SAINT ANNE'S MARKET

It's time for the open air Saturday market, and I have been exploring ways to get there that is a little more environmentally responsible. Certainly it is a great thing to have local produce. Some of it is so fresh and inexpensive, but a couple of my favorites are the more expensive premade items.

Ste. Anne's market had a new location this past weekend. Usually for the winter, they are housed in the gymnasium of St. George's Anglican church, but they were spilling over 3 weeks ago onto the street and decided to find a home on McGill's west island MacDonald campus. Their usual place by the water is still too iffy because of water levels flooding the boardwalk and sidewalks for longer than usual this year.





I like to go hungry with the variety of baked goods are a good place for breakfast, with the possibility of getting coffee in a ceramic mug if you get there early enough. Like everything though, it is quite a Herculean task to get anything without creating single service waste. If you want sugar and milk in your coffee, even the mug is not enough. So after feeling guilty for a UHT cream container and sugar packets (I can't seem to drink it black, unfortunately), I  now drink my coffee at home and put my muffin wrapper in the compost when I get home.

My two favourite purchases were injera wraps filled with spicy lentils and potatoes (try this recipe at home for Mesir Wat). That being said, there were fresh asparagus, radishes, red and orange tomatoes,  basil plants and a fresh heads of lettuce, with dirt and insects to prove it for a highly affordable $1.50 each.



and some Argentinian shortbread cookies filled with dulce de leche and rolled in coconut (Alfajores).

I was intrigued by this new-to-me fruit called the haskap and purchased a jam to serve with scones on my summer tea party.



Although cash seems to go very quickly, and the temptation is great to buy more sweet than necessary, but when I am able to make the train leaving at 10 am and come back on foot or bike (it's a longest walk but beautiful at 13 km), or even drive the short distance for a local product, it is a great Saturday morning with an exciting prospect of fresh products as the summer nears.

DESTINATION: WINNIPEG

One week in Winnipeg. Daughter and sister-in-law as companions. Summer in Canada. IT WAS AWESOME!

My brother had time in the evenings and weekend to elevate my food and coffee tastes.

These photos do not do justice to the trip, but like most things in my life, it is a little spotty reflection of the reality.  They do enrich my memories and capture a little  of the reality.

First things first, I love my brother and sister-in-law. I love their house. I love the places they live near. I love eating with them, and walking with them. So here are a few highlights of Winnipeg.

1. Coffee. Where I live in the suburbs, I can't even get my hands on the 3rd wave coffee my brother swears by. If you read my blog, you know when I buy a coffee, I am squarely in the 2nd wave coffee world (Starbucks), but when I am downtown, I try and drink differently. Montreal 3rd wave coffee shops are easy to find on line. I often feel bad for the waste since my favourite beverage (iced latte) goes in the garbage because it's plastic number 6. Not to worry. In Winnipeg, these are recyclable! I was introduced to Osborne Village's Little Sister, a regular haunt of my brother's and Make Coffee on Corydon which doubles as inspiration for architecture and design. Happily, I found that I don't need sugar with my coffee if I ask for fat milk! Delicious, and less embarrassing to my brother!

2.  Food. I have to start with the best food. In a word, Enoteca. On a friday night, with a last minute reservation at the bar, our charming server vainly attempted to get a vegetarian to share with a carnivore. In the end, I broke my moral code to taste some of the finest food I have had the pleasure to eat, and it was literally the best meal that I have ever been treated to. Thank you, bro! Strange to name a tapas resto for an italian wine bar, but, if I understand correctly, the original idea evolved into the restaurant I saw this August, and I love it!

Roast cauliflower, cave aged gruyere, panade (french savoury bread pudding), almond, citrus (freeze dried - looks and feels like a cheez-y), caper and brown butter

 Nagano pork belly, smoked parsnip, romesco (Catalonian combo of almonds and roasted red pepper) sauce, sherry, Iberian Salumi (salami), squid ink, cress

Roast crimini mushrooms, truffled aioli, thyme, sherry dressing, flat bread, mache, crisp chick peas

Creme brûlée  and lemon mousse with pistachio 

More affordably, our go-to place was Stella's Bakery. You can try out different venues which may suit your mood at different times. I tried the homemade quinoa burger on Osborne, and had the vegetarian sandwich beside the WAG on Portage, and ordered the insane-ist cinnamon bun with cream cheese icing for our last breakfast at the Sherbrooke location. I should not have been able to finish it, but I did, and did not eat lunch, nor need supper! It was as good as it looked. All meals were great, generous, and very decently priced. I wish I lived closer!

Stella's Cafe on Osborne's Quinoa Burger with amazing hash browns and spicy coleslaw.

Ridiculously big "four buttermilk pancakes". Delicious and plenty to share!

The Forks market was home to amazing food. The perogies were outrageous. Bindy's potato lentil roti was fat and gorgeous.

The Fort Whyte Farm had Buffalo Stone Cafe. It was clearly making conscious decisions to make good food with local flair, and I enjoyed making hard choices with the menu.

Unusual heavily rose flavored lemonade. Perfect cold on a hot day.

Trout fillets and arugula at Buffalo Stone Cafe.

Vera Pizzeria- Not just an ordinary cheese pizza (it has fior di latte and parmesan), and a glass of chianti. My brother with VIP service. Great last supper!

Everywhere there was food.  The Museum of Human Rights. The Assiniboine Zoo. A week is not enough time!

Then there was home. The fattest quesadillas ever. See my daughter's creation on a blog entry called My Foodie Daughter. My brother's spectacular culinary flip. My sis-in-law's awesome culinary skills. A crazy technology called an induction range.

My brother's attempt to flip his overstuffed quesadilla. I didn't believe he could do it. You can see the concentration in his face that he is about to defy that opinion!

First attempt, but no losses!

Success. Brother 1 Sister 0. One perfect quesadilla.

The last great food memory was the Bridge Drive-In. There is no drive-in, but you stand outside in lines,  and, once you have your ice cream, there is a pedestrian bridge over water to walk over and eat on! It reminded me of Regina's Milky Way. I had a sundae with Saskatoonberry topping! That was a first! My daughter went for a classic vanilla cone with sprinkles.

My only bad food recollection was at Boon Burger Cafe. This was a disappointment. The interior was fun, and I am grateful for a good vegetarian selection, but the Boon Burger was impossible to eat, and unremarkable. The fries were disappointing, and who can't make french fries taste good! My most embarrassing mother moment was giving my daughter a hard time for not eating her Boon Dog. I thought she couldn't get past the wrapper being a tortilla, which probably is a mistake, but after a few bites, I tasted it, thinking I would prove a point, and it was the worst veggie dog I have ever had! I would describe it as follows: If you tried to make a veggie weiner taste like the water left over in the plastic of a weiner wrapper. It was terrible! Sorry Boon Cafe, but I'll eat at Stella's next time!

3. Activities

Boardwalks at Fort Whyte Farm with buffalo, gophers, burrowing owls and a genuine pioneer sod house

Walking the boardwalk at Fort Whyte Farm.

Lots of dragonflies and mosquitos!

Sod house at Fort Whyte Farm.

After watching the burrowing owls and prairie dogs, a little reflection  and a water break with an amazing Aunt!

The Forks - Walk along the Red River and Assiniboine Rivers

Canadian Museum Of Human Rights - An incredible architectural wonder with vertiginous views on multiple levels, this interactive museum is a testament to the human being's potential for good and evil. This is the first national museum built outside of the National Capital Region i.e. Ottawa. My 9 year old daughter, who can only stay in an art gallery or ornate church for a few minutes, spent several hours looking at the exhibits. As a native-born Canadian, I found it most interesting to read the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedom. This museum is a must visit if you are in Winnipeg.

Children's museum is a museum with lots of hands on activities. My individual favourite was the water table, but the collective favourite was the demonstration of how a milk farm circulated milk in the form of yarn balls that flew around in tubes and peppered you if you stood in the right place , which resulted in a lot of giggles!

Children's museum at the Forks

Optically vivid slide

Harrison Ford like image

Assiniboine Park Zoo- A recreated Churchhill and 7 polar bears were the highlight of the zoo, but it included a pride of lions, a caravan of camels, a herd of bisons, an ambush of tigers, a mob of kangaroos, and a flutter of butterflies. We had lots of fun looking for the named animals.

Lyric Lawn in Assiniboine Park - We watched Finding Nemo as park of Scotiabanks Movie in the Park in the Lyric theatre outdoors, doused in Deet with a big bag of creamy caramel Kernels popcorn. It was perfect!

Fort Garry Hotel - The most remarkable hotel silhouette in Winnipeg, this Chateau style hotel built in 1906 was a Grand Trunk Pacific Hotel, so I had to admire its lobby. It's easy to locate from the Forks market, as it was naturally close by the Union station visible from the Forks area.

St. Norbert Saturday Farmer's Market

ROMA CLOSER TO HOME

Recently a friend had to cancel a week vacation to Rome. It was going to be her first visit to Italy, and I had told her a few of my personal highlights that she might want to check out. So when she was faced with a week closer to home, I realized that there was a good amount of Rome reminders here in Montreal. Five years ago I booked a month off to go to Italy, and the month before, after 9 years of unemployment, my husband got a job, and in my attempt to be a supportive wife, I did my best to keep myself busy locally.

I took a beginner's italian course. I watched Roman Holiday with Audrey Hepburn, ate fettucine alfredo, watched 3 Coins in a Fountain (featuring the Trevi fountain tradition of throwing a coin over your shoulder so that you will return one day again to Rome), and The Gladiator.

Trevi Fontain with Seahorses carrying Neptune over the waves

I watched every video and listened to every podcast on the topic done by Rick Steves. I bought a mickey of liquorice tasting sambucca and a sickly sweet mickey of lemoncello. I ate gelato on St. Charles at La Dolce Vita and in the Fairview Pointe-Claire mall.

Bacio and Sicilian Cannoli Gelato at La Dolce Vita

I gawked at the exquisite replica of St. Peters dome that is called Mary Queen of the World. There is a four pillared "baldachin" under the dome that was made in Rome and is a replication of St. Peter's baldacchino carved by G. L. Bernini.

From my favourite clandestine viewpoint

Ebony and Gold

My husband made me cappuccini on a Breville machine I got from Martha at one of her last shows in NYC.

Cappuccino, Via Cavour style

 I visited the Italian Renaissance art at the Montreal Fine Arts Museum. I admired the fountains in Place-des-arts. I bought fresh pasta in Jean Talon market, and made homemade pesto from basil, grated parmesan and roasted pine nuts. It made my trip to Italy, the next spring, a richer one.

Things to do next time I want to revisit Rome, but can't afford it:

1. A visit to Notre-Dame-des-Neiges cemetery to find a replica of Michelangelo's Pieta called a La Pieta Mausoleum.

Michelangelo's Pieta in St. Peter's Cathedral

2. Eat in Little Italy's Primo e Secondo and shop the nearby Jean Talon market for fresh local produce, like the italian's do.

Wonder if it has a terrace? (In the Jewish quarter of Rome)

3. Visit Montreal Museum of Fine Arts - look for da Vinci, Caravaggio, Tintoretto, El Greco, Veronese in the Jean-Noel Desmarais-Pavilion.

4. Look for the Pionnier's obelisk, commemorating the 250th year anniversary of Montreal at the site of former Fort Sainte-Marie, now Place D'Youville, Old Montreal, and remember the Obelisks of Rome. Rome has 12 obelisks to find. Augustus, who beat Cleopatra and Mark Anthony to take over Egypt, was a megalolithomaniac, and the Romans loved collecting Egyptian artifacts, but when the Roman empire fell into ruins, it was the counterrevolutionary Popes that dusted off these amazing stones and erected them in places of religious prominence, in front of churches, with crosses on top, to reclaim Rome's former glory, in hopes of bringing glory to God, or at very least, the Roman Catholic tradition. The Vatican's obelisk has no script and acts as a sundial in St. Peter's "square" (circle). My most memorable obelisk is the one in the Piazza del Popolo, and the one on the back of Bernini's animated pink elephant statue in front of the Santa Maria sopra Minerva church. Others, like the one in front of the Pantheon, top a fountain.

The Lateran Obelisk is tallest Egyptian obelisk in Rome, and the largest standing obelisk in the world.

View from San Giovanni's Square

In Vatican city in St. Peter's Square

From Borghese Garden - View to Piazza del Popolo, and St Peter's to the left in the distance.

Chiesa Santa Maria sopra Minerva

In front of the Pantheon

Spanish steps and the Trinita dei Monti church with obelisk

5. Tour the fountains of Montreal. I haven't found any that resemble the dizzying array that Rome displays, but here are a two of my favourites:

Bernini's sinking ship at the foot of the Spanish steps

3 Bees and a scallop shell

THE ORIGIN STORY

My friend asked me last night what has inspired my love of the Chateau Laurier. I would have thought that I was born with an innate love of Fairmont hotels, but I would have been mistaken.

My earliest memory of a Canadian Pacific (CP: now the modern Fairmont) castle-like hotel was a trip that my family took to Banff. It is a memory stitched together with just a few images. Some of my memories may not have been the same year or even in the right place, but there are two things I remember strongly: waking up at least one day in the campground and doubting my dad’s proclamation that we were in the mountains, until the fog finally lifted to reveal the rock face that had been completely obscured in the dark right beside our tent, and the outrageous and hilarious freedom of wearing garbage bags with our arms poked through because of rain, feeling none of the usual embarrassment in knowing that everyone we met was a stranger anyways. 

I have a vague memory of stopping for a hot chocolate in the lobby of the Banff Springs Hotel, but maybe it was just a look in the lobby. I have a picture of the hotel that must have been taken from some height, and looking down into the valley, the hotel was the scale of Neuschwannstein, and resembled the castles that I later knew were as an adult in Europe, with the ruins of Heidelberg found in the fog being a strong memory with no photo. When I moved to Montreal, I am not sure I understood the breadth of the CP hotels that spanned the country. I think that Quebec city’s Chateau Frontenac (CF) may have been my only knowledge of a hotel with the turrets and dramatic rooftops outside of the Rockie Mountains, but I am even unsure of that timeline, and that I would have connected the two spanning such a distance as where I grew up to where I ended up. 

What I do know was that I started a file folder with the bills and room cards for all my Fairmont Hotel stays over the years, and this is the timeline that I am more certain of, although given memory’s unreliability, there is still some artistic license likely to be present.

From my records;

My first Fairmont booking was for a conference in Toronto called the North York Emergency Medicine. It was 2007, and I did not go alone, leaving my then husband and my one year old daughter to their own devices while I spent long days learning. I remember that we took pictures in our bathrobes, and that my daughter was just starting to walk with confidence, using a toddler sized rolling walker and enjoying the enormous carpeted floors of  the lobbies and hallways. The hotel was the Royal York, and I can’t remember if it was this visit, or another in 2009, but we took the train that actually brought us to the train station that still serves the hotel. 

The following year, 2008, we booked a room at the Hotel Frontenac in the summer, and now we full blown chased after the little tyke who ran away if she could! No walker needed!

In 2009, I indulged in a night to celebrate my birthday, staying at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel in hometown Montreal, with a view down on my favourite reminder of Rome (Vatican City, actually) that is Mary Queen of the World cathedral, and the incredible Sun Life Building that sits kitty-corner to it. 

The Chateau Laurier was next, during a year that I was developing the intention of becoming a  premier member.  That year was 2011, and there was a midwinter promotion in concert with the Holtz Spa in the nearby Byward market. I went with two friends that I knew from a group of long time friends. At the time I don’t think we had spent any time together by ourselves, but that trip changed things. Both of these women have become very important to me, likely beginning with that stay.  This also is likely to be the start of the idea for the book I am on day three writing. Certainly, CL is the closest Fairmont hotel to me unless I stay in Montreal, so has been the easiest to visit. It has never had the heart stopping increases in price that CF has had, and it is now officially the CP hotel that I have visited the most, thanks to my recent visit there with one of the two women that accompanied me there ten years ago. 

The three characters may have developed on a different timeline, but it is interesting to see the parallel of three women from that visit. I know that two of my original characters were based on others, and not on my travel companions, but even down to the room we had with 3 separate beds and a view to Parliament Hill feels primordial to where my story has evolved from. I also wonder if all my reading of Nancy Drew (ND) and her two best friends could have played a part. I think I may have even added a boyfriend, like Ned, to balance out the estrogen. The Mystery at Chateau Laurier was the original title, which sounds like a ND mystery, and the name stuck until my first NaNoWriMo in 2019, when I started to fill in the characters, but the mystery plot never developed, or was very awkward. 

I started going to the American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP) conferences beginning in 2011, and travelled to quite a few cities this way. I found the cost of the exchange rate, and the demand in the US cities almost unaffordable, so was not able to consistently stay at a Fairmont. I did enjoy my stay so much in Boston at the Copley Plaza that I returned with my family, this time with a time booked to walk their lobby dog named Caty (pronounced Katey). I remember a little room in San Francisco that was the peak of what I was willing to pay for a night, especially for a room that I was literally only using to sleep in. It was steep in price, but also in real estate, and I when the sting of the cost wore off, I was glad to have stayed truly in the heart of San Fran, even if it was just for a short time. 

I started this blog in 2012 on a spinoff trip as a Rick Steves superfan with an incredible stay at the Fairmont Seattle. Eating alone turned out to heighten each meal that I ate, and certain foods still come up as fond memories. Spanish fig loaf found in a brick at the international section at the grocery store, and several failed attempts to make the breaded cheese croutons that topped a vegetable bisque soup come immediately to mind. The food was accompanied by the luxurious surroundings and a pianist! I can also recommend that fall is a great time for eating out!  

Today I was reminded why I had the idea of a treasure hunt, when I found an envelope from October 26th, 2013 addressed to Princess Pirate, Room 373, and was dotted with pastel coloured and sparkly stickers in the shape of hearts and with happy horse faces . I don’t remember the ruse, but I wrote at the top, I believe addressed to the front desk staff:

BONJOUR. LAISSEZ MOI Á LA RÉCEPTION

The first clue must have been hidden in plain sight in the room, left to be found.

It read:

Good morning, Rebecca! 

Today I have a treasure hunt for you! 

The first clue is waiting for you at the lobby’s front desk, where I checked in. Just ask for a message for room 373. 

Good luck,

Love, 

Mom (smiley face emoji)

The second clue read:

Ask your daddy to help you find Albert Einstein’s photograph. 

Below it is a desk. 

Check the right drawer for your next clue.

P.S. This poodle is for decorating our shoelaces.

The third clue read:

Good job!

You found the next clue! 

(Editor’s note: I am hearing Blue’s Clues in my head now. I think that might have been my inspiration. Unfortunately it may have also been my aspiration. This was not great work, which is why I have had so much trouble making it into an adventure worthy of a novel!)

This place I found when I visited the castle last winter.

I loved it and am so happy to use it’s hiding place today!

Don’t leave the room, but look for a lamp with a stack of books. 

Don’t be afraid to be a detective. 

Be curious - I promise it won’t break!

The fourth clue was the last clue, and it read:

Wow, that was the toughest spot to find. 

Hope you are having fun!

Now it is time to return to your room.

Find the “safest” place and press the numbers of your birthday - month. 

Don’t forget to put 0 (zero) in the tens spot + day. 

(Editor’s note: I think this is confusing, and I don’t remember what the gift was!)

Hope this is a good gift for a princess!

Enjoy your castle!

I have long admired the construct of a murder mysterday, but before binge-watching was a thing, the closest thing we could come to was binging a series of books, which was hard to do given the constant wait required repetitively for the next book in the series to be released to you after putting it on hold. Even then, with authors like Agatha Christie who had long ago finished writing, it seemed like a far-fetched idea to have so many murders around one person, usually in a small space, or in a small town. These eventually transitioned to murder mystery shows, and the sequence of so many victims quickly became too terrible for me to bear. So I have still never read all of Agatha Christie’s books, and I don’t binge watch crime shows for fear of becoming so despondant as to be suicidal. I like the “twist” though, and when I started writing this book in 2019, I thought that I would take inspiration from the idea of a letter, but it turned out not to be a very interesting device for a plot twist. 

I took inspiration at least for the protagonist Stephanie from a Tissot painting that I have loved for a long time that hangs in the National Gallery of Canada called The Letter. It is a medium sized painting set in a beautiful garden. A woman with an elegant black gown and hat from the late 19th century holds a letter in her gloved hands that she is actively shredding. The multiple pieces hang impossibly in the air behind her, as if caught by an updraft. She is surrounded by fallen horsetail chestnuts, so I always imagined the park to be in Paris. She stands on the grass, which is a big no-no in a park in France, and there is only one table behind, so although I had imagined that she was in a public place, maybe she is at her own private residence and the man behind is not a waiter but a footman maybe. I don’t know what is happening, but her face seems confident, making the expression closest to disgust. Maybe she has  been stood up with a letter carrying the excuse? Whatever is happening, she is not devastated, but this is just the beginning of a story in my mind. She is my first truly original character. She is not based on anyone I know. She is her own persona, although I have to admit, she is also the character most like myself!

So there you have it. A story written over two Novembers, from 2019-2021, started a long time ago. The three women characters have been developing on paper and in my mind for along time, and they probably met the Chateau Laurier during a cold a grey fall in 2011. It was not a trip very far away, but that weekend changed my life. It brought me to dear friendship with two extraordinary women, had me fall in love with the architecture and history of the hotel, and started my writing inspiration for the story that continues to challenge me today!

VENEZIA, ITALIA

We love you Venice!

Fruit market on a boat, of course!

Room with a View

Afternoon reprieve

View from the bathroom toilet!

I never thought that a 12 euro coffee could be worth it, but with the orchestra playing and the the nicest table complete with ice cold water and a great cappuccino! Next time I'll take inside and see the Aqua Alto!

A powerful symbol of Venice