THE SECRET SOCIETY OF SARDINE LOVERS

I have decided that I belong to secret society.  I love sardines.  I have done since I was a kid.  Those nice big fat sardines that are canned in Blacks Harbour, New Brunswick.  A hark back to my roots, as it were.

I only know one other person who likes sardines.  But he prefers those scrawny little Norwegian brislings. No accounting for taste.

When I was pregnant for my first child I craved sardines.  A lunch of sardines with mustard on toast and a 7-Up became a regular ritual.  Then many years later I would sometimes take a sardine sandwich to work for lunch. Admittedly they do have a strong odour but the only person ever to complain in our lunch room was someone who would have benefited greatly from eating them herself.  She had inherited high cholesterol and the omega-3 and polyunsaturates in sardines would have been good for her. Sardines do not taste as strong as they smell either.  But I digress.

Back to the secret society.  If only one other person admits to liking them, how come both varieties are always in stock on grocery shelves?  There must be hundreds and thousands of other sardine lovers out there buying them.  But not once have I seen another shopper reaching for the telltale flat can.  Not once do I remember seeing  a can of sardines in another shopping basket or on a check-out counter.  Thus my conclusion that I am part of a society so secret we do not know the many other members.  Okay sardine lovers.  Time to stand up and be counted. There is no shame in eating those fabulously healthy little fish that are chockablock full of calcium, protein, vitamin D, selenium plus the aforementioned omega-3's.  And the icing on the cake so to speak?  They are Canadian!

REMEMBERING PETE AND SOLO

Jim made chicken salad for lunch today. I was suddenly transported back to a restaurant on Monk Boulevard in Montreal and became again an 8 year old girl who was captivated by the icecream making machine in the window of what I grew up calling "Pete's Restaurant". I would always stop in front of the window on my way home from school and watch as the green pistachio or tan maple walnut icecream 'pooped' out of the pipe into containers that would then be put in the freezer for sale in cones. One very hot day, I was convinced I was not going to be able to walk the last 3 1/2 blocks to my house without a drink of water. I don't know what posessed me but I went inside and asked the man at the counter for a glass of water. The man, whom I later knew as Solo, graciously and gravely presented me with the coldest most refreshing drink of water I remember ever having drunk. This for a while, short or long I don't remember, became a ritual.

Five years later. January in Montreal. Elvis had just appeared for the first time ever on the Ed Sullivan Show and Mary Yersh, Kay Frate and I were giddy with it. We walked down the middle of snowy Springland Street in the tracks left by passing cars, giggling and nearly wetting ourselves with laughter over Mary's very excellent, very funny immitation of Elvis' performance. We were going to Pete's for vanilla cokes and to play some of our favourite tunes on the juke box. Pete or Solo made these specially for us from the fountain Coke machine and a dash of vanilla.

Some years later Pete's had moved right to the corner of Springland and Monk Boulevard. Its official name was the Ville Emard Restaurant. I was pregnant and had cravings for their oh so yummy chicken salad sandwich which I phoned ahead for and went to pick up on a fairly regular basis.

Who were these men, Pete and Solo? I know almost nothing about them. Not even their surname. I think they were brothers. I think they were Greek. They were young men when I stood watching the icecream machine 60 years ago. If they still live they are now very old. But the thing I do know about them, and the most important thing to know about them is that they were good men. Hardworking honest new Canadians who treated an 8 year old girl with dignity and respect and who continued to do so for all the years I continued to frequent their establishment.

The last time I was in their restaurant was in 1996 when I was visiting another childhood friend who lived in the neighbourhood. We went for barbecue chicken. Pete was behind the counter, greyed and very handsome in his later years. He claimed to remember me. And maybe he did.