Step 14 - Eat up, buttercup.

Mmmm. A freshly cooked home meal, every night, on the table at 6pm. It's clockwork.

The student diet has done a lot to keep me thin. Between biking EVERYWHERE and counting lentils as my main protein, I didn't worry too much about calories. When I moved up here, I pretty much assumed I would put on weight. The long winter, inhospitable temperatures, and hearty meals assured me of that. And though I have yet to pack on the pounds, I take comfort in four little words: “women of the north.”

Within my first month of moving here, I heard this powerful phrase. As the story goes, a friend had just moved up and was eating in a cafeteria. A some-what crazy older woman sat down and saw what she was eating. The women informed my friend that she had to eat more and put on a healthy layer of fat. With hands in the air and voice raised, she declared that we are, after all, “women of the north!”

Food in Fort McMurray, as in so many other places, tends to be the cornerstone of community. The dinner table is where friends gather, share laughs, and fight elbow to elbow for the chocolate cheesecake. In this case, it took teamwork to get all our desires deserts back to the table:

The German cannot get over what he calls “American sized portions.” He makes all the noise in the world about how large the restaurant servings are and then proceeds to eat the entire thing. He also finds the sizes of our potlucks overwhelming, but cannot resist their allure for long.

And just to make sure he is thoroughly embarrassed (so easy to do to Germans), his first Big Mac. “Ugh, it is disgusting how you Americans can eat this” he said as he devoured the cardboard burger. For the record, I had a salad.

Similarly, co-workers find it hard to contain themselves when presented with unwholesome amounts of food at a staff meal.

Even the well disciplined Cheetham's cannot subdue their joy at the taste of my first ever “moose loaf.” I believe that continued efforts on the cooking front will lead to even more productive relationships with the locals, who take their culinary endeavors very seriously:

So when I am sitting there with a bowl of chocolates calling my name, I take comfort in that powerful phrase “women of the north!” And then I help myself to another.