Sunday, 31 October 2010

I sometimes think I will seek a job with “People Magazine’ or ‘The National Enquirer’, or perhaps we can resurrect ‘The Sunday Herald”, so  here I go again.

When we were young the President of Memorial was a man named Raymond Gushue. I have images of a dark man with a black moustache and dark horned rimmed glasses in a black and white photo.  You would all be quite surprised where I found his grandson. Two weeks ago I was  in the Kitchener/Waterloo area of Ontario, and my host took me to lunch at an exceptional restaurant situated on the grounds of an old estate, called Langdon Hall.  Think of our own Government House turned into a series of dinning and meeting rooms, but imagine it on hundreds of acres. It is in the town of Cambridge, the resting place of hordes of Bell Islanders who fled there after the mine closure.  Asking some discrete and no so discrete questions, I found out that most of the employees were children of those same Bell Islanders, who told me with great pride that their restaurant had just won world wide acclaim through some prize.   [Langdon  Hall is a marvellous place and it is not all that expensive.] I was also told that the Head Chef, the winner of the prize,  was a Newfoundlander, and so I asked to be introduced. Well Chef Gushue is the son of James? Gushue, formerly of the Newfoundland Courts, and the grandson of the late Raymond.    He is very justly acclaimed a summa cum laude in his field and a great culinary artist.  He is also a very nice young man. An “ex-pat” done well!

On the same topic, perhaps one of the best known and acclaimed restaurants In my adopted City of Toronto is a place called ‘Canoe’, situated on the 55^th Floor of the TD Bank Tower. Lunch is a part of business in my world, and I am there on occasion.  All of you would find the menu ‘question raising’ as most of the dishes have names linked to our home province. Baie de Verde Scallops, Placentia Salmon, Trinity Lamb, Blackened Torbay Cod, even Pouch Cove Crème Brule.  I never cease to ask why, and so I met  the Head Chef, another Newfoundlander.  I forget his name, but he ‘done good’, Head Chef at one of the best in the City.

I am off to New York City in a few weeks, and thence to DC. I will let you know if I dig up any other Newfoundlanders along the way. I am always on the look out.