Toronto skyline by -nikkon-

How do you make the Toronto mayoral race interesting?

Well, I dunno if I have a definitive answer to that, but there’s a bunch of stuff you can do to prevent it from being less relevant.

I mean, the first televised debate earlier this week on local all-news CP24 was mangled pretty good. Judging by the reaction from the few remaining media outlets not owned by Rogers Communications, I wasn’t the only one underwhelmed by the ADD spectacle. This was made more acute by the fact CP24 is owned by Citytv which is owned by CTVglobemedia, a Rogers joint. I wouldn’t be surprised if Rogers already owns a controlling interest in Toronto City Life. Monopolistic issues aside, none of these organizations is exactly new to this type of thing, so their combined wisdom really should’ve produced something a bit more substantial.

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After welcoming Amber Dawn to the fold I decided I wouldn’t count anymore. I have every confidence that you can do that yourself, dear reader. :)

Besides, I wouldn’t assign a number to Matthew Del Biondi; he’s a little too much of himself to be categorized in that manner.

As a weekly feature contributor Matt will be giving us the video lowdown on Toronto’s social, arts, and party scenes, not necessarily in that order. Perhaps this isn’t an adequate description. To be honest, I didn’t ask him to elaborate, mostly because I like to be surprised.

In fact, I don’t really know much about Mr. Biondi. Mr. Del Biondi? Judging by his last name I’d guess he’s Italian. Judging by his MySpace account I’d say he’s an artist. Judging by his YouTube channel I’d surmise he’s a bit of a social butterfly with something to say. And judging by the initial email he sent me in which he mentioned seeing a TCL advert hanging in a local supermarket, he must live within a few blocks. Or he comes down here to buy groceries. :)

In any event, I’m very pleased to welcome Matt to the TCL team! I’ve been assured that what he has in store for TCL will be something different, but just like you I’ll have to be patient to find out exactly what that is. If involves “Life” in the “City” of “Toronto”, as I’m sure it will, it’ll be right up my alley.

So welcome, Matt! Super glad to have you with us. :D

This morning, on my way through Allan Gardens to get my daily jitter, I noticed a City of Toronto truck parked smack in the center of the central path with a curly-haired city employee standing beside it waving down passing cyclists. After a brief lecture the cyclists all dismounted and walked their bikes until over-the-shoulder glances confirmed that the guy was no longer looking, at which point they got back on and rode off.

“What gives?”, was my initial reaction, but without a jolt of caffeine and the other magical energy ingredients found in my canned morning concoction, I’m pretty much useless at that time of day, so that’s as far as that line of questioning went.

But once I got back to the flat and downed all 473 millilitres of liquid inspiration it suddenly dawned on me that something in the park was amiss, so I grabbed my camera and my curiosity and headed back.

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Aha! I finally figured out why the smell of frying food conjures up such strong feelings of summer. And it isn’t all funnel cakes either.

The whole synesthetic experience must’ve started when I was still doing my ex-pat thing overseas. It was on the tropical island of Taiwan where winter temperatures hardly dipped below 10 Celsius (50 Fahrenheit), and the summers we non-stop steam baths regularly hitting 40 Celsius (104 Fahrenheit), that I  first made the association. After a few years of that, the link between summer heat and fried food musta just burned into my brain, I guess.

The fried food part of the equation is my favourite Taiwanese breakfast, usually eaten in small roadside shops surrounded by greasy steam and greasier customers.

The three most common meals at such establishment are, as I recall, lobogau, diced fried daikon (giant white radish), congee, a cold soup consisting of rice, some kind of shredded meat, and a variety of veggie / nut toppings, and dan bing, which I’ll be discussing here and the only thing that I actually enjoyed in the mornings. (Fried radish — gross!)

The name dan bing comes from the Mandarin words “ji dan” (chicken eggs), and “bing” (platter or plate – or ice if mispronounced). It’s usually accompanied by “nai cha”, literally “milk tea”, but with whitener being used instead of real milk — for a variety of reasons. Incidentally, this is also the secret ingredient in Tea Shop 168’s milk teas, unsurprisingly since this is also a Taiwanese company. (With tapioca in the milk tea —  buble milk tea — it’s called “jinju nai cha”.)

Dan bing is super easy to make:

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Hurray for Flickr submissions! Here’s another randomly chosen one from TCL’s photo pool:

“City walk” by Chris A.K.A. Shrek

I’ve been sitting in front of this computer for almost three days straight, working my blogging mojo to maximum capacity and barely moving an inch. Were I able to effectively aim the same soda I drank not long ago back into it’s original bottle, I would. The weather helped a bit – not May-like at all, cold and damp and overcast. But once the sore ass begins there’s little else to do but throw on a jacket and and take that ass out for some fresh air.

The moment my foot hit the ground outside the flat, the skies parted like some miraculous scripture moment and the sun beamed down on my swollen buttocks, urging them on. I can’t say I believe in the supernatural unless I personally experience it myself, but damn if that didn’t feel like a sign.

So with the sun shining happily on my perambulating backside, I chose somewhat arbitrarily to head down Queen Street East again. I did The Beach not too long ago, but the stretch between there and the Don Valley I kinda glossed over, and that’s a shame because it’s also a terrific area, very picturesque and Bohemian in its own way. The stretch encompasses the former villages of Riverdale and Leslieville, one of the first few towns to be gobbled up by a growing Toronto (you’re next, Peel, Markham, Vaughan, and Pickering!). So not unsurprisingly the main Queen Street strip has a really nice, old town feel to it, but it’s well maintained. Well, most of it anyway.

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Another contributor, can you believe it, dear reader?

Joining TCL as a Syndicated Contributor is Amber Dawn Pullin who does her own bit of dabbling in urban Toronto life over at amber dawn’s non-paper journal.

As a Syndicated Contributor Amber doesn’t write directly for TCL. Rather, I occassionally scour her blog for posts that I think you might like and, with her permission, re-publish them here. And feel free to comment on the posts — I’ll try to nudge Amber to take a look, possibly even answer.

Of course, dear reader, you’re welcome to let me know if I’m making editorial errors. In other words, if you’re clamorin’ for more Amber, gimme a holler. And there’s always the option of visiting her blog too, right?

So welcome to the Legion of Downtown Super Villains, Amber! (Sorry if I didn’t mention that last bit in my emails. Membership is mandatory.)

It’s been years since anything like this was attempted and, let’s be honest, this is a survey that all of Toronto has been waiting far too long for. I understand that you, dear reader, may not know the first thing about most, if not all, of these people and that’s perfectly okay. I might suggest that not knowing some of these folks’ backgrounds may make them sexier. The idea here is to be entirely superficial. :)

I think it’ll be fun to leave the poll open until the fall election when all of these faces may change. Perhaps we can correlate the sexiness factor with incumbency.

In the meantime, pick the three sexiest guys and gals (feel free to vote as much as the system will allow), and I’ll try my best to deliver the good news to the winning two offices — one lady, one gent — when the numbers are all in. “Hottest Toronto Councillor 2010” — that’d look nice on a plaque.

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Every now and again, when people learn about what I do (did), they ask me earnestly why I’d choose to stay in Toronto.

Easy to answer: it’s an awesome city. As soon as the right people are at the helm at City Hall, it’ll be truly world-class. In some ways the city is already busting at the seams in this regard, it’s simply the government that keeps reining it in.

Election day is coming and, regardless of this, the city is blooming with construction, flowers, and lovely ladies. And as I’m sure I’ve mentioned, I’ve seen a good selection of cities; enough to know that I haven’t seen nearly enough. Toronto isn’t the cheapest, or the cleanest, or the busiest, or the biggest, but it’s also not the dirtiest, most boring, barren, or small by any means. Any tourists that complain about deficiencies in these areas are, well, tourists. The city’s way bigger than that (have you see how little I’ve covered in TCLand?), and growing by leaps and bounds. Frickin’ jackhammer outside my window right now, in fact.

With so much growth it’s extremely important to keep a steady vision otherwise it could get real messy. Here’s a great example: the new designs recently unveiled for the new north hall of St. Lawrence Market. The market has been around since basically Toronto’s been here but the north hall, which to me resembles a stripped-down school gymnasium, is much newer. On Saturdays local growers truck in their produce and on Sundays it’s an antique market.

I know I’ve probably mentioned this before but I know that many people don’t get a chance to visit that area, so to help you out I’ve taken photos from approximately the same locations as in the literature. That way you can see the before and proposed-after shots.

The design teams for the north hall project are split up into five colours but obviously the orange team is the best. A rooftop garden? Hells yeah!

Anyhow, here they are, winner to be decided by committee. :(

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