Cyclist killed in Toronto intersection.
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Broadview and Gerrard 1910
The old 'hood!
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Events Guide: art crawl, tree tour, neighbourhood walk, and more…
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via Spacing Toronto • understanding the urban landscape by Patricia Simoes on 9/10/08
WHAT: Queen West Art Crawl
WHEN: September 12, 13, & 14
WHERE: Queen St. and Spadina St. (with various open artist studios all the way to Queen St. and Roncessvalles Ave.)
Launched in 2003 by Artscape, the Queen West Art Crawl (QWAC) showcases the work of emerging and established artists. Now in its sixth year and under the ownership of the Parkdale Liberty Economic Development Corporation, this three day outdoor festival offers family, friends and kids an array of arts and music events.
Visit www.torontoartscape.on.ca for more information.
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WHAT: Beaches Tree Tour
WHEN: September 14, 1 pm - 3 pm
WHERE: Meet at the front entrance of the Beaches Library, Kew Gardens (2161 Queen St. East)
With its park-like setting, cool lake breezes and eclectic blend of iconic buildings, estate homes and quaint cottages, the Beaches remains true to its origins as a mecca for summer visitors. Join Tree Tour Coordinator Susan Gulley and local historian Gene Domagala as they meander the tree-lined streets under the protective, spreading canopies of red and white oaks. Experience the varied topography of the Beaches as we venture north from Kew Gardens to the crest of the natural ridge and then wander back down into the magnificent Glen Stewart ravine. Discover yellow birch, black cherry and ironwood in this remnant forest and learn about the City's vital restoration efforts from Urban Forest Planner Ruthanne Henry.
You must RSVP to attend this event, and there is a suggested donation of $5.
Vist torontotreetours.org for more information.
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WHAT: ROMwalks: ROM and its Neighbours
WHEN: September 14, 2 pm
WHERE: Meet in front of the ROM (Bloor St. entrance,) look for a blue umbrella.
Discover Toronto's unique architecture and rich history through ROMwalks, a series of free, guided walking tours of the city.
Highlights: Royal Ontario Museum, Church of the Redeemer, Royal Conservatory of Music, Taddle Creek, Flavelle House, Gardiner Museum.
Visit www.rom.on.ca for more information.
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Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Destination: deficit
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via Worthwhile Canadian Initiative by Stephen Gordon on 9/10/08
Eighteen months ago, I posted a brief history of the federal budget surplus, based on data up to the end of fiscal year 2005-6 - that is, up until the Conservatives took power. At the time, I said:
After ten years of surpluses, we can perhaps breathe a little easier. The debt is less and less of a burden, and the cost of servicing it is almost back to what it was in the 1960s. So now that the deficit is not the burning preoccupation it once was, we can start thinking of other priorities. Do we ... decide to cut taxes? Or do we ... decide to increase spending?
It would appear that Stephen Harper's government has done both. The Department of Finance will be releasing the final numbers from 2007-8 in a couple of weeks, and I'll revisit the graphs in that brief history post when they come out.
So today I'm going to look at the trends in the monthly numbers on revenues and expenditures, as published in the Fiscal Monitor. These numbers are pretty noisy, especially around the beginning and the ends of the fiscal years, so I've smoothed them by taking 12-month moving sums. Here is what has happened to revenues and expenditures (program spending + debt service charges) since April, 2006:
Sometime last fall, federal government revenues started to plateau - the result of slower growth and tax cuts. But program spending continued to grow (debt service charges were either stable or falling during this period). If we were in a mood to indulge in a completely unjustified extrapolation of the trends in that graph - and apparently I am - we'd get something like this:
It's been a very long run, but the era of indestructible federal surpluses is over.
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Tuesday, September 09, 2008
Short Story: “Palin Comparison”
Awesome.
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via The Adventures of Accordion Guy in the 21st Century : Joey deVilla's Personal Blog by Joey deVilla on 9/9/08
Click the picture to see the original on its Flickr page.
Here's a short story to accompany the illustration above. I found both on Flickr:
Oh geez, McCain wheezed. Have you guys seen this one? She didn't give back the money. The "Bridge to Nowhere"? We have her doing the "maverick" thing and saying she canceled the bridge project, but she kept the $320 million and just used it for other stuff. How is that "fighting pork-barrel spending", exactly? McCain paced around their temporary command center, a kindergarten classroom.
His aides fidgeted in their tiny chairs. They tried to explain that it no longer mattered. Their bungled vetting, one embarrassing revelation after another, was no longer their priority.
No longer a priority?! McCain fumed, waving his arms as high as they would go. How are a pattern of actions that are the opposite of our platform, not a priority? How are beliefs that are so outside of the mainstream, even our mainstream, not a priority? Abstinence-only education? How do we sell that as a positive when her own daughter shows how ridiculous it is? Book banning? Since when is banning books part of our platform? [I think the book-banning accusations are wrong; see here for details. -- Joey]
The aides looked at each other. The one who drew the short crayon stood. Palin is more popular than you, sir, she said hesitantly. If you haven't noticed, we kept her with you on the campaign trail all week, instead of letting her go solo. That's because no one was showing up to your events. And thousands were asking about hers. There's uh, there's talk about flipping the ticket.
Flipping the what? McCain asked. How is that.. what?
Yes sir, the aide continued. Turns out, she's very cutthroat and crazy ambitious. She's been talking to senior party people, making her case. She feels her newfound popularity would give the party a better chance at winning, and that you're just bringing the campaign down. And they're listening. Apparently there's some old rule that can be invoked.
Speechless, McCain sank down into his very tiny chair, and felt very old.
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Monday, September 08, 2008
Hurricanes, as seen from orbit
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via The Big Picture on 9/8/08
Hurricane Ike just rolled across Cuba, and soaked parts of Haiti - both regions still reeling from recent Hurricane Gustav. Ike appears to be weakening now, but is headed tward the Gulf Coast of the U.S., and may yet strengthen. The crew aboard the International Space Station was able to take a photo of Ike from 220 miles overhead last Thursday - one in a long series of great NASA photographs of hurricanes from space. Here are some of the best, from the past several years. (25 photos total)
Hurricane Ike was still a Category 4 storm on the morning of Sept. 4 when this photo was taken from the International Space Station's vantage point of 220 miles above the Earth. The season's seventh named storm was churning west-northwestward through the mid-Atlantic Ocean sporting winds of 120 nautical miles per hour with gusts to 145. (photo courtesy NASA and the crew of the International Space Station)
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The Humboldt squid beak: Diamond-sharp mystery of the briny deep
Cool. For some reason, Clive is fascinated by giant squids and the more I read about them, I can see why.
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via collision detection by Clive Thompson on 9/7/08
There are many weird things about the giant Humboldt squid, but here's one of the strangest: Its beak. The squid's beak is one of the hardest organic substances in existence -- such that the sharp point can slice through a fish or whale like a Ginsu knife. Yet the beak is attached to squid flesh that itself is the texture of jello. How precisely does a gelatinous animal safely wield such a razor-sharp weapon? Why doesn't it just sort of, y'know, rip off? It's as if you tried to carve a roast with a knife that doesn't have a handle: It would cut into your fingers as much as the roast.
This question has haunted many a marine biologist. So recently a team of materials scientists at the University of California decided to carefully examine the physical properties of the beak. Their discovery? The beak contains a huge gradation of stiffness: The tip of the beak is 100 times more rigid than the base of the beak -- so the base can blend easily with the surrounding flesh. Water is the key to the proper functioning of this gradient: If the beak is dried out, the soft base calcifies until it's nearly as dense and rigid as the peak. (You can read their paper -- "The Transition from Stiff to Compliant Materials in Squid Beaks" in PDF format here.)
Now the scientists are trying to figure out how to artificially replicate this remarkable gradient, because it's so radically different from the way we humans traditionally develop materials. We know how to create materials that are really stiff or really soft, but not ones that slide gradually from one to the other extreme. As they note in a press release ...
... most engineered structures are made of combinations of very different materials such as ceramics, metals and plastics. Joining them together requires either some sort of mechanical attachment like a rivet, a nut and bolt, or an adhesive such as epoxy. But these approaches have limitations.
"If we could reproduce the property gradients that we find in squid beak, it would open new possibilities for joining materials," explained Zok. "For example, if you graded an adhesive to make its properties match one material on one side and the other material on the other side, you could potentially form a much more robust bond," he said. "This could really revolutionize the way engineers think about attaching materials together."
This is biomimicry, of course -- the art of designing new artificial materials based off of superweird stuff found in the animal kingdom. It's thus an important rationale for planet-saving conservation, because every time a species dies off, it often takes some remarkable physical property with it -- something that, if we replicated, we could use to build bridges, save lives, or whatnot. (Actually, this is the area that Debbie Chachra, a friend of mine and longtime Collision Detection commentor, works in. She's been studying the unusual properties of bee spit or something. Debbie, could you clarify this in the comments area if you're reading this?) When people used to talk about the important of preserving biodiversity, they mostly worried about medicines: i.e. the fact that bugs and trees in the Amazon rainforest contained zillions of potentially useful drug compounds. But now we're learning more about the importance of understanding the physical engineering behind these marvels of animal life.
(That picture above is from National Geographic's online archive!)
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Sunday, September 07, 2008
Steel-Steel vs. Rubber-Asphalt (Rails Good, Wheels Bad)
I've never liked taking the bus - but I'm usually ok with taking the streetcar.
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via Metronauts by Karl Junkin on 8/31/08
Toronto has a rich history of public transit going back to the mid-1800s. The first bus service started in the early 1850s, but streetcars have been on Toronto's streets since as early as 1861. They were horse-drawn originally, but they introduced electric cars in the early 1890s, starting with Church St. Subway proposals have been floated since around 1910.
The steel that both wheels and rails are made of is vastly smoother than the granular and often unevenly-paved/repaired asphalt surfaces of our roads. While wear can eventually deform the steel wheels of a streetcar, rubber tires will take a greater beating on a daily basis (as will a bus's shocks). This all leads the bus to generally be associated as a bumpy ride. Streetcar wheels also don't have to worry about the air in the tires, which can be a factor in rider comfort (and efficiency) of the bus. You also can't encounter storm sewer grates and speed bumps or potholes on the rails, but a bus can.
The most obvious operational difference would be the fixed path characteristic of rail. For streetcars, many people point to this as a disadvantage, but there is a flip side to this coin, as it acts as an advantage as well.
Buses have to swerve over to the sidewalk whenever they service a stop. This is particularly annoying along streets that have parking in the outer lanes. The riders get thrown back and forth by the swerving of the vehicle by this, and also offers additional complications for the operator as the bus has to merge back into the flow of traffic as there's more parked cars in front of it up ahead. This slows down bus service a great deal, because buses don't control the traffic, traffic instead controls the bus.
Streetcars never swerve to the side of the road. In most parts of the network, the rider comes to the streetcar from the sidewalk. This gives the streetcar a speed advantage compared to a bus on the same route, because when passengers are loading, the streetcar blocks all lanes of traffic, and cars are required to wait. This both allows the streetcar to control traffic rather than be controlled by traffic, and increases rider comfort since it usually doesn't make any turns until the route/street itself bends.
Taking corners is another area where the bus is also uncomfortable. The bus, being a lighter vehicle, leans when it takes a sharp turn, but streetcars don't lean as much due to their heavier weight and slower turning speed. Streetcars also take a consistent or controlled radius throughout the curve versus the bus's inconsistent radius as it is dictated by the driver's steering.
While the streetcars are given a hard time for junctions and wheel squeal, when not at those points in the network, the bus is generally noisier than streetcars. Bus engines are loud, particularly when they accelerate, and their breaks are often squeaky (although that's a maintenance issue, it's quite common). This makes it generally noisy at every stop. As the bus has an exhaust pipe, the bus also smells. The noise carries into the bus's interior as well, especially at the back of the bus. Having no noisy engine or exhaust pipe, the streetcar is more pleasant, and the quiet atmosphere also makes the streetcar more social, as less mechanical noise leaves more room for conversation.
Longer streetcars can navigate narrow routes where an articulated bus might not be allowed, as the front, middle, and back tires of an articulated bus will not all follow the exact same path like a streetcar does where all bogies stick to the same rails. There are also a lot of people, myself included, who question the safety of buses with multiple articulations. One articulation is fine, but when it is more than that, vehicles that long really need to be on rails if people are going to beleive they're safe when they turn a corner, especially in the narrower streets of the former city of Toronto.
The streetcar is a clear keepsake despite some imperfections, and I don't beleive it is a misconception by the public when they think rail vehicles are superior to the bus… the experiences between the two modes clearly differ. It seems the bus is inherently at a handicap, so what will it have to do to overcome its drawbacks where the streetcar has succeeded for almost 150 years in Toronto?
Karl Junkin is an architectural technology graduate from Sheridan College, born and raised in Toronto, and has spent over 4 years working and living in Tokyo.
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The Age of Awareness: My latest feature for the New York Times Magazine
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via collision detection by Clive Thompson on 9/7/08
Today, the New York Times Magazine is publishing an article I wrote about "ambient awareness" -- the way that micro-updating tools like Twitter and Facebook give us a constant, floating sense of what everyone we know is doing, all the time. The piece is online free at the Times' site, and I've put a copy below for archival purposes too.
That graphic above is a snippet from Peter Cho's wonderful illustrations that accompany the piece. Cho did a lovely job of taking a pretty amorphous concept and turning it into evocative imagery!
Here we go:
I'm So Totally, Digitally Close To You How News Feed, Twitter and other forms of incessant online contact have created a brave new world of ambient intimacy.On Sept. 5, 2006, Mark Zuckerberg changed the way that Facebook worked, and in the process he inspired a revolt.
Zuckerberg, a doe-eyed 24-year-old C.E.O., founded Facebook in his dorm room at Harvard two years earlier, and the site quickly amassed nine million users. By 2006, students were posting heaps of personal details onto their Facebook pages, including lists of their favorite TV shows, whether they were dating (and whom), what music they had in rotation and the various ad hoc "groups" they had joined (like "Sex and the City" Lovers). All day long, they'd post "status" notes explaining their moods -- "hating Monday," "skipping class b/c i'm hung over." After each party, they'd stagger home to the dorm and upload pictures of the soused revelry, and spend the morning after commenting on how wasted everybody looked. Facebook became the de facto public commons -- the way students found out what everyone around them was like and what he or she was doing.
But Zuckerberg knew Facebook had one major problem: It required a lot of active surfing on the part of its users. Sure, every day your Facebook friends would update their profiles with some new tidbits; it might even be something particularly juicy, like changing their relationship status to "single" when they got dumped. But unless you visited each friend's page every day, it might be days or weeks before you noticed the news, or you might miss it entirely. Browsing Facebook was like constantly poking your head into someone's room to see how she was doing. It took work and forethought. In a sense, this gave Facebook an inherent, built-in level of privacy, simply because if you had 200 friends on the site -- a fairly typical number -- there weren't enough hours in the day to keep tabs on every friend all the time.
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Yonge Street Skyline 1975
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Thursday, September 04, 2008
A possible explanation for "email apnea"
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via collision detection by Clive Thompson on 2/21/08
Linda Stone, one of my all-time favorite thinkers on the impact of technology on human life, has written a superb piece about what she's termed "email apnea" -- the phenomenon of holding your breath while you check and write email.
Stone noticed recently that whenever she sat down to check email, she began, quite unconciously, to hold her breath. Then she noticed that other people were doing it, too:
I observed others on computers and BlackBerries: in their offices, their homes, at cafes. The vast majority of people held their breath, or breathed very shallowly, especially when responding to email. I watched people on cell phones, talking and walking, and noticed that most were mouth-breathing and hyperventilating. Consider also, that for many, posture while seated at a computer can contribute to restricted breathing.
As Stone points out, holding your breath a lot wreaks havoc in your body's normal balance of oxygen, carbon dioxide and nitric oxide. Among other things, it freaks you out by constantly triggering your fight-or-flight instinct; it also triggers the liver to "dump glucose and cholesterol into our blood, our heart rate to increase, our sense of satiety to be compromised, and our bodies to anticipate and resource for the physical activity that, historically, accompanied a physical fight or flight response." Stone hypothesizes that this may be a partial cause of today's increasing obesity rates.
Yet Stone doesn't offer an answer to what for me is the most interesting question: Why are we holding our breath when we do email?
It's so metaphorically rich I can barely begin to tease out the implications. Do we feel somehow threatened while doing email -- hence our unconscious trip into fight-or-flight mode? Or do we feel as though we're literally diving into some socially or technologically unbreathable environment, as if jumping underwater? Or is it because we're preparing to vocalize -- i.e. that email triggers the mental rhythms of conversation and self-presentation, so we're taking a deep breath so we can "talk" uninterrupted for 20 seconds or so? By which I mean, is this a symptom of some form of performance anxiety?
Here's an interesting parallel. I'm a guitar player, and in my teens I learned a trick that some jazz players employ: They use breathing to keep from dithering on too long in their solos. Every time they start a new phrase in the solo, they take a breath, then exhale as they play; when their breath is gone they stop the flurry of notes. This prevents them from producing overly-long phrases of notes, which can otherwise tire out their audience.
The thing is, while this was described to me as a conscious technique, I've also noticed that lots of guitar players do the same thing unconsciously: Holding their breath seems to help them measure out certain emotional or logistical aspects of a guitar solo. And so I wonder, does the role of breathing in this sort of guitar playing shed any light on what we're doing while we're holding our breath typing email? They're not entirely dissimilar activities. They're both digital -- in the original, literal sense of performed with our fingers -- and they're both involved with self-expression. Indeed, when I scrutinize my feelings a bit while doing email at my laptop, it does feel slightly like being on stage: I'm crafting something that's going out to an audience.
This is all off the top of my head, and probably wrong -- but hopefully it's at least wrong in an interesting way. And hopefully Stone will write more on this, because I'd love to know her thoughts on the question! Why are we holding our breath while doing email?
(Thanks to Boing Boing for this one!)
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Cool screensaver monitors the health of the power grid
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via collision detection by Clive Thompson on 3/6/08
So, you're living in Florida, and you just suffered through a massive blackout. Want advance warning of the next one? Then go to the website of the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, and download the "Grid Monitor" -- a screensaver that shows you the stability of the power grid, in real time, via a series of totally gnarly graphics, such as the Oscillatory Mode Graph above.
You can actually watch the grid begin to buckle and collapse when a blackout is approaching. Since grid collapses occur randomly and very infrequently, you'd have to be staring at your screensaver 24 hours a day, but hey: Maybe you'll get lucky! On the other hand, you can also set the screensaver to give off a warning sound when the power in the grid fluctuates too wildly -- an impending sign of a blackout.
Pacific Northwest also created this nice PDF pamphlet that explains how the Grid Monitor works. It contains this rather metaphorically lovely passage:
In reality, the AC electric power signal is the sum of innumerable sub-signals. The 60 Hz AC signal is actually a complex accumulation of many elements such as random noise, mechanical vibratory dynamics of generators producing the power, damping effects, and even self-induced oscillatory dynamics of the transmission grid. It acts like a tremendous bed of interconnected springs and weights.
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The election plan in a few short words
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via inkless-wells « WordPress.com Tag Feed by Paul Wells on 9/4/08
Several colleagues who were around the table on a familiar downtown patio last week will be my witnesses. With as much luck as insight, I called Stephen Harper's writ-drop virage. What was certain was that he would change style radically when an election became inevitable, the better to short-sheet the Liberals. He changed his manner completely when the 2006 campaign began, and it worked. He was certain to change his manner again. What was harder to tell was which way he would swerve. I had a hunch — and it was only a hunch because on matters like this, the Conservative brain trust stops dropping hints — that Harper would exchange steely-and-dominant for warm, avuncular, reassuring. What I said, on the patio last week, was, "He's going to run as Louis St. Laurent." And here's the old gent now:
We have come about a million miles from the 2004 pre-writ ads ("MY name. Is Stephen Harper"). Note that the Louis St. Laurent shtick does not nullify the other comparisons I've made in my continuing attempts to (a) figure the guy out (b) explain him. To recap:
- Goal: Mackenzie King. A long term in office to implement incremental but irreversible change in policy direction and to anchor his party as the dominant electoral player for a generation.
- Method: Richard Nixon. Define your base by class, not geography, and never be swayed by the opprobrium of commentators who will never be part of your base.
- Manner: Uncle Louis. Not always, mind you. He'll be a different guy indeed on his Angry Days. But I'm pretty sure the Liberals have nothing in their kitty to counter the first recorded appearance of Stephen Harper in a cuddly sweater vest.
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Rebuttal
Mountain fact, mountain fiction
Toronto -- I am puzzled by Geoff Powter's letter (Respect For Man And Mountain - Sept. 2) concerning fact and fiction in the CBC mini-series Everest (Haute Hosers Do Everest - Review, Aug. 29). The events portrayed in the film were based on journalist/climber Bruce Patterson's book Canadians On Everest, which is a version supported by the climbers.
Mr. Powter calls the scene of a wife threatening a divorce at the airport pure fiction: Dave Reid and his wife had a bitter separation a few days before he left and later divorced. No screaming matches on the mountain? There certainly were loud, passionate arguments after the deaths.
Mr. Powter says we made the climbers look like buffoons and hosers, but the movie never impugns the Canadians' skills and professionalism as talented, experienced athletes. Do they goof around in the movie? You bet. Partying in the Kathmandu bars, rocks in knapsacks and other tricks en route, joshing to cut the tension on the mountain; these and the events mentioned above are documented, and confirmed in notes with many of the climbers.
The movie has the endorsement of Laurie Skreslet, Bruce Patterson, John Amatt and many others who were there. Mr. Powter was not.
CBC's made-for-TV Everest movie
Respect for man and mountain
Canmore, Alta. -- The CBC miniseries Everest takes atrocious liberties with the truth and does complete injustice to the climbers and the sport itself (Haute Hosers Do Everest - Review, Aug. 29).
Most of the "compelling" moments in the miniseries are pure fiction: Climbers' wives weren't threatening divorce at the airport, there were no fist fights on the expedition, no screaming matches between warring leaders on the mountain, no investigation by Nepalese police of a supposed drug-smuggling operation, no callous, macho abandonment of "weak-link" members. Most importantly, there was very little, if any, of the bumbling "hoser" spirit that reviewer John Doyle and the filmmakers conjure up as a motivating force behind the tragedies and ultimate successes of the expedition. The 1982 team was hardly a band of buffoons out of their league who got to the summit only through innocent Canuck pluck; they were very talented and experienced athletes, as trained, committed and aware of the risks as any Olympic competitors. Portraying that reality more honestly would have respected the story, the mountain and the audience, far more.
Wednesday, September 03, 2008
The dirt on cleaning wine glasses
September 3, 2008 at 9:20 AM EDT
As autumn approaches and soirée season heats up, it's time to make an important public service announcement for party hosts everywhere: I hate to be a downer, but drinking and dishwashing do not mix.
If you find yourself at the end of an evening with a blood-alcohol level in the no-drive zone, consider leaving the soiled crystal stemware for morning. Procrastination, in this case, will pay off.
"Fill the glasses up with water and go to bed and come back the next day," advises John Clerides, owner of Marquis Wine Cellars, a wine store in Vancouver's west end.
Mr. Clerides's caution against dishwashing under the influence is just one of many tips for the care and feeding of your precious glasses. It's taking on special resonance these days, as even budding wine enthusiasts plunge into the costly but rewarding world of fashionably large Riedel stemware and "breathable" Eisch decanters.
As well, those tips are being matched by an ever-expanding panoply of cleaning accessories, from lint-free microfibre polishing cloths to "cleaning balls" designed to gently loosen caked on sediment from decanters.
"I have my 'John's rules,' I call them," Mr. Clerides continues. Near the top of his list is one piece of advice that needs no explanation: Remove your rings. As another precaution he advises, "don't get your friends to help. You wash the dishes yourself." That way, if something breaks, you will have only yourself to blame.
Guarding against breakage is just one issue. For a growing number of wine devotees, cleanliness is just as big.
And no commonplace wine-glass stain is more stubborn than lipstick.
For that foe, Mr. Clerides employs a two-pronged assault. First, he says, cup the bowl of the glass with one hand. This ensures it won't twist and snap away from the stem, which can happen when you grab it by the latter. Then gently rub the rim with a soft, soapy sponge.
Should this approach fail, hold the glass - this time by the stem - in a downward position over a pot or kettle of boiling water, being careful not to get your skin too close to the steam. The steam ought to loosen even the waxiest brand. Once moistened, cup the glass more securely by the bowl and polish with a lint-free cloth. A good brand is the reusable Vino Life Microfibre Ez Clean, about $10 for a package of two, available at kitchenware stores such as Pepper Mill in Toronto and Cookworks in Vancouver.
Some experts recommend this method as the ideal way to clean all wine glasses without having to bother with soap. But it presumes you are obsessive-compulsive and have too much time on your hands. My preference is to fill the sink at least halfway up with lightly soapy water and work in assembly-line fashion, one glass in the sink at a time. (If the sink is any less than half full, a dropped glass is more likely to break.) The key here is to keep the faucet twisted as far out of the way as possible. The faucet is a tall glass's worst enemy, next to a tipsy dinner guest.
This raises the inevitable dishwasher question. Most makers of fancy stemware advise against them for two reasons: Abrasive machine detergents can leave permanent streaks in fine, porous crystal; and, more important, the whirring jets of water and precarious tines on the bottom rack make it tantamount to asking a bull to polish your china.
The nice thing in theory about a dishwasher, should you occasionally want to risk your shorter crystal stems in them as I sometimes do, is that you can use a rinsing agent to get the glass spotless without having to polish. Wine-accessory manufacturers, ever the entrepreneurial sorts, have come up with a couple of ways to help secure wineglasses on the bottom rack of the dishwasher. The most successful, to my mind, is the ADI Glass-Safe holder, introduced about a year ago. Made of plastic, it's a circular scaffold that rests on the bottom of any dishwasher rack and suspends up to eight glasses in an upside-down position, like those overhead racks behind the bar in some taverns. It sells for about $13.
But perhaps a more common and insidious problem when it comes to glassware is soap itself. There's nothing like the smell of laundry to ruin a pricey wine or fresh beer. Beer can in fact be especially sensitive to soapy residue. If carbonation streams up aggressively from the bottom or adheres to the side of a glass, forming a thick head that is unusually slow to dissipate, you could be the victim of a soapy mug.
The moral: Rinse all your glassware; then, when you think you've rinsed enough, rinse again. Even a perfectly rinsed glass can, however, corrupt the flavour of your wine. Stray aromas from the cupboard - say, the lavender of a scented candle - can settle on the glass. This is why it's become trendy among wine cognoscenti to "season" or "burn" wine glasses before filling.
The idea is to pour a tiny amount, roughly a teaspoon or two, of the wine into the glass and roll it around to coat most of the inside bowl. This same wine is then poured from the first glass into the second glass at the table, and so on.
The toughest items to keep clean are decanters. Designed to aerate rich, concentrated wines over hours, or in some cases even overnight, decanters are especially prone to staining. And because they typically have a wide base and narrow neck, they're hard to scrub.
A variety of bendable foam brushes have sprouted up in recent years, but the must-have decanter accessory now is a jar of Eisch cleaning balls. Tiny, rice-size stainless steel marbles, they work by delicate friction. Pour the balls into the decanter with a small volume of lukewarm water and gently roll them around. (They also work on the mineral deposits that form inside vases and coffee pots.) They're available at Pepper Mill and Cookworks as well as at Willow Park Wines & Spirits in Calgary and C.A. Paradis in Ottawa, as well as various other kitchenware stores around the country.
Alternatively, Alain Laliberté, a wine agent and former sommelier in Toronto, has the most effortless decanter cleaning idea I've come across. His secret? Efferdent, the denture-cleaning tablets. Drop two into the carafe with enough hot tap water to cover the stain, and leave to bubble away overnight. Rinse well in the morning.
To erase any residual stain, repeat the process the following night. "If possible, get the unscented one," Mr. Laliberté advises. "But if you get the minty one, just rinse well with hot and then cold water."
Should any mint residue remain, he says, the solution is simple: Season it with wine.
A Tour of St. Lawrence Market - Part 2
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via Taste T.O. - Food & Drink In Toronto by Sheryl Kirby on 9/3/08
As noted in Part 1 of our tour of St. Lawrence Market on Monday, the south market has just about everything needed to fill a pantry. But the fruit and vegetable stands, bulk goods and bakeries tend to mostly fill the perimeter and basement of the space. For most visitors to the market the first thing they see when they enter the main space of the upper level is meat. And that's where we'll begin part 2 of our tour.
I'm not much of a meat-eater, so this is one area where I can't offer a lot of expertise as to the quality of the products available, but it's safe to say that with eight butcher shops in the market, competition for customers (and thus quality) is high. Brown Brother's Meat (upper level 19) have been in the market since 1895, while Di Liso's Fine Meats (upper level 15) are spring chickens comparatively. Specializing in sausages, they also offer game birds. Whitehouse Meats (upper level 16) offers a variety of game meat, both local and exotic (venison, rabbit, ostrich, kangaroo), while Witteveen Meats (upper level 27) is the place to go for organically raised beef and chicken.
Other shops include St. Lawrence Upper Cut Meats (upper level 18); The Sausage King (upper level 44) where all the sausages are made on the premises; Manos Meats (upper level 26) known for their roast beef and corned beef sandwiches; and La Boucherie Fine Meats (upper level 3).
The market has three main fish shops, all located adjacent to one another, making it easy for customers to compare products and prices. Domenic's Fish Market (upper level 14) tends to be my first choice just out of habit, as I've been shopping there since the late 80s. Plus they put up with my barrage of questions about where and when the fish was caught, and don't find it odd when I grab a mackerel with my bare hands to check for freshness before buying. Mike's Fish Market (upper level 31) has a prominent sign indicating that they don't sell Chilean Sea Bass, so this is a good first stop for anyone who shops for fish with their Sea Choice wallet card as a guide. Completing the trio is Seafront Fish Market (upper level 30) with all manner of fresh and frozen delights from the ocean.
Downstairs, Caviar Direct (lower level B4) offers an extensive variety of caviar, smoked fish, truffles and truffle oil.
Coffee and Tea
While a couple of the bulk goods places mentioned on Monday carry tea and coffee, the market has a few places that specialize in it. Everyday Gourmet (lower level B14) started out as an espresso bar, and now carries a wide variety of tea and coffee and also roasts their own beans in house. Pasta Mia (lower level B23) besides selling fresh, cut-to-order pasta and sauces, features a selection of espresso drinks for that real Italian atmosphere. Upstairs near the Front Street entrance, Luba's Coffee and Tea (upper level 48) is conveniently located in close proximity to the many restaurants in the market, and is generally where we grab a cup of coffee to go with that peameal sandwich.
There are a few other shops in the market that don't really fit into a more succinct category, but they're all worth mentioning. A Bisket A Basket (lower level B29) has all kinds of jams, jellies, chutneys and dressings. Across the way, The Instant Caterer (lower level B30) offers an extensive array of frozen gourmet items and a kickass selection of hot sauces. Honey World (lower level B28) has, well, honey. Mostly from New Zealand, but also some Ontario varieties as well.
Kozlik's Mustard (upper level19A) is a market favourite, with so many varieties of locally made mustard, the booth is packed on Saturdays with customers wanting to sample them all. And if all that meat upstairs worries the vegetarian shoppers, they can head downstairs to Ying Ying Soy Food (lower level B22), where the traditionally-made tofu products can be used to replace meat in sandwiches, stir-frys and more.
Recently new to the market is Aren't We Sweet (lower level B2) where all manner of chocolate and candy is for sale, including stuff from local purveyors such as Sitting Around Eating BonBons, and the organic candy company Pure Fun. Gourmet salt and pepper can be found at Selsi Sea Rocks (lower level 19A), and upstairs at the St. Lawrence Wine Market (upper level 9), the selection is primarily Ontario wines.
Restaurants, Snack Bars and Take-Out
It's hard to not get hungry while wandering the market, and there's plenty here to eat. The market is most well known for the famous peameal bacon sandwiches, and those can be found at Carousel Bakery (mentioned in part 1), as well as at Paddington's Pump (upper level 45), which also has a sit down area and table service for those who don't want their peameal or their fish and chips on the go. More fish and chips and other oceanic delights can also be found at Buster's Sea Cove (upper level 33), while those wanting pizza, or pasta, head to St. Lawrence Pizza and Ice Cream for fresh made pasta dishes.
The rest of the dining options here are like a trip around the world with Chinese food from Chinese Deli (lower level B13); Greek delicacies like souvlaki from Yianni's Kitchen (lower level B33); daily fresh sushi from Quik Sushi (lower level B27), where they also sell Japanese housewares (pictured above); Portuguese-style grilled chicken from Churracso of St. Lawrence (upper level 49); or awesome veal or eggplant sandwiches from Mustachio (lower level B34) – get there early at lunch or risk getting stuck in the long line! A crepe from Crepe It Up (lower level B7A) is a nice treat that comes in sweet or savoury, and a fresh juice or smoothie from St. Lawrence Market Juice Bar (lower level B5) is a great way to wash it all down. Also, remember that many of the delis make sandwiches to order.
There is just so much to see, smell and taste at St. Lawrence Market that it's hard to get it all into a couple of thousand words. Each of the shops mentioned here is deserving of their own article, so we can delve into more depth and really find out more about their unique products.
In the meantime, I hope this guide full of the insider advice of a regular shopper will encourage others to go check out the many culinary delights the St. Lawrence Market has to offer.
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