Hungry for adventure – actually just hungry – after a morning of yoga, my wife dragged me away from my desk for a luncheon out in Leaside.
It was a cold, grey day, so we decided to bypass the patios and people-watching on Bayview. Where to go for visual stimulation and gustatory satisfaction instead?
Answer: We decided to try Corks Beer and Wine Bar in Longo’s supermarket in the old industrial area. It’s in the balcony overlooking the shopping floor of the beautifully-converted old Canadian Northern Railway building.
So we sat at a very comfortable table, ordered beer and sliders for me, pizza for her, and watched the world go buy below us. We appreciated the heritage setting: 2015 happens to be the centennial of both the completion of Mackenzie and Mann’s Canadian Northern transcontinental railway, and its bankruptcy, which helps to explain why it took Leaside a little longer to be developed.
The action on the produce floor became intensely interesting. One by one the shoppers glided up to the displays, checking out the pears, apples, raspberries, strawberries, blackberries, oranges, grapefruit, onions, asparagus, watermelons, honeydew, lettuce, potatoes, tomatoes, and more. We marvelled at the abundance on display.
We discussed this issue: should a customer who handles a piece of fruit have to buy it? Is she allowed to put it back? Ethics plus suspense: would that woman fondling and sniffing the melons, one after the other, now putting one in her cart, now putting it back on the display, ever buy one? And what was that lady doing moving cherries from one package to another? It was not clear.
At least no one bit into a cherry or a melon.
Most of the action this noon hour, however, was in bananas. A busy banana man was restocking the display even as bunch upon bunch of them seemed to bolt into shoppers’ carts. At least a hundredweight of bananas disappeared during our luncheon. Longo’s must import them by the truckload. Only asparagus, more likely a local product, was anywhere near as popular.
We decided that it’s morally all right to break up a bunch of bananas, buying only one or two. Nor did we observe any outright crime – no fellow Leasiders slipping bananas into their purses or down their boots; thus no bootleg bananas!
I thoroughly enjoyed my back bacon sliders and my dark ale, and I recommend Longo’s as a pleasant place for an off-beat luncheon. Liz Bliss, instigator, decided that she was completely at fault in ordering a pizza she didn’t like.
So she came home and poached an egg.
We were out of bananas.
