Greetings from the decidedly un-frozen North

[redbird]

I'm most of the way through a long weekend visiting rysmiel: quiet reading and conversation and some nice meals, including a duck restaurant last night: they have a variety of interesting duck preparations (and a few non-duck choices, which we ignored). The smoked duck was rather different from the tea-smoked duck I've had at Chinese restaurants; I didn't realize until I bit into it that I was expecting that taste. We'e also had a lot of smoked salmon, at home, and some berries: wild blueberries because they were at a better price than the cultivated ones, and some red raspberries.

Home tomorrow, meaning another long day on a Greyhound (I am not counting the cars), and then back to shuffling moving-related and other tasks. The trip up was longer than I'd hoped, though not otherwise unpleasant, and I got the not-really-wanted opportunity to use my knowledge of the layout of the terminal at Burlington (VT) Airport in order to get a cup of tea. (I have never flown to or from Vermont, but this is the second time we had a layover there long enough to get tea.)

Comments

[minoanmiss]

A duck tasting restaurant! aNd I hope you both hugged each other for me. :)

[umadoshi]

...DUCK RESTAURANT. *_*

[redbird]

That's basically what I said when rysmiel mentioned it in email a month or two ago.

This time they had found a place which was reasonable for me to go with them--not major-celebration extravagant prices, very difficult to get a reservation at, nor absurdly inconvenient to get to given my specific mobility constraints (I can't walk fast anymore, and can't walk long distances without pain, where the definition of "long" is unpredictable).

This outing also had the advantage that rysmiel could tell me things like "last time we were here, Bluejo got the duck poutine and it was good, but incredibly rich." I probably wouldn't have gotten poutine on a warm summer evening in Montreal anyhow: that's mostly either cold weather food, or comfort food, for me.

Poutine as comfort food: a scheduled 7-hour train trip from Schenectady, NY, took 10 hours, after a weekend of being overheated and dealing with too many of my in-laws. By the time that train got to Montreal, I had considered an discarded dinner options including matzo ball soup and duck congee because I had no idea where to find them in Montreal, and I was sure we could get poutine. (Also, the weather in Montreal was at least 10°C cooler than the 35C it had been in Albany.)

[umadoshi]

What is this wondrous place called? *starry eyes*

[redbird]

La Maison du Magret.

It's about a block from the Place d'Armes metro station, which is near Chinatown.

[umadoshi]

*makes notes*