Where Everybody knows your name

Thank you Char Char-

You brought me back to 1990. I know this was years before we met, but it was when I first met sweet lady poutine.

I had become smitten with a young Acadian girl named Nadine who was a second year aged studies student and on our ramblings around downtown Ottawa she introduced me to the delicacy of French fries, cheese curds and gravy and of course you needed to top it with even more salt. I discovered that cheese curds actually made a difference instead of cheese and that the very best poutine came from the seediest looking chip waggons rather than anywhere else.

There are few things I like as much and miss as fondly as the smell from chip waggons and Polish or German sausages cooking in the cold autumn air. 

How awesome does all that taste being washed down with a cold can of coke?

I tried a lot of experiments with poutine over the years – I never liked Italian poutine (made with tomato sauce instead of gravy). I was underwhelmed by a poutine we served at a Cape Breton function one night at the Loon that was made with summer savoury added to it.

Sorry Joanne & Derek. But the music and event itself was fantastic.

I even tried a decadent poutine once or twice – made with proper potato rosti, bacon and beef pan drippings.

But the crème de la crème was the poutine made from chips cooked in duck fat. I will state that you have not lived until you’ve tried it.

Sadly, there is no poutine in Australia. I found it once at a solitary New York Fries franchise that has since closed and introduced a very reluctant Liv to it. Getting to see the eye roll and blissful reaction cross her face as she bit into it was a happy moment for me and I wonder if it was the same expression that Nadine saw on mine. Every other Aussie I’ve met has put up the same fight against trying something that sounds good in theory and each an everyone of them has reacted with something akin to good sex.

I will readily admit to being hungover on a fairly regular basis when writing up specials at the Loon. I’d apologise to Rose but she already knew the state of most of her staff from the night before. So yes, the specials did suffer and you could always tell just how bad things were in the kitchen by what specials were on.

Quesadilla = Hungover

Meat lovers pizza = Hungover

Red onion, bacon and mushroom pasta with rose sauce = Hungover

Poutine perogies? That was a hangover but one that was also a special for Char, Marcie, Lisa, and Sarah Sausage.

There was a magic at the Loon, one that wasn’t kept to one group. It spread from kitchen and floor staff to the customers as well. I’ve never found that same formula anywhere else. I’m not saying it was always sunshine and roses, there were fights, we all occasionally lumbered through like a piece of farm machinery. But it is always a fond memory to look back on those six years of my life, to have known that just outside my door was a place that everybody knew your name and was always glad you came.

Sorry, couldn’t resist.