Shall We Dance?

Good Morning, World! Would you like to dance?

The City of Sao Paulo, in its wisdom, is sponsoring a flash mob event this coming Sunday to celebrate its diversity on the eve of Pride. The world's largest metropolis has realized that its future lies in attracting the brightest minds on the planet to visit and to work there. 

Toronto's Pride, once the largest in the world, but now hugely eclipsed by Sao Paulo, has asked our mayor to join in promoting our diversity by attending our Pride parade, or at the very least, by attending the flag raising ceremony for Pride Week. He has refused to associate himself with either. 

For the life of us we cannot understand how someone who ran for office on the pretext of managing the city as if it were a profit-making business can refuse to acknowledge that we are in a global competition to attract the brightest minds, and that those bright minds, these days, demand an open and appreciated diversity such as Sao Paulo is so willing to embrace... and that to attract that type of citizen, whether they already live here or want to come here from abroad, we need to stay in the game. Sadly, our mayor's message is one of nostalgia for an era whose time is long past. And more troubling, his refusal to openly associate with the gay establishment sends a message of retrenchment, discrimination, and backwardness. Very bad optics!

If you believe that Toronto's future lies in the embrace of its diversity, please contact the mayor (he who bragged during the campaign about being so in touch with the people) to let him know your feelings: 

mayor_ford@toronto.ca

And in case we've scared you to the point of despair, take heart, take action, the future is in your hands, it gets better...

Have a fabulous Pride Week!!

(and call your mayor, he's expecting you'!!)

friday frequencies- are you ready for the weekend?

Today we're launching this new aspect of Bobo Feed. From day to day we listen to internet radio, but come the weekend we listen to our own music and we go "Wow! That's some cool shit!  How come we hardly ever listen to our own tunes?"

Well, to force us into *play* mode we've decided to share some of what we like. And in order not to infringe on copyright & sharing rules, we'll be seeing if we can dig up our favourite tracks on youtube, and re-posting them here most Fridays. 

Only one question: is she saying "I'm gonna find shoes and I'm ready for the weekend?"  If so, we can totally relate!

Are you ready for the weekend???

Balcony Farming- AKA Green Acres on the 12th Floor

To be honest, we're mostly with Eva on this one. Nonetheless, we seem to have caught the urban farming bug!

We've grown herbs in pots for years, and have given tomatoes a shot a few times. While they've produced some fruit, we found that small pots made small tomatoes with thick skins. Our Beefsteaks ended up the size of Cherry Tomatoes! We've also been plagued with Blossom End Rot (black undersides) and skins that crack, both afflictions apparently due to insufficient regularity in their watering. We tried lettuce last year and had some good luck, and over the past couple of years we've had bumper crops of hot chili peppers.

So this year we are pushing it a little further. We've put in another crop of lettuces and they're doing extremely well, due mostly, we think, to the slow and steady June we've had, without too much blazing sun. The arugula seems to mature the most quickly; we've actually used it all up on several weeks' worth of Pizza Nights. By this past weekend the rest had grown so bushy that we had to do a major harvest. What a great salad that was!

 The two shots above are from early this month.

 These 3 shots are from June 18th

We're trying tomatoes again, Romas this year, and so far so good. They are flowering profusely, which means there should be plenty of fruit. Now the trick will be to maintain the consistent water they seem to so desperately need.

 ^May 31st

 ^June 18th

Building on past success with peppers, we're trying a couple of larger varieties. We've got some Shepherds- sweet red peppers with an elongated body- and more hot ones, but bigger- not the teeny little firecrackers. As you can see, they're already bearing fruit.

Finally, we decided to give string beans a whirl. We've planted several yellow bean plants, and lo and behold, we've got some little beans on the way! Who knows if enough will ripen at one time to provide even a single serving, but it's fun to see how things are developing.

And all this on a 4 foot wide balcony 12 floors up!! Look out, Oliver and Lisa, the new Green Acres has been born! Now, where's that pitchfork?...

 courtesy maggiore.net

Seen..."the customer's not always right"

Layin' it down, Kensington style!

Spot Prawn Dinner- Zombie's Delight!

Wild spot prawns are apparently amongst the most sustainable forms of seafood we can eat, due to the stewardship regulations that govern their capture. They are only available "in season", and this year that means you have a little less than two weeks left to enjoy them. We hadn't tried them before, so we decided to give it a whirl a couple of weeks ago. Off we headed to our favourite fishmonger, New Seaway, in Kensington Market, where we were introduced to our supper!

Some quick research on how to prepare and enjoy them led us to this nice little clip from Vancouver Magazine. (Where else to turn for expertise on the matter other than the folks who live where they're caught, right?)

As you can see, brain sucking seems to be de rigueur! You know what? We tried it and they're absolutely right! (Brain....must...eat...brain...)

We opted for a simple spring dinner. Above, the prawns ready to go. Below, more of our mis en place: local spring asparagus, parsley from the balcony herb patch, Canadian grape tomatoes and garlic...

...and a lovely array of greens picked from our balcony garden. (Since it hasn't been hot, June this year has been a sensational month for lettuce growing!)

 Finally, we selected a gorgeous NZ Sauvignon Blanc to tie it all together!

We made up a simple salsa crudo with the tomatoes, some finely diced shallots, the parsley, sea salt, lemon juice and olive oil. Nothing cooked, just tossed together. We used that to dress some fine linguini. A super-easy aioli of Hellman's, garlic (made into paste with a mortar & pestle), and more lemon juice garnished the quickly blanched asparagus. Onto that we coarsely grated some fresh Parmesan. The greens were drizzled with a simple vinaigrette. The prawns were quickly sauteed till they just turned pink in some olive oil and diced garlic. And dinner was served al fresco.

So we shucked, and we sucked, and it was pretty good for the most part. Actually, it was friggin' delicious! But there was one small matter that seemed not quite right- some of the prawns had mushy bodies. So it was back to Google, where we discovered that once the little guys leave this world, they release an enzyme that turns their flesh mushy. Now that's a little vindictive, doncha think? 

So, the big lesson for us? Keep 'em alive till you're ready to cook. We apparently made a big mistake by leaving them in the wrapper in the fridge till the next day. Next time: buy, sustain, eat.

A new taste treat, a good lesson in food preparation, and a silky bottle of chilled white. The icing on our cake was a gorgeous evening outdoors chez nous watching the sun set and the moon rise.

Seen...Nothin' Runs Like Deere

 Colour coordination on the Sea Wall, 

False Creek,Vancouver this past March.

(and, yes, it's a John Deere!)

Life's a Beach- the Strange and Beautiful Strandbeests

We were recently exposed for the first time to the marvelous creatures known as Strandbeests, which one day soon may live by themselves on a Dutch North Sea beach. The progeny of the rigorous mind of Theo Jansen, a physicist/ artist (how often do you come across that combination?), they are remarkable in their delicate complexity and the striking beauty of their movement.

 (image courtesy artfutura)

The clip below is from the BBC's "Wallace and Gromit's World of Invention". Enlarge to full screen for best effect.

This link has a nice concise summary from ArtFutura, and for the full story about this incredibly creative gentleman, here's a link to Theo's Strandbeest website. And finally, the clip below is from a brief lecture Theo gave about his work at the 2007 TED Talks. It's 8 minutes well spent, learning how he gives them the ability to survive on their own.

TEDTalks_ Theo Jansen (2007) by tedtalks

(And that BMW commercial at the end was pretty cool, too!) 

Enjoy your weekend!

More Volcanic Fallout

A few years ago we had the opportunity to visit the town of Bariloche which is located on the shores of Lago Nahuel Huapi in the Argentine portion of Patagonia. It is a stunningly beautiful part of the world, like no other we've ever visited. The clear mountain light is mesmerizing, the lake and its ring of mountains is jaw- droppingly beautiful, and the scrubby dessert country just to the east of the Andes is stunning. Despite a population in the region of around a hundred thousand, the land is so immense that the countryside is truly empty in most places you voyage. Here's a little demonstration of what we're talking about:

Of course, the Andes mountain chain separates Argentina from Chile, and that neighbouring country was a mere stone's throw from our lakeside cabin. We have been wondering in the last day, with news of the volcanic eruption in southern Chile, what the reprecussions would be for our little paradise. We saw a report earlier today confirming that Bariloche has been affected, and just a short while ago we received images from the proprietor of Balcon al Lago, the lodgings where we stayed, showing the fallout of ash on the lake right outside his home. 

 ^ normal view

 ^ this morning

 ^ 3:00PM this afternoon

 ^ 4:00PM this afternoon

^ 5:00PM this afternoon.

Here's the link to today's images from Balcon al Lago. If we understand the last line of Rodolfo's notice correctly, the lake surface normalized at around 6:30 this evening. It is incredible to realize the sheer magnitude of these natural events, and we hope and pray that our friend and the other fine people of Patagonia get through this safely and with the minimum of disruption!

Tickling our Foot(ware) Fetish, Once Again...

Recently discoverd, from our friends at Made in Brazil...
http://www.madeinbrazilblog.com/blog/laser-cut-sneakers-converse-brazil/

Much as they've done with these and these, the Brazilians have hit it out of the park once again with these great "Converse" laser cut "kicks"

Lovin' these...






















Now if we could only get them here....

Back to Rio for a little retail therapy perhaps??

Looking Up...pink and blue

Outside the Umbra store on John Street, north of Queen.

Wall Flowers

Our three girls started out as uninhibited things, flowering away to their hearts' content. But as they've grown older they've become more self conscious, and we're not sure why. So we've decided to re-introduce them to their heritage to see if that will draw them out. We're talking, of course, about our orchids.

Friends in the Caribbean introduced us to the idea of strapping orchids to the sides of trees and letting them just do their thing. 

When in Rio de Janeiro a couple of years ago we saw it again. Outside apartment buildings people lash their plants to the trunks of the trees where they help beautify the street. Amazing!

It's rather remarkable, but orchids get their nutrients from the air, and they seem to thrive when left to their own devices in this way. Of course, a semi-tropical climate doesn't hurt, but our girls are only getting a summer crash course in going native, and let's face it, Toronto's summer heat and humidity are pretty close to that of the rainforest. Our only fear is that our evenings don't get as cool as orchids prefer, but surely the nights in Vieques aren't any colder than Toronto's in July. If it works there...

OK, tough-love time, you three! Enough apartment coddling, it's back to your humble (air) roots. We've strapped you to the trellis in a spot where you won't get a sunburn. Here's hoping you embrace the change and put on a pretty show for us. And if you don't? Well, let's just say that if it's cool nights you want, we can arrange that for you in a few months' time! 

Cross your fingers and hope for us that our girls flourish at summer camp. We'll keep you posted!