New found (land) taste treats

When we were in Newfoundland, we didn't only chase icebergs. We also did our best to track down some of their specialty foods -- treats we knew we wouldn't find here.

The one in the photo above is called Jiggs dinner. Not really so different from what I might call 'boiled dinner', it's the kind of meal that fills the house with steamy scents on a wintry afternoon. Comfort food at its most basic. The only variations from what I might cook at home would be the meat itself (corned beef seems a little different from the 'salt beef' they use there) and the peas pudding wasn't a thing I'd had before -- it was good though. Kind of like thick pea soup, very tasty.

One of the best restaurants we found was Chafe's Landing in Petty Harbour (I learned the place got its name from the early French settlers -- 'petite' harbour -- which later, with the arrival of the Irish, became Petty).

We shared a pulled-moose sandwich and a mini-basket of clam strips. I was charmed, not only by the little basket they were served in, but by the bank of supplies on our table --

more than one kind of vinegar, pepper and salt, and (they must know other messy eaters besides me) an entire roll of paper towels!




As for our 'best-value' meal, that would have to have been our fresh lobster feast. We found the local Sobey's supermarket, picked two lobsters from the tank, and got the deli to steam them for us. With paper plates, along with newspaper spread on the table, it was even easy to do the clean-up. And oh, so delicious, complete with melted garlic butter.

One Newfoundland detail we won't be able to repeat (unless maybe we go back there at the right time of year) was a very special evening cocktail -- whisky over iceberg ice we'd picked from a beach along the East Coast Trail.

Cheers!

On a rock on the Rock

Newfoundland is as far east as we can go while still being in Canada -- quite a trek from our home on the west coast. The rock I'm standing on is along the East Coast Trail, where we took a mini-hike yesterday.


This trip here is to promote the new Amelia book, but it's also an opportunity to explore. Besides, the people are friendly, and the sights are magnificent. We've even managed to find a few icebergs!

But now, onward!

Happy birthday, Amelia Earhart

When I was in Newfoundland, I took the time to visit Harbour Grace, the place where Amelia Earhart took off on her first solo trans-Atlantic flight on May 20, 1932.

The field there looked too tiny to be an airstrip, more of a place for launching kites than planes.

Her intended goal was Paris, but weather forced her to cut the trip short. Luckily, Ireland intervened. The story goes that she landed in a pasture near a small village in Northern Ireland, and didn't even know that she wasn't someplace in France.

So, why am I thinking about her today? It's her birthday, a day observed by some as 'Amelia Earhart Day'. She liked the colour yellow, so when I visited her statue in Harbour Grace, I stuffed a bouquet of fresh dandelions into her hand, an early birthday present.

Earlier this month, July 3rd, was the anniversary of her disappearance, a mystery that lingers, with occasional reports of evidence (often less-than-reliable) of what her fate might have been.

But I'm not the only one who still thinks about her. A woman named Amelia Rose Earhart recently completed the round-the-world flight path Amelia intended to make. Yet I doubt that even this will be the end of the news about this object-of-my-fascination, Amelia.

And oh yes, those feet of mine are standing on a rock in the field at Harbour Grace. I couldn't help but think that on that May morning in 1932, Amelia may well have thought to 'ground herself' for a moment before climbing into her plane, and that she may have paused for a few seconds, standing on this very same stone.

Cooler than cool

We'd heard that it was a good year for icebergs. This one was hanging around Cape Spear, the most eastern point in North America. Plenty of people, both tourists and locals, were hanging around too, all to get a glimpse of the ice. Those chunks floating closer to shore are smaller bergs, broken off as the ice has travelled down the coast from Greenland. That iceberg on the horizon is the subject of a short video posted by CBC. It's taken by a drone, and after a few passes, it scoots through the ice arch. Pretty darn cool.

But it wasn't just Cape Spear that had visiting icebergs. They seemed to be everywhere, floating off the coasts of Newfoundland. Travelling around in my little rental car, I'd come around a bend in the road, and there below me would be a bay full of what looked like a fleet of white boats. Only they weren't boats, they were icebergs. This is the 'ice flotilla' in Hant's Harbour.

The video below (shaky, I apologize) is how one iceberg (the biggest one, the one on the right) looked just after it 'foundered'. While I didn't catch that part of the action, at least you can see how quickly the chunks of ice dispersed from the bigger berg once it broke. Pieces of ice are streaming away from the berg, rippling the water, almost as if someone had picked up the iceberg and dropped it (which is pretty much what it looked like as it happened). One of the women watching from the same vantage point said it was a very lucky thing to see -- and that this was only the second time she'd ever witnessed such an event. Lucky especially for 'from away' me.