Girl's Day in Kensington Market

Yesterday, Mom, Claudette and Bridgette drove to the big city from the wilds 45 minutes north. Our mission was to have lunch and check out some scarves that Mom has her eye on, specifically in Kensington Market at a spot called The Blue Banana. Kensington Market is the name of a wee, funky, eclectic neighbourhood, not a "market" in the sense of "farmer's market" or "flea market" as we might recognize it since it's not housed in one large building on only one day or over a weekend. Most of the shops, especially along Kensington Avenue, are on the ground floor of beautiful, old, brick townhouses. There are vintage clothing shops, an army surplus store, grocery/produce shops, cafes, a coupla gorgeous cheese shops, bakeries, and more. You get the idea: This ain't a high-end, cookie-cutter-style-mall area. There's even an after-hours tucked away somewhere in a basement - at least, there was ten years ago. (I'm not so much into after-hours haunts anymore. I like to get out of bed at 6am now, not be crawling home at that time.) Unfortunately, my favourite shop, Courage My Love, was closed when we were there. We had so much fun poking around in the shops that were open, especially in a vintage clothing store with a huge Hallowe'en costume section in the back.

Bridgette tried on a whole bunch of wigs for us (what a good sport!), but would only pose for photos in the cool ones. She refused to have her picture taken wearing the curly pink clown number.

I've decided that I'm in love with these glasses. Even though I don't need specs in my life (yet), I'm now jonesin to own a pair like these. My Mom will shudder at this: she wore a pair of 'pickle stabbers' growing up and hated them. If you want to imagine her in them, picture me with blonde hair and blue eyes minus the goofyglam pucker: poof! a vision of my Mom!

We came across a table with cheap-o shades so Claudette treated us all to a new pair. In honour of TIFF festivities, we felt we owed it to our city to pose for the paparazzi. Well, ok, the paparazzi = Mom.

By the time we made it to The Blue Banana we were starving. It turns out that The Blue Banana is a huge very cool store, but its cafe is a coffee-counter with pastries and fun but not very suitable for lunch. Bridgette would have been happy eating cake (especially in the Marie Antoinette wig, not photographed) but we wanted something more substantial. We ended up here:

Wanda's had pizza, quiche, sandwiches and, well, pie. I had an avocado sandwich, Claudette and Bridgette shared a brie sandwich, Mom had the quiche and we also had a few little coleslaw-type salads. And the pies! Wow! Mom and I shared a slice of wild blueberry and Bridgette had a vegan chocolate cupcake, which we all had to try.

I love this big table where you can stretch out with your morning news and enjoy your coffee. I also love how you can stand at it, like a bar.

We almost forgot to tour The Blue Banana, and by the time we got there, the girls were getting a little tired so we didn't stay and poke around for as long as we would have liked. We decided to cut our losses and plan for another day in Kensington, walked back to University (amongst those walking for a breast cancer cure) and hopped the 5 Avenue Road bus home.