Tag: food

The Power of a Throwaway Comment

October 7,2024

It is always a treat to visit with an old friend, especially one from my university days, which, in my case, goes back decades. And especially those friends I have not seen in years who live far away from me. But that happened in June of this year when we visited my friend in Portland, OR. I last saw Levente over twenty years ago. And it is always amazing that when we see each other, we talk with each other as if time has not passed between our visits, as if we continue with our conversation from yesteryear.

When I phoned him about our upcoming visit, he surprised me with his solicitous comments about the foods we like, the wines we prefer, and what we would like to see in Portland. I assured him we are very flexible and enjoy all kinds of food. Depending on his available time, we would enjoy quiet conversations about our shared experiences at the University of British Columbia.

Levente welcomed us warmly in the same house we visited over twenty years ago. He bought this house when his job took him to Portland from Vancouver, British Columbia, and kept it when he moved to Huntsville, AL, with his job for many years. When he retired, he moved back to his house in Portland, and now, he enjoys the West Coast lifestyle and mild weather.  

We accepted his offer for lunch, and he began preparing for it as a management consultant, that he was for his career. “I am going to organize lunch,” he said, explaining that he’d open the fridge and see what cheeses and cold cuts he would find for us. Then, he offered a variety of breads and asked if anyone was vegan. And, of course, there was a choice of coffees that he said we could fix on his machine after describing how it worked.

I was surprised at his deliberate lunch organization, especially when he followed up by setting the table formally. At home, we usually consume an informal lunch with leftovers or whatever is quickly available.

After a day of visiting the famous Japanese gardens in Portland, we returned home to a surprise. Levente, it turned out, was going to cook dinner. Seeing him with ingredients, a cookbook, and pots on the stove was a revelation. Given his previous career, I couldn’t help but ask when he had started this hobby.

His wife answered my question with a few words. Having cooked for the family for decades, she was bored and tired of deciding on a menu every day and suggested to Levente that they share cooking: she cooks a week, and Levente cooks the following week. So, how did this idea go down? Levente considered the proposition as a retired management consultant, thought it was fair, and started cooking every second week. He said it was tough slogging for a few months, but following cookbooks with help from his wife, my old friend’s skill level improved to preparing entirely satisfactory meals.

Our conversation about Levente’s cooking arrangement was brief, but it left a lasting impression. I knew our kitchen dynamics were about to change, and I was ready to embrace it. My wife didn’t take long to broach the subject, and I was more than willing to go along with the idea.

I sometimes prepare breakfast, lunch, and an occasional dinner in our household, following recipes. My meals are simple compared to my wife’s excellent meals; she is a superb cook and enjoys cooking when she has the time. In addition to meal preparation, I also share doing the dishes. The idea of sharing dinner cooking was infectious, and if that idea worked for my friend, it should also work for us.

The idea materialized upon our return to Ottawa. At first, my wife continued to prepare the main meal, and I did some breakfasts and lunches, but one night, Kathy was tired and said it was time for me to take over for a week. I said, “Alright, but my meals may be simple.” She said she did not care; I could even bring home take-out foods. I said, “Alright, I’ll do the next five days’ dinners.”

I agreed to this arrangement because many ready-made foods are available now, so I thought providing five-day meals would not be difficult. Much of the grocery shopping is my territory, and I know my way around most grocery stores in our area, including Costco, where shopping is almost fun with all the samples offered.

My limited cooking skills have produced soups (I have made vegetables, cabbage, and lentil soups), green salads, sheet-pan chicken, and baked fish (I like Atlantic salmon and tilapia from Costco).

The first few days went well with me preparing the meals. Then Kathy joined her cooking club the next night, and the following days, we closed the cottage for the season. But we’ll likely proceed as agreed to, in spurts.

Preparing a dinner was new to me; I have done it. What was new was that my friend from college described how he and his wife share cooking, and a brief conversation on this subject suddenly made a massive difference for my wife and me. It gave a legitimizing impetus to pursue the sharing of the meal’s preparation more formally – all because of a throwaway comment by my old friend’s wife.

Is Touching Wrong?

January 16, 2024

The service at our favorite Sunday breakfast place was disappointing today. Usually, the hostess welcomes us, leads us to a table of our choice, and in a minute a waitress appears with coffee, ready to take our order.  Not today. We sat down and waited and waited.

Getting impatient to get our morning caffeine fix, Kathy asked a waiter walking by if we could get some service. In another five minutes, a waitress appeared and asked us if would like some coffee and said she would be back in a minute to take our orders. After a rather long time, coffee materialized on our table, but no order was taken.

In the past, the waitress asked if we were ready to order when delivering the coffee, but not this time. Since we have been coming here for years, we know what we like and order when the waitress appears. This sportsbar with multi-TVs on the walls showing hockey and other games, is doing phenomenal breakfast business on Sundays, and ordering early gets our food on the table before finishing our first cup of coffee.

Other customers came in and sat across from us and our waitress came with coffee and asked if they were ready to order while we were still waiting. That was upsetting; we were there long before the new customers and several others in “our zone” had even come and had waited patiently for service, assuming that the waitress was busy with other customers.

To get the waitress’s attention in the loud buzz, instead of shouting, which would have been impossible anyway because of the din, Kathy tapped the waitress’s arm. That did get her attention, and she turned around and told Kathy in an abrasive tone: “Do not touch me”!

Her reaction and tone of voice surprised me, but we asked her if she would take our order before filling the others. I also told her that the service today was inferior to what we were used to at the restaurant.  Offended, she claimed that she had other tables to serve as if we did not know that and as if that were an excuse for the poor service, without so much as an apology for overlooking us, which would have been understandable.   But then she hustled off to place our order in the kitchen without going back to the other customers to take their orders.

She never came back after this incident to fill up our coffee cups but hustled around a few times filling the cups of the other customers all around us. She studiously avoided making eye contact with us.

Another waitress came to fill up our coffee and delivered our orders to our table.  The second time she came to refill our cups, I asked her if she was now our waitress waitress. She seemed surprised that we did not know but confirmed that she was, and offered to fetch the manager if we had some issues with the service today. I had the impression that there was more to the story from the waitress’s comment.

We said “Sure”, and the manager appeared in a minute and profusely apologized for the service today, explaining that our first waitress “felt uncomfortable” by Kathy touching her arm and asking for another waitress. A friendly discussion ensued, and we assured her that we had always enjoyed our breakfast experience at the restaurant up until today. On leaving, the manager touched both Kathy and me a few times on the arm in a friendly, reassuring manner.

Although possible, I cannot believe that a young woman, a waitress doing her job, touched by someone who could be her grandmother, would feel uncomfortable by the physical contact. In a busy restaurant, there are ample opportunities for physical contact, intentional or not. I rather think that she took offense at us for having the temerity to ask a waiter to get service, implying that she was not doing her job.

Although we enjoyed our breakfast after the second waitress took over, what bothered me was the expressions used in this incident: “Do not touch me” and “The touching made her uncomfortable”. I have heard many stories recently taken up by human rights commissions about physical, psychological, and sexual abuse, bullying, discrimination, and similar accusations. I could see this young waitress following up on an incident like this and creating a huge hew-haw for nothing. Where do these young people today acquire this attitude of righteousness, to give expression to their dislike of being told to do their job? She was slow in providing service and wrong in not serving clients in the order they came in. Surely one can make mistakes, we all do, and the simple solution is to apologize.

Exploring the Diverse Charms of Marseille: A 2-Day Experience

October 15, 2023

My impressions of the city developed over two days in Marseille. We took a flight from Ottawa to Paris and then to Marseille with Air France, left Ottawa at five p.m., and arrived in Marseille the following day at 9 a.m. After spending a day in Marseille, we left for Corsica for ten days before returning for another day in Marseille.

I found some information about Marseille on the internet interesting. Did you know that Marseille is one of the oldest cities in Europe? (It was established by Greek traders in 600 BC.) That 85% of the heroin shipped to the US was produced by Corsican gangs in the La Panier district of Marseille in the 1930s? That Marseille has the third largest Jewish population in Europe after London and Paris? That 20% of the population is Muslim? According to Wikipedia, Marseille, a port city, is probably the most multicultural city in Europe.

The diversity of Marseille surprised me; a native of Marseille explained that many North Africans came to Marseille from Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, and, in general, the Maghreb region of Africa since they were French-speaking and felt at home in the city. The people in the restaurants and the service industries were mostly from North Africa but I never felt they were immigrants; they were French people.

I thought that the French approach to immigrants in Marseille was more casual and probably much better in the long run, call it the melting pot idea, than the focus on differences among ethnic groups in Canada.

The city has a population of close to two million in the metropolitan area with a transportation system including metro and buses. We used both, since they were convenient, came frequently, and cost two euros a ticket, or C$3, relatively cheap.

Our apartment on rue Vacon in the Old Town area of Marseille was not ready for occupancy on arrival and the receptionist suggested we walk around in the neighborhood. Richly rewarded on our walk with musicians playing on the street, small markets to investigate, and getting used to one-lane streets crowded with people and motorcycles speeding by, we settled down for lunch at a table outdoors at one of the ethnic restaurants, that happened to be Tunisian. I had a wonderful lamb Tagine with apricots. Arabic talk surrounded us. It was a very pleasant atmosphere and I recommend a walk around the Old Town with your camera in your hands to take pictures of the diversity of people and street scenes.

Once we came back to our accommodation, a porter took us to our apartment, two blocks away from where we checked in, in an old, renovated building. We opened the huge front door with a fob leading to a hall where we faced a long and steep staircase to our apartment. There was no elevator in the building, but the apartment was spacious, very clean, and furnished with IKEA furniture.

Returning to reception to ask for maps and directions in the area, we chatted with the receptionist who said that he and his brother bought and renovated twenty-seven apartments in the Old Town in numerous buildings: is this a new model for an apartment hotel? A local we chatted with suggested the brothers renovated these units to make a killing during the Olympics next year; water sports will be in Marseille.

Using the maps, we got on a bus to take us along the Corniche Kennedy, also called the “balcony of the Mediterranean”, which runs along the Mediterranean coast.  The views were stunning, I had my cell phone camera clicking all the time. One of the pictures I took on the way was of the monument for Aux Heros de L’Armee D’Orient et des Terres Lointaines, a monument in memory of the victims of the 1914-1918 war.

I also saw Chateau d’If from our bus. This famous fortress, standing on a rocky island off the coast of Marseille, was immortalized by Alexandre Dumas in The Count of Monte Cristo as the prison where the novel’s hero was incarcerated before ultimately escaping. The castle was built by Francois I in 1524. One can visit the Chateau by taking a boat out to the rock.

Getting off the bus at a beach on the outskirts of the city, Kathy immersed herself in the Mediterranean Sea for the first time. In the evening, we meandered up to the Arab market with its bustling and amazing aromas. Searching for an interesting place to eat, there were many choices: Tunisian, Moroccan, French, and others. We ended up having a Turkish shawarma, attracted by the culinary smells. We were not disappointed – the food was delicious.

During the second full day in Marseille, we visited the Musee d’Histoire de Marseille. To enter the museum, we walked across a large square with panels explaining the archaeological finds when a guard from the museum came out and told us to go inside first to get a ticket. This was strange since the museum was free. Why go in first and then come back to read the plaques? But we followed the instructions and went inside where there was a detailed history of Marseille.

What I found most interesting was that the many podcasts in the Museum lectured about the damage looters had done finding and selling ancient coins and artifacts. I picked up a brochure that listed substantial penalties for looting, like thousands of euros and prison sentences. I gathered that looting was profitable and widespread until the government reined it in.

After the Museum we walked to the Old Port, a must for all tourists just to see its vibrancy, which was teeming with people and activities. The Old Port is renovated and is used by private yachts today. The world rugby championship happening at the same time, contributed to the wall-to-wall people along the Quai du Fort, the promenade along the north side of the Old Port.

One activity I enjoyed was sitting in one of the cafes watching the people on the Quai. Once you ordered your coffee, beer, or whatever, the waiters did not bother you, you could sit there all day. I usually ordered café allongé; an espresso coffee larger in volume than a standard espresso.

Cafes also allow you to meet people and find out what the purpose of their trip was. I met a fellow at one of the coffee shops from South Africa, who brought his college-age son to watch a rugby game and then travel to England to watch a professional soccer game.

At the end of the Quai, we entered Fort St. Jean. The ancient commandery (a district under the control of a commander of an order of knights) of the Hospitaliers de Saint-Jean, served as the departure point for the troops to Jerusalem during the Crusades of the 12th century. A chapel, church, hospital, and palace made up the commandery, which was completed in 1365. The numerous steps going up in the fort I found tiring. Besides, it was unpleasantly windy on top of the fort. But the view of the Old Port and the city was spectacular from the top of the Fort. The Fort is fully renovated and was worthwhile seeing.

Fighting the wind coming down from the Fort, we searched for a seafood restaurant. And we found the Au Bout du Quai Mediterranean restaurant where I had bouillabaisse and Kathy had scallops. The presentation of the seafood was picture-worthy and the taste was delicious.

Our rest after the full lunch was to sit on the tourist train that took us around the key sites of the city, some we had already seen.  Tooting along the Corniche Kennedy, we came to an abrupt halt and were ordered to get off by the police; the Pope was coming along on his way to the stadium to give a mass! That was the 21st of September.

Surprisingly, I did not see the Popemobile, I took a picture of the Pope coming along in a small, white Fiat, surrounded by police before and after the little car. After the entourage had passed by, on the tourist train passed by the Basilica Notre-Dame de la Garde, a famous landmark, sitting on top of a hill not too far from the Old Port.

We finished the day meeting our daughter and son-in-law and walking through a food court; Les Halles do la Major Restaurant a Marseille, with a large choice of restaurants, near the south side of the Old Port. We chose the one offering tapas. One will not go hungry in Marseille.

Why should you visit Marseille? For learning about its history, for enjoying its diversity of people, for taking photogenic pictures, and for satisfying your culinary desires. Although one could visit Marseille for one day and see the key tourist sites, two days would provide a more leisurely visit. I would certainly go back for a second visit.