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Every week the staff of the neurology unit has a special session of rounds. That's basically a meeting in which the staff discuss patient care, what plans to follow and how the patient is responding. Neurology does this daily, but the Thursday rounds are more involved. Representatives from every department come, we take a good long time on each patient, and each week someone brings something sweet. Of course it's not the patient care that we're interested in, it's the weekly treat. The idea is that everyone brings something from their heritage. Today was my turn. As an American mutt I had a wide selection from which to choose...Scottish, German, Irish, probably some French and English. I chose Danish. Why? Because I, like most anyone who has ever been to south-eastern Wisconsin, know the secret of kringle. Ah, sweet, delicious kringle. If heaven is indeed a banquet then the tables are laden with kringle. What is kringle? Oh, poor deprived child. Let me tell you. Imagine an oval of flattish pastry, flaky and moist and filled with almond or raspberry or pecan or any good thing. It's not the cakey German coffee cake (also delicious) but something quite unique to the Danes. With a cup of coffee or milk you will never taste anything better, my personal guarantee. I pause for a kringle-related story...
You see, to a Dane this is hilarious. Anyhow...back to getting kringle for rounds. There's a problem. In south-eastern Wisconsin, hotbed of Danish settlement that it is, I could pick up a heavenly O at any grocery store. If I wanted it to be especially tasty I'd get one from the Racine bakeries, where baking kringle has been raised from art form to religious experience. But in Toronto? Not so easy. There's a Little Poland, a Chinatown, Greektown and Little Italy, but no Little Denmark. So where could I get kringle? Most Racine bakeries will ship it on dry ice but that makes it a very expensive treat, even for kringle. Baking it myself was out of the question. For one thing, the oven is all out of whack. There's no relationship between how you set it and how hot it gets, and the variation changes from use to use. For another thing, kringle can take up to three days to make, what with the delicate layering of dough, etc. Three days for baking I do not have. What to do? Enter one of the sweetest and most loving women I've ever met...a Danish immigrant, full of life and always happy to chat. She's on my floor, recovering from surgery. (My floor as in the hospital unit I work in, not the floor of the apartment. That would just be creepy, to have someone in a neck brace laying on your floor.) I have to admit, over the last two weeks she's become something of a grandmother-figure for me, though she's hardly any older than my mother. Some women are just born little old ladies. Anyhow, she knows the lay of the Danish land in Toronto and she suggested a shop on the east side of town - the Danish Style Bake Shop and Deli. Oh, what rapture! But I'm getting ahead of myself. First I had to get there. I took the streetcar waaaaaaay across the city, about as far as you can go on the TTC, at least as far from Roncesvalles. 1027 Kingston Rd., to be exact. On such a long journey I was fearful of the time, and for good reason...the shop was closed when I arrived. I despaired - the meeting was the next day and here I was kringleless. I peered through the window into the small shop, looking longingly at the pastries I wouldn't taste. What's that? An elderly man, shuffling from the back of the darkened store. He's motioning to the door! I opened it and leaned in..."You're closed, eh?" I asked, keeping with the obvious. "Vhat you need?" he answered. Danes get to the point. "Do you have kringle left?" As if he'd be without. "Yah, I have kringle." Joy. I quickly excused myself - I had to run to an ATM. When I returned there was a large, flat box on the counter. "Do you have Danish ancestors?" the old man asked. I guess not a lot of 30-somethings come in for kringle (shame, they don't know what they're missing). That started a long conversation, ranging from Wisconsin and Racine to Hong Kong, where he and his wife just went for vacation. He talked about how he rolled the dough by hand, ("You can't feel with a machine.") which made me happy. He talked about closing the store soon because he couldn't find anyone who wanted to learn to bake the old fashioned way, which made me sad. We chewed the rag for almost an hour. Finally I had to go, taking with me the huge kringle, seven sisters and some almond fingers he threw in for free. And today...boy was I popular. Not on the streetcar, of course. Yesterday evening and this morning I was "That Jerk" who brings a huge, unwieldy and delicate package on the TTC during rush hour. Oh, well. But the staff enjoyed the kringle, making me Mr. Popular Dessert Bringing Guy. Oh, the power of kringle. This was old-world style, meaning it was pretzel shaped rather than oval. It was also almost twice the size of the kringle you get in Racine...serious stuff. But the taste was the same heavenly taste and the whole thing was soon devoured. And my Danish friend...her face lit up when I showed her the masterpiece (before the staff massacred it) and later when I delivered her a slice (after checking with the dietician during rounds...she was stuffing a slice into her own mouth when I asked, so she could hardly object). Any relief from hospital food is a good thing, especially when it's such good comfort food. So life today was sweet, in a lot of ways. |
