An Open Letter to Restaurants with a Gluten Free Menu

An Open Letter to Restaurants Who have a Gluten Free Menu,

Or Gluten Friendly or Gluten Easy or Gluten Sensitive menu or whatever your lawyers wanted you to call it so you wouldn't get sued.

I have Celiac Disease and I'm sorry about that.

I know that sucks for you. I know that it used to suck for me when I was a server and a manager at various restaurants over 20 years - insert obligatory Flintstone joke here..... It's annoying. It's tedious and at times, it feels like a total waste of your labor (and certainly, food) costs. I know that some of you think, I am, at the very least, being dramatic and at the most, a complete raving hypochondriac.

I know some of you think it's fake.

I know you hate it when I come in.

But, and trust me on this one, I hate this disease more than you do.

I hate the way the servers roll their eyes at me. I hate the way the new shift manager, who is barely out of diapers, saunters up to my table, (reeking of Axe Body spray) assuring me that my meal will be gluten free. I know for a fact, that this kid has never been in the store at 8am to witness the prep team do their work, doesn't know who your suppliers are, and certainly has never put on a set of whites and watched anything be prepared on the heat of the line. I hate dealing with him and his 'I know my shit' attitude because he doesn't know his shit and it terrifies me that I am getting the same 'trust me' line that he gives to the rookie hostesses just before he tucks them into his mom's Corolla. I hate telling every staff member who approaches our table that I have Celiacs, prompting everyone eating with us to have a long and involved discussion about my intestinal health.

I hate talking about my disease more than you hate cooking for it.

And here's the thing. I, unlike some of my Celiac compadres, completely understand cross contamination. I know that on a Friday night, asking you to wash your tongs repeatedly or change your gloves, or deal with my meal when you have 57 open tables seems like cruel and unusual punishment. I understand how much of a challenge my food is to cook and therefore, I am ALWAYS prepared for cross contamination. I know that it might happen, not because your BOH staff are lazy shits but because they are busy. They are busier than most employed people are on any given day of their careers. They are so busy that they want to punch their accountant friends in the face when they claim to be 'swamped' at work. You don't know 'swamped' until Mother Day Brunch.

I understand cross contamination so don't insult me by explaining it to me again.

What I don't understand is a restaurant not educating your staff on what gluten is and what foods it is in and what foods it is not in. I don't understand the times when I have ordered something off of your gluten free menu, checked with the server, who checked with the manager, who had the sous chef expo the food to then be served something WITH flour in it. I am willing to risk my gluten free bun touching a regular bun in the craziness of the rush but I will never understand having a glutened item on your gluten free menu. This is completely unacceptable and irresponsible.

I don't expect a Celiac Association stamp of approval meal, I expect, at the bare minimum, one without flour in it. I expect you to know that the tiniest bit of flour makes me very ill. I expect you to understand that there is no such thing as 'a little bit of poison' to you and therefore, no such thing as 'a little bit of flour' to me.

I expect your servers to know the ingredients of the food they are serving. I expect cooks to know that gluten is not a germ nor can it be killed by wrapping the food in plastic wrap for ten seconds.

These are my expectations and I don't think that they are unreasonable. By opening a restaurant, you have agreed to serve the general public and like it or not, I am a member of the general public.

I don't expect you to be experts on my disease, but I expect you to be able to serve me food without flour in it. I expect you to educate your staff on what foods those are. I expect you to have a process in place for handling Celiac food and I expect you to follow that one hundred percent of the time.

I expect this much like a person with a peanut allergy expects to eat something without peanuts in it. Because like it or not....that is how serious Celiac Disease is. Just because I don't have an epi pen, and don't react right away, doesn't mean it's not serious.

I know that Miley Cyrus and the rest of the Hollywood idiots have turned my disease into a joke. The Atkins of the decade. I know that confuses things and if I had a magic wish and  by some cruel twist of fate, was no allowed to wish away my Celiac Disease, I would force everyone who can eat gluten to start eating gluten again. But I can't. So I am leaving it to you, good servers and managers and back of house staff to sort through it all.

I know it's a lot to ask. On a night when you are completely in the weeds and two bartenders are late (and - let's be honest, possibly high), your bussers don't understand the word 'bussing', your lounge servers were just sexually harassed by a skeevy regular and the line just informed you that you are out of fries. FRIES. I come in and start asking questions about your Gluten Free menu.

I hear you. I get it.

And dear God, please know that I am so sorry that you have to deal with this garbage disease with me.

I want to thank you for taking the time you do to make my meal safe. I know it's not always perfect but I truly hope you will try your best.

As a matter of fact, I'm counting on it.

With great respect and a high tip percentage,
I am...
A Freaking Celiac

Cheeky Monkey

Our adventures in Halifax continue. Don't worry Haligonians, I am only here until August so you won't have to put up with my 'aggressive' driving forever. 'Aggressive' here meaning, 'driving the speed limit on a dry sunny day'.

Did you know I used to be a flight attendant? Fact. I was a very good flight attendant but I wasn't allowed to drink on the job so I had to leave and become a stay at home mom and writer instead. These are both jobs which require huge amounts of booze to function properly. I do, however, still know a lot of flight attendants and one of the bonuses of knowing a lot of flight attendants and living in a city far from home is that they can come and visit.

Case in point, Friday night, our friend Marlaine came into Halifax to visit. She is a flight attendant, but Trevor went to high school with her so we have known her for years. She's also in Roller Derby and convinced me to try it when I get back to Calgary. Trevor is hesitant of this plan. I can't imagine why.

We decided to go to The Wooden Monkey, a restaurant in downtown Halifax that focuses on locally grown, organic food. It's menu even has notifiers for meals that are Celiac safe. Think about that. CELIAC safe. Not just 'Gluten Friendly' or 'Gluten Aware' or 'It's Complicated' which is what is on Gluten's facebook page. That's because Gluten is an indecisive whore if you ask me.

The Wooden Monkey actually uses the word Celiac, which is awesome. The only bad thing about it is that I couldn't decide. Usually, I only have about 2 choices on a menu and one of them is always green salad. To be given so many choices was almost overwhelming. I know how Heidi Klum feels in a Victoria Secret now. It was dizzying.

Every single entree was gluten free. PS I suck bags at taking pictures.

I finally decided on the Scallop Pasta. It was fantastic. Like really awesome. The pasta was tender and it didn't have that creepy starchy taste that a lot of GF pastas do. The scallops were good. The sauce was a nice texture and full of flavor. My only disappointment was that I asked if I could have some kind of garlic toast or something because I knew they had GF bread but after checking, the server said that she would have to serve it as a GF bun with butter on the side and garlic in a bowl on the side as well. I thought this odd considering that they served GF burgers and sandwiches that they couldn't butter a bun to go with a plate of pasta. For dessert, they have a tofu chocolate pie which was to die for and I usually despise tofu.

Celiac Safe Scallop Pasta

Service was okay, she was sweet and eager to please. I asked for a recommendation and she didn't really have one off the top of her head. She didn't have a great deal of food knowledge though and had to keep going back to the kitchen to ask questions. We weren't asking hard ones either, I feel that the server should know how the chicken is prepared. She wasn't sure about the desert and had to ask about it too. However, I would always prefer a server go and ask the kitchen than make something up or not give a crap at all.

I was thrilled with the Wooden Monkey. However, Trevor and I don't always agree. We agree more than Tory Spelling and her husband agree on the use of tranny's in a marriage but we don't always agree. Trev was less than impressed with the Wooden Monkey. He had the roasted chicken and a coffee. He was underwhelmed with the portion size of his plate. He only got two small chicken legs on a huge pile of mashed potatoes and the veggies were hiding in the mash. Trev's opinion was that the price was fairly high considering the small amount of protein on the plate. He also had to ask for every single coffee refill he got. Which even I admit, got a little irritating. He felt that for a $3.00 cup of coffee, refills should come fairly regularly. Trevor didn't feel that the portion size or the service reflected the price point at the end of the night.

I don't agree. Again, we don't agree on everything, like how I should be a roller derby superstar or the fact that we should have a married couple secret handshake. We should totally have a married couple secret handshake. We would be the talk of the play dates with something badass like a secret handshake.

We did agree though that it was good to see our friend Marlaine because she is fantastic. I will certainly be back to the Wooden Monkey because I feel like I should try every single thing on the menu but I don't know if I could get Trev to come back with me.

We have since come up with a secret handshake. Trev insisted that it ends with him giving me the finger, which I feel is just his way of giving me the finger for making him develop a secret married couple handshake. He is adamant that it is how all the cool ghetto kids end their handshakes.

Christmas Post 2014

Ahhhh Christmas, it cometh. Like a raging fire or a swarm of locust, the magic of Christmas can not be stopped.

If you have been reading this blog for more than a year, you will know that I have issues with Christmas. Well, I don't have issues with the obese, fur clad man breaking into my home to give the spawn flashy, mind numbing gifts. I certainly don't have issues with a beautiful baby being born under a bright star to an unmarried lady. I think all of that is magical. I even get teary eyed at the Nativity Play and Christmas movies (except Christmas with the Kranks, that movie is shit).

I love Christmas.

I just hate the way we handle Christmas.

I hate the exhaustion in a Mother's eyes when she is standing weary-eyed at the Walmart checkout line because she knows that she has fifteen more stops to make. She also just realized that this Walmart doesn't have the one gift that she needed and that means she has to make a trip to Toys R Us today and she really, really didn't want to go to Toys R Us today because she is so tired she could
literally fall asleep against the gossip magazines right here in the Walmart line and risk having a Real Housewife face imprinted on her cheek.

I hate that she is also dreading the bills that will show up in January and how she's going to stretch the grocery budget next month because hockey money is due and God knows that will be a mortgage payment. I hate the weary facebook posts about baking until 3 in the morning and the writer wearing this foolishness like a badge of honor. I hate the bitching and moaning about who is coming to basically live with you for six weeks over the holidays.

My problem with Christmas is that too many moms do parts of it because they feel like they should do it.

And I hate the word 'should'. Don't 'should' all over yourself. Don't 'should' all over anyone else.

Don't 'should' all over your Christmas.

Here's a crazy thought.....

What if, what if, you didn't do something for Christmas unless you wanted to? What if, you made enjoying Christmas a priority? Think about it. Put down the elf on the shelf and the piping bag and think really hard about that.What don't you enjoy during Christmas? Then, then, after you decide what you don't enjoy, then decide not to do that this year.

Hate making a turkey? Fine, make a ham, buy a cooked turkey, ask your aunt or cousin or mailman to bring a turkey. Instead of being up unitl 3am making Santa themed cake pops from a pintrest recipe, stop at the grocery store and buy them. Hate wrapping the teachers gifts? Have children? Done. Dreading the family Christmas picture? Then don't do it! Or have a friend come to your house and take pictures of you and your family jumping on the trampoline or walking the dog.

Hate all the shopping? Do you have a spouse? Have you asked him to help? Let me clarify this one, I'm saying for you to be vulnerable and turn to him with sincerity in your eyes and say, 'I have too much on my plate and I need your help." This is NOT, "OMG YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW HARD BEING A MOM DURING THE HOLIDAYS IS! WHAT THE FUCK AM I SUPPOSED TO GET YOUR BOSS HEY? WHAT? FORGET IT! I WILL JUST DO IT, AND EVERYTHING ELSE BECAUSE I GUESS BEING THE DEFAULT PARENT MEANS THAT I'M IN CHARGE OF EVERYTHING!" Stop doing that to your partner in crime. Stop making him suffer for your shitty to do list decisions. He's not going to read your mind and offer to mail the cards. He can't read your mind and let's be honest, you don't want him to. If you ask for help. He will help. It is that simple. Get off your martyr cross, save that for Easter.


I know, I know it's hard to let go of the control of Christmas. We want things done our way. Christmas has become a presentation of status, social standing, wealth and mothering skills and that's bullshit.


Your worth as a mother and a wife is not decided on one day. Your value is not in the sugar cookies or the ipad under the tree or the matching napkin rings made by hand. You are more than your Christmas and if you have people in your life who judge you by your wrapping or turkey basting skills, get them the fuck out of your life. That includes that little voice that sits in your medulla oblongata that whispers evil things to you. The voice that tells you the turkey is dry or the gravy is cold or uncle john didn't really like his gift and the people down the street had better lights. Shut that little voice down.

I say this every year, it's a new tradition. Mary gave birth in a fucking barn. Think about that. Think about your birthing experience with the medical equipment and the staff and the operating theatre five feet away. Think about that and then think about giving birth to a baby who, even atheists will agree, is one of the most influential humans in the history of mankind, and you give birth to that child three feet from a pile of cow poo. After Mary did that, she wrapped that newborn in some spare cloth she found lying around and was still, literally, the happiest woman that has ever had a baby of all time.

There isn't a clearer message about the simplicity of Christmas. It's not where you are, what you are wearing or what you have bought. It's about who is in the room and how much you love them.

The measure of a mother is not in a perfectly set table or a homemade bow. You need to know that. Because everyone else around you already knows that. Your spouse would rather be sitting in a bare house with a picture of a tree taped to the wall than have you break down in tears while putting lights on a blue spruce. Ask him, go on, ask. I dare you.

Your children may say that they can't live without the newest toy. But they are lying, the can live without the toy. They don't want the toy though if it means that Mommy is in hysterics on Christmas morning because the wrapping is making a mess.  They don't want it if you don't want to have brunch for fifty people twenty minutes after they get it. It's true. Don't ask them though because children are inherently selfish and will lie to you in the hopes of getting the present. Adorable little assholes.

You have to decide if you are worth it. And let me whisper something new in your ear, you are. You are worth letting some things go for your own sanity. Do the things that give you joy, that you look forward to each year. If that's making homemade cards, and you have time, do that. Enjoy it. But don't stay up frantic until four am because everyone expects a homemade card from you. Don't do it because you feel you should because that was never the intention of Christmas.

Pick one thing this year that you don't want to do and then just don't do it. The world will not end. Jesus was still born, the fat man will come and you, you, the maker of the magic, the owner of the secrets and the joy and the sweet sweet love from your children and partner, you, will actually enjoy Christmas. You will enjoy the time because you deserve to.

Merry Christmas to All
Love
Laurie

Date Night at the Feast

Let's talk about date night. Date night for those of you who are unmarried folk is a rare and cosmic-like event that occurs once in a eon-esque age in your marriage. Particularly apres children, the likeliness of date night occurs with the frequency of a meteor shower or the sighting of a Kardashian's common sense. It's rare bitches, it won't get better, you won't have a set date once a month, it doesn't get easier.....own that.

Never more rare has a sans spawn night happened than since we have found ourselves in a new province with no friends, family or homeless people to bribe with Lysol to watch our children. The fates somehow aligned tonight for the baby daddy and I to have a night out. Now, I'm not a picky wife. I don't care if we go to a five course dinner or if we go bowling. Both sound fun to me. However, Trev's work was hosting an event at the local dinner theatre and I have to be honest, I rolled my eyes.

Dinner theatre, historically, sucks. Like suuuucks. Sucks like a bear attack when you are drenched in fish sauce. It sucks. It's awful. The acting is always trite, the plots so thin, you could bust it apart with a strong puff of disappointment and the food? Good lord, the food would make a blind, deaf imprisoned seagull turn up it's nose. I have been to some dinner theatres that make you want stab yourself in the eye. Think I'm exaggerating? Picture it, Tina Yothers, ( you might remember her as the oddly heavy, awkward useless younger sister in 'Family Ties'. She only said the quirky lines in response to MJ Fox's perfectly timed ones.) as the iconic Sandra Dee in a non-musical rendition of Grease. It was hands down, the longest, most harrowing, arduous three hours of my life. I found the 'keepsake' etched wine glasses in my Mom's apartment after she passed away. It was disturbing.

And I know my theatre, I love my theatre. I have scripts of plays in my library, I have seen some of the best musicals and independents from front row centre and I know my shit. If my husband really wanted to impress me, he would find an indie  hole in the wall theatre showing 'Death of a Salesman' or 'The Dollhouse'. However, he has basically baby trapped me and doesn't need to impress me anymore. He impresses me when he puts his underwear in the hamper.

So when he told me that we were going to a dinner theatre, I sighed. I wished we could beg off and go get drunk on Spring Garden Road so we wouldn't waste the babysitter.

I say this more rarely than date night....I was wrong.

The Feast Dinner Theatre in Halifax is a rare and wonderful gem in a spectrum of mediocre and downright horrific dinner theatres. We were greeted by our server Page Beauchamp whom we quickly discovered was one of the actors who served us in character. Actually, all the servers were the actors, which was fantastic. They stayed in character the entire time and it was hilarious. Page handled my Celiacs like a pro. She clarified what my concerns were, then darted off to the chef to check it and then darted back to tell me what I could or could not have. I decided on the bacon wrapped scallops for an appy (amazing) and the maple glazed salmon for an entree. For dessert, "Page" (whose real name was Savanna) offered me fresh sliced strawberries for dessert. The meal was good, really good actually. The salmon was a hair dry, but flavorful and tender. The mash potatoes were well seasoned and the peas, were pretty good. The strawberries were delightful and throughout it, the service and the show was beyond entertaining.

The show playing was a "Merry Maritime Christmas". I like to bitch and whine about things but I really can't find anything bad to say about this show. It was bloody entertaining. Granted, there were some maritime jokes that went over our Alberta heads, (I assume you don't want to marry people from somewhere called Meat Cove? No shit, It's called Meat Cove, What they hell happens in the preschools at a place called Meat Cove?) But they were still funny jokes. Like, laugh out load, mouth wide open, slam hand on leg, funny jokes. It was brilliantly written, like a whole series of SNL routines lined up one after the other, The characters that in any other show would be considered stereotypical, were played so well that they were heartwarming. They reminded you of your own family. You see your grandma and your aunts and your goofy cousin who never has his shirt tucked in right. It was charming and funny and delightful.

Then there is the music. Normally, these things are weakly, tone deafly, sung to a shitty track with an 80's high hat beat to them. Not so at the Halifax Feast. The actors are talented. Let me clarify that. They are SICK talented with voices that make you stop and whisper 'shut the fuck up' to the guy next to you. Any accompaniment was played by the actors themselves who rotated through the instruments, it was amazing. The song choices varied from traditional Christmas carols sung in 5 part harmony to 'Shake it off' by our server Page who nailed it while her 'grandfather' danced like a fly girl behind her. Their 'O Holy Night' had everyone sitting, silently, enraptured and teary eyed at the beauty of it.

More than once we wondered, 'why aren't these people famous'? Why aren't they on Broadway? Because they are really that good, that professional, that talented. Meanwhile, they finish belting and dancing to race to the back and appear again with aprons and trays of food all while staying in character. The effort that these people put into my date night was more than either of us has ever considered putting into it.

It was a delightful surprise and I loved every second of it. So for you Haligonians (or people from Meat Cove so you can explain that joke to me) go see the Christmas show at Halifax Feast Dinner Theatre. By the time they get a new show, I will most likely be hankering for another date night.

Meanwhile, Calgary, enjoy the prison-like buffet and Tina Yothers musical rendition of 'Waiting for Godot'.....shudder.

A Worm of Cure....

Is there a cure for Celiac Disease? No. Would I like to find a cure for Celiac Disease? Yes. Have I been sitting, drunk, outside of a McDonalds at two in the morning weeping inconsolably because I could not have the Big Mac that I deeply, down to my soul desired? Did I at that point kick the garbage can with my Micheal Kors pumps, fall down and cry out desperately, "I would do anything to be cured of Celiac Disease!" Maybe....

Did I mean what I said? Would I do anything to be cured of Celiac Disease?

Like many things said outside MacDonalds at two in the morning while drunk on tequilla....I don't know if I meant it.

On the disease spectrum, Celiacs sits pretty damn low on the scale. It won't kill you, unless you eat gluten and get colon cancer and that kills you, which technically means that cancer killed you. You could eat gluten while driving a huge boat and the cramps are so bad you fall onto the wheel, jarring the boat sharply left, run into an iceberg, sink the boat, find a floating door to hang out on until help comes but then Kate Winslet shows up, takes the door and won't let you on even though there is plenty of room so you drown, so technically, drowning killed you, you poorly planned plot flaw.


I do want them (and by them I mean smart sciency types) to find a cure for Celiacs but I'm  not sure how far I would go to help them.

Case in point.....An article in Metro discussed a study done by  Paul Giacomin at James Cook University in Australia where he used hookworms on Celiacs and diminished their symptoms when eating gluten.

You read that right...hookworms. I also read the guys' name and totally thought for a second that he was that actor and I was all like 'wow, I loved you in 'Saving Mr. Banks', how did you find time to act with Emma Thompson and run a Celiac study?' but then I googled him and realized I was totally wrong.

Still, running the celiac study is impressive. Want to know why? Because it involved hookworms.

This reads like a freaky reverse hazing challenge. How baaaaad do you want to be out of our Celiac club huh? Are you willing to have hookworms in your gut?

Let's just discuss hookworms shall we? A little bio lesson for you.

 

These are hookworms. I tried to find something cute to say about them and yet, I can not. This is them, this is it.....yup....hookworms.

 

Hookworms are a parasite that stick their little mouths onto the inside of the intestine and suck your blood until you die, true story.

 

 

 

 

 

This is it's adorable little face....it looks like that thing in Return of the Jedi that ate Boba Fett.

 

Now, I know Celiac's are bad asses, I know we are hard core, life on the edge type of people. After all, every meal out is like Russian roulette, but I feel like this is pushing it...don't you?

 

Let's look more into hookworms.... I will take some excerpts from Wikipedia

 

"Hookworm affects over half a billion people globally.^[2] It is a leading cause of maternal and child morbidity in the developing countries of the tropics and subtropics."

 

But, hell, if you can eat spaghetti in the hospital, why not right?

Who ARE these people?

 

"Larval invasion of the skin might give rise to intense, local itching, usually on the foot or lower leg, which can be followed by lesions that look like insect bites, can blister ("ground itch"), and last for a week or more."

 

'Larval invasion' just makes you think of that weird movie where the bugs mutated into human sized creatures that attacked people in subway tunnels doesn't it? Would I like something called 'ground itch' in exchange for eating a subway sandwich? Ummmmm, let me think long and hard about that one....NO.

 

How did this guy find people to DO this for him? Did he have a 'Celiacs Only' Party and roofie everyone and while they were under, shoved worms up their ass?

 

This one, is my favorite so I saved it for last.....

 

"They mate inside the host (that's you), females laying up to 30,000 (that's thirty thousand) eggs per day and some 18 to 54 million eggs during their lifetime, which pass out in feces (poop). The larvae are able to penetrate the skin of the foot, and once inside the body, they migrate through the vascular system to the lungs, and from there up the trachea, and are swallowed. They then pass down the esophagus and enter the digestive system, finishing their journey in the intestine, where the larvae mature into adult worms"

 

I have to admit, this part has me tipping my intestinal hat to the little bastards. This is dedication to your craft right here people. Read that again, they travel UP the body to the esophagus, to then be swallowed to get into the digestive system. I sometimes won't cross the street to get a meal because I am that damn lazy, look at these little buggers! They really want your intestines....a lot.

 

Have we considered hookworms in the fight against ISIS?

 

 

So, in conclusion, as if I have not made my point clear. I don't want Celiacs but I don't want hookworms either. As a matter of fact, I think that we should find a way to give Celiacs to people with hookworms because everyone in their right mind would take a gluten free diet over having a swarm of wiggling, fanged worms in their intestines. Everyone. I would like to talk to any of the study participants (or survivors as I like to call them) and find out what childhood trauma made them think that hookworms in their gut was the right path on that particular day.

 

 So Paul Giacomn, thank you so much for your extra effort on this one, but I will not be trying you Celiac cure....ever.

PS. You were the only good thing about 'Lady in the Water'

 

 

 

 

The Hunter becomes the Hunted

I'm back to the lobster thing because I feel like we haven't beaten this to death enough. I like to really stomp on a topic until half my readers throw up their hands and slam their laptops closed in frustration. Here is the thing. I have been eating lobster since I was 8 years old, (so for about a decade) and I am really really good at it. I am an expert at picking them. How some people buy a luxury car is how I purchase lobster. I am discerning.

Why?

Because I am a carnivore. Never in my life do I feel more Charles Darwin than I do when I eat lobster. I am the fittest, and I have survived. I feel powerful and raw when I pick it out alive, get it home, cook it and eat it by literally busting into it's body with my bare hands. "But Laurie, don't you feel bad for the lobster?" whines the lady who lives in a tree and eats only bark and I laugh maniacally in her face.

"A lobster? Feelings? Thoughts? AS IF!" I proclaim as I rip through the tail meat.

I spoke too soon......

The hunter became the hunted and I have to say that it was terrifying.

We went to Fishermans Cove to wander around (super cute little town btw and not in anyway responsible for the horrors that resulted that evening) and although you can buy lobster there, plus eat it from different restaurants every three feet, a lady told us about "a guy".

That's how she described it....a guy. A guy that sells lobster out of the back of his truck. Now, in Alberta, this is a horrifically bad idea that will surely land you in the ER within the hour, but here in Halifax, seafood by the side of the road is A-Okay. So the guy sells lobster out of the back of his truck, in the parking lot of Ralph's Strip club. Someone named a strip club "Ralphs". Someone, named Peter, I assume.

With two kids in the car, Trev types 'Ralph's Strip Club' into the GPS, totally acting like he didn't know where it was or how to spell 'strip'.  It came up as 'Ralphs Place - Showbar and Grill' which I think is a name that really classes up the joint. I love the idea of a showbar, like there will be something other than naked snatch. Maybe you'll see a juggler or a magician or Bobby Flay cooking something...you never know at something called a showbar.

So the guy is in the lot and the truck is actually a trailer full of tanks and the lobster are all alive and pissed off and my mouth starts to water. Little did I know that it was within these tanks that the lobster learned tactics for beating humans at their own game. Like in prison where an accountant walks in wearing a three piece suit but walks out with three tear tattoos and a working knowledge of how to make a molitov cocktail. It was a mini underwater terrorist cell.

We, unsuspecting, naïve humans, purchase the lobster from the very nice lobster guy, but instead of putting them in a box like at the grocery store, Ralphs Showbar Parking guy puts them in a plastic bag. One that he just ties up at the top. There are three lobsters in one plastic grocery bag so they don't all fit properly - there is a leg of one and a tail of another half sticking out of the top.

 So the moment I put the bag on the floor of the back seat of the truck (with the children), the lobsters start ACTIVELY trying to escape the bag.

I'm not kidding.

Trev and I are trying to brush over this fact with fun comments like "what should we name them?" and "do you want to let them walk around the kitchen when we get home?" but the kids aren't listening. They are staring, legs tucked under them at the consistent slick, plasticy sound of six sets of claws and eighteen legs straining to get out, and free, in my fucking truck.

I know we should get home right away but I still make Trev stop to get wine. Because Momma gots to have her wine.

When I come back to the truck, the plastic bag has moved to the other side of the back seat and my youngest is sobbing. I guess while I was in the liquor store, she asked to see the lobster, I guess the lobster wanted to see her back, this resulted in some sort of of life saving, intervention by my son which consisted of him kicking his converse violently towards the bag.

Daddy wasn't happy, the kids weren't happy, the lobster were pissed - so pissed in fact that I suspect that this is where they started to plot to kill me. I was just happy I had wine.

So we get everything home and I put a huge pot of water on to boil. I put the lobster bag on the counter. Now, this is going to read like fiction but I promise you, it is all true. I went to get something, turned around and the bag was on the other end of the counter. I'm SERIOUS. The little fuckers were doing some sort of leap frog, crawly over thingy atop each other in tandem, forcing the bag to lolly over itself all along the counter.

And they were moving at a fairly solid clip.

I chuckled good naturedly ( as someone who is about to die in a horror film is apt to do) and pulled one of them out. "Are you trying to get away?" I giggled into it's face. This next part is going to both horrify and amaze you. Ralph might even consider it for the showbar, it was so crazy.

 The son of a bitch slapped me.

Reared back it's elasticed up little claw and struck me, like I was a trailer park hooker, across the cheek.

 I swear the little bastard grinned at me and I vowed that he would be the first one to die.

Fucking Degenerate

 Trev usually puts in the lobster, not because I'm squeamish but because I'm not very tall and in order to do it quickly, you have to have a higher vantage point than I can offer. So Trev puts them in and the kids are fascinated. I made him put Ted Bundy in first and I even whispered through gritted teeth, "Who's smiling now fucker?" and Trev looked at me like I was nuts. I put the lid on the pot.

Lobster don't take long to cook and after a few minutes, the kids asked to see what they looked like. So I grab the tongs....now, the next few seconds will go down in history as the most controversial events in the Lyons' family memories. There will be debates, arguments and renactments for years to come as we try to unravel the sequence of events that led to my near death.

 I reach in with my tongs, see a flicker of movement and my truth states that those little fuckers stayed alive long enough to crawl out of the boiling water and throw hot molten-like liquid in my beautiful face. Trying to scar me for life like a soap opera star or the phantom of the opera. Like a driveby shooting, I was a victim of the vicious actions of a monster.

Trev says that the tongs slipped and I splashed myself.

Either way, a millisecond later complete chaos ensued. I am screaming like a banshee because it feels like my skin is melting off my face and a thousand bees are stinging my neck. Julia, who was terrified of the lobster anyway, was screaming, "They got my Mom! She's going to DIE" while jumping up and down on the island because she felt like this was safer. Trev, for some reason, thought that I had burnt my chest, so he kept trying to rip off my shirt and bra so that my clothes wouldn't melt to me and force me to wear an Aero Postale logo branded on my skin for the rest of my life.

 I just thought he was just picking a stupid time to get frisky and kept slapping his hands away. This apparently means that you are going into some kind of shock so the more I slapped him away, the more insistent on my nudity he was. Ethan, being the only sensible one among us, grabbed the hose attached to the sink and sprayed me dead in the face with it. He looked like a little fireman, all intensive and hero-like. But the only thing was, he didn't stop spraying, even when I opened my mouth and raised my hands in protest. He just kept spraying, turning the whole thing into some weird waterboarding incident while his father, ripped off my clothing and his sister cheered him on.

Not a Norman Rockwell family moment.

So, to recap, I am standing, half naked, soaking wet with red streaks on my face and neck and my entire family is in an uproar around me and I hear a tiny little bubbly laugh from the pot.

 Well played motherfucker....well played.

Trev was insistent that I should have gotten some sort of medical attention but I was equally insistent that we eat first. "So we are just going to pretend everything is fine?" he quipped while glaring at me and mopping the floor. He didn't understand that I NEEDED to eat this creature. "Yup, because that motherfucker tried to kill me. And if you try to kill me, I will eat your motherfucking body." I said in my best 'Mob Wives' voice. He rolled his eyes and kept mopping.

So, twenty minutes later, after the trauma counsellors left, with some burn cream and an ice pack taped to my face like I was Rocky, I picked up that lobster and with as much bravado as I could muster while seeing out only one eye, snapped his body in half, ripped it apart and ate every single morsel of it.

 So, you see, I won in the end and I won't scar so I can still be a star of the stage and screen as I was meant to be and that gangster, bad ass, Ted Bundy of a lobster, will never hurt another human again.

I'm a hero and a victim and I live to eat another day.

PS Shortly after finishing this post, I stood up from the table and felt a sharp stab in the bottom of my foot. Wincing and cursing, I gingerly lifted my leg to see a hunk of sharp lobster claw lodged in my skin. The bastard got me in the end.

The battle continues......

Halifax to the Max

We're here! We're here! We're here!

The Lyons family has arrived in Halifax. We are now Haligonians. That's actually what people who live in Halifax are called, I looked it up. So far, I am so in love with this place, I feel like it's one long first date where I don't have to shave my legs and I can fart. Haligonians fart, I looked it up.

If you are Canadian and haven't been to Halifax, it's like Vancouver and Ottawa had a baby and that baby decided not to be like their snooty, pretentious, egotistical, superior parents. Halifax is iconically beautiful but humble, just like me and Princess Caroline. If you aren't Canadian, I have nothing to compare it to...you just have to come.

I haven't done too much shopping for GF food yet, the baby Daddy got here before us and loaded the kitchen shelves. He says that Superstore has all the same things that I like from the Calgary store (Udi's bread, Glutino pancake mix) and the prices seem the same (vomit inducingly high) so it looks like I'm not going to have too many problems there.

Restaurant wise, things seem okay here. They have several regular chain restaurants that we frequent at home and since we have only been here for a few days, I haven't had a chance to try everything. The first night we got here, the hubby, spawn and I headed downtown to explore. At first, my favorite thing to look at (other than the ocean) was the Citadel.  The Citadel is an old fort that was used to protect Canadian shores from whatever used to attack us before the world realized we are badasses. Not mentioning any names here, but Canada did burn down a certain pale cream colored house once, it was so pale in color that one might even call it a White House, if they wanted to be a jerk, which of course, I don't want to be. The last thing I am is provocative. As you well know. The Citadel is also white, but hasn't been burnt down by anyone, anywhere, just saying.

I digress, down the hill from the Citadel is The Five Fishermen where we promptly headed for some, you know it, lobster. If you don't like lobster, stop reading this and go get yourself a tongue transplant because you are broken. Nothing tastes as good as lobster and there is nothing so scrumptious as eating lobster twenty feet away from where it was caught. At The Five Fishermen, we were greeted by a lovely server with lots of Gluten Free knowledge and lots of love for the spawn. Thank God because I was getting tired of pretending to like them.

I decided against ordering an entire crustacean mainly because I hadn't slept properly in about five days and had so little energy, the lobster, even in it's dead-like state, would have bested me. I thought it was prudent to allow the fine chefs to take care of that for me. I ordered the Lobster Cobb.

Now, normally, when lobster is added to something, anything, like a hat or a craft project or a salad, it is itty bitty pieces that are hardly indistinguishable from the rest of the ingredients. "Is this a cucumber or a piece of lobster? Is that a button on your hat or a piece of lobster?" This is not the case at The Five Fishermen. I honestly thought that they had made some mistake or were giving me special treatment. That's why I didn't take a picture of it because I thought I should eat as much lobster as possible before they realized their mistake and I can't be responsible for something they can't prove is in my stomach (I learnt that the hard way in prison). It occurred to me  that they might have thought I was Sandra Bullock or Angelina Jolie (happens ALL the time) and had therefore, stepped up their lobster portion in the salad.

This was not so, the server (after falling backward in shock to discover that I was not Angelina Jolie) told me that no mistake had been made, this was how much lobster regular people get. There were actual full, claws in there, it was insanity. I devoured it. The boyfriend had the lobster roll because he likes to eat gluten right in front of me like a chump sometimes and he says it was amazing. I don't even know what the spawn had because The Five Fishermen has ten ounce wine pours so the kids could have been playing in traffic for all I remember. It's okay though, because people in Halifax are so kind, that they probably would have taken the kids home, bought them new clothes, taught them algebra and then returned them in back in time for dessert.

I live here now, at least for the next year and if the last four days are any reflection? Being a Haligonian is going to be the best thing that ever happened to me.

This is me at Peggy's Cove where the famous lighthouse is. My kid is taking the picture.

This is my face when he said, "Oh, did you want the lighthouse in the picture too?"  Please note that I am moving threateningly toward the camera.