Quirky Quebec

St Joseph's Oratory today

It's New Year's Day and I cannot be expected to write coherently so here are a just few quirky Quebec things that have amused me recently starting with the car antlers (below) which a lot of cars in Montreal are sporting for the holiday season. They are attached over your car door with plastic clips and there's even a red nose for the front grille. It does make me smile that someone has gone to all that trouble.

Reindeer antlers to turn your car into Rudolph

 Only in Quebec would they use old maple syrup tins to display items in a shop. This classic ensemble was spotted yesterday the Effiloché sewing and knitting lounge on Saint-Hubert. The girl in the store tells me she did not eat all the maple syrup herself but that customers brought a lot of the tins in for her. Those are knitting needles on display.

 Henry Ford should have sold winter coats in Montreal. Sellers could happily use "You can have any colour you like as long as it's black" as their sales pitch. Here is the coat rack at a restaurant today. How are you supposed to find your own coat among the rails of other black padded coats after a few drinks. Let's break free people and get out of mourning.

Anyone see my coat?

I was recently treated to a Quebec delicacy called Pain Sandwich. Strange name, tasty treat. It made the Quebecois people present go a bit misty-eyed as they remembered how they were served this as children by their mothers at Christmastime. It looks like a white yule log affair with red and green peppers on top. It's actually a loaf sliced horizontally instead of in vertical slices and then layered with fillings such as chicken, egg and ham. Finally it's smothered in cream cheese and served in vertical slices. I loved it and I love that when trying to buy a loaf sliced horizontally in the bakery, our hostess found the young assistant knew nothing about this traditional Christmastime treat. An older assistant knew straight away. Maybe the Pain Sandwich is a dying art.

Pain sandwich. Weird but delicious

 Finally another quirk, I was born on New Year's Day. There it is. I appeared in our local newspaper as a New Year Baby and then years later was doomed to report on other New Year babies when I worked as a reporter. For the second time I had a skating party at Beaver Lake followed by lunch at the Pavilion in Mount Royal Park. Yes some fizz was drunk and now I have to lie down.

Big baby

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