Thursday's Child: The Colosseum, Rome

This month I’m writing about impressive architecture we’ve seen on our travels, and one of the most iconic buildings we’ve visited was Rome’s Colosseum.  This amphitheatre was built 2000 years ago, with a capacity of 55,000 spectators.  It was home to an incredible number of spectacles, including several occasions when it was flooded to stage reenactments of naval battles.

I first saw it when I travelled with Contiki Tours in my mid-20s.  Of course I was impressed with the Colosseum: It’s so big!  I’m standing where the emperors used to stand!  Is there a gelato shop around here? 

(Readers who are around my age may be amused at my journal description of going dancing that night: “but I only stayed until midnight because I was pretty tired”.  Sightseeing all day and dancing til midnight.  Ah, the exuberance of youth.)

I visited again a couple of years ago, and I felt a little more conflicted.  I could still admire its architecture, but now thought about the cruelty that the Colosseum had been home to.  Gladiators fought to the death, wild animals were released and battled for the amusement of the audience.  Those emperors in whose spot I stood made life-or-death decisions about the entertainers in the arena before them.

History is complicated.  And as so often happens, there’s no ‘good’ or ‘bad’, just that gray area in between.  I wanted to love this stunning building unreservedly, for its prominence in such a powerful empire and its sheer beauty and longevity.  But its sad history made me reevaluate how I felt about it.  In the end, I tried to accept it as it was, a beautiful monument to an empire that’s known for its brilliant engineering, cruel games, and political domination.

Late summer

The kids are back at school and summer is just about over.  The days are getting shorter, and we all have a little more briskness in our steps.  This morning, the weather in Toronto was cool enough that I wore a jacket to church.  But it’s supposed to be warmer tomorrow, and it feels like the tail end of summer rather than the beginning of fall.

With that in mind, I hope it isn’t too late to post a barbecue recipe.  This salmon is one of my favourites on the grill – the sweet mustard complements the tender salmon perfectly.  I could eat this salmon every weekend, no matter what season it was.

Grilled Salmon with Crunchy Sweet Mustard Vinaigrette

(from epicurious, originally from Bobby Flay’s Boy Gets Grill)

For the vinaigrette:

3 Tbsp white wine vinegar

2 Tbsp coarse or whole grain Dijon mustard

1 small shallot, finely chopped

2 Tbsp honey

1/2 cup olive oil

salt and freshly ground black pepper

For the salmon:

4 (6 to 8 oz) salmon fillets, 1 to 1 1/2 inches thick, with skin on

olive oil

salt and freshly ground black pepper

Vinaigrette:

Whisk the vinegar, mustard and shallot together in a medium bowl.  Gradually whisk in the honey, then the oil, until the dressing is emulsified.  Season to taste with salt and pepper.  (The vinaigrette can be made a few hours in advance, covered, and kept refrigerated.  Bring to room temperature and whisk or shake well before serving.)

Salmon:

Heat grill to high.  Brush the fish on both sides with oil and season with salt and pepper.  Grill the salmon skin side down until the skin is lightly charred and crisp, 4 to 5 minutes.  Turn the fillets over, reduce the heat to medium or move to a cooler part of the grill, and cook until just cooked through but not falling apart, 2 to 3 minutes more.

Remove the fish to serving plates or a platter and spoon a few tablespoons of vinaigrette over each fillet.  Serve immediately.

Thursday's Child: Catherine Palace, Russia

This month I’ll be writing about four incredible works of architecture that we’ve seen, and I’ll start with Russia’s impressive Catherine Palace.

We visited the Catherine Palace, a short drive from St. Petersburg, in August 2011.  This palace had a modest beginning when it was first built by Catherine I.  Her daughter, Empress Elizabeth, thought it was much too simple.  In the mid-eighteenth century, she essentially had it torn down, then rebuilt by a series of four architects.  An enormous sum of both state money and her own resources were used in its creation.

The result was a staggering array of extravagance that stunned both her countrymen and the foreign politicians who visited.  The exterior was coated with over 100 kg of gold and the building is 325 meters (nearly 1000 feet) long; inside, every room was decorated in a manner that matched the exterior’s opulence.

The saddest part of the history of this glorious building occurred during the Second World War.  After the terrible siege of Leningrad, retreating Germans annihilated the interior of the palace.  Fortunately, prior to the war many of its contents had been noted and archived.  When restoration work began about thirty years ago, restorers relied on these archives to achieve as accurate a result as possible.  Currently, about half of the rooms have been redecorated to their former beauty.

The Catherine Palace is one of the most popular sights in St. Petersburg, for good reason.  The regal exterior with its golden domes is a good indication that the interior will be equally breathtaking.  Although we weren’t permitted to take photos in the one-of-a-kind Amber Room, we could in many of the other rooms.  

The Great Hall is almost 1000 square meters in size (nearly 10,000 square feet) and spans from one side of the building to the other.  That means a lovely view is possible from both sides of the room, and a maximum of light flows in.

The Cavalier’s dining room was used for small balls and gatherings.  Notice the mirrored walls: it was considered to be too small, so they used mirrors, windows and lighting to make the room seem bigger!

A New Beginning

I remember the day my oldest daughter started grade one.  After two years of attending kindergarten for a few hours in the afternoon, she’d be at school most of the day.

I thought I was ready, but as I stood in the schoolyard I felt my eyes well up as she walked confidently into the school with the rest of her class.  She was growing up, and she was ready for it, but our lives would never be quite the same.

Today we are driving her to university, where she’ll be starting another stage of her life.  She is growing up, and she’s ready for it, but our lives will never be quite the same.

The hardest thing we do as parents is to prepare our children for a series of good-byes. Every time they move to a new stage of life, they become a little more independent and a little less reliant on us.  That’s the way it should be, but that doesn’t make it any easier as we wave good-bye.

On Mother’s Day of this year, my daughter gave me an envelope to be opened after she left for university.  After we wave goodbye to her this morning, I’ll open it and see what’s inside.  I’ll also pull out some old photo albums and revisit some of our special memories, including that first day of grade one where she set off into a new world with confidence.

Thursday's Child: Buskerfest, Toronto

This month, I’ve been writing about the trip Andrew and I took in July to Colorado and New Mexico.  But today I’ll tell you about a day we spent in Toronto last weekend at Buskerfest.

My cousin Wendy was visiting from California, and I gave her a list of things we could do when she was in town.  She cheerfully chose Buskerfest without really knowing what it was.  The weekend festival was a display put on by street performers, musicians and artists.  In case you're wondering, Wendy is the one not dressed in copper in the above photo.

Of all the acts we saw, Fireguy was the standout.  Imagine juggling two flaming batons and a bottle of champagne.  Then to raise the stakes, imagine doing it while balanced on three stacked skateboards, six feet off the ground.  Add in a little humour, and you'll see why we were alternately laughing and gasping throughout the show.

Hula hoop spinning was attempted by several members of my family, with varying levels of success.

We walked as far east as the St. Lawrence Market, a great destination in itself.  Some of the best cheese, meat, baked goods and seafood in Toronto are sold here.  We bought bagels for breakfast the next day.

We rounded out the day with street art, and henna tattoos for all of us.  We'll go back next year! 

Winner of the final August giveaway

Congratulations to Jess, who has won a copy of The City's Son!  Jess, I'll be in touch about sending you the book, sometime in September after its North American release.  And thanks to everyone for your comments and tweets.

Thursday's Child: Destination: Santa Fe

Destination: Santa Fe, New Mexico

When we visited: July 2012

Why to go:  Santa Fe is the second-biggest art market in the United States, next to New York. 

What to see: 

There is so much to see in Santa Fe, but we decided to devote our time there to visiting the galleries.  Since we were browsing for art rather than buying, we asked our bed and breakfast owner for a list of great galleries to see, and followed his advice.

Nedra Matteucci was less a gallery than an art museum.  We admired the beautiful art we saw as we gasped at the prices (six figures, or higher, weren’t uncommon).  The highlight of Nedra Matteucci was the beautiful sculpture garden in the back of the gallery.  The sculptures, the waterfall and the gorgeous array of trees and flowers made us feel like we were in someone’s exquisite private garden.

From here, it was a short walk to the Canyon Road galleries.  Canyon Road is home to over 100 galleries, specializing in folk art, Russian art, modern art, native art  and much more; everything you could possibly want to browse (or buy) is somewhere along here.

Where to stay:  

We stayed at El Farolito, a charming bed and breakfast that’s about a ten-minute walk from the centre of town, the Santa Fe Plaza.  The Plaza is an exciting district, full of galleries, boutiques and restaurants, but at the end of the day we loved walking home to the quiet residential area we were staying in.  The breakfasts were delicious, and our room was nicely decorated in a southwestern theme.

Where to eat:  If you’ve read my other travel posts this month, you’ll remember that we ate very well on our trip.  So well that, by the time we reached Santa Fe, I wasn’t actually hungry any more.  Which is why we loved La Boca so much.  This little restaurant served the most perfect tapas, delicious but small enough that they felt like a snack.  We enjoyed it so much the first night that we returned the following evening; both times it was busy enough that we couldn’t get a table, but we were happy to eat at the bar.  Try the grilled artichoke – it was incredible.