paris

Oh, Paris… Paris, Ontario that is. A few weeks back Steve and I stopped by the small town of Paris, Ontario. The town is 160 years old and is at the cross section of two major southern Ontario rivers; the Grand River, and the Ninth River.

Although Paris is beautiful, it is not, as one might think, named after la belle ville de Paris because of it’s notable elegance and beauty.  In fact, the town of Paris, Ontario actually bares no resemblance or connection to Paris, France whatsoever.  It’s name actually came to be as a result of the large amounts of gypsum found in the area, which is used in the making of plaster of Paris.  It is also the location of where the first long distance telephone call was received by Alexander Graham Bell.

Oh, Paris you do not cease to amaze me!

Spring time in Paris as the sign connotes would be beautiful.  But I would chance a guess that fall in Paris, Ontario would be just as picturesque.  The river is lined with trees, and is banked with a row of old buildings that overlook the Grand.  I remember when I took the train in to visit Steve at his artist residency in Windsor going by Paris and thinking to myself that I definitely wanted to stop through this charming town.

If you do ever find your way to Paris, Ontario in fall, spring or summer, you can rent a canoe or kayak and do some river cruising, while enjoying the scenery.  There are also the rail trails that extend from Hamilton to Brantford and then Brantford to Paris.  I saw a lot of bikers on the Paris rail trail as we made our way out of town.

One of the best parts of our trip to Paris were the treats!  I had a black cherry ice-cream from the ice-cream shop across from the Canadian Tire that had been retrofitted into a historic old building (why can’t more cities do this!).  We picked up some sweet and delicious treats form the Paris Bakery for the road.

Then we went for a coffee at the Brown Dog Coffee and Frittery.

Yes, yes you can! You can get apple fritters, cheese cake fritters, & a banana split fritter!

Fresh apple fritters!  What a fantastic fall treat.  Coincidentally the city of Waterdown as of September 23rd will be home to the 2nd 3rd Brown Dog Coffee & Frittery.  So this means that I’m just that much closer to having fresh apple fritters paired with super amazing coffee on a more regular basis.  Mmmmm.

*Brown Dog Coffee Shoppe & Frittery, 63 Grand River St., Paris, ON, 519.302.0722

*Brown Dog Coffee Shoppe & Frittery, 312 Dundas St., Waterdown, ON.

hamilton sketchbook

A few years back when we were still living in Toronto I went to Pages book store, when it still existed at Queen & John, and asked if they had any books about Hamilton. We’d already been crushing on Hamilton big time, and I wanted to indulge in our fantasy of moving to Hamilton by giving Steve a book about the city for his 31st birthday.  The store clerk looked up at me in a bit of shock, and then clarified again whether I really meant a book about the city of Hamilton, Hamilton, Ontario, really?

The only book in the entire store about Hamilton, Hamilton, Ontario, was a graphic novel titled Hamilton Sketchbook by David Collier.

I could not have asked for a better gift for Steve and introduction to life in Hamilton.  I was so happy to have had the luck of stumbling upon such a gem of book.

After having moved to Hamilton, at an art crawl about 2 years back, I met David Collier at Mixed Media.  He was selling and signing Part 2 of the Hamilton Sketchbook.  I ended up buying this copy for another present for Steve.

There’s something really cool about reading about places you’ve been to and places you’ve lived in.  I love the down to earth feel, and day to day life depiction of David’s work.

Today as I rode by Mixed Media on my way to work I noticed a poster by David in the window.  Prints for $10 Hamilton Light Rail Transit.

I heard that David recently designed the album artwork for relatively new Hamiltonian Luke Doucet and The White Falcon‘s latest album Steel City Trawler, which is a tribute entirely to the city of Hamilton.

For a great read about Luke Doucet’s recent move to Hamilton, and more details about his album (produced by Sloan’s Andrew Scott) and about David Collier read the National Post’s article here.
 

 

Luke Doucet and life partner, fellow musician and singer-songwriter Melissa McClelland will be playing a show with their new band White Horse at The Hamilton Place Studio on September 30th with Frazey Ford.

festival food

The summers around here are filled with festivals and small town fairs.  Along with festivals and fairs comes festival food.

One of the early summer festivals we hit up was the Turkish Festival at Gage Park. My favourite was this savoury Turkish pancake, called a Gozleme.  It’s a thin buttery bread stuffed with parsley and feta cheese and then pan fried right in front of you on special hot plate that looked like an inverted hot steel bowl.

I went to the Winona Peach Festival for the 2nd time in the past 3 years.  I do have to be honest in saying that I will probably not go back. This year I went strictly for some food tasting, but I did not find much that would warrant another visit.

We sampled the ribbon chips, which were probably the best purchase of the evening.  The chips are thinly peeled into a giant long ribbon from one whole potato, then deep fried into golden crisp goodness.

The peach sundae was good, but like much fair food, was overpriced, and nothing that I wouldn’t be able to whip up at home with some fresh and local peaches, vanilla bean ice-cream and some whipped cream.

These deep fried panzerotti balls were the biggest disappointment.  What one would think would be awesome cheesy deep fried goodness, was just pretty much over processed crapiness.  I was looking for something a little more homemade.

We also stopped by the Cactus Festival in Dundas, which was your typical mid town fair.  There was a huge variety of food vendors, including fair classics like elephant ears, funnel cake, deep fried butter, mars bars, plus items from poutine, sweet potatoe fries, to Indian Currries and gourmet burgers.

In my many visits to Dundas I had never noticed the little Ukranian grocers until this day.  I was so excited to see the shop that I couldn’t resist indulging in some pierogies and kielbasa.  I can only dream that one day somewhere nearby there might be a pierogi festival.

My only warning to you if you do ever decide to head to the Cactus Festival, be aware that the festival population is composed of about 99.9% 12-15 year olds.  Just to give you a better picture, there was a bouncer at the McDonalds to assist with teen crowd control.

supercrawl

Supercrawl 2011 is going to be so damn good.  I’m crying inside that I’m going to miss it.  Instead of artcrawling, I’ll be heading to beautiful upstate NY for the 4th out of 5 weddings of the season.  It will be fun but it might be hard pressed to top the 3 major free festivals that will all be running simultaneously in Hamilton’s downtown core on Saturday, September 10th.  We’ve got the Locke Street Festival, Country Music Week (at Copps Coliseum & on top of Jackson Square) and the SUPERCRAWL on James St. north.

The line up for the Supercrawl is just so outstandingly AWESOME! If I could go, these would be some of my top picks to check out…
 

J Mascis of Dinosaur Junior -9:15pm Stage 1 at York & James N.

Basia Bulat will be playing with the Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra -7pm Stage 1 at York & James N.

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Black Francis aka Frank Black of The Pixies and Reid Paley -9pm Stage 2 Colborne & James N.  (Paley & Francis will be releasing their new album with Hamilton local record label Sonic Unyon).

Junior Boys back from their world tour, and home to Hamilton for the Supercrawl! -9pm Stage 2 Colborne & James N.

Hamilton’s own, Young Rival -4:15pm Stage 1 at York & James N.

DMC Canadian Final DJ Competition at Academia Banquet Hall (upper floor), 242 James St. north.

I would also love to see the hand knitted art installation that will replicate the entire brick facade of The Brain, done by the Beehive Craft Collective.  This is going to be so cool!

Oh, and how could I  forget to mention a super exhibit called Women’s Work that will be on display at Project Space 126/128 James St. north, opening reception on the Supercrawl night from 7-10pm.  It will be an exhibit of fantastic crafty, textileness, which will include a beehive paper dress by artist Hitoko Okata.

Erika DeFreitas, Detail from A Teleplasmic Study with Doillies (A Selection). 2010 - 2011. Digital print

The day before the Supercrawl; Friday September 9th will be Terra Lighfoot‘s CD release party at This Ain’t Hollywood, and James St. north will still be kickin’ with it’s regular monthly art crawl from 7-11pm.

The Supercrawl will take place on Saturday, September 10th from 10am-12 midnight, from York/Wilson and James St. north all the way down to This Ain’t Hollywood.

After parties a plenty at The Brain -199 James St. north (dance party to soul, house, disco boogie) free, 1pm-2am, and after party thrown by Beauty Industries at The Red Mill Theatre -80 James St. north (at Wilson) $10 to get in, 9pm-2am.

On top of a phenomenal line up of class act musical artists both local and otherwise there will be some amazing visual artists and art installations, plus galleries and the ever increasing number of independent and cool shops, will all be open and pumping at full throttle.

Here is a list of the 2011 Supercrawl contingent.  For specific times and locations of performances look here.

Music-BROKEN SOCIAL SCENE
J MASCIS
PALEY & FRANCIS
JUNIOR BOYS
SAID THE WHALE
RIDLEY BENT
BASIA BULAT and the HAMILTON PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA
PLANTS AND ANIMALS
RAH RAH
DINNER BELLES
SEAN ROWE
JACQUES GREENE (dj set)
THE HEARTBROKEN
DINOSAUR BONES
YOUNG RIVAL
TURKEY RHUBARB
REBEKAH HIGGS
MAYOR McCA
ELECTROLUMINESCENT
LIVE HOW YOU LIVE
COWLICK
OLENKA AND THE AUTUMN LOVERS
MONSTER TRUCK
THE REST
BA JOHNSTON
SARAH LOWES
FRY TRUCK
HAMILTON HIP HOP ALL-STARS
MOTEM & CO.
McMASTER LAPTOP ORCHESTRA
DJ OLLIE
DJ BASCO
EARTH, WIND & CHOIR
plus
DMC 2011 WORLD DJ CHAMPIONSHIPS: CANADIAN FINALS
and
WAR CHILD Busking For CHANGE

FYI Free shuttle buses available from the Locke St. festival to the Supercrawl.

ribfest

A few summers back Steve and I biked to Burlington for their annual Ribfest (Canada’s largest!).  I remember how the bike ride was a bit tricky once we hit the industrial heartland of the steel mills and entered into the highway of what is Burlington St. east (now with the bike bridge over the QEW this should be no sweat).  Not to mention the lift bridge got stuck and there was about an hour delay to cross the water to get to Burlington.

Mmmmm ribs.  Ribfest was awesome and well worth the bike ride and wait.  It was packed, smoky, and delicious.

A good sampling of ribs, pulled pork, and beer by the lake, in the sun, is a fantastic way to end off the summer.  Oh, sigh..

and another one’s down

Photo by Jeff Tessier from Civic Pride Made Real, H Mag.

150 Main St. is where the 57 year old Federal Building stands… well is kind of standing.  It is partially being dismembered.  The whole ordeal has been a contentious and difficult process.  There have been petitions to save Elizabeth Holbrook’s 1954 stone works that adorn the front facade of the building, as well as, petitions to designate the building as a historical landmark.  Owner and developer Darko Vranich purchased the building in 2004 with the intention to develop the property into condos.  However, 7 years later no action or movement to initiate this development was taken.  After much drama between the city, Vranich and the Government of Canada, it was decided that only a partial demolition would be able to occur, as when Vranich purchased the building one condition was to keep intact the original facade and features of the building and that the building could not be razed to the ground.  Phewf!

“Please be reminded that the Government of Canada sold the property with a covenant that runs with the land in perpetuity which, in addition to protecting certain designated features and facades, requires that you and subsequent purchasers not ‘raze to the ground or otherwise demolish the entire building.’”

It is still very sad and frustrating to see half the building being ripped down, not to mention that the owner was able to leave the building untouched for such a long time only letting it fall into further decay.  I feel like this is a trend in Hamilton; buy an old building that has the potential to rejuvenate and transform the city when properly cared for, make hollow promises that you will develop it but then do nothing, let the building sit vacant for many years, ultimately resulting in its demolition.  This has been a similar case for many historical downtown Hamilton buildings like The Century Theatre, which was demolished in 2010, and The Royal Connaught, which has been sitting vacant since 2004.  It is truly such a horrible shame or even a disgrace as Sean Burak writes in Raise the Hammer.

For further reading pleasure about the state of many of Hamilton’s buildings, read the recently published article in The Globe and Mail titled Vacant Buildings Overwhelm Hamilton’s Streets.

edible garden

I love that Hamilton’s City Hall has an edible garden.  Purple cabbage, kale, parsley, and Swiss chard fill the garden beds out front of the shiny new refurbished City Hall.

After passing the cabbage patch out front of Hamilton’s City Hall, I biked past a small splatter of chalk messages to the late Jack Layton on the sidewalk.  It was a very sweet tribute to Jack from local Hamiltonians.  Still, nothing can compare to the overwhelming and touching response to the recent passing of NDP leader Jack Layton in front of City Hall in Toronto.

Crowds gather in front of Toronto City Hall, Nathan Philips Square, to read chalk drawn messages dedicated to Jack Layton.

closing time

Harvest Burger has been a King Street Hamilton staple for as long as I can remember.  It’s been around for 32 years to be exact, long before I started frequenting it as a teenager. For a place that feels like it’s been in existence forever, it is hard to imagine that one day soon Harvest Burger will be closing its doors.  I paid my last visit recently, and spoke briefly with owner Ippokratis Fthenos, who expressed with sadness that through good times and bad times the time had come for him and his wife Georgia to retire and close up shop.

When I asked Ippokratis if the King St. east Harvest Burger location would remain open, he pointed to the card propped up on the counter “In Loving Memory”, and said his brother owned the other Harvest Burger location and that sadly he had just passed away 2 weeks ago, so no it wasn’t staying open.  The only other Harvest Burger in Hamilton will also be closing.

September 3rd will be Harvest Burger’s last day open.  Soon to be replaced by an A&W.  Pay your respects, reminisce about bygone days, eat a burger and munch on some fries, it’s time for Harvest Burger farewells and goodbyes.

*194 King St. West, Hamilton, 905.525.3233

modify your closet

I’ve always loved the corner of Walnut and King.  It’s home to some beautiful old buildings that are in great condition, well maintained, and in the recent past have previously been vacant. However…

Last fall I was over the moon to see the consignment shop MODify Your Closet open up right on that block. I remember the very day it opened it because I basically ran right in.  The physical store space itself is gorgeous.  Owner Melanie McArthur and store manager Ally Amato renovated the space themselves stripping it back down to it’s  bare bones -original wood floors, and tin 14 foot high ceilings.  Pretty much restoring the 100 year old+ building to it’s primordial state.

MYC now carries men’s wear too along with a great selection of carefully selected men’s & women’s shoes, clothes, vintage ties, with a huge collection of women’s accessories from hats, scarves and belts down to clutches and purses.

I regularly peak in and peruse the choice selection of vintage and gently used designer finds.  With every season change the ladies at MYC put on some fantastic sales of up to 50-70% off nearly everything in the store.  I’ve found some amazing steals, and will boast my purchase of 2 denim rompers (because 1 is never enough!), a super cute red and white polka-dot shirt and an adorably sexy black dress ALL for a total of $48!

Another recent addition to the collection of great finds at this store is the vintage pyrex cookware.  Love it!

For more information about this great consignment store read The Hamilton Spectator article about MODify Your Closet  here.

*203 King St. east, Hamilton, Ontario, 905.522.2229, M-F 10-6, S 12-5

bike ride

The other day we went for a bike ride, and I was happy to see the completed bike bridge that now connects the rail trail all the way to the waterfront trail (up & over the QEW), allowing for easier access to the beach and water all by bicycle!

I love the Hamilton bike trails. From our house it’s a 2 minute ride to the escarpment rail trail that goes east up and along the escarpment to Albion Falls.  A short jaunt away from our place (at the top of Dundurn) is the start of the other rail trail going west all the way to Brantford.  If you wanted to make a day of cycling you could do a huge circuit from Burlington’s lakeshore waterfront all the way to the Dundas Valley Conservation area all by trails.

Love, love, love the waterfront trail between Burlington & Hamilton.  It’s wide, paved, and can accommodate, bikers, walkers, strollers, rollerbladers and the like all without overcrowding.  On this day there were tons of picnics and bbqs going on, as well as, folks lounging by the beach, eating ice-cream and sipping patio beers.

On the way home from the waterfront we opted to take Lawrence road’s bike lane (the road that runs behind Gage Park to Stoney Creek) and follow the neighbourhood back roads that hug the escarpment back home to downtown.