Wednesday, March 26, 2008

International Cuisine

March 11th

Jonno and Suze went back to work today. I occupied myself in their neighborhood of Kensington which, in terms of nationalities represented on the two block section of Racecourse Road, gives the United Nations a run for it’s money. Everything from Ethiopian food, Italian sandwiches, Halal butchers, Chinese food, Greek and Korean grocers, and last but not least, an incredible kebab shop with flaky baklava and $3 Turkish bread so light and big you could rig the Santa Maria with it.

I had coffee at the Verb Café at a table with shellacked book jackets of trashy western novels, ate some kebab and caught up on my journal. It being the first day back to work after moving into their house, I decided it would be nice to cook them dinner. Jambalaya is a pretty easy dish if you have good fresh ingredients. I scoured the block and was pleased to find everything I needed in about 30 minutes.

The key to any Cajun cooking is celery, onion and green pepper. This, with the ability to boil water, gets you halfway there. I was pleased to see it turn out as I imagined and even happier when Jonno said, "the Yank can cook."

That night I went to the local, the Dootna Gotta Hotel, to meet "Lats" (Andrew Latrielle) and Condor (Jonno Conn), two more mates from the same MUBC crew. Lats is getting marred soon and is moving to Vancouver, B.C. where I hope to see him. Condor came to visit me in 2006 in Seattle, and will soon move to England. Five years has passed since we all rowed in a boat that punched well above its weight at the Intervasity races up in Queensland. We took fourth with a ragtag group, unusual for the usually well-polished MUBC crew, but with only 3 practice rows before the race, it was not a bad result. It was a pleasure being the token Yank.

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