Balcony Garden 2013

It's that time of year again, and my green thumbs have been itching to get into the soil again and garden. Last year was the first time I tried my hand at a balcony garden and growing edibles in a space that was, to put it simply, spatially mismanaged. It was a great experience, and widened the range of my gardening possibilities. This growing season, I'm back at it again, growing new things and editing my approach from last year, to hopefully grow a second successful balcony garden.

A little elaborational tangent about gardening: I really feel gardening, growing your own botanicals or edibles, is a fulfilling and educational activity to understand the whole of life and live happier in it. Some people say they aren't the 'gardening type' (what ever that means) or that it's too hard, or that they don't have any space for it. It reminds me of when people say they can't draw and that they can only draw stick people. Besides being a statement for humour and social relatebility, it's most likely false. There might actually be people that can't draw anything but only stick people, but for the most part, it's the idea that that person has planted in their mind which makes them believe they can't draw well, thus crippling their self expectations of drawing above average and extiguishing their possibility of trying. Drawing techniques require practice, time, and patience, to develope and improve, and so does gardening. If people have an impression of gardening as something extremely labour intensive, or requiring some sort of 'talent', they wont do it. In my opinion, everyone has the ability to garden, even draw, if only they can see the possibility in themselves.

I was having lunch with a friend a couple of days ago and I was talking about how gardening can really be a teacher of life lessons and how to live happier. When I'm gardening, I'm really 'assisting'. I can choose what I want to plant and grow, but after that, the authority and control goes to nature, and I go with it. The lack of control in gardening might be why some people become frustrated when gardening, because no matter how much they try to control the outcome of their garden, it still might not turn out the way they wanted it. What a great life lesson: sometimes trying to over control things in life, out of our control, leads to stress and unsatisfaction. Gardening also requires patience, commitment, and presence, all things that we all can have more of in our fast paced lives. The best moments for me, the most happy, and regenerating, happen when I'm in my garden, silent and still, both in speech and mind. It's in stillness and silence that the fullest awareness, the most beautiful humble discoveries, and creative ideas can surface. In a way, gardening can be a form of meditation, at least for me. So whether you have a one bedroom flat with one window, or an acreage of farmland, live by the sea, or in the concrete jungle, everyone can garden in their own way. A garden can even be as simple as a couple of potted plants of basil on a window sill, or being ambitious and growing your first pepper plant, or even having a space outside your front porch for perennials to grow every spring/summer season. Gardening is what you make of it, and make mistakes, those are the best! Mistakes don't really exist, they are all just the very best learning opportunities.

So there is my elaborational tangent, moving onto the balcony garden. This year, I'm going to use the same planters as last year, with the exclusion of the large round planters I used last year to grow tomatoes, and the addition of two more oval planters, similar to the ones I used for my climber beans. This year, I'm also growing less on my balcony garden. I found that last year some of my plants didn't grow to full maturity as others did because they were too crammed together, fighting to get their share of sun and nutrients. I'm planning to grow seed bombs with edibles in them (yes I said seed bombs, explanation to come...) and my Nonna's climber beans. That's it.

First thing I did was top up my planters with rich organic soil and mixed in my go-to organic all natural kelp meal fertilizer from Urban Harvest. I was sadly surprised to hear that Urban Harvest is only a pop-up shop that relocates around the city every year, but their heirloom and organic gardening fare can be purchased on their website.

Now to the seed bomb portion. I found an amazing seed bomb kit at Anthropologie that grows edible plants.

Basically, they are little round compact forms containing a random mix of seeds, red clay, and worm castings (that will biodegrade into the soil and provide nutrients for the seeds to grow).

There are 15 seed bombs in the kit: 5 for edible flowers, 5 for herbs, and 5 for salad greens.

I dedicated my two cedar planters for the edible flowers and the two oval planters at the balcony's edge to house the salad greens and herbs. The kit suggested to crumble the seed bombs if even coveraged was desired, so I crumbled away.

Literally after a few days of absolutely divine weather, the plants started sprouting!

Edible Flowers:

Herbs:

Salad Greens:

The final plants I'm growing on my balcony garden are the climber beans my Nonna used to grow and that I started to grow last year. They are beautiful, delicious, and have deep sentimental value to me. Last year, I let some of the bean pods mature and then havested and dried their beans for this year's planting.

I germinated the beans, along with tomato seeds I harvested from my tomatoes last year (which will be planted in my backyard garden), in little anchovy jars filled with damp paper towel. These jars are amazing because their metal hinges can be positioned to prop up their glass lids and act as mini greenhouses.

I still need to buy two more oval planters for the climber beans to be placed at the edge of the balcony, that way they get loads of sunlight and can busily climb all over the railing. For now, I'm placing the germinated beans in a small pot of soil to fully sprout.

Yesterday night the weather dropped drastically and there was a predicted frost warning, so my dad helped me out by covering all the planters with burlap and I kept all the germinating jars and pots in my room. Right before I went to sleep, I noticed this at the end of the day....

Even with all the change and panic, these plants calmly and stoically grow, unfazed. Lesson learned today, face any change with strength and perseverance, no point in freaking out or stressing. Adapt with the current and thrive. The next coming week is suppose to have increasingly good weather, so I'm going to put these plants out again, remove all the burlap, and continue gardening away. If you're gardening this season, I wish you the best experiences and best results!  

Spring, a Season of Revisiting Life's Passions

Weather here in Toronto has been doing everything but making outside feel like the seasons have changed, winter to spring. There were a couple of incredibly 'spring-like' days a couple of weeks past, which only lasted to tease, and weather quickly went back to fierce howling winds and flaky flurries. Luckly, days are suppose to get warmer, and apparently wetter, so bye bye snow. This season's lack of appropriate behaviour can't fully deter the great qualities the spring season offers us, after enjoying the cosy indoor comforts of winter. Spring is as much about clearing closets as it is clearing the mind and starting anew. Things are brighter and lighter in the spring; the weather, fashion, the food we eat, our home decor. Our behaviours are parallelled with the regrowth of the plants outside our homes. It opens with the festivities of Easter, summons gardens out of their slumber, reminds us how great opening windows are to our homes, encourages us to edit our possessions and belongings, our attitudes and habits, and our ambitions for the year to come.

Easter was great this year for me. I was able to spend it with my family, both new and old. The best day for me though had to have been Good Friday. For Italians, aside from it's religious meaning, Good Friday only means one thing....fish! No meat is eaten on that day and we feast on the delicious fares of the ocean. Everyone in my family was home for the day, and we spent the whole day cooking, chatting, and relishing in each other's company (when more often than not, it's hard and rare to have everyone in the same room together).  I took pictures of the feast we cooked, some dishes 'relic-ly' traditional, others newly inspired, all made by everyone together.

This dessert is an old one, goes back as far as my Nonna's generation and probably her parents too. My Nonna used to make it at Easter, then my mom took over the tradition of making it, and this year my sister and I made it with her, passing of the torch if you will. It's a sweet Calabrian Easter bread, a pie of sorts for lack of a better comparison, but a lighter crust flavoured with extra virgin olive oil and lemon zest and filled with a sweet ricotta cheese filling. We always make a huge batch and it never lasts more than a week in our house. A nutritionist would hate me for this, but to me, it's a perfect food for breakfast lunch and dinner, and I've eaten it that way many times.

Unbaked state. My parents bought a fluted pastry dough cutter a while ago and we hadn't used it yet. I think it was meant for this dessert and was just waiting for Easter to be used.

The basket weave of the dough is a bit haphazard, but I don't mind it.

We made two cakes, that's why the baking dish is different in this picture. This one was ours, hence the gouged hole remnant of our devouring, the other one in the pictures previous was the cake we were giving to my sister's boyfriend's family. It's great to cook food, but to share it is even better, and this motto is pretty much the main reason why I do it in the first place.

The filling and the crust work symbiotically, the under-sweetened crust balances out the sweetened ricotta, and the filling adds moisture to the crunchy crust.

What better accompaniment to have with this dessert, then to make a freshly brewed espresso along side. Espresso is widely know as an Italian institution in terms of it's cultural importance and is synonymous with the Italian way of life. Italy's version of English afternoon tea, it's typically enjoyed after a meal, alongside home-made 'dolci' or 'pasticceria' (sweets and pastries). 

My family didn't really participate in the tradition of having espresso in the later afternoon when I was younger, and it's only recently that we now have it religiously once a day if we can.  In the past, it was more so my Nonna who insisted on having one every day and deeply enjoyed it. We still have her espresso brewers from Italy that serve a humble 1 espresso (or what most people refer to as a double shot). With her being gone, her absence has made my immediate family and I realise the importance of our Italian traditions, and that's most likely why we enjoy that espresso every afternoon. It's not only delicious (and the caffeine well needed to get through the day), but also a way to reconnect, catch up, and enjoy quality time together as a family. We aren't always around to enjoy our afternoon espressos together, but in the odd chance that we do, we relish it.



My ideal espresso is a 'caffe corretto', in other words a 'corrected espresso'. This is an espresso that has a small addition of some sort of liquor in it, and it's called 'corretto' because it's corrected with the addition of it. Leave it to the Italians. My two favourite liquors to add are Anice, derived from Calabria, and Sambuca, both flavoured with anise liquorish notes.

With happy stomachs, we were ready to cook our Easter feast.

Antipasto: Polpo Fritto

All you need is flour seasoned with salt, that's it. Fry until crisp and enjoy.

One thing I would have done differently, would be to slow braise the octopus and then fry them, that way they would be extremely tender. Although delicious, a pre-braise would have made these more palatable.

Risotto con Frutti di Mare: Seafood Risotto

This one was really good. We added loads of seafood and a lot of spring vegetables, so it might seem like a hoarder's risotto, but it was deeply tasty.

I attempted to make fish stock from scratch, and it actually turned out pretty good. I used a live crab and aromatics for the broth's flavour. Cooking live seafood can be a bit scary, I've heard legends that lobsters scream when being boiled alive or that if you rub the temple of a lobster's head, it puts them in an unconscious state which would prevent them from feeling any pain. I opted for the freezer method, apparently if you place a crab or lobster in the freezer, it makes them sleepy or something, but even at that there was a Tim Burton moment when the crab tried to climb out of the pot, legs sticking out of the side of the lid and all......next time I'll use a bigger pot.

Snap Peas

Grape Tomatoes

Mushrooms

Crab

Baccala (Salted Cod)

Mussels

Calamari (Squid)

I am passionate about food, and I think that stems from my upbringing. My family has always lived to eat the best food, rather than, eat so they could live another day, and this passion begins far back in my family's ancestry. My Nonno Giuseppe (mother's father) was an excellent cook and his cooking abilities were a result of necessity. Him and the other workers, all Italian immigrants that worked on the railroad in the early 1950's, had to know how to cook for themselves while they worked on the railroad in order to work and support their families with an income back home. My Nonno's ability to cook and his wife's (my Nonna) was then passed onto my mother, and thus the tradition of food became a part of her family's tradition. My father's side also had a strong connection with food. Both sides of my family have a long history of gardening and cultivating food, which most Italians do, because they come from a culture of self-sustainability, reverence for nature, and the pride of abundance and sharing.

I'm so excited that the days are becoming longer, and the weather warmer, because this means...gardening! I can't wait to get my fingers dirty with soil and start spending more time outside. I'm still going to grow two gardens again this year like I did last year, one in my backyard and one on my balcony, but this time I'm going to edit them a bit. The balcony garden will host more flowering plants than vegetables and my backyard garden will be solely edibles. The snow is pretty much gone and plants are springing up from the ground already.

Everyone has their own personal relationship with food, some similar to mine, and others who really don't care much that a tomato is heirloom or that a particular cheese has nibs of black truffle in it. But food is a big component to us, an important part of our existence, and I will go as far as to say, food is life. It gives us life and our lives revolve around it. What is usually the most used and often most valued room in a person's house? The kitchen. Everything happens in the kitchen or at the kitchen table. We laugh, cry, celebrate, and even argue around it. I know from personal experience, our kitchen is the the root of our family and our home. I grew up in the kitchen. Even when I was a little thing, I learnt the basic skills of interaction there. I learnt the feeling of pride, love and appreciation, learnt responsibility, organisation, and communication, and understood the importance of family values and cultural traditions. Food has continued to teach me greater lessions about life, and what I've also notice about food as I've grown older, and met tones of new people, food is always the best icebreaker.

What ever your life's passions are, spring is in the air, so indulge them! Gone are the lazy days of cold month procrastination with holiday excuses, my goal this year is to really be proactive and active, get things done and do things I've wanted to do but never found the time, even if there was some. Change of air, change of mind, and clearing space for a new, better, you.

Conversation on a Contemporary Karenina

I watched Joe Wright's Anna Karenina a few nights ago and in hindsight, I don't think I had any idea what I was in store for. Wow did it not disappoint and only exceeded my expectations on many many levels.

Going into this movie, after watching the trailer and seeing the acceptance speech for best costume design at this years Oscars given by the film's costume design deity Jacqueline Durran, I expected a grand period movie encrusted in tradition and as epic as the novel by Leo Tolstoy. I haven't read the novel, so I was completely blind going into this film, led only by the scent of my period movie passions. After the first couple of scenes, I quickly realised this was going to be a very different version of what I originally had predicted. It was a successful succession of weaving paradoxes: contemporary yet traditional, funny and dramatic, aesthetic but symbolic, and sensical with parts of absurdity.

I hesitate this embarrassing statement, when I write that I haven't watched any of Joe Wright's films.... It did make sense to me though, when I found out that he had previously directed Pride & Prejudice (2005) and Atonement (2007), because of his great ability to capture period literature on film in Anna Karenina. The most interesting part about the structure of this film was that it was the narrative of Tolstoy's novel acted out by the actors in a theatre setting, literally on a stage at some points, a sort of story within a play, within a movie. There were moments of pure movie magic, when one of the characters departed from one place and travelled to another, all the while, other actors moved set walls and placed props to create their new destination. Wright not only reinterprets the story, but also revives the art of set design and lighting, and spotlights it in appreciation and recognition, in an era when movies often feature actors performing in green rooms. The places in the movie become a living, breathing, and changing player in the plot, which allows the story to straddle the line between the real and surreal. This surrealism bled into many typical scenes found in period films of aristocratic expression, one being the ball scene. Instead of dancing traditional courting waltzes, the actors performed a dance that was completely contemporary and heavily symbolic, with each movement suggesting the temptations, romance, and conflicts of the characters in modern movements and spacial gestures.

The costume design.....oh the costume design! Jacqueline Durran, who also designed the costumes for Wright's Pride & Prejudice and Atonement, reinterprets the costumes of a time period of Russian elegance while remaining true to the period. Keira Knightley was styled in a way to express the wild beauty of Karenina and her youthful vivacity. Luxurious fabrics in deep jewely colours mixed with exaggerated silhouettes, asymmetrical designs and unique accessories, created a visual plethora of opulence and creativity.

The cinematography of the movie looked outside the common screen shots and visual compositions used in films. I remember one particular scene when Anna Karenina finds out her lover, Vronsky, was cheating on her and the confrontation wasn't filmed face to face, but in the reflection of an interior mirror, emphasising the fact that this truth was so painful and fatal for Anna that she could only survive the inception of this truth through a reflection and not through the direct eyes of her lover. The use of lighting emphasised moments of madness, reason, romance, shame, and pain. Theatrical drama at it's best. Scenes were so rich in colour and emotion, it reminded me of a Baz Luhrmann film, like a Russian Moulin Rouge.

This movie is a must watch, for its grandeur, romance and emotional struggle, its spotlight on the creative and genius craft of the artists behind the design of movies,  and its raw expressions of the passions of love.

Nadège Patisserie

Lately, I've been trying to get back into my visual arts practise and get involved in seeing more gallery shows and artists. Before this year started, I was quite convinced that my future career would reside in the fashion world, but I soon realised that that might not be the case. In the past, to be unsure of what career I wanted to follow and what direction I wanted my life to go in was an enormous stress. Over time, I've learnt that channelling my energy this way was a complete waste both emotionally and productively. Now I simply try to see things as this: to be unsure of what I want to do in my life is actually the reminder that all my options are still open and I haven't closed any doors.

It's this mentality, along with determination, ambition, courage to seek out new experiences, and the open mindedness to learn and do as much as I can in this life, is where I feel I'll find my career and my way of life. This approach is a double edged sword though because, if one is too complacent in 'going with the flow' and doesn't actively work, change, and seize opportunities, ones life can get as stagnant as a man-made pond.

As much as I love fashion, my heart has always been with visual arts, I've studied it most of my life. Right now I feel it's the most 'right' thing to develop and explore in my life, so I'm going to go with it. I feel that fashion and fine art can have a symbiotic relationship, and both can become more interesting because of it.

Now you're probably wondering what this post has to do with the title, pardon my round-aboutness, but trust me, it does. I've made it a point to go to as many gallery shows as possible and immerse myself in the Toronto art scene, regardless of my northern suburbian dwelling. Although there are great galleries and organisations for art in Toronto all over the city, the predominance of galleries featuring new art from young up-and-coming artists is along Queen West. Not only are there loads of galleries but there are also great vintage/second hand stores, vinyl record stores, and eateries/coffee shops, a truly eclectic experience.

Two days ago,  I had a couple of gallery shows I wanted to check out and luckily had the day off work, so I trekked down through some pretty nippy cold weather for a Queen West adventure. Anytime I'm in the area, what ever I'm there for, I always try to make it a point and find any form of justification to pop into Nadège Patisserie. In my opinion, one of the BEST french pastry shops I've ever been to. Think superbly made, explosively flavourful french inspired baked goods and confections with a contemporary and whimsical twist. Their puff pastries are flaky and tender, their mini versions of their cakes are so divinely delicious and haute couturely made, that it's difficult every time to accept the inevitable act of devour them, and they have the best french macaroons I've ever tasted. Trust me when I say this isn't just an inflated biased opinion from an enthusiast. I am an enthusiast, that is true, but Nadège is this good.

Beautifully designed, the space features a glass window at the end of the room where customers can watch the talented pastry chefs at work (this great photo is from their facebook page). 

Here's only some of the fare that I've tasted from this Torontonian jem of a boutique bakery.

The night I had these was the very first time I ate at Nadège. I remember it was a damp drizzly night, the type of weather that sticks to your bones, and to enter such a bright cheery place was more than welcoming. I was with a friend I hadn't seen in a while and it was our first time there, we had a blast! These are the mini cakes I was talking about earlier. You can order larger versions of these desserts for parties or special occasions. The beauteous one in the back is the 'Marie Antoinette' and the tart in the front is an earl grey grapefruit tart.

Just when you thought the outside was beautiful, the inside reveals the masterful artistry of their construction.

I remember this meal when I hit the town on a buzzing summer day and couldn't refuse the opportunity to dine outside on their patio. The shop is right next to Trinity Bellwoods Park, so the sights and sounds of greenery and people about town were perfect company for dining 'da soli' (by yourself). Along with their sweet treats, Nadège makes great savoury sandwiches, so I had their sandwich of the day, an elderflower soda, and two macaroons, one pistachio and the other chocolate chai.

Another time, I shared these three puffed prises with my mom, we made a day of it, walking through vintage stores for a birthday present for my sister, and felt we earned these just rewards. The first is a hazelnut apple danish, the second is an almond croissant with marzipan inside, and the third I don't quite remember, but something delicious!

We washed them down with an iced espresso each. I was surprised to see what their version of table sugar to sweeten drinks was a mix of brown and white sugar in the raw.

For my birthday last year, I wanted to treat my family and I to one of their cakes. I remember it was a hot September day and I went straight from work to pick it up in person. I was so scared that the heat and my (what felt like) Olympic speed walking to the subway would have ruined it, but the cake proved to be made of stronger stuff.

I don't remember what the name of this cake was or what was in it exactly, but all I remember was it had a saffron custard, and that pretty much sold it for me. I also love how they decorated it, simple, elegant, and to the point.

This was another solo dinning venture I had before going to a friend's gallery show closing. First was a grilled vegetable goat's cheese sandwich, second a pistachio baked beauty, and finally a toasty cappuccino to sip while I caught up on some writing. Dining alone might seem a bit solemn, but I find occasionally doing it is relaxing and recharging, allowing for a bit of time to catch up on reading, writing, and enjoying quite space other than your home. I don't know, to me, it's indulgent.

Nadège Patisserie is a must visit when you're in the Queen West area. Everyone is extremely friendly, the interior is beautiful, and the food is exceptional, worth every last penny!

Here's a link to their website and like them on their facebook page.