Toronto Adventures: The McMichael Art Gallery and the Group of Seven in Kleinburg

Jack Pine by Tom Thompson

Are these new Canadian painters crazy?—Augustus Bridle, Canadian Courier 1920

I was looking for adventure off the typical tourist route and borrowed a ride north on Islington Avenue all the way to the village of Kleinburg, about 50 km northwest of Toronto. This charming tourist destination forms a pleasant lacework of outdoor cafés, bistros, and ice cream parlors guaranteed to taunt, titillate and treat. I decided to taste my way along Main Street, ambling from café to gift shop and café again.

The village nestles amid rolling hills between two branches of the Humber River and is surrounded by agricultural land. John Kline, a German/Canadian settler, founded Kleinburg, which translates to "small town." In truth, Kleinburg could equally be named after its landscape (in which case it would have to be spelled "Kleinberg" for “small mountain"). Kleinburg’s annual fall festival called Binder Twine has its roots in the town’s agricultural history and draws 25,000 people each year. The village has attracted many affluent visitors and residents, including Canadian author Pierre Burton and Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson. Kleinburg is also the home of Toronto International Film Studios and a popular location for shooting films and TV shows.

On the south end of town I steered off Main Street along a winding road through lush forest to the cloistered McMichael Art Gallery. The gallery is devoted to Canadian art and is the spiritual home of the Group of Seven. It was founded by Robert and Signe McMichael, who began collecting paintings by the Group of Seven and their contemporaries in 1955.

Mountain by Lawren Harris

I entered the high-ceilinged lobby where master native carver Don Yeomans had created an eclectic totem pole entitled “Where Cultures Meet”. Upon closer inspection, I noticed that he’d carved a laptop as the “foundation” of the totem.

Whiskers tingling, I passed the glass doors into the Group of Seven exhibit and stilled my breaths: I was in the presence of magnificence. There they were: the sweeping, bold strokes of Lawren S. Harris, J.E.H. MacDonald, Arthur Lismer, Frederick Varley, Frank Johnston, Franklin Carmichael and A.Y. Jackson. 

Red Maple by Lawren Harris

The Group of Seven contributed significantly to the identity of “Canadian Art” during the early 20^th Century. They clearly helped define the Canadian “persona” and its rugged landscape when their “exotic” art exploded to equal applause and condemnation in a May 1920 exhibit in Toronto—not unlike the reception received by the French Impressionists in the late 19^th Century when their art first appeared in Paris. The Group was initially drawn together by a common sense of frustration with the conservative and imitative quality of most Canadian art at the time. 

As with the European fin de siècle symbolists and post-impressionists, the Group rebelled against the constraints of 19th-century naturalism in Canada.  Just as with the Impressionists before them, The Group shifted their emphasis from the conservative imitation of the natural towards the expression of their feelings for the natural.

Sunset by Frank Johnston

The Group of Seven blended the palettes of Art Nouveau, Neo-Impressionism, and Fauvism into a genuine celebration of the unique Canadian wilderness. It was a kind of “primitive” style that matched the equally primitive landscape they had chosen to capture. 

They used broad brush strokes with liberal application of paint to portray the wild beauty and vibrant color of the Ontario landscape. Nowhere was this more apparent than in the art of Tom Thomson, who died in 1917 (before the inaugural Group of Seven exhibit) but who has remained synonymous with the Group of Seven. An avid outdoorsman, Thompson incited A.Y. Jackson, Frederick Varley and Arthur Lismer, to paint the unkempt and unruly part of Canada with bold displays of feeling.

With time, Harris, MacDonald, Carmichael and even Varley simplified their colors and layouts, using thin pigment and stylized designs. By the mid-1920s Harris had simplified his paintings into monochromatic forms and ventured into abstraction soon after.

I celebrated my tour of the Group of Seven with a fine lunch on the patio of the Gallery Café, where

Toulouse discusses good food with Sayima

waiter Sayima Kaya served me a tender and flavorful maple-pommery glazed Atlantic salmon, served on buttery mashed potatoes and garnished with roasted green beans.

I selected a Santa Margherita Pinot Grigio, whose intense aroma and sparkling taste of Golden Delicious apples danced a wonderful tango with the wild salmon dish.

From the gallery, I strolled along Main Street and something made me stop at Desserts of Distinction. Well!... Of course, my superior nose and whiskers had steered me right. Maria Montinaro, the owner of the café, served me a decent Americano and a raspberry and chocolate mousse tart with cassis (blackberry) nappage gélatine. 

The Black currant topping was drizzled with white chocolate drops and fresh berries. I sipped my Americano and savoured the cassis tart, which had my whiskers stand on end. The tart was not overly sweet, which allowed the vivacious notes of black currant and fresh raspberry to emerge through the creamy chocolate. 

Kleinburg in the summer

The chocolate mousse tart was only one of many delectable pastries, tarts and pies offered at Desserts of Distinction.

All in all, a fine day was had in Kleinburg! Come for yourself and see. And tell them Toulouse sent you!

Toulouse beside himself...

The Lipscani District of Bucharest

Strada Smardan in Lipscani District

Thanks to my Romanian friend SF writer Nina Munteanu, I found myself flying into Henri Coandă International Airport in Bucharest last week. We came to attend the Gaudeamus Book Fair at Romexpo where Editura Paralela 45 was launching the Romanian version of Nina’s writing guidebook The Fiction Writer (Scriitorul de Fictiune).

Dr. Florin Munteanu, respected scientist in Complexity Theory, picked us up at the airport and took us to the Phoenicia Grand Hotel, a rather posh spacious hotel that lived up to its name. We relaxed in the lounge, discussing fractal geometry and the Fibonacci Golden Ratio over café crèmes. It was a very civilized introduction to this eclectic “city of joy” (bucurie means joy in Romanian) and I felt strangely at home.

Alexander Lobrano of the New York Times heralded Bucharest as “one of the last European cities that hasn’t been pasteurized by gentrification or lost its soul to mass tourism. It’s an odd but lively mutt of a city—one that’s clearly seen better days but where something is also suddenly stirring. The locals love to have a good time, and the Romanian economy is chugging along pretty nicely.” I’m not sure I agree with calling Bucharest a “mutt of a city”; although Bucharest does exude eccentricity in style and form, spanning the baroque to neo-gothic style of the Lipscani District to the eclectic opulence of the CEC Bank building to the insane self-indulgent extravagance of Ceauşescu’s Casa Popurului (House of the People). Parisianne-inspired Arcul de Triumf and the Odean Theatre are reasons why Bucharest is sometimes referred to as Little Paris of the East. The historic Lipscani District in Old Town Bucharest (in the heart of the city), provides an authentic medieval setting — complete with pedestrian cobbled lanes — that includes stunning baroque, renaissance and neo-classical architecture dating back to medieval times. It is all that remains of a previously vibrant commercial centre (much of which was destroyed during Ceauşescu’s reign).

Long before the official founding of the city of Bucharest in 1459, the Lipscani area was already an important commercial centre. It got its name from the German town of Leipzig, because during the 1600s and 1700s many traders from Leipzig came to sell their wares to the locals and the Turks. Lipscani flourished in the 1600s after Vlad Tepes (the Turk impaler) chose it for his Princely Court. Craftsmen and merchants from all over settled there and many of Lipscani’s streets still retain the names of these trades. The diverse mix of Romanian, Greek, Bulgarian, Serbian, Armenian, Jewish, Albanian and Austrians mingled and clashed in a vibrant mix of culture and contrast.

The general decay of the historic centre following successive bombings by the Allies and the Luftwaffe during World War II, then a devastating earthquake in 1977, rendered it vulnerable to communist leader Nicolae Ceauşescu's maniacal vision of a concrete, communist Utopia. Ceauşescu ordered Bucharest's historic centre demolished to make way for his Civic Centre project, which included the massive Palace of Parliament, and replaced a section of the historic district larger than New York's Central Park with unimaginative grotesque imitations of palatial elegance. Somehow, the Lipscani District managed to survive to see the 1989 Romanian Revolution and Ceausescu's execution.

George Kudor, one of Dr. Munteanu’s brilliant students, took me to the Lipsani District where we wandered the pedestrian cobbled streets, along Strada. Smardan, the first street to be completely repaved and renovated, past sushi bars, shops, Irish pubs, nightclubs and cafes like the Dutch-owned Grand Café Van Gogh, which according to Lobrano serves awesome coffee. 

  

I found us wandering down Stavropoleos Street. George led me to an old monastery built in the Brâncovenesc style where he said he often came to listen to the Byzantine music of the small choir. The church holds the largest collection of Byzantine music books in Romania. Built in 1724, the Stavropoleos monastery was dedicated to St. Archangels Michael and Gabriel. The name Stavropoleos is a Romanian rendition of a Greek word (Stauropolis), which means “the city of the Cross”.

Caru cu Bere on Str. Stavropoleos

We continued down Str. Stavropoleos with a view of the CEC Palace Romanian Savings Bank, an eclectic building with a monumental central dome and entrance archway supported by pillars. We walked along neo-gothic facades to one of Lipscani’s best known and popular restaurants, Caru’ cu Bere (cart of beer), which brews its own beer in a stunning Bell Epoque cathedral-like setting of high vaulted ceilings with painted ceilings, balconies, chandeliers, stained glass, and frescoes and ornate woodwork. One patron from London remarked, “It was like having a meal at Cardiff Castle!” The decadently opulent neo-gothic interior was designed by the Austrian architect Zigrid Kofczinsky in 1875 as a beer hall (they certainly had interesting ideas of what a beer hall should look like then!). The service has apparently vastly improved from its former Sovietsky days. Our waitress was friendly and prompt. Caru’ cu Bere has a menu the size of a newspaper and celebrates a diversity of traditional Romanian food like mamaliga (polenta-like dish), carnaţi şi fasole (sausage and beans), dovlecei umpluţi cu carne (squash stuffed with minced meat), varzǎ acrǎ cǎlitǎ cu cǎrnaţi bine afumaţi (sauerkraut with smoked sausage) and sarmale (cabbage rolls) to a juicy T-bone steak. The banner outside the restaurant proclaims in English: “Possibly the Best Restaurant in Town.” For its combination of atmosphere, good local food and price, they might be right.

Neo-gothic interior of Caru cu Bere

George then took me through the Macca-Villacrosse Passage, an odd little U-shaped passageway linking Streets Lipscani and Eugen Carada with Calea Victoriei. This jewel of 19^th century architecture is a year-round haven for coffee drinkers and shoppers beneath amber-tinted glass roof. Named “Valley of the Kings”, the passage was renovated in 1989 and contains small stores, a bistro, Chinese restaurant and cafes. Among them is the Cafenea Egipleana, an Egyptian-themed café and hookah lounge, where patrons share shisha or flavored tobacco from a communal hookah or nargile, placed at each table.

After meeting Dr. Munteanu at the Centre for Complexity on Jean-Louis Calderan, we walked to Burebista Vanatoresc (Str. Batistei) a local medieval-themed restaurant where we enjoyed another hearty traditional Romanian meal (Romanians like to eat—my kind of people!) to the piano music of a local artist. I saw dishes like carnati de oaie (mutton sausages) and mititei (grilled links of mixed ground meat seasoned with garlic, thyme and anise). Specialties include bear paws and civet; spicy crispy pork ribs, filet of wild boar in red wine and brandy sauce. I had ciorbă de perişoare (meatball soup), which came with hearty bread and a bracing Romanian beer. 

Macca-Villacrosse Passage

Bucharest is Europe’s sixth largest city and a three-hour flight from most western European capitals, adds Lobrano. I saw obvious influences of western (particularly North American) consumerism and pop culture (e.g., apparel, modern architecture, fast-food places like KFC, Pizza Hut; English spoken everywhere)—no doubt a visceral reaction of a culture emerging from the oppressive Ceauşescu reign. I also recognized the influence of the east in the foods, dress, Byzantine architecture, music and comportment of the locals. 

Florin Munteanu said it perfectly: “Romania is the corpus callosum of the world,” where east and west converge, mingle and learn. It’s no wonder that Romania is one of the leading countries in work on complexity theory, a science that embraces the “collision” of different “worlds” to create more than the sum of its parts. I look forward to coming back to this vibrant city and its countryside. When I return I will make sure to visit Bucharest’s excellent museums, particularly the Muzeul Taranului Roman (Peasant Museum) and the Muzeul Naţional al Satului Diminitrie Gusti (Village Museum). Both are not far from the Lipscani District.

Adventures in Toronto: Brunch at Whitlocks in The Beaches

Whitlocks Sunday Brunch

It was a splendid September late Sunday morning and I felt rather peckish for a fine brunch. Winking at me rather roguishly, Nina said, “I know just the place, Toulouse! Besides, ‘Life’s the Beaches’.”

“You mean ‘Life’s a Beach’,” I corrected her, stressing the singular.

“No, I mean THE BEACHES,” she returned—rather forcefully, I thought. “Come on, you’ll see,” she added and grabbed the ignition crystal to my ToulouseMobile. She dropped it in my paw. “Let’s go!”

I guess she was feeling peckish too. I grabbed my beret and sunglasses.

Never argue with a hungry woman.

Serving Sunday Brunch at Whitlocks

The drive down Toronto’s Queen Street is itself a sight-seeing trip. This commercial street runs east-west through many ethnic neighbourhoods, reflecting international influences of funk and glam with old and new architecture and original niche-style shops and cafes. We headed east on Queen through Leslieville then eventually into ‘The Beaches’. Where I had a little epiphany. Ah…. THE BEACHES… meow…

The Beaches is, in fact, a bohemian-style neighbourhood in Toronto’s East end. Dominated by tree-lined streets and turn of the Century Victorian/Edwardian houses turned into cafes and shops, The Beaches is a popular destination for locals and tourists like me. It gets its name from the expansive sandy beaches that line Lake Ontario just south of Queen Street.

Nina directed us to Whitlocks Restaurant on the south side of the street, just across from a very inviting pub-style bistro called Lion on the Beach (I took note for another time).

Patio of Whitlocks

Whitlocks invited with its side patio dining and original historical turn of the century storefront. Wood-framed windows opened up Italian-style to the breeze, providing indoor-eating with an intimate link to the outdoors. One set of windows had been converted into a buffet-style serving area for an elaborate brunch. Two chefs prepared savory custom omelets to a bevy of customers milling on the street and holding out their plates in anticipation.

We entered and seated ourselves in the outdoor patio beneath the blue and white awning, where Jose our friendly and attentive waiter took our order. He directed us through the restaurant to where the buffet spread out all the way to the front. There, we stepped back onto the street to order our custom omelets from Kunam and Suthan through the window. Kunam was pretty handy with the pan as he flipped his freshly made omelet into the air for a customer with the panache of a seasoned chef (I think he was showing off in front of us)…

Kunam and Suthan serving hot Brunch

Whitlocks serves its Sunday Harvest Brunch Buffet between 9 and 3 pm. For $20 you get all you can eat (kids half price), which includes a rich variety of delicious savories, meats, egg dishes and sweets that vary from week to week. Today Whitlocks offered: shepherd’s pie, eggs Benedict and eggs Florentine, custom omelet, roast beef, mussels, mixed vegetable rice, sausage, pancakes, tasty home fries, and renowned waffles, complete with fruit sauces and real whipped cream. And that was just the beginning! They also served Greek salad, chick pea salad, potato salad, coleslaw, fresh fruit, aromatic fresh-baked brownies, banana bread, and oh-so-exquisite tiramisu. Juice and coffee were included.  The food was tastefully cooked to perfection. And it filled my little belly to perfection too!

Kunum showing us the art of omelet-flipping

Sitting in the patio, I leaned back and drank the richly brewed coffee over my Tiramisu and watched the trees rustle in the invigorating wind. Within a few minutes, it began to rain. A typical Toronto thunderstorm was brewing. The rain swiftly turned into a deluge and pelted down hard, pounding the awning and umbrellas like a drum roll. The wind gusted and the rain decided to fall sideways, soaking patrons who laughed gleefully—we were in The Beaches, after all! Jose ushered us inside out of the misbehaving rain. Nina giggled and pointed to one young couple, who were crawling inside through the open window, plates of food precariously balanced in their outstretched hands.

We rescued our desserts and settled inside with a view of the refreshing downpour, and glad to be dry. The wood and brick walls and funky 1960’s lamps of Whitlock’s high ceilings provides a relaxed and cozy atmosphere inviting friendly chats over coffee or a main meal.

Whitlocks interior

The building remains close to its original form when Philip Whitelocks, a clergyman from England, constructed it in 1891. The clergyman ran a grocery store and post office in the front and a Baptist church in the back. In 1925 it became the first Black Diamond Cheese Factory. Then in 1985 it grew a “Famous Nose” and ten years later it drew the attention of Dimitri Panayiotou, son of master chef Yianni, of the late King Farouk. The current owner, Radha from Sri Lanka, is also Whitlock’s main chef (“The Peoples Chef”), cooking up a storm of wonderful international dishes to an equally international clientele. During the short time that I was there, I recognized French, German and Italian, among more exotic languages spoken among the patrons. Whitlock’s serves quality food and drink with an international menu of soups, appetizers and main dishes, complete with friendly service and a relaxed cosmopolitan atmosphere, conducive to lingering.

I was reminded of Ramsis Café on the World in Louisville, KY, another bistro-style restaurant that showcases international cuisine of impeccable quality.

Whitlocks: go for the brunch; linger for the dinner.

Contact: 1961 Queen Street East, The Beaches (Toronto); 647-260-0604

Cruise with Toulouse: Riding Harleys in Cozumel

Carnival Dream docked in Cozumel

“Get up, you lazy bones! Time to go onshore!” In her exuberance, Nina grabbed me by the tail (she isn’t always considerate when she’s excited) and cheerfully shoved me into her daypack. “We’ve landed in Cozumel!”

‘Docked!’ I corrected her from inside the pack, as she blithely rushed out of our stateroom and rode the glass elevator twelve stories down to where we would disembark. The word is docked!  Good thing I’m her editor, is all I can say.

As we got off the ship, Nina gave me a glimpse of the huge pier. Our first stop on the Carnival Dream cruise was Cozumel, an island in the Caribbean Sea off the eastern coast of Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula. Cozumel means Island of the Swallows in Mayan and it’s the largest Atlantic island of Mexico with a low, flat and densely vegetated topography, based on limestone. The limestone has created some cool karst formations. For instance, Cenotes are deep water filled sinkholes formed by water percolating through the soft limestone over thousands of years; if you’re a qualified cave diver – and foolishly adventurous – you can get permission to explore Cozumel’s Cenotes. About twenty years ago some of those foolish adventurers discovered what is now recognized as the 5^th largest underwater cave in the world. 

Toulouse checks his Harley

The Maya first settled Cozumel in the early part of the 1^st millennium AD. It was a place of pilgrimage and considered sacred to Ix Chel, the Maya Moon Goddess. In 1518 Hernán Cortés and his fleet swept in like a dark storm, destroying a bazilion temples and eventually wiping out the locals with smallpox. Those were tough times for the Mayans. According to some researchers, by 1570 only a meager 30 people survived from the original 40,000 Mayan population. Those were the dark years, when the deserted Cozumel became a hideout for pirates and refuges and other interesting eccentrics. Did you know that Abraham Lincoln almost bought the island as a place to send the freed slaves of the United States? But the drawn-out war in the Yucatan changed his mind.  Cozumel finally entered its golden years when Jacques Cousteau “blessed it” by discovering and popularizing its spectacular scuba diving in Cozumel’s coral reefs at Palancar. Even the destruction by Hurricane Wilma hasn’t slowed down Cozumel, which remains a popular tourist destination and currently boasts over 90 restaurants. The locals, a wonderful mixture of Mayan and Spanish descent, are friendly, optimistic and cheerful people with a great sense of humor and healthy outlook. Nina tells me they remind her of the cheerfully adaptive Thai people of Phuket, who after the devastation of the recent tsunami, just picked up the pieces and built it all up again within a short few years. 

Cozumel is a popular charter fishing destination and offers some of the best scuba diving and snorkeling for our “Joe Tourist”. But Nina and I aren’t “Joe Tourist”… Besides, you may recall from my last post that I’m not particularly fond of water (I am a cat, after all, free to exercise the inalienable rights of my species). We did something far more exciting – and exotic:  we toured the island on Harleys! We saw the “wild side” of Cozumel.

Toulouse chills with Willy and Carlos

On the pier we met our guides, Willy and Carlos, two regular guys in black leather jackets and tattoos. Smiling like pirates, they led us to a lonely back parking lot, where we found our bikes. Nina chose a red 1200cc Sportster and I chose a blue one. What? You don’t believe I rode one all by myself? Take a look at the picture of me on the bike at Punta Sur, one of our stops!

The tour was an exhilarating fur-raising ride along Cozumel’s cracked and warped roads with a view of its scenic shoreline. We took off from Sunset Beach and headed south through the ancient Mayan town of Cedral then continued south, salt air whipping through my fur, to Punta Celerain and the historic lighthouse at Punta Sur Ecological Park. Nina panted and huffed after me as I scampered up the 100-some steps to the top for a breathtaking view of the island’s surf and vast beach. I don’t know what her problem was: the stairs weren’t nearly as narrow, crooked, and worn as the crumbling Tower of Pisa (but that’s another story…). It was in the park that I met Charlie, the resident crocodile. Charlie’s presence in Cozumel, let alone North America, is an oddity. If you know anything about natural science, you know that crocs are normally restricted to the “old continents” of Africa and Asia. North America and South America support alligators. The way I remember it is: “Nile” rhymes with crocodile and “Amazon” starts with an “a” like “alligator”.

It must have been the fresh sea air, because my stomach started to growl. Nina’s followed soon after and Willy got the message. We quickly mounted up and he navigated us along a windy back road to the main highway and the “wild side” of the island to “Coconuts Restaurant and Bar”. We dined on authentic Mexican cuisine at this funky seaside eatery and watched the locals cavorting and laughing. The open-air restaurant resembled something from an old James Bond movie, thatched palm-leaf roofs decorated with t-shirts from across the world and support poles tattooed with business cards. Fearing the retarded dog that decided to park itself near us, I wandered off to the beach below, lured by deep sea-green surf, lava-shaped rocks and the sweet aroma of local herbs. Of course, no one told me that the beaches here allow partial nudity! Bonus for me. Nina was “put out” though; she’d panicked when she couldn’t find me.

After she found me on the beach, she shoved me back into her backpack where I stayed as we continued the last leg of the tour through Mezcalitos, and west toward the main town of San Miguel, where Willy showed us—well, Nina (I was still socked in the backpack)— where he lives. We then rode through San Miguel’s bustling downtown and finally returned to the pier’s back parking lot.

Nina relented (she can never stay mad at me for long) and let me out of the pack when Willy produced two bottles of Corona Beer to celebrate our cool 5-hour tour. It was a blast!

You can book your Harley Davidson Tour with Willy and Carlos through Sand Dollar Sports. sds@sanddollarsports.com From Canada call: 972-966-0616; from USA call: 1-888-737-6399; from Cozumel call: 987-872-0793 or 987-872-1884; fax: 987-872-6158.