On Sunday June 15, Donatello, Tomiko, our mom, and I took a boat to the Toronto Islands for the Strawberry Social and the Blessing of the Boats and Bicycles. St Andrews by the Lake is a tiny church that has been holding the blessing ceremony for several decades (centuries even?). The tradition originally started when the fishing […]
picnic
Annual Sail Past and Review of the Fleet
To open the sailing season each year, one of the local yacht clubs has a sail past on the Victoria Day weekend. All of the ships in the club must sail past the commodore while he salutes the fleet, one by one. Check out this year’s commodore above, which when we first saw him, he was […]
Pineapple Upside-Down Cake with Vanilla Sauce
A delicious old-fashioned cake perfect for a picnic! I brought this to a Sail Past feast a few years ago, and it was a hit. It’s from Susan Branch’s Sweets to the Sweet: A Keepsake Book from the Heart of the Home, so follow her advice and serve it with a silky smooth sauce. Often […]
Hanami in High Park
Hanami is blossom-viewing, most famously cherry blossom-viewing, in Japanese. A few years ago Tomiko and I spent a month in Tokyo and enjoyed picnics under the blossoming trees. This year, we stayed in Toronto and bicycled to High Park to take in the beautiful views and take advantage of the first beautiful weekend of the year. […]