• playdatenextdoor

    Eat That… Or Go To Bed Hungry

    Parentals and guardians, we’ve all been there before. You spent the last hour sweating, slicing, stirring and sautéing (not to mention the time you spent shopping and thoughtfully planning every locally-sourced organic ingredient), just to have the kids whine about how it tastes yucky or it’s too saucy, or it looks weird, and they’d really prefer nuggets. So what do you do when your kid just refuses to finish (or even start) their food? Do you serve up more options for those picky little shits and cater to the divergent array of palettes in your household? Do you force them to suffer while they reluctantly ingest every nutritional morsel? Do…

  • How to get deported from Cuba: A love letter

    While perusing twitter yesterday, I read that it was the 40th anniversary of the eruption of Mt. Saint Helens on May 18th 1980, which gave me all the feels as I recalled a trip with my mom and my brother back in 1990-something, when we flew into San Fran, rented a mustang convertible, and cruised up the west coast all the way to Seattle, stopping at every notable lighthouse and redwood tree along the way, snapping and savouring every Kodak moment. For the youngins reading this, Kodak is/was a film company, back when photographers used film, and a “Kodak moment” was what we said when something was truly photo worthy.…

  • paper fortune tellers

    Cootie Catching in the age of Social Distancing

    It’s week 8 of the Covid-19 aka. Coronavirus pandemic, and we’re all getting stir crazy AF. But despite our fears, and our anxiety, and the looming death toll ticker crawling across our television screens and twitter timelines, we, as humans, seem to have found coping mechanisms in the simplest of forms, from baking (if you can find flour or yeast), to arts and crafts, to taking up a new language or skill (shoutout to Duolingo for making Klingon and High Valyrian available… seriously). Above all, we’ve found comfort by taking long quiet strolls down memory lane, reminiscing about the good old days when we could share gossip and laughs over…

  • Dear Toronto Mans

    Nawmean?! (Dear Toronto Mans)

    It’s no secret that Toronto has long been touted as the most culturally diverse city in the world (statistically speaking), and if you’ve never been here, just check out the crowd at one of our Raptor’s games, or try to find a beloved restaurant serving up your favourite obscure foreign delicacy (I can almost guarantee you will) – Nawmean?!  But recently, we’ve been hearing a lot of controversial takes on social media surrounding ‘Toronto Mans’ and their slang. Like, what even is Toronto slang?  Who are the Mandem?  Is Ting a noun or a beverage?  Who’s allowed to say what?  Are you dumb?  And, the doozie, is Drake appropriating West-Indian culture?! …

  • Issa Mitzvah

    Issa Mitzvah – Drake Bar Mitzvah Remix

    Last month we celebrated Chase, my eldest son’s Bar Mitzvah downtown Toronto at Airship 37. I promised Chase that I wasn’t going to embarrass him with any naked bathtub pictures or videos during the slideshow (these days I’m considered the Queen of cringey, aka. typical embarrassing Jewish mom). That being said, I did not promise not to rap in front of all his friends in an epic (in my humble opinion), live, Drake rock cover. Whoops?!? (Seriously though… he should know me by now). Of course, Chase (and every other 13 year old in Toronto, or anywhere) is a HUUUGE Drizzy fan (and especially so being Blewish himself and hailing…

  • Gin & Jewlz

    Be Careful with Weed – A Cardi B Parody

    It’s been just over 3 months now since Cannabis was legalized in Canada, and boy has it been an interesting trip.  On the surface, it was a huge win for both (the) man and plant kind, but for any rational person with half of a brain, the big government ganja game (of monopoly) has left a bad taste in our collective mouth.  If you’re wondering why, I wrote a piece for Addicted Magazine back on Weed-Day outlining some of my concerns.  So how have things unfolded since October 17th?  Well, aside from nation-wide shortages (leading to medicinal patients having limited access) during a months long postal strike, new and harsher…