Saturday 22 October 2011

Snacks Between Meals: Did You Pack a Towel?

It’s Saturday morning, and Duncan and I are alone this weekend.  Alison has taken Will to a badminton tournament in Edmonton, and I am taking Duncan to a swim meet here in Calgary.  Divide and conquer! 

When Alison is away for the weekend, as she sometimes is for events like skating competitions with her students, she usually leaves me a short checklist of reminders about the boys’ weekend activities (and the occasional errand that needs to be done). 

It’s helpful.

Earlier this week, when I went to pick up the boys from their sports practices after work, I got the usual Monday schedule a bit mixed up and kinda sorta forgot to take the older son home.  I was literally two minutes from the house when I received a call on my cell from Will, asking, “Did you leave without me?”

I turned the car around, and one hour later, I was again two minutes from our house.

If Will had called only me, this little error could have slipped under the radar and been soon forgotten.  Unfortunately, he also called his mother at work to find out how he was supposed to get home.

As I said, Alison usually leaves me a short checklist when she leaves town.  It typically looks something like this:

            10:00am          feed kids breakfast
                                   pack snacks for swim meet
                                   pack Duncan’s swim bag
            1:15pm            be at the pool for warm-ups
            6:30pm            put lasagna in the oven
            7:00pm            I’ll be home for dinner.  Love you!

But now I have proven my incompetence by abandoning a child.  (Child?  He’s fourteen!  If we were Navajo, I would have abandoned him in the middle of the desert for three days with nothing but a bag of peyote and a road-runner bladder filled with stale water…on purpose!)  The list now looks more like this:

            9:00am            wake up
            9:01am            wake up Duncan
            9:10am            get Duncan showered and dressed
            9:30am            get yourself showered and dressed
            10:00am          feed Duncan healthy breakfast
            10:30am          feed yourself healthy breakfast
            10:45am          take a pill (literally, it’s not just an expression)
            10:50am          use the bathroom
            10:57am          wipe your ass
            10:59am          wipe it again to be sure
            11:00am          pack Duncan’s swimsuit
            11:02am          pack a towel for Duncan
            11:04am          pack Duncan’s swim cap
            11:06am          did you remember the towel?
            11:08am          pack Duncan’s goggles
            11:10am          you did pack a towel, right?
            11:15am          pack a healthy snack for Duncan with fruit
            11:16am          but no bananas; he doesn’t like bananas
            12:45pm          leave for pool
            1:00pm            get out of car and lock it
            1:02pm            I didn’t hear the beep.  Are you sure you locked it?
            1:15pm            warmups start
            5:30pm            DON’T FORGET TO BRING DUNCAN HOME WITH YOU
6:30pm            locate lasagna in the garage freezer, set oven to…you know what, never mind, I’ll prepare something when I get home.

This would be humiliating enough by itself, but Alison also told her mother that I forgot to pick up Will.  So, when I saw Duncan’s grandparent’s last night, my mother-in-law reminded me no fewer than four times to pack a towel for her grandson.  Then she called me again this morning to remind me one last time.  Just to be safe.

Uh oh, it’s 10:52!  Hold on, I’ll be back in 7-10 minutes.  Talk amongst yourselves.

….

OK, I’m back.  In hindsight, I probably should have moved that item before my shower, but it may take a few weeks before I earn back the privilege to improvise.

Really, you would think instead of leaving Will at the Sports Club, I had tossed him into a dumpster filled with used meth needles, barely slowing down the car as I passed the dark alley where it was located.  It wasn’t even some roadside truck-stop, which is exactly where we misplaced my sister when she was about 7 years old.

It was one of those long, hot Gregson road-trips that were always accompanied by the smell of vomit and apple juice.  (Gregsons are notoriously prone to motion-sickness.)  We had made one of our many pit-stops for gas and Hostess fruit pies (possibly a catalyst for the motion-sickness), and when we were ready to pull our van away and hit the highway, my parents performed the ritual roll call.  They asked for six names and got six replies, but they didn’t know that someone had answered on Daina’s behalf.  Daina, who was still in the truck-stop washroom.

As you know, I don’t have a friendly relationship with pickup truck drivers.  My dad had similar issues with semi-truck drivers.  It was a rare road-trip when the Gregsons weren’t almost run off the road by a careless – or homicidal – driver at the wheel of a Mac truck.  So, when we heard the roaring acceleration of a quickly approaching 18-wheeler, we got a bit nervous.  When it pulled up beside us to match our pace and started blasting its horn, well, we all assumed well-practiced crash positions.  I think it was Shaunie who first found the courage to lift her gaze and exclaim, “Look, Dad, there’s a little girl in that truck who looks just like Daina!”

I suppose what bothers me most is that I only forgot our son the one time (and not on the side of the road in the middle of Idaho), and my credibility is completely shot.  Sure, there was the other time when I forgot to pick up both kids, but that was a completely different situation.  If they had truly been orphaned and abandoned, there is always a better chance they’ll be adopted together if they are found together.


Wednesday 12 October 2011

Boogies Burgers

We just had Canadian Thanksgiving, and what am I thankful for?  Pumpkin pie.  And especially the person who invented pumpkin pie.  Have you ever carved a jack-o-lantern and seen what's inside those things?  Never in a million years would I have thought, "Mmm mm, all this needs is some crust and a bit of nutmeg!"  Like that guy who first bit into a lobster, we are indebted to another pioneer who took what must have seemed like a really bad idea and instead enriched our palates.  Sadly, the same can't be said for the poor bastard who tried to create chocolate-covered wasps.  Some ideas that seem dumb at the time actually are.

Since it was Thanksgiving, the kids had a four-day weekend, and they came by the office on Friday for lunch.  It had been quite a while since we had gone to a great burger joint on Edmonton Trail, and even then, only Alison and I had eaten there before.  This would be the first time our boys had tried Boogies Burgers.

I can see where your mind is headed already.  Don't worry.  After ruining everyone's appetite last time with tales of grilled gonads, I'm not going to give in to the too-easy jokes that Boogies Burgers' name suggests.  There will be no discussions of nose goblins, snotcicles, nostril bungies, sinus dwellers, Kleenex caulking, nasal discharge, mucus, phlegm, or loogies.

This is a respectable blog, and I'm above all that.

So, back to the tragically named restaurant.  From their name displayed in hippy-chic stained glass to the vintage '80s tabletop video games (including, appropriately, Burger Time!), Boogies Burgers has a retro, counterculture atmosphere.  The counterculture cred mostly makes itself known through a variety of posters and prints scattered across the restaurant's walls, decrying the oppression of "The Man".  In Boogies Burger's case, they are very specific about who "The Man" is.  They have a real beef with a very famous ginger who has a predilection for wearing yellow jumpsuits and way too much makeup, the clown-prince of secret sauce (still not a mucus reference) himself, Ronald McDonald.



Boogies Burgers' belief that there is nothing happy about a meal at McDonalds must be based on a general disdain for corporate franchises, because it can't have anything to do with concerns around healthy eating.  Boogies (can I call you Boogies?) has a four-patty monstrosity called, ironically, the "Don't Fear the Reaper" burger that is "garnished" with a butterflied hotdog wiener, four slices of bacon, a fried egg (pure genius!), and is topped off with a mini corndog protruding from the bun like a deep-fried periscope.

And, no, that's not what I ordered.  Should I decide to commit meat-induced suicide, I'm going to really make it count at one of the local all-you-can-eat Brazilian barbecue places with all of those varieties of skewered meats.  Bet on it: if I'm leaving this world in a restaurant, I'm taking at least four animals with me.

Instead, I ordered the Sam's Burger (and added a couple of strips of bacon).  It also has a fried egg, but just one patty.  Besides the fried egg, this burger features another unique ingredient: Boogie's signature red sauce.  This is not to be confused with the Two Sisters' red sauce; the Two Sisters' version is a creole-style condiment and is definitely red.  Boogie's variety is a sweet sauce, a variation of the classic burger sauce, and is a lot closer to yellow and orange than red. 

Alison had a Fay's Burger (mushrooms and grilled onions), Will had Jebb's Burger (bacon and butterflied hotdog wiener), and Duncan chose the aptly named Pizza Burger.  Even at one patty each, these were still difficult to finish in one sitting, and we probably didn't need to order quite so many Spicy Fries.  But we hunkered down and devoured our burgers completely, except for Duncan who had half of his put into a doggie bag.  The boys were heading straight to their sports activities from Boogies, so I took Duncan's leftovers to my office to keep in the fridge until the end of my work day.  Unfortunately, I "accidently" forgot to bring it home. 

Don't tell Duncan, but it still tasted pretty good three days later.


My only complaint about Boogies is the price; I expect it to cost more than Mickey D's, but three times as much!  Burgers, fries, and soft drinks for a family of four should not cost over $40.   That hurt my feelings (and my wallet) a bit, but Boogies redeemed itself as we headed out the door.  Posted at the exit was the following sign: 


Help Wanted: P/T Experienced Cook.  Must love bacon & hugs.  Flakes and cat people need not apply.

Anyone who knows me knows I'm not a big fan of cats.  Actually, let me rephrase that: I hate cats.  (I typically describe a good time as being "more fun than a room full of cats and a glue gun.")  No, there isn't some deeply buried, traumatic experience from my childhood involving a feline pet, just a mild allergy.  So, I suppose what really bothers me is the effect they have on many people.  Remember when I mentioned in a previous blog entry that some people seem to crave an unhealthy relationship in their life, and many find it with cats?  I wasn't kidding.  As evidence, let's compare cat owners to dog owners:
  • Whenever you see a dog food commercial, the actor playing the dog owner always talks about shiny coats and healthy teeth.  But in cat commercials, the owner talks about how fussy their cat is, how it destroys furniture and clothing, how fickle and aloof their pet is; and they act grateful for this behaviour, because it's the only attention they're gonna get from the little beast!
  • No-one ever talks about the crazy dog lady; when the neighbours detect a funny smell wafting from next door, the paramedics never walk in to find thirty semi-feral dogs feasting on their dear owner's corpse (which is still clutching an electric can-opener and a half-opened can of Fancy Feast).  I've also noticed that it's never a crazy cat man, either, but I'm not going to say anything more about that. 
  • Historically, cats have been reviled.  The proof?  When someone is trying to solve a difficult problem, what is the old saying?  "There's more than one way to skin a cat."  And do people cross themselves and faint to hear him say this?  No, of course not.  Instead, they nod and mutter, "Yes, that sounds reasonable."
  • A hot dog is a good thing (especially with sauerkraut), and is respected for its quiet humility. But a cat in heat is a screeching, howling banshee that can strain the patience of even the most ardent cat lover.
As it turns out, cat people can't be held completely responsible for their co-dependent behaviour.  There is growing evidence that cats carry a parasite (no, not another cat, but a much smaller parasite) that usually only affects rodents, making them inexplicably attracted to the cat, overcoming any sense of self-preservation they might normally have around pussy-footed predators.  The same research implies that some humans (who carry the recessive "little old lady" gene) are similarly affected by this toxoplasm.  It would seem that common side effects also include shawl fetishes and an irrational affection for the British royal family.

Well, there we go, parasites and toxoplasm.  And here you were worried I'd mention boogers.




Wednesday 5 October 2011

Spicy Hut

Sometimes you are better off not knowing where your food comes from.  As an example, if you didn't know what prairie oysters were, you could be forgiven for actually enjoying them.  "Oooh, dumplings!  I love dumplings!"  Yeah right, dumplings.  As in "Billy ain't feeling so good, Coach.  I think he got kicked in the dumplings."

I dated a farmer's daughter in high school (don't freak out, I was in high school, too) who had a younger brother who loved to fry up and eat prairie oysters; they gave off an unwholesome smell as they popped and danced on the frying pan.  To me, it just seemed like he was betraying his entire gender, and (I could be remembering this wrong) I recall him smacking his lips like Hannibal Lector right before "digging in".  The testicular origins of prairie oysters are bad enough, but I also found it disturbing that this culinary abomination is taken from a live bull.  No, I'm not squeamish about the fact that meat comes from animals.  I know that some people feel that killing ol' Bessie by driving a steel rod through its barely active brain is somehow inhumane, but I'm fairly certain that no cow has ever left this earth regretting all the things it never got to do because its rich life was cut so tragically short. Besides, you can't use lethal injection; it leaves a metallic aftertaste. 

But I do feel there something intrinsically disturbing about eating a still living animal one part at a time.  You can't just go out and and take a cheese grater to an alive-and-kicking Wilbur every time you crave a fresh BLT.  And you can't treat a bull's wiggly bits like low-hanging fruit on a live tree.  It's just plain wrong.

You know what, I may have ruined your appetite for anything I had hoped to recommend.  That's okay.  If you need to step away for a moment, I'll understand and save your place.  When you return, I promise to stop talking about bovine grape-smugglers.

So, as I said before, sometimes you are better off not knowing where your food comes from, and that can include restaurants.  When we used to live in Calgary's Little Italy - Bridgeland, - we had many places to go out and enjoy excellent food.  But there were at least a couple of places that usually came to us.  One was a pizza joint called Peppino Pizza that would only deliver.  Once, we tried to locate them to see where the pizzas came from, but we could only narrow it down to either a bus shelter or a chiropractic office.  My theory is that they were actually located underground, the pizza was baked by hideous Morlocks, and it was delivered by an adult human pet they raised from a baby they stole from a self-absorbed mother who parked her stroller outside a LuLuLemon while trying on age-inappropriate yoga pants.

The other restaurant, one of my favourite places on Earth, does have tables, but we started out only ordering takeout or delivery.  The place is classically dingy, its walls decorated with chair scuffs and Asian souvenirs made out of discolored plastic.  I can't say I ever found the idea of dining in to be very inviting.  In fact, it was nearly three years before we decided to reserve a table and try their food served apart from a styrofoam container.  After taking in the atmosphere and the state of the restrooms, and after sitting funny all evening to avoid the soy sauce stains on the chairs, it was another four years before I went back to dine-in at Spicy Hut.  (Alison has yet to return, even after the family who owns the place finally renovated it and made it almost presentable.)  And yet, we continue to order take-out from Spicy Hut every New Years Eve and a few times in between.  I think this is a textbook example of cognitive dissonance, which is Latin for "out of sight, out of mind".  The food is just that good.

Spicy Hut is, as the name implies, not for the faint of heart nor for the low on Tums.  Our kids call it Spicy Butt, not just because it sounds funny, but also because of the damage it does the following day.  

It seems that human beings need to have at least one unhealthy relationship in their lives.  That's why some women date chain-smoking roadies for AC/DC cover bands.  That's why some movie directors continue to hire Lindsey Lohan.  And that's why some people own cats. However, the Gregson clan (Calgary chapter) loves spicy food, even when it doesn't love them back.  Yes, even when he promises he will never hurt them again but comes home the following weekend drunk and angry, pounding on the warped and yellowed door of their double-wide trailer with his grease-stained fists because he can't find his keys and someone has blocked the door from the inside with the beer fridge, praying he'll black-out before he forces his way in.  (Sorry, I think this metaphor just got away from me.)  

Let's just say that the low point of my spice addiction (my "less than zero" moment, if you will) involved a fried shrimp Po' Boy sandwich, a literal wall of hot sauces, and me leaving permanent finger-shaped marks on the tiles of the bathroom wall at 3:00am.

My grandmother would often scold us for adding so much heat to our meals, claiming, "You are ruining your tastebuds!"  That might be true; I've reached the point that I can't even feel anything less than 50,000 on the Scoville scale, but it is a craving that is hard-wired into the Gregson genes.  I remember when Will was only three and I had brought home a sushi bento for my lunch.  He had already finished his Kraft Dinner, but he was fascinated by this Japanese concoction of raw fish, rice, and, of particular interest...wasabi!  Will asked to try some of the green mustardy horseradish, and I told him it was much too hot for him.  He continued to watch, and giggled every time the wasabi's effect went up my nose and made me convulse and writhe in my chair like I had just received a wet-willy from Newt Gingrich.  He asked again to try some.  His mother, being uncomfortable watching her baby boys suffer, knew what was coming next and left the room.  I warned Will again of the powerful effects of even a small amount, but he still insisted.  So I scooped out a pea-sized portion, handed him the spoon, and he popped it in his mouth.  For a brief moment, there was no reaction.  Then his eyebrows disappeared into his hairline.  As the panic began to build, he turned red, then purple, and tears began to flood from his eyes.  I was on the verge of panicking myself when he appeared to stop breathing altogether.  But after a heartbeat or two, he caught his breath and, in a tiny pleading voice, said only one word:

"More!"

It was one of the proudest days of my life.

Spicy Hut, with its fusion of Thai and Peking cooking styles, satisfies our spice addiction on many levels.  They have several curry-sauced dishes in all three major colors (red, green, and classic yellow) as well as many pepper-based (black and chili) items.  They also have one of the few soups I honestly look forward to eating (drinking?).  Generally, I find soup to be a  Dickensian meal-replacement, not an actual meal, just a couple steps ahead of those chalk-flavoured Slim-Fast shakes.  I need food that requires chewing.  If I can't put it in my mouth and shake it around like a Care Bear in the teeth of a 2-month-old Rottweiller, I'm usually not interested.  But Spicy Hut makes a perfect Tom Yum Goong soup, which is basically a bowl of lime-kissed liquid fire.  A word of advice: if you order a large take-out tub for sharing back home, don't be the last one to get your cup-full unless you don't have anywhere important to go the following day.  The last serving always gets all of the chilli pepper seeds that sunk to the bottom, and you will be delayed leaving the house the next morning.

Spicy Hut also makes the best Ginger Beef I have found anywhere.  If you aren't already familiar with the stuff, Ginger Beef isn't (strictly speaking) Thai or Peking.  In fact, it's Calgarian cuisine.  (I kid you not.  Look it up!)  Typically, at most restaurants it's pretty soggy as it has probably been soaking in its cloudy brownish sauce since last Tuesday.  But Spicy Hut uses a clear version of the sweet and spicy sauce that features more peppers than the average variety, and they also wait until they serve it before adding the sauce to keep the fried beef crispy.  If you order delivery or take-out, they even package the sauce in a separate container to prevent mushifying in transit.  (Another word of advice: if you get take-out, always check to be sure they included the sauce.  Getting home for New Years Eve with an order of Spicy Hut that included sauceless Ginger Beef ruined the entire 2009 calendar year for our family.)

I've also eaten lunch at Spicy Hut many times, and I highly recommend going with a few friends (or reasonably tolerable co-workers) and each ordering a different version of the lunch special.  It comes with a spring roll, rice, one of of four different soups (don't be afraid, get the Tom Yum Goong), and a choice of 5 different entrees.  The entrees still arrive on separate plates as if you had ordered them a la carte, so you can share each other's selections.  However, if there are more than three of you together, make sure two of you order the Ginger Beef so you have enough to satisfy everyone.  When fights break out over the last strip of beef, it always ends with someone getting poked in the eye with a chopstick.