At Hudsons, and then again at the party, I met one of Frida’s MBA friends, Vishal. He thought that Frida was a terrible Edmonton guide, she didn’t even take me to the roller-coaster in West Ed! So, just to make up for my, in his opinion, crappy host, he took me to the post-St. Patrick’s Day brunch at a diner. And there I got back some of my faith in the Canadian cooking.
According to the Lonely Planet guide of western Canada, Canadians love to go out and eat brunch on Saturdays and Sundays. And the evidence I got from this particular diner on 109th Street in Edmonton confirmed that the Lonely Planet was telling the truth, atleast for the Sunday after the All-Day-All-Night-Beer-Drinking-Holiday St. Patrick’s Day. The diner was full, and we even had to wait before we got a table.
But it was worth it. I ordered a Smoked Salmon Bennie (which I guess, after some googling, is short for eggs benedict) and freshly squeezed orange juice. The Bennie turned out to be two toasts with smoked salmon, ‘sunny side up’ eggs (that’s atleast what my dad always calls them) and some kind of sauce, served with fried potatoes. And it was so good. The smoked salmon mixed so well with the eggs and the fried potatoes were really crispy, without being dry.
Then, of course, it didn’t hurt that the company was extraordinarily obliging too. Most people tend to laugh at me or look at me strangely if I start talking politics or science or other serious stuff when it’s not really expected. But Vishal, he didn’t shy away, he dived right in and we discussed the pricing of water and American politics and I had a really nice Sunday brunch. Like, one of the best.
From there, I went on to bake the Swedish pastries with Frida and Karin for the all-I-House potluck. So Sunday ended up being a very tasty day, a way for me to buffer up on some fat for the coming months of tough farm work.
Monday was mostly packing and fixing stuff, but an hour or so before I had to leave for the bus, I had tea in the shared kitchen with Frida, Marianne and Kate. Marianne had just got a package from her aunt in France, with REAL French cheese and some cookies and candy. And just like all the other generous people that I met in Edmonton, she gladly shared her goodies with us. Ah, the cheese! My dad is a real cheese enthusiast and spends a lot of money on exclusive cheeses, and I’m pretty sure that he would have liked this one. I know atleast I did.
It felt strange saying good bye. I had become fond of that kitchen, where we had spent many afternoons, evenings and nights cooking, eating and talking about everything from petty gossip about guys to the difficulties of development in Central Africa. I really felt that I left something good behind. But that’s life, right? Most things we have to leave behind, and in the end the only things we have left are our memories. Luckily, my memory is good.
Katja Malmborg 