Getting up from the table

I arrived in the St. Catharines Standard newsroom in February 2005 with no grand plans.

I figured my stay would be temporary. I was here covering a reporter’s maternity leave, so who was I to think I’d last beyond a year.

Maybe after my tenure as a features writer I would move on — or back — to Kitchener-Waterloo, where I grew up and get bylines in the paper that helped fuel my journalism dreams growing up.

It wasn’t long after arriving, however, that I realized I was surrounded by immense talent in The Standard newsroom, led by city editor Peter Conradi at the time. So it didn’t take me long to decide I’d like to stay if they’d have me.

Workplace aside, I fell in love with Niagara, even if there were many days I didn’t see the best of it once I moved over to news to continue covering my first love of agriculture in tandem with city councils, school boards, the environment and crime.

Covering farming here was a continuation of work I’d done previously in Norfolk County and as a student in Saskatchewan, starting in 2000. I was honoured to do it.

I’ve been honoured to do it for more than 20 years combined, with most of that time spent as Eating Niagara, a moniker bestowed upon me by former city editor Rick Vansickle in 2007 when I was tasked with trying the 100-Mile Diet. It was the year of the locavore and I had to find out how easy it was to eat within a 100-mile radius of St. Catharines.

It was difficult at the time, especially as a vegetarian. Shoutout to Wellandport farmer Linda Crago and De La Terre bakery owner Jan Campbell-Luxton for providing me with elusive carbs and proteins, otherwise I might not be here writing this column today.

That was also a time when a chain restaurant opening in St. Catharines could make the front page. But with the privilege my press credentials gave me, even after I left the paper and continued my relationship as freelancer, I got to witness and eat my way through an incredible transformation.

As excruciating as the recession in 2008 was for our largest economic sectors in the region, it presented incredible opportunity to the curious, creative and adaptable. Niagara’s climb out of the worst recession in modern history included forging a new identity through food, particularly with the arrival of chefs from elsewhere, who saw the area’s potential and residents’ hunger for something more than chain offerings.

I was there with my pen and fork, and a new reporting tool, my smartphone, to cover it and tell the stories. It was an honour to break bread with people who saw all that could be here and wanted to make it happen. There was never a shortage of story ideas and when I was asked to return to the paper as a food columnist nine years ago, it was tough to write fast enough to keep up.

My favourite story, however, was profiling the three palatial Chinese restaurants along the Niagara River in Fort Erie for Niagara Life magazine. Long before there were wineries or food trucks, May Wah, Happy Jack’s and Ming Teh beckoned throngs of tourists, especially from Buffalo, N.Y.,for a meal.

Each restaurant had a story of family loyalty and legacy with the main characters being tenacious Chinese chefs who cracked the code of the North American palate to resourcefully come up with an enduring regional variation of their native cuisine.

I never thought I’d stop Eating Niagara, whether covering something down on the farm or in a professional kitchen. It was a dream gig.

But then March 2020 happened. I remember driving down St. Paul Street on March 15 and feeling overcome to see restaurants, busy just days earlier, shuttered because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Dreams were paused, although at the time, our naïve optimism convinced us it would be for only a few weeks.

The situation grew dire, and the industry and diners pulled together as best they could. People really — finally — tuned into the importance of supporting small, local and independent businesses. I shifted the focus of my writing almost entirely to covering restaurants and profiling food artisans with the hope of helping them through. I sweated over every word I wrote, now more than ever, though I know I didn’t always knock it out of the park.

But as the pandemic wore on, along with our constant survival mode, a job that had always involved gathering together in person became more challenging to do over phone and video calls mandated for our collective safety.

It was doubly hard for me because at home, I am the caregiver to and co-parent with someone with ALS whose condition is steadily deteriorating.

A few red flags about my own health also appeared and it became abundantly clear that I needed to stop resisting the universe’s nudges, now shoves, in a new direction. And so this is my last column at Eating Niagara.

While I leave feeling great satisfaction for my years covering this beat, I also leave feeling more than a bit rueful for the stories on my todo list that never got done.

I so desperately wanted to write about Welland, the city in Niagara with the most definitive food culture. Kevin Pascall, owner of Soulicious Pepper Sauce, and his deference for his ingredients and passion for his craft, are something to behold on social media. I can only imagine how that would translate to a printed story.

I’m sad I won’t be able to chronicle the trajectory of Thoshan Alweera, a.k.a. The Secret Chef Niagara, as the Sri Lankan-born chef shares the food of his birth nation with us through pop-ups, including one tomorrow at Kiss My Pans in Toronto.

Still, I look forward to eating a meal now without thinking how I can turn it into a story or a photo on Instagram. I’ll still be eating Niagara, just as Tiffany Mayer, diner.

Truth is, it’s been a long time since I felt this hungry to do anything in my career.