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.

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.

Snacks Between Meals: Hirsute Suits Me

One winter day, about three years ago, I looked in the mirror and thought, “You’re short, fat, and homely.  But, at least you still have your hair.  Heh, wouldn’t going bald just complete the picture.”

Oh damn.

The past three years have been very hard on my hair, which of course means they have been very hard on me.  I have always been “small for my age” (I still find myself considering the purchase of clothes that are too big for me, hoping that I might “grow into them”), and chiseled is a word that doesn’t describe any part of my body or face.  But I’ve always had two features I could carry with pride: my eyes (they don’t see perfectly but, naturally blue and framed by long lashes, they look great) and my hair.

My dad has a full head of hair; it’s blazingly white like the Glad garbage man, but it’s still all there.  So after more than thirty years of complete cranial coverage, I figured the follicle fairy wasn’t going to be visiting me anytime soon to fly off with fistfuls of fur in tow.  As a bonus, my mane was also maintaining most of its luscious chestnut color, a real achievement compared to how grey my brothers had been getting.  And soft!  My natural wave required no sticky or stiffening styling products, so it felt like a wig made out of kittens.  If I had grown it long and stood in a wind tunnel, even Fabio himself would have wept with jealousy.

But the first sign that something was seriously wrong (the canary in the coal mine as it were) was when I was walking down the hall at my company’s head office and a vice president walking a few steps behind me suddenly commented,

“Did you know you’re losing your hair back there?” 

I was dumbstruck, both because I didn’t want to believe him and because saying stuff like that is just not something one guy says to another.  It’s very uncool, like choosing to use a urinal right next to another man when there is a whole row of vacant ones.  Un. Cool.

Naturally, I responded by filling his office full of shampoo while he was away on a business trip, but that’s a story for another day.

I bring all of this up now because I occasionally get lulled into believing it isn’t so bad.  The frontal hairline hasn’t receded much, so unless I set the bathroom mirrors at the proper angles or step into one of those elevators with mirrored walls on three sides, I never see the damage.  Even when I get my hair cut, when the time comes for the hairdresser to hold up a mirror to show me how she trimmed the back of my head, I deliberately (this is so sad) unfocus my eyes so I can only see a dark brown blur.  (She could have shaved a swastika back there, and I wouldn't know...at least until a large member of a visible minority "informed" me later).  What also helps my denial are friends who are shorter than me.  I know, they are rarely found outside of cookie bakeries built into trees, but I do know some smaller people.  For example, we went to Karen and Heery’s place this weekend for dinner and somehow the topic of “the signs of aging” came up. I mentioned my emerging scalp.  Karen just rolled her eyes.

“What are you talking about?  Your hair is fine.”

“Really?  Watch this.”  I bowed my head.

“Gasp!  Sweet mother of....!”

Karen literally jumped out of her chair, and that’s quite an achievement in itself, since she wears an electric device to help her MS-affected leg move, and jumping usually means turning the dial all the way up.  Really, I think she was more shocked than that guy from the IRA was when Forrest Whitaker's girlfriend unveiled “her” cannelloni.  (Even worse, this isn't the first time I've elicited this response.  People are repelled and fascinated at the same time.)

The frustrating part is I know I can grow hair; the rest of my body excels at it.  I have eyebrows that (unchecked) start to climb my forehead like vines, ears that are increasingly effective at keeping out bees (who hasn’t been worried about bees flying into his ears...right?  Right?), and the once thin line of hair that starts at my chest and heads downwards (affectionately known as the “Pathway to Paradise”) has expanded from a simple pathway to a 16-lane freeway (sadly without all the traffic that metaphor implies).  Have you heard that old joke about why Italians wear gold chains? (Answer: so they know where to stop shaving.) It isn’t so funny to me anymore.

Sadly, there is really nothing I can do about any of this besides avoiding swimsuits and tall people.  Tall people, from my perspective at least, are everywhere, and I enjoy waterskiing too much to spend all year covered up.

I guess it’s just time to pull on a hat and start shopping for gold chains.

Echo Lake Cafe

The weather is cooling very quickly now, foreshadowing the coming of fall, which in these parts is virtually indistinguishable from winter.  It's a bit depressing, but it comes after several weeks of beautiful summer weather.  In particular, we were very fortunate to have temperatures in the high 20s and low 30s (80s and 90s for those speaking Fahrenheit) for the entire time we spent vacationing in Montana.  That made for perfect swimming and waterskiing conditions, and it also meant we could sit out on the "patio" at our favourite breakfast spot in the area: the Echo Lake Cafe.

I should first tell you a bit about Echo Lake, and why we go back there almost every summer.  My grandparents bought some lakefront property about 35 years ago, and their family continued to grow until sharing a camping trailer with nine grandchildren must have started to wear on their sanity.  Rainy days were especially bad, having fifteen or more people trapped in a 1970's Prowler-manufactured hell.  After my brother Brent had thrown up for the third time, my cousin Greg had bitten me once again, the baby hadn't stopped crying for a full hour, and the coffin-sized bathroom had been rendered uninhabitable by the effects of too much canned food, no jury in the land would have convicted my grandparents if they had quietly stepped out of the trailer, padlocked the door, and rolled the whole thing into the lake.

Instead, they built a cabin.

Notice I said cabin, not cottage.  This is the real deal, built out of alternating stacked logs like those popsicle stick shelters we've all assembled as kids.  Except, of course, if you lick the ends of the logs, there's no residual cherry or lime flavouring.  Nope, this isn't any frou-frou summer home like the ones you'll see on Home and Garden TV, and an appropriately tiny budget has been spent furnishing the place. The cabin's decor is best described as Swedish Folk meets 70's ski lodge.  I don't know where the Swedish motif came from; as far as I can tell, the Gregson clan is about as Scandinavian as Kim Jon Il.  And the 70's part just lets guests know when we last made an effort to spruce the place up.  (Actually, my cousin Laurie has attempted to add some class to the joint over the years, but it's a losing battle, like playing Red Rover against Siamese twins.)  As for appliances, supplying the place usually begins with a conversation like this:

       "We should get a new microwave oven.  Ours is making funny clicking sounds and won't 
         turn on unless you hold the door shut.  Who knows how much radiation it's giving off."

       "You're probably right.  We can look for one this weekend.  Hey, will the garbage man 
         take this one with the regular pickup?"

       "No, you'll have to bring it to the landfill yourself."

       "Really?  That'll cost $5 just to drop it off!"

       "Honey, I think you can afford $5 without cramping your style too much."

       "Yeah, I suppose.  But the landfill smells funny...hmm, why don't we just donate the 
         microwave to the cabin?  We'll pack it with the hairdryer that shoots sparks."

So, now the cabin has a microwave oven that frequently trips the circuit breakers, a variable-temperature (meaning it chooses what temperature it prefers) oven, a stove with 3 out of 4 working elements, a VCR that eats 2 out of 5 tapes watched, and a fridge that still smells like old cabbage even after applying enough Lysol to wipe out cooties in every kindergarten in the country.  But that's okay.  If all of the stupid things we've done playing on the lake over the years haven't killed us yet, an old Frigidaire sure as hell isn't going to do the job.

We've had so many near-drownings that we now know to keep an eye out for floating hats, a sure sign that a toddler has fallen unnoticed off the dock and is trapped under the dock or a boat. It's so commonplace that we just pause to carefully place a bookmark on the page we're reading, reach down in the water, pull the kid out by their ankle and shake him a few times to dry him off and get him breathing again. We've had a few trips to the Kalispell hospital, including one for 13 stitches after a bad waterskiing accident.  That last one was yours truly, and I can tell you there are few things as unsettling as having someone weave a needle and thread through your forehead while a motorcycle rider is screaming down the hall (there are no helmet laws in Montana...I'll let you fill in the details).  Oh, and once, my brother and I even tried to drive our motorboat on dry land.  "Say what?" I hear you exclaiming.

Okay, just one more story before we get back to the cafe.

My brother, Jeff, and I had a sometimes bitter sibling rivalry growing up.  I can recall a fight with screwdrivers (oh, those crazy Gregson boys!) and a trip back from a ski hill that involved a bloody nose.  (I think the number "7" is still imprinted on the back of my head where a TV remote once glanced off of it.)  The rivalry continued right into our college years, but after settling down and starting families, we finally called a truce and now get along just fine the once or twice a year we see each other.  I'd like to think we've matured and learned to appreciate each other's successes and challenges, but it might also have something to do with us living in different countries and 800 miles apart. Let's be optimistic and go with the former.

Anyway, this rivalry manifested itself horribly one day at the lake as I was driving, with Jeff in the passenger seat, our boat across the bay where our cabin is located.  What happened next depends on who you ask.

Jeff would have probably described it as him spraying a completely harmless disappearing ink on his brother as a practical joke.  His brother grossly overreacted, gunned the throttle in a fit of rage, and proceeded to pound on Jeff, leaving the boat driverless while it launched itself over several fallen trees to crash violently on the shore.  Ergo, Darin's fault.

My version went more like this: Darin was driving the boat responsibly (hands at the 10 and 2 for safety) when Jeff poured a noxious (possibly toxic!) fluid all over his brand new Quicksilver beach shirt.  In trying to prevent the spread of this staining  dark-blue sludge from making contact with the upholstery of his father's precious boat, Darin attempted to wrest the spray bottle from Jeff's hands, and, in doing so, bumped the throttle with his elbow.  The boat then launched itself over several fallen trees to crash violently on the shore.  Ergo, Jeff's fault.

We struggled out of the boat on the passenger side, and surveying the hull, we saw  - miracle of miracles - the boat appeared completely unharmed.  However, when we made our way over to the driver's side, our knees buckled at the sight of a hole in the bow big enough for a small child to climb through.  The inhabitants of Echo Lake are still haunted in fitful dreams by the inhuman wailing of two young teenage boys heard that day. 

My dad has since expressed regret for how angry he was with us.  Personally, I think the fact that Jeff and I can walk without medical assistance demonstrates great restraint on my dad's part.

For years afterwards, I blamed Jeff for wrecking the boat (and our summer), but in hindsight, I have to admit that it was at the very least a solid team effort.  In fact, maybe I should have spun it that way with my dad at the time: look, it's the first time Jeff and I cooperated on anything.  Yay us!

Then again, maybe not.

So this the scene of the Echo Lake Cafe, a bit of civilization in what is otherwise the chaos of Gregsons and watersports.  The cafe has been around in some form on and off for about 50 years, but the current incarnation first appeared in 1999.  They only serve breakfast and lunch, and we usually split the difference to join them for brunch, a truly inspired mealtime that combines two of my favourite things: sleeping in and food.

On the surface, their menu appears to contain the typical breakfast cafe fare: omelets, pancakes, crepes, eggs anyway you want them, hashbrowns, etc.  But much of it is given a Montanan twist, like their Cowboy Eggs Benedict (gravy instead of Hollandaise sauce), and Jack cheese is a staple in most of their omelettes. However, my favourite item (and Alison's) isn't particularly "western" at all and even breaks one of my usual rules: I don't like to order vegetarian versions of dishes.  Don't get me wrong, I have enjoyed some fantastic vegetarian meals over the years, but the crucial difference is that the good ones were dishes originally designed to be vegetarian, not a pathetic attempt to imitate or replace meat with a vegetable-derived substitute.  (Pine nuts will never be able to replicate the exquisite taste of suffering found in real beef.)  However, the Echo Lake Cafe's Vegetarian Eggs Benedict is, in my opinion, the best item on their menu, and the best Eggs Benedict I've had anywhere.  Instead of ham or smoked salmon, they place slices of avocado and tomato on the egg and smother it in Hollandaise sauce.  Simple but inspired. 

As for the boys, Duncan always enjoys himself a plate of syrup (there are pancakes in there somewhere, but he isn't happy until they completely break down and dissolve under the pressure of a lake of maple corrosion), and Will experienced his first taste of huevos rancheros at the Echo Lake Cafe.    With fresh-squeezed orange juice, a generous side of nicely-seasoned homestyle potatoes, and an optional huckleberry muffin, you can roll yourself back to the cabin, more than satisfied until dinnertime.  Just be sure your hat floats, though, because you'll be sinking to the bottom of the lake if you try swimming too soon, and we need to know where to look for you.