Oh, Give Me A Home

"Where do the buffalo roam? I asked Duncan, the bartender at The Bow and Arrow pub on Yonge Street.

I was perusing the menu, waiting for my buddy Darp. This is his local, and sometimes we meet here, instead of at The Banknote. Especially when I need a favour of him, which I do today. So the least I can do is buy him a couple of pints.

I'm borrowing his digital camera, so I can take pictures of some furniture I want to sell, and shop them around the antique markets on Queen Street. Earlier this afternoon I'd stopped in at the Dufferin Mall, on my way back from picking up my car, to see whether I wanted to buy a digital camera for myself. Thing is, I have two real cameras, and no real desire to own a digital unless it's a 35mm Canon EOS body that I can use my lenses on, but I don't have $1,200 to spare, especially not today, because my car blew up on Spadina Avenue yesterday and I just paid $800 to have it fixed.

At least Hans always returns it detailed.

"You know, that's a good question," replied Duncan, "I think it comes from buffalo farms."

The Bow and Arrow pub is famous for its bison dishes—bison is buffalo, for those of you, Gentle Readers, who live in countries where they didn't roam—including the Woodsman Pizza, which I'm planning to order tonight; Bison Maple Chili, made with ground bison meat and maple syrup; and Bison Chili Nachos. Oh, and, all the burgers on the menu offer your choice of beef, chicken, vegetarian, or, you guessed it, bison.

So Duncan understood that what I was asking was, where do you get your bison meat. I've heard of ostrich farms in Ontario; I've even seen a couple on drives out in the country, but I've never seen buffalo roaming in a field. And the thing about buffalo is, they're big animals, and they need roaming and grazing land, just like cattle. Cows, I see all the time. Buffalo, not so much.

Chicken wings are also on the menu.

"You should call them 'bison wings,'" I suggest. "You know, instead of buffalo wings?"

Duncan likes that one, and pours me a Moosehead.

Buffalo wings are named after the city of Buffalo, not the large furry animal. They're battered, fried chicken wings served with a hot red sauce, and are common fare at bars across Canada these days, but when I first moved to Montreal, to go to university, I was routinely made fun of for being from Ontario, "Where they eat the garbage we throw out: chicken wings and potato skins." I grew up right near Buffalo, as I told you here.

My Oma used to make the best chicken wings. They weren't like Buffalo wings, though. She cut up the wings into the mini-drumstick part and the flat part—the teeny tiny tips went to the dog—and roll them in flour spiced with salt and pepper, and sometimes garlic; then line them up side by side like soldiers on a cookie sheet, and bake them at pizza degree heat.

I miss my Oma's cooking. She's 91 now, and hasn't been her old self for the last year. Her mental quickness is gone; she can't follow our conversations. Cinderella was shocked when she saw her last week. "I'd take the finger pointing criticism any day," she said, which is something, because Oma used to make Cinderella cry.

The furniture I want to sell, for which I'm borrowing Darp's digital camera, is an antique mahogany dresser that my Oma and Opa bought in the 1950s, when they first came to Canada, from an old lady on the Smiths' farm that died. It was in my aunts' bedroom when they were little girls; my mother had it in her bedroom when I was a little girl, and I've had it for the last fifteen years or so, since my daddy sold our farm.

I don't know yet whether I'll be moving to California, but just the possibility has gotten me doing a spring cleaning to end all spring cleaning. I no longer need the Habs photo in my bathroom, and I don't know why I ever needed 57 coffee mugs. I've already taken four boxes of dishes and miscellaneous junk to Goodwill, and tomorrow Liz, my postie, is picking up another four boxes to take to a women's shelter she works at.

And whether I go, or don't go, it's time for the dresser to go.



In the next story, Sass and Maria play sprachspiele.