I am trying to make a fruitcake from scratch. I've done this many times in the past, but I learned today that there is a province-wide shortage of suet.
Suet is beef fat. It's supposed to be fat specifically from around the kidneys (because of the texture). And every other year I've been able to get a 500g bag of it, nice and white and fine and made by Maple Leaf, to put in my fruitcake.
This year, nuh-uh.
Who knows why - I throw my arms in the air in a gesture of hopelessness. Because I'm in a primarily French province, and suet-based cooking is primarily English? Because people are watching their weight and cutting down on animal fats, or becoming vegetarian?
Besides the fact that I've driven all over Hell's half-acre today in a vain attempt to get suet, I'm depressed about more than that one issue. See, somebody suggested I go to Adonis, in the 10/30 mall.
I avoid the 10/30 like the plague. It is huge. It is a small city. It makes no sense for Canadian weather. You have to drive from one store to another, it's impossible to be a pedestrian, they don't even have sidewalks through most of it.
Whenever I'm a passenger in a car going to the 10/30, we get there without incident. However, "Granny" here got herself well and truly lost.
How hard can it be? The thing is visible from Mars! I've always, always returned safely from the 10/30 by way of Lapiniere, so to get there today, I took Lapiniere.
Turns out, that doesn't exactly work.
I saw many sights today. The graveyard where my grandparents are buried. Leon's furniture warehouse. The Ikea distribution center. Signs pointing to the 30 East, heading to Sorel. Signs pointing to the 30 West, heading to Vaudreuil. A manufacturing and commercial center I didn't know existed, where they're still paving the roads. There was even a Boulevard du Quartier - which convinced me I was in the right place at last, because that is the name of the main road in the 10/30! Must've been a different "Quartier" though, because I made it as far as St. Bruno before I gave up and turned around.
Unfortunately, this 10/30 mall, visible from Mars, is not visible from the 30, East or West, or from Lapiniere.
Eventually I did manage to see great big signs advertising the existence of the 10/30, and proceeded to get lost in the maze of unnamed streets that meander meaninglessly this way and that through the most mind-numbing tedium I have ever encountered.
If I ever become a terrorist, the first place I'd take out is the 10/30 mall. But I digress.
I did, eventually, find Adonis. They didn't have any suet either. They also didn't know what it was, but the manager was keen to make me some. Unfortunately, I think the process involves chopping, heating and melting, cooking, and more chopping.
And I got lost coming home. Nearly wept when I found Boul. Rome, coin Taschereau.
All in all, not an experience to put me in a festive mood for making fruitcake.
And of course, there was the internal monologue the while this was going on. "You're the fruitcake, Deb." "Go on a diet." "This'll teach to you become a vegetarian!" "Why do you persist in routinely giving yourself the trouble of doing s--t from scratch! Buy one at Costco and get on with your life!"
I was not feeling particularly happy. Then I realized that my Daughter had left me a message. I had tried to call her while I was going both ways on the 30 and she was returning my call.
She had been visiting my Stepfather in the hospital. Stepdad has just had his second leg amputated.
Okay, I may not be able to find suet this year, but at least I've got two legs. Kind of puts things a teensy bit in perspective.
