Dinner Cape Breton Style

Last night I had the privilege of attending a dinner held at the local church hall, one featuring music and food from Canada's east coast and meant to raise funds for charity. For the most part I enjoyed the event; the company at our table was convivial, the conversation engaging and the meal surprisingly good, considering the quantity of food that had to be provided and the fact that it was served buffet-style rather than a la carte. The fare consisted of baked salmon, neither too dry nor too underdone, crisp crab cakes, shish-kebab with shrimp and vegetables, rice and fresh salad with romaine lettuce. Dessert was a sort of brown betty affair of fairly generous proportions, moist and spicy. The wine, of Canadian origin, was also pleasant, and available in both red and white for $3.50 a glass or $15.00 a bottle.

Dinner and wine was followed by a musical performance with a Celtic theme. The musicians, dressed in Highland garb, played fiddles, electric piano and guitar. One of the performers, a young woman said to have once performed on Don Messer's Jubilee (a Canadian television program that broadcast country music performances at one time to a national audience) gave a fine example of a Scottish jig, which to me looked and sounded a lot like tap dancing. The sound of the young women's shoes meeting the stage floor echoed resoundingly throughout the hall and her legs, which displayed to my masculine eye an admirable shape and muscle tone, moved in energetic accompaniment to the spirited music.

During the intermission, coffee and dessert were served to the eager throng, who lined up en masse for their allotted portions of cake. It was here that I had my first true (and only) unpleasant shock of the evening, one that originated ironically enough with the coffee, a foul-tasting brew being produced by the gallon in large metal percolators.

As I have been fearing of late, my capacity to accept inferior caffeine products seems to have diminished since acquiring the Jamaican blue mountain blend this past Easter. Last night, the coffee seemed almost intolerable, having a metallic taste so strong it seemed nearly radioactive. Needless to say I didn't finish my share of the beverage, which was being poured by the guests into Styrofoam cups, a fact that only seemed to add further insult to my injured sense of taste. (I don't know for a fact that the taste of coffee can be affected by the vessel containing it, but after having tasted the stuff offered last night it certainly wouldn't surprise me. It might be interesting to do further research on the question at some point).

I departed shortly thereafter. But don't misunderstand me: It was not that I stormed out of the hall in a fit of bad temper, my oh-so-delicate taste buds outraged by the experience of drinking bad coffee. To me, the coffee served last night was really noteworthy only because of its failure to live up to the high standards set by other aspects of the event, and because I have been thinking more about coffee in general since writing these blogs. No, the real reason why I said goodbye to those around the table was because I -- and it almost shames me to admit this -- had partaken a little too much of seafood and wine, the combined effects of which had left me feeling quite sleepy by the time the intermission ended and the second musical performance about to begin. So I walked without hurry back home to my apartment and went almost immediately to bed.