I’m Dreaming of a Green Christmas…

Not Literally.

I love waking up Christmas morning to a world buried deep under sparkling snow. What I mean by a Green Christmas is one that is environmentally friendly and socially conscious. Last Christmas my goal was to find gifts not made in China; a very difficult feat. This year my goal is to make greener choices while shopping for and wrapping my gifts; another difficult feat.

Here are five things I found that made my Christmas greener. I hope they make your Christmas greener as well:

1) Creative wrapping:
I really dislike all the waste associated with wrapping presents. Yes, a wrapped gift is beautiful, but it’s pretty much glorified Joy to the World covered land filler. I wanted to find a way to reduce my Christmas waste and make my presents look nice at the same time. Behold, reusable Rexall shopping bags with neat designs! They were only 67 cents a bag and people will be able to use them for their Boxing Day shopping excursions. I’ve also been inspired by my friend Jessica who wraps her gifts in newspaper. I love that she’s reusing paper and if you want to make her idea festive you can use flyers advertising Christmas specials. All of the colours of the season without all the waste.

2) Gifts made in North America:
If ever I’m stuck on what to buy someone I wait till the One of a Kind Show rolls around. It’s a craft show that has everything, from fridge magnets all the way to stunning way-to-expensive art. One of the rules vendors have to abide by is everything must be made in North America. This really appeals to my socially conscious goal because I know the people displaying their wares are the people designing and making the product. A lot their wares are environmentally friendly too and if you ask them they’ll go into detail about how their crafts are made. The One of a Kind Show is not the only craft show out there, so check out your community bulletins for a local craft show near you!

3) For the fellas who have a special lady in their life:
The holidays are rife with romance. The majority of marriage proposals happen over Christmas and nothing says Happy New Year like a sparkly ring that screams “spend the rest of your life with me.” If you’re a gent looking to wow your ladylove with gems this holiday you should try Tiffany & Co. The blue box on its own will impress, but the fact that Tiffany’s is an environmentally and socially conscious company will warm her heart even more. They use ethically sourced diamonds, refuse to sell coral, petition mines they see as unsustainable and use recycled materials in their packaging (gives the blue box a whole new meaning). Check out this Tiffany & Co. campaign for all the ways they’re leading the jewelry industry to greener pastures: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DG1bMGz9Ac8&feature=youtu.be

4) Dressing for holiday parties:
A large part of this festive season is going out and spending time with friends and family. It’s always nice to have a swanky new dress to ring in the New Year or to wow at the office party. But you know what’s even nicer? When that dress is made from renewable resources and manufactured in the Greater Toronto Area! My favourite clothes for all my holiday parties are ones I’ve found at Miik. They’re comfortable, they’re chic and they’re made in my hometown, and that makes me feel warm and fuzzy like no sweater ever could. Last New Year’s eve I wore a black Miik dress and at my family’s Christmas dinner I wore one of their shirts and a cardi. I went to their head office at Spadina and Richmond to purchase them and was able to avoid the hectic malls. It’s a personal shopping experience like I’ve never had. While I tried on clothes that an associate was picking out for me, my boyfriend was able to sit and chat with the owner of the company over refreshments. If you want a new wardrobe for the New Year, but hate lines and crowds, Miik is where it’s at: http://www.miik.ca

5)For the people who have everything:
I don’t know about you, but there’s always one person on my list that has it all. For the people who have everything, why don’t you get them the gift of giving to those who have nothing? World Vision is just one example of a charitable organization that has a gift guide for donors during this season. If you go to www.worldvision.ca/gifts you can purchase farm animals, medical supplies and school supplies for communities in need. These gifts can be donated on behalf of others and you can present them with a card letting them know that a goat is providing for a family in Somalia in their name. I’ve done charitable gifts on behalf of others before and the recipients are always touched by the thought. It’s the gift that keeps on giving and often inspires more charitable donations in the future.

A Review: Harry's Not So Social Kitchen

Harry's Social Kitchen is a new restaurant and bar in the Yonge and St. Clair neighbourhood.

The owners have jazzed up the interior of what was once Fionn MacCools, with swanky lighting and head bobbing tunes. It's all set up to be the perfect place to drop by with your friends and grab a cocktail or woo a companion on a date, but the menu will need some work before it will woo anyone.

I started off with the Three Cheese Angus Sliders and Grilled Apple and Brie Quesadillas as appetizers. The sliders were encased in soft brioche rolls. The Angus beef was cooked perfectly. It was moist and pink, but the flavour just wasn't there, which seemed to be a recurring theme throughout the meal. The quesadillas made up for it a bit with their interesting mix of flavours. The sweetness of the apple and creamy taste of the brie swung hand in hand with the salty bacon. The maple mustard drizzled on top kicked it into delicious mode by adding a much welcome tangy zip.



The mains arrived and I was hopeful that the enticing menu had done them justice. The New York Striploin was cooked to perfection and for you meat purists out there, you will be happy to learn that they didn't drown it in sauces or seasonings. The mashed potatoes and mixed veggies that came alongside the steak also seemed to be cooked by Goldilocks, as their texture was just right. Once again the issue of flavour came up. There was nothing remarkable about the New York Strip except for the fact that it was nicely charred outside, and exactly as rare as I asked for inside. Most places over cook or under cook, but this plate was cooked to perfection.



I also tried the Shrimp and Scallop Tagliatelle which was interesting, but not remarkable. Again, the pasta was cooked to perfection; not too firm and not too mushy. The curried coconut cream sauce was what threw me. I thought it'd be amazing, something I'd never tried before, but it left me unimpressed. It wasn't really curried or coconutty, it just tasted like slightly spicy cream sauce. Not something I'd write home about.



The desserts were what bored me the most. The Molten Lava Cake wasn’t molten at all. Calling it Chilly Lava Cake would be more accurate. The middle was undercooked and underwhelming. The Creme Brûlée was average at best. It lacked that essential creaminess which makes the dessert so addictive.



With food ranging from $7-13 for appetizers and $15-$34 for entrees it’s a bit on the high side for meals that could use more flavour.

Sorry Harry, but Sally won’t be screaming orgasmically in your Social Kitchen quite yet.

Swing to Salsa: Tripping My Way to a Good Time

I didn’t grow up during the fight for gender neutrality like the kids of today.

When I was little the majority of boys I knew played hockey, and the majority of girls took dance. My parents didn’t enroll me in dance because I was a girl and that’s what girls did. They’re not those kinds of parents. They enrolled me in dance because I loved it.

I have always loved to dance. I would spend hours twirling in front of our winter coat wardrobe with the full-length mirror on it with my mother’s silk scarves. Spinning, leaping and trying my damnedest to look like a Swan Princess or a Fairy from the Nutcracker. As I got older my interests broadened and dance took a back seat to swimming, art, sailing and marine biology. Eventually the only dancing I did was when I was at home by myself, music turned on full blast.

About a year ago I saw a Groupon for swing classes at a studio on Yonge Street. Thoughts of dance classes past came fluttering back to me, and I longed to be back in a studio. It scared me that I couldn’t remember the last time I had taken a class and that, even though I didn’t want to admit it, I didn’t dance when I was home alone anymore. Where had my passion for dance gone? Left behind with other childhood dreams and habits, my appreciation for a good twirl was a ghost keeping company with memories of catching toads and hiding in tree houses. I wanted it all back. I wanted to dance again. And then, like some scene from a movie, I closed my eyes and saw myself in a hospital room speaking to my grandfather. He passed away a couple years ago, but I remember this conversation I had with him like it was yesterday.

I had gone to visit him after his brain surgery, and still a little befuddled from the drugs, he asked me if I still had the bicycle he’d given me. He’d given me that bicycle when I was 7 or 8, so I was confused as to why he was remembering it and bringing it up now, but I answered him “yes”. He told me “that’s good” and then he said something that almost made me cry: “I can’t ride a bicycle anymore.” I saw my grandfather, who’d always been a busy and active man, try and come to terms with the limitations of age and illness. I saw him looking at the IVs in his arms and the monitors over head and thought he must be wondering where all his freedom and time had gone; wishing that he’d spent more time on his bike. I sat there looking at this Groupon and thinking that I didn’t want to grow old and say that I couldn’t do the things that I loved anymore. I would dance again.

I signed my boyfriend and I up for swing dancing in April and have been taking classes since. I was so excited for our first class. Seeing the studio’s wooden floors and full-length mirrors made me feel like I was home again. Then the instructors came in and started our lesson… this was not what I was expecting. The instructors didn’t look professional, they gave poor direction and split my partner and I up. I had trouble following along, finding the rhythm and kept screwing up. Had I forgotten how to dance? How the hell did this happen!?

A month of classes went by with little improvement. I was getting frustrated and instead of being excited to go to class, I dreaded it. What step was I going to mess up this time? Which stranger that I was partnered with was I going piss off tonight? After our month of swing, I never wanted to go to a studio again. On the way home from our last class my boyfriend and I were approached on the street by a person offering free trial dance classes at a studio only blocks away from our apartment. I took this as a sign not to give up just yet and that’s when we started taking Salsa.

Love to Dance studio on Eglinton was where I got my groove back. I hadn’t forgotten how to dance; I was just in the wrong studio with the wrong teachers. With clear instruction and my partner by my side I was finally feeling the joy from dance like I used to. My boyfriend and I even started dancing alone at home again, with the music on full blast of course.

In our last class the instructor split us up and pared me with an older gentleman named Ron. I learned that he had been a ballroom dancer and that he was just learning Salsa now for fun. Ron is in his late 70’s and when I was dancing with him, again, I was reminded of my grandfather. In the end, he wasn’t well enough to continue doing the things he loved most, but I think if he had he would have been a lot like Ron. Dancing with Ron taught me a lot of new moves and by the end of the class he was twirling me around like I’d never stopped in the first place.

Alice through the mirrorball horse or: How I fell in love with Vegas

My name is Amanda, not Alice. And I took a trip to Vegas, not Wonderland. I was wearing jeans, not a cute little blue dress with a white pinafore. And I didn't follow a rabbit, I followed my own desire. But other then those minute details my story and Alice, of Lewis Carrol fame, are pretty much the same.

Stepping off the plane in Las Vegas was like entering an alternate universe. Everything that was backward and forward in my Toronto was upside down and sideways on the Strip. I had planned this trip as a Christmas gift for my boyfriend with only Hollywood expectations and friends' tales to guide me, and that was all I needed in the end.

The first thing I did when I got to the luxurious Wynn hotel was jump on the bed. Maybe it was the desert air and the sun on my face, but after months of winter, this southern place made me feel free and rebellious. We hit the Strip as soon as I got tired of the bed and once we started exploring we realized how oddball Vegas really is. Nothing anyone says can prepare you for this. You could watch The Hangover a hundred times, but when you're used to people smoking outside and drinking inside, and then those practices are reversed, your head will spin. I had to stop myself from staring at people as they drank everywhere, inside and out. To test the limits Scott bought a beer and drank it in the Tiffany and Co. I was appalled, but the staff didn't even blink. The first time I sniffed cigarette smoke in the air at the casino I felt the need to alert someone until I noticed that the only person looking around like there was something wrong was me. Walking down the street was like walking down a midway at a fair. Left and right there were flashing lights, signs and music playing. Stores and hotels were like fun houses, designed to lure in all walks of life, and around every corner you caught glimpses of the freak show that is modern America. Women with so much plastic surgery and spray tan in their dramatic attempts to look young ended up looking like drag queens. The horribly obese stood next to the drastically thin amplifying each others' qualities without meaning to. My hunger for people-watching went into overdrive, and I was almost drooling at each new resort. As the sun went down the skirts inched higher on girls legs and the look of lust lingered longer in the groups of men. I watched all this with growing interest and thought "that plane may as well have been a rabbit hole after all."

Jet lag really is a bitch, but in this case I could forgive her, because waking up at 5:30am gave me and Scott the chance to watch the sunrise over the mountains. Laying in bed, seeing that orange glow creep over the sky made me feel peaceful and excited at the same time. Why couldn't I feel like this every morning? I guess it's just the magic of Vegas. We left the hotel and walked down the deserted Strip to find breakfast. We ended up at Hash House A Go Go which we'd seen on Man vs. Food. Being fans we had to try what Adam Richman had tried, so I ordered the chicken and waffles and Scott got the fried chicken eggs benny. When the plates arrived I understood why the U.S. has such problems with obesity! The plate was WIDER then my shoulders, and piled so high it required skewer scaffolding to support it. After an hour I had barely made a dent in my portion, whereas Scott had devoured his (I think he felt the need to best Richman at his own game). He was sorry for it later. The rest of the day was spent working off breakfast by shopping at the Premium Outlet Malls.

I love being able to find great deals, but I love seeing the different side of a city more and the bus ride to the outlets revealed that to me. I have never seen so many bail bondsmen in my entire life. At least five in a row, one shop was even called The Godfather and had a picture of a mobster holding a gun. Downtown Vegas has a different glimmer then the sparkling Strip. This is where old Vegas and poor Vegas mix together. Gazing out the window watching sagging apartment buildings go by and drug deals being exacted by young black men in white wife beaters I was reminded that I wasn't in Wonderland and not everyone here was on vacation. A reality cheque that I wasn't ready to pay yet.

That night we dined at the SW Steakhouse and surrounded by such opulence it was easy to forget about poverty in the rest of the city. One thing I learned on this trip is Vegas is the mistress of smoke and mirrors. Illusions of architecture and flowing booze make it harder to see through the haze of what's beyond the Strip. Las Vegas actually has the highest foreclosure rate in the U.S. but it's hard to keep that in mind when you're having a good time amongst your new tourist friends in the casinos.

Our last full day in Vegas was packed to the tits with with activities. We made another trip off the Strip to visit Target and the University of Nevada. We went on a gondola ride at the Venetian. It was worth every penny to get to know our charming gondolier, Dante, and hear him sing. We went through Madame Tussauds' Wax Museum where Scott got a little too friendly with Jenna Jameson, and we rode the roller coster at New York, New York.



The icing on our vacation cake and the end of the evening was to go see O by Cirque du Soleil at the Bellagio, but before we got there we watched a real Vegas show play out on the bus on the way back to the hotel. Three middle aged men tried to board the bus. All of them were drunk, but one was so much so that he was leaning sideways and tilting back and forth as if on a moving ship. The bus driver told his friends that they couldn't bring him on the bus, that he was way too intoxicated. The drunk men started yelling, as drunk men tend to do, and they told the bus driver that they were getting on no matter what. He reiterated that they would not get on, but if they left now he wouldn't call the police. At this they started shouting "CALL THE COPS! DO IT! CALL THEM!" all while trying to support their now slumped over friend sitting on the ground. Everyone on the bus was watching this discourse with amusement, especially the four tipsy women sitting in front of us. They had taken it upon themselves to narrate the entire debacle and were yelling out predictions as to what was going to transpire. A woman sitting behind us had her camera out and was taping the entire thing. It ended with one of our new southern sista's dragging Scott into a rendition of Crank Dat Soulja Boy, an invitation to drinks and everyone getting off the bus before the cops showed up. This is Vegas: a perfect cocktail of random drunkenness and new friends from different places.




Finally arriving at the Bellagio we waited for O to begin in front of the mirrorball horse in the lobby. As we watched people pose for pictures in front of the horse, it became for me a symbol of our trip and this crazy city. It's big, sparkly, over the top and not real, but it's fun to look at and that's why you fall in love with it.

Loser Finally Wins

I have a confession to make: I am a serial contester.

If there’s a contest out there chances are I’ve entered it. I adore the thrill of winning even though I never do. Like a dog that gets kicked, but still worships at it’s masters’ feet, I worship at the alter of the contest gods hoping that one day they’ll throw me a bone.

I’m not a picky contester either! Oh no, we die hard addicts of chance don’t discriminate! I enter magazine contests, Twitter, Facebook, Blog and website contests. And when I was young I would pray that one day my milk carton would moo and I’d win a mountain bike… that did actually happen, but to the kid who sat three desks down from mine. Until now, that was the closest to winning I’d ever been. Sharing a classroom with a mooing milk carton.

About a week ago my luck finally changed! The contest gods threw me not one fat, juicy bone, but three!

I entered a contest to win some Augustina perfume from a site called Sidewalk Hustle. I love perfume almost as much as I love entering contests, so I had my fingers crossed tight that I’d win this one. After days and many contest entries later I was notified by the site editor that I had won! I remember exactly where I was sitting when I found out the happy news. I was on the left side of my sofa watching Dexter with my boyfriend, Scott, who kept harassing me to turn off my computer and snuggle him. I actually said, “shut up! I think I’ve won something!” and he paused Dexter so I could fully focus my energies on understanding what had just happened. I had actually won. I wanted to change my middle name to Winner the next day; that’s just how excited I was.

Yesterday, the winning streak continued when I found out I’d won a gift card from Miik! They’re one of my favourite recent discoveries in this city. They make clothing out of bamboo and they manufacture it here in Toronto. Eco friendly and local, that’s my kind of company (if you’ve read my post China, I’m so Over You then you’ll understand). I entered their Valentine’s Day Facebook contest thinking “what the hell, maybe the Sidewalk Hustle luck will follow me.” And BOOM! I won again! This time I did a little dance in front of my desk cause I thought "this is too good to be true!".

After I stopped dancing I noticed I’d received an email from Cinemaclock.com. I go to their site everyday because they often post contests to win movie tickets and DVDs. Lo and behold, I’d won a DVD on Joan Rivers! Not even five minutes after winning at Miik. At this point I had to leave the room because I thought I was going to cry. Scott pokes fun at me because I religiously enter so many contests. When I told him what a roll I was on he was just as baffled as I was! I thought of alerting the press and letting them know they’d have a headline for tomorrow’s paper: Loser Finally Wins and then a shot of my face still glowing with the sweat from my winners dance. Millions of copies would be sold and I’d single handedly save the print media industry. This was a stretch, but the winning had gone to my head and that’s the great thing about winners, they have the luxury to dream.

I bought Scott a trip to Las Vegas for Christmas. We’re leaving in four days. Fingers crossed this winning streak follows us and I come back with bags full of money… luxury to dream, remember.