DIARY
Gourmet
cooking, Scotch Colony style
by
Robert LaFrance
Since my wife spent the whole March
Break visiting our daughter in Calgary – and didn’t show me how to cook or even
where the stove was – I had to learn the culinary art all over again.
Proving once again that her main aim
in life is to pick on me, she not only didn’t show me where the stove was, but
she also didn’t show me (1) how to wash the dirty dishes, (2) where to put them
once I did wash them, (3) how to wash clothes before they turned green and
crumbled on my very shoulders, or (4) where she hid the vacuum cleaner.
Therefore, when she returned home
after she and our son (who lives in Woodstock) painted Calgary all colours of
the prism, she was somewhat taken aback at the sight that greeted her in our
kitchen.
“Mein gott!” she said. I knew she
had taken German in university, but that was the first time I had heard her use
it on the run, as it were. She seemed to be a little upset at the number and
amount of dirty dishes that were sitting on the counter near the kitchen sinks.
“You have outdone yourself, Bob,” she screeched, as she switched back to
English.
I had to agree. The Cirque de Soleil
people couldn’t have done a better job at balancing those china dishes atop
about fifteen layers of bowls and saucers. The upside of that was that she
could see that I (restaurants) had prepared nutritious meals. Halfway up the
stack was the remains of a poutine, a ‘food’ item that had never before come
into this house.
Long story short (as they say), she
started at the dishes before she had even unpacked her luggage. Only two and a
half hours later she was finished except for the pots and pans, and then she
went into the laundry room. I quickly made an exit. Seconds later I fancied the
building was shaking. There was a mighty roar and I retreated further into the
woods. Guess I’ll stay here until Spring.
Speaking of Spring (notice the capital or upper case
letters) the Irish know how to celebrate it.
In truth, the Irish know how to celebrate anything
and everything. March 17 being St. Patrick’s Day, it is situated at just
the right location in the calendar to celebrate the advent (so to speak) of
Spring. Those of us of Irish ancestry - I have four great-grandparents born in
Ireland - appreciate a good celebration too.
Comedian Steve Patterson, himself half Irish
ancestry, has quite a few comments about the wily Irish. He said they don’t
even know how to tell time. His friend was supposed to meet him at ‘half two’
which in Ireland (and probably England) means 2:30. He thought ‘half two’
meant, logically enough, one, and so he arrived at 1:00 pm. By the time 2:30
came around he had drunk five pints of Guinness stout and was comatose.
Speaking of excess, I was listening to one of the
commercial radio stations in Maine (not my idea, I was in a waiting room) and
learned that Canada’s favourite spoiled brat, Justin Bieber, was about to
attend a State Dinner in the White House. The word ‘gobsmacked’ would not quite
cover my reaction, nor my further reaction when the radio announcer added that
he and President O’Bama (clearly another Irish descendant) would be discussing
‘The softwood lumber issue’. What would Justin Bieber know about lumber, other
than what’s between his ears? I breathed more easily later when I learned that
President O’Bama’s visitor would not be Justin Bieber but Justin Trudeau.
Last week I visited an office in
Woodstock and was talking to my friend Mario who, by the way, doesn’t have a
brother contrary to what many people seem to think. He was saying that the
women in his office pick on him all day long, merciless in their attacks.
SallyAnn and Betty, who had heard
his comments, told me that if I was going to be in ‘the whine cellar’ for any
length of time, perhaps I would bring them up a bottle of Chateau Arthurette
1998. Ignoring them, my friend Mario pointed to a picture on a wall. It was a
farmer behind his horse that was pulling a one-furrow plough. “That’s how hard
I work without any respect,” moaned Mario.
“You see the view that farmer gets?”
said SallyAnn. “That’s the view we get here all day – no offense, Mario.”
-end-
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