silly and fun and altogether delicious...

if i were to assess (say, on a scale of one-to-ten) how much of an emotional wreck i have been of late, it would probably average out somewhere near seventeen. life is like that these days. however, there was one wholly-absurd and thoroughly-enjoyable bright spot we got to share. 

a certain animator had a birthday recently, and we used that event as an excuse to indulge in a multi-day festival of foods delivered from some restaurants in the area. we are selflessly doing our part to keep the local economy alive. that's my story, and i'm sticking to it!

some were places that were already known to us, but we discovered a few new gems along the way... like Wienstein & Gavino's (he loved their lasagna), and the indescribable desserts from Bon Et Petit (they are so awesome, they don't need no stinkin' website!). 

then there was that other dish. this one requires a bit of explaining. 

if you have never heard of a thing called poutine, be glad. the dish—and i use that term very loosely—consists of fries topped with gravy and something the locals refer to as cheese curds. oh, and i should probably mention that the curds are supposed to squeak when you chew them, earning them the nickname of squeaky cheese. 

but wait... it gets worse!

the curds lose that disturbing auditory quality when refrigerated, so cheese curds are usually kept at room temperature. the absolute worst part is that they sell them everywhere! no exaggeration, you can find plastic bags of fresh cheese curds on the cashier counter of almost every gas station... right next to the breath mints and the cigarette lighters. that is how much they love their poutine in Quebec, and that is probably the main reason why i have been avoiding the stuff since my very first visit to Montreal (some eighteen-ish years ago, if you need all the details). 

what does any of this have to do with his birthday, you ask? patience. i was just getting to that bit.

birthdays around here are often used to guilt the other person into doing stuff to which they might otherwise object. some call this "love". i had absolutely refused to eat the rabbit he cooked for New Year's (a story for some other day), which meant that i already owed him one.  

so, there we were, with his birthday happening at the end of something called La Poutine Week, where restaurants all over Quebec (and beyond) come up with outrageous combos of poutine toppers to reflect their cuisine. the animator kept reading me the descriptions of some of the local offerings in the misguided hope that he would tempt me to give it a try, so i knew that it was only a matter of time.

him: ooh... there's butter chicken poutine. you love butter chicken.
me: i do. it's one of my favorite foods. i just don't want it on soggy chips with gas station cheese.
him: or, what about this one? lobster poutine! you love lobster.
me: exactly. i love lobster far too much to do it the disservice of ending up atop poutine. 

now, i should point out that he had never even tasted poutine—despite living in Canada his whole life—which made his attempt at a guilt-trip all the more ridiculous. 

me: i am not stopping you from eating poutine. get it. eat whatever you want. 

him: i know, but i want to share this experience with you.
me: why do i have to be tortured so you can satisfy your curiosity?

him: that's how the love works. 

me: good luck with that. 

then he made some comment about me being no fun, which i reminded him was part of my charm. still, it was his special day multi-day celebration, so i gave in. and, after going through the whole list of local offerings, we narrowed it down to the Baby Back Black Velvet Poutine from McCarold, a new-to-us pub a short drive from our place...

or the Philly Cheesesteak Poutine from an old favorite, Notre Boeuf de Grâce.  

[random aside: the restaurant's name is a play on Notre Dame de Grâce (NDG), our neighborhood here in Montreal. i had mixed feeling when they first opened (about a block away from our old place) in the location previously occupied by D.A.D.'s Bagel, a business that was much-loved by the locals. D.A.D.'s was open around the clock, and we would often pop in there during one of our late night walks. i liked going there in wee hours when they were making the mountains of bagels that would be sold at cafes and other such places around town. it was mesmerizing to watch them being moved in and out of the large wood-burning oven. i vowed to hate whatever business took its place... which lasted all of a few months.] 

where was i, again? oh, yes... poutine. 

so, after way more debate than most sane people would find necessary, we settled on the Black Velvet Poutine. it showed up looking just as i expected, like so many servings of poutine i had seen being consumed by other human beings: soggy fries and scattered lumps of gas station cheese. this was not going to end well. 

i took one look, and made the face that he knew from experience meant he would probably be eating it all alone. still, it was his birthday, and i had promised to give it a try, so i stabbed my fork into a chip, and gave it a taste. 

it was a-maz-ing!

i went in for a second bite in silence, stabbing a chunk of the meat this time. this was the point when i started regretting that we had not gotten two orders, because i was definitely not feeling inclined to share. we paused briefly to exchange our mutual (wholly-unexpected) enjoyment of the combination of saucy meat and fries, and we instantly made plans to check out some of the pub's regular offerings in the future. 

but there was still that other thing. 

me: i'm kinda afraid to try the cheese curds.
him: yeh. me too.
me: i'll be freaked out if i bite into something and it squeaks

him: but it would be false advertising if it doesn't squeak. 
me: i know. that's why i'm scared. 

him: me too. let's try it at the same time.

so we did. and it does. and we both laughed because it was silly and fun and altogether delicious. so now we are looking forward to Poutine Week 2022. meanwhile, i have to find something even more absurd delectable for us to try when my birthday rolls around. 

a literal taste of Canada...

i am sat cross-legged on my favorite sofa, enjoying the (unofficial) Canadian national dish of a double-double and a maple-glazed donut from Timmy's. 

i have just had a most-Canadian morning. naturally, it began with lots of snow. 

this is the current view from my favorite sofa, and if i lean out the door, you can see that the balcony is almost entirely filled with snow. that the glass is not completely frosted over and i can get said door open means that it is—thankfully—not overly cold for a change. still, you gotta admit... that is a whole lot of snow! 

let me give you an idea of what life is like in Montreal in Winter. street cleaning rules are suspended, except when it snows... and boy does it snow! they go around one neighborhood at a time, putting up little orange signs that are understood to mean that you do NOT park here... not unless you want to spend the following morning wandering around, trying to find the random spot to which your car had been moved. and, as a bonus, there will be a ticket on your windshield for the charge of the totally unsolicited tow. thank you, Montreal. 

there is actually an app to locate your car, and it is usually moved to an adjacent block that was already plowed. plus, there is one major positive to this wacky system. it tends to leave your car free of snow. if you have ever lived in a place where the temperature can easily drop to minus thirty-something (or lower), you will appreciate being saved a trip outdoors. everyone has had that moment where they looked out the window, shrugged, and decided that it was far easier to pay the ticket than to brave the cold to go dig out from under a mountain of snow... she says from personal experience. 

we usually try to park on the side of the street that gets plowed first, then we run out in the middle of the night and move the car to the freshly-cleared side of the road. that was in the olden days. now, there is a curfew in effect from eight PM to five AM every day on account of... well, you know... and the fine for breaking it can run anywhere from several hundred to a few thousand dollars. 

him: i can run out real quick and move so we don't have to worry about doing it tomorrow. 

me: it's not worth it. plus, the last thing we need is for all the neighbors to be staring out their windows, watching you get ticketed for something so stupid. we'd have to move. 

so, we bundled up this morning, and went out to move a mountain of snow. that is when the Canadian-ness began. 

i was in the car at one point, doing that thing when you go back and forth, trying to get out of bank of snow, when i noticed that he had stopped shoveling. he was leaning on the shovel, engaged in friendly banter with a neighbor from across the street. she disappeared into her house and returned a minute later with a shovel, then she began to help clear a path out of the mountain. then another minute or two later, her husband came walking out of the house with a shovel, and he also proceeded to help clear the snow. 

no exaggeration, at one point another neighbor came walking down the street, and we had to assure him that we did not require even more help. the cynical New Yorker in me was, naturally, disturbed by this display, which i expressed to the animator... once the helpful neighbors were gone, that is. 

me: this is why no one takes your country seriously. you're all too polite to ever be viewed as a threat. 

we switched roles, and i ended up chatting (from a safe distance, as my mask was hanging off my ear at this point) with the neighbor lady while her husband shoveled and the animator dealt with the car. turns out that she is also a New Yorker, so we proceeded to make fun of the frustration of dealing with hyper-polite Canadian drivers. 

neighbor lady: he's not allowed to drive when we're in New York. people would be honking their horn at him all the time.
me: same here. he does all the driving Upstate, and i take over when we get past Westchester. otherwise, he'd probably get us both beaten up or shot because he insists on coming to a stop when the light is still yellow. 

neighbor lady: i tell him he needs to be more of an asshole when he drives, but he doesn't listen. 

me: i say the same thing.

then we both laughed for a bit, content in our smug New York assholery. this is when i got a literal taste of Canada. 

you know that thing that happens when you hit the gas, and the tires just spin, sending a massive spray of dirty ice and snow into the air? well, i happened to be standing in the worst possible spot at that moment. when you get a mouthful, Canada tastes terrible. 

him: was it clean snow?
me: no. it was dirty brown stuff.
him: could be worse. it could have been dirty yellow stuff.  

then he had a good laugh while i stood there spitting repeatedly and wiping my face and tongue on my sleeve. 'twould seem that Karma is a canuck. 

the car was eventually clear, so we thanked the neighbors for their help, and we went for a long meandering drive to recharge the battery that had gone flat from neglect as we seldom go anywhere on account of... well, you know. 

we topped off our mini adventure with a trip through the Tim Hortons drive-thru, where i got the most Canadian flavor combo of all: a double-double and a maple donut. then we headed home. 

it is nice having neighbors who are not assholes. with any luck, Canada will one day be able to say the same.