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Kensington Market Sweets Tour Review

5/1/2015

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by Sunni Zhou (age 12) and Raymond Qiu (age 10)

Have you ever “swum” with sharks, sailed under the falls, or set paper airplanes flying without the teacher knowing?  All of this amusement can be found within Toronto, which consists of many tourist destinations – Ripley’s, Niagara Falls, and the Ontario Science Center.  But even knowing all of this doesn’t make you a local resident – you missed at least one of the tours. 

Kensington Market Sweets Tour, Toronto’s only sweets tasting tour, used its special magnet and attracted sweet teeth all over the world.  There were people from the Great Britain, Mexico, and more local residents.  This tour started at the Ding Dong Pastries, in the Kensington Market, Toronto Downtown.  The six sweet stores we visited were the Ding Dong Pastries, Filipino Popcorn Shop, Take Out; Eat in Catering, Churros, Wanda’s Pie in the Sky, and the Blue Banana Market. Our tour guide’s name was Audrey Ooi and she was the one who introduced us to all the sweets and told us interesting facts about them.    
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From left: Raymond Qiu, Tour guide Audrey Ooi, Sunni Zhou
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Ding Dong Pastries – egg tart

This is our first stop. The Ding Dong Pastries was filled with different kinds of bread, and workers zooming in and out carrying fresh trays, ready to be sold.  Not long after, our tour guide arrived and initiated a group introduction.  After everyone’s warm introduction, the tour began.  She explained that there are 2 different kinds of sugar (sugar beet sugar and sugarcane sugar). We learned about the fascinating history of how sugar was made, when it was made, and how Canada contributed to the creation of sugar. Who knew the Napoleon war played an important role in sugar?

                Two-third of the world’s sugar comes from sugar canes, but they are only grown in the equator.  Therefore, the US also discovered sugar beet, which is grown in more temperate forests.

                The tour guide soon gave each of us an egg tart to taste. There are 2 types of egg tart. One of which is Portuguese style and the other of which is Chinese style.  The Portuguese egg tart includes more fruit, whereas the Chinese Hong Kong style is made of only egg.  The egg tart was made in the 1980s and quickly became a popular dessert around the world. Nowadays, we find egg tarts in all kinds of shops.


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Filipino Popcorn Shop – popcorn of many flavors

                Before we were done licking our lips to the great savory, we had already stepped into the Filipino Popcorn Shop.  When you walk into the house fashioned building, you see bags full of colorful popcorn piled high on shelves, and a worker who introduced some gumball machines full of popcorn as “samples”.  It was free to the tour members, so we tried almost one of everything. Bacon and cheddar, pizza, smoky chipotle, ketchup, grapes, banana, pina colanda, blueberry, toffee, sweet chili pepper, honey mustard, hot jalapeño, jalapeño cheddar, ranch, cheesy barbeque… Do you think I listed all of them? What if I told you that these are just one-third of all?  We enjoyed the Cheddar, Cheesy BBQ, both jalapeños flavors, and bananas.

                It took a big effort to create the shop, a bigger effort to get the products, and an even bigger effort to create so many different flavors.  This shop presented the most awkward kind of sweets, but also our favorite.


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                Akrems Shoppe– Middle East sweets

                We got energy from the popcorns and could walk even faster. Soon enough, we were at the third stop, a Middle East store.  We got to try out some salted pistachios and candies, of which brought a flavor that showed not only the food, but even the kind of emotion of working. 

                Voice K had a pleasure to interview the owner, Hiyan Samara, who enjoys making others happy.  She makes all kinds of food, and others really like it, which makes Hiyan joyful. 

In the beginning, Hiyan sold clothes and her husband sold food.  Then they worked together to make food, such as fellahin.  Everybody went to eat the food and it became very popular.

                Hiyan and her husband established the building from scratch, and it took over two and half years to rebuild it.  But, in our opinion, it was worth it.

                “Little by little, we built up this store, and improved our reputation.  From all over the world, magazines came to talk about our food,” Hiyan said.  “This is an accomplishment that makes me very happy.”

                “Communication is very important.  It is the key to success,” as Hiyan said. “It builds our community and jobs and improves it.”

                Churros

                Some people love bread, though, some people dislike it.  But, we bet Churros is something that no matter your culture or taste, you’ll be willing to try.  The worker took out a deep-fried hollow strip of bread, then using a bottle of chocolate sauce; he squeezed it into the fluffy cake bread center.  This food came from either Portugal or Spain. They still debate on who invented it, and with two completely different stories. 

                Audrey said, “The Spanish said what happened, was that these shepherds were living in the mountains of Spain, and they baked the bread over a fire.  This soon developed Churros.  And they say this is true, because the Churros are named after a kind of sheep.”

                The Portuguese story is that they actually went to China, in the 1600s, and saw this kind of hollow, fluffy, crispy tube of bread, about 30 cm long.  When they went home and made it, they failed, but made the completely new generation, that is just really popular these days. 

               

Wanda’s Pie in the Sky

                Does she cook pies in the sky?  No.  It’s just a creative name.  Wanda created pies, cakes, salads, and cupcakes to fit the taste of her customers.  Wanda started baking since she was 8 using the berries in her mother’s backyard.  When she grew older, she went into an arts and design university, where she decided to take her career of baking.  We tasted mini cupcakes, of which were red velvets, and vanillas.  We enjoyed the red velvet more than the vanilla ones. There were many cool cake displays such as rainbow cakes, and animal cookies.

Since the pan-am games are coming to Toronto this year, this shop will work harder to be prepared when millions of people come to Toronto in the summer.

                Blue Banana market

                The Blue Banana market ranges from food to jewelry.  It is a grocery store that sells things from many different countries. We tasted the marshmallows, which were made by hand. There were many different flavors such as coffee, mint and strawberry. The marshmallows tasted fluffy and stiff at the same time. It was very different than the ones they sell at the supermarket.

We also tried a kind of chocolate named flakers, with many layers and holes inside, kind of like the Aero chocolates we eat. 

Audrey explained to us that this chocolate was made by accident, “A long time ago this chocolate was leftover from chocolate bars. When someone saw that this was a smart idea to invent a new type of chocolate.  He thought, Why not?”


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Interview with tour guide: Sunni

At the end of the tour, Voice K finally got a chance to interview with our tour guide Audrey Ooi.

She said, “I think one of the biggest challenges is when you face people who are not interested in the tour.  You need to experiment with the people to help them regain their interest.” 

One of Audrey’s best experiences was when there was an old lady with health issues, and slowed the team down.  But to Audrey’s surprise everyone else on the tour were very understanding about the situation and enjoyed the tour very much.

Audrey also explained the most popular sweets in the past few years. 

“I think the most popular sweets in the past few years are definitely the churros,” she said.  Other than this, people also favored the Take out; Eat in Catering, where Hiyan told about her exciting life and the stories of her shop. 

 

My opinions: Raymond

                Hiyan said, “Communication is the key to success.”  The Kensington market has been around for more than a century, and so have the stores.  Small companies usually don’t survive long for generations. As a historic market, the stores start in a community.  Other than providing the foods, though, the market also knows what the customers need.  Then, they grow – in popularity and reputation.  Even though the people come from different places, they felt that they were treated as old friends here.  With good communication, the stores kept their business, the customers kept their community, and I kept my taste.

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Our Alaska Trip

12/2/2013

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Part 1- The RV experience   
By Michelle Zeng (Age 12)

Oh, Alaska; a beautiful state filled with towering mountains, rolling hills, unbroken landscapes and abundant wildlife. To me, it was the closest thing you’d get to ‘heaven on earth’, and when I finally went to Alaska on August eleventh, to say that I was delighted would be an understatement.

We stayed in Alaska for two weeks, and for the first week we spent our days hiking, photographing, and driving around in our rented RV. Though the rest of my family and friends would probably beg to differ, I personally loved our first week in the RV. It introduced a new rugged style of life, living in the tiny, compact quarters of the trailer. We lived in that portable house for eight days.




Harding Ice field Trail – Kenai Fjord National Park

Once we got our RV, we drove over to the mountain ranges that nurtured the immensely famous Harding Ice fields. I remember the beauty of the ‘Exit Glacier’ and couldn’t wait to check it out, and I was excited when I found out we were actually hiking up the mountain.

It turned out that the trail was over eight miles long. With every mile we hiked, we gained approximately 1,000 feet of elevation. 

Alaska is bear country; we came across a small black bear wandering down the mountain, which gave us quite the fright. I only managed to stagger about two miles up the trail before I gave up. I didn’t even make it to the point ‘Top of Cliffs’. Despite the exhaustion we all had a very good view of the Exit Glacier.


Mount McKinley – Denali National Park

Our stay in Denali was undoubtedly one of my favorite experiences in Alaska. This park was entirely dedicated to protecting the exotic wildlife and plant life of Alaska, and not only that; it is also home to the highest mountain in North America.

Mount McKinley (or ‘Denali’) has an elevation of 20, 320 feet above sea-level, making it the third-highest mountain in the world after Everest and Aconcagua. However, due the cloudy weather that often plagues the mountain ranges, to be able to see McKinley clearly is a very rare occurrence. We were extremely lucky that we could catch a glimpse of this awesome mountain; a few hours later, McKinley was once again shrouded by clouds.


I was amazed by the sheer height of the mountain and its snow-capped peaks; it held a magnificent beauty that few other mountains held. 


Shuttle Bus Tour &Horseshoe Lake trail– Denali NP

Another one of my favorite trips around Denali was the shuttle bus tour.

We saw many bears, gazelles, a female moose, Dall sheep and hundreds of caribou migrating only a few feet away from us. One of my favorite sights was a female blond-faced grizzly accompanying her cute cub.

Horseshoe Lake is truly a sight to behold. With cliffs looming above, the birds singing in the trees and the shimmering water reflecting the sky. Horseshoe Lake really does look like a horseshoe, and there was a small island in the middle of the lake. We found out that the lake was not only home to birds; beavers also roamed around the lake, and Horseshoe Lake was actually formed by beaver dams.

We managed to find a way onto the small island. You could see the finished or unfinished work of the beavers, and dams were everywhere. We unfortunately didn’t see any beavers that day.


Savage River Loop Trail – Denali National Park


This was my absolute favorite trail in our entire two weeks in Alaska. This short two-mile hike traverses upstream and around the Savage River and has a clear view of the cliffs and unique rock formations.

We had a great time on that trail chatting and jumping up and down rocks while we hiked. At one point, we spotted a large Dall sheep staring down at us on one of the cliffs; I found that quite amusing.

We had just turned the corner and were prepared to travel downstream back to the start when two people told us that there was a caribou right by the side of the path! I clearly remember the events that followed. I was ahead of the rest of my family with my camera at the ready. I scanned the sides of the trail searching for the caribou but I didn’t see anything.

I nearly jumped out of my skin when I turned around to see a huge caribou just munching grass while watching me.

I was so shocked and excited that I nearly forgot to take pictures. The caribou was only a few yards away from me and was standing on the gravel bed as if it was the most normal thing in the world. My mom was afraid the caribou would charge, so a few pictures afterwards we hurried on along our way to leave the creature at its peace.

Viewing Northern Lights – Fairbanks

Very reluctantly, I bid farewell the awesome sights of Denali and our company headed over to Fairbanks to spend our last days in our RV.

Throughout our entire voyage, we had been hoping with all our might that we could be lucky enough to see aurora borealis, otherwise known as the northern lights.

But when we reached Fairbanks, our anticipation rose. Fairbanks is located extremely far north, and even in the bleak summer days there is still the chance of catching the northern lights.

During our entire stay, we would eagerly set our alarm clocks to the earliest times possible, and I remember my uncle would stay up from twelve to two o’clock am standing outside watching for the lights, but unfortunately, we never did manage to see our aurora borealis.

Gold Mining Dredge 8 – Fairbanks

Another fun experience we had in Alaska was where we ‘struck it rich’ at Dredge Eight.

At first, I was rather skeptical when I heard we were going to go ‘gold mining’. Did my father seriously intend for us to hack at rocks until we struck gold? We hopped onto a small train taking us to the dredge while our conductor taught us about the Gold Rush, and we were also taught how to pan for gold.

When we finally arrived at Dredge Eight, we were each given a pan and a bag of dirt that supposedly contained lots of gold that we were supposed to pan out. I dumped my dirt into the pan and set to work.

Panning is quite simple once you get the hang of it. Just fill your pan with a bit of water and shake it. To me, the shaking seemed at first a very odd thing to do while searching for gold, but I found out it is actually a very important step while panning for gold; gold is heavier than any other metal, and therefore if your dirt really does contain gold, the shaking of the pan will bring all of the gold to the very bottom of the pan.

After the shaking, remove any excess rocks that may have come to the top of the pan, then dip your pan three times into the water to get rid of the top layer of dirt. Then empty your pan entirely of water and commence the shaking once more.


After repeating this process a few more times, I was surprised to see a few flecks of yellow through the plain brown of the dirt. I picked up tiny particles; I had struck gold.

I ended up with quite a few pieces of gold, and later found out that the mere flakes I had collected were worth twenty three dollars!

I had a great time at Dredge Eight panning for gold, and I am glad that I got as much gold as it is; one of my friend’s moms ended up with only four flakes of gold.

Part 2 the Cruise Experience
By Sunni Zhou (Age 10)

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Photo from http://www.cruise.co.uk/tailor-made-cruises/ncl-cruises/norwegian-sun/17-jun-14/6302/

On Sunday, August 18th 2013 after the RV tour, over 10 families were preparing for the Norwegian Sun Cruise going from Alaska to Vancouver. In my family was my mom, my dad, my brother and I. When we saw our cruise we were very excited to look at our rooms, but the sad news was the rain. It made us all soaked wet after we panicked around carrying our luggage.

 At around 12 noon most of the RV’s were at the cruise line up waiting to get in the ship. After one hour all families were checked in and the room service staff gave everyone a house card, so we could finally go to our rooms.

My parents started to unpack and plan the activities for the day, while my brother and I took turns taking a shower. Once we were done, we gathered at the lunch buffet to discuss our activities.  There wasn’t much to do for kids, until four o-clock pm, but the activity was a game of bean bag toss, which is “two hours of boringness” according to my friend. So my friends and I just played cards in my room, until our parents told us to get ready for dinner at a place called Seven Seas.

Everyone was all dressed up, even the boys wore tuxedos. One of the dads reserved 2 tables, one for the kids and one for the adults. I ordered a Caesar salad for starters, lamb shank for main course and lemon sorbet for dessert. I have to say that was one of the best dinners I have ever had


The following day had so much activities! We went on a tour around the ship, got to learn about some animal trivia and watched a video of how things work in the ship. Afterwards, we went to a Chef delight’s performance.  It was awesome! The chef asked for two volunteers, and I was one of them.  He taught us how to make sushi and I got a plate full of Tamaki sushi and I shared it with all my friends and family.

After lunch, there were more tours up until dinner. We went to another fancy place called Four Seasons. The food was great there too! We went to watch a show called The Party which had a lot of different kinds of entertainment.

All the fun starts on our third day of the cruise. We were on shore at this inland area called Icy Strait Point. The cruise stopped at around 8:30, so our group decided to take action and visit the area at 9:00.

We checked our map and schedule to find out the activities we can do while we were on Icy Strait Point. Everyone decided on walking along the beach trail.. Surprisingly my mom let me go on one of the activities, which was the zip line.   I went with my friends and Gordon, a teenage boy who came with us because we needed someone over the age of 18. I have to admit it was the best thing that has ever happened to me that day.

The next day, the ship landed at Alaska’s capital city (the third biggest city) Juneau. We planned to go see the salmon, the glaciers and walk a long trail.  We rented two tour vans so that all fifteen people would fit. The drivers first took us to see the glaciers. “This is amazing” said my dad, he was taking a lot of pictures! Then we went to see the Salmon River where lots of salmon tried to swim back to their birth place to give birth to their young.

On our fifth day, the ship landed at Skagway.  There were more people who wanted to explore Skagway so we had to hire a van and rented 6 cars! We went to this super small town named Car cross and the populations was only 300in that city. That’s like only one third of my school.  Since there were only three restaurants in the city, my mom just bought us hotdogs and pizza.

After eating we came across a small desert. . It might not have been known as the smallest but I thought it was because if we stand at one side of the desert you could see Car cross (the tiny city) on the other side. We crossed it and it only took ten minutes!

The cruise led us to many places, another city we landed was called Ketchikan.  My dad found an awesome trail where we could walked close enough to touch the salmon.  The small trail was really fun because the salmon we saw were trying to swim up the stream, having a hard time, I just wanted to pick them up and throw them to the other side!

The next day was our very last day, the ship didn’t stop anywhere that day, so it was just our regular routines: get up, eat and chat. After lots of fun activities and craziness around the ship for 4 hours, we went to our last dinner on the ship. I ordered blue crab cake for starters, lobster surf and turf for main course, and pineapple sorbet for dessert.

After the dessert the craziest thing happened, I was chosen to compete in the singing competition! When the emcee called my name, I went up and sang “Someone like you” by Adele. I got second place at the end and a kind man by the name of Chuck, who also sang, told me “Never stop singing, follow your passion till the end”.  


Unfortunately, the cruise was finished the next day. And I’d have to admit it was the best week I’ve ever had. The cruise trip and tours was full of fun and educational things about Alaska and its little cities. I wish my whole family could’ve joined us.

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Cupcakes are awesome!

2/25/2013

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By Sunni Zhou (Age 10)

On February 12, 2013, there was a special event taking place in Golden Key Center. This wasn't just any event; no travelling, no taking notes, no preparation needed; instead are only task was to have fun, use our imaginations and ENJOY. 

Can you guess what it is?
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Sunni's Cupcake
 Yes, we were decorating cupcakes!

We all had a fun afternoon with Shauna Morgan. Shauna is a culinary artist who was recently featured on Rogers Television’s Home Cooking. We laughed a lot and learned a lot. We learned that cupcake decorating techniques are not out of reach for the average person, weekend bakers or even kids like us. It's easy to create elegant and delicious cupcakes at home without years of training or complicated recipes as long as you have the passion and imagination.

Shauna is a professional and talented cupcake artist. She has a company named Shauna Sincerely. When she was young, she always had the desire to cook. Her mom let her help in the kitchen, but to Shauna, that wasn’t enough. She wanted her own kitchen and her own baking place. Today, Shauna not only has her own kitchen but thriving catering business. Shauna makes cakes and other sorts of deserts for different occasions, like engagement parties, celebrations, anniversaries, birthdays, etc. Her biggest order was 240 cupcakes and it was a rush order with one week notice!

 It was an amazing and delicious day I will never forget. Here are the steps below so you too can create the scrumptious cupcakes!

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  1. Fill the pipe with butter cream
  2. Pipe the plain cupcake with butter cream, make sure you start at the outer edge and squeeze the piping bag gently.
  3. Keep going round keeping the tip of the nozzle raised slightly above the cake.
  4. Make the circles smaller as you work your way into the centre of the cake until you get to the middle.
  5. After you are done with the swirly shape, you can then decorate the cake with sprinkles and other pretty goodies” (make sure they are edible)
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Interview with Shauna

By Dea Yu (Age 7)
On February 12th, 2013 at the office of Voice K magazine Shauna Morgan of Shauna Sincerely catering joined some the junior editors in a cupcake baking event to be remembered. During the hands on event Dea Yu was able steal some one on one time with Shauna and asked some questions…

Dea: What inspired you to be a chef?

Shauna: When I was little, I watched my mom cooking and then I wanted my own kitchen and then I learned what a chef really does, and I thought, you know what, I want to do that. But I didn’t just want to be a chef cooking at the back of a kitchen; I wanted to be a chef that wasn’t afraid to be myself and be girly, a chef that makes people laugh, I wanted to share my joy of cooking with others and teach people how to cook within a budget.

Dea: What was your weirdest cupcake request from a customer?                

Shauna: My weirdest request was for customer who made an order for a New Years Eve party. She wanted one huge Oreo cookie with a mini cupcake on it and wanted it to resemble a clock! It was tough but it all worked out in the end and I’m told it was a great addition to her New Year’s Eve party.

Dea: What is your best-selling cupcake?                  

Shauna: My best seller? It’s the red velvet. Everyone likes red velvet……with cream cheese frosting. It’s actually my least favourite.

Dea: Do you have your own bakery?

Shauna: I don’t have my own bakery, all the cupcakes are homemade, and that’s why they are so good. Everyone likes a good homemade cupcake, that’s what makes it special compare to cake. You grab one, it is just for you.

Dea: Are you popular?          

Shauna: Popular? Well I wouldn’t say I’m popular yet.  But I’d like to be very popular someday … may be after this interview!                                                               

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