Culinary event in Toronto: Summerlicious 2019

We are the type of family that loves good food,... and we have found good food in restaurants, joints, ribfests, street fests, and street foods.

Have you heard of Summerlicious? This is a food festival that happens each year in Toronto. A lot of great restaurants offer a 3-course-meal limited menu at a "prix fixe". This year the prices for lunch are $23/$28/$33 and the prices for dinner are $33/$43/$53 - drinks and gratuity are separate.

credit: Summerlicious website

There are a lot of options for you to choose from: cuisines and flavours from all over the world, from classic to contemporary styles,... you name it!

Summerlicious website has a list of all the participating restaurants and their menus. Not so sure about which restaurant to choose???,... go to the website and select your preferences from the searching tool: type of cuisine, location, price or even the name of the restaurant. Click here for the website.

This year we decided to go to the Beaumont Kitchen located inside Saks Fifth Avenue at CF Sherway Gardens. The ambience is elegant with whimsical accents.

Look at our choices:

For the first course: Arugula Salad with roasted peaches, candied pecans, mint, feta with honey vinaigrette;

Second course: Baked Salmon with broccoli, chickpeas, tzatziki, pickled turnips and puffed rice;

Credit: Beaumont Instagram 

Dessert: Caramelized banana stuffed crepe with Haagen-Dazs extraaz banana peanut butter chip ice cream, candied peanuts and a chocolate drizzle.

Needless to say that the food was scrumptious and we had a great time at the restaurant. Isabella went with us and she behaved beautifully (one can't predict when a toddler will decide to have a melt down, right?), she had pasta with tomato sauce. She was wearing her birthday dress (click here to see Isabella's Birthday party), and she was not messy at all and the dress was in perfect condition after finishing eating - unfortunately there are no pictures of her :(

If you like contemporary Canadian cuisine this is a great option.

Summerlicious 2019 runs until July 21, so there is still time for you to check it out!

Have you already been to Summerlicious this year or in past editions? How did you like it?

Isabella's 2nd Birthday, a Minnie Mouse Party!

Hi there,

Isabella turned 2 in the end of May... can you believe it? To be honest, I can't,... time is going by so fast. I look at my baby (who is no longer a baby) and I see a little girl, a smart, confident, sweet little girl,... that loves to play and take care of her big sister Kiki,...

She is my everything!

Isabella is not allowed a lot of screen time. However she watches a few baby/toddler shows: Wiggles, Sesame Street and Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. She loves all of them, but lately she's been really excited about Minnie Mouse, or as she says "Mimmie". So for her second birthday I thought that it would be fun to throw a Minnie Mouse themed party. Also, I thought it wouldn't be difficult to find cute and inexpensive party decoration.

With that in mind I started the search for her outfit and once I found the dress I ordered the hair bow from Brazil.

We ordered the invitation from Inspired by You Designs and they did a fantastic job, as always!!!! They created exactly what I was looking for in the perfect color scheme. We didn't print invitations this time, it was all virtual.

I found these water bottle labels online and we customized them for Bella's birthday party,....

We hosted the party at our place, and we ended up preparing most of the food at home; We served pulled pork sliders, vegetarian frosted layered sandwich loaf, veggies (tomatoes and carrots) & hummus. As for sweets we had brownie bites, M&Ms, passion fruit mousse and overnight oats.

You might be thinking: 'it is different (not to say odd) to serve overnight oats in a birthday party!',... and you might be right hahaha,... but we were thinking about the birthday girl -  Isabella has never had any refined sugar or sweets so far (and we intend to keep this way for a bit longer), so we wanted to have something that she really loves eating. We served them in little cups with spoons. It was a huge success: everybody in the party asked us for the recipe. If you guys want the recipe, I am happy to share it with you, jus leave us a comment here!

Isabella's Godmother baked the birthday cake. It was a Kit Kat cake with M&Ms,... OMG,... it was delicious and beautiful. She is not a professional baker (although I strongly advise her to start a business in baking!!!) and she took the time to do it for us. Thank you so much dinda Lu!!!!

Isabella stayed up late that day enjoying her party,... she ended up with tomato seeds and oats all over her dress, but it didn't deterred her from dancing until the last minute. I was not expecting to have a toddler, who didn't nap that day, in such good mood and showing her dance moves by 9pm!

We want to thank our friends that came to celebrate with us and again a huge thanks to Lu and Ana (including husbands) for all the help in organizing and setting things up for Bella's birthday party. We have no words to thank you enough!

This is one of the few pictures with the 3 of us!

The birthday girl and her sister dressed to impress!!!!

This selfie was taken at the end of the party,... when Isabella had her dress (and face) covered in cherry tomato seeds!

Again,... a big thank you to dinda Lu and tia Ana!

Invitation: Inspired by You Designs
Party decoration & balloons: Party City
Isabella's dress: Walmart
Isabella's hair bow: Menina de Laço
Mom's top: Guess

Getting Ready for Halloween

October is here and now that we already celebrated Thanksgiving it's time to think about Halloween.

In fact, I think I am starting a bit late this year. Anyways,...

This is Ron's favourite celebration of the whole year. He gets extremely excited about Halloween and if it were only up to him, the entire house would be the home of skeletons, bats and creepy creatures.

I have to admit that I am also excited about Halloween, specially because Isabella started understanding what is going on around her. The other day we went to the supermarket and she had fun walking in the middle of the inflatable outdoor decorations.

We already got a few necessary things for this year, but I still have things in my TO DO list:

• Isabella's costume
• Dad's costume
• Mommy's costume
• Treats
• Decoration
• Cookie cutters
• Bake cookies

Costumes:

Last year we didn't plan in advance, except from Isabella's costume. The reason for this was because we had family visiting for the month of October (here is our beautiful niece holding Isabella) and we were a bit busy. Isabella was a such a small baby, but it didn't keep us from having a bit of fun. She was a cute baby unicorn.

I was someone from Gryffindor,... yep,... Harry Potter fan here (big time)!!!!!!! And daddy was,.... was,... well, he was someone 'friendly/scary'.

We also got Isabella a day time outfit, needless to say that she really liked it!

So this year we already got her costume - stay tuned on our Instagram for the big reveal on Halloween Day! And there will be a post telling you everything about her Halloween experience. I am also considering having a family theme. We still have to find our costumes for this family approach.

Decoration:

We have some decoration around the house to set the mood for halloween,... nothing big. Each year we set a budget to spend and add a few more items to our "collection". We already have our friendly vampire in our garden and some spider webs and sparkly spiders on the porch.

I like to add small things on our days to set the mood as well,... I mean, you don't need to spend a lot. We got some straws, ziplocks,....

I am also planning on baking some sugar cookies. I got so excited with the cookie cutters with the halloween theme when I saw them, I thought ir would be fun baking with Isabella! I love baking and I wish I had more time for it. I will share the pics from the result with you!

Halloween is so much fun!!!!! Isabella already has a Jack-o'-Lantern treat bucket. Right now she uses it to carry her colourful toys around the house. The other day she was "helping" mommy to fold the clothes and she stuffed it with the socks to be taken to her room. I thought it was a pretty smart move,... but I don't know if she was just playing or she really meant to take all of them in one trip - I like to think that she is a clever baby!!!!

Ok, this is it for now,... hope you guys have a lovely Halloween,... and keep warm!

Summer Events in Toronto - Jazz Festival & Taste of the Danforth

I love Summer,... don't you? And also everything that comes with it,.. the sun, blue skies, outdoor activities, barbecue, and the street festivals.

There are many street festivals happening around Toronto and GTA during this time and it is a great opportunity to learn about other cultures, meet new people, try different food (and eat again the delicious ones).

Among all the street festivals in Toronto, there are 2 that we used to go every year: Beaches Jazz Festival and Taste of the Danforth.

The Beaches Jazz Festival is an event that celebrates many styles of music. It happens during the month of July, however the main event (in my opinion!!!!) will be happening this weekend - The StreetFest - July 27 & 28.

Basically Queen street east is closed to traffic from Woodbine Avenue to Beech Avenue (almost 2.5 km) and this season over 45 bands will entertain the public that enjoy music. Each band plays 4 times for 30 minutes. It is magical to walk on the street enjoying live music, it is such an energizing event.

This is also a good opportunity to have those munchies from the food trucks or "Street Fest Food". Honestly,... my mouth is watering right now thinking about the corn in the cob, fried cassava and the funnel cake (not really healthy).

This is an event that we love to go, chiefly with our great friends Ana & Jose. And they are up to a new challenge this year: introduce Isabella to the Jazz Festival. She LOVES music since the womb. My only concern is that the music might be a bit too loud for her. I will take her baby earmuffs that we got when we traveled to Brazil last year (the fireworks were too noisy for her).

Baby Banz Earmuffs

I searched on my computer for some pictures from the previous festivals we had been to and unfortunately I couldn't find any photo. This year there will be some pictures (for sure!) and you can see them on our social media channels - follow us on Facebook & Instagram!

For more information on the Jazz Festival click here.

The Taste of the Danforth is a street fest that happens at the east side of Toronto at Danforth st., aka "Greektown". This year it will happen from August 10-12.

Restaurants from the area, usually local vendors, set up small food stations on the street offering taste menus. When in Greektown don't miss the opportunity to try authentic greek food. Usually there are long lines for the gyro - we have one every year at the event. For those who don't know, gyro is a greek dish with meat (cooked in a vertical rotisserie), tomato, tzatziki (greek sauce) and French fries wrapped in a flat bread.

There are also performances from dance groups, artists and bands in 3 different stages along the Danforth.

So, what should you expect when going to this festival? Food, food and more food,... music and Opa!!!!,... the greek atmosphere all around you. It will be very difficult not to have a wonderful time at this event.

For more information on the Taste of the Danforth click here.