views by country are U.S., Canada, UK, Netherlands, and Poland; 66% of my visitors use Chrome as their browser, and 73% are using Windows as their OS. The most-read post is my May 25, 2010 entry entitled " I love New York in the spring ". [Just so you know, that lovely photo of me and Mark was taken at Toronto's La Societe , at which we enjoyed a wonderful brunch with our dear friends, Karen and Jen, in the Fall. Always nice to share a good photo and, really, have you ever see...