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By Gary Roberts, November 5, 2009

I went to see the play True Love Lies, recently; a comedy about a husband, wife, son and daughter—and a former lover whose surprise return heralds chaos for all.

Canadian playwright and director Brad Fraser manages to weave a fast-paced plot in this Toronto production, now playing at the Factory Theatre at Bathurst and Adelaide.

On the surface, nothing seems out of place with this nuclear family. They’re content to live their lives cooking, working, laughing and loving, arguing every now and then or just spending time on the computer. Sounds normal, doesn’t it? Like lots of other families in most neighbourhoods in almost every North American city.

But the recipe for this marriage’s success is spoiled by the addition of an extra ingredient; enter into the mix the father’s former gay lover, back on the scene after living in New York. His return to former haunts has repercussions that turn the family’s comfortable world upside down as confessions are made and past lives revealed. Each family member has to come to terms with a sudden change in the dynamics and their relationship to one another.

That’s what this play is all about; the interaction on a personal level between individual family members, and an acceptance of the past as each moves forward into the future.

There are moments in the production when the acting can be a bit wooden. The deadpan delivery of some of the one-liners is a bit forced. On the other hand, those one-liners are witty enough to catch the audience off guard, so the occasional hamming it up is easy to forgive.

Overall, the play is a lot of fun; the dialogue and familial shenanigans make for a quick, cheeky and tragically funny experience.

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By Gary Roberts, September 28, 2009

“Last weekend, I went to the Air Canada Centre to watch the game,” wrote Fred—our grammar instructor at Tuesday’s night class—who turned away from the blackboard to take stock of the expectant expressions on the faces of the students staring at his neatly scrawled words.

“Now, who can tell me: what’s the object of this sentence?”, he asked, as one eager student chirps up with “Baseball! It’s all about baseball!”

Blank looks notwithstanding, the Grammar for Editors and Writers class at George Brown College is actually (to me) an engaging subject. As nerdy as it may sound, it’s an interesting study of the English language, its many discrepancies and irregularities, and it’s ever-changing usage in everyday life.

In today’s fast-paced, wired and insanely jumbled world—where “rule of thumb” could actually be considered a valid writing style—it’s almost like grammar has become a raft in the middle of a heaving sea of Facebook status updates, cell phone text messages, instant messaging and hastily written emails, if u no wot i mean.

Call me a diehard, but I still prefer to take the time and effort to upper case the beginnings of my sentences, or punctuate where appropriate (and necessary!), and to spell correctly. I guess that’s why I’m enjoying Fred’s class so much.

Still, to err is to be human, so I’ve no doubt there’ll be mistakes here and there in the posts on this blog; hopefully, however, not as many as there were before I took this course.

So, bring it on, Fred. Tell me more about subordinate clauses and the proper use of parentheses. Make me think about where I should place my commas, semicolons and apostrophes—I’m in a subjunctive mood today!

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By Gary Roberts, September 16, 2009

Screenshot: OkTrends blog

As one who’s delved into this type of milieu before, I thought I’d post a link to an interesting analysis of keywords and phrases used by people dating online.

The tips and advice offered in the article are based on an analysis of more than 500,000 “first contacts” sent by users of OkCupid, the leading US dating website, and the results were published on OkTrends, the dating website’s official blog.

It’s interesting stuff (if you’re into trends and statistics) and it’s presented in an way that makes it easy to read and digest…

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By Gary Roberts, August 27, 2009

Mastering the Art of French Cooking, by Julia Child

I had dinner at the Salad King on Gould Street with a couple of friends last night, before heading to the AMC cinema at Yonge & Dundas to watch the movie, Julie & Julia.

It’s great to go watch a show immediately after office hours—the theatre is empty at this time of day and you’re literally spoiled for choice with the number of comfortable, empty seats with plenty of leg room available.

But comfort aside, it’s an obvious bonus when the movie is pleasantly enjoyable; as was the case here. Meryl Streep is amazing, as always, and Amy Adams also gives a great performance as a contemporary blogger who takes it upon herself to cook all the dishes in Julia Child’s 752-page recipe book, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, over a period of 365 days. Her efforts go unnoticed, at first, until eventually more and more people start reading the daily blog she writes in order to keep a record of this immense task.

I don’t want to give too much away, other than to say that it’s a nice, easygoing movie to go see after a meal, with plenty of laughs to boot. The cuisine looked great, too, although I had some squeamish reservations about the way Eric Powell (the husband of blogger Julie) ate his food.

Oh, and the way the French women from the ’50s are portrayed is perfect!

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By Gary Roberts, April 14, 2009

Last night's dinner

We used the BBQ last night, for the first time this season. It was a beautiful evening, not quite warm enough to sit outside but more than okay to step into the back yard for cooking al fresco.

Earlier over the weekend, El Franco had made bread dough for a pissaladière (a traditional Nice onion pie), so he was able to use the rest of it for the base for a vegan pizza. He used whole wheat and spelt flour in the ingredients for the dough, which gave it a great flavour. Asparagus spears, fresh tomatoes, onions and peppers made up the topping, all of which was cooked to perfection on the BBQ outside and presented on the plate alongside an arugula salad, sprinkled with an olive oil and garlic dressing.

I’m looking forward to more such food over the coming summer, when we’ll be able to sit down in the back yard while sipping a glass or two of wine and chatting with friends.

Sometimes, the simple pleasures in life are the best.

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By Gary Roberts, April 12, 2009

Well-oiled furniture in the back yard

The official date for spring came and went in March. It’s now April 12, which is when Easter Sunday is celebrated this year. The sun is shining brightly today but there’s a bit of a nip in the air, as if winter’s not quite ready yet to hand over the reins.

However, disputes between seasons notwithstanding, it’s a good day to get outside and do some of the chores that go hand-in-hand with being a home-owner. One of the things I like doing most is pottering around outside in the yard, front or back, preparing it for the warmer weather I know (I hope!) will be coming at some point in the next month or two.

Yesterday, I swept the deck clean of last year’s deluge of leaves from the many trees in the neighbourhood, as well as an unwelcome amount of litter blown in by the wind. Chocolate bar wrappers, old newspapers, tissues and a few feathers could be found amongst the piles of decomposing leaves in the back yard. All this was raked in, swept up and thrown into a bag ready for pick-up on garbage day.

So now the deck in our small back yard is nice and clean, clear of debris from the previous autumn and winter months. A spring cleaning. It feels good.

But I’m in the mood for more, so I traipse downstairs to the basement and haul up the garden furniture, which has now been over-wintering in the cool, dark area under the staircase since, oh, September I’d say.

Well, no more hiding away down there. I bring it all upstairs; table, chairs, lanterns, parasol, and after reassembling the table I rummage around for a bottle of tung and teak oil and have at it with an old rag and a fair amount of elbow grease!

I’m pleased with the results. The wood furniture looks nice and shiny and the parasol is open to the elements, as dust and cobwebs are blown away by the still-chill April wind. I feel like I’ve thumbed my nose at winter and I’m now laying the ‘welcome mat’ of our garden furniture in the back yard, in preparation for the arrival of summer.

This way, please – come along, now!

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By Gary Roberts, March 5, 2009

ABBA

My friend Lawrence, over on Propago Pro Populus, poses three questions in one of his posts where he asks:

1. If you could see any 3 bands live, from any time, who would they be?
2. What instrument do you want to champion?
3. Which 5 places do you want to see before you die?

Here are my answers.

If you could see any 3 bands live, from any time, who would they be?

• ABBA: Gimme, gimme, gimme! I remember their songs as I was growing up, they were so catchy and infectious and their outfits were completely over-the-top-70s-fashion. I can’t help but feel a certain loyalty and fascination for this band. I think it’s the repressed camp in me. Um, we also had their songs playing at our small wedding ceremony, as we drank Baby Duck and munched on crackers smothered in Cheez Whiz. No one can accuse us of not being classy [cough!].
• Antony & The Johnsons: My favourite band at the moment. I love Antony’s crooning voice and the band’s haunting music. The subject matter of some of the songs could be construed as being somewhat controversial, maybe even uncomfortable to some, in a way that, at least to me, challenges conventional thought. I like that.
• Boney M: I’m still too embarrassed at the whole ABBA thing to even go there with this one…

What instrument do you want to champion?

• I love the violin. No other musical instrument has as strong a physiological effect on me. Listening to a virtuoso play the violin makes my hair stand on end and sends a frisson of delight down my spine.

Which 5 places do you want to see before you die?
I’m going to include ‘things’ as well as ‘places’ in this one.

• The Aurora Borealis, or Northern Lights.
• The Giant Redwood forests of California.
• Glaciers off the coast of Alaska.
• Ayers Rock, Australia.
• The Pyramids at Giza, Egypt.

So, there are my answers. What choices would you write for these questions?

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By Gary Roberts, February 24, 2009

Finally, we’re finished repainting the guest bedroom!

Not only did we have to repaint the walls, but there were also a few bumps and cracks here and there that needed to be sanded and filled. There was also a huge hole in the ceiling from a couple of months ago.

What happened there? I hear you ask.

Well, a certain French Canadian had removed one of those old fashioned registers in the floor of the room above, in order to paint it. Then, as he was painting the walls of that room, he completely forgot there was a gap in the floorboards and promptly stepped into it as his leg went through the floor and appeared, as if by magic, dangling from the ceiling in the guest bedroom below.

However, not one to let adversity overcome him, El Franco then did a fantastic job of repairing the ceiling and walls, at the same time installing quarter rounds on all the baseboards and applying a calming blue on the walls.

The furniture in that room is mostly a stressed, antique white, with an older Victorian feel to it, so it all works very well with the blue colour.

I have to say, all credit to El Franco for the work he did in here. The only contribution I made was to purchase a round mirror for the wall and spray-paint the frame white to match the rest of the items in the room.

Below is an attempt at a panoramic shot of the finished product. The photo is a bit of a mish-mash and makes the room look way bigger than it actually is, but it’s the best I could do. You can click on the image for a larger version.

Montage view of the finished guest bedroom

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By Gary Roberts, February 16, 2009

Eggs Florentine à la Franco

But without the English muffins and spinach. Or the eggs, for that matter. And it looked so bloody good, I just had to take a picture of it.

El Franco put a whole new vegan spin on the popular brunch item this sunny Monday morning, as we awoke to the second Family Day in Ontarian history. Even his hollandaise sauce was completely free of dairy products, being made of vegetable stock, flour, vinaigrette, fresh lemon juice, thyme, and a bit of nutritional yeast (which imparts a cheese flavour and is a good source of vitamin B12 to boot).

In lieu of poached eggs, El Franco substituted nice thick slices of tofu, broiled after having been generously doused with a soy sauce marinade. Joining the tofu were slices of whole wheat French bread. These were left in the stove just long enough to toast, ever so slightly, before receiving a spread of margarine and a topping of pan fried grape tomatoes and garlic. The bread and tofu was finished with the aforementioned hollandaise sauce and an asparagus spear, or two, just to be fancy!

All of the above were served alongside New York diner potatoes; a sautéed mix of diced red potatoes, green peppers, onions and just the right amount of seasoning. The potatoes had a nice fresh, crisp texture which perfectly complemented the hollandaise-soaked bread and tofu.

Am I ever a lucky guy!

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By Gary Roberts, February 4, 2009

…and unlike the couple in the song, I didn’t have the option of staying indoors with a roaring fire, but had to get on a streetcar this morning to make my way to work. Not before stopping at a downtown café and grabbing a coffee first, though, which helped warm me up a bit. Even so, it was still bloody freezing out there with a temperature of -14° (feeling like -24° with the wind chill) and my head felt like a block of ice by the time I made it to the office.

And to make matters worse, two of our best friends recently moved to L.A. and we get e-mails from them describing their new (cold-free) lifestyle in California:

Less than a week ago I was on the final leg of the road trip that took us through Cleveland, the fields of Oklahoma, the canyons of the panhandle, the smell of sweet grass and wood fires in Santa Fe and some classic diners along Route 66. Today I [...] woke up in a cottage that, but for a few little things that I was able to bring, has none of the memories or memorabilia that made our condo our home.  But, I woke up happy.  I woke up to sunshine, and a chicken, 3 bunnies, 3 turtles, a cat, and so many emails and telephone calls that I feel spoiled.

Yeah, thanks for that, Lisa – I feel much better now…