MANGER TOUT LE JOUR

Oh to feel rested

Good thing we went to bed early, because we were in for a grueling day. We were being dragged to literally anything worth seeing in the little town of St. George, beginning with a look at the large church with the same name. Beautiful church, however, slightly suffering from overcompensation as everything in the church was hand carved or set in gold, but then again which catholic church is not?

We were driven just across a bridge to a little restaurant, that had opened this day – a holiday, for us so that we could experience BIO-food which is ecological and from sustainable sources.

MENU

• Starters : Pumpkin Soup / potage de citrouille
• Main course : either a kind of casserole, lasagna or panini/soit qu’une sorte de cassoulet, la lasagne soit que panini
• Dessert : a cake with maple sirup or a cake with apples and maple sirup and a hot beverage/un gateau avec seulement sirop d’erable ou avec des pommes aussi et on peut aussi choisir le the, le café ou la tisane.

*Tisane is a kind of infusion tea – tisane is opposed to the not made of dried leaves, but is merely a boil of « real fruit « or herbs.

Then we were told a little about the shop and its advantages by a woman with a viciously strong Quebecoise accent, after which we journeyed on.

Next stop on our trip: More food! This was a place that featured apple picking, something I have only associated with dull, unimaginative dates, but I was pleasantly surprised by the lovely mood and the marvelously well-tasting apples. Everyone had just had a three course dinner; however no one ate below 3 apples, and some made it to 7…

Then a lovely stroll in the park to work of the first many meals and after that off to a place called Cabane a sucre which, as our lovely French teacher said loosely translates to Sugar Shack – which is, despite the interesting name, a cabin-restaurant. It was not unlike a fairytale – first we were taken for a ride in a horse drawn carriage, then we played a funny and ridiculous game that is basically adults standing in line to run with dress-up antlers on their head to hit a nail and the one of the two lines that makes the head of the nail touch the wooden block wins and gets to taste the dessert first. We lost – sad face. After the game we were shown how maple syrup is made and well, it’s exactly what you’d imagine.

It was gruelingly cold outside and me having only brought a summer jacket and pair of sneakers, really wanted to get inside, and finally we were allowed. The inside of the restaurant resembled an old western movie and had a fireplace so I was right at home. The food that had been prepared for us was a buffet – a traditional Canadian buffet, and if one really thinks about it, what is the single most important food for a Canadian? MAPLE SYRUP! And every course had just a hint of it: Scrambled and fried eggs with maple syrup, ham with maple syrup – very, very sweet meal. But then came the first of not one, but apparently two desserts (!) which were crêpes, with maple syrup and maple syrup butter and for dessert dessert: fluid maple syrup made cold, by putting it on snow from the last winter they had kept in the freezer which therefore became solid like caramel, and then you put it on a stick by turning it in the fudgy mass. Voila – a lollipop!  (Stomach did not feel confident after this)

We left with our families after this, but I’ll leave this for the next blog

Till next time

The Viking