Step-by-step photo account of today’s TTC strike

St George Station, 9:00 AM
Originally uploaded by Maria in Toronto.

“The TTC failed us again”, a gentleman said to me this morning. St. George STation, 9:00 AM. There was a sign that said “So sorry, on strike”, the doors were locked.
Spadina Station, 5:05 PM. People were gathering outside the station hoping they could get back home after (unlike TTC Union workers) a hard day working.
King and Bathurst, 6:00 PM. All the streetcars were lining up on King St., but they weren’t moving.
St. Andrew Station, 8:20 PM. Although the streetcars had been going on for about one hour, the subway station was still closed.

TTC on strike

King and Bay, 8:50 AM
Originally uploaded by Maria in Toronto.

Last night before going to bed I heard that there may be a strike this morning. Of course there was a strike. A strike that caught everyone by surprise and left us unprepared for what was coming.

I asked the few people in my building if they had a car and if they could give me a ride to work this morning, but they were all in my same situation, the only girl who had a car was heading to the DVP, not where I was going. So I had to rollerblade, now I got to work all sweaty. The ride is uphill. It took me 50 minutes, but I’m young enough and in good shape to do it.
The streets were crazy. Rivers of people walking up Bay Street and University Avenue.
I wish I could bike to work (I don’t have a bike, but I would totally buy one). But because of the business attire that I usually need (not today, I wore shorts, but they know why), I wouldn’t be able to bike or rollerblade to work on a normal basis.

UPDATE: Now it seems as if the TTC won’t be back for the going-home rush hour, the union ignored a labour board cease-and-desist order that was issued at 7:30 a.m. Then they were late for negotiation talks and are doing nothing to help. And they dare say they want to be understood by the public?

Chicken wing review: Sneaky Dee’s

Finally, the much awaited chicken wing review for Sneaky Dee’s is here. Lots of people had been telling me to go and check out the chicken wings at Sneaky Dee’s, on the southeast corner of Bathurst and College. So last week Adina, Joey and I went for a bite (and a couple of pints, of course).

We were so hungry that we ordered the large order of hot wings. I don’t know if the waitress got confused, but the wings were pretty sweet and not hot at all, we think maybe she brought us the medium wings and not the hot. The large order had 30 wings, and it was funny that she said that she had never seen someone have the large order of wings.

And of course our eyes are bigger than our stomachs, so we also had an order of nachos and some beef fajitas (after all it was a Tuesday, half-price fajitas day).
The most original thing about Sneaky Dee’s wings is that they come with a sour cream and avocado dip, pretty delicious.

The wings were pretty good but not the best I’ve had. Of course now that I have given a veredict that if you want to get the best chicken wings in Toronto you should choose among Hemingway’s, Allen’s on the Danforth or Duff’s Famous Wings, I haven’t been able to have wings that are really to my liking (and that’s why I concluded that I make the best chicken wings in town).

Here are the ratings:
Sauce choice: Mil, medium, hot, suicide.
Saucyness: 3 out of 5 (they were pretty nice and saucy).
Sides: carrots and celery sticks.
Meatiness: 3.5 out of 5.
Price: $8.55 for the small, $16.55 for the medium and $23.50 for the large order.
Number of wings: 30 in the large order, so I suppose it’s 10 in the small and 20 in the medium order.
Dip: avocado and sour cream dip.
Side included: yes
Wetnap: yes
Overall: 3.7 out of 5
Thumbs: up

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Doors Open Toronto is this weekend

I will be volunteering on Sunday for Doors Open Toronto. I will be at One King West, The Dominion Bank Building, from 1 to 4 PM.
Some people have been asking me what buildings may be worth visiting and what route to plan for their tours. Based on nothing but my downtown experience and the proximity of these buildings, I have designed a route of interesting buildings to be visited:
Start at the corner of Yonge and College for The Carlu (444 Yonge St., not open on Saturday).
Walk east and turn north on Jarvis for Gooderham House (504 Jarvis)
Walk south to the National Ballet School (400 Jarvis)
Walk one block west to Church, between Shuter and Queen for the JAZZ residences on Church (167 Church St.)
Walk further west and south to Mackenzie House (82 Bond St.) and then continue on Bond St. to St. Michael’s Cathedral (65 Bond St., not open on Saturday). Then, to complete your Church viewing you can go to the Cathedral Church of St. James (65 Church St.).
If you keep walking down Church, you’ll come to my favourite place in the whole world, the Flatiron Building (49 Wellington St. East, not open on Sunday).
You can walk a bit more to the west and north and say hi to me at One King West, the Dominion Bank Building (I’ll be there Sunday from 1 to 4).

Take a break, because this is just half of the route I’m proposing (you can probably go to one of my favourite Starbucks in town, I call it “the Starbucks with the good looking guys”, it’s on the northwest corner of King and Yonge).

Walk west on King to Commerce Court North (25 King St. west) and then turn south on Bay to the Design Exchange (234 Bay St), then back north on Bay to the Canada Permanent Building (320 Bay St). If you keep walking north on Bay, you’ll run into Old City Hall (60 Queen St. West) and then City Hall (northwest corner of Queen and Bay across the street from Old City Hall).
Next door just west on Queen you’ll find Osgoode Hall (130 Queen St west), this is the very first building I went to for Doors Open Toronto four years ago. It is beautiful and really interesting (did you know that the gate doors are that shape so that they would prevent cows (yes, cows!) for coming close to the building?). Across University Avenue, still on Queen St., you can go to Campbell House (150 Queen St. west). Then a bit north on University Avenue you can find the Canada Life building (330 University Av.), famous for its weather telling needle on the top.
Then walk back to Queen St. and turn right on Mc Caul for the Ontario College of Art and Design (100 McCaul St). Finally, walk west and south to the southeast corner of Richmond and Spadina on 401 Richmond Street West, this is where I take my flamenco class every Tuesday!

Have a great weekend and enjoys the fabulous free buildings to see for Doors Open Toronto weekend!

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Corn enchiladas

James came over for dinner, and since he’s one of them vegetarians I had to come up with something delicious and meatless.
I decided to make my mother’s own corn enchiladas (enchiladas de elote). There are two steps in making these enchiladas: the sauce and the actual enchiladas.
For the sauce you need cilantro, onion, fresh jalapeno peppers, garlic and a can of tomatillos.

Put all the ingredients in the blender to make the sauce. Then cook the sauce with a bit of hot corn oil and salt and pepper to taste.
Meanwhile, gather the ingredients for the enchiladas.
You will need a can of Green Giant corn nibblets, Mazola corn oil and corn tortillas (the corn tortillas can be bought at the St. Lawrence Market or at Kensington Market).
You will also need sour cream and cheese that melts (but not yellow cheese, this is really important, you don’t want a Tex-Mex flavour). I used mozzarella from the St. Lawrence Market.

Heat up about a teaspoon of oil for each tortilla, and fry them one by one making sure not to burn them (trust me, the smoke detector will go off and it won’t be pretty).

Set aside each fried tortilla, when they are all fried, fill them with two tablespoons of the corn nibblets, fold them in half and set them in a Pyrex plate.

Pour the green sauce (that by now has to be cooked and ready) over the enchiladas. Then spoon the sour cream and the shredded cheese on top of them.
Bake for about 20 minutes or until cheese is melted.
There you go, delicious corn enchiladas. And totally vegetarian!

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It’s been decided, I make the best chicken wings in Toronto

My own wings
Originally uploaded by Maria in Toronto.

Last night I made the best chicken wings I’ve ever had. They were exactly to my liking and I decided that from now on (or at least for the summer), I’ll be making my own wings.
I got two boxes of President’s Choice mild chicken wings and a jar of Chicken and Rib Barbecue Sauce. I marinated the frozen wings in a concoction of the barbecue sauce and Anchor Bar original Chicken Wings sauce, I also set aside some of the concoction for post-cooking basting.
I barbecued the marinated wings until cooked (about 25 minutes in the barbecue) and when they were ready I put them in the sauce that I had set aside (it is important that this not be the same sauce where you put the pre-cooked wings, since you want to avoid any cross-contamination). I brought them down to my apartment (the barbecues are upstair on the rooftop) and when it was time to eat them, I re-heated them in the oven.
They were magnificent, and so easy to make.
I also made a Jello mold that had pineapple in orange-pineaple Jello, and strawberries with whipped cream (I whipped the cream myself, I didn’t use Cool Whip) with strawberry Jello. It was pretty good, may I say. The Jello also had really cute teddy bears all around!

Victoria Day Weekend

Going to the cottage? Taking Highway 401 to Montreal? Taking the 400 up to Muskoka?
Good luck with the traffic!
Me, I’m staying in Toronto and having a few people are coming over for nachos, chicken wings, jello, beer and games tomorrow. Here is an excerpt of the email conversation we had this morning:

From: Wendy
To: David
Cc: Maria; Joey; James; Jeremy; Graig; Lilly; Eldon; Kari; Brett; Eva; Nestor; Adina
Subject: Re: Reminder: games night on Saturday

We have, and will bring, the following:

Jenga
Trivial Pursuit 20th anniversary edition
Scene It
Encore (this is elderly but very fun, involves singing)
Scrabble (in case a tournament is required, we’ll have two)
Trivial Pursuit DVD Pop Culture
Uno
a couple of decks of cards

Nerdlicious!

Wendy

From: Maria
To: Wendy; David
Cc: Maria; Joey; James; Jeremy; Graig; Lilly; Eldon; Kari; Brett; Eva; Nestor; Adina
Subject: Re: Reminder: games night on Saturday

Who needs porn when you have Jenga???

MARIA

From: James
To: Wendy; David
Cc: Maria; Joey; Jeremy; Graig; Lilly; Eldon; Kari; Brett; Eva; Nestor; Adina
Subject: Re: Reminder: games night on Saturday

I, for one, like -both- of those things.

-james

We’ll have so much fun. Enjoy the traffic! Mwahahaha!

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Best Friends

IMG_2080
Originally uploaded by photojunkie.

Jay won the contest to be my best friend, so he and I are best friends.
Taken by Rannie last Friday at the Photogrammetry opening.

My level of geekiness just went up

I just registered the domain http://nakedknitgirl.ca for this website. It still points to this blogspot address, but it will be easier for me to tell people my URL.
So everyone, update your links. Now!

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Impromptu performance in Toronto

Singing
Originally uploaded by Maria in Toronto.

We decided that it may be a good idea to stand in a random corner in the city and do a little accordion performance. Accordion Guy sang a whole lot of his repertoire for me. I had lots of fun singing (the few lyrics I knew) and dancing to his performance. While we were there, some of the pedestrians and people that were walking around that random corner of the city (OK, maybe it wasn’t THAT random, it was Bathurst and College) threw a few pennies for us and even took pictures. I asked them if they were going to post them on the internet, since we are so shy and “not actually used to being on the internet exposed to just about anyone in the world” (Joey couldn’t contain his laugh when I said this).
I had lots of fun, and it was great that, Toronto being such a small city, people that you know just walk by. This time it was Amber and Blamb, with my beloved Zack. And of course I took a picture. I had lots of fun and got to practice my “groovy dance moves” (more like Elaine from Seinfeld, but let’s not get into that).