What is a Deetsa?

Actually it's "dica". But most of you don't speak Heiltsuk. I guessed that you wouldn't know how to pronounce it. Up until yesterday I didn't even know how to spell it. I just knew I was one.

Don't pull your hair out. I'll tell you...

Dica is the Heiltsuk word for "teacher". I am a teacher in a small First Nation's (Native American to many of you out there) village on a remote section of the Canadian West Coast. It's beautiful, it's wild and I love it here. The people are warm and generous and I enjoy a close relationship with many of my teaching colleagues. We practically live in each others pockets so it was bound to happen *wink*.

Now what in all heckfire does that have to do with a dining room? Well, quite frankly, I love food and I like to try new food experiences when I can. And I do stress "when I can" because I don't exactly live in an urban centre close to any food style I want. I'm stuck in the odd position of being someone who loves exotica who lives in a place that just started shipping in black beans in a can (for how long, who knows?), or may not know what a mango is. So I get stuff while I can down south in Vancouver et al. But it's not to say that it's all processed cheese and hotdogs up here. The Heiltsuk people regularly ply the waves and shores for various ocean food goods. Some of those are even quite exotic or expensive elsewhere in the world.

So this blog is my way of describing what I do to make my culinary life more interesting. No doubt I'll let other flotsam and jetsam in life float to the surface of this blog but it mostly focused on the thing I've been trying to avoid thinking about all my life (never succeeded) and succumb to its wiles. I don't feel so alone seeing all those other food blogs out there. They always say to write about that which you love ;-)

I've got to go now before they shut of the power for the morning... yes, a charm of this place is that they have to shut down the whole grid to work on the powersystem at times... I'll tell you more about Heiltsuk fare and my own food penchants later.

Later!