Category Archives: Canada October 2013

I had this vision of the falls in some magnificent setting.  The reality was far removed. Niagara on the Canadian side is a pretty run down neglected sort of place. Lots of empty buildings and boarded up space. A massive casino dominating and a bridge with US and Canadian flags half way across. The falls were pretty impressive just the surroundings bleak. The US side didn’t look much better.

We caught a cab to Niagara on the Lake, a much prettier place. A small historical town, about twenty minutes from the falls, with a beautifully preserved main street. In 1812, the Americans bombed the hell out of the place and as part of this war, burnt it to the ground. The town was rebuilt, out of the firing range of the US. I remember reading a great book as a kid (which I still have) called Trixie Beldon and the Mystery of the Emeralds about the underground railway – the secret network of safe houses that helped slaves escape into Canada – Niagara on the Lake was part of this network. For us, it was just a lovely wander through Canadian history.

I had been pondering why I wasn’t that excited by Montreal. Today it made sense. After arriving in the totally fabulous city of Toronto, I decided Montreal is just plain exhausted. It had a really tired air about it. But, there is nothing tired about Tronto as the locals call it. We arrived in late from Halifax and were picked up by a totally gorgeous Singaporean cabbie. It was a flat rate from the airport so we were more than happy to take him up on his offer of a bit of a tour around the city. The lights were fantastic. It is quite a modern city and in some ways reminds me a little of a much more relaxed New York. Yonge Street is just around the corner from where we are staying and has the reputation, as the longest street in the world – around 1800km – would be weird if your address was 10000 Yonge Street. I was reading that the city is described as a brash, rag tag place – I would think edgy and interesting. Modern buildings, rub shoulders with old red brick areas with cobbled stone streets, and gorgeous Victorian triple storied townhouses. We are holed up in one of them, and the whole Ghost and Mrs Muir theme is continuing – although this time on Toronto’s great lake, rather than the wind swept sea cliffs.  I am typing on the third floor of the most fantastic house. Great furniture, fantastic art and an eclectic decorating style that our host Scott has put together. It is so comfortable. My room has the most gorgeous nautical lamps and up in the attic I do expect to find a ghost of a sea captain sitting at the end of my bed. The house is a few minutes walk from downtown and we wandered the colourful streets between today’s meetings. I just loved the energy of the place – saxophones being played in the squares, a really interesting character playing a sort of didgeridoo outside the massive shopping area. Couldn’t describe it as a Mall – much classier. Tonight, we had what is probably the highlight of the trip – yes of course food. The gorgeous Zoe often says, if life gives you lemons, make lemonade. Well the great Mexican restaurant we went to tonight’s version was ‘When life hands you tequila, make margaritas’. The food was totally fantastic but the atmosphere in the old distillery was worth flying around the world for. The massive metal screens, with laser cut skeletons, the huge murals and of course the margaritas. Donna, you would have loved the light fittings – the photos are especially for you!

We had a good time in Nova Scotia. I thought lots about my Papa. Cray pots everywhere and lobsters (live ones) sold in every shop, and even in the airport. I was slightly amused that I could buy my lobsters just before I boarded the plane. I had this vision of lobsters escaping at 35000 feet and clomping down the aisles of the plane. Apparently, in Nova Scotia, if you take lobster sandwiches to school it is a sign that you are quite poor – well, we quite enjoyed being impoverished.

Drove out to Peggy’s Cove past stunning Canadian scenery. Lost of lakes, spruce trees and small cabins. Peggy’s Cove is a windswept small fishing village on Saint Margaret’s Bay. The population is 35 and it is a wonderful collection of traditional fishing cabins. The local legend is that Peggy was a small child who was shipwrecked in the late 1700s. She was found by a fisherman and grew up as Peggy of the Cove. There is a wonderful lighthouse in the town and you could imagine a ship being caught in a massive Atlantic storm and being battered against the rocks. The village has major restrictions on who can live there, so even though it is spectacularly picturesque, it has retained a tiny village feel. Standing on the rocks, looking toward Casablanca, being blown about and chilled by the Atlantic winds called for serious warming measures – the hot mulled apple cider, with a decent nip of rum, went down a treat! 

Mimi’s house is in a quiet, reasonably ordinary neighbourhood and whilst it is an exceptionally comfortable house, we really are just part of the local community. Mind you, a community with fantastic restaurants. Rue Wellington is not a terribly exciting road. There is a river along the left hand side as we walk, but you can’t really see it. The houses are all double story, with the external iron staircases that we have become used to. I think most of them are two apartments, hence the outside stairs. It was slightly amusing yesterday watching the removalists trying to empty a house down a small winding set of stairs – no wonder they looked rather fit.

Our visit to Santropol Roulant was fantastic. We had a great lunch at their café and then visited the heart of their operations for a tour with the very charming Chad. A slightly edgy, industrial building, it was abuzz with young people in an open plan hive of activity. They are a great community organisation that connects people socially and this is all based around food. The fresh produce comes from their farms and they have a great agreement where their volunteers  (mainly young people from McGill University) will collect produce from growers all over the city. One third of what is picked goes to the volunteer, one third to Santropol and one third to the owner. This enables older people who love their garden to retain it, but with a volunteer who does the work. As we walked with Chad we say the kitchen where all meals are prepared, their great sustainability program, a fantastic roof top garden and their bike shop. Essentially, their core business is delivering really high quality food to older people all over the city as a true meals on wheels service – the young people carry purpose built back packs and head off on bikes throughout the city. I loved the container program where people can come in and pick up a container to grow vegetables and get guidance from the volunteers. For $15 per year community members can join the bike shop so every time there is any problem with your bike, you take it in and these great young people will fix it. They have cooking classes, environmentally sustainable focused programs and thousands of volunteers – it was fantastic.

I guess we are walking so much, so getting used to the Montreal restaurants, where the main courses all come with soup and a dessert. The food has been so fantastic, and even though it took me a little while to warm to the city, the restaurants and cafes have totally won me over.

I have eaten some pretty good food in my life and love to cook but our dinner at SU last night was right up there with the best I have ever eaten. An unassuming street, an unassuming but nice restaurant, but the most fantastic service and the food – sublime. It is Turkish, and the freshest most beautifully presented food – no sign of Turkish bread and kebabs! We ate our way through a gorgeous Mezze plate, wonderful pasta, aphrodisiac (its real name) chicken, lamb and wonderful sorbets. Thank goodness we needed to walk home. It was just amazing!

Tonight we headed off to the botanical gardens as Mimi had told us about the Jardins de lumiere – I thought we were going to see a few Chinese lanterns hanging around in some trees – check out the photos

October 20 2013

Well it has been all about the food but today I finally felt a connection with Montreal. It wasn’t as though I disliked it but just didn’t have that ‘oh I love it’ like I do in many places I visit. I think it was because I couldn’t figure out where the city was, what it actually looked like, couldn’t figure out the industrial city beside the beauty of Old Montreal. Today we climbed and climbed and climbed. Mont Royal sits between the Laurentians and the Appalachians. The meaning of Fall was right in front of us. The amazing colors of the trees – the red, orange and yellow. Standing looking down on Montreal – ah I finally understand this city.

The stalls of the Marche Atwater were completely blocked out by the mounds of pumpkins as far as we could see. People of all nationalities struggling out lugging  them home to be carved and sat on their doorstep. The market reminded me of the markets of the South West in France. Our bags filled with the most wonderful Roquefort, brie, baguettes and tomatoes. Our picnic at Mimi’s was fantastic. Yes the day was all about food – Kim arrived and we wandered up Rue Wellington to the Les Isle en Ville. It was like visiting raucous family for dinner. The live music was provided by the waiter, the chef, the woman on the desk, the customers and occasionally the country singer. We had boot scooting locals, lots of noise and stunning soup, cod cakes and small pies – it was totally amazing – the  seafood from the small island of Madeleine sent by the family. We sat crowded in to a small unassuming café and stuffed our mouths with fantastic food, singing along to John Denver in French – well our French was pretty crap but it was so damn noisy no-one noticed. We couldn’t hear ourselves, but felt like we were locals for a night – our singing relatives had as good a time as us and the bill was miniscule.