The Yum Yum Factor

Toronto Halal Food Festival - May 30-31 International Centre, entrance 5, Mississauga, Saturday 10am-10pm, Sunday 10am-8pm You know what I love best about Toronto? I love the cultural diversity, the celebration of food and family and tradition that are enjoyed by the entire city, regardless of where we all come from, how we worship and what we grew up eating. The Toronto Halal Food Festival will be packed to the rafters with delicious food from the best halal restaurants, manufacturers, bakeries and specialty stores representing cuisine from all around the world. You know I will be there, wearing stretchy pants with my eating bib firmly secured around my neck. There will be Sample City, where you can try all kind of food sample from dozens of vendors Redpath stage will have non stop demos, competitions and performances The Shop sections where you can pick up some stuff to take home The outdoor Street Fest where all the tasty grilled stuff will be found...

My first vegetable garden in almost 20 years! This was a very low key week, spent gardening, finishing up a recipe for the #GrillWithGrace campaign and just staying close to home. Although, as a makeup artist, I often get to work with celebrities and all that stuff, I rarely get starstruck and when I do, it's often someone who other people don't know. I am a serious director geek and often get more excited over meeting a movie director than the star of the film. With that in mind, I got to work with Stewart Copeland this week, drummer and co founder of a little band called The Police. He also wrote the score for the film, Rumblefish, one of my favourites. The other members of the ensemble were lovely - the beautiful violinist, Yoon Kwon, is not only a ridiculously gifted musician, but I found out she is a blogger too, so you have to go and look at her blog  Yoon Kwon  because it's not everyday that you encounter a true musical master who also writes eloquently ab...