Published in Caledon Living, spring 2007:
     The tender season of spring is perfect for starting all sorts of new things. Here are four books that might interest or even inspire you. In theory, a low-maintenance garden should leave plenty of time for reading, cooking and building community with neighbours. What usually happens is that you get drawn deeper into your interests. You create a new garden bed, pick up a few more books on a subject, host a dinner party or volunteer to take on a neighbourhood role. Before long, you’ll be so busy you’ll look forward to the cosy indoor life of winter. But not yet! We have the best parts of the year to enjoy first.

The Gin & Tonic Gardener: Confessions of a Reformed Compulsive Gardener
By Janice Wells
     This little book of very short “gardening chronicles” is a total delight. Newspaper columnist Janice Wells shares her musings, experiences and attitudes about gardening in various locations in Canada’s Atlantic provinces. After years of working and writing as a professional gardener, she realized she wanted “a gin-and-tonic-hammock-good-book kind of garden, where nothing is forced to be neat if it doesn’t want to be, and where I never feel guilty about doing absolutely nothing productive.”
     Yet try as she might, she can’t resist. The small projects she takes on seem perfectly appropriate and will greatly improve her yard. She writes with such enthusiasm that we’re inspired to attempt similar feats. Use the old bathtub for a fountain! Hide construction debris by burying it and turning it into a berm! Improve the view over the back fence by planting a flowering crabapple!
     When your energy wanes, retire to the shade with a beverage and book. If it’s this one, you will be charmed to find a literary soul mate who shares her unending passion for gardening. The book is made even more charming by the many illustrations by Mel D’Souza.
Key Porter Books, 2006, $27.95

Superbia! 31 ways to create sustainable neighborhoods
By Dan Chiras and Dave Wann
     Although most people now live in suburbs, they don’t meet all of many people’s needs. Isolation, lack of a sense of community, insufficient green spaces, gardens and parks, high maintenance, many vehicles and few services are some of the negatives.
     This book shares innovative ideas implemented in various communities to improve people’s quality of life. Community dinners are an easy first step toward getting to know neighbours. A neighbourhood newsletter helps spread the word about town hall meetings, tools to share or furniture for sale, kids looking for babysitting jobs, dog-walking services or perennial plant exchanges. A baby-sitting co-op can match people willing to look after kids in exchange for points that can be used to pay for baby sitting their own children, or for help with repairs, chores or gardening. Once people know each other, car pools for work or recreational activities for the kids can be easier to set up.
     Some neighbourhoods have removed their back yard fences in order to create large common areas for better views, casual soccer games and picnics. Community gardens and orchards provide home-grown produce, while neighbourhood composting provides free soil enrichment.
     There are many more strategies discussed here for adding richness to a neighbourhood that involve pooling some money. Community-owned trucks, specialized equipment and office spaces for home businesses are some.
     “We can transform our neighbourhoods dramatically, creating vibrant communities we’re proud to belong to,” write the authors. “All we need is the vision, the tools, and the willpower…and a little cooperation from city hall.” This book, first published a few years ago, deserves to be better known.
New Society Publishers, 2003, $27.95

Weekend Cooking
By Ricardo
     Quebec’s version of Jamie Oliver, Ricardo Larrivée has a cooking show on Radio-Canada television and a magazine, both simply called Ricardo. His first cookbook is intended to provide relaxation. “By offering easy-to-make recipes, I want to help you focus on atmosphere,” he writes.
     Chapters are divided into breakfasts, appetizers, salads and vegetables, pasta, seafood, meat and desserts. The recipes cover such familiar dishes as banana bread, sweet potato soup, Caesar salad, risotto with mushrooms, osso bucco, and brownies, but also provide the challenging ricotta-stuffed pancakes, foie gras terrine, maple-glazed bok choy, ravioli with leeks, deer steaks, and maple sabayon with carmelized pears.
     Beautiful close-up photographs of the food, taken by Christian Lacroix, are inspirational.
Whitecap Books, 2006, $29.95.

Earliest Toronto
By Robert M. MacIntosh
     This book relates the history of Toronto until 1812. It concentrates on aboriginal movements through the area, the arrival of French explorers, English rulers and an unknown group of settlers who spoke a form of northern rural German dialect and set up tents at the mouth of the Don River in 1794, before creating permanent settlements in Markham.
     The familiar figures of Samuel de Champlain, Etienne Brulé, John Graves Simcoe and his wife Elizabeth, diarist and illustrator, appear before us, but it is the story of artist William Berczy, leader of the German immigrants, which is new.
     “Simcoe’s claim to be the founder of York is only partially true, because William Berczy created the first real settlement,” declares MacIntosh. When there were only two houses in the Town of York, there were 40 winter huts and plans for a school, church and grist mill prepared by 70 German families in Markham Township.
     MacIntosh indicates that Governor General Simcoe and other of his administrators treated Berczy and his followers badly and unfairly. While they cleared and improved Yonge St. and Berczy built residences in York, Simcoe denied them titles to their land and provided no compensation for their work.
     “It is hard to escape the conclusion that Simcoe’s role in the founding of Toronto has been overblown in comparison to the pioneering efforts of William Berczy, a man of genuine talent,” writes MacIntosh.
     Colour plates, including a self portrait by Berczy, add interest to this early history of a city that was multicultural from its beginnings.
General Store Publishing House, 2006, $19.95.

By Gloria Hildebrandt