The Grey Cup and Cassoulet

I spent most of the week­end work­ing on a writ­ing project that may bear some fruit one way or anoth­er. In either case, I’ll note it here when I know for sure. I did break for a few diver­sions, includ­ing the Cheese Cel­e­bra­tion and Stu­dent Art Sale at the Emi­ly Carr Insti­tute on Sat­ur­day. We picked up some nice local Caer­philly (a Welsh min­er’s cheese that I’m very fond of). It’s one of the best cheeses I know with fruit. No art, though.

We Are the Champions!
Today I spent a some time watch­ing the BC Lions play the Mon­tre­al Alou­ettes in The Grey Cup, the Cana­di­an Foot­ball League Cham­pi­onship. It’s kind of like the Super­Bowl for Cana­da, only instead of Janet Jack­son at half-time, it was Nel­ly Fur­ta­do, who was bun­dled from head to toe in black leather and a white scarf (so no chance of any ‘wardrobe mal­func­tion’) The fact that it was near freez­ing for most of the game, which they played in Win­nipeg, Man­i­to­ba, made warm dress for every­one a necessity. 

The tem­per­a­ture had no effect on the BC Lions’ Paul McCal­lum, who kicked a record-tying 6 field goals (I don’t think I’ve ever seen more than 3 in any game I’ve watched). The most amaz­ing moment (and prob­a­bly heart­break­ing for Mon­tre­al fans) was when the Alou­ettes fum­bled the ball on the Lions 1‑yard line, which stopped them from get­ting with­in strik­ing dis­tance of a win, and led to a final score of 25 for the Lions, 14 for the Alouettes.

While foot­ball is clear­ly not as near and dear to Cana­di­ans’ hearts as hock­ey, I’m still thrilled to be in a town with a win­ning sports team. The years of bit­ter­ness and nos­tal­gia for sea­sons past in Boston was some­thing I’d pre­fer not to expe­ri­ence here. Like it or not, when the team wins, more mon­ey comes in, and casu­al con­ver­sa­tion with cowork­ers, neigh­bors and even strangers on the street is easier.

Cas­soulet II, The Return of the Bean
The Oya­ma Sausage Com­pa­ny of the Pub­lic Mar­ket on Granville Island is hav­ing their Cas­soulet Fes­ti­val, and we picked up ours today, along with some Duck Con­fit, a Duck sausage and a Veni­son Sausage. Tonight we had some of it, and it was still as good as it was last year, bub­bling hot, with ten­der white beans stud­ded with chunks of the most deli­cious spiced lamb and pork. Topped with bread-crumbs, a few slices of orange, and sprigs of fresh thyme, it’s a sub­lime treat. We ate it with some aspara­gus and some nice french bread. Our lit­tle feast almost makes up for the damp cold (and cloudy brown water caused by 37 land­slides into our reser­voirs in a space of 24 hours) of these inter­minable Novem­ber storms. Almost.