Canada, week two

Another week, another park. This time we drove down to Mississauga's Lakefront Promenade Park, a collection of parks and trails running along the shores of Lake Ontario.

The area used to be dominated by the four ugly smokestacks of the Lakeview Generation Station, but as it was demolished two years ago the focus is on the parks, as well as on the lake itself. It turns out to be a pretty area, and I wondered why I'd never been before, despite going to high school (Cawthra Park) just blocks away for a year. Maybe I never ventured down to the lake because the smokestacks didn't prome much, or maybe much of the parkland just didn't exist then: I've read that many of the parks along the waterfront are relatively new.

We saw a bunch of swans, including a family with an aggressive daddy, shown charging seagulls below. But without a picnic there wasn't much to do, so once we'd walked all the paths and munched on some sausages from the requisite hot dog stand, we headed home.

This is the view from the west-facing side of our house, and once upon a time we could see clear across fields and valleys. But little by little, starting with a distant Walmart and ending with this school across the street, the view has disappeared. It's still a million times better from the view from our apartment in Tokyo though, and I saw more sunsets in my month-long visit than I normally do in a year.

Things continued to go well in the eating department. Above are some bbq shrimp done my brother Greg, who is in charge of the outdoor cooking.

Indoor eating happened more often than we would have liked (thanks to the cool and rainy weather), but we didn't mind, because my Mom served us yummy stuff like the dinner above: orzo with parsley and lemon, prosciutto-wrapped halibut, grilled fennel and carrots. The full meal (minus the carrots, meant for those who don't like fennel) was taken straight from a wonderful new cookbook of hers called The Main that features main dishes with suggested sides. It was all good, including the fennel, which I'd never had before. I wonder if I can find it in Japan?

I request Swedish meatballs every time I go home for a visit and my Mom, who is half Swedish, is usually happy to oblige. Here they are served with cranberry sauce (we were out of lingonberry sauce), new potatoes, pickled red cabbage, pickled beets, and asparagus.

Swedish food tends to bring on pangs of nostalgia in my Mom, which for some unfortunate reason can only be eased by playing Swedish folk music. Luckily we only have the one album, and a few songs (preferably including the classic "Ack Varmeland, du Skona") usually do the trick. To help keep things interesting, we read some liner notes my Dad wrote years ago when he made tapes of the album for non-record player owning family members.

For one short day I flew up to Ottawa to visit my friend Krista and meet her new baby boy. He has beautiful blue eyes and is one of the happiest, cutest, and most laid-back babies I've met. I still don't really know what to do with babies (as in, how to hold them, what to say to them, etc) but this little guy was fun just to watch.

They're about to move, so I got to say good-bye to their lovely old house and see their even lovelier new house. Well, new to them I mean: I think it's about 80 years old and comes with beautiful wood finishings, stained glass doors and windows, and a shady back garden. I would love to have a house like this someday.

Just before I left, Krista's parents came back from a visit to Thunder Bay, and among the souvenirs were these pastries. Called Persians, they're a bit like a cinnamon roll but topped with pink strawberry icing, and apparently a Thunder Bay institution.

Another day was spent with my Dad and the kids at the ROM (Royal Ontario Museum), checking out the Book of the Dead exhibit in the ancient Egypt section (it was too dark for any pictures), the gems and minerals exhibit, and of course the dinosaurs.

I could have spent hours in the Earth's Treasures gallery looking at the minerals, the vast majority of which I'd never heard of, and the adjoining gallery's Light & Stone: Gems from the Collection of Michael Scott was just stunning.

These are tourmalines, which come in way more colours than I knew about.

This bust, called Mephisto, was carved from a single ruby, set on an obsidian base, and embellished with gold.

I don't remember what these are. The colour of the stone on the left looks like amethyst, but the crystal in the middle is the wrong shape and the stones seem too sparkly (although the stones were so well lit that they all sparkled beautifully).

This looks like a cameo cut from a seashell but is actually an agate, carved to take advantage of the differently coloured layers.

This mouse is also agate, with sapphire eyes, an aquamarine sheet of ice, and gold whiskers, tail and skates.

The dinosaurs were in the new Michael Lee-Chin wing, and whatever you might think about the architecture from the outside, I think it's a nice looking space from the inside, well suited to to the old bones housed there.

The gem exhibit will be at the ROM until November this year, so don't miss it.

When it was nice enough to eat outside again, Greg set up a complicated fajita station. He grilled some steaks, chopped up some vegetables, sliced up the steaks, the fried them with the veggies.

We each got to grill our tortillas and top them with the beef filling and our choice of guacamole, four kinds of cheese, and three kinds of salsa (plus cucumber salad on the side).

And then of course there were the hot sauces. I really liked Mountain Man, but the rest were way too spicy for me.

Here's mine before wrapping, and wow was it ever good.

The Brampton Farmers' Market is held every Saturday throughout the summer, with the opening day in mid-June featuring an and all-you-can-eat pancake breakfast. Big and fluffy and topped with real maple syrup, they were delicious, but sadly the first two I got were all I could eat.

Oh yeah, there's Hideaki. He came for a two week visit during my stay, his first trip to Canada in four years.

There wasn't as much produce as I'd hoped (did I mention the crappy weather? yes? well, it had been going on long before I arrived, and caused crops to be late) but I consoled myself with a back bacon sandwich.

It started to rain so we gave up on the market as soon as we'd bought our stuff, and after finding some bargains at a church bazaar we went to the nearby Art Gallery of Peel. Part of the Peel Heritage Complex, where my Mom used to work, it was holding an exhibit called Arresting Images that featured mugshots from the Ontario Provincial Police Museum.

We stopped to pose as jailbirds in front of the gallery, and Aaron played the part particularly well. The museum adjoining the gallery is housed in the old Peel County Jail, built in 1867, and a quick tour of the museum's jail exhibit went well with the mugshot exhibit.

The collection was fascinating, with mugshots dating from the 1880s to the early 1900s. They were all proper portraits, most of them beautifully done and featuring studio backdrops. In most cases both the front and back were displayed, so we could see what details were thought to be important enough to record. This information included complicated body measurements (head width, forearm length), whether the suspect could read and write, and details about facial features ("nose: good"). It was also an interesting look at the writing of the time, with much of the script unreadable and a surprising number of spelling mistakes.

My favourite was this double mugshot, and if you look carefully at the man on the left's right hand (click here for a larger view) you'll see why.

There were just two or three women (all sporting great hats), including this lady who was apparently arrested for being suspicious.

Many suspects were from the US, but there were also a few overseas foreigners as well, including this gentleman from India who was suspected of fraud and the young suspected thief from Italy below, whose card notes he "speaks good English".

There were three mugshots of black suspects, and these two were especially poignant. The remarks on the card above say "This Nigro was Arrested on Suspicions of Commited Murder in Washington DC..." followed by "Not the Man" and "Discharged" (hopefully I misread the writing, and the spelling and grammar are not really that atrocious). The man below was also arrested on suspicion of murder. He was a horseman with the nickname of "Peewee", he couldn't read or write, and he ended up with a life sentence. His mugshot not only shows him in handcuffs, one of just a few mugshots to do so, but has him holding an actual gun.

The gallery had an old-fashioned backdrop set up along with a small collection of old timey clothes and hats, so we went ahead and took some mugshots of ourselves. Here is Zoe, very much in character, next is my brother's girlfriend Sherry, who is the least likely of all of us to ever end up in a real mugshot, then Aaron, rocking the bowler hat (not, it's not a miniature), me, a little too happy to be in a mugshot, and Hideaki, looking right at home.

The Arresting Images Exhibit is already over at the Art Gallery of Peel, but will be travelling around Ontario for the next year or so (click the link above to find a schedule). It's definitely worth a visit if it comes near you.

See more pictures from the ROM and the mugshot collection in my Museum and Gallery album, and more pictures of my visit in my Canada 2009 album.

Comments

[Sarah]

Good food, good company, beautiful parks, and some awesome museums thrown in to - sounds like my dream trip! I've been wanting to check out the ROM's new addition since I first heard about the plans... Thanks for the glimspe into the exhibits!

[Ms J]

お帰りなさい Amy! Looks like you and Hideaki had a really great trip!

Fennel *can* be found in Japan, but sadly, it tends to be expensive. I've seen it at both Nissin and Kichijoji Lonlon, a little closer to home!

[J. B. Rainsberger]

Missed you by just a little bit! Sarah and I arrived in Toronto on July 17 for a five-week-long visit to watch many, many Blue Jays games. Not sure whether we'll make it to Brampton at all. :)

Looks like you had a good time. Good to know you still miss some things about Canada. You should try the Atlantic coast sometime. PEI is nice! :)

[Helen]

The Bertillionage system was used to catch criminals before fingerprinting came along. That's why many of the cards have the strange measurements on them. The police at the time measured parts of the body that wouldn't change much.

There's more info on wikipedia about the inventor of the system, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alphonse_Bertillon Sorry, when you said strange measurements that was my first thought.

It sounds like you had a great trip. I've never been to Ontario (except for the Toronto and Ottawa airports!) The food looks so good!

[pia Z]

i once performed in a play at the old brampton jail. memories... :)

[Jennifer Craig]

OMG!!! Ojebokoren!!!! I miss that album. It's been years. Nana (god rest her soul) was soooo dense that she didn't realize your dad's liner notes were a joke. Mom had to clue her in. Meanwhile, the rest of the family was crying with laughter. Quite possibly the funniest thing I've ever read.

Mom and I would occasionally quote them, especially the "smear your torso with lard" bit.

Thanks for the walk down nostalgia lane.