Where is your fish from?

May 24 Weekend

Doors Open Toronto is this weekend!

For a complete list of the open door buildings, look here.

John trying the footblock on Noah!

Doors Open guide - May 24-26

From The Star.
There's also an online map here.

100 Mile Diet in Toronto

Technically, Bonnie Stern cheated, but this is seriously impressive for Toronto in the spring:

An incredible taste of the place she lives. The salad alone contained marvels we’d never eaten before: a winter lettuce called Tango (among 11 other lettuces), marigolds, chickpea sprouts, popcorn shoots. On top of the greens, roasted white beets with smoked ricotta cheese and smoked, sun-dried Principe Borhgese tomatoes (an Italian food tradition that has faded so badly that Ontario’s David Cohlmeyer now ships his to Italy - so it goes in the global-local food chain). Then came sweet potato and maple syrup mash, roasted carrots, and braised short ribs from Cumbrae Farms, a group of selected small farms working with special breeds. (Someone asked Cumbrae’s Stephen Alexander if there was a simple way to tell small-farm meat from industrial, factory-farm meat; he replied, “Forget claims and trust your eyes and trust your palate.” He says he can instantly smell the sulfates from industrial animal feed.) We drank apple sangría and local wines. Dessert was caramelized apples with maple syrup semifreddo over crepes.

A Kitchen On The Cheap

The New York Times on the bare minimum one needs to provision a kitchen - for $300.

In Toronto, you could go to :

• Nikolaou

• Nella

• Dinetz

The list:

• 8-inch, plastic-handle stainless alloy chef’s knife for $10
• Instant-read thermometer $5
• 3 stainless steel bowls $5
• Sturdy tongs: $3.50
• a sturdy sheet pan
• plastic cutting board
• Paring knife $3
• Japanese mandoline for $25 (for thin, even slices or a real julienne)
• $4 can opener
• vegetable peeler
• colander
• a small, medium and large cast-aluminum saucepan (total: about $30) - just not the awful wafer thin sets of stainless or aluminum ones sold in big-box stores.
• medium nonstick cast aluminum pan (10-inch; $13)
• a large steep-sided, heavier duty steel pan (14-inch; $25)
• single lida skimmer (for removing dumplings or gnocchi)
• a slotted spoon
• a heat-resistant rubber spatula (replacing the classic wooden spoon)
• a bread knife (good for crusty loaves and ripe tomatoes)
• a big whisk
• food processor (12-cup capacity)
• salad spinner
• Microplane grater
• coffee and spice grinder
• An immersion blender
  
• A whetstone or a decent steel

What not to Get!

• BREAD MACHINE You can buy mediocre bread easily enough, or make the real thing without much practice.
• MICROWAVE If you do a lot of reheating or fast (and damaging) defrosting, you may want one. But essential? No. And think about that counter space!
• STAND MIXER Unless you’re a baking fanatic, it takes up too much room to justify it. A good whisk or a crummy handheld mixer will do fine.
• BONING/FILLETING KNIVES Really? You’re a butcher now? Or a fishmonger? If so, go ahead, by all means...
• WOK Counterproductive without a good wok station equipped with a high-B.T.U. burner.
• STOCKPOT The pot you use for pasta will suffice until you start making gallons of stock.
• PRESSURE COOKER It’s useful, but do you need one? No.
• ANYTHING MADE OF COPPER More trouble than it’s worth, unless you have a pine-paneled wall you want to decorate.
• RICE COOKER Yes, if you eat rice twice daily. Otherwise, no.
• COUNTERTOP CONVECTION OVEN, ROTISSERIE, OR “ROASTER” Only if you’re a sucker for late-night cooking infomercials.

Jesse in the Garden

Some photos of the rapidly changing garden.

The Five-Second Rule Explored

Testing the Five-Second Rule. Basically - don't eat it...

Go walking Saturday to remember Jane Jacobs

Spacing Wire • understanding the urban landscape » Go walking Saturday to remember Jane Jacobs

Early Days of Toronto's Streetcar System

Fascinating - up to the Lake Simcoe service from the 1920s.

Maybe I Won't Work on the House After All

The NY Times has a compendium of DIY horror stories. . .

Pwned: Syllabus

Seemed somehow relevant given the blog name.
Anyway, I'll populate the post with more info, but I just wanted to say how amused I was by the Globe's coverage of the Digg HDDVD issue.

Astonishing Kayak Trip

From BC to Tuktoyaktok. In a kayak.

100 Mile Diet: The Book's Arrived

Here's the blog, but go buy the book here

On Virginia Tech

"There is no reason that any private citizen in a democracy should own a handgun. At some point, that simple truth will register. Until it does, phones will ring for dead children, and parents will be told not to ask why."

Shootings: Comment: The New Yorker

The Way We Age Now

Human beings fail the way all complex systems fail: randomly and gradually. As engineers have long recognized, many simple devices do not age. They function reliably until a critical component fails, and the whole thing dies instantly. A windup toy works smoothly until a gear rusts or a spring breaks, and then it doesn’t work at all. But complex systems—power plants, say—have to survive and function despite having thousands of critical components. Engineers therefore design these machines with multiple layers of redundancy: with backup systems, and backup systems for the backup systems. The backups may not be as efficient as the first-line components, but they allow the machine to keep going even as damage accumulates. Gavrilov argues that, within the parameters established by our genes, that’s exactly how human beings appear to work. We have an extra kidney, an extra lung, an extra gonad, extra teeth. The DNA in our cells is frequently damaged under routine conditions, but our cells have a number of DNA repair systems. If a key gene is permanently damaged, there are usually extra copies of the gene nearby. And, if the entire cell dies, other cells can fill in.

Nonetheless, as the defects in a complex system increase, the time comes when just one more defect is enough to impair the whole, resulting in the condition known as frailty. It happens to power plants, cars, and large organizations. And it happens to us: eventually, one too many joints are damaged, one too many arteries calcify. There are no more backups. We wear down until we can’t wear down anymore.

Annals of Medicine: The Way We Age Now: Reporting & Essays: The New Yorker

Pearls Before Breakfast

The Washington Post has a brilliant concept piece, perfectly written and illustrated with video. Wow. Joshua Bell, Kant, Stradivarius, Koyaanisqatsi and the life of a commuter all in one article.
Likely the best article I've read in months - and those that know me know that encompasses several thousand articles (which is actually an interesting point in itself. I should one day work out just how many words a day I read. A scary thought, greatly in inverse proportion to how much I write). I wonder if it will actually change my behaviour on a day to day basis.
Anyway, I imagine that the WashPost will take it offline or behind subscriber doors soon, so I highly recommend reading/watching/pondering it.
Also - a follow-up here.
and here
and here

The 4 Kinds of Flat Roofs

Hmm. What to do...

http://www.thisoldhouse.com/toh/knowhow/exteriors/article/0,16417,1127447,00.html

housing prices rollercoaster

What a ride! And quite the information aesthetics. I want to do that for some of my work data...