Two more offerings for the collection.
Next to Russell Books on Fort Street in Victoria is a sign which says:
Yes. It reads: ‘BC Shavers and Hobbies’ what’s more, it has a website. It is established. It’s clearly not some fly by night vintage hot tubs and billiard emporium. NO. It is a shop with standards, and seriousness, and hobbies, and shavers.
It sells models, like Airfix models. You can make the Millennium Falcon on a micro scale, or Chartres Cathedral out of matchsticks. You can buy tiny pots of enamel paint and glue that makes your eyes go funny when you open the lid. And. And. You can buy electric razors, for your beard. Which you will clearly grow while you are painting nine hundred ten millimetre high orcs for the battle you will enact with your special friends when everyone else is out having a life.
Again with the ‘I do not understand this at all’ theme. Why would you put shaving materials with balsa wood? I do not understand. I really, really don’t.
Plus, it sounds rude. Vaguely pornographic. Shaven maidens etc. Imagine the disappointment if you went all the way there thinking it was going to be a feast of smooth ladies in their nuddy pants only to find a man called Chet wearing thick glasses and a cardigan trying to sell you the Battleship Potemkin rendered exquisitely in plastic. Noooooooohhhh!
And then this afternoon while Jason was taking the children for a swim in a place called Esquimalt, I went for a walk around and found this shop:
Which I guess may be French Canadian for ‘The Beautiful Potato’? What a great name for a shop. I am quite keen on potatoes and would happily go to a shop which proclaims their beauty from afar. The only problem was, when I got there it was a French Canadian greasy spoon which smelled rank and offered delights like the ‘World Famous Montreal Meat Sandwich.’ Now, as a citizen of the world, and someone with a keen interest in food, you think I would have heard of this sandwich, but no. Clearly I was away that day.
You may just be able to read the signage on the window to the left. It says: ‘Poutine Tuesdays’. URGGGHHHH! Now as Non Working Monkey was saying, there are some things which are very American and some which are very Canadian and some which occupy a grey area in between. Poutine though is very definitely Canadian. French Canadian. Poutine for the uninitiated is chips with curd cheese and gravy on them. I loathe it, and it explains the rank smell from La Belle Patate. It is, in my opinion, one of the worst things you can ever do to a belle patate, throw runny cheese lumps and gravy on it. Bleee.
Ewww to La Belle Patate. Fast food emporiums here sell chips with gravy which is bad enough (although younger son loves them with the horrendous cheese sausage abomination) especially as the gravy is actually beige coloured viscous sludgy sauce rather than proper gravy. Not that proper gravy belongs on chips.
sharon
Your description of gravy has actually made me feel ill.
We once stopped at Porthcawl in darkest South Wales for some chips. I had ordinary, normal chips with salt ‘n’ vinegar. The Lovely Husband had rissoles, chips and covered the lot in one of three kinds of curry gravy they had on offer. That night I knew how those poor First World War soldiers who were gassed felt. I ran away to another bedroom while he slept in his own fug. Anything gravy-based on chips (never mind including curd cheese) is a weapon of mass destruction.
It’s a northern thing to have chips and gravy but I never could warm to it myself.
AHHHHH! Montreal Smoked Meat on ryebread is sublime. A staple in all Montral Jewish deli’s that I miss desperately 40 years down the road from living in Montreal, but I now and then can buy it here in the supermarket – bliss! And any place that sells spruce beer can’t be all bad. But please, please, please – no poutine – that is the grossest stuff in the world. If chips can’t stand on their own with just salt – don’t cover them with sludge to hide their sins!
Janet
You may have persuaded me on the meat. But nobody has a good word to say about poutine.
hah! the fundamental interconnectedness of all things… the NY Times this week mentions the Montreal Smoked Meat and even mentions a place in NYC to obtain this delight. however, i must confess that the very idea of poutine makes me vaguely queasy…
Bronxbee
Poutine is just plain wrong.
Visiting Hong Kong many years ago, I discovered a chain of shoe shops specialising in trainers. They were called “Athletes Foot”.
ah yes Charles. I saw them too. In Crete I think. Awesome.x