A Wine Lover’s Diary, part 971: Seder Dinner, Toronto Lunch and a Food Friday Party That Ends with a Questionable Cake

Sunday, April 13^th: Deborah and I Drove to Toronto to meet with Annabel and Declan, who had flown in from Vancouver for tonight’s Seder dinner. We queued up for 45 minutes to get into L’Avenue at The Well, an amazing complex. We then waited an hour for the food to arrive! After lunch we went to the ROM to see the Auschwitz exhibition, which was remarkable.

Then on to the Seder dinner at the Sonesta Hotel hosted by my sister Shirley.

Monday, April 14^th: My friend Bob dropped by with a bottle of BOTL, a blend of grapes from five Niagara-on-the-Lake farms belong to Martin Werner, Mark Lepp, Jordan Hernder, Joe Pilliterri, and Dustin Gill. Each farm provides the grapes that form these special blends. BOTL is an acronym for Bottled On The Lake. A bruiser of a wine with lots of extract.

Tuesday, April 15^th: Went to my periodontist to have a tooth implant.

Not a pleasant experience, but I was very brave and rewarded myself with a glass of CULT Cabernet Sauvignon 2019 from Napa – despite the antibiotics I’ve been prescribed.

Wednesday, April 16^th: Drove into Toronto to have lunch with our friends Bessie and Rod at Sorrel, a French restaurant (that used to be Pastis) across the road from the major LCBO store on Yonge Street at Summerhill.

Good Friday, April 18^th: Sue-Ann Staff and her husband Rob throw an annual Good Friday party, inviting their friends in the wine community. Martin Malivoire shucks the oysters he brings and the rest of us are asked to bring a bottle of wine and an app. Deborah made mushroom caps will with Boursin and chopped sautéed onions. One of the guests was celebrating his 69^th birthday, so we all sang “Happy Birthday.”

And then the highly inappropriate cake was wheeled out…!