“Hey Lang, you should go out of business more often!” shouted one jokester, but I doubt that that Lang even heard him over the drone of the kitchen exhaust fan, that was running full tilt, accompanied by the laughter and conversation in the packed small diner. Yes, they were here to patronize Lang’s business, but the real draw was long-time cook/server and familiar face, Anna, who was serving her last customers that Saturday, after an [...]
The ladies of early Barrie, along with all of their Canadian sisters, laboured under the most extreme circumstances each and every day. Corseted and coiffed in the restrictive fashions of the day, their clothing was equally unsuitable for the deep Barrie snow, the winds off the bay and the oppressive heat and humidity of summer. Yet they were expected to scrub clean and iron clothes for perhaps a dozen family members, keep a wood stove [...]
I wrote this review just a few months ago, as a salute to one of the time-tested eateries of Barrie that were still soldiering on. Sadly, for fans of the Crock & Block, this piece now seems like more of eulogy. The Crock closed their doors this week for the last time. ****** "They're lined up out the door. Move faster!" These are words that no line cook wants to hear, not me anyway, on [...]
When Mother Nature builds you your very own arena, complete with ice, lots of good lighting, enough space for a limitless audience and a surface twenty-six hockey rinks long, you make the best use of it that you can! Every winter, the cold northerly winds blew and the mercury plummeted and soon after, the waters of Kempenfelt Bay turned rock solid and remained that way for several months. The ice fishermen, skaters and those [...]
I parked several blocks away, in the lot beside the Barrie Public Library, where one of the H-Block houses likely stood, and pulled my coat tightly around me as I walked eastward in the direction of Collier Street United Church. Sure, I could have parked closer, but on this blustery November day, I wanted to walk to church as the Barrie residents of yesterday must have done. I could imagine the fine ladies in their [...]
A Walk Through Barrie Union Cemetery The Sun did not shine, it was too wet to play, so we sat in the house all that cold, cold wet day. Sorry, Dr. Seuss, I was not about to let some dreary fall weather stop me from going outside to join in on a historical walk through Barrie Union Cemetery. As my Scottish cousins once pointed out, if they stayed in whenever it rained, they would never [...]
If These Walls Could Talk … by Mary Harris When this farm girl arrived in the big city to attend college, the population of Barrie was around 45,000 people. I was excited to be living in an urban area for the first time in my life, eager to spread my wings, make new friends and have a bit of fun. I was given bits of advice from those who had lived in Barrie longer than [...]
(a bite out of a blog by Mary Harris) What do you say that hasn't already been said about a restaurant that’s been talked or written about, and who's walls are peppered [...]