Marilyn's Photos - Sep 11 2026 - Parking Lot Gastronomy

 

Parking lot gastronomy conjures up a lot of trucks with guys making bbq stuff.  It says that it takes "the form of food truck hubs, pop-up events, and casual tailgate-style eating outside strip plazas or specialied restaurants.  Well that seems to be confirm my squeamish thoughts.  That's the Canadian definition.  I read the expression in the NY times, so checked out the U.S. version - "an egalitarian, low-barrier culinary movement defined by food trucks, pop-up sheds, and mobile kitchens servicing bold flavours on paper plates."  It sounds much more high-class in the U.S., don't you think?  And the examples?  It showcases LJ's Lil' Cafe in Cypress, CA "started as a small 200-square-foot shed in a Home Depot parking lot in Cypress, California, this viral burrito spot generated over $1 million in its initial footprint before expanding." No there's a big-style success story. A big difference is the U.S. has dedicated, permanent parking-lot hubs.  There are bylaw restrictions in Canada causing fewer pop-ups in parking lots, and it is expensive to get a street permit.  Even with those limitations, I found an article on the 10 best food trucks in Canada.  It includes the Cheese Boutique Food Truck.  That strikes a personal chord. I shopped there for years when I lived in Toronto - it is a European-style delicatessen and food store. It was in my neighbourhood area, first on Bloor West, and then moving to an expansive store on Ripley Avenue - a great name for a street - where it is now located.  What I enjoyed most was the cheese "cave" - quite the experience with the huge wheels of parmesan and blue cheese being aged for specific restaurants.   Cheese are turned daily.   This seems to have moved out ofo the parking lot gastronomy, even though they do have a food truck.  Afrim Pristine is the 3rd (some articles say 4th) generation family member running the business.  He is one of the world's youngest cheese masters.  I saw his documentary on travelling through Europe on a cheese tour.  It seems to me he might be the Canadian version of Anthony Bourdain, with that Canadian style of being engaging, unpretentious, and passionate. Canadians love cheese.  And we aren't in the top cheese-consuming countries. Of course it would be France with 25 to 27 kilograms per year.  We come in at 14 kilograms per year.  But that seems to be enough to support many cheese food trucks in Toronto - Meltdown Cheesery, Fo' Cheezy Food Truck, Gorilla Cheese/Burger, Gangster & Cheese.   I don't think I will be checking out the Home Depot or Costco for food trucks anywhere between here in Niagara and Toronto.  Those parking lots are crammed to the brim with cars looking for parking spots.  However, I would love to get to the Cheese Boutique soon to experience that floor to ceiling culinary extravaganza and smell the cheese cave.Besides we can go to Upper Canada Cheese Company in Jordan, home of the Guernsey Girls dairy cows, and be served from the luxury of their Cargo Kitchen set in the vineyards and orchards of Jordan.    I went looking for some  virtual gallery and virtual home display software.  This is where you load up your pictures and they are displayed on a wall in a gallery or home setting.  You can load up your own wall/furniture setting as well.  This one is clearly labelled - canvy.com.  It is easy to use and fun to do. There are others that have more professional gallery spaces, with 3D views an videos that can be created.  This is a booming business for galleries and artists.  They allowed me to try it out with their logo displayed.  Go to download something and the pricing options pop up. I was trying out some of the Sun and Moon Series pictures so I could choose which ones to print for the living room.   Read past POTD's at my Blog: http://blog.marilyncornwell.com Purchase at: FAA - marilyncornwell.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.com

Marilyn's Photos - Sep 10 2026 - Sinkhole Today

 

Sinkholes happen regularly.  I guess we can expect more with the changes in climate that are occurring. Rainwater or underground water slowly dissolves soluble bedrock like limestone, chalk or gypsum, creating underground cavities that eventually collapse under the weight of the surface soil.   There are many underground streams flowing into Lake Ontario.  When a bit of extra rain or lots of rain happens in Toronto, the underground streams would flood buildings at the University of Toronto.  It was under Taddle Creek and the underground tunnels would be flooded regularly.  With all this underground water, sinkholes in Toronto were part of the scene.  We had one at Royal York and Bloor - our major neighbourhood intersection one year - just after they finished improving and paving Royal York Road. Toronto's record for the most number of sinkholes is 7 in three years at Church and Wellesley, a much busier intersection.  These are miniscule moments in comparison to the world's biggest sinkholes.  Wikipedia has a list of them - monsters up to 2,000 feet in diameter and depth.  There are so many all over the world that they are listed by country.  Canada's include 4 in Ottawa from 2012 to 2016 on streets.  But other countries have them in lakes and oceans.  There are lots of dramatic pictures on google.   The news announced yesterday that celebrity actor Nicolas Cage joined the list with a sinkhole 30 x 60 feet appearing in front of his Malibu house after heavy rain. It is a weird-looking house - a rectangular bunker sort of shape. I guess that it sits on the ocean front explains the design - maximum square footage in the internal space with restricted ocean footage - and it sits right on the beach. The purchase price was $10.5 million US and is 4,000 square feet on four levels. Below is one of the collages of the property when he bought it in 2024.  Then the picture just taken of the collapsed front driveway.   Who knows with climate change what can happen?  While ocean-front properties are clearly at risk, places like Niagara don't seem precarious.  However, there are so many streams that run down the escarpment into Lake Ontario and have been covered over during the past decades.  These have potential risks for us.  That is why there are projects underway to uncover and restore some of them in Niagara.  This will mitigate urban flooding, purify the Great Lakes basin, and revive native wildlife habitats.  It is called "daylighting."   I found this picture with Nelles Manor on a Christmas ornament at one of the Fantasy of Trees displays. it is one of the oldest houses in Ontario, dating to 1792-3 or so.   Read past POTD's at my Blog: http://blog.marilyncornwell.com Purchase at: FAA - marilyncornwell.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.com

Marilyn's Photos - Sep 9 2026 - Bury Your Panties Party

 

Who would pass over a headline about burying panties?  Scientists asked people to participate in a study where they buried their underwear in their gardens.  What kinds of scientists think of things like this?  It is surprising to me - it is soil scientists.   "The experiment involving the burial of 2,000 pairs of underwear was part of a citizen science project called "Proof by Underpants" conducted by researchers from the University of Zurich and Agroscope. The project aimed to measure soil health by burying cotton underwear alongside tea bags in various land use types across Switzerland. The study found that the decomposition rate of the underwear was significantly influenced by land use patterns, with private gardens showing the highest activity and the lowest decomposition rates in lawns and grass monocultures. This research highlights the importance of soil health and the impact of land management practices on soil life and quality." The researchers also pointed out that while soil with high nutrient levels is ideal for things like food production, an oversupply of nutrients in near-natural soil habitats such as forests can be a sign of imbalance. They propose an 'underwear index' as way of boosting public understanding of different soil types and raising awareness around the importance of protecting soils.     The article shows the before and after pictures of the underwear.  The worn underwear has a slight resemblance to thongs, so popular a few decades ago. Here's a novel picture.  From the inside of Simply Chic - a women's lingerie and (obviously) underwear store in our Kingsway neighbourhood.  This picture was taken back in 2010 when I was doing work for Snap, a neighbourhood newspaper that showcased community events and businesses.  It was late March, so the window was full of Easter colours and flowers.  Read past POTD's at my Blog: http://blog.marilyncornwell.com Purchase at: FAA - marilyncornwell.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.com

Marilyn's Photos - Sep 8 2026 - Chocolate Dobby

 

What are all the chocolate Dobby headlines?  You remember Dobby - that gnome-sized character in Harry Potter.  A benevolent elf.  What makes him the subject of chocolate sculpting.  Two hundred and fifty hours to create a dark chocolate Dobby on YouTube.  Looking at the YouTube lineup Chocolate Dobby is one of many in the world of Amaury Guichon who turned a citrus slice into a pastry, built a giant rainforest frog entirely from chocolate, turned a peacock into chocolate... you get the trend.  So I guess Chocolate Dobby gets the biggest headlines because of this combination of Harry Potter and celebrity chocolate chef, Amaury Gichon.  Having Swiss and French parents, he seems to have the best heritage in the culinary dessert world. He won the French reality show titled - "Who will be the next great pastry chef?"  That seems so divine compared to North American reality show themes. He's only 35 now and has run the Lenotre boutique and school in Cannes, was the executive chef at the Hugo and Victor patisserie and chocolate shop, and reached the level of executive chef by the age of 21.  He hosts his own reality show School of Chocolate where contestants construct chocolate sculptures.  As a social media celebrity he has 22.0 million subscribers on YouTube, and so on.  I checked out some of his sculptures - massive things.  Isn't he a smiling and creative sort of celebrity?  A bright dazzling smile to light up our day and bring a little Harry Potter fun our way on the first day of school. To me, September is very much the month of Dahlias.  This is their best blooming time just before the frost.  I find out they like warm days and cool nights - that's September here.  Dahlias originate from the high plains of Mexico - even there they have a dormant season.  But it seems Dahlia origins are long gone to growers and hybridizers who only speak of hard frost and lifting the tubers.  This picture was taken at Ralph Suttell's Dahlia house quite a few years ago. He was a well-known grower and show competitor, and lived close by. Read past POTD's at my Blog: http://blog.marilyncornwell.com Purchase at: FAA - marilyncornwell.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.com

Marilyn's Photos - Sep 7 2026 - The Biggest Monday Holiday

 

My guess is that this is the biggest holiday Monday of the year.  Victoria Day, Thanksgiving - these are nice holidays.  But this holiday Monday launches into new territory - it is the day before the beginning of the school year for Canadians.  All the other holidays are landing places which have events of their own.  I can't think of Labour Day events that are significant.  And then our Ontario landing day events such as the CNE and the International Air Show conclude on Labour Day.  That makes them closing events to the summer and focus attention on what's next.   And what's next here in Canada is the school year.  A substantial portion of the population - those under 20 or so, if we include anyone going to post-secondary education consider this a significant day for other reasons than Labour and workers. We have to look back in history - the workers being celebrated on Labour Day worked for a specific kind of owner - the ones we think of as Robber barons and "Captains of industry" (as I call them).  These were the corporate titans who weren't considered as predatory as robber barons. To me the amassing of personal wealth and the control of major sectors of industry/economy, not just creating monopolies are the criteria for being in the "Owner" Class.   The instigating event that led to all this celebration is the 1872 printers' strike in Toronto. It was about the fight for a nine-hour work day - down from 12 hours. At that time union activity was illegal, and the strikers were put in prison.  The fight over rights developed between George Brown, owner of The Globe and John A MacDonald, Prime Minister of Canada.  MacDonald changed the laws, so he won the titan battle.  However,  the strikers mostly lost their jobs.  Workers did get the right to a nine-hour day and a 54-hour week.  There was an annual celebration of the victory of the Nine Hour Movement.   The U.S. had started a "labor day" commemoration each year.  Canada declared a national labour holiday in 1894, and made Labour Day official.  Winnipeg's Labour Day parade stretched five kilometres.   So here we are at the milestone of the year that celebrates the little person's right to a decent work day, wages and working conditions. But we're actually looking ahead to the next volume to unfold in the lives of children and students where the path of education is considered paramount in Canada.    Here's a wonderful farm nearby - Substrata - selling organic produce. Read past POTD's at my Blog: http://blog.marilyncornwell.com Purchase at: FAA - marilyncornwell.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.com