Baked potato stuffed with blue cheese, crispy prosciutto, and chives

Holiday Hibernation 2007 has included a fair bit of cooking, which is quite fine by me — I find time in the kitchen enormously relaxing and enter a meditative-like state as the knife blade rhythmically strikes the cutting board, as the wooden spoon swooshes the contents of a pot against ...
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Christmas ornaments in grandma’s gold-trimmed cut-glass bowl

Grey light washed the quiet streets slowly, gradually this morning. The cat let us sleep in, staying perched on the sill of our bedroom window, warmed by the baseboard heater beneath it, until I got up to make my Christmas-morning calls. Michael brought me coffee as I talked to my family, and now I will ...
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Angel in flight over the Gardiner Expressway

Gardiner Expressway, Etobicoke | Saturday, September 8, 2007, 3:17 p.m. Though I took this photo in September, during a zany day in which we ran errands in a borrowed car all over parts of the city into which we almost never venture, I’ve always intended to hold on to it for a holiday edition of ...
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Tree shadow in the window of the Green Cottage at Log Cabin Point, Cherry Valley

I remember well the weekend we spent last fall at Log Cabin Point. With the gas fireplace hissing I spent Saturday night in my track pants and sweatshirt folded into a blanket with a magazine. Not wanting to leave such warm comfort, I asked if we could ...
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French onion soup with Gruyère toast and thyme

We walked out of Union Station and, unbelievably, made it to the curb at Front Street without being approached by taxi drivers aggressively pursuing fares — the irony being that we actually needed a ride. My mom and I stood in front of the train station, CN Tower glowing red and yellow in the ...
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I love food and I love to cook. A few of my quirks by way of proof: (1) By three o’clock, it is a good bet that you will find on my desk an in-progress grocery list of items I need to pick up on my way home from work in order to make the dinner I’ve been planning in the back ...
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Cloud streets*

70 Wynford Drive, Don Mills, looking southeast | Tuesday, September 4, 2007, 9:08 a.m.

I am an unflagging proponent of public transit, but damn. The weather has turned while I have been inside for this entire late-November day and as I stand in the cone of orange glow cast by the light standard I realize that my long-sleeved t-shirt and ...
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