Guest Post: Home is Toronto

And updates from Granola Daddy

Marko here – it’s been a crazy week launching the granola business. Sunday was my first day in the kitchen, and I made just over 200 bags of organic granola – which promptly sold out (I have 6 bags of chocolate hazelnut left)!

I had only expected to sell 10 bags and I had no other ingredients on hand. I am learning so much!

I’m back in the kitchen today making more granola, and my friend Jin Sol is helping me with packaging. With Jin Sol’s help, I hope to make 300+ bags this week. If you would like to get granola this week, I will be adding inventory to the online store at 8pm once I finish baking and packaging.

Your best bet to secure granola is:

• Order online for shipping in Ontario. Free shipping over $75 and 2 for $25 discounts apply automatically at checkout.

• Order online for pick-up at the Kitchener Market on Saturday, August 19. This reserves your flavour (select pick-up at checkout) so you don’t have to stress.

• Take your chances in the Granola Hunger Games next Saturday! Ignore the pre-order and hope for the best.

• Stop by Legacy Greens or Aura–La and see if they have any left in stock.

Since I’m swamped with learning how to do all this, I’ve brought Marci back to write a guest post about her recent trip to Toronto. As with all guests posts, guest writers are compensated for their work because I believe in a fair labour economy and I put my money where my mouth is.

Yours truly,

Granola Daddy

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Hello friends, it’s Marci here again, filling in for Marko on the blog while he launches his granola business!! Today I have a piece that is part memoir, part love letter, and–for those of you close enough to make the trek–a handy guide to eating all the delicious things in a very small part of Toronto’s east end.

Recently I spent two weeks in Toronto, house and dog sitting for a friend. I arrived in the city on the last Sunday of Pride. I knew it was Pride before I landed, but the reality of what that meant escaped me as I made my way from the airport to downtown. Had I stopped to consider the timing, I would have picked a very different route or taken a cab to avoid all of downtown. Alas, I found myself reckoning with my choices in the heart of Yonge-Dundas square, laptop bag and suitcase in hand, surrounded by everyone, everywhere, all at once. 

It’s oddly appropriate to return to the only place that’s ever really felt like home only to be greeted by incredible amounts of glitter (which I love) and the general sentiment that the city was actively flipping me off (which I remembered well). Trying to get to the east end on this particular Sunday felt like rolling a boulder uphill. Between the endless construction, every streetcar on diversion or replaced with buses, the crush of the crowds, and Toronto’s general state of disrepair, it took me almost 3.5 hours to get from the airport to the Beaches. Normally, this 33-km trek takes 90 minutes. By the time I step off the streetcar I eventually found, I’m starving. My last meal of a sad airport muffin is nothing but a distant memory. 

The best and worst way to be welcomed home. 

Toronto was my home for 11 years. I grew up in rural Alberta. It was a certified Big Deal for me to go to University at all, let alone in Canada’s largest city at age 18. My family didn’t love or understand my choice, but from the moment I stepped foot on campus I knew Toronto was going to be significant for me. This city shaped my identity as I became a young graduate and eventually an adult, navigating several different types of corporate worlds to see which might fit. But it’s also the place where I learned to cook. Where I briefly ran a very illegal catering company out of my apartment. Where I discovered phở, portuguese custard tarts, and egyptian falafel. Toronto introduced me to a whole new world of culinary adventures. 

Living in Toronto often feels like an extreme sport. It’s not easy. It took me three years to stop packing up my apartment and threatening to move back to Calgary at the end of every semester. I actually did move once, but came back before the summer ended, because, Toronto. I’m as attached to this city as I am my own arms.    

This affection is sometimes challenging to balance with the acknowledgement of this city’s very real shortcomings. If Toronto had an attachment style it would be anxious-avoidant and the more you try to love it, the harder it wants to push you away. 

The city is grappling with several crises right now. Housing affordability is non-existent. Homelessness is an emergency. The TTC has been chronically underfunded for the last three decades and therefore cannot be counted on to reliably shuttle you from one part of the city to the other. You devote far more mental and physical energy to staying alive here than you would if you lived almost anywhere else. 

Despite these shortcomings, I can still see how in exchange for this particular kind of agony Toronto promises you a lot. There’s the 24 hour food scene, the arts and culture, the events, the neighborhoods with their own identities and charms, and the beach that beckons in the summer. We have the Blue Jays, the Raptors, and the Leafs. Cool and weird art things are everywhere, from the small independent galleries to the big behemoth museums. Once a year I would get ambitious and hit the Gardiner Ceramic museum, the ROM and the AGO all in the same weekend. I’m honestly still sad that the Bata Shoe Museum is no more. If you’re fortunate enough to build a community of people here who will love you back the way the city cannot, I believe you'll find there’s no better place to live. 

I love this city.

I didn’t realize until I arrived that my friend's house was only a few blocks away from my last place. In 2015, I moved out of the rent controlled one-bedroom apartment at Church & Wellesley that I’d had for six years and into a semi-detached house I would share with my then-partner at Jones & Gerrard. We lived here for a little over a year before moving out of the city all together. It is still the best house I’ve ever lived in. 

Historically, whenever I think about our life in Leslieville, all my memories are tinged with the knowledge that this cohabitation was the beginning of the end for us. Even though we tried to make it work for another two years, living together in Toronto shone the brightest of lights on all the cracks that had formed between us. My love for the city was among the larger ones. He hated it here. I was always trying to convince him of this city’s worth (and mine, by extension) by pushing him to go to new restaurants and events with me. I was so sure that if we found the right cool thing, he would finally see this city the way I do. 

Obviously, it didn’t work. 

Now, as I stand in my friend’s kitchen, scrolling for a place to grab dinner, I see there are so many familiar restaurants just steps away. I’m thrilled that six years and one pandemic later, most of the ones I remember are still in business. Suddenly the next two weeks feel like a chance to untangle all my experiences from the emotional messiness of that relationship, and reclaim them for myself. 

On my first full day, I walked to our former house. The landscaping we’d started in the front yard has run wild, ground cover plants doing what we’d intended and filling the space with their bright green leaves. The house looks like it’s been largely left to its own devices, toeing the line between shabby and unkempt. I’m pretty sure the tenants who moved in after us are still there, but the desire to email the landlords and ask for them to be in touch if that ever changes is strong. I loved this house. The rest of the street feels exactly the same as it was, a mix of young families and old-time Torontonians. I wonder about the house attached to ours– it sold right before we moved to a young couple with a baby. Its previous occupant was a man in his 70s named Frank who’d lived there for 30 years. I used to be able to hear him snore through the wall. 

Two blocks away is Maha’s, an Egyptian brunch spot that is impossibly busy on the weekend. I go for a solo lunch on Thursday, ordering the date grilled cheese and chickpea soup. We came here a lot for a weekday breakfast. I would order the falafel and he’d order the sunny eggs & foole. We’d often share. But their grilled cheese has always been my favorite menu item. It’s a luxurious sandwich. The saltiness of the cheese, the sweetness of the dates and the bread, it’s decadent while still being a reasonable daytime meal. I wish I had been able to come more than once. 

Since I am primarily here to care for my friend’s dog and house, every morning starts with a long walk. Generally we head to the beach, but a few mornings I decide to walk north to what is now The Black Pony. It used to be the Flying Pony, a charming neighborhood coffee shop that made incredible pastries. On Saturdays they had Orange Blossoms, their version of a laminated pastry morning bun that was outrageously rich and unexpectedly citrusy. Some weekends I’d be up early, unable to sleep in, and I’d slip out of bed and immediately walk over. The city would be so quiet, hardly a car or person in sight. All the shops of Little India still tucked in for the night, the sidewalks looking so odd and empty, missing the booths and merchandise that spills out onto the street. I’d order three Orange Blossoms, one for each of us to enjoy with our coffee, and one extra I would secretly eat by myself on the walk back. Ironically, I’d end up eating all of them more often than not. He didn’t really like sweets.

In its new identity as both a coffee shop and snack bar, the Black Pony serves Orange Blossoms every day, and wine and cocktails every night. They aren’t as good as I remember, but the chocolate chip cookies are a knockout. I end up here most days, either on a walk, or meeting up with friends for coffee, or spending a deliciously sun-drenched evening on their patio, savoring a very nice glass of orange wine and people watching the neighborhood. Over the years the Orange Blossoms have morphed via memory into the holy grail of sweet treats for me, the standard by which I hold all other morning-bun type treats up to, and nothing has ever come close. But now I wonder if their magic may have come more from the city than the actual treat itself. In the act of venturing out before anyone else was awake and procuring them. Something I could share with the person I loved. There was something so special about having to wait all week for them that I’m almost relieved they don’t taste as good to me anymore. I’m not sure I want to be able to get one any time I want. 

Over the weekend a friend comes to stay and it’s the perfect opportunity to take her to my favorite of all places, Gio Rana’s Really Really Nice Restaurant, aka The Nose. It’s called that because there’s no signage outside, other than a large nose sculpture affixed over the door. I howled when I first Googled “building with nose Toronto” and discovered its “real” name. It is, truly, a really, really nice restaurant. In the past, The Nose was a date night staple for us and the place we took anyone visiting from out of town. 

The building used to be a bank, which feels very obvious the second you see it. When they ripped out all the teller stations to turn it into a restaurant they left the drywall bare and unpatched. String lights zig zag across the ceiling and the decor includes half dressed mannequins that are perched in various places throughout. A tangled mess of Christmas lights hangs off a vent in the center of the dining room, as if someone started trying to untangle them to hang them purposefully, but instead gave up and just taped them to the side in a jumble and called it a day. They give off a cheerful glow all the same. The bank vault door sits open at the back and a long table has been nestled inside for group dining. This weekend there are some staff working I recognize, even after all these years. I’m thrilled to see their familiar faces.

One of my favorite Toronto stories to tell is how one of the bartenders at The Nose was also a bartender at The Auld Spot on the Danforth, a staple for meeting up with west-end friends given its proximity to the subway line, which was a funny enough coincidence on its own when we discovered it. But one Saturday morning my boyfriend and I walked down to the Hastings Snack Bar to get coffee and polish donuts (paczki) and he decided to pop over to the attached barber shop for a haircut. I sat at the counter with my donut to wait for him when suddenly the same bartender came over and offered to make me a coffee before disappearing through the adjoining door between the two businesses. When my boyfriend emerged twenty minutes later he said, “You’re not going to BELIEVE who just cut my hair.” 

Of course it was the same guy. I used to see him all the time and we would high five each other as we passed without exchanging a single word. 

Sadly, I did not see said former bartender/barista/barber when my friend and I dined at The Nose this time, but I’m thrilled to say that the risotto balls are still impeccable. The vibes have not changed a single bit. Between the two of us, we ordered as many dishes as we could to share and left beyond full and so grateful for each other’s company. When I think of it now, I think of my friend, looking around in awe at the decor, proclaiming her love for a place that means so much to me. The Nose is my happiest of places.

A year into living together, my partner and I started having conversations about moving out of Toronto. I didn’t want to go. I could see the value in leaving financially, and I wasn’t against it on a whole, but I wanted a few more years in the city before we did. Ultimately that didn’t fly. It was clear my choice was “stay in the relationship and move” or “end the relationship and stay.” 

I tried to justify my choice by saying that it takes so much time and money just to live here, you feel like you have nothing leftover to actually take advantage of what the city offers. The theatre. Concerts. Incredible food. I repeated over and over to my friends (and myself), "we're leaving the city to live somewhere where we can breathe easier, live quieter, and do more.” 

I have never once actually wanted to live quieter. 

The very last place I remember going out to eat before we left the city was Eulalie’s Corner Store. I think it was newly opened at the time. We discovered it by accident in a fit of desperation to find something to do for dinner. I’m confident we had been arguing because I didn’t want to cook and he didn’t want to go to any of our usual places. We settled on trying someplace new as a compromise. We sat on their patio and talked about how charming it was, and how good the food was, and I remember feeling so happy to have found another neighborhood gem, and then immediately so sad that I probably wouldn’t ever go back. 

Our exit was hurried. Once the decision was made, it felt like the boxes arrived overnight. We found a place in Kitchener on our first trek out there and it was available immediately. There was no drawn out goodbye, no visiting of old haunts. One day we lived in Leslieville, and then we didn’t. 

My life in Toronto came to an end. 

It’s fitting, then, that during this trip I ended up at Eulalie’s on a day that felt especially fraught. An otherwise lovely afternoon with a friend had ended with an argument between us about mismatched expectations and I left abruptly, jumping on a passing streetcar almost mid sentence, before either of us could say anything more we might regret. I was so upset. I came back to the east end hungry and looking for comfort. I needed a place I could eat and put myself back together. 

I remembered Eulalie’s. 

It was Monday and there were only a handful of people (and dogs!) on the patio and one server working alone. I ordered a burger and a beer–the server confiding in me that she alone had finangled a small keg of Oast’s Strawberry Rhubarb Ale through a friend of hers and they were maybe the only spot in the city serving it. It was a delicious secret we shared. As I sat there and reflected on the day’s events, it felt so right to be there. Like I was part of the neighborhood again. The rest of the week passes by in an instant. I eat, work, walk the dog, see friends, and eat some more. Muscle memory.

For two weeks, slipping back into life in Toronto was like finding an old pair of jeans at the back of my closet and being delighted they still fit. It was a gift to have this time, to sink into the city like the home that it is and get a chance to say both hello and goodbye. There was a comfort and joy in spending time with the places I missed but an undeniable ache over the circumstances that made me miss them in the first place. 

I can say now that leaving Toronto was a significant shift. It cleaves my life into a defined before/after in a way few other decisions have. I think back to choosing between my relationship and the city and I wonder what the version of me who chose to stay would be doing. Would she still live in the city? What kind of career would she have? Did she stay in our house with a couple of roommates or did she move back downtown? Maybe she ended up leaving anyway but did so on her own terms. 

I have no answers. I think about her a lot.

Two weeks was also just enough time to start to puzzle the pieces together to see if I could, in fact, call Toronto home again. It would be hard. And outrageously expensive. But I could see it. I’d ride the streetcars, and start my mornings with coffee and a walk on the lake shore. I’d take the subway and across the city to see old friends. The busyness of this city sets my bloodstream on fire like nowhere else. But two weeks is also only enough time to see the golden shiny side of this place, especially in the summer. 

I think again of the Orange Blossoms. Like the former once-a-week treat, my time in the city has been rare. When I’m here and it’s great, it’s easy to think I want more. Maybe I DO want to live here. But on the one night when I had no plans, a familiar loneliness crept in. I know that if I moved back, I’d spend more nights alone than otherwise. I may have been the first to go, but the truth is most of my friends have also long since left the city for more affordable living. I’m not sure I’d have the community here I need. 

When I leave, Toronto offers me no more answers than I had when I arrived. But I made so many new replacement memories in my favorite spots. And I ate so many delicious things. I feel like I spent two weeks with my younger self, reminding us both that everything ultimately turns out okay, even if it’s not what you hoped for. I learned that the places we called home are still there for us. Part of my heart has permanently settled here, so I’ll never be able to fully close the door on this city. The option to move back is always on the table. 

And if I did, I know exactly where I’d go to eat.