Meet a Comedy Troupe: The Imponderables

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Canadian Comedy Award-winning sketch troupe The Imponderables are at the Rivoli later this month promoting their web sitcom Bill & Sons Towing. We caught up with troupe member Tony Lombardo to ponder some deep questions, like “how funny is a piece of toast?”

I hear your name comes from the Jack Kerouac novel On the Road. Are you guys big readers? What's the last book you read?
The last “book” I read was an extremely thorough email from my friend Brad about how to properly grill striploin. It was intense — not only is the guy from Calgary, he also wins barbecue competitions.

What’s the most memorable road trip you’ve taken as a troupe?
On our trip home from Chicago Sketchfest (mid-January, minus 35 degrees) someone smashed our van window and stole our GPS. So we drove home without a passenger-side window for 13 hours in arguably the coldest winter in the last 10 years.

You once shot a sketch pilot with MTV. What happened to that?
We spent a year developing the show and then went down to L.A. to shoot this great pilot, but the exec who ordered it left the company and the show died. It's a great piece, but the vision of where it would sit on the MTV schedule completely went out the window when he left. We remained proud of it and before we could really start pitching it seriously to other networks, this Bill & Sons Towing web series project came up and, truthfully, we’re way happier doing this.

What’s the most outrageous sketch you’ve ever performed?
Most would say it’s the Dreams sketch, where Jon comes out completely naked. But for me it’s the Toaster sketch: the lights come up and the audience watches a piece of toast pop. And the lights go down. I love that everyone is watching it and there are no cast members on stage, yet it gets huge laughs every time. I think that’s what robots are for.

Who would you most like to perform with?
Well we’ve already performed with members of The Kids in the Hall and Mr. Show with Bob and David. I guess that leaves John Cleese.

You’re making a name for yourselves in the U.S. Is the goal to make it big in Hollywood?
I wouldn’t say it’s a goal at present. It definitely was a few years ago (to the point where we won Q107’s Funniest Home Video contest; then immediately sold all the prizes on Craigslist to buy plane tickets to L.A.), but after having done it and seen it, we now just want to create great stories. And if that takes us to Hollywood, Istanbul or Hamilton, we're happy.

Biggest achievement so far?
We are incredibly proud of our new web series Bill & Sons Towing. It’s a real departure for us from the sketch world, being a fully fledged sitcom (co-starring such legends like Nicholas Campbell, Sonja Smits and Jayne Eastwood), and we had such an amazing time.

What’s next on the horizon?
Bill & Sons Towing is in full swing. We are on episode five. New content goes up every Monday and Thursday. It's really great and funny, and hopefully it will parlay itself into a television property when it hits Just for Laughs and the Banff World Media Festival this summer. Check it out — but make sure your boss or kids aren’t in the room.

The details

Year established: 2000
Cast members: Dave Brennan, Eric Toth, Jon Smith and Tony Lombardo
Influences: Kids in the Hall, SCTV, Mr. Show with Bob and David, SNL, Monty Python and The Far Side Next show.

The Imponderables, The Rivoli, 334 Queen St. W., 416-596-1908. To June 19.

Chef Tom Brodi parts ways with TOCA

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Last February, TOCA opened its doors at The Ritz-Carlton Hotel, riding on a tidal wave of high expectations. At its helm was acclaimed chef Tom Brodi, whose 10 years at Canoe, the big daddy of Toronto fine dining, had left foodies salivating with anticipation over his newest venture.

The Ritz-Carlton, too, seemed more than prepared to vouch for the success of the pairing. As the full name of the restaurant — TOCA by Tom Brodi — would indicate, everyone expected the marriage between chef and venue to be a long and fruitful one.

And yet, just over a year later, Brodi and Toca have parted ways. On Twitter last Friday, Brodi announced his resignation:

The rumors are true. I resigned 3 weeks ago from TOCA by tom brodi and my last day is May 26th. Thank you to everyone for your support.

While Brodi’s departure certainly comes as a surprise, some warning signs have been in place for a while. Despite early buzz, reviews of TOCA were lukewarm. As Joanne Kates wrote in her April 2011 Globe and Mail review, TOCA suffered from “a consistency issue,” adding, “If the Ritz is gonna put on the ritz, they had better mind the details. Pronto.”

When asked to comment on his resignation, Brodi told us that “the vision of the hotel — what the hotel wanted — was different than what we started out with.”

The future of both TOCA and Brodi remain uncertain. Ritz-Carlton PR representative Melanie Greco tells us that they have not yet found a replacement chef, while Brodi himself says that, apart from a few little things, he has no major plans on the table.

For now, we can only hope that both TOCA and Brodi are able to rebound from this untimely separation, and that each will go on to find more compatible bedfellows.

U.S. women’s fashion brand Ann Taylor to open two Toronto stores

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Ann Taylor, a wardrobe mainstay of working women and chic suburban moms in the United States, is coming to Toronto. The brand plans to open two stores in the city this fall, marking the first time the brand has stepped outside the U.S.

Specializing in clothing that appeals to what it calls the “multi-faceted, busy lives of modern women,” Ann Taylor sells everything from work-ready ensembles to casual, stylish daywear, as well as a collection of shoes, jewellery and an impressive collection of petite offerings.

We're particularly loving the influx of coloured denim in the current summer lineup, and we expect Ann Taylor to rapidly become a favourite spot for Toronto moms looking to pick up some jeans that aren't, well, mom jeans.

Although the exact locations of the two Toronto stores have yet to be officially announced, a store manager job posting for “Ann Taylor Toronto Eaton Centre” appeared on LinkedIn, and there’s speculation that Yorkdale Shopping Centre will house the second location.

Ann Taylor is known to be worn by Angelia Jolie, Cameron Diaz and even glam First Lady Michelle Obama. We have a feeling it won't be long before Canada's own political fashionistas — we’re looking at you, Laureen Harper — are spotted rocking the Ann Taylor look on Parliament Hill.

Spaghetti rock: the return of Patrick Watson

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Canadian singer-songwriter Patrick Watson has a few stories from the road. One that particularly influenced his band’s latest album took place in the Grand Canyon. The boys from Montreal were at a gas station when a man hopped out of a Jeep and asked if they were aliens. After a 20-minute roadside sermon straight out of a Coen brothers movie, the band got back in the car and drove off — only to be greeted along the highway by a man dressed in black, with gun holsters, standing in the middle of the road. The soundtrack for the proceedings was none other than spaghetti western king Ennio Morricone.

“All of us had that moment where it was just the right music at the right spot at the time,” says Watson. “It was so perfect, we knew that day had to make its way onto the album somehow.”

The album in question, the band’s fourth, is Adventures in Your Own Backyard. It’s Patrick Watson’s “humble” album, according to the press materials, and one that was recorded with the band in Watson’s Montreal apartment.

Humble? Although Watson is certainly modest, the album is very ambitious, strikingly beautiful and definitely not the work of someone looking to tone it down.

“In my opinion, it is not simpler, but it goes together much better; you don’t see the seams,” says Watson. “We still use interesting instruments [he played a bicycle, among other things, on 2009’s Wooden Arms] and sound, but the arrangements are really well sewn together.”

But changing up the studio environment did allow the band (made up of Watson along with Simon Angell, Robbie Kuster and Mishka Stein) to take the time needed to make the record they wanted to make.

“We took the time and said we were not going to put something out until we got 12 or 13 songs that give us goose bumps,” Watson explains. “We were content to wait it out until we got those, and it was the right move. With Wooden Arms, we had one week to record it, and it was a lot more difficult to get that final product in a peaceful manner.”

Watson, the son of an air force pilot, was born in the United States, but his family moved back to Montreal when he was still a young child. He played in a number of bands before starting his eponymous outfit, which was originally supposed to be a one-off development of a multimedia project. The band decided to do one live show and rented out a porn theatre in the middle of Montreal.

“We ended up selling the place out, likely because of curiosity over the place, which ended up being this beautiful, 100-year-old vaudeville theatre,” Watson explains. “[The band] ended up being called ‘Patrick Watson’ in the beginning, so we got stuck with my name despite being very much a band atmosphere. It’s been a bit of an accidental road.”

The band has released four studio albums, including 2006’s Close to Paradise, which garnered them the Polaris Prize as well as a Juno Award nomination for New Artist of the Year. Wooden Arms, released in 2009, was also a finalist for the Polaris Prize.

Patrick Watson plays the Danforth Music Hall on May 29, 8 p.m.

Introducing Post City’s new restaurant critic: the one and only Joanne Kates

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It wasn’t without a bit of sentimentality (okay, a lot of sentimentality) that Joanne Kates announced her retirement from The Globe and Mail after 38 years as the newspaper’s restaurant critic. Still, Kates never intended to remain silent, which is why we’re pleased to announce that she’ll be doing two restaurant reviews for us each month.

“I was unable to give up being a restaurant critic — it’s just too much fun,” Kates says. “Doing the restaurant column for Post City twice a month is just my cup of tea.”

In addition to her two monthly reviews — a perfect pace, she says, to keep readers updated on the greatest (and not so greatest) restaurants in town — Kates will also regularly contribute as a blogger for PostCity.com.

Her reviews of Gusto 101 and The Grove will appear in the June issue of Post City Magazines, which hits the streets this Wednesday, as well as online.

Morning Throwback: back in the day, Toronto horses got really wild

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Talk about wild horses. Back in 1908, horses performed death-defying feats of acrobatics, like diving head first into water from great heights. Good thing PETA didn't exist back then.

Glory Box pop-up sale is back, with discounted patio furniture by Andrew Richard, Gracious Living and Sojag

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With Toronto’s weather hitting a record-busting 30 degrees today, it’s fair to say our city’s sweaty, sultry summer has arrived. Which means sunbathing, drinks on the patio and lazing around while the sun shines. Unless, of course, you’re like us and your patio furniture consists of two wobbly dining-room chairs and a $10 Ikea coffee table. (It’s not a classy look, we know.)

And that makes Natalie Petozzi and Abigail Van Den Broek our two most favourite people this weekend. Under their Glory Box brand, the pair are putting on a pop-up sale of upscale patio furniture — with up to 70 per cent off retail prices. In the winter, Glory Box held a sale of high-end kitchenware, and this weekend they are taking over the Glass Factory at 99 Sudbury St. (near Dufferin and Queen West) with a collection of cast-iron and wicker furniture as well as more fun stuff like hammocks. Brands include Toronto’s Andrew Richard Designs and Montreal-based designer Sojag.

Also this weekend: if you are the type who wants to do more with their backyard than just lounge around in the sun drinking cocktails — like, gardening or something — then you might like to check out a pop-up on Ossington Avenue. Calling itself an "urban garden centre" it’ll be held at the 109OZ condo sales centre. Yes, there’s more than a whiff of corporate image burnishing about this one, but there’ll be a bunch of organic farmers there and roof-gardening expert Scott Torrance will be showing people how to make super-modern vertical gardens. That’s gotta be worth a look, right?

Glory Box Pop-up, 99 Sudbury St., 647-973-1711 (for details, check out the listing in our Events Calendar); Urban Garden Centre, 109 Ossington Ave. Both May 26 & 27.

Feeling the heat? Make like Hemingway and cool off with a boozy Papa Doble (or twelve)

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4:26 pm

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White rum is something I’ve barely touched since high school, when my rugged, juvenile iterations of the Cuba Libre — a generous helping of rum topped with a splash of Diet Coke and half a lime squished in for good measure — made it lose its lustre after one too many hellish hangovers. But trauma be damned, there’s one cocktail that inspires me to make an exception: the Papa Doble.

This version of the daiquiri was created by Constantino Ribalaigua Vert, who held it down at La Floridita’s bar in Havana for the first half of the 20th century.

The Papa Doble was named after its most enthusiastic imbiber, the sharp-shooting, womanizing literary genius, Ernest Hemingway, who was known as “papa” and almost exclusively drank doubles, or “dobles.”

Apparently, Hemingway modified the recipe — the original daiquiri contains sugar, while the Papa Doble omits it — to placate his diabetes. Famed for his love of the drink, Hemingway knew that one is never enough and didn’t let a pesky ailment get in the way of sloughing back two or 12 cocktails on an indolent Cuban afternoon.

Hemingway was so enamoured with his signature daiquiri that he even waxed poetic on the drink in the posthumously published Islands in the Stream. “This frozen daiquiri … looks like the sea where the wave falls away from the bow of a ship when she is doing thirty knots," he wrote, probably in the midst of a rum-soaked slushy rapture.

A tart and boozey mixture of young rum, lime, grapefruit and maraschino (a distinctively nutty Mediterranean liqueur made from the crushed pits of marasca cherries), the Papa Doble was traditionally blended and fine strained into a hefty coupe. It’s the perfect drink to both numb and refresh on a scorching day.

But the Papa Doble’s original recipe yields an exceedingly snappy beverage, and few profess to be as masculine as Papa, so it’s no faux pas to add a few dashes of simple syrup (cane sugar works beautifully), depending on what works for your specific set of tastebuds.

To mix one up yourself, shake 1½ oz white rum, ¾ oz fresh lime juice, ¼ oz fresh grapefruit juice and ¼ oz maraschino well with ice and strain into a frosty cocktail glass (or serve over crushed ice if you want to get tradtional about it.)

Double the ingredients if you want to make it a proper “doble.” Sip, enjoy and let the liquid inspiration guide your hand to start scribbling that award-winning novel bouncing around in your head.

Sarah Parniak is a freelance writer, booze nerd and lover of all things delicious. She teaches at the Toronto Institute of Bartending by day and occasionally moonlights as a barfly. You can find her behind the stick at Kensington Market's Cold Tea on weekends, where she cracks a mean tallboy and likes to experiment.

This week in creepiness: apples that don’t turn brown could be on sale by 2014

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From Eve’s biblical breakfast blunder to Isaac Newton’s gravitationally-induced epiphany — even down to that sleek device buzzing away in your pocket — the apple as a cultural symbol has persisted for thousands of years. But while apples may remain symbolically fresh, their physical resilience has traditionally been less reliable. Until now.

Canadian biotech company Okanagan Specialty Fruits has successfully “silenced” the gene responsible for making apples turn brown, The Daily Mail reports. Along with skins that retain their red or green colour indefinitely, these apples stay fresh and white inside for weeks on end, even if they’re sliced up.

The genetically modified apples could be on sale as early as 2014.

The announcement has, expectedly, not gone un-criticized (some have expressed concern that the advent of these super apples will drive the prices of other apples down), but Neal Carter, founder of Okanagan Specialty Fruits, is unperturbed.

“At the end of the day, it’s just a very nice apple that doesn’t go brown,” he told The Daily Mail.

And so there you have it, folks: eternally ripe-looking apples. No word yet on how we’re supposed to tell when the apples have actually gone bad.

[Daily Mail]

Ex-Czehoski chef Leor Zimerman is opening Quinta, a new Dundas West restaurant

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Quinta Restaurant, soon to be the latest player in the Dundas West scene, is the vision and brainchild of chef Leor Zimerman, who made a name for himself at such as hotspots as Opus Restaurant, Brassaii and Czehoski. His first solo venture, opening next month, will pay homage to and expand upon previous endeavors, showcasing a rich multicultural mélange of gastronomic traditions.

Zimerman says his culinary ideology is particularly indebted to his time at Opus — where he worked under chef Jason Cox — and also to the traditional French techniques that serve as the basis for much of his repertoire.

Yet along with the classical French influence, Quinta will also take its inspiration from the rolling hills and farmland of the Iberian Peninsula. The restaurant inherited its name from a boutique hotel in the south Portugal, named Quinta do Barranco da Estrada, where Zimerman and his wife worked during the first leg of an eye-opening, year-long round-the-world trip.

“It was a really beautiful, beautiful place,” Zimerman recalls. “I take a lot of my inspiration from that part of the world and that part of my life.”

After his time in Portugal, Zimerman traveled the world, expanding his culinary horizons. This globe-trotting sensibility has certainly shaped his vision for Quinta.

“The menu will include ingredients and flavours from not just France, but also Portugal, Italy and other places in the Mediterranean, as well as Canadiana,” he says.

His idea is to create a restaurant that features traditional, home-style country cooking, complete with fresh ingredients and an emphasis on seasonal and locally sourced produce. Zimerman hopes his classical French fine-dining background will enable him to go above and beyond conventional country fare.

Some dishes we are particularly excited about are Zimerman’s take on traditional pork and clams, a dish he adopted from the Alentejo region of Portugal where the original Quinta hotel was located. This dish will feature pork belly combined with clams in a beer broth, and will be retailing for a very manageable $15.

We’re also looking forward to Zimerman’s unique take on piri-piri chicken, which will instead feature cornish hen, also priced at around $15. While seafood and fresh fish dishes may cost slightly more, expect to see this modest pricing throughout most of the menu.

Along with manager Nik Halkias, Zimerman is also responsible for the restaurant’s design, which will possess a farm-style, old-country feel, filled with reclaimed wood and used barn-board, along with an immense custom-made harvest table (seating 12). Some unexpected industrial flourishes include galvanized steel chairs and black metal piping.

With Quinta, this prolific chef is fulfilling his desire for “bigger and better things,” and we can't wait to try them.

Quinta Restaurant, 1282 Dundas W., 416-534-0407

What the Fashion Tweeps are Saying: May 25

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Every week, we gather our favourite tweets from in and around Toronto’s fashion scene. This week, we’ve got details on UGG’s new bridal boots from @fashionotes, a Pinterest contest from @shopbicyclette and Prada’s new mini movie via @designtaxi.

Who doesn’t love a good comfy T-shirt and live music? @GapCA has got a sweet giveaway happening tomorrow:

T & music lovers: Sat. May 26 only, we're giving away 50 @Gap Ts & a chance to win @livenationshows concert tickets! https://pic.twitter.com/hJPhRAt2

@Fashionista_com gets to the truth behind why women endure so much pain for beautiful designer shoes:

Christian Louboutin doesn't make uncomfortable shoes on purpose,but "it is not my job to create something comfortable": https://bit.ly/KNJHAA

On another note, we’ve learned of new shoes for the bride who is all about keeping her feet comfy from @fashionotes:

This cannot be real…introducing UGG Bridal Boots https://ow.ly/b9bTI

Get your Friday night movie watch on early with this short Prada film via @designtaxi:

Prada releases short movie that ends with an unexpected twist https://ow.ly/b7tYM

Wondering how to dress well when you’ve got a baby bump? @DerekBlasberg is here to help you (with his friend’s blog):

British girls are so resourceful! Like my friend @PippaVosper. She turned her unplanned pregnancy into a fabulous blog: https://maternallychic.com

If you love Pinterest, @shopbicyclette and contests, you’re in luck:

If you're as Pinterest crazy as we are, you'll be happy to know that we just launched a contest! Details on https://instagr.am/p/LArNeFQ6Mw/

The pretty floral prints of @libertylondon have been showing up just about everywhere. @BargainistaFash shows how to incorporate the trend on a budget:

Make your own @LibertyLondon-print trainers https://tinyurl.com/bla732x

Tony Aspler’s Weekly Wine Pick: Vineland Estates Chardonnay Musqué

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Chardonnay Musqué is an aromatic clone of Chardonnay, a variety that does very well in Ontario. Because of its fragrance, it’s usually not given any oak treatment, which allows its apple blossom–like bouquet to be as pure as possible. This medium-bodied wine has spicy flavours of apple, peach and lemon with a touch of sweetness.

Food match: aperitif wine, lightly curried dishes.

$17.95, LCBO Vintages #996793

The details

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