Text 18326, 95 rader
Skriven 2007-07-29 23:23:00 av JIM WELLER (1:123/140)
Ärende: Road trip 1
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Finally.... on the road again. Damn, gas is $1.29/L in Yellowknife,
$1.08 in Edmonton and as high as $1.35 in some hick towns in
between! ($1.35CDN/L = $4.01USD/gallon!)

Saturday we drove half way, as far as High Level, in northern
Alberta and saw a lot of wildlife along the way: several herds of
buffalo (about 20 in each herd) each  with one bull and several
cows, yearlings and even day and week old calves already walking
but all wobbly on their feet. There were also many young lone
bulls wandering around. We also spotted lots of cranes, a fox
trotting along the shoulder of the highway like a dog carrying a
dead muskrat in its mouth and a large hawk with a gopher in its
claws.

We stopped in Fort Providence on the bank of the Mackenzie River
(it's bigger than the Mississippi and quite scenic) for a lunch of
wild bison burgers which were excellent as always.

We had dessert several hours later at the hotel in Manning, Alberta.
(We know the road well and which places to stop at and for what.)
Roslind had a fantastic home made lemon cherry cheese cake. It was
old fashioned farm style cheese cake made with lemon extract just
like the recipes on old condensed milk can labels. Made in a
rectangular pan, cut into squares and topped with cherry pie
filling. Very hamish and rustic. Real comfort food with a taste of
childhood.

On Sunday we went west to Dawson Creek, B.C. We had breakfast in
High Level and an early supper in a small town called Rycroft which
has but one gas station and one restaurant. It is currently run by
Chinese people and serves a bad mix of quasi-Chinese, poor Italian
and mundane Canadian food, all very standard and quite cheap. Most
small towns in Canada have at least one Chinese restaurant like
that, operated by recent immigrants from Canton via Hong Kong who
serve dumbed down "Canadian-Chinese".... chop suey, chow mein and
egg rolls along with hamburgers, steak, and one spaghetti dish. This
one was no exception: a small Chinese buffet looked pretty plain and
dismal (probably left over from lunch and it was 4 P.M.) I ordered a
T-bone steak and subbed spaghetti and meat sauce for the French
fries and Caesar salad for the veg. The steak was over-done despite
a long discussion with the waitress on it being very rare, tough and
greasy, the salad uninspired and the pasta over-cooked, with a
lifeless sauce, but hey, it was just 12 bucks and I got exactly what
I was expecting, no surprises, so I was satisfied. I forget what
Roslind ordered as it was neither good enough or terrible enough to
make note of. We waited until we got to Dawson Creek for our
dessert.

By chance we bumped into one of Roslind's nieces together with her
husband, kid and baby at the restaurant and had a nice visit. This
can happen in virtually any town in northern Alberta as she has such
a large family! They had come there from one town away as the
Chinese place, for all its faults, was better than the restaurant in
their town. (We should have all detoured 60 miles and eaten at
Vlad's. We could have had more bison burgers, farmed this time, home
made perogies, good borscht and some espresso from the new machine
Vlad is so proud of). That area was settled by Russians and
Ukrainians in the 1920s and it shows in the food today.

When we got to Dawson Creek we hooked up with Gord and Margo Hannah
for the evening. We met at a Robyn's Doughnuts which is a small
Canadian chain that I have never been to before. They are even
better than Tim Horton's and had very good, made on the premises,
from scratch rhubarb pie! It was fun to meet Gord in person after 16
years of BBSing and Margo and Roslind hit it off too, finding that
they had lots in common.

Monday we got together with two of Roslind's cousins and their
wives for lunch in Dawson Creek before heading back to Alberta.  We
went to Sola's Bar & Grill, a new, rather upscale place (for a small
town) beside our hotel which had a bit of Spanish and pan-
Mediterranean food as well as innovative and trendy Canadian stuff. The
highlight of our picks had to be my spinach, strawberry, goat cheese
and almond salad. A wonderful blend of ingredients and a nice light
touch after the heavier meals of the previous two days.

Along the way we passed thousands of acres of canola in bloom. It
has lovely yellow flowers just like it's relative, mustard. Since we
had been discussing it before (on FIDO Cooking) I stopped to nibble
a flower and a leaf or two, something I had never bothered to try
before. The flower didn't have much taste at all; the leaves were
kind of mildly cabbagey-mustardy but overall just vegetal green and
tasting of chlorophyll. Nothing to get excited about as a new
cooking ingredient. Roslind tells me that in the fall the raw seeds
are nutty and tasty; I must sample them sometime during an autumn
trip.

Cheers

YK Jim


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