Where's Buddha?

One of the joys of many of my early Saturday mornings is a trip to the Syracuse Regional Market. The Market sits on the north edge of Syracuse proper near Onondaga Lake. It's surrounded by the baseball stadium on the east, the regional transportation center on the north, Interstate 81 and the Carrousel Mall on the west and some old warehouses and factories on the south. This area was originally a salt marsh with numerous salt springs. In the earliest days of Syracuse it was part of the thriving salt production business. The salt springs are long gone now. Over the course of the last 100 years they have been gradually filled in then paved over in the name of progress.

In the early twentieth century this area was developed into a wholesale and retail farmer's market. A one story row of brick warehouses with loading docks front and back were built by local businesses to receive lots of fruit and vegetables via farm truck and rail, break them down and transport them to local stores. Some of these original wholesalers, such as Russo's Produce, are still operating in the same location today. One of the wholesalers, Buda's Meats and Produce, eventually decided it made sense to open its own retail market. The Buda family built a stand-alone store nearby. It's still in operation today providing a wide range of groceries at just slightly more than wholesale prices.

In 1933 the first permanent shed for the a cooperative regional farmer's market was built adjacent to the wholesale warehouses. Today there are five permanent sheds each about a city block long. The original brick shed, now called the “A” shed, operates year round. Both sides are lined with overhead doors so the vendors can back their trucks right inside. Many of the vendors in the “A” shed have rented the same coveted spot for years. Until this year, a home-made donut machine dominated a central location and added its delicious, greasy aroma to the place. I buy local honey from a guy who is always there. A local orchard sells us fresh raspberries. Mr. Leonard provides us with his marvelous maple syrup. http://merryatsyracuse.blogspot.com/search/label/maple%20syrup

The rest of the sheds are more modern consisting of almost nothing more than a long metal roof and walls made of overhead doors. At this time of year all the doors are up. Early Saturday morning the “B,” “C” and “D” sheds are lined with trucks of all kinds. Farmers from the entire region can be found here selling eggs, chickens, beef, buffalo, wine, apples, cereal, and home made baked goods. We get milk and yogurt from our friends at Wake Robin Farm who have a ten cow herd of jerseys. See for yourself at http://www.wakerobinfarm.org/ In between A and B sheds farmers who cater to the home gardener fill the lot with an enticing array of live flowers and plants. As you move down the line of sheds from A to E the spaces are cheaper and start to be filled with re-sellers of every kind: sunglasses, perfume, gloves, toys, CDs, you name it. Today was a prime Market day so two big tents were added to accommodate the overflow of vendors who couldn't fit in the sheds.

I love the Market because it is filled with people from every community that makes up greater Syracuse. Recent immigrants always flock here, perhaps because it reminds them a bit of markets at home. While shopping at the Market it's common to see Russians, Somalis, Hmong, Chinese, Bosnians, Indians, Arabs, and many more along with a number of Italians who came here in the 1950s but still like to speak the mother tongue. On a nice spring Saturday like today all the parking lots were full. Several thousand people at a time were happily wandering the Market the whole morning.

Today's nice weather reminded me of a beautiful mid-summer Saturday morning about three or four years ago. We had finished shopping and were winding our way back to our car loaded down with our purchases. There was a considerable traffic jam just inside one of the back entrances. We both noticed the cause of the back up was an older model station wagon very slowly making its way down the access road. It would creep forward, then stop for a second, then creep forward again. As it approached where we were standing it suddenly stopped right in the middle of the intersection. As the line of bewildered and aggravated drivers looked on, an older, slightly disheveled gentleman got out and walked over to us looking confused.

“Where’s Buddha?” he enquired in a loud voice.

I looked at him in wonder. What could he be asking?

“Where's Buddha?” he repeated even more loudly.

Then it hit me. He was slightly lost and wanted to find Buda’s Produce Market at the other side of the market.

“There it is,” I said to him and pointed at the red sign on the far side of the parking area.

He looked. A flash of recognition crossed his face and he turned back to his car.

Or maybe he was asking something else….

Tulips and French food

Last weekend Merry and I drove up to the Ottawa Tulip Fest with our friends Jim and Allison. We love the tulip tradition and the long friendship between Canada and the Netherlands that it commemorates. Walking in the park with thousands of other people of all cultures for the sole purpose of viewing flowers and celebrating the coming of spring has a very soothing effect.

Saturday was cold and rainy but we were warm inside the National Gallery of Canada www.gallery.ca/english/index.html. The National Gallery has a great contemporary art collection and includes an impressive photography collection. The current highlight is a video installation that depicts (I think) an imaginary voyage to the Antarctic. Earlier in the day we also stopped across the river in Gatineau, Quebec to visit the Museum of Civilization, Canada's version of the Smithsonian. There we saw a very interesting exhibit on the early fur trading routes established in western Canada by the North West Company. www.civilization.ca/cmc/home

The real reason I love to go to Ottawa, however, is to sample the top-notch French restaurants. I thought it might be interesting to share my personal favorites.

On this trip we selected Le Saint O and Le Tartuffe. To my taste they are among the best in Ottawa.

Le Saint O Restaurant (613) 749-9703 www.lesainto.com

327 St. Laurent Blvd., Ottawa, ON

Rating: 5 stars Price: $$$ Last visit: May 8, 2010

EIP Comment: A bit off the beaten track. No tourists. Don't let the slightly shabby exterior fool you. This small gem offers a menu of French classics with strong Quebecois accents: Halibut with almonds, guinea fowl Wellington, Ris de veau with local honey, duck confit with maple syrup, three pepper fillet minion with Quebec blue cheese butter. The soup special on this visit was two flavors in one bowl, savory country mushroom on one half, sweet parsnip on the other. Deserts are inventive.

Le Tartuffe Restaurant (819) 776-6424 www.letartuffe.com

133 Rue Notre-Dame-de-L’ile, Hull, QC

Rating: 5 stars Price: $$$$ Last visit: May 7, 2010

EIP comment: In a lovely old house, the principles of modern French cuisine applied to fresh regional produce: cranberry-stuffed roasted quail, pheasant with wild mushrooms, ostrich steak, lively house terrines, flavour-rich soups and magnificent deserts. Excellent food, we’ve been there multiple times. Caution: service can be very leisurely – dinner is easily 3 hours or more.

We also usually have a lunch in the Byward Market at Domus, but didn't find the time this year.

Domus Cafe (613) 241-6077 www.domuscafe.ca

87 Murray Street, Ottawa, ON
Rating: 4 stars Price: $$$ Last visit: May 2008

EIP Comment: We stop here on nearly every trip to Ottawa. Lunch is a treat, dinner divine. Domus focuses on Canadian/Continental food, made with Canadian ingredients, exquisite wine selections showcasing Canadian vintages, and unique preparation and styling.

In addition, I highly recommend taking a drive in the Gatineau Hills then stopping at L'Oree du Bois for dinner.

L’Oree du Bois (819) 827-0332 www.oreeduboisrestaurant.com

15 Kingsmere Road, Old Chelsea, QC

Rating: 4 stars Price: $$ Last visits: May 06, 2005, summer 2006, summer 2007

EIP Comment: Take HWY 5 North (direction Maniwaki), exit Old Chelsea, left after the village before the park. Long-established, rustic-looking restaurant in pretty Gatineau forest setting. Special menu of regional cuisine starring locally produced ingredients. Expect to linger.

Finally, there are two restaurants both named Le Panache, one in Quebec one in Ottawa, both are worth a visit.

Le Panache (819) 777-7771 www.lepanache.ca
201 Rue Eddy, Hull, QC

Rating: 4 stars Price: $$$ Last visit: May 07, 2005

EIP Comment: Offers fantastic French-fusion cuisine, located rue Eddy (corner St. Laurent) in a residential neighborhood. Kir royale a treat. Service was great on our last visit.

Le Panaché Café-Restaurant (613) 230-0111

634 Somerset St. W., Ottawa, ON

Rating: 3 stars Price: $$ Last visit: May 3, 2008

EIP Comment: This unpretentious French restaurant is a surprise to find in Chinatown. Food was generally very good (one or two minor misses on our last visit) with appetizers and desserts above average. Reasonably priced and very friendly.

If you are headed to the Capital of Canada, I suggest you check out at least one of the above. I'd be happy to hear any comments on any of the above suggestions or to learn about any others you like.

Happy dining.

Suki's Thanksgiving

One of my favorite Dickens characters is Noddy Boffin, the Golden Dustman, from Our Mutual Friend. Mr. Boffin makes his fortune as a rubbish carter and scavenger. He very much wants to be accepted in society. He pretends to be a miser, although he's not. He hires an illiterate scoundrel to teach him to read. He is based on a real person, Henry Dodd, who set up a thriving garbage business in London in 1836, worked his way into society and died worth 5 million.

What is wonderful to me about Mr. Boffin is his desire to demonstrate his worth, not by flaunting his wealth but by somehow convincing people to see him as a good man. His business is a necessary one in a growing city with no organized way to rid itself of refuse. He provides a service that others generally do not want to even think about and turns a nice profit. He knows that people throw away, lose and are otherwise parted from many objects of great value. What he does with what he finds drives this great novel and provides us with an intimate view of London in the early nineteenth century.

What any society does with rubbish tells worlds. We Americans mostly entomb our trash. Giant garbage mountains dot the landscape. Approaching St. Louis from the east on the Interstate a garbage mountain blocks the view of the iconic Arch. Only lately has our society begun to try to find the gold in the trash. We recycle a bit more of our trash every year, but it's still not a lot. We burn some of our trash and convert it to energy. Some dedicated gardeners turn yard and food waste into compost. Even with all these efforts, we still bury a lot of garbage.

Throughout the cities and towns of the developed world the descendants of Noddy Boffin still circulate. Out on the fringes, often at night, they drive their rusting trucks through the streets and alleys looking for discarded gold. They want metal. They want working appliances or furniture that can be resold. We usually do not see them at work. They call themselves “junkers” or “metal men.” We need them, not only to reduce the bulk of landfills, but to teach us about capitalism.

Advanced capitalist societies need to produce garbage. The more garbage there is, the more new stuff that can be manufactured and sold. If we didn't throw away perfectly usable stuff the economy would slow down. People would be put out of work.

Imagine a society without rubbish.

Back in the early 1980's I knew a graduate student at SUNY Stony Brook named Suki. She had the good fortune one year to be selected to go to Africa to study the social lives of the Bonobo, Pan paniscus, sometimes called pigmy chimps. They are an endangered species of great ape that live only in the jungles of the Congo. To reach her research station Suki had to travel for days by boat up the mighty Congo River, then travel a few days into the jungle by Land Rover and by foot. For much of the time she lived alone in a camp. One local man worked for her, doing all her cooking, cleaning and general work. She set out each day into the bush with her equipment then returned in the evening to write up her observations.

Being alone and largely out of contact with the outside world made her somewhat homesick after a while. She wrote her boyfriend and beseeched him to come join her. She told stories of home to the man who worked for her. When Thanksgiving day came she set out as usual. She was particularly homesick that day since back home she knew families would be gathering for the traditional fall feast.

When she arrived back at camp that evening she stopped dead in her tracks. All across the open space of her camp her employee had strung home-made twisted fiber cords. Fluttering from these cords were many little white paper flags. On closer inspection every paper flag was made from notes she had crumpled up and discarded over the past months. He had saved every scrap, carefully ironed them flat, cut them and made his festive banners. He also found a skinny chicken somewhere that he baked for her Thanksgiving supper.

She cried when she told this story, nearly a year later. His gesture was touching, but perhaps the greatest wonder was his assumption that nothing should be discarded while it still has a possible use.

We couldn't live like that, could we?