Toronto Love

It is kinda weird, this compulsion I have to leave the serenity of my lakeside home and go willingly to the insane intensity that is Toronto. From my deck I talk on the phone to my friends there and I can hear them and imagine them, in their homes on the streets I know so well. I can almost smell it, feel the warm humid air, almost believe it exists in my absence. But no, I actually have to go there, fly above the planet and watch the earth moving below me from the window of the plane, feel the thrum of the engines confirming I am hurtling through space and time toward my destination. I get off the plane and immediately I feel it. I am in a different time zone, different climate, a whole different attitude. I am happy to set foot in my old hometown, yet after confirming it really is still here, I am tempted to turn around and go home, to my chosen home, but of course I don’t. I board a TTC bus and soon I am zooming along the Bloor subway line, an immediate immersion into the gritty city. I emerge into my old hood and pull my convenient carry on through the brightly lit and littered downtown streets. It is a warm evening and the restaurant patios and bookstores are buzzing. The angry sounds of traffic, the smell of cigarettes and pot and garbage, the lovely singing of a busker all welcome me. I turn the corner onto the street where my mother lived for forty years and where our family home remains. Ridiculously overgrown feathery cosmos tower over me and block my path. Dahlias and climbing roses spill over fences fronting the narrow brick Victorian era homes. Toronto is a surprisingly verdant city, gardens are abundant. The hot summer days and warm nights make for huge blossoms and creeping vegetation.

My first visit is a dim sum lunch with an old friend, a leisurely walk away through cozy residential streets to bustling Spadina Ave. in Chinatown. Not much has changed here in the last fifty years. Favourite restaurants disappear but others pop up. Chefs and kitchen junkies come from all over come to shop in the stores packed with all manner of crockery, cooking utensils and housewares. Fresh produce and iced seafood is piled high in giant bins blocking the already congested sidewalks in front of cavernous grocery stores. You need fortitude and sharp elbows to make your way through the throngs if you wish to enter. Old women squat on the wide sidewalks with dreary displays of bunched herbs and roots and tiny pots of succulents at their feet. Young men sell knockoff watches, Kung Fu videos and cheap electronics from rickety card tables. It is wonderfully crowded and chaotic and for me it will always be a bit mysterious.

Our dim sum is fresh and packed with flavour, steamed eggplant stuffed with shrimp, crispy tofu in a rich sauce, oily compressed radish cake, plenty of ginger, garlic and chives. This meal alone is worth the three thousand mile trip. When we are finished our server wraps up all the dishes in the plastic table cloth and hoists it over his shoulder, leaving a pristine shiny surface for their next guests. Brilliant.

Five minutes and a couple of blocks later and we have left Chinatown and are surrounded by vintage clothing stores, taco shops and the most diverse neighbourhood in this wonderfully diverse city. Kensington Market’s narrow streets are crowded with old brick one and two story buildings in various stages of disrepair. This area, which was originally an upscale residential neighbourhood, has been a draw for entrepreneurial immigrants and refugees looking for a home since Jewish settlers, fleeing Eastern Europe arrived in the early 1900s. Every few decades it seems the predominate population disperses and makes way for a new group of arrivals. When we first started shopping here in the 70s a few Jewish businesses remained, but Portuguese grocers and fish stores lined the streets. Asian and Caribbean stores popped up and in the 80s a wave of Latin American refugees moved in. The 80s also brought an influx of artists, musicians, punks, junkies, street people and rebels. Murals and random art installations decorate the streets and smoke filled dive bars nestle in between the bakeries, butchers and cheese stores. Rastafarians and spike haired punks share spliffs on street corners. This disparate but somehow organized group of residents have so far managed to keep gentrification at bay. This is one of my favourite places in the world, my body and soul happily thrive on all the Market has to offer. It is seedy and slightly depraved and hard core urban. Wandering back to my pad on my last visit I came across an impeccably dressed traditional Mariachi band entertaining the party people on the crowded patios. The music, the fairy lights, the happy crowds and the smell of grilled meat and tortillas take me to Mexico. I feel completely at home.

The busy street a block away from our family home has also gone through many changes of veneer since I first started hanging around there as a teenager. Goodbye to the grotty bars, second hand book stores, Italian greengrocers and Hungarian diners where we gathered as students in the 70s to drink endless espressos and discuss third world politics and theatre of the absurd. Hello to all you can eat sushi, ramen and Vietnamese noodles. This area is home to students and academics and the genteel left that have always been the Annex. Some arty coffee shops remain, and one of the grubby old pubs still stands. Thankfully Future Bakery has survived with it’s cheap filling food and massive shady patio, but across the street the historic brick building which once housed two cavernous floors showcasing world class blues and local acts is now occupied by a Value Village. I am always happy to see that Ghazele is still there, a tiny storefront run by friendly women in hijabs presiding over platters of grilled vegetables, verticle rotisseries, bright salads and sauces, all perfectly spiced and beautifully presented. It is almost impossible to walk by without stopping for falafel or a samosa or one of their overstuffed and ridiculously cheap veggie wraps.

I never seem to have enough time in Toronto to eat everything I want. This last visit I never did get around to Jamaican roti or Chinese steamed buns. I do like to cook a meal or two when I am there, mostly because I get to shop at Fiesta Farms, a huge Italian grocery store my late mother visited almost daily. The long hot summer days and warm nights bring deep flavours and Ontario grows some of the best produce I have ever had. I want everything but settle on strawberries, Italian pastries and ingredients for a risotto, one of my mother’s stand by recipes and still a favourite of her husband.

When I start to become overwhelmed by all of the never-ending activity and endless options and the feeling of claustrophobia creeps up, it is time to go home. Seeing the ocean blue and the forest green as my plane descends over Vancouver Island makes me smile all over. Driving under towering trees and alongside ocean beaches and rivers my heart lifts as I get closer to my my little house by the lake. Here my food focus in on hyper local product, I do not seek out the foreign or exotic, partly because it is not readily available. I am always excited by what’s on offer from our local farms and foragers and producers. I do not miss the plethora of choices when I am not in Toronto but it is a big reason why I keep going back. And of course my people. I was so happy to meet up with some friends I haven’t seen in decades on my recent visit. Like Toronto, on the surface they had changed, but their essence, heart and soul remain the same. I will always love Toronto, I spent some of the best years of my life there. It is part of me and part of my heart will always be there.