We made our traditional trek up to my brother Gus’s cottage at Lake Rosseau. Last year JT went golfing, this year it snowed!

Sudden snow storm across the lake.

Of course, I am bundled up like a snowman, and the kids barely have a sweater on! It was quite chilly, no really!

A nice afternoon walk. No, we didn’t bump into Martin Short, but I think he was there – his gate was open!

This year we had to close the cottage down a bit early because of weekend obligations. It’s never fun but we’ve got it down to a science so it generally goes smoothly.

Because it’s a work weekend, I try to make most of the food easy and fast. For the first time in months, we were able to sneak away from work early, around 2ish, which means we’re on the road by 3! Of course, the gods of traffic hate us, and we barely made it up in four hours!!! Should be a 3.25 hour trip. But we made it.

I made an asparagus soup the night before. I generally keep a baggy of asparagus ends in the freezer and take out as needed. Because they are usually the end you discard anyway, it’s basically free. For this soup, you will need more than you think because a lot of it is discarded after it’s run through a fine sieve (it’s mostly the woody parts, but they are still quite tasty.

Creamed Asparagus Soup (serves 2 as main course or 4 as small cups)

• 2 cups asparagus stems (I generally use the ends which I have snapped off over the summer months and frozen)
• 1-2 cups low sodium chicken stock (or vegetable stock)
• 1/2 sweet onion, chopped
• 1-2 tbsp olive oil
• salt and pepper to taste
• 2 slices prosciutto
• 2 thinly sliced crusty bread
• 1/4 cup grated gruyère

1. Thinly slice prosciutto and fry until crispy in a little oil (1 tsp)
2. Drain crispy prosciutto and set aside.
3. Using about 1-3 tsp olive oil, rub both sides of bread and toast until crispy. Set aside.
4. Using 1 tbsp olive oil, sweat out the onions until soft, add the asparagus stems which have been cut into about 1 inch lengths.
5. Add 1 cup chicken stock and cook until the asparagus is very soft.
6. Using an immersion blender, blend until smooth (you will need a good motor because the woody stems may cause problems).
7. Once you have puréed the soup, ladle into a fine sieve and press through using the back of your ladle (do not skip this step, the woodiness of the stems will make this soup inedible if you don’t strain it!). Add more stock until desired consistency has been achieved.
8. While keeping soup warm, sprinkle the gruyère evenly onto one side of each toast. Place under broiler for a minute until cheese is bubbling.
9. Ladle soup into two bowls, gently top with the gruyère toast and sprinkle with the prosciuto crisps. Serve hot
10. Enjoy!

Check out the photos from the weekend.

JT and I rode our bikes (20km each way mostly along bike paths along the Lakeshore) over to the Port Credit Blues and Jazz Festival yesterday afternoon. WOW. By far, the best free outdoor event EVER. I cannot say enough about it. There was a band about every 100 feet or so, they alternated so bands played every two hundred feet at one time, and MAN they were good. I haven’t heard just good blues since our last time to the windy city! The weather was a amazing too. We’re going back today. I would highly recommend either today or next year.

The bike ride was 20km each way, and not too stressful (other than finding the paths/roads which were sometimes not marked well). But JT persevered and we didn’t falter once! Here are some photos of the event and our bike back.

Weather started off a bit on the chilly side, but with the hot sun and a nice breeze it was fantastic (similar weather to Saturday!!!)

Steve Strongman Band

Steve Strongman Band is the first band we stopped at.

The Nomads

The Nomads are the second band we stopped at, really really great!!!!

David Rotundo Band

Another great band, David Rotundo Band, really really bluesy. We stayed the longest here!

Dave Murphy Band

The Dave Murphy Band was at the end of where they shut Lakeshore down. It too was great, but we were already beat from being in the sun all day, so we decided to head home. 20km bike ride each way, 2.5 hours in the sun, and we were baked! Without a drop of booze!

Bridge One Eastward to Toronto

I decided to take some shots everytime we came upon a bridge, which was about 4 in our 20km journey!

Bridge Two Eastward Toronto

Bridge Three Eastward to Toronto

TO Skyline in between bridges

You can see how far away we are here.

Bridge Four Eastward to Toronto

We're almost home, on the suspension bridge by Palace Pier

As an add-on to last night’s post: On the front lawn I put out all the decent sized lumber pieces left over from our project (minimum size 3′ maximum size 5′) hoping that someone with a smaller project would pick them up. Well, during cocktails, a guy pulled up in his sedan and did just that; and then he came back and picked up MOST of our lumber from our previous deck!!! I am SO GLAD. Both JT and I had concerns that Billy would have to make several trips (and that just means more $$$$ for us!). I just LOVE that this guy thought our lumber was good enough to reuse (he actually asked if he could and he mentioned he had a cabin up north that he was building, so the lumber was great for him!).

By the way,  it did rain last night.

Trip #6 to The Depot and oh, look…rain!

We only had to build the steps today, so we were done by 11am! Check out the finished Steps:

The Finished Steps

The new view from the living room:

The Room with the View

And finally, the finished deck:

The FInished Deck

Today is Canada Day, therefore everthing is closed (thank goodness we stocked up from The Depot, the LCBO and Metro!).  We got off to a great start and skirted the back of the deck. By 12:30ish we had the arbour up and capped. Lunch was a tasty wrap and a tower of tomatoes and buffalo mozarella….YUM.

Wraps with Tomato and Buffalo Mozerella Tower

Although the weather forecast called for rain, we didn’t get any! YIPEEEEEE. We worked like crazy to get the top box finished for the steps from the living room and by the end of the day, JT was skirting behind the BBQ and I was cleaning up.

The deck is done, but the steps to the patio still need to be done, and you know what that means…Trip #6 to The Depot tomorrow morning!

The Cocktail Lounge Arbour

The Cocktail Lounge

The Reclaimed Dining Area

Cocktails with Hungarian Cheese Sticks (my Aunte Agi’s recipe) will be served promptly at 5:30 on the New, Mother of All Mothers, Cocktail Lounge (furniture is TBD, we will use this in the meantime). Shortly thereafter, dinner will be served de plein air (as they say) in the newly reclaimed dining area! Cheers!

The morning started out to be quite sunny. But clouds did manage to float in and we had a few minor showers, which didn’t stop us from working.

We got most of the uprights put up, ready for the lattice and we got the bottom box made for the steps from the sliding doors off the living room. The we broke for lunch.

Build Day 5 - the rain continues

During lunch, the skies opened up again and poured like there was no tomorrow. We decided to make our 5th trip to The Depot to pick up a few things. My bet was 4 JTs 5.

By the time we got home it was after 2pm and still raining, so we had to call it a day because tonight we are picking up our new Diesel Jetta and trading in the poor old buglette. Unfortunately, it is directly in cocktail hour. Cheers, anyway!

The New Diesel Jetta

The New Diesel Jetta

I have been so bad posting lately.
We’ve had a lot of rain, but that’s good for nature. The trees seem to have burst into bloom in a matter of hours! It truly is spectacular! I have to admit, this is really my most favourite time of year. The back yard is filled with light and dark purple violets, dark purple periwinkle, lily of the valley and right at the very back of the yard, beside the shed is our very own beautiful white trillium! The forsythia at the back of the yard was the first to show it’s plumes. The crab apple tree is just about to burst into bloom, the lilacs have started opening (their scent is amazing). Last year I severely cut back the mock orange and had doubts about its return, but it has really come back so wonderfully, I am excited to see its blooms this year! The weigela is also ready to burst (last week I brought a few boughs inside to force them into bloom for a sneak peak!)
I haven’t been doing much cooking lately – and last Thursday I caught my first cold of the year – UGH! I think I am going to cancel all of my plans this weekend and stay in bed with ginger tea and popcorn!

Thank goodness they are predicting rain this evening, otherwise we wouldn’t know where to put any more snow!

Just to get us all into the Christmas spirit…we are having another 10 cm of snow dumped on us tonight…that is 30 cm since Friday! Oh joy!

Here are the photos from Sunday morning:

Hopefully we’re at the end of this storm system…we really need Paul and T to arrive safely and on time!

Happy holidays!

It’s Saturday morning and we just experienced the first of three storm systems coming through southern Ontario. It snowed non-stop since Friday at seven in the morning. We’ve shoveled 3 times to try to keep on top of it. It was brutal but it IS Canada and it IS December so what they heck were you expecting? Check out the news…over 100 flights canceled.
It would have been a great night to cuddle in front of the fire with a glass or ten of wine and just sit and talk…but nooooooo. We made plans to head up to Sheppard to meet friends at a restaurant. We haven’t seen these folks for a while, so we’re excited about seeing them.

We decided to be responsible Torontonians and get there via subway (I love that….NOT, but that’s a rant for a later entry) . The plus is that we didn’t need to worry about weather, the minus is that I wasn’t be able to wear my new pink BCBG stilettos! boo hoo hoo! Well, another minus was that our subway system SUCKS and we almost never got there!

It seems that these snowstorms are a new phenomenon to our transit folk! UGH. And do they ever shovel sidewalks north of Bloor…you have got to be kidding! Rant rant rant!

Leanne, Stefan and Pam had a bottle ready for us as soon as we arrived (I may have mumbled a few profanities, believe it or not!) We had a lovely time at Pourquois Pas , company was great, food was fine (not the best, nor the worst) and service was good too. Other than we were one of two groups of patrons that evening (but that could be because of the storm and everyone else was stuck on the subway!) Great time altogether. We went back to Leanne and Stefan’s for dessert and coffee!

Our good friend Pam gave us a lift home which was such a treat after our terrible experience with the subway (am I being too subtle about how I HATE the subway????)