This is Scandinavian cooking entry number two, again featuring another beautiful piece of fish bought from “Hooked” in Leslieville in Toronto, and again inspired by “New Scandinavian Cooking” chef Andreas Viestad. The dish is actually meant for Herring, but good luck finding it in the GTA — even just the frozen kind. Mackerel was the perfect substitute… we also had to substitute rutabaga in for turnips. Basically we fried up bacon, added in celeriac and rutabaga and fried it up, then took it out of the pan and combined it with diced carrot, apple and parsley. The fish was salted and peppered, as well as given a coating of mustard, then fried in the bacon grease (is your mouth drooling yet?) and once it was seared on both sides, plated and piled with the roots.  Check out NewScanCook for the details. I’m looking forward to making this again.

Thanks to a wonderful Christmas gift, I had the pleasure of attending Mercurcy Espresso Bar’s first ever coffee class! Hosted by Matthew and Doug, the evening was a casual yet informative night, where we learned about some coffee history and took part in a wide variety of cupping techniques.

We had a very small group, only about 10 people or so, with a few regulars I recognized from the shop. The night lasted about two and a half hours, with Matthew and Doug answering many questions about techniques and flavours. I won’t write too much about it, because I don’t want to spoil the surprise of what happens for future classes… but if you’re a seriously coffee lover, do yourself a favour and check out a class if you get a chance!

I’ve always wondered what it would be like to open my own coffee shop, and after the class I felt way more confident in my own coffee knowledge, but it was enlightening to see the passion these guys had for the bean, and the passion that went into their shop. It made me jealous. Maybe it’s time for a barista class or a few part time shifts? If they ever need someone to focus solely on various forms of drip, I’m all over it.

You can find out more about the Mercury Espresso bar at their blog here, or stay updated with their twitter feed.

Unlike many of my favourite spots at Queen and Bathurst that have long since disappeared (Zap Records, Travel Cafe, Suspect Video), Abraham is still going strong with his amazing collection of totally random techniques.

Now, he’s renovated his shop, and it appears to be over three to four times the size it previously was… and I suspect that it won’t stay that way for long. The main thing I like about the reno is that the space looks far more composed than it ever has before… you have always been able to tell he arranges his shop like a giant living art installation, but with the revamp, you can take in the giant canvas far more easily.

While I’ve only ever bought vintage art pieces from his shop, I’ve always been tempted to find out what he charges for his music equipment: there’s walls and walls and walls of guitars, guitar bodies, guitar necks, and a massive shelf of vintage microphones available for rent.

Abraham himself is a stand-up guy himself, with extensive knowledge about his stuff, and is more than willing to work out a good, fair price for it. I know that some people find him intimidating to approach, but once you get him talking, you can tell that he takes a lot of pride in what he does.

I love Leslieville and it’s quaint little mid-century modern stores like GUFF and Ethel, I wish the east side had a shop like Abraham’s, the kind of place you can get lost in (and not think that everything is junk).

(Read more about Abraham in this City News piece from last year… some great photos there too)

Since moving to Toronto over five years ago, lots has changed around the city. Yonge and Bloor has been demolished, there’s an aiport on the island, and Queen between Degrassi and Coxwell is cool.

I first moved to the city while I was finishing an e-Journalism program at Loyalist College in Belleville, doing an unpaid internship at the old CTV.ca news website in Agincourt. I stayed at my then girlfriend’s parents house in the East side of town, just half a block south of Lahore Tikka in Little India, near Gerrard and Greenwood.

Eventually I moved out to Queen and Bathurst in a small, cheap, one bedroom basement apartment and because we were on the Queen line, we’d take that epic ride West on the 501 when I visited. At the time, it was a sketchy thing going out that way… once you passed by Yonge and the Eaton centre, you passed by Moss Park, Parliament, Regent Park, then over the DVP. South Riverdale rolled by with Jillys, Dangerous Dans, the Real Jerk and the Opera House, then a whole lot of mechanic shops and nothing until I’d eventually get to Greenwood.

It seems overnight that things at Queen and Greenwood have changed, and I think it started with Film Buff and the Red Rocket coffee place. After the hood survived the “No Box Stories in Leslieville” movement, the new identity cemented itself this summer with Chino Locos, Cream and Celil Cottage all popping up and just exploding with popularity, drawing a crowd like the strip has never seen before.

So now, in September 2009, it seems like Leslieville has hit a tipping point, and is on the verge of maybe changing for the worse. Unlike Ossington, which has seen it’s own explosion of change in the last couple years, Leslieville never had the “party problem.” Sure, there’s lots of places to grab a drink down there, even in the newly opened Cottage and Roy Roy, but Leslieville has never had a real “venue” where live music or DJs could hold spin deep into the night.

It makes sense that it hasn’t happened yet; the east end is still very family focused… it’s quiet, and people are generally hanging around, waiting to be scene. You’ll find students living there, sure, but I would wager it’s alot of young adults looking for a little peace and quiet, some good food and art, without getting caught up in the so-called pretensiousness of life West of Bathurst.

But all it will take is one live venue with a half decent booker and all those hold-out store fronts will convert and the party will finally come. And I’m looking square at the Duke at Queen and Leslie as ground zero for this to happen… it already has dive bar cred, and if it needs to, I imagine it can pack in a crowd.

For now, Leslieville remains an indie version of the Beaches, and will probably always be a little less cool, and a little less dangerous than Riverdale South, just to the West.

With this challenge, I often find myself inspired by the great Toronto design blog, KITKA, who are always making me jealous of their amazing vintage finds and their ongoing danish-inspired cottage renovation. They’re always spying on great trends and designs, and I can’t recommend visiting their site enough!

With that said, one of the recent updates we made to our apartment was finally clearing away all the black IKEA storage boxes out of our windowsill, which were great for privacy, but kept out too much natural light. Instead, we re-potted a combination plant that our friend Amanda gave us earlier this year which we’ve successfully kept alive for many months. We put them in this trio of clay planters that we found by chance at Canadian Tire while hunting for a replacement air filter (in our little apartment, we go through them a lot).

One of the techniques we’ve used in the past for decorating our apartment is using simple, bold coloured items to bring some eye-catching detail to our pad, and attract attention to the bright objects instead of our seas of beige walls.

I’ve always loved royal blue (black is still my favourite colour… even if it technically isn’t one), and after spotting this painted lawn chair outside a Leslieville antique store, I was inspired to keep my eye out for something along these lines.  Our clay pots work exactly the way as the blue chair, and really give a sense of vibrancy to the green of the plant and the sun-soaked concrete that lies outside our window.

Stay tuned for more post about interior design ideas for little apartments, and if you have any design blogs that I should add to my Google Reader, please pass them on!