Broken streetcar

Originally uploaded by Maria in Toronto

Today is Family Day, a new holiday in the Canadian calendar. To celebrate the day off we went to Squirly’s for brunch.

I was riding the Queen Streetcar eastbound to make it back home when, at Queen and Bathurst, the streetcar made a weird noise, like a bang. The driver got up and checked something in between both parts of the streetcar but came back. We drove another long-block just before Spadina. The streetcar then went kinda dead, after another loud bang. We were then told that there was a mechanical problem, to wait a little bit and then we would be told what to do. About 1 minute later we were told we had to get off the streetcar because it was broken.

There were about 3 streetcars that arrived behind the broken one, and the driver directed traffic to get rid of the cars that were between the broken streetcar and the next one. Then they tied them together with some type of special crane or something, and a TTC vehicle arrived to help. After about 25 minutes the second streetcar left pushing the broken streetcar and we boarded the one that was right behind.
The broken streetcar was pushed all along Queen street to Greenwood, where the yard is.

It is unfortunate that streetcars are so old they’re breaking down in the middle of the street, but all in all, the response from the TTC was great. It is also way different to appreciate what’s happening if you have been there all along, as I was, as opposed to be waiting a few stops ahead and not know why no streetcar has shown up in half an hour. All the people that were waiting at Spadina, including me, were aware of the situation and there were no bad moods or anything. If only there was any way of letting people waiting at other stops what’s going on it would look so much better on behalf of the TTC.

It’s that time of year again, and I’m really excited about it. I just got the 09 Visitors’ Guide to the Stratford Shakespeare Festival. Lots of cool productions and theatre-related activities.
For example, Tuesdays in March there will be a series of Public Lectures at the Toronto Reference Library, there will be lectures on Macbeth, Julius Caesar, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, all by Shakespeare (the plays, not the lectures, haha) and Bartholomew Fair by Ben Jonson (again it’s the play by Ben Jonson, not the lecture. There’s more information about the lectures on the Toronto Reference Library events website.
There are way more activities happening in Stratford and I can say nothing but good things of the last time I attended the festival.

Apart from those plays, they will also be showing Three Sisters by Anton Chekhov, The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde, and like 10 more, check out the schedule on their website.

Student shows start in April (cheaper tickets) and the full-blown festival will be opening the first week of May. It is all really exciting, really.

Tickets are for sale now to the General Public on their website or by dialing 1-800-567-1600.

The Stratford Festival is a celebration of theatre that started with a Shakespearean theme but is now dedicated to all types of classical theatre. It even plays musicals. This year it’ll be West Side Story (it being an adaptation of Romeo and Juliet and what not). I love all that The Stratford Festival does for theatre, like school programs for young theatre enthusiasts, workshops, and university courses like at the University of Windsor and U of T. The arts are an important part of a well-rounded education, that’s also why I like opera so much.

We’re planning on getting tickets for a play or two and making it a full-weekend getaway during the summer.

This recipe is super garlicky and not for the faint of heart. To make it a bit friendlier decrease the amount of garlic in the pesto.

Ingredients:
2 cups tightly pressed fresh basil
2 heads of garlic
1 pint cherry tomatoes
Olive oil
3 cups assorted mushrooms (I used shitake and cremini, but you can use portobello, white, oyster, etc.)
Fresh long pasta (I used fetuccine from St. Lawrence Market)
Salt and pepper to taste
Dehydrated garlic to taste
1 oz cooking sherry

Instructions:
There are 2 parts to this recipe, the pesto, which is raw, and the pasta with mushrooms.

To make the pesto:
Finely chop the tomatoes or chop them in the food processor. Add some salt and leave them in a strainer to get rid of the excess water.

After about 10 minutes, the tomatoes will be rid of their excess water. Put them back in the food processor along with the basil and the peeled cloves of one head of garlic. You can also add about one teaspoon of dehydrated garlic if you want. Chop finely.

When all the ingredients are finely chopped in the food processor, add about 2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil. This will give the pesto its saucy consistency. Add salt and pepper to taste. Set aside.

To make the pasta and mushrooms:
Chop the mushrooms and the cloves of 1 head of garlic.

Stir fry the chopped garlic in about 2 tablespoons of olive oil, when the garlic is softened, add the mushrooms and keep stir frying. Add salt and pepper to taste. When mushrooms are cooked (about 4 minutes) add one shot of sherry. Cover and let boil for about 1 minute.
Meanwhile, cook the pasta in lots of salted water according to instructions. The fresh pasta from St. Lawrence Market takes about 4 minutes to be al dente.
When pasta is ready, toss it into the warm soupy mushrooms (my pasta looks red because I got tomato pasta).

Let the pasta absorb the mushroom juices for about 1 minute.
Serve in a big spaghetti bowl. Add the pesto on top.

Enjoy, and be careful with all that garlic. No, seriously, I was kind of crying at the end of my dinner. But it was goood!

Tonight I’m planning on making lentil soup in my pressure cooker. Not the Mexican style lentil soup that I posted recently. This time I’m planning on making “normal” style, with carrots, celery and spinach.
The past week I haven’t cooked much at home, I was planning on doing so yesterday, but it was so cold in Toronto it reached -24 or something. I just couldn’t find the will to go to the supermarket to get the ingredients. I have some rice at home and that’s what I was going to make for dinner, but James suggested going to The Richmond Rogue for dinner and it was so much better. We still froze on our way there and back, though, even if it’s like 300 metres from our building.
The funny thing is that I had been to the Rogue the previous evening as well, this time with Wendy, we went for a nice dinner and drinks after work. Ah well, I had different things for dinner both nights.