Tag: Foodie

Dining out in the six – White Lily Diner

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I am a foodie and always in search of new and interesting places to eat, in Toronto and on my travels. I like to follow people who also enjoy food. One person I follow was having brunch at a place I had never heard of before in the city called White Lily Diner. The food looked good, I checked out the menu and website.

I was meeting a friend who I worked with at WE and here is what our conversation went:

Me: I saw that a friend went to a place on Queen Street called White Lily Diner, check it out and let me know what you think.

Friend: haha….I love that place. It’s at Queen and Broadview, works for me.

The first thing I noticed as I walked up to the restaurant was the chalkboard sign saying the doughnut of the day was butter tart doughnut. Um, hello…butter tart doughnut? We will come back to that.

The menu isn’t very large which I think is a good thing. I think it means they do a limited number of items very well. I was right about that.

We started off with their homemade pickles, bread and butter and dill. We both looked at the menu and agreed on the same item to share – Sourdough Toast – Strawberry-rhubarb preserve. Ricotta. Fresh strawberry. Toasted hemp seed. Basil is what the menu said, although it wasn’t basil, it was dill which didn’t quite fit, but everything else was divine. See for yourself below:

We looked at the menu and there were a few items that looked interesting to share and it came down to two – the meatloaf dinner or a hot smoked turkey dinner. We opted for the hot turkey dinner which consisted of – Smoked turkey. “Stuffing” french toast. Cranberry chutney. Gravy. 

Four years ago when Wahlburgers opened in Toronto I had heard about their Thanksgiving burger which is basically the whole turkey meal in one bite. I would say that this dinner was almost the same. It was the taste of the hot smoked turkey that added such a depth of flavour in every bite. Each bite was a bit of the stuffing french toast, the chutney and the smoked turkey. All I can say to this is winner winner turkey dinner.

I mentioned at the start of the piece that the sign coming into the diner said the doughnut of the day was Butter Tart. When the server told me it was a ‘filled’ doughnut, with a vanilla glaze topped with raisins it sounded great, a doughnut and a butter tart have a baby. This was not the case. It was filled, but with custard, which really didn’t give it any comparison to a butter tart with the exception of the raisins on top.

It was a It was a great experience overall, quiet for the time of the day and no line. I am sure that the weekend brunch crowd or even the weekday lunch crowd would have had us waiting in line. It is a fantastic local spot that I would return to anytime.

Always in search of the next place to try in our fabulous city!

Caption this challenge: Wedding bliss

On By thestampsinmypassportIn Uncategorized1 Comment

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I am not married. I have never been to a bridal show. Many bridal showers and weddings, but never the `show before the show`, until this past September. I will say that I am happy that I am old enough to know that when I may get married I will never go to one of these shows.

Our office participated in a booth for the Bridal Show at the International Centre this fall. Let’s just say walking in to find the booth, I was instantly overwhelmed and felt wedding nausea without even being a bride. If you have attended one of these events, you may know what I am talking about. Or not. Maybe you loved every minute of this wedding show madness, who knows. Maybe I am just too old for it.

Rows upon rows of event venues, tuxedo rentals, travel agencies, hotels, bakeries andimg_4798 accessories. More accessories than you could ever imagine in one place. The booths are overwhelming. Of course they want to showcase the “ultimate” wedding displays which from a sales perspective I totally understand. However, “if” I was a young bride to be, coming with my entourage.

Let’s call it what it is. It is all about getting you on their email marketing list. I am well aware of it working in sales and at my own booth as well. There are people that are professional trade show goers. They print their own labels so that they don’t have to waste time filling out ballots at every booth where there is some sort of giveaway. Having worked at many shows over the years, I always get a chuckle at that.

wedThe entourage is a whole other part of the experience. Mothers of brides who want something different than the bride. I spoke to one bride who had just gotten engaged the week before. When I wished her congratulations, the mother very obviously rolled her eyes. Mother “not” approved, it appeared to be. Why bring her to a bridal show where you are clearly excited to be planning your nuptials if your family isn’t on board. That is something in sales you need to stay as far away from as possible – family drama. Every situation has it.

I will end this with one last comment I was surprised about – where the food samples? I would have thought there would be bakery samples, food tastings, etc. We had an Inn across the aisle from our booth who was making this risotto which was a great sample, but other than that, there wasn’t much. No cake?  No cupcakes? No truffles? I did stop at the LCBO travelling wine truck and sampled some wine (of course) but that was it. Tales of a classic foodie.

Thanks for sharing in my stories. I would love to hear your comments on your bridal show experiences if you had one.

Live your best life,

Lisa

Summer’s over

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The past few days on social media have been filled with photos and captions of last trips to the cottage, trips to resort areas, last days at the friends pool, new school uniforms, and all that lovely end of summer stuff that makes memories that last into the fall and winter. Tomorrow ‘it’ all begins again. Routines, lunches, programs, and scheduling…LOTS of scheduling.

For me, my summer officially ended two weeks ago when I started my new job. Although, it really didn’t feel like summer to me most of the past few months. It was filled with lots of ups and equal amounts of downs.

A few of the ups

My trip at the beginning of the summer. Any trip I take with B is a great trip, and this time it was amazing to see part of the US that I had never seen before, Oklahoma and Texas. Met some really amazing people had enjoyed lots of great conversations. At B’s high school reunion it was really the first time I was asked, “so what do you do” when I really didn’t have an answer. It was strange at first, but it lead to great conversation and a question that I will never get tired of answering, “what is the best place/favourite trip you have ever taken”. As I was answering that question several times in a 10 day period I realized that travel will always be a part of my life. Even if I did change industries, you can’t wipe out twenty five years of your life. It is part of who I am.

This year I had a Mirvish subscription with four of my friends for the first time. I love theatre, and it was such an exciting thing to be a part of. It gives you a standing date with your friends, great places to eat and seeing plays which I love to do. In July we had the final two plays Newsies and the grand dame of the season Kinky Boots. Even though they were two weeks apart, it was a busy time in the city, with the Pan Am games and lots going on in the city, and it was great to be downtown in the excitement. The two plays were amazing, and Kinky Boots, if you haven’t seen it yet, try to get tickets before it leaves. It was by far the best play of the season and a wonderful theatre experience.

Food, photography and blogging. A friend of mine, local foodie and social media guru invited me to my first ever media dinner event at the Sea Witch Fish and Chips on St. Clair. What a fantastic experience. I met a bunch of great people, ate great food, took lots of photos and got a feel of what it was like to start getting really socially active. Loved getting re-tweets on my tweets, likes and shares on my blog. I can’t wait to attend more events in the future.

Visiting my nieces at camp. It was a great weekend. A very hot weekend. We stayed made a weekend out of it, going to Peterborough and sitting by the pool in the afternoon, out of dinner and then up early to see the girls. My parents were there this year, and even though it was hard for them and it was so darn hot for all of us, the girls loved showing us around and it was nice to see a bunch of people who I knew from all different areas of my life. If we go up next year, I think we decided, skip the mess hall, set up like we used to do at Northland, under the trees near our car, and just hang out.

Having friends in the recruiting and consulting business as well as being part of The Employment Hub. I thought I had a pretty good resume before I lost my job (I was told by some executives), but of course it was very travel heavy. Until I started going to workshops at the Hub, I knew that I needed to create a skills based (functional) resume, but had no idea how. Now, not only do I know how, I am helping others create a new resume for their own future career paths. A new career for me, perhaps? Perhaps.

A few of the downs

In all aspects of life, you learn that your life is priority to you. The hidden job market workshop on the “hidden” job market went into great detail about working your connections, talking to people you know, make appointments. It may not be your friend that gets you the next job, but they may know someone. You may remember the commercial – you tell two friends, and they tell two friends, and so on. It is harder than it sounds.

I sent out a lot of emails. I went for coffees with people, I had lunches with people. I  tried to get together with people. One of the biggest obstacles was to get someone to see me for something other than travel. At the Hub we had to make lists of all of our soft (transferable) skills. I still want to know, how does someone get into a new field, when you have all the soft skills if you can’t get a foot in the door.

I also realized that I was fortunate and unfortunate in many ways. In 25 years of working, I have been gainfully employed for almost all of that time. Hearing people say, “I’ve been through it many times” doesn’t really help. A friend that I had coffee with wrote me an email the next day that really made me feel like someone understood me. He wrote  “It’s a tough place to be, and even people who have been through it don’t always understand or appreciate how difficult it is emotionally.” That about sums it up.

Having a theatre subscription was on the list of ups from this summer, but also on the down list as well. It is one thing to spend money in advance for the tickets, but there is still the theatre day. Parking, eating out, snack, etc. Twice in two weeks. How the heck was I going to do that. I hadn’t even seen any money from EI at that point. Both times I just ordered appetizers for dinner. That was all I could do. I tried to not let it stop me from having a good time with my friends. You do learn to put on your best face when you are in a public situation, I learned that as well.

So here I am. Not starting school tomorrow, but looking forward to the possibilities that are laid out in front of me. Getting back to work after a “summer off”. Looking ahead to the season ahead, and hopefully a lot of growth of business again in the travel industry.

There were a lot of lessons learned this summer. I am not really sure I want to share them all publicly or maybe over time. Thank you to everyone that did reach out this summer and was a friend. There were times that it was pretty lonely.

Onwards and upwards as they say! Here’s to a new year! L’Chaim – to life.

Live your best life

Lisa