Thursday, August 22, 2013

Hey: where’d the summer go?

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Solo summer dinner: roast chicken club salad, G&T and the latest BA.



























I honestly can’t remember a summer that went by so quickly while never quite feeling all that summery. We mostly missed out on the suffocating moist heat that has choked Toronto the past couple of summers, but neither did we have very many truly “nice” days. At least, that’s how it seems it retrospect. Part of it maybe was due to spending the early part of the summer settling into our new apartment, getting the place set up and painted. Or maybe it’s just that summer is kind of lame (I’m a Mr. Autumn Man if there ever was one).



That said, summer 2013 had its moments. The Swedish Chef rolled through town, which saw us hit Momofuku Noodle Bar for a gut-busting fried chicken feast. (See here and here for our respective perspectives).

The high water mark of our summer was back during the August long weekend, when D and I headed “up north” to a rental cabin up between North Bay and Algonquin Park for a weekend of canoeing, star-gazing, beer-drinking, book-reading, relaxing and grilling. Ah, grilling. I miss it. I did some wonderful giant steaks, grilled spice rubbed chicken (using the rub from here) and some sausages. But the real revelation was the s’morewich. What is a s’morewich, you ask? Um, it’s a s’more sandwich, you novice. Nutella, marshmallow fluff, and graham crackers in a baguette. Watch the video here to learn all about it. Was it good? Well, I think my expression says it all.

One thing that I’ve been trying out is to eat a little healthier during the day. Lunch is the meal where I end up eating the most crap and spending the most money; all those burritos and cookies add up in more ways than one. So for the last two weeks (bar one day) I’ve brought salad to work at lunch and snacked mainly on fruit (apples dipped with almond butter is the best thing) and nuts. It’s a small tweak really, but I do feel better during the day and the changes seems to be reflected in my bank balance, if not the size of my belly. I’ve also been cutting back a bit on beer (which is pretty tough given how many amazing craft beer places are popping up in this town) and drinking more gin and tonics. Gin and tonics are awesome.

Other than that, from both the life and food standpoints, it’s been relatively uneventful. While technically summer hangs around for a few weeks yet and we’ve got plenty on our plates before the leaves turn, I’m pretty ready and excited to put the ol’ sweater on and dig out the Dutch ovens.

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