I Like What You've Done With The Place!

I visited the great city of Toronto yesterday to attend my beautiful friend Natalia's wedding.  The bus schedule got me to town earlier than needed, so I took the opportunity to explore the city I used to call home.  A spot I have been itching to check out, which happened to be a 5 minute walk from the wedding, was the Maple Leaf Gardens Loblaws.

I love groceries and I love grocery shopping, a trait I inherited from my mother.  I love checking out the weekly flyers, I love walking down the grocery store aisles, I love looking at all the possible foods I could eat! Or deals I could get! I just love the whole experience.  So my love of groceries coupled with some high expectations about the new Loblaws based on some photos I had seen, got me pretty excited to be on Carlton street in Toronto yesterday.  And my excitement and expectations were met entirely by what I encountered throughout my twenty minute visit!  First case in point: when I walked into the store I was greeted with the sites and sounds of an Elvis impersonator doing a show.  Amazing!!  And Like a good tourist, I took a bunch of photos!!

Elvis was just doing a show in the lobby. Obviously.

The place is gigantic and beautiful.  There is a full LCBO, a coffee shop, a Joe clothing store, and many incredible specialty sections.  Oh and just an entire regular grocery store as well.  I was completely overstimulated by the site of so many fresh foods and prepared treats, countless varieties of meats and cheeses - my heart be still till the next time I'm in the T-Dot.  Oh and they have free wifi if you want to surf the web while shopping. I loved it.

Wall of Cheese!  So many choices!!

Classy meals to go section.

An actual deli in the grocery store - did I mention the Loblaws is really big??

 Everything in the store is classy.  Even the signs that indicate what aisle you are in are classy.

Looking for ice cream cones has never been so upscale!

They also pay homage to the history of Maple Leaf Gardens with a giant blue maple leaf made out of the former seats.  It was a neat touch.

Go Leafs Go!

I live in a small town, so the other highlight for me was the variety of foods in the international foods section - and how inexpensive they were!! Next trip I am bringing some reusable bags and loading up!  Memo to Maple Leaf Gardens Loblaws: I will be back!

Have you checked it out?  What do you think?

A New Favourite

Lately I have been obsessed with the idea of making my own spicy sushi maki rolls.  Spicy tuna roll is my favourite roll to eat at a sushi restaurant, and any roll that has spicy sauce in it is my second favourite.  I have previous experience making California rolls, and I am really excited about adding spicy sauce to the mix.  I was not 100% sure what the spicy in Spicy sauce was, but I did some Googling to find a recipe and many sites suggested something called Sriracha Sauce mixed with mayo. I went searching in Midland and Food Basics had a bottle of the stuff!

I didn't know of Sriracha Sauce before yesterday, but now I am completely obsessed with it! I'm not waiting until I make my spicy sushi rolls, I am currently adding it to everything I consume.  Last night we added it to a pack of drained Mr. Noodles and it was glorious!  I couldn't help but have more Sriracha soaked Mr. Noodles again for lunch today.  The sauce adds an amazing flavour with the perfect amount of spice.

I was home alone for dinner tonight, and when that happens I often find myself eating the weirdest assortment of foods.  When I lived alone I was able to make my own meals regularly (and be really good at it), but now if John's away I'm likely to eat things like Mr Noodles for dinner (even if I had it for lunch).  My eclectic meal from this evening was pretty much anything that could be a vehicle for the Sriracha sauce. I had half a can of baked beans in tomato sauce (drenched in Sriracha sauce), 2 egg rolls (that I dipped in Sriracha sauce), and 3 hash browns (which I also dipped in Sriracha sauce).  Super yum!  I kind of want to bring the bottle with me to Easter dinner tomorrow and put it on...everything!  I hope I have some sauce left for when I get around to actually making maki rolls!!

Have you tried Sriracha Sauce?  What do you think? 

Also check out this comic from The Oatmeal that also expresses a love for Sriracha sauce!

Spring BBQ

A few weeks ago when we had those Summer Days in March, John and I fired up the BBQ and had us some Spring steak.  Food and I have been amazing friends this year - we can't get enough of each other!  I keep telling myself that I'm going to stop eating everything soon, but everything tastes so fricken' good.  My new plan is to start walking to work so I can keep up this steady pace of eating.  Google Maps says it will take 3 hours to walk the 17 KM it is to get there, so I better set my alarm early on Monday!  Or maybe I could just exercise at all.  I'll get there.  Until then, here are photos of yummy steak dinner!!

Before and After

John and I took out a stupid amount of sushi tonight for dinner:

And this was the aftermath:

 

We ate like champions!  So amazingly good!!

This Week in Random/Awesome/Educational

Random: John came and met me for lunch on Friday.  There was free pizza at my office, so we scored some slices and drove to the parking lot behind the mall for a romantic meal together.  We we talking and out the window we saw the most adorable little dog, happily running towards our parked car.  I rolled down my window, greeted him with a proper "hey buddy!" and asked where his person was.  He didn't respond, he just continued on his parking lot run, blissfully unaware of the potential danger the parking lot could offer.  To be fair, the lot behind the mall does have a lot of space where there are no cars, but it is still a parking lot with cars driving through it, and I judge it as not the safest place to be running around.  The dog didn't care about my concern, ran blissfully, pissed on some light stands, and eventually ran over to what must have been his person's car and got a ride home.

Awesome: I spoke with my nephew Earl on the phone last week and he was playing pretend with his little sister.
  Earl: "Liz is the Princess and I'm the Knight.  But I don't have any armor right now, so I'm wearing my
  pajamas.  My pajamas are actually pretty good armor, so it's okay."
I agree with Earl, my pajamas are some of the best armor I own; defending my right to naps and lazy Sundays!

Educational: My Mom baby-sat my niece and nephew all last week and throughout each phone conversation we had, there was a repeated message that I read loud and clear from the background noise: "don't have kids!"