Nice doggie, sweet whip
Isn’t this a pretty picture for the end of summer?
I caught this very blonde lab posing in the back of a Ford Model A pickup, circa 1930, on the main drag of Squamish, BC. The owner was a hippie enjoying a fair trade coffee and a health muffin outside in the rare sunshine.
I like his style.
BC Binnings house, now a modernist museum
One of the treats of our recent visit to the West coast was a visit to BC (Bertram Charles) Binnings house in West Vancouver.
From the ’50s through the ’70s, BC, along with his friends and contemporaries Arthur Erickson and Richard Neutra, was one of the voices of modernism on the Pacific (presumably a rather lonely role, particularly in Anglophile Vancouver at the time), and his pioneering 1941 bungalow–now a museum– is a perfect expression of the early Modern West Coast spirit. Continue reading…
Changeroom for bookworms
I don’t know about you, but I have stumbled upon so much book art lately. And I’m not just talking about arty looking books (although the newly re-designed Random House Vintage classics are looking awfully fetching these days), but art made with books, like this cool silo built from a stack of paperbacks that functions as the changeroom in the supremely chic LynnSteven boutique in Vancouver’s Gastown. Continue reading…
Beautiful, but urban?
Blissfully laid back, with its beaches and bridges and absurdly bucolic geographical setting, Vancouver is one town that seems to be oddly insecure about its urbanity. Continue reading…
Sign of the Times
Since 1903, the old Woodward’s building at 108 West Cordova has been a landmark of downtown Vancouver–first, as the city’s premier department store, and then, when the downtown Eastside crumbled into a seedy strip of bombed-out shells populated by the bedraggled and desperate around it–ground-zero for the city’s many cracked-out junkies.
Now as the neighbourhood around Woodward’s rapidly becomes the chicest place in town to shop (at cool indie boutiques), dine (at artisanal charcuterie places in still-scary alleyways), and live (in “loft-style condos), the ‘W” is back in business. Continue reading…
The birthday boy
My son Philip is a genius. Every year we have a party for his birthday on the beach at Lake Huron. It’s always a gorgeous, moon-lit night in the dunes and we gather with friends and build a bonfire. Just to make it extra insane, we like to pick a broad theme, which also involves highly improvised costumes and a beach-friendly menu. Continue reading…
Didier Leroy dining outdoors
Where do busy chefs like Didier Leroy grab a quick lunch? Apparently, at All The Best in the little row on Yonge Street that my French friends call “Les Cinq Voleurs”.
I caught the newly bearded Didier (‘It’s my first time growing a beard”, he told me. “Do you like it”) enjoying a quick mid-day avocado sandwich and a cool Limonata under the garlic ropes beside Harvest wagon’s bountiful display of fresh summer peaches and berries.
“I feel like I’m in Provence”, joked Didier, who claims that chefs never get to eat anything in their own kitchens (of course, Didier’s eponymous, and extraordinary establishment is just up the street). “Unless you leave for a little bit, you never get a moment of peace. Besides I like this sandwich, it’s very nice.”
As far as I’m concerned, All the Best should give him a free lifetime supply of avocado sandwiches. Having the chef himself–who is one of only 350 designated Maitre Cuisiniers de France in the world– eating lunch outside their gourmet store is the best free advertisement they could ever imagine.
When your very best friend who you’ve known since kindergarten tries to convince you to simply forget all about her birthday by jetting off to Kenya with her family on safari, what can you do but throw a birthday dinner on her return? Continue reading…
hot town, summer in the city
Forgive me if my English seems a little rusty, but this week, I have started thinking in Italian, which I have discovered is an excellent way to approach a hazy, hot and humid summer in the city. Continue reading…
Living legend
I admit to being conflicted about whether or not to go and see Jimmy Cliff when I first heard the 62 year-old reggae legend was playing at Massey Hall. It can be a disappointment seeing a late-in-career artist, no matter how great they may have been in their prime. Sometimes their voices are shot, or they’ve lost their energy for performing and are just limply going through the motions onstage. Plus the audiences, often motivated by the same nostalgia, are usually depressingly old and uncool. Which was why I didn’t go to see Carole King and James Taylor when they were recently in town on their duet tour (and which to all reports, was a mistake). Like my pal Martha says, the greats are still worth seeing, because they will always deliver.
Luckily I overcame my reticence. Because the man–recently awarded the Order of Merit, so he is now the Hon. Mr Cliff, and inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame– is not only a living hit machine, he’s still bursting with love and positive energy: his opening number, “Wonderful World, Beautiful People”, had me smiling from ear to ear and dancing in the aisles, and I wasn’t alone. Continue reading…
Fine, feathered and confused
(Warning: This post may contain Darwinian outcomes, and is not recommended for the highly sensitive or faint of heart)
Something odd is clearly up with the duck world lately. Over the past few weeks I have experienced not one, but several duck related incidents, and by the way, I do not live on a farm but in midtown Toronto. Continue reading…
Siphoning it old style in B.A.
Have you noticed the latest trend in water? First we switched from all that designer water to plain old tap. Now restaurants are happily serving tap water, but dressing it up for the table in pretty, re-purposed old glass bottles. I saw it first in Buenos Aires, where even old-school siphons con gaz at the table are the thing.
But this latest wrinkle in hydration is now clearly water’s latest fashion incarnation. Continue reading…
Seaside shiplap
Words are hot. Given the oppressive heat this week here in the globally warming Northeast (isn’t going outdoors like walking into an open oven?), I thought it might be cooling to view some pretty seaside pictures from always cool and breezy Nova Scotia.
Hello and welcome
Calling out to voyeurs: if anybody who I haven’t yet managed to have over to my place would like to take a peek, not only can they pick up a copy of the August House & Home magazine, as of today they can also go to the House and Home site, and get a personal tour guided by none other than yours truly.
Here’s the (very long) link: http://www.houseandhome.com/tv/episode/karen-von-hahns-stylish-home-tour?s=9&utm_source=House+%26+Home+News&utm_campaign=bb5b3f9d86-H_H_Online_TV_2010_July_5_NON_ON&utm_medium=email
Happy to have you, and so glad you could make it.
Happy Canada Day!
Spent a glorious sunny and breezy Canada Day weekend in Halifax, which was so charming in the way it was like the Canada I remember growing up in Toronto in the 60s. It’s so quiet and nothing really seems to be going on–there are like three people on the street and my daughter Sophie, who is living and working there this summer, seems to know all of them. Continue reading…
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