Karla.

I was just reading a favourite at The Guardian,, restaurant guy Jay Rayner. Writing about restaurants in these times and what exactly they mean for him as eater/critic. He points out that maybe, just maybe he became a critic due to a trip at a young age to a restaurant that still holds memory for him.

So, on that point.....

I remember little of restaurants as a very young child in Corner Brook, but a few stand out.

First, there was Coleman's next door to nan and pop's place on Howley rd. It holds tight in my foodie head because of the one item we would go there to get as often as possible. They made loose meat hamburgers on steamed buns! I would swirl around on the stool with great anticipation, thinking the faster I went the quicker the burger would get there.

One street over , well road, Caribou road in fact, on the other side of Colemans there were four Chinese restaurants and I remember one in particular because the sons of the owners loved coming to our house(nan and pop's) for Newfoundland food, but we really enjoyed going there for Chinese food!

Interesting as I knew that it was different and yet because it was there, all the time (and there were many in town--mom would eventually work at one in townsite, The Taiwan)it was not really different. It became normal so to speak, my early introduction into what wod be later known as the Chinese/Canadian menu.

Venturing further from home was a place up on the hill, the Humber Heights called Mrs Piercy's. This was a favourite for chips and gravy and loose hamburger meat all served in one of those cardboardy take out dishes.

Sidenote---I do not remember chips, dressing and gravy as a child. This was something I found in St. John's while attending university.

Finally, there was a longer trip up the river to Steady Brook to George's for ice cream. This was a treat that happened many weekends or on our way down the coast (actually north up the northern peninsula).

I don't know if any of this helped mould me into a cook later in life, and I as I write I am now jogging that memory bank and realize there were more such places as I moved through my young life.

At some point I remember no longer being in a family. All of a sudden, dad was not there. I was then sent on a plane must have been around 6-7 years of age) to a place called Toronto. Well, you can imagine coming from Corner Brook and landing there!

I have many memories from here. Not always restaurants but food related all the same. One particular restaurant moment was on the Danforth. We were going to a hockey game at Maple Leaf Gardens. I am not sure if this was before or after but my dad took me to a place near Pape and Danforth, downstairs we went. Downstairs. I mean had never been in a restaurant that was downstairs!

I vaguely remember posh chairs, booths and a waiter dressed fine. I order the hamburger and dad had steak. I was in awe as dad smoked a player's non filter and we waited for the food. The waiter returned with my burger and chips and I dug in. I had never tasted anything like it before. It tasted quite different than what we made at home. It had a crispy exterior and tasted woodsy. I would later learn that this was a charbroiled burger. Something I had never had in Corner Brook.

While there were early restaurant moments there were a few `foodie` times as well. After my brief few months with dad I was shipped off back to Corner Brook. In, I guess, a year or so I was once more back in Toronto with My mom and her new husband. We wound up in what I thought of then as downtown in an area I liked to call little Italy. We lived near the corner of St. Clair avenue and Vaughan Rd.

I would learn later that it was not really little Italy(that was a little further away) but in my walks I began to notice many strange foods in shop windows, mostly with foreign names, that I would learn for the most part, were Italian. I became very very curious about these strange food items. It would be many years later that I began to know these foods; salami, pepperoni, lasagne, spaghetti, and mozzarella.

I think back now, on those early days and wonder if in any way they helped shape my culinary path. I am really not sure but I do know that my curiosity and eventually love of food would go hand in hand, at some point.

Just a few thoughts on day six of isolation.