Sunday 12 August 2018

how can you not fall in love with a girl who brings you scallops from Hudson Bay?


I remember frying the scallops in butter during one of her visits and eating them with a garnish of wild blueberries and lemon zest. I remember receiving a whole arctic char, head and all, on another occasion, wrapped in layers of newspaper to keep it frozen during her flight. We had to chop it—hack it actually—in half to fit it into my freezer. I remember the ulu she brought me and wondering how ever would I sharpen the edge of the half-moon blade. There is so much I remember… 

A year later, more probably two, I spent an afternoon cleaning out my freezer. Finding some chicken backs and legs, I decided to cook stock while I was at it. Whatever was stockable, I added to the pot: The last two packages of corn I had frozen the previous summer, garlic-roasted pear halves that would have enhanced any number of dishes, charred peppers that likewise I had high hopes for, and other frozen fragments—peas probably, pumpkin purée maybe—that had been in the freezer too long. The stock was a perfect dark sweetness and the soup I made from it more perfect still. 

That afternoon in my freezer-emptying frenzy, I also relegated much to the compost pail. I can no longer recall most of what I threw out. I do, though, remember finding in the back corner of the freezer, where those long-forgotten bits of detritus have a habit of migrating to, a small plastic bag of an unrecognizable something. I wondered briefly whether it was de-boned chicken breast, but realized soon enough it wasn’t. Puzzling how I could so completely forget what I had put into my freezer, I added it to the compost. It was only the next day when my kitchen smelled oddly of fish that the second package of Hudson Bay scallops came to mind—the scallops we hadn’t eaten—the scallops I was saving for her next visit—the visit that never was. Tears trickled down my cheeks as I remembered ...