Sunday, July 31, 2005
A successful celebration of death
Shortly after 10 pm one year ago tonight my father passed away peacefully, and I was blessed to be a witness to the amazing spiritual event which confirmed many beliefs and feelings I’ve had over the years in my life.
Well it is now 11:32 pm and we are home from dinner at Nice Bistro, and had a great 5 hour dinner.
I tried rilletes (a peasant dish consisting of boiled pork, spices, and other ingredients and served similar to a pate) on toast, along with Quebec apple cider for an appetizer, and then a snitzel cordon bleu (stuffed with ham and brie) and a spectacular bottle of wine. I forgotten the name other than it was labelled XF which stood for extra fruit. I forwent my cesar salad and dessert as I was stuffed after those two courses. I did have a delectable truffle (cappuccino) for dessert and some armagnac, and thought that should have been it, I indulged myself and had another armagnac, some sort of fortified wine (tasted sherry like) which is aged in cognac barrels, and finally to top it off a cappuccino.
Steph had Pommes au Bernard (grilled apples, with feta cheese, tomato, lettuce, with a vinaigrette dressing), the snitzel cordon bleu along with the same wine I had. Dessert consisted of tiramisu, two cappuccinos, and tried the fortified wine (I ended up drinking the bulk of hers) and an almond truffle.
All in all a pretty good night. The cabbie whom we will use whenever possible now as he is a very entertaining, personable, friendly, interesting person, drove us there and back and again entertained us, and told us about going to Las Vegas (I actually want to go now) because I was unaware that Top Gun moved Nellis AFB so on a good night I would get a little bit of a show while sitting on the top of the hotel drinking a pina colada.
I was shocked that the owners remembered where we were sitting the last time we were there with my father. I even remember the chair but it’s hard not to forget that. I guess perhaps he had a bigger effect on them than I thought. Who knows? I do know that he was one of their favourite customers.
Oddly the topic of most of tonight’s dinner was weddings, what I want because Steph found it interesting, and different that I have been planning my wedding for close to 20 years.
I told her that the scaled down version would cost at least one hundred thousand dollars. That I have no idea on location simply because there are not any spectacular cathedrals around where I live.
Most of the money would be at the reception and go to food and the orchestra.
Honeymoons also came up, and while I would love to do the 28 day transatlantic cruise, even better would be a 30 day tour of France, and particularly the burgundy region which is rich and famous with my family’s heritage.
I’ve been sitting here for over 2 hours listing to music (right now the phantom of the opera – original Toronto cast recording) and I have installed the camera drivers so I finally downloaded a bunch of pictures.
There are some pretty good ones. The one of me from my chicken wing expedition few days ago looks hilarious. I never realized how messy I was when I ate chicken wings, and these wings weren’t even extraordinarily saucy.
Pics to come tomorrow since Steph is bored silly, I should go do something with her.
Well it is now 11:32 pm and we are home from dinner at Nice Bistro, and had a great 5 hour dinner.
I tried rilletes (a peasant dish consisting of boiled pork, spices, and other ingredients and served similar to a pate) on toast, along with Quebec apple cider for an appetizer, and then a snitzel cordon bleu (stuffed with ham and brie) and a spectacular bottle of wine. I forgotten the name other than it was labelled XF which stood for extra fruit. I forwent my cesar salad and dessert as I was stuffed after those two courses. I did have a delectable truffle (cappuccino) for dessert and some armagnac, and thought that should have been it, I indulged myself and had another armagnac, some sort of fortified wine (tasted sherry like) which is aged in cognac barrels, and finally to top it off a cappuccino.
Steph had Pommes au Bernard (grilled apples, with feta cheese, tomato, lettuce, with a vinaigrette dressing), the snitzel cordon bleu along with the same wine I had. Dessert consisted of tiramisu, two cappuccinos, and tried the fortified wine (I ended up drinking the bulk of hers) and an almond truffle.
All in all a pretty good night. The cabbie whom we will use whenever possible now as he is a very entertaining, personable, friendly, interesting person, drove us there and back and again entertained us, and told us about going to Las Vegas (I actually want to go now) because I was unaware that Top Gun moved Nellis AFB so on a good night I would get a little bit of a show while sitting on the top of the hotel drinking a pina colada.
I was shocked that the owners remembered where we were sitting the last time we were there with my father. I even remember the chair but it’s hard not to forget that. I guess perhaps he had a bigger effect on them than I thought. Who knows? I do know that he was one of their favourite customers.
Oddly the topic of most of tonight’s dinner was weddings, what I want because Steph found it interesting, and different that I have been planning my wedding for close to 20 years.
I told her that the scaled down version would cost at least one hundred thousand dollars. That I have no idea on location simply because there are not any spectacular cathedrals around where I live.
Most of the money would be at the reception and go to food and the orchestra.
Honeymoons also came up, and while I would love to do the 28 day transatlantic cruise, even better would be a 30 day tour of France, and particularly the burgundy region which is rich and famous with my family’s heritage.
I’ve been sitting here for over 2 hours listing to music (right now the phantom of the opera – original Toronto cast recording) and I have installed the camera drivers so I finally downloaded a bunch of pictures.
There are some pretty good ones. The one of me from my chicken wing expedition few days ago looks hilarious. I never realized how messy I was when I ate chicken wings, and these wings weren’t even extraordinarily saucy.
Pics to come tomorrow since Steph is bored silly, I should go do something with her.
