Diamond Grill

by Wah, Fred

• ISBN13: 9781897126110
• ISBN10: 1897126115
• Edition: 10th
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-06-01
• Publisher: Newest Pr

Summary

This story of family and identity#44; migration and integration#44; culture and self#45;discovery is told through family history#44; memory#44; and the occasional recipe#46; Diamond Grill is a rich banquet where Salisbury Steak shares a menu with chicken fried rice#44; birdrs"s nest soup sets the stage for Christmas plum pudding#59; where racism simmers behind the shiny clean surface of the action in the cafe#46; An exciting new edition of Fred Wahrs"s best#45;selling bio#45;fiction#44; on the 10th anniversary of its original publication#44; with added text and an all new afterword by the author#46;

Table of Contents

In the Diamond, at the end of a	p. 1
Mixed Grill is an entree at the Diamond	p. 2
The muffled scraping of the snow plow down	p. 3
Yet languageless. Mouth always a gauze, words locked	p. 5
Dirty heathens, Granny Erickson thinks of the Chinese	p. 8
Chinese sausage? When I'm in Chinatown I see	p. 9
To top it off, his birth certificate has	p. 10
Dad doesn't cook much with ginger but whenever	p. 11
One of the first times I become him	p. 12
They wouldn't speak to me until after you	p. 13
5:30 a.m. by the time he walks into	p. 15
Whenever I open up for him (so he	p. 16
I guess he's peeved enough at all the	p. 17
By the time he gets over feeling spooked	p. 19
His mother's family are stern and religious Scots/Irish	p. 20
Those doors take quite a beating. Brass	p. 21
These straits and islands of the blood can	p. 22
Pong shows up at any time in the morning	p. 24
Famous Chinese Restaurant is the name of a	p. 25
Once in the new world, the immigrant can	p. 27
Cabri quote	p. 28
As soon as the cafe opens at quarter	p. 29
The silent anger simmers, over some failed expectation	p. 31
I tell him if he gets her a	p. 32
At the front of the Diamond Grill are	p. 33
She complained, my mother says of Granny Erikson	p. 35
The Race track? Swedish, Chinese, Scottish, Irish, Canadian	p. 36
Hands on the move, and with one of	p. 37
Old man Hansen comes in at ten to	p. 38
I'm fairly blond in grade four and still	p. 39
Stainless steel all along the soda fountain, silver	p. 40
But I'm half Swedish. My mother was born	p. 42
My sister says tomato beef is enough to	p. 44
Takeout at the Diamond is usually just sandwiches	p. 45
But poor Mom. She knows the girls don't	p. 47
She cries from anger. That's what she tells	p. 48
On my Swedish side I feel more gloom	p. 49
I'm a Chintzy Tipper in restaurants because I'm	p. 50
The way we serve milk at the Diamond	p. 51
Don't cut your food up all at once	p. 52
Better watch out for the craw, better watch	p. 53
He wouldn't go back again with no chance	p. 55
Florence was the cashier at the Regal. Good	p. 57
Lucky Jim always had a big gold-toothed smile	p. 58
How to Beat the Game (But first we'll take the nation	p. 60
Faking it from all that language, in the	p. 61
My father plays mah-jong and fan-tan	p. 62
When I sit on one of the stools	p. 63
In Nelson my father joins the Lions Club	p. 65
Quite suddenly Lo Bok reappears in my life	p. 67
Sitkum Dollah Grampa Wah laughs as he flips	p. 68
The Christmas before he dies he comes to	p. 71
Last Christmas when I grabbed you by the	p. 72
The lottery, Pak Kop Piu, is a Hub	p. 73
Why Grampa eats such muck, or drinks it	p. 74
Rice is white rice, polished, and, if cooked	p. 75
Donna Mori's shift starts at seven	p. 76
After the war, Japanese-Canadians continue to live	p. 77
The best times in the Diamond are around	p. 79
My dad half jokes once in awhile that	p. 80
A few years ago I came upon some	p. 81
Salisbury steak, a patty of ground beef mixed	p. 82
I'm just a baby, maybe six months (.5%)	p. 83
Course again, now, we're talking a different generation	p. 84
What anima gets through the family ghosts immediate	p. 85
The Wah family reunions are usually during the	p. 87
Whenever we ask Auntie Ethel about China or	p. 89
They're old and sitting on the couch and	p. 90
When Ethel broke her hip, in Moose Jaw	p. 91
After our family moves out to British Columbia	p. 92
Well, Ray, the other question I'm kind of	p. 93
The early morning rush is over by 7:30	p. 95
My father never screams. When he gets mad	p. 97
Until Mary McNutter called me a Chink I'm	p. 98
Whenever I go to him, straight, there's never	p. 99
The door to the kitchen cooler is just	p. 100
He never gets blue. He'll get red when	p. 101
Looks like it's going to snow all day	p. 103
The coffee urn's a big stainless double with	p. 104
Spring, Stanley Cup playoffs, you away and your	p. 105
I complain to my mom one night that	p. 106
The pastry cook in the Diamond is one	p. 107
I Bust my ass to give those kids	p. 109
It could be as irrelevant as pouting each	p. 110
On the edge of Centre. Just off Main	p. 111
Deep fried whole rock cod is a special	p. 112
The cook's anger, scowly. Back behind some uncle	p. 113
The stove at the Diamond is a big	p. 114
Salesmen start coming into the kitchen around eight	p. 116
And you, old, mumbling to yourself Swedish grampa	p. 117
The doorway to the basement is to the	p. 118
The cafe itself is a long, narrow room	p. 119
What's already in the ground, roots of another	p. 121
I can always tell, when our family walks	p. 122
Around quarter to ten the morning coffee rush	p. 123
Another chip on my shoulder is the appropriation	p. 125
The dishwasher is a thin, old man whose only	p. 126
Even their dark eyes. A kind of afterbirth	p. 127
The safe in the office and the	p. 128
In our family we call it Gim Jim	p. 129
Chinese head tax paid out land grants to	p. 130
A few years ago I get his gun	p. 132
Strange to watch your children's bloods. Like one	p. 133
Lake link. A small beach etched out from	p. 134
My wife's grandparents homesteaded this place. Her grandfather	p. 135
I hardly ever go into King's Family Restaurant	p. 136
The politics of the family	p. 139
The Chinese banquet at our family reunion is	p. 140
Up front between the door and the soda	p. 142
It's a small colt pistol. I keep it	p. 144
Soft ice cream hits Nelson about 1953 but	p. 145
Between eleven and noon a lull in business	p. 146
My dad's favourite song on the jukebox is	p. 147
A new menu every day. Soup du jour	p. 149
I'm not aware it's called tofu until after	p. 151
The vinyl floor in the cafe has to	p. 153
You get to know the tippers. If they	p. 154
The rush hour at lunch today is more	p. 155
You never taught me how, but I remember	p. 156
Besides the four miniature Wurlitzers stationed on the	p. 161
Who is he, this guy with smiles and	p. 163
The gates to the kitchen are the same	p. 164
Just another tight lipped high muckamuck reception listening	p. 165
Who am I I thought I might say	p. 166
Juk is a soup we always have after	p. 167
The name's all I've had to work through	p. 169
Cellars are complicit with gravity. An entire town's	p. 170
The New Star is actually our first cafe	p. 171
His FW signet ring on my left little	p. 173
His half-dream in the still-dark breathing silence is	p. 174
Years in the never-ending aftershock reverberate on at	p. 175
He usually parks behind the cafe. Coming down	p. 176
Afterword
Re-mixed: The Compound Composition of Diamond Grill	p. 171
Some useful references	p. 190
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