Coffee and life

Tags

Anniversary, coffee, Dad, Espresso, Local 343, wedding

For as long as I can remember, going back into my childhood our coffee pot was a Bialetti Moka, making essentially Espresso. But if you look up the word Espresso in an Italian dictionary you will see; Caffè (pronounced [kafˈfɛ]) is the Italian word for coffee and probably originates from “Kaffa”, the region in Ethiopia where coffee originated. Caffè may refer to the Italian way of preparing a coffee, an espresso, or occasionally used as a synonym for the European coffee bar.

My parents never used any other type of coffee machine at home and when I moved out on my own, at first for some unexplained reason, was drinking instant coffee, Maxwell House was a favourite. At work, we had absolutely awful coffee made in industrial machines provided by companies who sold bulk powdered coffee.  When I joined the Foreign Service and went on posting, I rediscovered coffee made correctly and providing for aroma and good tasting cup.

In the Middle-East I learned to make Turkish coffee, which is often flavoured with cardamon, drinking it black with one sugar (Masbout).

Then a few years ago, I returned to the old Moka method. It is by far the easiest way of making coffee, always good. Of course Espresso is suppose to be served in a small cup or demi-tasse, not in a mug. So I came to realize that maybe we were drinking too much coffee simply by the size of the cup.  For years now I drink my coffee with a dash of milk macchiato.

Today at lunch at one of our favourite places LOCAL 343 on Water street on the patio, Will reminded me that on Friday 7 July it is our 10 Wedding Anniversary (Tin). We were married in a friends home garden in Ottawa. I had just completed my posting to Beijing, had come home to Canada and we were on our final preparation to move to Rome. Our old long hair dachshund Reese was with us that day, he was coming with us to Italy. We had a few friends present, it was a small affair. Not to forget that 2018 will be our 40th Anniversary of being together.

Our wedding day with our minister, July 2007

Unfortunately because our little wire hair Dachshund Nora had a misadventure with some poison this past few days, we have cancelled our trip to the Iles de la Madeleine in the Gulf of St-Lawrence, we were going with friends and my uncle, aunt and cousins were to be there also.  Nora is doing better and that is what matters to us, we would not have felt happy being away from her not feeling completely well.

Finally this week, McGill University’s Faculty of Medicine have returned to us in a formal ceremony the ashes of my late father who died 2 years ago on 12 July. We will bury him at Sea, as was his wishes later in September. In his will my father had stipulated that his remains be given to medical science for research work.

Dad and I, at lunch at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel in Montreal a few years ago.

 

Burial at Sea

Tags

arrangements, Dad, Death, Funeral, McGill

My father died on July 12, 2015 suddenly in his favourite store Holt & Renfrew on Sherbrooke street West in Montreal, it was all very quick and sudden, he was 85 years old. My mother had died two years prior to him and he had predicted that he would follow her two years later.

In the meantime he had been quietly looking into funeral arrangements for himself and was shocked and scandalized at the prices for a simple funeral. He thought the whole thing awful and a money grab, his idea was that once you are dead what do you care what a casket looks like or for flower arrangements or even all the other trappings. So he knew quite a few doctors at the Medical Faculty of McGill University and had arranged medical conferences for them and their colleagues in the hotel he managed. In the last ten years of his life he had become a regular at the Emergency room of the Royal Victoria Hospital in Montreal and the doctors knew him well.  My Dad decided that he would give his body to medical science. He filled out all the paper work and spoke to the Faculty Director and his own doctor about what would happen once he crossed over to the other side. He had also told us of his wishes and made them quite clear to us, there was no changing them.

Us kids had decided to respect both our mother and our father’s wishes and went along.

In the last few days, Medical Faculty at McGill contacted us to say that they no longer needed the remains and that a special service would be held in June to commemorate him and those who had given their bodies to science. The Faculty does this every year and they bury the remains in their cemetery on the Mount Royal. We requested his ashes be returned to us, our father wanted to be buried at sea.

Dad in Greece with the Aegean Sea behind him.

Luckily all three of us live by the seashore so it will be easy to arrange.

 

 

Petits Fours for Christmas

Tags

Canada., cooking, Dad, Fanny Cradock, Hotels, Petit Four, Restaurants

My late father always insisted that when you served coffee to friends or clients, you had to serve Petits Fours. You would never serve cookies as they do today in the age of casualness.

I remember once when going to some restaurant who had a good reputation he asked for Petits Fours with his coffee, Dad only drank Espresso, now this was in the late 1960’s, the waiter brought dry tea biscuits. Dad immediately asked him why he had done that, the waiter replied you asked for a cookie. That was not the right answer to give. Dad pointed out that a tea biscuit is not a Petit Four. We never went back, Dad knew the owner and had a dim view of the man after that, because in his opinion you cannot pretend to be up-market and serve mediocrity.

My Dad was an hotel manager for 50 years and he had very specific ideas about food, service and how you ran an hotel, from the type of flowers you could have in a dinning room, to the linens, how to polish a marble floor for the greatest shine and attitude towards service and clients. He left nothing to chance and expected the staff to be attentive to their duties. He often arrived at work when the night shift was leaving so he could greet the day shift in person at the employee’s entrance door around 06:30am.

I learned so many things from him, when I was 6 yrs old, Dad decided that it was time to learn how to make mix drinks. I watched him carefully as he made a Bloody Caesar, with clamato juice, it is Canada’s Official Cocktail. Then it was on to dry Martini and he pointed out that the little white onion coming out of the jar had a vinegar taste to them, so you had to rince them quickly in cold water to take away the taste. He always  wanted me to know these things so I was prepared, just in case.

This is why when I saw this old BBC 4 program with Fanny Cradock I thought of Dad and his Petits Fours.

Fanny Cradock, on BBC 4 a cooking show from the 1970’s.

Auguste Rodin how did he work?

Tags

Dad, Family, MBAB, Montreal, Rodin, Rue Sherbrooke Ouest

This museum in Montreal started in 1860 on the always fashionable Sherbrooke Street surrounded by the Mansions of the powerful and wealthy, the Golden Mile. The Museum backs unto the slopes of the Mount Royal, the ancient extinct volcano which forms the Island of Montreal, a city founded in 1642 and a commercial metropolis ever since due to its geographical location. It is now a city of 4 million people where 90% of the population speak French.

The Desmarais wing across the street from the original museum building, the two buildings are connected by an underground gallery.

the street Avenue du Musée has been closed to create this outdoor revolving and ever changing work of art between the original museum building and the Bourgie Hall, a former protestant church converted in a concert hall and museum space. The old church is famous for its numerous large Tiffany glass windows.

Bourgie Hall with the gift of Montreal sculptor David Altmejd, The Eye (2011).

From its original Beaux-Arts style building the museum in the last 25 years has expanded and continues to do so with generous gifts from patrons. A fourth building of 49,000 sq. meters is currently being added, Pavillion pour la Paix, a gift of Michal Hornstein and his wife Renata, a generous Montreal couple.

The sculpture called Sun by Dale Chihuly now grace the front steps of the Museum in the Summer time. Sold by Chihuly to the Museum for $1 million dollar, it was bought through public donations, the sum being raised in a matter of a couple of months.

In the last few years the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts has rivalled and sometimes outshone some other Canadian Museum like the National Gallery of Canada in terms of attendance, patron loyalty, generous endowments and varied exhibits.

The latest exhibits on Auguste Rodin (1840-1917), father of modern sculpture is most interesting. Unlike other exhibits showing simply the finished works, this exhibits explains how Rodin worked and how he created his masterpieces. You enter into the secret world of his Atelier and read about his routine to create works which astonished and brought about much criticism. Rodin did break well established conventions and the critics of the time were merciless.

First the drawings, all his life from childhood Rodin was a gifted artist and would draw many subjects. During his life time he would also only use live models, never statues or mannequins. He said that it was important to draw live people because you saw the way the body actually looked and had a better appreciation for all the natural human form, the tension in the muscles, the natural curves, the elasticity of the flesh. He appreciated that no one human looked like another and that bodies came in various shapes. He rejected the academic sculptural school which copied the Classicism of Antiquity. He also used his own body, per example his hands which can be seen in his creation in marble ”The Hand of God”. Taking his cue from the saying that we are made in God’s image.

For all his creations he would first draw, then make a clay model from clay that he collected. He worked hours with clay, shaping it from small round balls and then flattening them. Once the clay model was done he would ask an assistant to make a faithful exact replica in plaster. Like the artists of the Renaissance he used assistants widely who often were themselves masters in their field of work. This was an expensive process but Rodin used it from the beginning, even when he had little money to spare.

The plaster models look like white meringue, they are fine and are said to be very light, a man could lift with his own hands the model in plaster of The Thinker. It speaks volumes of the incredible artistry of the assistants of Rodin.

From the plaster model he would cast his work in bronze or marble again using many assistants. This exhibit had numerous plaster models from the Musée Rodin in Paris, which I am told is currently under renovation. One in particular was the plaster model of ”The walking man” a statue which in its finished form has no arms and no head. The viewer concentrates on the legs and the thrusting movement, the energetic walking pose, the legs like a compass, the muscles in the thighs and their movement forward, the walking man is aggressively moving forward with great strength.

The subject for this statue was an Italian peasant by the name of Pignatelli from the Abruzzo. He impressed Rodin who would say that this man, exhibits a primeval strength born from the Earth devoid of the refined beauty of civilization. He stood like a rock, when you see him you can imagine a Hercules.

The Saint John the Baptist is taken from the Walking Man same pose and is instantly recognizable as the Saint. He is a man of nature, a true believer, someone who comes to announce the Messiah, what we would call in French un Illuminé.

Rodin would often re-use some plaster casts of arms and legs and putting them in different poses on new creations to suit the dramatic effect he sought to create.

The exhibit also devoted a portion of the presentation of this exhibit to show the Gate of Hell and how Rodin re-used some of the figures in other works he would them make into giant forms.  The figure of ”The Thinker” who reflects on what he has done, the man is lost in reflection, he has just committed murder and reflects on his act of violence. The monumental Gate of Hell was a commissioned work for a new building in Paris which was never built. It is now in a museum garden in Paris.

Rodin also employed for his marbles what he called metteurs en points, these were assistants who would take a bloc of marble and chip off and prepare the bloc for him, Rodin would examine the prepared blocks carefully, his observation based on the clay models and the plaster models representing faithfully his vision of the final work. Rodin would then employ other practionners to continue the work under his strict supervision. He employed some 100 practitioners working on 400 marble works between 1872-1917, they sculpted most of the blocks and Rodin only did the finishing touches, using them again to put the final polish to the completed marble figure. Rodin loved Pentelic marble from Greece and the Seravezza marble of Italy for its incredible purity, the same marble used by Michaelangelo. He would use these types of marbles exclusively.

When you see this exhibit and how it was curated, you wish to thank the curator for such a well done job. I will never look at Rodin in the same way, now that I understand the incredible artistry of the man and his vision of how to represent the human form.

I completed this visit to the Museum by having lunch in their elegant restaurant Le Café des beaux-arts. Great menu and service. A wonderful way to say goodbye to my Dad.

Auguste Rodin towards the end of his life.

Requiescat in Pace

Tags

Canada., children, Dad, Death, Denis Beaulieu, Family, Funeral, Montreal, mourning, Peace, sadness, Son, Westmount

Eternal Rest grant unto him, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon him.

The header of this posting is dedicated to my father, Denis C. Beaulieu, the painting by Newell C. Wyeth is entitled; Lobstering off Black Spruce Ledge.

He loved the dish Lobster Thermidor and he also loved anything to do with the Sea.

On the afternoon of Sunday 12 July my father died suddenly while shopping in one of his favourite stores, Holt Renfrew in Montreal. He was transported to the Hotel Dieu de Montreal, the oldest hospital in the city founded 1645. My siblings and I cannot say enough good about the kindness, care and thoughtfulness of the hospital emergency staff.  We are very grateful for their attention and care they gave to our father despite the fact that he was beyond help. Death came very quickly and he did not suffer according to the three doctors and ambulance para-medics who attended him.

My parents wedding 18 June 1955 

Our mother had died on 28 September 2013 after a very lenghty illness. My father was suffering from increasing poor health with an accumulation of heart and lung problems aggravated by old age, he was 85. The weather on Sunday was very humid 90% and very hot around 32C a lethal combination for someone like him.

I arrived in Montreal from Ottawa around 19:30 hrs, I do not really remember the highway drive down, my mind so preoccupied and hoping that I might arrive before he left this world. He died around 18:00. It was strangely peaceful to sit with him for several hours in the hospital room. We had during his lifetime sat in the same room at home in silence both of us reading and exchanging a few words. The two of us had gone to Greece 5 years ago for his 80th birthday, during our trip he and I would often look at the scenery in silence. It was a similar experience and I was able to say my quiet goodbyes. I was happy to have this opportunity, just me and Dad.

My mother always said and it became a family joke, that we were, him and I so alike in mannerisms, figure of speech and voice, people often would think it was my father calling on the phone when in fact it was me. Now it is even stranger as I phone his friends I am quick to tell them it is me calling for fear they might think it was him and I would have to correct them and then announced his death.

After leaving the hospital, I was the first to arrive at his apartment in Westmount and looking around everything was in its habitual place just waiting his return, he had just left for a few hours for shopping, never to return. I just sat there and looked around so many memories in the various objects, many of them going back to my childhood.

My father had an incredible career in the Hotel Industry in Canada from 1960.  He was a natural salesman and in marketing he always knew how to present his product and sell it. He also had the memory of an elephant and was able to recall names,places and events, even conversations years later. It was eerie but would fascinate clients who recalling events could not believe that he remembered so many things about them. As children we often lived at the hotel he managed and I being the oldest was able to observe his style, he had a lot of style, from the clothes he wore to the cars he drove, to interior decoration to design in general, to flower arrangements, to the food served or drinks, or the way he lived, life with Dad was never ordinary.

He was a man of opinions and as much as he could charm the birds off the trees, he could be harsh in his criticism if it had to do with hotels or restaurants and or shoddy service. He always believed that if a client paid, he was entitled to full value and then some. Cutting corners to make a fast profit was never his policy and would not put up with anyone even a colleague suggesting it. He was dismayed by today’s hospitality business and the poor service generally, considering the prices charged. He was lucky to work in the hotel field at a time when hotel service was still steeped in tradition unlike today.

Many of his clients through the years were famous people and often repeat customers. I got to meet some of them. He would get to know what they liked and kept notes. When the client arrived they would find the room with a bouquet of flowers they liked or with an item such as fresh juices or that special liquor bottle they favoured. His clients never forgot, he made them feel at ease and would get to know them personally and even be privy to confidences.

Dad and me, He is 30 years old and I am 5 years old. His first born,I am named after his own father who had died prematurely in 1954. This wonderful picture was taken by my uncle, we are reading a book together.

As a father he tried to give us some basics, he firmly believed that hard work would be rewarded. Every job even menial, his example, picking up city garbage deserved to be done well. He also wanted us to know the value of a dollar and look for good value in anything we bought. It was not always easy to be his son, he always had high expectations and would not put up with whatever, you always had to do better.  I remember once he had a client who was the heir to a huge corporate fortune who was always complaining that he was so bored. My father could not understand why this fellow did not try to find something meaningful to do despite his fortune. This was an example for us not to follow, no matter what happened in life, always try to be useful to others.

I remember when I was sixteen my father found me a job in Lausanne, Switzerland, the seat of the famous hotel school. He sent me to a friend of his to work at the resort hotel his family managed on Lac Leman (lake Geneva). My father gave me a one way ticket and when I asked about the return portion, he told me that since I would be working I could come back once I had secured enough money to buy a return ticket, it is called learning to manage a budget. I was stunned. For several months I learned the hotel business, getting up at dawn to prepare the dining room for breakfast, polishing silverware and arranging table settings under the eagle eye of the Maitre d’Hotel, everything had to be perfect. I worked long hours sometimes up to 18 hours a day, 6 days a week and we were fed mostly, pig tripe in tomato sauce, not a bad dish, but not one of my favorites. I learned a lot during those months and did not at the time, fully appreciate it. But these were the kind of experiences my father thought were important to prepare us kids against the vagaries of life.

It is strange to think that he is gone. I think even Montreal will not look the same to me without him and mom. I won’t be able to have those conversations with him about restaurants, world politics and whatever or just sit with him in silence. I owe my Dad a great deal and I am very proud of him, I did not always agree with him but in the end as Mom would say, you are his son that cannot be denied.

Typical of him, there will be no funeral and he gave his body to the medical Faculty of McGill University. He did ask that we give a party in his memory, invite his friends and we must serve Champagne, that is what we will do.

Hotels he managed in his career; Chateau Frontenac, Quebec City 1960, Chateau Champlain, Hotel Bonaventure (construction phase and Opening 1966) Montreal.  Four Seasons Hotel Montreal. King Edward (re-construction and re-opening) Toronto 1974, Hotel Meridien Montreal 1976, Hotel Chateau Laurier, Ottawa, Hotel Pierre, New York, Hotel Fairfax, 2100 Massachusetts ave. Washington DC in the Reagan years., Hotel St-Paul, in St-Paul, MN, Hotel Bristol, Paris, Hotel Stafford, London and then for many years the Private Club of the Royal Bank of Canada on the 41st floor of Place Ville Marie in Montreal.