Every Monday, we round up the most exciting music news happening in Toronto. In this edition, Arts & Crafts marks its 10-year anniversary with a music festival (including a performance by Broken Social Scene), Rachel Zeffira drops a new single and Minotaurs play The Tranzac Club.
Friday Restaurant Recap rounds up the week’s Toronto restaurant news. In this edition: pinball and beer steins unite, a new dessert bar for downtown, a new kosher deli on Bathurst Street and more.
Though you still see them everywhere, wearing jeans in the winter is pretty inadvisable if you’re planning on skipping the thermals underneath. Instead of having the windchill freeze the denim to your legs, you might want to stop by Ossington’s Philip Sparks to pick up a pair of these flannel-lined jeans.
This fruit-driven red from the little-known Paso Robles region is dense purple in colour with a smoky blackcurrant and vanilla oak nose. The fruit is sweet and succulent, full on the palate with a rich blackcurrant flavour and soft tannins. Its muscular nature calls for a hearty meat dish.
The Penelopiad is Margaret Atwood’s response to The Odyssey. Based on Atwood’s novella of the same name, this play (presented by Nightwood Theatre) tells the story of Penelope, who is in charge of the kingdom of Ithaca in Odysseus’ absence. When a play begins with the line, “Now that I’m dead, I know everything,” you know this isn’t going to be a boring lecture on Greek mythology from your school days.
Sadly, buying a designer handbag doesn’t happen as often as most of us would like. Usually, we’re left to gaze upon our most coveted favourites as they’re lined up lovingly at Holt Renfrew or The Room. But if saving up for a new “it” bag is your goal, why not stay on track with some daily visual inspiration?
Last month, Toronto City Council took an important step toward establishing a Toronto City Museum at Casa Loma by supporting my motion, along with those by Coun. Joe Mihevc, regarding its use and governance. Council endorsed our idea to ask for expressions of interest from Torontonians to create a space to display our shared history in a historical place.
Much of this year has been unseasonably warm. Due to this heat, I’ve heard from many tenants in our community that their apartments have been uncomfortable and that getting a good night’s sleep, in particular, has been difficult. That’s why I put forward a motion at city council that seeks to establish appropriate room temperatures for renters.
New or improved recreation areas are becoming especially vital with the increasing intensification of midtown Toronto by new condo developments. During the past year, we’ve opened a new playground at Oriole Park, a splash pad and farmers’ market at June Rowlands Park and are working on improvements to the Kay Gardner Beltline, Winston Churchill and Forest Hill Road parks. Perhaps nowhere is this need for more green space more apparent than at Yonge and Eglinton, a provincially mandated growth centre.
With so many new Midtown residents living in high-rises, it is vital that the public realm keep up with the growth in population. It is a fact that public spaces provide a social meeting place, and there is increasing evidence showing the long-term social and mental health benefits of these spaces. As Midtown continues building … Continued
Bourbon is everywhere these days, including in the barrels that Ryan Morrow, Nickel Brook’s head brewer, uses for some of the entries in his quickly expanding barrel-aged beer catalogue. A notable example is the Old Kentucky Bastard, which sees the popular Bolshevik Bastard Russian Imperial Stout aged for more than a year in Buffalo Trace bourbon barrels.
Whether you’re a baseball fan or not, there’s probably no one as entertaining or head-scratchingly bizarre to follow on Twitter right now than Jose Canseco. Last week, the former slugger took to his favourite social network to declare his plans to run against Rob Ford in a potential by-election. Even though he has admitted he can’t run due to his American citizenship, he continues to campaign via his Twitter hashtag, #yeswecanseco.
