How do you stop Canadian bacon from curling in your pan?

If all you want to know is the answer to the bacon question, then you should jump to the bottom of this post.  But I really hope that if you have come this far, you will read the details of my latest post, before skipping to the punchline.   

While looking back at 2021, I realized there were some other interesting things I thought might be worth sharing.  I promise to keep this post light, and filled with Montreal activities,  rather than travel-related ones. 

Gardening has always been therapeutic for me, but during Covid times – even more so!  

So, last summer, when presented with a new volunteer opportunity to assist with watering and weeding the vegetable garden at a nearby high school, I jumped at the chance to participate. The school has an arrangement with the 50+ organization that is housed next door to the school.  In the summer, while the school kids are away, the “seniors” (and I am using that word VERY loosely), help keep the garden thriving. We even got to take home a few pieces of the harvest for our efforts. 

But the main attraction for me (aside from getting to play in the dirt), was the chance to admire the view of the city from the rooftop garden space.  It offers up quite a lovely view of St. Joseph’s Oratory on one side and a view of the city from the other side.  

It was also interesting to observe how differently this garden was producing compared to what we were harvesting in my collective garden.  To be honest, I thought this garden was a lot healthier and more productive than the collective one.  Maybe because it was up on the rooftop and the bugs on the ground got lazy or distracted from traveling up so high to get to those beds?  Maybe the veggies flourished because of proximity to the sun?  Or more likely – they just started out with better soil. 

They certainly did not have to contend with groundhogs, a surprisingly common occurrence in both of the collective gardens that I have worked in over the past three years. Obviously, I cannot say what the true reason was, but they certainly had good-looking, healthy, and abundant veggies!  The relaxing ambiance and beautiful scenery made for a lovely way to spend a few hours each week.  Additionally, it was truly a delight to assist the young gardeners in bringing their efforts to fruition. 

Another experience that was a new thing for me to observe this summer, was likely more of a nuisance for my local friends. I am referring to an elaborate process where the city replaces the lead pipes on our streets.  Montreal is an old city – and lead pipes are just one of the things that come with an ancient place.  In a neighbourhood where the houses were built in the 1920s, lead pipes are not uncommon.  So, the city is slowly, but methodically replacing them, one street at a time. I found this process fascinating not only because of the efficiency at which the whole thing took place but the amount of effort that was required to accomplish this goal. 

The process started with huge piles of materials stacked at the end of the street. Then sections in front of each house were marked off and large squares of concrete were cut out. Much digging ensued.  To locate the pipes, the crews brought out a super strong water blaster, to spray inside the hole, along with a big elephant trunk-shaped gizmo that sucked up the dirt out of the hole.  Eventually, the pipes were uncovered.

 

I was surprised to see exactly how deep the crews had to go to finally get to the water supply mains. Once the pipes were uncovered, a big metal box was dropped in the hole to prevent cave-ins that might trap workers.

The task of lowering the boxes into the holes was no simple feat.  A big crane had to maneuver them down into place. Then, fences were erected around the outside of the holes, presumably to keep us from jumping in?  

During all this, shrubs were dug up, sidewalk pavers were removed, and street parking was disrupted. Oh, and there was quite a bit of noise involved as well.   I missed the part where they replaced the pipes and covered everything back up because we took off for our family reunion in Colorado. 

By the time we returned from our trip, the pipes were re-covered, the holes were being re-paved and new plants put in place. All in all – a lot of work went into accomplishing all of this. 

 

Prior to Halloween, a local theatre group called Young Hearts Theatre was making random appearances around the neighbourhood. I managed to spot this aspiring actor/actress/act-person at the park one afternoon. 

Kinda creepy, but totally in line with the Halloween mood. And it certainly accomplished the goal of creating some attention for this theatre collective, which is geared to the young and young at heart.   

 

Fast forward to wintertime.  I love looking at Christmas lights in December, especially on my birthday.  This year, instead of cruising around the neighbourhood, I wanted to try something new.  Dave agreed to buy tickets to a light display, called Illumi.  It is located in Laval, an adjacent city about 18 kilometers (that's about 11 miles) from Montreal.  

I had no idea if this was going to be some cheesy display, but I was feeling adventurous so we decided to give it a try.  I am so glad we did!  We opted for the walking tour instead of the driving version since it was not too terribly cold that night.  It was cold, mind you, but there were plenty of places to step inside, get a hot drink and warm up when needed.  This display was a series of nineteen different themed areas – everything from a magical forest to candy land, to dinosaurs, aliens, horses, the Sahara Desert, etc.  

I think our favorite area was the one called Draw me Illumi,  where kids aged 3 to 17 had submitted hand-drawn pictures. These pictures were then brought to life, transformed into huge light structures, with the original drawings displayed alongside.  Here was a really cute alien one.  While taking our time to meander through the displays, we enjoyed watching all the little kids running around and climbing on pigs with wings and clamoring for their parents to take their pictures!  I read that the exhibits change every year…so this could easily become a new tradition!   

 

Since we went to the light show on the day before my birthday, I declared that we had to do something else on the actual day.  Dave suggested taking a curling lesson at the Montreal West Curling Club, right near our house. We had been to the club once a couple of years ago, back in our pre-Covid life and I had seen people playing so I thought – “Sure, why not? How hard could it be?”  

After dealing with a flat tire, we headed out to our private lesson with Peter.  He took it very slowly and helped us get comfortable walking on the ice first. Then we progressed to the actual curling part.  When he said, “it’s just like bowling”, I thought “Cool… I can do this”. Some of you may not know that I am a pretty decent bowler, or at least I was, back in the day.  I even have my own bowling ball, bowling shirt, and bowling pin earrings  Oops... I digress.  

Even though you do not have to lift the "rock" (technically, the 19.1 kg [44 lb] stone)  up and hurl it down the ice – I, sadly, never quite got enough “umph” on my release to get it far enough down the lane into scoring position. 

Dave, on the other hand, took to it like a Canada Goose to water.  Here is his score – kicking my ass, on my birthday, no less!   Peter let us handle the brooms but since we were each a team of 1, we could not get the feel of how sweeping works in a real game.    

Here is my segue to the answer to the original question – How do you stop Canadian bacon from curling in your pan?  You take away their little brooms!  Hopefully, you do not have to be Canadian to find that as humourous as I did!  And just for fun, I thought I would end this post with beavers curling, just because they are cute.  

Stay tuned for new adventures coming in 2022!  Take care, y'all!