Homeward Bound

June 29-July 5

We got to Park Woodyatt in Drummondville. It wasn’t as extensive as the map had led me to expect, but we spent the best part of an hour there. It’s on the St. Francis River.

The point, quite a few miles downstream to the north, where the St. Francis meets the St. Lawrence is where Spencer Tracy took Robert Young to attack the Indians in “Northwest Passage.”

We went to dinner at a restaurant called Le Globe-Trotter, which is in a hotel called Le Dauphin. 

I wanted to take Joanna there because the menu included duck confit. We both had plates of that, after we polished off a dish of snails. We paired all that with a good cheap bottle of French wine, called simply Les Trois Grappes, from a Pays d’Oc winery called Laroche. 

The grapes were Syrah, Grenache, and either Mourvedre or Merlot. (Sorry, I didn’t write it down.)

Saturday we drove to Coventry, Vt.

The Canadian border guard noticed the plate on the car. 

You’re from New Jersey? 

Yes.

What exit?

151.

I guess if you say you’re from Jersey and can’t answer that question, you have to be an imposter.

We had Google Maps directions, but Philomena and Jeff had e-mailed that part of the route from I-91 would be blocked for a centennial observance at Newport, the next town north of Coventry. 

They said to take the next exit south, which is the one to take when you approach town from the south. So far, so good.

We tried to follow the Google directions from I-91 in reverse. When we got as far as the closed section of road in Newport, we knew we had come too far.

We wound up stopping at a pull-off on the highway to ask directions from a couple of locals.

One, who was in a pickup truck, told us to follow him. So we did.

When I saw the old village church in Coventry, I almost knew where I was.

The weather has turned very warm, especially by Vermont standards. Temperatures are in the high 80s and low 90s.

We didn’t spend too much time outside except to sit in the shade and drink a beer. 

I took a nap in an easy chair.

Several neighbors came to the house later on their way to Kingdom Brewing, a local craft brewery in Newport.

The pub at the brewery had a band playing country music. They serve beer there in flights. I had a double IPA, an imperial IPA, and a red ale with a rich, nutty flavor, all of them excellent. 

I had to try one other because it sounded so strange, spruce saison. It is made with spruce needles.

Jeff said the recipe came from an old British ship. Spruce adds vitamin C. I guess taking a pint or two of spruce ale beats hell out of sucking a lemon to fight scurvy.

Jeff filled growlers with the red and the imperial IPA.

The red went very well with dinner. There was a roasted rack of ribs, terrific potato salad, and some leafy greens.

Joanna and I had been planning to leave Monday morning, but then found that Philomena had the holiday week off, so we decided to stay on till the Fourth.

Joanna and I took Philomena, Jeff, and Ian to dinner on Sunday at an Austrian themed restaurant called the Derby Line Village Inn. The “Line” in Derby Line is the U.S.-Canadian border, and I think you can see the customs houses from the front yard of the inn.

The border in this area is on or very near the 45th parallel. I know this only because I saw a sign announcing the fact right outside the restaurant.

So here we were, eating schnitzel and potato dumplings halfway between the Equator and the North Pole. The bar served some interesting craft beers. I had two IPAs, both good. 

One I had before and have enjoyed in the can. Like most brews it is even better on draft. 

It’s called Conehead, and whenever I drink it, I can only think about Dan Aykroyd and Jane Curtin playing Family Feud.

The big activity on Monday was to book rooms for our next trip—Zurich, Lucerne, Geneva, and Bern. So I took care of that. 

Ian received an e-mail from Dave next door. He wanted company to sit in the breeze under the willow and drink beer.

Dave, Jeff’s brother, splits his year between Florida and Vermont. He was back in the “brown house,” so called because it’s covered in silvery-brown Shaker shingles.

The oldest part of the house was put up in the first decade of the 19th century when an ancestor several generations great of the Kemps started the farm here. He got about 120 acres for his service in the Continental Army.

The larger house, where Jeff, Philomena, and Ian live, is built around an original core that dates back to the 1830s or ’40s.

Tuesday Ian rode shotgun and guided me to Price Chopper to pick up some craft brew. I got more Conehead and Shed Mountain IPA.

Both are local. Conehead comes from Zero Gravity Craft Brewery in Burlington, and the Shed from Otter Creek Brewery in Middlebury.

It’s a good thing that I stocked up. Four of us were celebrating the holiday eve. Jeff, Ian, Dave, and I sat up till all hours telling stories and sharing drinks.

It is so much fun to sit with a bunch of guys bull-shitting and getting loaded.

I remember interrupting the flow of ale at one point with a cup of Irish coffee.

Joanna and I left Coventry around 10:30 Wednesday. Traffic was very light, as we had hoped. I expect most drivers had already gotten where they were going on Tuesday.

We stopped at a welcome center in Massachusetts. It was off the highway and hard to find, but when we got there, we found a Department of Transportation office masquerading as a rest stop. It’s only open 9 to 5 on weekdays.

This was a holiday. You know, the time when rest rooms and welcome centers are needed the most. 

Welcome to Massachusetts. Nobody home.

We wound up going to Applebee’s next door. 

We have been eating some great food for the past three and half weeks. I just wasn’t in the mood for this.

I had a cup of coffee, and we shared a plate of chicken wings.

Even the usually congested corridor of the New York Thruway near Suffern was moving efficiently. A couple of sections of the highway had flooded down to one lane, but even that obstruction meant slowing down but not stopping.

It has been my habit to take N.J. 17 to the Garden State Parkway to get home from the Thruway. Jeff suggested I take I-287 to N.J. 23.

I tried it and it works. Fewer traffic lights, no endless mall traffic in Paramus. Come to think of it, Route 17 in Paramus is a bitch even on Sunday, when all the stores in town are closed.

We got back to Montclair around 6 p.m.

To my distress, Egan’s was closed for the holiday. We tried Calandra’s in Caldwell and found that the kitchen had closed early.

There was a place nearby called Forte that looked promising. It was open, so we stopped there. 

It’s the first place in a while where I’ve seen tripe on the menu, so I had that. Joanna had a veal dish new to me, listed on the menu as veal reggina.

It takes the usual very thin Italian cut of veal and covers it with eggplant, toasted mozzarella, and a brandy sauce with mushrooms. 

It could be that we were very hungry. Or it could be that the food was indeed terrific.

In any event, we’ll probably go back there again. We just have to remember to take our own bottle of wine.

Today’s the fifth. We leave for Switzerland in exactly one month. 

Be well, all. And may all your rest stops be better than Applebee’s.

Harry

Downtown—Literally

June 26-29

The Ursuline Order is a major presence in Quebec. They may have been the first French Catholic nuns in the New World. 

A small group, led by a nun called Marie de l’Incarnation, arrived about 30 years after Champlain founded the village of Quebec. They set up in the lower town, a small, flat bit of ground between the cliffs and the St. Lawrence River.

They set up a school for girls, children both of French settlers and of the Hurons. Then they moved to the top of the mountain, where they still operate the school, now open to boys and girls.

The order has a beautiful chapel that contains some very detailed wood carvings, two altars, old bones. There was a rumor that I believe false that General Montcalm’s skull was kept as a relic on one of the altars.

According to a volunteer who attends the welcome desk in the church, Montcalm was buried in the chapel, but she said his body was later removed to a cemetery.

I have been trying to find the chapel, and finally met someone at a gift shop attached to the school who pointed the way. Joanna and I had walked past it twice and missed it. 

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The entrance doesn’t face the street, as I had remembered, but instead opens to a small courtyard that fronts the Rue Donnacona.

There have been changes since I was last in Quebec, maybe 15 or 20 years ago. Marie de l’Incarnation was canonized by Pope Francis in 2014. 

The chapel has a new section, an oratory off the main nave where her remains lie in a black marble sarcophagus. The oratory has a view into a second nave, an area  called the Sisters’ Choir, which I hadn’t seen before. 

So there are two naves, at right angles to each other. In addition to the main altar, which faces the public nave, there is a second altar, on the wall to your left, facing the Sisters’ Choir.

One of the many things I’ve always found to be fun about Quebec is the Breakneck Stairs.

Most of the Old Town is on a bluff above the St. Lawrence. Basse-Ville, or Lower Town, is a small area that a few decades ago was the rough part of town. 

There is an elevator, the Funiculaire, that you can ride, but the Breakneck Stairs are much more fun. At least going down. 

You can start near the Chien d’Or on the old post office, go down a flight of steps to a sloping road that leads to another flight down. 

There are cafes on the landings. I always like to stop at least for a drink at a cafe on the stairs. 

It’s like sitting on the sidewalk in Europe, only this is on a staircase instead of a street. You see lots of people walking, but no cars.

It was lunch time, so we stopped at the Creperie Bistro, halfway down the steps.

We shared an amazing crepe filled with duck meat and goat cheese. The menu listed a Quebec wine called William. Joanna wasn’t in the mood for wine so I ordered a William rouge for her and the blanc for myself. Both were fruity, a touch acidic, and better than OK.

I had been to Lower Town in the late ’60s or early ’70s on my first trip this way when the neighborhood was just starting to clean itself up.

It was almost unrecognizable this time. The main street, Petit Champlain, was packed with bars, boutiques, and restaurants, and jammed with people.

One of the old buildings has a mural depicting culture and individuals of Quebec history. The only one Joanna and I knew about was Father Jansoone, founder of the Shrine of Notre Dame du Cap at Trois Rivieres. Besides Father Jansoone, there were sailmakers, an old tavern keeper, etc.

We watched kids climb on cannons at a restored artillery battery, built after a siege by British in 1690.

We bought a FuckLaMode t-shirt at a boutique called Oclan. We rested on a bench in the plaza outside Notre Dames des Victoires church.

We took the funicular back up.

We wandered over to our favorite pirate hangout, Freres de la Cote, for dinner. The snails were so good the other day that we hoped dinner would be as outstanding.

It was.

Joanna had a hell of a lamb shank. I opted for the coq au vin, another dish I haven’t seen in ages. We had that with a bottle of Opailleur rouge, which I polished off the back at the hotel.

Wednesday, our last day in Quebec City, we started by touring the park near the hotel. Jeanne d’Arc Garden is particularly lovely. 

An equestrian statue of Joan of Arc in armor dominates the garden. This day it was surrounded by scaffolding and being cleaned. 

The garden has a mix of perennials and annuals, and they are selected so that there will be flowers in bloom for much of the year. Peonies were out.

The walks around the edges of the flower garden are shaded by elms.

From there we strolled downtown. We walked some to listen to the street musicians and sat on benches to watch other people walk.

We cabbed back to the hotel for a rest. 

Later for dinner we went to Restaurant Louis Hebert, on the Grande Allee not far from the hotel. Joanna had penne with pulled duck confit. I had bison flank steak with red cabbage and mashed sweet potatoes.

We paired that with a bottle of Ventoux, from grapes grown at the foot of Mt. Ventoux in Provence, near the Chabrans’ house where we stayed.

Polished off the bottle while watching a PBS documentary about weather. The show affected us.

When we woke up to rain the next morning, we talked about the drops of water collecting around dust motes in the clouds.

I was glad, too, that it was rain, and not powdered snow that could form an avalanche. Now I have more justification for hating snow.

We drove to Drummondville, our next stop on this tour. We know nothing about Drummondville, really, but it was the largest spot on map between Quebec City and the U.S. border. 

We went to Horace au Boulevard, a couple of miles down the road for lunch. Turns out, it’s pretty much a French Canadian twist on a New Jersey diner.

I think my onion soup came from a can. Joanna had a casserole of mixed vegetables with baked cheese on top.

This was a local place. The waitress spoke almost no English. But we did all right. 

Joanna wanted to know if the vegetables were cooked or raw.

The lady didn’t recognize the English word “cooked.” I couldn’t remember the French for it. All I could remember were “roti” and “saute,” and they weren’t quite right.

Then the waitress said “well done.” She assured Joanna that the vegetables were “well done.”

Google, as it frequently does, helped me find a place for dinner in town, the Odyssee Resto. 

On our way there, when we crossed the river and the name of road changed to Blvd. de la Universite, it meant that I had missed our turn. 

So I checked our local map. We had seen Rue Newton but not Rue Lindsay.

It was clear on the map, though. We were traveling on Rue St. Georges, highway 122. Newton ends and Lindsay begins at highway 122. 

I had even noticed that earlier but had forgotten it completely. 

The next challenge was finding somewhere to put the car. There was a concert in the park, so the lots were full. 

We found a spot at the curb around the corner from the restaurant.

We sat on the terrace out front. It was busy and way too loud, but the food was good.

I had beef cheek (joue de boeuf), which is reminiscent of pot roast. It was even better though, more tender and not quite as gamy.

Joanna had salmon breaded and flavored with maple syrup. A little too sweet, Joanna said.

We were able to get a half bottle of Montepulciano d’Abruzzo, one of my favorite types of wine. This wasn’t the most full-flavored specimen, but even so was still very good. 

We’d been on the move for almost three weeks. Not a lot of sightseeing in Drummondville, so we’re taking it easy today. 

We’ll be going for a stroll in a local park and then to dinner at a place called Le Globe-Trotter.

Tomorrow morning we head for Coventry, Vt., to visit Joanna’s sister Philomena and brother-in-law Jeff. 

Stay well, everybody. And don’t forget to take the stairs. The drinks are good for your heart.

Harry

Gilded Age and Golden Dog

June 23-25

Joanna’s foot was much improved, so we were able to tackle the Old City on Saturday.

Not wanting to push things, we took a cab to the Chateau Frontenac to get us started.

When you reach the hotel, the cab takes you through a stone arch into a courtyard. There’s a guy by the door who’s wearing a top hat and checking in luggage.

I’ve been to Quebec a few times before, but had never stepped into the hotel, so we toured the Frontenac lobby. It’s a well-maintained hotel built in late Victorian times. It’s a little stuffy looking, but that makes it fun. 

Think Gilded Age. It’s an interior designed for ladies in long dresses, and for men in three-piece suits by day and dinner jackets at night. Most of the men and women we saw were in Bermuda shorts and jeans. 

The place speaks of privilege and money.

The privilege is more a relic of the past, but the money is very much present.

The lobby has large-scale sculptures on display for sale, with prices in five and six figures.

We passed some old folks who had fallen asleep on a banquette. The sleeping man had a dog on a leash. The dog came over to say hello, but the man slept on.

The dog may have been the hotel mascot, a trained service dog that has been adopted by the hotel.

The hotel is next to a boardwalk called the Terrasse Dufferin, which overlooks the lower city and the St. Lawrence River.

In the summer this area is full of street performers. A string trio was playing reels from a gazebo on the boardwalk when we came out of the hotel. The crowd’s a lot more restrained here than in Trois Rivieres. Nobody was dancing.

We bought drinks and a sandwich at Starbucks and watched a juggler in front of the Champlain monument. 

Nearby is the Anglican Cathedral of the Holy Trinity, which sponsors an artisan market—tents set up with artwork and handicrafts for sale. 

The church contains memorial plaques to various prominent members of congregation. One is dedicated to four generations of a family named Hale. 

The first was a military officer. The sons of each succeeding generation were public officials.

One, we read, had been influential in arranging a gift to the cathedral, a silver communion service from George III.

The silver service is on display in a glass case on one side of the nave.

The Catholic Cathedral-Basilica of Notre Dame is not far away from there. Its most imposing feature is the gilded altarpiece centered on a replica of St. Peter’s in Rome. 

Above it is a painting representing the Immaculate Conception of Mary. Above that is a golden sculpture group of two angels flanking the Virgin, probably a reference to the Assumption. 

Crowning the very top, near the vaulted ceiling of the apse, is a Resurrection group, a huge figure of Jesus standing in front of a starburst and holding the empty cross. 

On the level with the model of St. Peter’s are six figures that I couldn’t identify. One seemed to be dressed like a Roman officer. I wondered if it might be Constantine. 

There were four other men, but if they represent the Evangelists, they don’t have the usual symbolism of winged creatures: a man for Matthew, an lion for Mark, an ox for Luke, and an eagle for John.

The figure to the left of St. Peter’s is a crowned woman. It could be Mary as Queen of Heaven, but I’m not sure.

The streets in the Old City have a distinct Euro feel. Not only are they narrow, but they are also lined by stone buildings. 

One part of Rue Ste. Anne is a pedestrian-only restaurant row. We met a harpist there, and had Campari and soda while he played. 

Then he ceded his place to a lady with fanciful eye makeup and elaborate hair who played violin accompanied by a man with a guitar.

Joanna saw a sign for Pandora, so we stopped at a stored called Mos, where she found a charm with a blue Quebec fleur de lis for her bracelet. 

I finally got to have dinner at a place called Aux Anciens Canadiens. It is in a 17th century house on Rue St. Louis, near the Chateau Frontenac. 

One of the 19th century residents of the house was the author of a novel, “Les Anciens Canadiens,” which is the origin of the restaurant’s name.

The menu serves food that would have been eaten by the early colonists. 

We shared three dishes. 

One was a pate made of caribou, bison, and deer meat served with a sweet carrot sauce. Next were croquettes of smoked bison with Parmesan cheese and a tomato relish. 

The main course was Grandma’s Treat: a slice of meat pie, a couple of meat balls, bits of fried pork fat, a savory fruit concoction, and baked beans.

It was all delicious, but also heavy duty. 

I opted for a Quebec wine, Opailleur red, which was very fruity. The flavor carried illusions of blueberries or tart cherries.

Joanna had a Rothschild Mouton Cadet, a good dry Bourdeaux not heavy on the oak.

The crowds were reveling late for St. John’s Eve. The nativity of St. John the Baptist is a provincial holiday, so everything and almost everybody is done up in blue and white, the colors of Quebec. 

I was up until 2 a.m., and the crowd below in the street was still howling. How can anybody shout so loud for so long?

The weather turned rainy on Sunday. We left the hotel later than usual and walked for a couple of hours. 

We stopped for wine and soup at Freres de la Cote on Rue St. Jean Baptiste, which was closed to traffic for the holiday.

I wondered if the restaurant’s name, had anything to do with the Jesuits, who were headquartered a block or two away. I looked up the phrase later and found that the Brethren of the Coast is the name of the loose organization of privateers and pirates based in the Caribbean.

Joanna and I shared a plate of snails cooked in olive oil and served with tomato relish. It was full of subtle flavors and downright stunning.

Then we each had a bowl of a superb French onion soup.

This place had Opailleur wine, too, so I tried the blanc. I’m not a big fan of white wine in general, except for Cote du Rhones. The Quebec wine had enough flavor to hold up to the snails and the soup.

We walked a little more, back to the neighborhood of the Frontenac. There were no cabs and the rain had let up, so we decided to walk back to the hotel. 

By the time we got there, we needed a nap.

When we woke up, it was a few hours after the appetizer and soup course, so we went downstairs to the hotel restaurant called Ja Ja for the main course. Ja Ja is an Italian theme restaurant with pictures of motor scooters.

Joanna had seafood in pink sauce over penne. I opted for spaghetti Bolognese. 

I’m from New Jersey. If there’s one food I know, it’s pasta. Both dishes were OK. Not great, but more than satisfactory.

I had a Nero d’Avola and Cabernet Sauvignon blend. It was good, but I would have preferred Nero alone. 

Then I ordered Nespolino, a blend of Sangiovese and Merlot, which was better.

We weren’t quite ready to quit, but couldn’t decide between tiramisu and creme brulee with Amaretto and lime. So we had both.

It was about ten when we finished. We haven’t eaten dinner that late in ages.

Monday started with a trip to Cosmos, the usual place, for a quick breakfast of yogurt and fruit, along with my required two cups of coffee.

We finally left the hotel neighborhood around noon or one, just in time to get caught in a thunder storm. We sheltered for a few minutes under the eave of a government building on the Grande Allee and then were on the move again.

We went back to the boardwalk, but the rain started up again, so we went to the bar at the Frontenac for Campari and soda. They serve a little pot of mixed nuts and crackers with it.

The rain had stopped when we made it to the boardwalk, but the wind was brutal. We walked downhill a short way till the hill shielded us from the wind. We were on a street we hadn’t taken on before. It led to the former post office and the Golden Dog.

I had forgotten the Golden Dog.

There used to be a bar with that name on the street across from the post office. Now the name is on a jewelry store.

The golden dog itself is on a plaque over the main entrance to the P.O. It has an inscription in French that begins, “Je suis un chien qui ronge l’os.” Or, “I am a dog that gnaws the bone.”

It also says, according to the Amerique Francaise website, “A time will come that’s yet to be when I bite him who’s bitten me.”

Clearly someone in Canada who speaks French was nursing a grudge when that went up.

We wandered into some shops, including one place selling everything from nostalgia toys to copies of Playboy from the 1970s.

We stopped at Brethren of the Coast again for a quick Opailleur rouge and watched a few minutes of the World Cup. 

By this time, both breakfast and the bridge mix at the Frontenac were far in the past. So we strolled up the hill from Rue St. Jean Baptist to Rue St. Louis to look at the restaurants there.

One interesting place served several kinds of pies, including salmon and shepherd’s. But it was one of those impossible joints that play Muzak for the deaf. Or to make you deaf.

I reluctantly opted out.

We wound up at Cafe de Paris. There was a special on Chateaubriand for two. I haven’t had this in so long, I had forgotten that it is steak. 

Joanna and I can't share steak. She likes it cooked too much for my taste. I like it red.

I had confused Chateaubriand with Boeuf Bourguignon, the wonderful beef stew.

It turned out all right, though, because stew was on the menu too.

We ordered a half liter of the house red, which went well with the food.

I’ve had the dish a few times before, and this may have been the best so far. Even the pearl onions were not too sweet. Sometimes I find them cloying.

A guitar player came in and sang some French numbers, and also “the Sound of Silence” and “Take Me Home, Country Roads.”

Later a group of kids, possibly a high school class trip, came in. The guitarist was working with them in another room. We heard them all singing “Alouette, Gentille Alouette” and “Hallelujah.”

The sun was shining and low in the sky when we walked back to Le Concorde.

It was another good day in French Canada.

Stay well, all. And watch what you feed your pets.

Harry

June 26

Your notes are reminding me of how much I want to go back to Quebec! 

I'm glad you're having a good time and that Joanna's foot is doing better. Brian and I have both been swapping off weird lower-leg/foot pain recently so we can empathize. 

Are you staying at the Frontenac? If so, do you like it? If not, are you staying someplace nice that you'd recommend?

Love you,

Kate

June 26

We're at Hotel Le Concorde, up the Grande Allee from St. Louis Gate. We're about a kilometer from Chateau Frontenac. 

Rooms in the Frontenac start somewhere around $500 a night. Even in Loonies that's way too rich for my blood.

Campari and soda at the bar is close enough for me.

Love you back.

Dad