Fresh Eggs, Baby Beef and Dutch Herring -- Oh My!
It is a very fine day today. After finishing bucket of golf balls at the local driving range I headed the long way home. Two pollsters for the upcoming federal election were lost and asked me for directions at the driving range to a small hamlet. As the suburb was just built it did not show up on the map they had. I told them the area was on my way home and they could follow me there. No problem. A brief U-turn at the destination and I was one my way home again.
Up aways on Manotick Station Road I saw a sign advertising Fresh Eggs. How many times have you seen the same sign when you drive in the country? How could I resist. There was someone tending the garden so I drove up the long rural driveway and I stopped to ask about the eggs. Turns out that the eggs were four dollars for 2 dozen. The eggs are so huge the carton lids didn't even close fully. The farmer's wife, who looked familiar, used to work as a chef in the building where I work. I introduced myself and remembered all the good food she'd made for me and others. I have eaten many a breakfast and lunch the past four years there until they closed the basement restaurant down last year. Rent was too high apparently. Due to the downturn in economy of the last four years less and less people were frequenting the basement eatery. Now she's retired for good she tells me.
I also met her husband, Gordon Pyper, who showed up in the kitchen a few minutes later. His grandfather originally settled the area around 1840. The man is himself 84 years old and now a little hard of hearing. The three of us chatted for about an hour, among other things, of how two bulls strayed from their neighbours farm a couple of days ago. The neighbours in the area were a bit perturbed about the huge footprints in their gardens... The two also sell baby beef in the fall. I had them put me down for half a cow this October. Milk and corn fed baby beef. Yum. It pays to take the long way home once in a while. Later today on I will make my way to the Dutch Groceries to pick up a feed of smoked herrings. They will go nicely with the 95 litres of freshly brewed beer and the onions from the garden.
Up aways on Manotick Station Road I saw a sign advertising Fresh Eggs. How many times have you seen the same sign when you drive in the country? How could I resist. There was someone tending the garden so I drove up the long rural driveway and I stopped to ask about the eggs. Turns out that the eggs were four dollars for 2 dozen. The eggs are so huge the carton lids didn't even close fully. The farmer's wife, who looked familiar, used to work as a chef in the building where I work. I introduced myself and remembered all the good food she'd made for me and others. I have eaten many a breakfast and lunch the past four years there until they closed the basement restaurant down last year. Rent was too high apparently. Due to the downturn in economy of the last four years less and less people were frequenting the basement eatery. Now she's retired for good she tells me.
I also met her husband, Gordon Pyper, who showed up in the kitchen a few minutes later. His grandfather originally settled the area around 1840. The man is himself 84 years old and now a little hard of hearing. The three of us chatted for about an hour, among other things, of how two bulls strayed from their neighbours farm a couple of days ago. The neighbours in the area were a bit perturbed about the huge footprints in their gardens... The two also sell baby beef in the fall. I had them put me down for half a cow this October. Milk and corn fed baby beef. Yum. It pays to take the long way home once in a while. Later today on I will make my way to the Dutch Groceries to pick up a feed of smoked herrings. They will go nicely with the 95 litres of freshly brewed beer and the onions from the garden.
posted by John W. MacDonald at
Saturday, June 05, 2004
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