Happy 2014!!! Yay!

To my blog readers, 

Whenever or Wherever, Double Rainbows are always in your heart! Be Merry!

Charlotte L Design

Arts Market's Surrounding Part II

Bobbette & Belle Artisanal Pastries is founded by two talented ladies,
Allyson Bobbette and Sarah Belle

Crossing Queen Street East from the Arts Market, Bobbette & Belle Artisanal Pastries is there. A pastry retail shop is famous of luxury wedding cakes and favors. The shop not only offers cakes but sit-in area for some coffee and macarons.  Stepping in the store, full of different favors, wedding cake samples, pastel macaron towers, decorative cup cakes, holiday sweets, confections and cookies displayed neatly on the white painted shelves and weathered wooden tables. This chic-looking interior setting made my eyes so busy to wander. Not until my eyes set on the decorative porcelain plates hung on the wall behind the cashiers.

In spite of price, it is a good hangout place surrounded by an atmosphere of elegance, at least my conscience will stay a brief moment of being Marie Antoinette. LOL.

Charlotte L Design

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Belated Merry Christmas Part I

Hello, all my blogger readers,

Merry Christmas, especially to those who restore from the days and nights without electricity and hot water in Toronto and other impacted cities!

Icy budded branches are cascading against the fence

Creeping frozen boxwood stiff outward 

As you may heard of Toronto's power outage, my family had no exception to escape this bad luck. With outburst joy, my home had finally electricity power back on around 11 p.m. on 24th. Patiently waiting at my friend's house for a few hours, my family swiftly moved back and continued cooking turkey for our festive dinner on Christmas Day.

Turned out my turkey was delicious as well as apple pies, blueberry pie and mini butter tarts ...

Yummy turkey with water mouthing stuffing

Homemade mini butter tarts made by a friend from Regina,
homemade apple pies and blueberry pies made by my husband. 

It was a wonderful dinner with all the siblings and in laws, whose homes have been restored from the electricity disconnection.  One of the in laws flew from Regina for this dinner on 24th. There was an explosion at Regina refinery. Gratefully, she was able to come to join us safe and on time and nobody was hurt at the refinery.  My brother in laws had done his cataract surgery last Friday and he tried to take it easy and rest at home but it was out of power on Saturday's night. Through God's mercy, his Christian in-law offered a nice warm place for him to stay.

For me? My home was out of electricity only last Friday's night and the hot water tank still worked. So, I still could have a good supply of hot water. I have an outdoor BBQ propane grill at my porch and a portable stove fuelled by Butane gas cartridges, some hot water bottles, a Thermos Shuttle Chef and a fireplace and one firelog. So, my husband and I got up early in morning and fed our 23-month-old son quickly. We started driving to the less-impacted areas for shopping some firelogs around 10 a.m. By the time we got there, big signs, stating "all the firelogs are sold out",  was posted at the entrances of  Walmart and Home Depot. Finally, we got some at Canadian Tire. The lady there was a bit upset of  too many visitors asking the same question, "Where does the firelogs locate?" We all grinned!

Dripping ice popsicles hanging across the bottom of the Canadian Tire sign

Back to home, I started to ponder how I can cook with the left-over at refrigerator and my existing equipments, i.e. portable stove, thermos Shuttle Chef and outdoor BBQ propane grill. Honestly, I didn't want to set up my grill outside my house in approximately -10 degree celsius. So, the grill was checked off from my list.  Without Internet Access, I recalled a Cantonese live show at Hong Kong Radio, which I watched a few days ago. It was called "Rich Mate Poor Mate III".  That episode depicted an ex-investment banker elite and a first-honour student of Le Corton Blue Paris spent a few days living in a poor family with shabby kitchen. She wanted to promote how to cook a nutritious meal with a tight-shoestring budget. Of course she had a headache to cook a proper meal with a portable stove at the beginning; she figured out steaming food and cutting food very fine could save a lot of gas and fuel. So I adapted this theory to cook my first meal without electricity. Here is my menu,

Steamed black bean pork short ribs

Steamed egg tofu

BBQ pork [left over at regridgerator]

Trying to do most during the day time when the sun is still bright, I started cooking at 1:30 p.m for a dinner of two plus an infant. First, I freshly chopped garlic and minced black beans and marinated short ribs for a while. Then I used the Thermos' inner layer saucepan to cook my marinated pork short ribs on the portable stove.  After brought it to boil, I let it simmer about 10 minutes with medium heat.  In the meantime, I steamed the 1/2-inch sliced egg tofu and BBQ pork. By the time the short ribs was done, I put it into the bottom of the Thermos Shuttle Chef, then placed the BBQ pork dish on the top. On its top, I put the egg roll dish supported with a thin stainless steel plate. Each dish was covered with an aluminium foil. At last, closed the lid and let them sit until the dinner time. 

At the dinner time, when we opened the lid of the inner containers and steams vigorously came out because the rooms got a lot of colder than before. Anyways, we had a happy candle-lit supper on that night and my little one had a very good appetite. 

Although we had fixed the dinner problem part, how about our sleeping...?

Continue...

Charlotte L Design

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Arts Market's Surroundings [Part I]

A few friends asked me about my booth at the Arts Market and they showed their interest. So I wrote a bit about the Arts Market's surroundings.  When they visit Arts Market, they can also browse other shops around the and spend a half a day.

Strolling Leslieville is a fantastic idea for dating or just meet-up with wriends on weekends. Years ago, I was frightened to walk alone there - you never knew what type of encounters you would face on the street.  Now the atmosphere and surroundings have changed a lot. I think one of the reasons is the Distillery District - the City of Toronto was determined to remodel this area.

Most of the time I drive down to the Arts Market to restock my artwork.  I simply park my car on Bertmount Avenue, where one-hour free parking is available. There are meter parking spaces available on Queen Street East as well. Just watch out - there are a lot of one way alleys in the neighbourhood.

Intersection between Bertmount Avenue & Queen Street East

After parking my car, I walk along Bertmount Avenue and up to Queen Street East.  Almost every time when I pass by, one front yard catches my eye by its decor. It is the Doll house in Leslieville. Many plastic figurines and plush toys are lavishly on display in their front yard. Also, two flags of US and Canada are hung at the front as well.  The funny part is, if you take a close look at each figurine, each on their own may be too common to slow down my walking pace.  When they are all gathered in one spot like this, they make you gasp.  I have not gone there during the night, are they all lit up in the dark? If someone has a picture ot this house in the night time, please send me one. I would love to know. 

Canival-like doll house becomes a stunning scene along Bertmount Avenue

Going north on Bertmount Ave. head up to Queen Street East, then make a right to get to the Arts Market. In the basement, there is another store called Pied-a-terre. It is worth it to go down there and take a look.  Most of the old items there have been refurnished by a touch of hand working.  Different than other antique stores in the area, its theme is romantic French. For those who love French stuff or being in L'amour feeling, go there without hesitation.

Arts Market locates ground level while Pied-a-terre in the basement. Totally different styles, worth to go both.

Here is my Beets note cards hung on the Arts Market's window

Last summer, I spent one Sunday with Tony having brunch at OK to the power 2 Diner, i.e. Ok Ok diner. Intriguingly, some people may think "okay is not really okay", but this diner has two OKs so I think the food must be double okay.  In the meantime, we were both tired of our regular brunch spots, like Sunset Grill, Eggpectation, Cora's. I love all of them ... but sometimes we need a little break from regularity.  Why don't we go to this funky named tavern? It is located exactly at the intersection of Bertmount Ave. and Queen Street East.  Sometimes if you pass by on Queen Street East, the diner cannot steal pedestrians' peeks very easily.  However, a second later, a gigantic TTC street car painted on the brick wall will win back their sight. Tony and I had our brunch before this stunning graffiti wall relaxingly, it was a good date and day for both of us, what a laid back day! Still wondering whether the owner painted the TTC street car in actual size or not. 

Ok Square Diner

TTC street car was painted on the brick wall

More good spots will be released to your readings soon.  Stay tuned!

Charlotte L Design

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Vegetables & Fruits

When I travelled in Bangkok, Thailand, I stayed in Mandarin Oriental Hotel for a few days years ago. It was the first hotel built in Thailand and the structure was built in 1879.  I visited there in February, the place was definitely a great escape from harsh Canadian winter. Unbelievably, the weather there is still very hot.  Everyday when I went out of the hotel, my sweaters were soaked wet. In order to keep the hotel's customers hydrated, they provided bottled water in the room, which a lot of hotels would do so.  Apart from it, they also provided fruits commonly eaten by local people. Of course, for a Canadian, their "common" fruits are quite exotic to me. Every time when the butler sent a new bunch of fruit to the room, he also put a hand-painted postcard in the fruits. The postcard depicted the fruit he offered on that day. The idea was so good and I kept most of the postcards.  Everyday I could not wait to go back to the room to get them [the cards]. 

These cards inspires me to paint fruit on my greeting-card series, for instance, pineapple,  dragon fruit, and now even vegetables.

 Enjoy!

Charlotte L Design

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My Latest Sumie Paintings [unstretched]

I have studied Sumie painting for years, and seldomly post them to my Facebook or blog. Before I simply use my Sumie skill onto porcelain ware, I suddenly find out the paintings on paper are quite good and should share them to my readers. 

A Running Horse with simplified chinese character. Although I should write Kanji charcters instead, I think the simplified chinese charcters reflect more onto the action of running. 

I painted the subject of dragon very first time. Once I painted it, it looks like
one of my favorite games,  Angry Bird.  Can I title this painting as "Angry Dragon". 

Of course if it is named as "Angry Dragon", a fighting scene is unavoidable! 

Opposite to dragon, there is a Phoneix, another imaginative figure. 

Another creature I like is frog.  This frog is small enough to lean onto a leaf. 

A pear with woman-like full figure

Lotus and Water Lilies

This winter I launch a series of hand painted greeting cards for my booth at the Arts Market. Among the cards, I specifically painted some water lilies and lotus. I always like these flowers, which impress me with their simplicity and pure look. They look outstanding than the other flowers.I adopt light hot pink and fine black outline to stand out their innocence.
In Asian culture, water lilies and lotus are elegant flowers.  When I traveled in Bangkok, I saw each believer carried a stem of petals-folded lotus streaming into the Buddhist temple. In contrast to a bunch of mixed flowers, I think a stem of lotus fittingly symbolizes the believers' heart to their god. So pure and simple.

Display for this holiday at Leslieville

Last Thursday I went to the Arts Market [the Leslieville location] for organizing a bit my booth after 8 p.m.  It was a freezing cold yet dark evening.  On the street I barely saw people passing. I quickly got a parking spot and rushed into the Arts Market.  The owner of the Arts Market, Daniel, waited at the entrance.  When I got into the store, it was totally another scene. I couldn't say it was fully packed, on the other hand, I gladly saw warm and smiling faces there.  It was so nice to see varied artists working hard on their booth there. An artisan brought her dog as an assistant [seemingly] to decorate the booth together, while another busily hung his wall arts with the help of his daughter, mother, wife and brother.  What great teams are!  

Honestly I was a bit guilty that I didn't have their diligence and, of course, envied of their teammates.  My son, Jaden, was still too young for this.  I hope one day he can be involved in fulfilling my artistic dream. On this visit, I first launched my Sumi-e series in public and hopefully it would be accepted by the viewers. 

After a busy night, I went back to my warmest hub and slept tight with Jaden for a sweet dream.