The Humble Curd

Over the last few weeks, while Ottawa suffered through a 50 day transit strike, I sought refuge in trying to find the positives in what was a ridiculous stand-off. One of the things I gravitated towards was the amount of time I was spending with Kim - driving her to work and picking her up at the end of each day. The topic of our morning conversations ranged from Larry O'Brien's mayoral incompetence, to the culpability and character of former Nortel Executives who had fled the crippled behemoth like Nazis to Argentina, to Lucas's "left-at-the-alter-should-have-married-Peyton-you-tortured-sole-idjit" conundrum from the previous night's episode of One Tree Hill. It took me back twenty years when we would walk to work and argue about Free Trade - this was during the brief hiatus when I was a Conservative. . . before I realized they were all pretty much post-walk dog-snot!

And so it was the other morning when we sat at a red light behind a truck advertising Le Festival de la Curd. Unlike the identity-plagued Blues Fest, with its mix of Gladys Night (sans Pips) meets Buddy Guy, a festival devoted to the cheese curd, the Festival de la Curd, seems strikingly pure - its banner ad: "3 Tonnes of Cheese, Five Days of Festivities" - seriously, this is a festival for the cheese curd!

I've travelled to the four points of the globe and have only ever found cheese curds in Eastern Ontario and Quebec (although I'm sure New Brunswick and Wisconsin would be contenders too). However, Google "cheese Curd" and the number three hit is: "what is poutine" - number four is: "Montreal Poutine"!

And quite naturally on that morning our conversation transcended to a discussion about that great culinary cheese curd delight, poutine. Now, believe it or not, despite my passion for The Curd, the first time I had Poutine was last winter at 4am in Montreal at Chez Dany, after a night of entertainment with two friends. I'm sure Poutine is good any time, but it is particularly good at 4 am after making a sizeable personal contribution to the sustained health of the Quebec micro-brewery industry.

Without the hint of a lie, and knowing that it's doing me no good, I consume 200 to 400 grams of cheese curd a week. I exercise for two reasons: so I can consume beer, and eat cheese without looking like one of the contestants on Wife Swap! In Ottawa, St Albert's curds are ubiquitous, available at almost every Loblaws; and if they're fresh they're good. Of course, all cheese curds need to be fresh, room temperature and squeaky - if not, then they're just lumps of prepubescent cheddar (not that there's anything wrong with that!). I buy my favorite, however, at the House of Cheese, in the Byward Market. These are also St. Albert's curds, but they're markedly bigger and plumper than those sold at Loblaws in the convenient resealable bag (like anyone needs one of those when buying cheese curds). Apparently one of the reasons for this is that they're sized specifically for poutine - you gotta love that; and they're also delivered in bulk and bagged by the good folk at the House of Cheese every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. But to be honest, I'm not really that picky - fresh, squeaky, room temperature are the only attributes I demand.

I'm not sure that I'll actually go to Le Festival de la Curd - frankly, the line-up doesn't really do much for me; but I am thankful for the incompetence of our Mayor, and the obstinacy of the transit union bosses, without which I may never have known that this humble food product had its own week long festival.