While President Obama’s trip was forecast to be a business-only one, with no chance for the public to see him, the Prez had other plans.
Firstly, he took a moment or two to wave at the crowds gathered on Parliament Hill, which we were all told would be out of the question. Later, after his meetings with Stephen Harper and other politicos, he made a decidedly personal shopping stop in Ottawa’s Byward market to indulge in some very Canadian treats.
His purchases included shortbread maple leaf cookies for his daughters and a Beavertail.
A Beavertail, for the uninitiated, is a fried dough pastry with various toppings. They have various types from the savory (garlic and cheddar) to the sweet (cinnamon and sugar).
Cinnamon Sugar Beavertail
In this case, he got an “Obamatail“, a creation which the local shop came up with for the inauguration and which was a hit at the Canadian Embassy celebrations, in Washington. It is a variation on the cinnamon and sugar version with an added whipped cream “O”, chocolate syrup and maple butter.
Obamatail Fans
(tracey tong/metro ottawa)
As an historical aside, the founder and owner of Hooker’s Beavertails in the Byward Market, purveyors of this wonderful delicacy is a descendant of General Hooker, Civil War general and the man whose major claim to fame is allowing “camp followers” to accompany his troops. It was because of General Hooker that we have the term “hooker” for prostitutes.
All this would merely be “interesting” if it weren’t for the fact that back in the 1980s, Grant Hooker, proprietor of the aforementioned Hooker’s Beavertails, was one of the prime movers in the local merchants and residents to have prostitutes driven out of the Byward Market area….
Oh! The irony….
On another note, we were all told that Obama would be arriving at about 7:30 am… I decided to give his arrival a with berth in order to get myself across the city to work, my route taking me right by the airport. Imagine my surprise to find that, in fact, he arrived about 10:30 and I was caught in the midst of the parking lot that was the Hunt Club Eastbound lanes. For some unaccountable reason, traffic was flowing smoothly in the Westbound lanes. Since the two lanes run parallel and mere yards from each other for the full length of Hunt Club East, it was a mystery why the Westbound lanes were moving and the Eastbound were stopped.
I was stuck for more than 1/2 an hour (and 15 minutes of THAT time was AFTER he arrived on Parliament Hill).
Mudpuddle 