I didn’t get a chance to post many photos of my trip to Canada while I was there, so I’m catching up now. Today I’ll concentrate on one of the best parts of any trip: noms.
As part of my Centre for Inquiry gig in Ottawa, we had a “free will” brunch (we discussed the issue, but didn’t have a choice of what we ate) at the sumptuous home of Dave Smith. Smith is a famous figure in Ottawa as he not only ran the chain of Nate’s Delis (now down to one), but is also a big-time philanthropist, having raised more than $100 million for charities, including building a youth treatment center for drug addiction. He recently turned 83, but is as active as ever, and cooked all the food for our brunch. Here’s Dave in his basement kitchen:
His entire home is covered with awards and plaques for his philanthropy, as well as photographs of the famous people he’s cooked for, like the Queen:
and Nancy Reagan:
And Princess Di and Prince Charles:
But this is the prize: a picture of Pope John Paul II autographed “To Dave, God bless you (the bagels were great). Jean Paul II.” I couldn’t believe that Dave served bagels to the Pope, and that the writing was really John Paul’s, so I asked Dave. He assured me it was authentic, and that he’d cooked for several days for the Pope and his retinue when they visited Canada:
I was promised a real Jewish feed for brunch, and so was really excited, but there was a miscommunication: Dave made Indian food. Well, that’s an acceptable substitute, and it was very good. Still, I missed the promised latkes, brisket, and blintzes.
Dave also made a chocolate fountain for dessert:
Sensing my disappointment, I think, my genial host Seanna cooked up a batch of delicious cheese blintzes (with sour cream) for dinner that night:
As I noted previously, I took the train from Ottawa to Montreal, and my first night there I repaired to Reuben’s Deli downtown, where I had one of Montreal’s famous “smoked meat” sandwiches. It was the equivalent of a good pastrami sandwich, but the bread was too insubstantial to hold the meat, and it fell apart. (Note to Reuben’s: get some substantial kosher rye!) Service was also desultory, and, worst of all, I finished the sandwich. As we all know, such sandwiches should be big enough to furnish lunch the next day:
One of the great aspects of Montreal is its largesse of real French food, including pastry. Here, for instance, are the wares in a pastry shop at the Montreal train station, which is part of a large underground shopping complex. They had pain au chocolat and real croissants, as well as fancy cakes:
Napoleons, too!
The really funny part was that right next to the pastry shop above was a Tim Hortons donut store. The pastry shop had almost no customers, but people were lined up in front of Tim’s to get their coffee and mediocre donuts. What a corruption of French-Canadian culture!
The next evening, two readers, Anne-Marie and Claude, invited me to their home for dinner. And a real feast it was, too. On entering, I was presented with two squirrel presents (we share a fondness for squirrels): a Belgian chocolate squirrel and a wooden squirrel (with a bell) that Anne-Marie had carved herself. The gift came in a bag said to be inscribed by the resident squirrel himself, also known as “le petit ami”:
Dinner began with nuts (of course) and this amazing bottle of fancy local beer. It was, in fact, the best porter I’ve ever had, redolent of chocolate, malt, and cherries. I’m sure I’ll never get this again. [Update: as a reader notes in the comments, this is a Grand Cuvée Porter Baltique, brewed in Quebec by Le Trois Mousquetaires, and is very highly rated by the Beer Advocate. It’s also 10% alcohol by volume, which accounts for my feeling slightly buzzed as we sat down to dinner.]
The dinner was served, French style, in courses, starting with a salad (and baguette, with olives and olive oil):
And then homemade pasta with homemade sauce; I forgot to photograph the dish as I was hungry, but here’s the sauce that Anne-Marie made, with herbs saved from her garden:
And a selection of five cheeses, including a Brie de Meaux and several other raw-milk cheeses from France. I dearly love real French cheese:
Dessert: a homemade maple-syrup pie! It was spectacular, especially topped with local vanilla ice cream:
Also in attendance was a d*g: Ariel, a nine-year-old German shepherd. Although a d*g, he was quite amiable:
The next day Anne-Marie and Claude kindly drove me around on a tour of Montreal, so I got to see lots of stuff I wouldn’t have been able to see otherwise. Even in winter it’s a gorgeous city. I’ve already posted about our lunch of poutine, but wanted to add that at a state dinner for Justin Trudeau on Wednesday, the White House chef served a poutine appetizer:
“One of our canapes is actually a duck poutine,” said [White House chef Chris] Comerford as he described Hudson River duck shaved on fries with gravy and cheese.
“So it’s kind of like a take on a wonderful national dish of Canada. It’s a play on that dish.”
Before lunch, I asked to be taken to one of Montreal’s two authentic bagel bakeries. We went to perhaps the most famous, the Fairmount. Montreal bagels are made by hand using unbleached flour. They’re boiled in water with a touch of honey, and then baked in a wood-fired oven. They are then topped with sesame seeds (the classic topping), and come out toothsome and chewy—not the soft, oversized donuts you find in the U.S. They’re the real thing—the kind you used to be able to buy in New York during the Pleistocene. This store, founded in 1919, has been on its present site since the year I was born:
The menu. I, of course, wanted a sesame bagel:
Baking the bagels over wood:
Ready to serve:
The wood for firing the oven is stacked in the alley outside:
My prize: a warm sesame bagel with a schmear. I limited myself to one as we were on our way for poutine:
We did a lot of sightseeing, and before I went back to my hotel I asked to be taken to La Confiserie CandyLabs, an interesting place downtown where a Japanese couple make hard candy by hand, and it’s fancy stuff, coming in many natural flavors.
Claude photographed me with a cat lollipop. I was told it was a Japanese cartoon character, but can’t remember the name (I’m sure a reader will):
I bought two kinds: mixed fruit and taro candy (flavored with real taro root). I haven’t yet opened the bags:
Here’s a video from CandyLab. Making the small candies with designs inside is a real art. It’s this video, which I watched before going to Canada, that impelled me to go to the store:
Thanks again to my hosts, Anne-Marie (shown here amused by my photographing of poutine):
et Claude, having our postprandial café crème (it’s okay to have milk with coffee after lunch in Montreal, but not in France):
h/t: P. N.
given all these Canadian treats, why didn’t we get to see some ear wiggling as well (like the British)?
Dave Smith is a fascinating person. Wow.
And that bagel…oh how CC hath provideth goodness in toroids.
For the beer nerds: At first I could only see that the beer was a “Black Lager” on the label. However, Jerry said it was a Porter which is traditionally an ale. Upon closer inspection, I could see the beer was named “Porter Baltique” and it made sense. It’s a style call Baltic Porter that was traditionally brewed in the Baltic states as a cross between an English porter and Russian imperial stout. And it is often brewed with a lager yeast instead of the typical ale yeast. This beer appears to have a very good rating.
http://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/11056/46644/
Dear sweet baby jeebus. I want all the food.
The cat lollipop is Doraemon, a robotic cat from the 22nd century who comes back to help a boy named Nobita Nobi. It started as a manga series in 1969, done by Fujiko Fujio and has run an absurd number of episodes on television (2181 at last count) plus 37 movies to date. It was finally brought to the U.S. a couple of years ago and airs on Cartoon Network.
“(it’s okay to have milk with coffee after lunch in Montreal, but not in France)”
Well, I always have my coffee in France with cream/milk and sugar: Alors! À chacun son goût!
I thing I used to do is to put a scoop of vanilla ice cream into coffee.
Oh, I would like that!
I like to put icecream in a bowl and pour strong hot black coffee on it!
At my local gelato place I can not resist ordering the affogato; a scoop of gelato and a shot of espresso topped with whipped cream! Yum.
Yum yum, I say! Double yum! 🙂
Yeah, that’s the one I try to imitate… couldn’t remember the name of it. Thanks.
If the color of the “taro” candy comes from the ingredient and not coloring, I suspect it is not taro, but purple yam – ube (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dioscorea_alata). Ube is a popular ingredient in Filipino desserts, and it (or sometimes the Okinawan sweet potato) is seen in Japanese soft creams.
There is purple poi in Hawaii, and I’ve had it; it’s presumably made from purple taro. But I suspect that at least some of the color is a dye.
I don’t know if it is still in effect for the new Pope, but there used to be an easy way to meet Pope John Paul II. The Vatican offered a short course you could take (a week or a month, I forget, but I think it related to Polish culture), the culmination of which you got to meet the Pope and have a professional photo taken. I know because both my ex and sister-in-law took the course, and both now have a photo each of them with him.
I believe I was busy at the time, so I didn’t go. Probably a good thing for the church though, as I would have tried to ask him about the protecting pedophile priests thing.
What’s your secret? I gained two pounds just looking at these pictures.
I’d be most grateful if Anne-Marie and Claude could share the recipe for the maple syrup pie. OMCC
Hello Michael,
Working on the translation. Recipe coming soon!!
I found the recipe already translated!
http://www.ricardocuisine.com/recipes/3127-sugar-pie—-
Thank you!
Et merci beaucoup, aussi. 🙂
Ça m’a fait plaisir! Hope you will like it!
Thank you!
:-))
That bagel looked delicious. I’ve never had a real bagel.
The maple pie looked interesting. Was the interior the texture of the lemon in a lemon meringue pie? I pictured it with nuts like a pecan pie, but it looked silky smooth. Yum!
Now I’m prepared for lunch…I’ll probably eat too much now.
The recipe is posted at the comment no.10.
Here’s the japanese cat:
https://www.google.ca/search?q=japanese+cartoon+cat&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiliO3F8LbLAhUjn4MKHWUEA6cQsAQIGw&biw=1436&bih=798#tbm=isch&q=doraemon
The woman in the photo with Nancy Reagan is Mila Mulroney, the wife of the PM at the time.
Yes! I was going to add that too. Good thing I’m reading the comments.
And the signature says Mila, not Nancy
Wonderful! It looks like you made the most of your time here! I tried the candy at CandyLabs just recently, and it was indeed delicious! ^_^ They make custom designs, too!
And great choice of beer! An poutine! And bagels! And smoked meat! I think insubstantial bread is sort of the point, but yeah: the service there is kind of hilariously bad, and you really shouldn’t be able to finish it. Damn, I’m hungry now . . .
You can still get real bagels in New York. I have one every saturday and sunday morning.
But I have a question regarding the smoked meat. In every kosher deli I’ve ever been to there’s the option of corned beef or pastrami. Are there really people who choose corned beef over pastrami? It makes no sense to me. Pastrami is basically just corned beef with more flavor. Can anyone here explain to me why one might choose to order a corned beef sandwich?
And finally, the line at Tim Hortons vs the pastry shop. Could it be that Tim Hortons is just much, much cheaper?
Also, I just noticed to bottle of French’s mustard next to the sandwich in the photo. They don’t even have real deli mustard? That is very disappointing. A good kosher deli mustard is infinitely better then French’s (which is good for nothing but a street hot dog).
Don’t think I didn’t notice the lousy mustard! Next time I go back to Montreal, I’ll find another place to get smoked meat.
we’ll guide you 🙂
The Main’s a good choice! I’d say Chenoy’s, too, but that’s in the West Island . . .
I agree with you about the Main!
Take my word for it: the price differential would not justify a visit to Tim Hortons, which I’m now increasingly starting to dislike.
They are owned by Burger King
Check!
The State dinner for PM Trudeau is tonight, PCCE. And speaking of Montreal, one of the chefs is from Montreal:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/food-and-wine/food-trends/canadian-chef-preps-state-department-lunch-for-trudeaus-dc-visit/article29071234/
All the food looks wonderful, I really want the French cheeses and the sugar pie.
Me too, especially the cheeses. I am a major cheese hound ever since visiting France the first time.
(And I’m not even from Wisconsin! WI, MN, IA, WA, CA, OR, ID, and I’m sure many other US states, are now making world-class cheeses — not just ye block of yellow or ye block of white. I do my best to buy them; but often the French “real thing” is less expensive, even he rein the US. (!))
Wow, 34 pictures, if I counted correctly! This is like being a virtual traveler with Jerry!
(Psst, Anne-Marie–Ariel looks like a very good boy.)
(yes Diana! Ariel is great! a very gentle and protective dog. he’s a rescue that we’ve adopted two years ago.)
Hooray for adopting a rescue! 🙂
Very sweet-looking dog!
Glad you enjoyed your food both in my current city and my city of origin, Jerry.
Interesting about the bagel: I’ve been told that the large puffy NY style are closer to the original. (So I don’t know which to believe.) I’ve always preferred the Montreal style, but that might be the result of growing up with it.
As for Dave Smith – I was at the CFI event in question too, and – I have never seen such a collection of thank-you certificates and the like in my life.
Very late to the party. How could I miss noms and dogs!!??
A quick Google search casts extremely serious doubts as to the authenticity of Pope John Paul II’s handwriting and signature in Dave’s photo: http://tinyurl.com/hsh2pso
But all that food looks yummy!
All I know is what Dave told me.
Oh, I realized that. 🙂
Well, I’m absolutely starving now 😉