Poutine and pea soup

Gordon: We lose weight on many days when we are touring, but then there are the days when we have poutine for breakfast. Today was one of those days. On the recommendation of the Tourist Office, we went to a popular local restaurant for second breakfast around 10 am. We were hungry, so the “poutine du matin”, which frequentply appears on menus, was very appealing. “Poutine du matin” covers all the food groups: fries, cheese curds, sausages, green peppers, and mushrooms, all in a lake of hollandais sauce. For $9.25 each we were presented with more food than should be consumed in a day by anyone not actively engaged in an ultra marathon. It was perfect.

A few moments later, however, I committed a marital faux pas. On this rare occasion that I was trusted to do the daily food shopping, I emerged triumphant with a baguette, a bag of carrots, and, in a tip of the hat to local cuisine, a large can of Québécois pea soup. The look on Ruth’s face should have been captured on film: that was not the dinner she was hoping for. I argued that pea soup is a local dish and that my mother had often made it – oh, and it’s very inexpensive. Ruth countered with disparaging remarks regarding my economy, as well as my Mom’s cooking (ouch). However, as the old saying goes “hunger is the best sauce”. I am counting on a cyclist’s appetite to make tonight’s dinner delicious.

We will be having that dinner in a cyclist’s campground in the Parc national du Bic. This is the first such campground that we have stayed in. Most of the campgrounds are party places for RVs wanting full service hookups, a pool, and a shop. This biker spot is a clearing in the forest with an outhouse and a cooking shelter. Demand for such places is so minimal that several of the park rangers were unaware of its existence. That is particularly surprising given that there is an extensive network of bicycle trails in this gorgeous seaside park. In any event, we are enjoying the campsite very much.