trio of sliders
My friend from Norway parachuted into town recently and we hit a local pub for a catchup. We ordered things we don’t ordinarily eat: she ordered fajitas and I ordered sliders. Which made me remember the first time I ever ordered sliders, in an Irish pub in Manhattan about four or five years ago.
I didn’t have much of a choice: when my New Yorker friends heard me ask what sliders were, it was with incredulity (haven’t you ever seen “Harold & Kumar Go To White Castle“???) and next thing I knew, sliders appeared at the table. A couple of years later, I visited my first White Castle, which I think has since been bulldozed–?
Thing is, I grew up in the west — every province west of Ontario, that is. I’d missed out on a lot of things, apparently, since new things cropped up every year I’ve been living here since 2006.
For example, Swiss Chalet. A Swiss Chalet opened in Kitsilano while I was living in Vancouver, but I had no idea what they served and I didn’t know a single person who’d eaten there. I’d visited Switzerland twice* before I’d even stepped foot in a Swiss Chalet, which happened a few years ago when a bunch of us were trying to decide on a place to eat one winter and everyone voted for comfort food. While in Ontario I’ve eaten in one, and had it once before while volunteering when someone had it delivered. I really wonder what the Swiss would think of Swiss Chalet. Probably the same thing the people of Boston think of Boston Pizza (a franchise that began in the west and expanded east and south) — what??
For many years there wasn’t a single Tim Horton’s in downtown Vancouver, and eventually a small one set up in a mall at the north end of the downtown peninsula. Now there are many more, but it took a very long time to catch on in the west. To this day, I get confused when people say “double double” because I didn’t grew up on Tim Horton’s, so I draw a blank on this term. In fact, I’ve sheepishly had to ask people what it meant because I had no idea. Even when I’m NOT at Tim Horton’s, even an independent coffee shop, someone will ask if I’m having a double double; apparently the term entered the Canadian lexicon long ago!
There are lots of other food and drink examples, but for now I must bow out and continue editing before narcolepsy takes me down for the night.
* probably a good thing, otherwise I’d show up in Switzerland expecting to eat a lot of rotisserie chicken!
