Metro Reco: Inside

by Julie

I read Inside, Kenneth J. Harvey’s newest novel, in a 24-hour period. I felt like I’d been punched in the gut when I was finished.

Wrongfully convicted Myrden has just been released after spending 14 years in prison. He returns to his tough neighbourhood in St. John’s, Newfoundland; awaiting him is an unfaithful, money-hungry wife, a daughter in an abusive relationship, a grandchild he has never met, former drinking buddies who helped get him convicted and sons who live hard and die young (the one who made good hasn’t spoken to him in years). He finds refuge in the arms of Ruth, a former lover he doesn’t think he’s good enough for.

A tragedy, the story is about redemption, friendship, loyalty, addiction, rage, fate, hope and the vicious cycle of poverty.

The novel is cleverly narrated in short, abrupt sentences; the effect on the reader is an underlying sense of anxiety, similar to the one always present in the man trying to adjust to the world outside prison walls. I was nervous about the technique when I started the book, but it works. Inside is an emotional, gripping read.

Inside has been nominated for the 2006 Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize. The winner, to be selected in March, will receive $15,000, with $2,000 presented to each of the finalists. Harvey’s novel, The Town That Forgot How to Breathe won the Thomas Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award in Canada. His works have also been nominated for the Books in Canada First Novel Award and the Commonwealth Writers Prize. Harvey lives with his family in a Newfoundland outport.

______________________________________________

Julie has a baby girl and is currently working in the home. She keeps busy finishing her undergrad (English), caring for her family, reading lots of books, writing, and trying to figure out what the heck to do next.


Contact Julie at metro_mama@hotmail.com.

Shopping About Town: Bloor West Village

by Julie

I loathe malls and find shopping in them a chore. They're so stuffy and crowded. Each mall is the same as the next--I’d much rather shop in one of the city’s many neighbourhoods and make it a fun outing.

Bloor West Village is a great place to spend an afternoon. It is definitely a baby friendly neighbourhood (you will be negotiating your stroller around many others) and most of the shops are family friendly.

Start at Bloor and Jane at Smart Kids Toybox. Brands carried include Lamaze, Manhattan, Brio and Tiny Love. Let the kids play while the friendly staff help you find what you’re looking for.

Head East to Diaper-eez. More than cloth diapers, they have many useful items, clothing, and toys. In addition to everything you need for baby, they’ve started to stock items for older children too, including toys from Doug and Melissa (love them). They also have the hippest diaper bags for mom, including Skip Hop. The staff here are amazing and knowledgeable, and the store so welcoming: there is a comfy rocking chair provided for breastfeeding; a washroom; a change area. They have a promotion right now-if you bring in a picture of your child wearing or using something you purchased there, you’ll receive 10% off your next purchase.

Need some new duds? Stop at Trixie. With fashions from Guess, JLo, Jessie May, Dex, and House of Spy among others, the clothes are fun, wearable, and au courant. The prices are reasonable for the quality and the salespeople are helpful without being pushy.

Stop for lunch at Queen’s Pasta Café (east of Bloor and Jane). Tuck into a bowl of delicious fresh pasta and relax with a glass of wine. Or, pick up some crepes and fresh salads to take home at Max’s Market’s huge prepared foods counter.

I never visit Bloor West Village without stopping at the Green Thumb fruit market and stocking up on fruits and veggies at fabulous prices. Don’t be daunted by the long line—they are super-efficient and it moves very fast. Don’t mess with their system by fumbling around counting change.

There are many florists in Bloor West Village—pick up a sprig of something for your table. There is also an abundance of bakeries—I always pick up some Portuguese custard tarts when I’m there. They all have their windows filled with lovely treats to tempt you.

Finish your shopping at Write Impressions (Bloor and Runnymede) for beautiful gift-wrap and unique cards. They also carry lots of Umbra photo albums and frames (great gifts) as well as a wonderful selection of journals and fountain pens.

Happy Shopping!

______________________________________________

Julie has a baby girl and is currently working in the home. She keeps busy finishing her undergrad (English), caring for her family, reading lots of books, writing, and trying to figure out what the heck to do next.


Contact Julie at metro_mama@hotmail.com.

Metro Reco: Mary Lawson

by Julie

The Other Side of the Bridge is Mary Lawson’s second novel (her first is the enormously successful Crow Lake). I hadn’t read Crow Lake when I picked this book up, so I had no idea what a treat I was in for (I remedied that very quickly once I finished this read).

The Other Side of the Bridge is a compelling story I greedily consumed in 100 page sittings. It takes place in Struan, a fictional farming community in Northern Ontario. The central characters are two brothers: Arthur is honest, hardworking and shy, his younger brother Jake cunning and impetuous, yet charming. The narrative alternates between the account of the brothers’ adolescence during World War Two, and the story of Ian, son of the town doctor who takes a job on Arthur’s farm twenty years later. The past and the present, and lives of the three men, are fatefully intersected by Laura, the Reverend’s daughter.

Lawson’s voice is sure, her prose taut. She deftly handles her narrative; the story captivates from the foretelling first pages until the gut-wrenching climax.

Crow Lake was also a riveting read, if not quite as powerful as The Other Side of the Bridge. It takes place in another farming community, near Struan. The story centres around the Morrison children, who have lost their parents in a car accident: Luke (19), Matt (17), Katie (7) and toddler Bo. Luke sacrifices his parents’ dream for him to be the first in the family to go to university to keep the siblings together and allow his brilliant brother Matt to stay in school. The characters are well drawn-I particularly enjoyed the wilful Bo (the same age as Cakes), modelled after Lawson’s younger sister, Eleanor. Lawson’s thoughtful exploration of family dynamics had me thinking about my relationship with my brother and how the things I want for him are not necessarily what he wants (or needs) for himself.

Mary Lawson was born and raised in a farming community in Ontario and attended McGill University. She is a distant relative of L. M. Montgomery. Lawson lives in Kingston-upon-Thames, England and is married with two sons. The Other Side of the Bridge was nominated for the 2006 Booker Prize.
________________________________________

Julie has a baby girl and is currently working in the home. She keeps busy finishing her undergrad (English), caring for her family, reading lots of books, writing, and trying to figure out what the heck to do next.


Contact Julie at metro_mama@hotmail.com.

Celebrate Surviving Another Year of Parenthood

by Julie

New Year’s Eve has changed for me over the years. Ten years ago, it meant a big house party, copious amounts of booze, and getting home at 4 a.m. after waiting two hours for a cab. Five years ago, it meant a two hundred dollar dinner, copious amounts of wine, and walking home in stilettos because we could not get a cab. I’m not interested in doing either of those things anymore, even if I could; however, I’m not ready to spend the evening watching the ball drop on my television. You see, my birthday is New Year’s Eve, so I’m extra celebratory that day. I feel compelled to do something special.

So, what’s a parent to do on New Year’s Eve (besides get a babysitter). If you want to make it a family event, you can go to Nathan Phillips Square, or the Toronto Zoo. Or, you can do what we did last year and have a sleepover party.

We invited Penelope (whose birthday is January 2nd by the way), Chris and Bee (who is the same age as Cakes). The plan was to get the girls down early and have an adult evening (the plan worked on one girl). We had a nice dinner, wine, good conversation, and actually managed to stay up until midnight to toast the new year with champagne. Nobody needed to try to hunt down a cab. We didn’t pay double the usual price for dinner. The next morning we went for brunch. You would think the restaurants would be packed New Years Day, but only the families are there first thing in the morning – all of the hungover childless people don’t start to roll in until after 10.

Even if it’s just the two of you, put on something sexy, light the candles, treat yourself to something decadent to eat and drink and celebrate surviving another year of parenthood.

This year we will again be celebrating New Year’s Eve adult-style. We hope dinner will be memorable. I’ll be shaking up some pomegranate martinis*. With any luck, Cakes will be asleep by 7. There will be no Dick Clark in sight.

Happy New Year everyone!

* Pomegranate Martini

1 1/2 cups pomegranate juice (the PC juice blend is delish in this recipe)
2 oz. vodka
1 oz. Cointreau
ice

Shake ingredients in a shaker and pour in martini glasses. Garnish with pomegranate fruit.

________________________________________

Julie has a baby girl and is currently working in the home. She keeps busy finishing her undergrad (English), caring for her family, reading lots of books, writing, and trying to figure out what the heck to do next.


Contact Julie at metro_mama@hotmail.com.

For the Bookworm on Your List

by Metro Mama

Dr. Vincent Lam’s Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures, winner of the 2006 Giller Prize, is the perfect stocking-stuffer. The connected short stories follow the intersecting lives of four doctors, from pre-med to their careers as physicians. The stories are narrated from various perspectives, including the doctors as well as the supporting characters: a psychiatric patient becoming increasingly paranoid; a women undergoing an emergency c-section; a nurse during the SARS crisis.

Unaffected and honest, the collection is an arresting glimpse into the world of medicine. The stories are unflinching—Lam doesn’t shrink away from the dark side of the medical profession. His characters are fallible, human, and real.

32-year old Lam is a Toronto emergency room physician. He was a ship doctor on an Arctic cruise where he met Margaret Atwood who became his mentor. Atwood introduced the book at the Giller ceremony and told the audience, "doctors and fiction-writers both deal in extreme events, both have their fingers on the pulse of life and death, and neither is squeamish about gore on the floor." Squeamish, Lam is not.

The $40,000 Giller prize is Canada’s most prestigious literary award. Last year's winner was Winnipeg novelist David Bergen for The Time in Between, the story of a haunted man who returns to Vietnam where he fought in the war 28 years earlier (read my review here). Alice Munro, who sat on this year’s jury, won the award in 2004 for Runaway.

Vincent Lam is married and the father of a two-year old son. He lives in Toronto and is working on his first novel, due out in 2007.

He’s inspired me—if a doctor and father of a toddler can find the time to write a book, maybe I can too.

Don’t you love a success story!

________________________________________

Julie has a baby girl and is currently working in the home. She keeps busy finishing her undergrad (English), caring for her family, reading lots of books, writing, and trying to figure out what the heck to do next.


Contact Julie at metro_mama@hotmail.com.

Brunching With Baby

by Metro Mama

One of life’s great pleasures is the Sunday brunch. Remember the pre-baby days, when brunch was late and leisurely? You'd meet up with the friends you parted from only hours before to debrief and replace lost fluids with countless cups of coffee?

Sorry, those days are (probably) over. However, post-baby Sunday brunch, though different, can be just as enjoyable. Having a baby doesn’t mean you have to resign yourself to Golden Griddle: there are hip, baby-friendly restaurants with great food, and Leslieville has more than its share.

Make your way to Queen and Logan and you'll find several choices in one block. Try Joy Bistro for a great patio and seven different kinds of eggs benny, including my favourite, the Eggs Norwentine (Norwegian Salmon, sautéed spinach, two poached eggs and hollandaise on a toasted English muffin).



If you like eighties music, check out Kubo Radio's brunch. If you’re really hungry, order the Big Boi, which includes scrambled eggs, bacon and sausage, French toast, potato rosti, fresh juice and coffee or tea. They have television to distract the babes, and the sweet bartender made Cakes a diluted fresh fruit drink in her own little shot glass.

For something a little more upscale, head to Verveine at Queen and Pape. The service is incredible and your little darling will be treated well too. Have a mimosa with your brunch.

Wherever you go, make sure you order something for the little one. I still recall with horror, the time Cakes ignored her cheerios and ate half of my scrambled eggs and smoked salmon at Bonjour Brioche.

If you brunch often, a bumbo seat is a handy thing to have (not cheap though). If your baby likes to feed herself, a dish with a suction-cup base is a big help. Most importantly, don’t forget lots of toys (if you do forget, duck into Value Village and pick up a bagful for 5 bucks).

Before you head home, reward the munchkin with a treat for allowing you some adult time: head to Lumiere at Queen and Broadview for beautiful handcrafted baby decor. Then, reward yourself: stop at The Leslieville Cheese Market and pick out a delicious selection of fine cheeses to enjoy with a glass of wine after dinner. Brunch is one thing. Taking baby out to dinner is another-it’s not for the faint of heart. But that’s a post for next time.

‘Til then, bon appetite!

What are your best baby-friendly brunch spots in Toronto? Please, share!
________________________________________

Julie has a baby girl and is currently working in the home. She keeps busy finishing her undergrad (English), caring for her family, reading lots of books, writing, and trying to figure out what the heck to do next.


Contact Julie at metro_mama@hotmail.com.

Mom About Town

by Metro Mama

As moms, we have precious little me-time. Let’s use it well.



Tuck in the little ones, pour yourself a cocktail and join Metro Mama as she savors good books, movies, theatre, and wine. Together we’ll explore our great city’s many cultural offerings; we’ll figure out what works with babe and when it’s best to fly solo. Let’s resolve to watch more foreign films, turn up our noses at Dan Brown, and read more Can Lit. Housework can wait. Forget the laundry. This is mommy time.