It Will Be Just The Two of You

Day three of our Muskoka adventure started with a trip to the weekly farmer's market that, lucky us, happens to be on Wednesdays.  So we headed over to check out what we thought would be a couple of booths selling apples, corn and baked goods.  

Oh man, for a town of about 15,000 permanent residents, they have a pretty fabulous market.  It took us three loops of the place to decide what to get but we ended up with crisp, tart apples, wild (yep, wild!) blueberries and six homemade butter tarts.  Oh, and we split a crèpe and some homemade spring rolls for lunch.  I love markets! 

After the market, we decided to go for a hike to find a rock that we could lounge on and, perhaps, swim from.  After a bit of hiking we found one and spent a leisurely afternoon swimming in Muskoka Lake and watching the clouds roll by.  It's been a while since I've been swimming and even longer since I've been swimming in freshwater.  It was wonderful and, I'm almost embarrassed to admit, I actually started contemplating adding swimming to my workout schedule this winter. We'll see if that thought takes flight or not but it sure felt good to be in the water...

One of the fun things that happened on the way to our swimming rock was that I spotted a man in a wheelchair being pushed into the hotel lobby by another man and a little girl.  It was an unexpected sight so I did a double take.  It was Dave Hingsburger, his partner Joe and his niece Ruby.  I met Dave and Joe last April when they came to do a presentation where I work and I wrote a blog about their amazing session.  And there they were in Gravenhurst.  I trotted over (in my bathing suit no less) to say hi and was thrilled that they remembered me.  I was even more thrilled to meet Ruby, the subject of many of Dave's blogs.  

So, we explored the farmer's market, went swimming and I met one of my heroes for the second time and it wasn't even time for dinner yet.  

Speaking of dinner, all I knew about it was that we had reservations at a place called Taboo...

Turns out that Doug had booked a dinner at their culinary theatre for my birthday.  The culinary theatre is a six-course dinner prepared right in front of you by a chef.  Each course is paired with wine, presented by the sommelier.  Typically, there are 6-18 people at one of these meals.  When we arrived, we were informed that no one else had booked so we would be the only two. 

Seriously?

We spent several hours enjoying dish after dish of fabulous food.  Prepared just for us - right in front of us.   It was a little disconcerting at first to be the centre of attention.  The chef gave us 100% of his attention.  The sommelier hovered at my left elbow ready to answer questions and explain wine and food pairing subtleties.  Not used to being spoiled like that, it took me a surprisingly short time to get used to it.  We had lots of fun, ate food that was out of this world and got to taste some pretty expensive and delicious wines.  

Day three in Gravenhurst was a lovely day indeed.