I try to scoop up a group of friends at every convention I attend and go out for dim sum at least once. I know where I want to head when I’m in Maryland or Philadelphia or even Vancouver, but since I was going to be in Toronto—well, Richmond Hill—I put out the call. Who makes the best dim sum in town? The answer I received from both friends and strangers was Lai Wah Heen.

Some friends wanted to know why I was bothering to drive 30-40 minutes into the heart of Toronto when there were plenty of dim sum parlors right by our con hotel. Well, all that advice, for one, but also because of what one reviewer had to say over on Yelp: “If your idea of dim sum is $2 steamers and old ladies yelling from carts, then go back to Richmond Hill.” That slam on the entire neighborhood in which I was staying made me laugh.

Not that there’s anything wrong with dim sum at the basic level of comfort food. I do that all the time. But dim sum prepared by an internationally recognized chef, and incorporating such ingredients as lamb, emu, and foie gras? That’s not something you get a chance to eat every day. (Or, come to think of it, at all. At least, I’ve never seen any of that offered before.)

And so four of my friends—Sharon Kier Patry, Shelly Rae Clift, and Karen and Charlie Newton—piled into the car last Friday, and we bombed into town, dealing with Toronto’s marvelous midday, midweek traffic. But what we found when we got where we were going was worth it.

Everything on the menu was enticing, so we just kept checking off boxes on the order sheet until we feared we’d be unable to ingest all the promised wonders. I wasn’t disappointed in a single choice, but here are the ones that most amazed me. (more…)

When I began making plans for where to eat during my recent Toronto trip, the first restaurant on my must-hit list was The Black Hoof, famous for its offal. Who could pass up roasted bone marrow, foie & nutella, and spicy horse tartare?

As it turns out, lots of people.

I’d rented a car so I could more easily get from my hotel in Richmond Hill to downtown Toronto, which meant I’d have plenty of room when it came time to hoof to Hoof Thursday night. Cecilia Tan was in the moment she heard about the menu, but as for those other spots in the car? They turned out to be not so easily filled. Nearly every person I asked to join us gave me one of those “Are you out of your mind?” looks, and said things like, “Yeah, right” or “Suuuure … ”

Luckily, I bumped into first Mike Willmoth and then Jim Minz, both of whom proved to be as enthusiastic about offal as Cecilia and I were. (more…)

When it came time to figure out where I’d be eating while in Toronto for the World Fantasy Convention, I knew that in the midst of all the fine dining I had planned, one stop was going to have to be at the city’s best burger joint. (Finding a great burger has always been high on my list when traveling.) But which restaurant would that be? I tossed the question out on social media, and though there was intense disagreement—you’d have thought that I’d started a discussion on the presidential election—the consensus settled around The Burger’s Priest.

So last Thursday morning, for my first meal in Toronto, I bombed into town from Richmond Hill with so many co-conspirators we needed two cars. When we reached Burger’s Priest, I was surprised to find it was take-out only, with nowhere to sit, and soon realized that there were two locations—one which apparently seats around 20 over on Yonge Street, and the one we ended up at on Queen Street East. But as that wasn’t going to affect the taste of the burgers, I didn’t really care. Besides, all those parked cars filled with people chowing down on their burgers told me this was food worth eating whether it had to be done sitting, standing, or running in place.

(more…)

Another month has gone by, which means another month of fun mind movies for me, which I share each morning over on Twitter. And as usual, I’ve gathered them here, because seeing them together like this adds an additional level of surreality.

Welcome to my subconscious!

October 2012 Dreams

I dreamt I got into an Ed Sullivan impersonation duel with Will Jordan, then my HS pal Mark Diamond showed up and we both did Mick Jagger. 29 Oct

I dreamt I had an intense discussion with Nicholas Brody and Carrie Mathison. Not sure about what. (Hadn’t even seen last night’s Homeland!) 29 Oct

I dreamt I wandered a dense city looking for a particular BBQ joint. I’d forgotten its name, though, and was trying to find it by nose. 26 Oct

I dreamt I was on a train with old timey journalists, none of whom would take my bet about when an electronic pub would win a Pulitzer. 26 Oct

I dreamt I filled in for Jon Stewart one night, but then he showed up in the middle of the show, not happy I was sitting in his chair. 26 Oct

I dreamt I was at a restaurant meeting with the entire ‪@Syfy digital team. We ate frozen grapes, and Meinhardt Raabe was a special guest. 26 Oct

I dreamt that while I was waiting to fly to Comic-Con, I saw a woman prevented from boarding because she was George R. R. Martin’s stalker. 25 Oct

I dreamt I spotted a HUGE bug on the wall and was about to swat it, but became afraid crushing its egg sac would free thousands of babies. 24 Oct

I dreamt I was reading a tribute site put together by fans of the candy store my mother used to own. (IRL, my mother owned no such thing.) 23 Oct

I dreamt Dennis Franz stopped at my house in the middle of his coast-to-coast walking tour. And he was fueling himself by eating candy only. 23 Oct (more…)

I took more photos at this year’s World Fantasy Convention than I have at other recent cons, perhaps because I’ve also been using Instagram more, inspiring me to send more contemporaneous pics out into the world. Whatever the reason, the pics (such as the one of me and Irene Gallo below) now exist, and that’s all that matters.

You can check out all of my WFC photos over at Flickr.

If nothing else … they should make you hungry.

Remember how I told you that spam had gotten more devious lately, offering eerily on-topic posts that could pass for comments from real people, if you didn’t notice that the poster’s link would send you to a spam site?

Well, it happened again. I just checked out my spam folder, and found that the following had been caught there due to the sender’s address linking to a site (which I certainly won’t link to here, though I’ll show you a screen grab so you can see what I mean) offering offshore bank accounts in Panama:

The convention is sold out—but I have ONE WORLD FANTASY MEMBERSHIP TO SELL. Pemberly was going to attend the convention with me after half a week in New York, but Hurricane Sandy changed our plans. So if you are in Toronto but don’t already have a membership and are interested in seeing dozens of big-name authors and editors (everyone on this list and this list ), consider buying Pemberly’s membership. This is the most expensive convention that exists in the field (the cost is $250 Canadian), but if you’re serious about publishing, it’s worth it. A previous World Fantasy in Canada (in Montreal, 2001) is where I met my Tor Books editor, Moshe Feder. So if you’re interested, drop me an email using the email interface on my website .

The most bizarre thing about this?

The paragraph above was written by an actual human being—Brandon Sanderson, who posted those words on his own site, from where they were filched in an attempt to induce you to click and be trapped by a spammer.

So look carefully before you approve comments on your blog—because the spam is starting to be smarter than we are!

While I was off eating at The Black Hoof, Lai Wah Heen, Momofuku Shoto and Cafe Boulud in Toronto, some exciting foodie news was revealed which I’ve only now caught up with—and it’s news I’ve been waiting to hear ever since the artists behind Next restaurant asked what we’d like to see tackled for future Brigadoon-ish menus.

According to Eater, Penny Pollack announced on Twitter the other day that Kyoto would be followed by “The Hunt,” which would be a “midwestern game–focused menu.”

Plus, over on Facebook, someone shared that “I was told last night by Chef Rene that Vegan will be the menu following The Hunt. I’m not 100% sure if he was joking or not, but he seemed pretty serious to me.”

I hope that time and money will allow me to attend seatings for both. Even though I’m about as far from Vegan as a person can get without killing and butchering his own meant, I’d love to see what Grant Achatz and Dave Beran can do with vegetables!

Remember the Merry Marvel Marching Society mystery I asked for your help in solving two months back? The one about how I’d thought my name had appeared as an M.M.M.S. member in an issue of Tales from Suspense which featured Titanium Man on the cover, though one of you thought my name was actually published in Strange Tales instead?

Well, it turned out I was right all along!

According to Claudio Piccinini, my named appeared (along with 24 other M.M.M.S. members) in Tales of Suspense #69 (September 1965), which featured the first appearance of Titanium Man. I would have been 10 years old.

Mystery solved!

I’m home from the World Fantasy Convention now—well, not completely home, as we’re on Day 8 of no Internet, and I’ll be spending lots of time in cybercafes until this is fixed—but before the week gets away from me, here are some pics to represent the final day of WFC. I hope to eventually get around to a full con report …

… someday.

Waiting for the banquet to begin with Nalo Hopkinson

(more…)

Were you in Toronto this afternoon to watch the World Fantasy Awards ceremony?

No?

Don’t worry. Someone has taken care of that for you …

(You’re welcome!)