Snacks Between Meals: Death Au Gratin

I have come to the realization that I might be giving everyone the impression that I spend most of my days, and even some nights, doing nothing but dwelling on the horrors of mortality.  That’s not true.  In fact, I can sometimes be quite positive about death.  Being raised a Mormon, I actually learned to recognize funerals, an event where everyone in attendance is forcefully reminded of their own "best before" dates, as a time to celebrate.  My siblings and I would often even look forward to funerals.  Was this because of the comforting words that came from the pulpit, the strong religious belief in a life after death, an eternity spent basking in the presence of God?  Was it the assurance of a paradisiacal world that awaits the righteous, a world without pain, sickness, or suffering?  Was it the promise of a heavenly reunion with all of your departed loved ones?

Nah, it was the funeral potatoes.

What are funeral potatoes, you ask?  Well, let me first give you a culinary glimpse into the kind of subculture that evolves when a society doesn't have extramarital sex, alcohol, or HBO to keep it occupied.

I think the psychological term is called sublimation.  Everyone needs a vice.  For some it's smoking, for others it's $10 hookers.  And for many it's an addiction to watching professional dancers dumb-down their art so that their recently-released-from-rehab C-list celebrity partners can stumble through 3 minutes of whoring for an additional 15 minutes of fame on a reality TV show.  Okay, not so different from the $10 hookers after all.

For many Mormons (at least the ones who haven't admitted to discovering free porn on the Internet), they have transferred their more carnal desires into food.  That's why I don't attend church anymore; much as I try, I can't maintain the minimum weight requirement.

And it's not just any food - sure, who doesn't love barbecue, fresh lobster, or a plate of perfectly sauced home-made pasta; these are givens - no, Mormons, much like their mortal enemies, Southern Baptists, have refined two of the three core food groups of church potlucks into something that exists between alchemy and art.  Of course, we're talking about casseroles and Jell-O salads.

By the way, if you are wondering what the third food group is, it's dip.  Dip has been a popular staple of potlucks for decades, but it didn't really come to prominence at church events until Mrs. Edna Lovely Pennybacker realized she had used all of her serving bowls to separate and store her scrap-booking supplies and, out of desperation, carved a bowl from of a stale round of bread to hold her trademark spinach dip.  She even tried to hide what she had done by stacking the tiny fistfuls (she had very small hands) of bread innards around the bowl, and she served it with a beautifully arranged selection of fancy crackers (savory biscuits, not uppity rednecks) to scoop up her dip.  So imagine her surprise when members of the church choir (always the first to the buffet table) ignored her Ritz and Bretons wreath and started dunking the chunks of bread into the dip.  Some even started tearing pieces of bread out of the bowl itself! 

The rest is potluck history. 

Sitting at the top of the potluck food chain, well above pineapple encrusted Jell-O molds and lemon squares dusted with powdered sugar, is the dish known as funeral potatoes.  As I understand it, the ingredients are simply a bag of frozen hashbrowns, cheddar cheese, sour cream, corn flakes, and cream of mushroom soup. (I've heard that only 2% of canned soups sold in Utah ever actually become a bowl of soup; it seems that every casserole recipe in the state begins with the phrase "One can of Campbell's...".  Fancy recipes start with "Two cans of Campbell's...".)  Brigham only knows what the pioneers must have eaten on their long journey west to settle by the Great Salt Lake before the invention of can openers.

Yet, in spite of its humble ingredients, funeral potatoes are truly greater than the sum of its parts and have somehow become as integral to Mormon funerals as organ music and pregnant mourners.  So long as the deceased wasn't someone I knew too well (a second cousin usually fit the bill; I had hundreds of those), I would eagerly put on my Sunday best on a Saturday afternoon, knowing what I would soon find in its customary place between plates of rolled cold cuts and bowls of cottage cheese a la Mandarin orange slices, keeping itself warm under a thin veil of aluminum foil.  Sure, funeral potatoes would sometimes appear at wedding receptions and church picnics, but they always tasted best under the pall of death.

For my entire childhood, I assumed we had coined the casserole's morbid moniker ourselves in our small town of Cardston.  Turns out the name was so well known throughout  the wider Mormon subculture that a collectible pin was fashioned in shape of a baking pan filled with funeral potatoes for the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics in 2002.  Even outside the cloistered LDS community, others (gentiles, heathens, philistines...pick your favorite) have begun to discover and share this culinary treasure.  I once saw Nigella Lawson, celebrity British cook and naughty kitchen goddess (there's something about the way she uses her hands to blend ingredients and kneed dough that is borderline obscene; she's like a cross between your childhood friend's hot mom and Chef Boyardee...but in a good way.)  Anyway, I watched her describe and prepare funeral potatoes on international television.  She even used the proper name!

Yep, after a long hiatus since the cancellation of the Donny & Marie show, latter day saints are returning to the cultural zeitgeist.  I can only imagine what we might witness next.  Maybe a broadway musical about the Book of Mormon?

Nah.

Bolero

I have long held a grudge against the Brazilian people for introducing string bikinis to geriatric Germans.

When you are lying on your stomach to work on bronzing your back, and your exposed buttocks look like two unbaked dinner rolls that flew out of the Pillsbury tube and landed in the sink when you struck it too hard against your kitchen counter, well….it’s time to get a proper swimsuit.  A bikini bottom should never require more string than a yo-yo factory in order to make it all the way through the valley between Mt. Rodgers and Mt. Hammerstein (“The hills are alive..!”), just to reappear some yards later attached to a tentative triangle of cloth in the front as a nod to the wearer’s long-dead dignity.

But I have now chosen to forgive.

This is in no small way due to another gift the Brazilians have given the world, a gift of inspiration, a gift of good taste: churrasco, also known as all-you-can-eat rodizio-style barbecue!

Alison and Duncan were in Edmonton for a swim meet (Duncan was doing the swimming, in case you were wondering) for the weekend, so Will and I decided to make a reservation at Bolero, a churrascaria located in Calgary.  Will is now at an age where all-you-can-eat is a lifestyle, not merely a menu choice.  With the more delicate constitutions out of town, it seemed to be a good opportunity to check it out.

If you haven’t been to a restaurant specializing in Brazilian barbecue, this is how it works: at your table you have a little red, yellow, and green “widget”.  If you turn it to have the green end at the top, your table will be visited by a...server?...no, that’s not right.  Oh, I know: your table will be visited by the “meat fairy”.  The meat fairy carries an oversized skewer of, you guessed it, meat balanced on a wooden base.  In the meat fairy’s other hand is a large knife that is used to peel off slices of animal flesh in a similar fashion to those guys in donair shops.  So long as you keep the green side up, more meat fairies with a dizzyingly variety of protein will appear.  This will continue until you either turn the widget to red or begin to shake and perspire from a bad case of the meat sweats (also known amongst carnivores as an “epic win”).

After seeing the racks and racks of skewers (16 varieties!) in a restaurant like Bolero, one can be forgiven for believing the Last Days are finally here.  How does that prophecy go?  “And the lion shall lie down with the lamb.”  Okay, Bolero didn’t serve lion, but broiling side by side in a culinary demonstration of inter-species harmony, there was  lamb, beef, chicken, pork, and even pineapple!  Yes, when pineapple is elevated to the same status as meat, the Second Coming can’t be far behind. 

Bolero probably has the loneliest salad bar in Calgary.  When you’ve paid $40 to eat all the meat you can, you don’t want to waste too much space on...(shiver)...vegetation.  Actually, the salad bar was pretty swanky and had a nice selection of foodie items like fennel salad, grilled asparagus and sweet coconut rice.  I tried about a tablespoon of most of the choices available, giving me some variety of flavour between visits from the “meat fairies”.

Overall, most of the rotisserie meat varieties were quite good.  (Strangely, the filet mignon was our least favourite.  I'm not sure what was done to it, but it tasted almost "gamey".)  I preferred the picanha, which is supposed to be an inferior cut to the filet mignon but suited me much better, especially when prepared with garlic and parmesan.  Will particularly enjoyed the linguica, a nicely spiced Brazilian pork sausage.

There is a widely circulated theory that Ravel's famous orchestral piece, Bolero (which is basically just a fifteen-minute crescendo ending with a raucous climax), is a metaphor for...ahem...the sexual act.  Personally, I think Ravel was inspired to write it as a cautionary tale after he tried to eat 80 francs worth of meat at a Paris churrascaria.  It's a different kind of build-up to be sure.  

Just don't try to think too much about what the release at the end of the piece represents; it's even more unpleasant than the more commonly accepted theory.

Snacks Between Meals: Where in the World is Darin Gregson?

I’m sure all of my readers (all four of you) noticed that I have been silent for several weeks now.  I feel I owe you an explanation.

I have been recovering from a sudden health “crisis”.  It kept me away from work for a full month, but it didn’t really allow me to use the time to be very productive at home. If it sounds to you like I’m being evasive about the details of my condition, you are very perceptive.  It really took the mickey out of me, and I’m not quite ready to go into the specifics.  Maybe there is a superstitious part of me buried deep beneath the layers of sediment and skepticism that is worried I might invoke disaster by speaking its name.  Call it my Voldermort moment.  Someday, I might view things more irreverently and joke about it on the blog, but that post will have to wait awhile.

(Oh, and for those keeping score at home, I will tell you this much: it had nothing to do with my kidneys.  ‘Cuz that stuff was hilarious.)

My doctor approved me to return to work as of about 2 weeks ago, and I’m feeling more than 90% restored to normalcy, but I don’t mind saying that a month laid-up with a disabling illness made me carefully consider my own mortality.

Who am I kidding?  I’m a Gregson.  We spend half our waking hours silently railing against our inevitable demises.  You should see our family crest.  Against a tartan background, it features the Grim Reaper trying to reach the original Son of Greg with its scythe while my ancestor lies in his death-bed, legs raised in air and kicking frantically at the Angel of Death.  (I don’t know who the artist was, but he really captured the supreme exasperation on Death’s bony face.  Greg Jr., and every Gregson since, would happily surrender dignity for a few extra minutes in this mortal coil.) 

Actually, when I think about it, my recent brooding about my eventual “lateness” started a couple of months before my disability leave.  I was reading The Lord of the Rings for the fourth time when…sorry, what?…yes, I said fourth time.  I know, I know, that brings me perilously close to being a punchline on a sitcom like The Big Bang Theory, but it’s not as bad as it sounds.  I first read it when I was 12 (that’s decades ago!), once more for a university English class, and once more before the movies came out.  But I have never written my full name in Dwarven runes, I have never removed chest hair only to tape it to the tops of my feet, and I couldn’t tell a silmaril from a smial if the entire fate of Middle-Earth depended on it.  (Also, I have never been able to remain conscious trying to get through Tolkien’s exhaustive and exhausting Appendices.  Truly obsessive fans have them highlighted using at least three fluorescent colours.  Mine are only marked with dried puddles of drool.)

I just happen to enjoy the books.

However, when I recently turned the final page at the end of The Return of the King, I realized that this was my fourth and (gasp!) final time I would read the trilogy.  Sure, nothing is stopping me if I want to pick them up again, but I don’t want to.  At least not until after 75 years or so, when I have forgotten enough to make them fresh again.  I have to face it: I don’t have that kind of time left.

This realization of course led me to consider other “lasts” ahead of me: last screenings of my favourite movies, my last ride around Echo Lake on a waterski, the last healthy follicle on my failing scalp, and worst of all, my last bite of solid food.  It’s all very depressing.

You know what, it may only be 2:00 on a Saturday afternoon, but if you need me, I’ll be in bed curled up in a fetal position, slowly rocking back-and-forth with the covers over my head.  That is, unless my health takes a sudden dramatic turn for the worse.  Then I’ll have my legs in the air, kicking like my life depends on it.

Raw Bar

Christmas means different things to different people.  Some traditions and memories belong to a collective experience that, with the briefest mention, much of the population can relate to and fill in remarkably similar details.  Stockings, shortbread cookies, inedible fruitcakes, turkey leftovers, and crying babies on the knee of a mall Santa.  Just to name a few.

Then there are Christmas trappings that are somewhat more unique.  For my family that has included things such as lobster, home-made root beer, new pajamas on Christmas Eve, piñata parties, and vomiting.

Yes, I said vomiting.

(Before I go any further, I want to assure you that this is not meant to be reflection on the Raw Bar.  As far as I know, no-one threw up at the Raw Bar when we had breakfast there, but the events leading up to Alison and I having breakfast there are relevant.  Stay tuned.)

One of the early beginnings of this unpleasant Gregson Christmas tradition has been recorded on film.  Long before the invention of video cameras, my dad would capture our holidays on good old-fashioned 8mm film.  This would require some setup, including some very powerful lighting.  On Christmas morning, my siblings and I would wait anxiously at the bottom of the stairs while our father arranged his lights and camera.  It couldn’t have taken more than a few minutes to prep, but it was an unbearably long wait for pre-teen kids.  By the time we were allowed to climb out of the basement, Jeff and I were starting to fight, Brent was burning off nervous energy leaping from one piece of furniture to another, and my sisters had tears in their eyes from giggling like a pair of hysterical stoners.  (Sorry, Ryan, you weren’t born yet.) 

Finally, the main floor of our house vanished in a flood of blinding white light, our signal to ascend the stairs, and we entered the celestial glow with one arm outstretched to feel for the last step of the stairs and the other shielding our eyes like Richard Dreyfus entering the mothership at the end of Close Encounters of the Third Kind.  We moved slowly, tentatively reaching out for furniture and adult relatives to guide our way, being very careful not to brush up against the floodlight.  (That thing could burn off a layer of skin with the slightest touch; the fact that none of us were permanently scarred is nothing short of a Christmas miracle.)

One particular year, when Jeff and I were still only about 6 and 7 years-old respectively, we must have waited a moment or two too long on the basement landing, because we were positively vibrating by the time our vision cleared and we saw what Santa had brought us.

On the DVD (transferred from the original 8mm film), you can see Jeff and I in matching PJs (his blue and mine brown, as usual) standing on the step leading to our sunken living room.  There is an identical expression on both of our faces, something between rapture and distress.

Then, suddenly, there is an abrupt cut in the film, and a few minutes of missing footage that was likely excised for the benefit of viewers with weak constitutions.

Now we see Jeff and I standing on the same step, each of us sporting a large wet spot on the front of our pajama tops.  And thus a tradition begins.

(I’m a bit sorry the actual event has become a deleted scene; according to our parents, we tossed our Christmas cookies simultaneously with a precision that would have made an Eastern Bloc synchronized swim team proud.)

Anyway, once doesn’t a tradition make, so many yuletides followed that reinforced the importance of not swallowing large pieces of candy cane (in case they need to make the return trip).  I even remember one year when our paternal grandfather, Papa G, stepped up when all of his grandkids appeared to be keeping down their Christmas spirit.  Of course, I think his bout was flu-related and not brought on by too many Linzer Schnittens or too much excitement.  And, making the next generation proud, my sons have found several opportunities to spread a bit of Christmas cheer around our home and vehicles over the years.  Just a few days ago, Will ate too much heavily-spiced Thai food on New Year’s Eve and cauterized his sinuses with the Spicy Hut take-out that revisited him like a vengeful Ghost of Christmas Past.

I always thought this was a relatively unusual way for my family to greet the season, but then I started attending company Christmas parties (now more commonly known as non-denominational “winter” or “holiday” parties.)  These events rarely have open bars - due to liability issues - but alcohol is typically sold at greatly discounted prices, and let’s just say that “other duties as assigned” takes on a whole new meaning when you are helping your manager by holding her hair.  (No, I didn’t have to hold my manager’s hair; he couldn’t make it to our most recent Holiday Celebration and besides, he keeps his hair very short.)

You would think this type of behaviour would be frowned upon at corporate gatherings, but it is actually expected.  So much so that the CEO and other executives made themselves scarce well before things really got going.  I think it’s called “plausible deniability”.  I’m sure many of our employees are very grateful for the consideration, especially that one guy who was carried out by four of his co-workers and dumped unceremoniously into the back of an awaiting cab.  I knew he was headed for trouble when I ran into him earlier in the evening and he tried to hug me.  Everybody in our company knows I don’t do hugs.

My company's party was hosted by Hotel Arts, a very funky downtown establishment that decorates its lobby and halls with retro-chic furniture, original artwork, and handblown glass light fixtures.  They put on a great Christmas buffet that finished with Egg Nog Creme Brulee served in individual wonton spoons.  (Yes, it is definitely possible to stack five spoons so you only have to make one trip to the dessert table.)

As guests attending the party, we were also offered a special room rate if we wanted to spend the night.  (This was presumably offered as an alternative to waking up in a pool of "frankincense and myrrh" on the backseat floor of a moving taxi.)  Alison and I didn’t need to stay for that reason, but we like the hotel’s modern, Bauhaus-inspired rooms; and our boys were having a sleepover at their grandparents. 

The hotel also has a couple of restaurants/bars onsite, and the Raw Bar, done up like a muted version of an Austin Powers set, serves breakfast.  Our expectations were high based on the meal the previous evening and the tastefully fun decor, but we were unfortunately disappointed.  The thin layer of Hollandaise sauce on the Eggs Benedict was dried up like the filmy stuff on a paint can lid, and the egg yolks were overcooked.  Also, the Montreal smoked meat (a thick slice of ham) on mine overpowered the rest of the ingredients.  Alison had Raw Bar's vegetarian version; we traded one English muffin’s worth with each other as we typically do, but my wife quickly repossessed her half after tasting mine.  On the side, the thickly cut hashbrowns were okay, but nothing special. 

Breakfast didn’t spoil our stay at Hotel Arts, but it did border on the anticlimactic.  It’s just a good thing I didn’t get overly excited looking forward to our morning meal.  It certainly wasn’t worth tasting twice.

Snacks Between Meals: Merry Christmas 2011

Snacks Between Meals: Kill the Wabbit

I just spent a full day at a Calgary elementary school, and I am exhausted.  I was there to talk to 9 classes (ranging from Grade 1 to Grade 5) about the music I am writing for their school’s opera.  

What’s that?  You look surprised.  Doesn’t your local elementary school perform operas?  Oh, I see, that’s not what surprised you.  It’s that I am writing an opera.  Yes, well, nobody’s more incredulous about that than me.
 
You see, Calgary Opera has a program where they select a couple of schools a year and have a librettist write an operatic tale based on ideas suggested by the children.  (Which is why this particular opera will feature a giant marauding taco and an evil conniving henchman...who also happens to be a chipmunk.  I can’t make up stuff this crazy.)  Then a composer (that’s me) is tasked with putting music to the words, while also spending five days with the children in their music classes to discuss composition techniques.  Finally, a director is brought in to, well,....duh, direct.
 
Now I’m not sure what the kids learned from my first visit, but here is what I learned:
 
1)    In large groups, 1st Graders smell funny.
 
2)    Contrary to what I have always believed, a six-year-old informed me that tacos are not from Mexico.  They are from Taco Bell.
 
3)    The kids must not think much of the moral character of their music teacher, Mrs. Miller, because they seem to assume that any strange man they find in their music room is her boyfriend.  Actually, Mrs. Miller responded better to that accusation than to the one little boy who asked if I was her son.  (Ouch.)
 
4)    Hands are NOT for hitting.  I knew this, but it didn’t hurt to have posters on every other wall to remind me.

 
5)    Elementary schools (at least this one, anyway) have found a way to conserve water, keep drinking fountain line-ups moving, and probably reduce student requests to use the washroom in the middle of class.  When I went to get a drink of water between classes, there was a seven-year-old sentry posted at the water fountain.  I patiently waited in line (I could have simply started picking up kids and tossing them out of the way, but I really do want to get paid for this job), and when my turn arrived, I crouched in half to reach the water and started drinking.  I had barely finished my first slurp when I heard the little girl next to the fountain say,
 

“One, two, three.  That’s good enough for me.  Now move it, mister!”

 
You know what, water coming back out of your nose is no less uncomfortable when you are hunched over.

The Bear's Den

If I felt I was misled by the Bon Ton Meat Market's name, I was completely deceived by the Bear's Den.  Go ahead.  Take a moment to visualize what a restaurant called the Bear's Den is supposed to look like.  My first thoughts drifted to something like the Water Buffalo Lodge, with a large rec center-style room filled with middle-aged men in silly hats.  Then I adjusted my thinking to a burger and ribs joint with Bud Lite neon signs and guillotined wildlife mounted on the walls; and an exclusively meat and starch menu served by a heavy-set biker-chic waitress with an uncomfortably visible skull & roses tattoo on her left breast.

I couldn't have been more wrong.  (Actually, that's not entirely true: our server was heavy-set but opted for an air of mystique and left it to my imagination whether or not there were any tats on his breasts.)

The Bear's Den is instead a beautiful restaurant with some of the finest dining I have encountered in the Calgary area.  It just happens to have a terrible name.  (The prize for the absolute worst name for a restaurant, however, is still safely held by a chain in Utah and Idaho called Chuck-a-Rama.  What the hell were they thinking?)  

The only concession to its name are enormous bas-relief (yes, my arts degree has finally paid for itself!) scenes covering 75% of the Bear's Den's walls.  However, instead of Greek gods getting jiggy with their half-sisters or wrestling naked with serpents, the subjects are all Canadian wildlife, a wink and a nod to the deer and moose busts I had originally envisioned.  If I were a real food critic, I'd call the rest of the decor warm, rich, and luxurious.  Instead, I think I'll just go with "uber-swanky".  The ceiling is at least twenty feet high and is adorned with dark wood - not garishly painted furnace plumbing - which helps to keep sound reflections to a minimum.  This, combined with tables that are spaced far enough apart to park several baby strollers in between (and yet there are none to be found!) makes for a very quiet environment that is ideal for conversation.

We left the Heir and the Spare at home and were joined by Karen and Heary, so conversation was fortunately more varied than junior high report cards and lost swimming goggles.  In fact, it took a turn into the bizarre when Heary, a drama professor, told us about having to research Nigerian theatre for a graduate class.  It was particularly strange because I just so happen to have a contact in the Nigerian government!  Finance Minister Paul Agabi must have stumbled across my blog and liked it so much that he recently reached out to me to help him with disbursing unclaimed government funds that were just lying around, going to waste.  My fee will be a small percentage of the total amount, an amount that exceeds $40 million!  Even with a modest cut of 1%, I'll get enough to pay off our mortgage and turn the entire backyard into an indoor pool.  Heary is struggling to find Nigerian playwriting resources to research, so as soon as I finish this blog entry, I'm going to forward Heary's email address to Paul.

Heary is so going to owe me one.

For Karen's part, we talked a bit more about plans Alison and I have to take a trip next year to celebrate our 20th anniversary.  Karen works part-time for a travel agency and is helping us find something affordable.  However, even if we end up spending more than we should, I would still prefer to commemorate the occasion with an exciting vacation or cruise instead of buying any more jewelry. 

You see, when Alison and I got married, we were poorer than dirt.  We're still poor, but at least we now get to look down on dirt and mock its discount rack fashions.   (Peat moss and gravel is so 2010.)  So, when I bought Alison a very simple gold (you can still call it gold as long as it contains at least trace amounts of the stuff, right?) wedding band, I made the mistake of saying. "Don't worry, it's not like this is the last ring I'll ever buy you."  Oops.

When our 10th anniversary rolled around, Alison reminded me of my promise, and she felt that waiting a decade for its fruition was more than enough.  I bought her an outrageously expensive ring, and many years passed before we could afford parking at the airport, let alone getting on an actual airplane.  I say "outrageous" because of the inescapable fact that this, like any ring, was still just so much sparkly metal and rock, dirt's upscale cousins. (I guess dirt is still one step ahead of us.)  The value is primarily a matter of scarcity; there are probably planets out there where aluminum is one the rarest shiny metals, and women are obsessed by the thought of an 18-karat aluminum engagement ring.  Oh, but their sandwiches?  They wrap those in foil made of cheap, widely available gold.

Every man has a wish, an ulterior motive you might say, for buying expensive jewelry: they see no value in the object itself but hope that it will encourage a reciprocal gift.  What kind of gift?  Sex, of course.  Not just any sex, but dirty, naughty sex of the kind that has been turned down with every request over the past ten years.  Or maybe the kind that he didn't even dare ask for!  Alas, this dream usually fails, and he is forced to take solace in a scenario that he can only hope will arrive one day to make this frivolous purchase truly meaningful.  It goes like this:

One day, for reasons unknown, a bona fide mustache-twirling villain kidnaps the man and his wife.  The evildoer then places the couple in a glass cylinder that is slowly filling with water ('cuz that's what they do).  In just under an hour they will drown, and there is nothing they can do about it....or is there?  Suddenly, the man reaches for the hand of his love.  She holds her breath in anticipation of a final declaration of his undying love, a love that will survive beyond the bounds of this mortal coil.  He issues no such declaration, so she just continues to hold her breath to keep from drowning.  Instead, he rips the diamond anniversary ring - the one that cost him five months of enduring that jackass boss who couldn't manage his own weight let alone an entire sales department - from her finger and uses it to cut an exit from their water-trap, saving their lives and finally making it all worthwhile.

Short of that, I just don't get the appeal.

However, spending money on food?  That, I understand.  And make no mistake, the Bear's Den's upscale appearance comes with upscale prices to match.  We won't be frequent patrons as a result, but the meal we had was worth every penny.

I started with a prawn parfait (what do you mean it doesn't come with ice cream?) with a Creole tomato salsa, followed by their lime and butter Queen Charlotte Halibut on basmati rice.  Any other day, I would have easily been the evening's winner, but everyone else ordered the special: deer with a saskatoon berry demi-glace. I had a few bites of Alison's and had  to admit defeat.  Dessert was a crepe folded into a square, like a leaf-wrapped sasazushi, around a lemon "custard" and topped with a blackberry sorbet.  The meal and service were perfect in nearly ever way, with one possible exception:

Throughout the entire evening, not a single person got trapped in a watery prison, and Alison's ring just sat there.  On her finger.  Like it has for 10 years.  Doing nothing.

Snacks Between Meals: Mea Maxima Culpa

Apparently I have been the victim of implanted memories (maybe I’m actually some sort of sleeper agent awaiting activation…that would explain my righteous ninja skills!) when it comes to my recollection of the “Daina Incident”.  According to most of the members of my family, we did forget my sister at a truck stop, but the mistake was realized within minutes and she didn’t get to hitch a ride with Smokey nor the Bandit.  So, did I just go overboard  embellishing my blog?  Not really.  My research has confirmed this is a true story; it just didn’t happen to my sister.  

My father-in-law has a well-worn repertoire of tales he likes to keep in heavy rotation, and one of them involves some family friends who had an experience that was eerily similar to Daina’s.  The main difference is theirs ended with the eighteen-wheel taxi service, and over time I came to believe it had happened to my family.  Weird, eh?  What’s next, I’m going to find out that I’m not actually tall and athletic?

Naturally, you must be asking: “Darin, why then haven’t you removed the story from you blog?”  Well, it’s still a true story, and it’s still a great story, and I have merely changed the names to…um… protect the innocent.  

Yeah, that’s it.

Bon Ton Meat Market

Have you ever known someone at work, or maybe a parent of another child on your kid’s soccer team, that you talk to on a semi-regular basis and then suddenly, when trying to get their attention from across the boardroom or playground, you realize you don’t know their name?  Surely you were given their name when you were first introduced months ago, but you didn’t use it right away, immediately forgot it, meant to ask for it, and now it is simply too late.  What’s worse, when you do catch their eye, they say those three dreaded words:

“Oh hey, Darin.”

This often happens to me, and it is not unlike other familiar “faces” I see frequently but haven’t made any attempt to get to know better.  For example, there is a meat shop I pass nearly every day on my commute called the Bon Ton Meat Market.  It’s been at its current location for nearly 20 years, and even though I used to live within 2 blocks of the shop, I have never darkened its doors until last week.  And I am embarrassed to say that I wish we had gotten acquainted years ago.

I suppose the name might have had something to do with it; I always assumed it was a specialty Asian butcher.  Usually, if I ever feel the urge the watch a row of barbecued ducks sway gently back and forth by their necks, there are plenty of other Asian markets I frequent (which also sell bootleg DVDs; trust me, you can’t really appreciate The Empire Strikes Back until you’ve seen it in the original Cantonese!), so I have never found any reason to try another one that only sells meat.

"Only sells meat."  Listen to me.  I was so young and naive two weeks ago.

Alison went to Bon Ton’s for the first time about a month ago, and it turns out that the name was chosen by its founder, Ed Roberts, to mean “the proper way to do things”.  (The phrase “bon ton” is French, so I only missed it by a continent and a few thousand miles.)   Bon Ton’s is an upscale meat shop located near the University of Calgary that has just about everything imaginable (except, ironically, Daffy and Donald on the gallows), and Alison has been eagerly waiting for a weekend when we would both be home so she could take me there.  We drove over last Sunday afternoon, walked under its unassuming blue & white plastic storefront sign, and entered a carnivore’s version of nirvana.  I was greeted by counters full of the best cuts of pork and beef I have ever seen, rows and rows of ribs (back and side), a wall of coolers filled with elk, bison, and caribou, and even an 8 foot long display of cheesecake slices in more varieties than I thought possible. (Did I just see a cheesecake with a crust made of sirloin?  Can’t be.  I must be hallucinating from the overwhelming selection of edible animals surrounding me.)  To a foodie like me, this place is the equivalent of a meth lab.  Just plug an IV into my arm and fill me up with a full paycheque’s worth of prosciutto, baby back ribs, and filet mignon.  Oh, and wrap it all in bacon.

By the way, yes, I know that cheesecake isn’t a meat, but you have to admit it’s a real nice touch to offer it at a meat shop.  After all, every meal should include some vegetables.

My only complaint about Bon Ton’s is the first display that confronts you as soon as you enter the shop: chew snacks for dogs.  It was pretty unappetizing to be accosted by wire racks filled with unwrapped pig offal, particularly ears.  That’s right, ears.  Big hairy ones, too.  I suppose they must be appetizing to the Big Bad Wolf and his domesticated descendents, but it’s a very unpleasant first impression for non-canine customers.   It only took me a few minutes to regain my appetite, but they should simply put out a sign and keep the critter snacks in the back.

We left without doing too much damage to our grocery budget, buying some hot n’ spicy paprika salami, pepper-jack cheese (I know, also not a meat), some thick pork chops (I didn't even know pork chops could be thick), and blueberry bison sausages.  I already can’t wait for next year’s BBQ season; Bon Ton and I will be having a torrid summer romance. 

Well, I'm going to leave you with a strange bit of meat trivia: my favourite candy is Sugar Babies.  (I know, still not a meat.  Be patient.)  Sadly, I can only find them south of the border, usually when I'm down at the cabin in Montana.  (If you google "Canadian Sugar Babies", you'll find something that doesn't remotely resemble bite-sized caramels.  "Tarts" come to mind, though.)  However, my co-worker, Beverly, just got back from Miami and brought me back a large box of them.  While chewing on a few (their chewiness is one of their best features), I decided to look up their origins.  You won't believe what I found: until 1988, Sugar Babies contained bacon! 

Is this a beautiful world, or what?

The Old Spaghetti Factory

It was Duncan's birthday the other day, and he wanted to go to the Old Spaghetti Factory with his extended Calgary family to celebrate.  A lot of people like to mock the various family-friendly Italian franchises out there (particularly the Olive Garden), and it would be easy to jump on the bandwagon and take a few cheap shots at Duncan's favourite restaurant.  But how can I disparage a place that gives my son a plate of spaghetti with meatballs as big as his fists?

Duncan is our younger son, and he just finished his first decade, but I clearly remember the day he was born.  He arrived angry, screaming and bawling, his face contorted into a purple mask of rage and defiance.

In short, he was one ugly baby.

You hear about them: parents who are completely oblivious to the aesthetic deficiencies of their progeny.  Parents who spring their little ogres on friends, family, and even strangers, saying, "Isn't he/she just beautiful!"  And of course, even as you repress a gag reflex with all of your might, you are forced to agree with the parent, because everyone knows that all babies are God's perfect little gifts.

Well, I'm here to tell you that's a bigger load of crap than the one left in a diaper by a baby drinking expired Similac.

Alison and I suspected we were very probably those same delusional parents when our first son, Will, was born.  Now, he was a beautiful baby.   He arrived without complaining, an angelic smile on his lips, and with a full head of neatly coiffed blond hair.  Sure, his head was slightly cone-shaped from being squeezed like a tube of toothpaste, but the little cotton toque the nurse put on him covered that one minor flaw.  Trying very hard to be impartial, we figured we were probably unduly (but understandably) biased in thinking he was the most beautiful newborn we had ever seen.

Then, about four years later, Duncan was born.  His utter disgust at being born seemed to condense itself into a focused point of rage located at the bridge of his nose, a black hole of fury that seemed to pull his entire face in towards it.  After the nurse cleaned him up, Alison and I looked down at his still howling face and both said, "Maybe he'll be smart."

So, if we can be that objective with our second son, we must have been fairly objective about the first.

Fortunately for Duncan, and for 10 years of subsequent family Christmas photos, he changed dramatically in the first few weeks of his life and became quite adorable.  Most importantly, he learned to smile and he hasn't stopped since.

A true Extreme Makeover!  Amazing what just a few months can do.

Duncan has been known everywhere - at school, in sports, at birthday parties - as the little boy who has a big grin permanently stapled to his face.  It's a pretty good thing as reputations go, except for one major exception: swimming.  Duncan is a competitive swimmer, and he practices most days after school, but smiling the whole time you are doing the front crawl or worse - the butterfly - has unpleasant side effects.  As most pools tend to be, the swimming pool where Duncan practices is heavily chlorinated.  (They probably even add a little extra after the Mom & Tots pre-schooler swimming classes.  Huggies Little Swimmers can only filter so much.)  Therefore, swimming with his teeth exposed like a whale straining the oceans for krill just means that Duncan ingests more chemically treated pool water than most of the other kids.  Following that up with a car-ride home (remember what I said about Gregsons and motion-sickness?) means that both Alison and I have had to equip our cars with plastic buckets in the back seat.  I remember once, before we installed the RubberMaid pails, Alison was driving Duncan home when he started to make tell-tale gurgling sounds.  Alison was not on a street where she could immediately pull over, and she commanded Duncan to lean/aim out the window.  Duncan tried to obey, but Alison's car had those child-safe windows that only roll halfway down.  If only the sneeze-guards at salad bars were as effective at repelling discharges.  I don't even want to think about what ended up down in the window well.  (Alison contends that it was actually Will who unsuccessfully tried to hurl from a moving vehicle.  If we still had that car, I suppose we could have rolled up the window and sampled what appeared, but one has to wonder what effect peanut butter and Kraft Dinner has on DNA testing.)

At any rate, the smiling seems to work for him otherwise; Duncan's a big hit with the older girls on his swim team, and he holds court with them in the hot-tub after every swim practice.  And the “smart” thing worked out pretty well, too.  He has always been borderline OCD - as a toddler he would park his Matchbox cars in elaborate "crop-circle" formations in our living room - but that has developed into a mastery of mathematics well beyond his age.  It's just a pity that math has no bearing on his personal hygiene or his ability to match clothes.

Duncan isn't a fussy eater, just really slow, but his OCD tendencies do mean he has some favourites that he would be happy to eat every meal of every day.  At the top of that list is pasta, so if he gets to choose where we are going out to eat, it is inevitably the Old Spaghetti Factory. 

The Spaghetti Factory has been around since 1969 (what a great year: we landed on the moon, Sesame Street was created, and yours truly was born!), and I remember going there as a kid when some locations still showed old silent films while you waited for your table to be readied. The food isn’t innovative or frou-frou enough to ever be featured on the Food Network, but it has a comfortable, home-made quality that is dependable from location to location.  Alison and I ordered the spiciest thing (naturally) we could find on the menu, the Chorizo Canelloni, which barely registered on the Scoville scale but was pretty good anyway.  Will had a penne dish, and Duncan finished everything on his plate short of half a meatball.  Will, our teenaged garburator, took care of that oversight for his brother.

I had hoped, with Duncan’s young cousin Quincy (AKA “Q-Ball”) in attendance, that there might have been some mischief to liven up this review, but aside from dangling spaghetti like worms about to be consumed alive, all of the kids were pretty well-behaved.  I find myself often conflicted in this way: as a parent, I hope for perfect manners and civilized behaviour from my children; but as a writer, I secretly wish for utter chaos. 

Admit it, you know which you’d rather read about.

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.

Le's Cafe

Meh.

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.