food – Greatwall Studios Graphic Design

One thing our town does really well…

June 30, 2024greatwallstudiosLeave a Comment

Is invite a large number of varied food trucks & snack vendor stalls to our town events. Whether you are after blooming onions, popcorn, hot sauces, ice cream, Caribbean food, Asian cuisine, Texas bbq, sea food, funnel cakes or tacos, there is ample selection to choose from. Can’t forget poutine, fries, burgers, ribs, jerk chicken, and octopus. It’s all there whether you’ll eat it or not. I appreciate the variety, and the chance to try something new if I feel up to it.

Now excuse me while I go ice my hands after two very challenging tug of war bouts. Feels like I tried to dislocate each one of my knuckles on both hands, at every single joint. Palms are red and feel inflamed too. Wasn’t for lack of trying but us parents lost twice. Nine parents versus fifty kids. No wonder we were absolutely trounced. Ha. Oof! My fingers!

Wrapping up our Fair entries for the year.

September 21, 2023greatwallstudiosLeave a Comment

This whole weekend will be spent painting, crafting, sewing, baking and running around town to get the last few fair entries finished, and in some instances started & finished ahead of next Tuesdays drop off deadline. Could get rather tense! I need to grab pumpkins with my BIL to deliver to the fair grounds too. Lots to do around here in the next four days.

We need to review our photography and get those printed off, mounted, and ready for display come Saturday. We picked up our badges, ribbons and parking tags, so that much is taken care of so far. Probably need to go shopping for rice crispies so that I can make my last project on Sunday/Monday. Don’t want to make them too far in advance as they’ll go stale when it’s time for judging on Wednesday of next week.

I love fair time. If the weather holds out we always get some terrific photos of the midway and the kids smiling & having fun. Blooming onions, funnel cakes, burgers and ice creams, the occasional candy floss, or candy apples thrown into the mix. It’s great. I hope we get to see the horse pulls, demolition derby, and the monster trucks too. I’m pretty partial to wandering around the home craft building looking at all of the complex quilts and art work. My sculpting never wins any prizes but I enter them anyway no painted ceramics this year, so I have to go in for the “Technique Not Mentioned” open category. I just like having one thing to show to people.

The food trucks and the Smashed Burger folks have really good food. I’m sad that I can’t eat more of it in a day. I’ll be searching for their blue banner again this year. As much as I usually enjoy the chicken tenders and fries from the fair, the Smashed Burger really piqued my interest last year.

You should come out to see it. Parking is free, and there are nightly fireworks shows. It’s a really fun agricultural experience. Ciao Bella!

Though I don’t cut my breakfast on a mirror…

October 3, 2022October 3, 2022greatwallstudiosLeave a Comment

Is an interesting musical turn of phrase. I caught it in some song I heard playing on the radio yesterday evening, when I was taking the kids to the fair tear down so that we could pick up our award winning entries. Oh – ah. Yes, we placed! In a number of categories. We have the whole spectrum of ribbons. 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th and even a 6th place ribbon. The kids even managed a purple participation ribbon in the Christmas decoration section, which is hilarious. Super proud of both kids for putting in the effort to finish their entries, and do it with enough care to place in several categories. Nicely done. My sculpture ended up in a catch all group with other random unspecified articles of artwork. For techniques not listed in the prize book. So fair enough. Hard to judge apples to tank engines if you catch my drift. But my work stands out, and is easy to find on the display table. Which is what I care about most, getting them seen by as many people as possible. My bookcase at home doesn’t get the kind of foot traffic the Markham Fair Home Craft section does.

We ate dome Tiny Tom’s mini donuts yesterday. Nearly forgot to! How can it be the fair if I don’t eat at least one dozen tiny cinnamon dusted donuts! Luckily my wife remembered and brought some home after her shift in the Photography booth. Yeah! Delicious as always. Again, speaking of food, I have to tell you that the SuperSmash Burgs DK burger was incredible. So very tasty. Especially compared to the McDonalds McChicken Deluxe I ate late last night at about 9pm or so. No comparison, the DK burger from SuperSmash Burgs blows it out of the water. Not even close. And yes, I understand I am comparing a chicken sandwich to a double cheeseburger, but come on. SuperSmash takes the win hands down. I need to find out if they are local or not. See if they have a brick & mortar store nearby. Or a traveling food truck that can be easily found. I’ll get back to you if I manage to discover anything useful.

Yeah – so I did about 13.5 hrs of fair time on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. The least of my immediate family. My youngest got 2 more hours on me. Our eldest got 5 extra hours on me, and my wife did about another 9 hours more. But she had Photography hours Sat/Sun, and Flower dept hours on Saturday evening too. But we got our fill. Sad it’s over, but glad it’s done for another year, you know? Yeah – you know.

I did a bunch of Domestic Duties Monday stuff yesterday, so I’m a little more laid back right now. Got a whole slew of projects out the door on Friday, so maybe, maybe? I’ll be a little more chill this week? Will need to prep for changing over the tires soon. That’s always a fun, finger tip numbing job. But I have my impact wrench, and torque wrench ready to go. Forgot about a jack, but we have those at the farm, so pretty much all set for the end of the month.

What else is new? I have my Hellboy armature ready to go, I’m just not convinced that I want to do that figure any more. I have eyes on some other character now. I have some air brush paint coming, so I’ll find out my old air brush and try to paint my new busts with it. I remember it gets really hot fairly quickly, which was why I stopped using it. Not yet convinced I’ll use one enough to warrant the expense of buying a better make/model. I like the idea of using an airbrush to paint my sculptures, and minis, and model kits. But I also would rather put that money towards wood working projects, tools and materials. At least for right now. Ask me again in January. Ciao Bella!

Day Four: The Last Day.

October 2, 2022October 2, 2022greatwallstudiosLeave a Comment

I’m going to need a vacation from the weekend. In total over the last three days I’ve spent more than thirteen (13) hours wandering the fair grounds, and riding the midway. It’s been really fun but my feet and hips beg to differ. My eldest and wife clocked in an additional five hours yesterday over top of what I did. How did they manage such a feat you ask? Well, by splitting into groups of course, so when I took a thoroughly exhausted youngest child home the rest kept on going. We left at four pm, and the rest sauntered home around nine thirty pm. I laid down on the couch and watched tv with the youngest for a while as she ate and calmed down. Then extended family came by and took her back to the fair two hours later.

I have to tell you that I ate a fantastic burger at the fair yesterday. A place called “SuperSmash Burgs“, and the double DK burger combo was my jam. It was absolutely fantastic. Five stars, do highly reccomend. Caramelized onions, deliciously cooked patties, a very zesty aioli sauce, and fresh lettuce & pickles. A thick slab of cheese, ooh wee it was great.

Tonight sometime after dark we will all flock back to the Markham Fair with our tags in order to pick up all of our entries. That is always a bit of a mess as a thousand people go wandering about trying to all do the same thing at once.

We were all pleasantly surprised that the TSSA strike only interfered with article drop off day on Tuesday, and didn’t affect the other official four days of the event. So all in all a great time was had by all. All eyes turn to next year!

But first we have Thanksgiving next weekend, and then Fall Break, and then the second biggest day of them all – Halloween!

The Party Doesn’t Stop Until We’ve Seen Tears, Blood Stains, and Vomit.

October 1, 2022greatwallstudiosLeave a Comment

Welcome to the riveting weekend before Thanksgiving here in Canada, in this part of town we call that Fair Time! Fire works, rides, deep fried foods of questionable provenance, and all the friends & family you can shake a stick at. We saw the extremely loud and very entertaining Monster Trucks, we heard the truck pull, and have given the Midway a serious twice over, with about 8+ hours of hitting up the rides.

The food always smells so damn good. Reasonable pricing for a meal if you know where to look. I’m itching for some Tiny Tom’s donuts if I’m being honest. You know we work all Spring & Summer towards building a great fair experience for our kids and family, so when it finally gets here you really have to let go, be 8n the moment, and try to enjoy it all as much as possible. The weather the last two days has been exceptional given the time of year. So soak up some Rays, and have a great rest of your weekend!

I really love the fair at night. The lights, the glow and all of the hustle & bustle. Glad to have the Markham Fair back in action again. Ciao Bella!

Simple-fast snack sandwich.

March 30, 2021March 30, 2021greatwallstudios1 Comment

This assumes you own a few things, such as a toaster, a microwave, a knife, a whisk/fork, at least one small breakfast/cereal bowl and 90-130 seconds of time. And of course, one egg, some cheese and a slice of some sort of protein from a deli counter (in my instance that is German Salami).

Crack one egg into a small bowl. Shake in a little salt and pepper. Whisk/stir with a fork to get a uniform yellow colour of the egg. Slap in one slice of salami. Dunk under egg with whisk/fork so it is covered. Add several small chunks of a cheese you own and/or like. Microwave for 90 seconds. Place bagel or bread in a toaster for however long yours runs at the setting you like. Ours is also nearly 110 seconds. Once the bagel pops and the microwave pings, I spread on some Herb & Garlic cream cheese, scoop the egg & cheese blob onto the bagel and consume. *You may note that a knife is handy to extricate your egg from its bowl, and for spreading your variant of cream cheese or butter on your bread of choice. Simple, tastey and effective. I have a step by step follow along procedure below, so even the young or hapless can get something vaguely nutritious to eat.

Must haves: toaster, toaster oven, microwave, bowl or cup that works in a microwave, one knife, one fork or whisk. Also relevant: eggs, bread in one form or another, a slice of deli meat protein, salt & pepper, some form of cheese you find palatable, a bread spread like butter or cream cheese. Kind of important: at least 90-120 seconds of time to prepare and cook said sandwich. **if you are lactose intolerant, vegan, or Celiac I would expect you to make as many substitutions as needed for your own peace of mind and safety.