Life is Your Story

Circa 1990... So George Clooney calls me. He's coming to town (as in Montreal) and he's heard about this fantastic mystical place called The Cavendish Mall. He asks if I can pick him up at the airport and take him there. So I step out into the fine season of winter that embraces Montreal in all its wrath and builds character in our tribe, and I get into my car wondering what I am going to say to George when he walks through those sliding doors at the airport.  Then I think about all the times I walked through those doors returning home from various travels and always having someone waiting for me on the other side - often with a kiss, a hug and sometimes even flowers.  And then I thought of all the times I stood waiting for a loved one to arrive and of all the sad faces on the people who came through those doors having no one waiting for them on the other side. Yeah so I get into my truck and it stalls and then it stalls again and George is on his way in. I can't b...

Note - This post was inspired by recent conversations with friends who left this great city of Montreal back in the 80s. We spoke of the amazing food we grew up on (all noted below). We started with the golden, delicious, piping hot, Egg Rolls from the Yangtze and there was no heading back from there. But let's begin at the beginning - Lunch. My brother and I would go to school each day with a well balanced lunch in a bag. This would consist of a sandwich such as tuna or my mom's homemade chicken salad on rye or Challah, a Ziploc with 2 Oreo or chocolate chip cookies, a piece of fruit and this really great juice in a plastic bottle that they don't seem to make anymore. The first thing we would do when the lunch bell rang was to get out there in the school yard and "SELL, SELL, SELL". That's right (I hope my mother is not reading this post and if you are Mom - it's completely fictitious) we would sell our lovely lunches for cold hard ca...