The Duncan Avenue chip stand is a white van with a side panel that opens like a window. There's a small awning over the window, large enough to keep the sun out of the van, but not large enough to shade the customers. The owner, a man whose arms look big enough to rip logs out of the ground, makes the best chips in town.

At ten, I'm too shy to ask his name, but not too shy to give him one. I tell my parents, I'm going to Richard's to buy chips. I pronounce Richard's in the French way with a long 'ee', a whispering 'sh'. I like the sound of Reeshard's.

It may well be that his name is French. The town of my childhood is half French speaking; the other half speaks or tries to speak English. Many, like my family, are newly arrived immigrants from Eastern Europe who work in the gold mines. Reeshard is not one of us.

Inside the van is a cutting board heaped with potato strips ready to be deep fried. They've been peeled, sliced, dipped in cold water and patted dry. Reeshard takes his knife and with a grand flourish scrapes the potato heap into the frying basket.

To render the chips golden and crusty on the outside, soft on the inside, the temperature of the oil has to be just so and this chip stand owner always gets it right.

I breathe in anticipation, sigh and recount the money to make certain I have enough. 

Reeshard shakes the frying basket once, twice, dumps the chips into a metal container lined with paper, and only then does he look at me.

"One, please."

He passes me a cone of white paper filled to overflowing with golden chips. I shake on the salt and white vinegar.

The eating of the first chip follows a certain ritual: I dangle the potato above my mouth as if it were a prize, exclaim how hot it is, and on a count of three, devour it from the bottom up in small staccato bites. Hot, crispy, soft inside.

Then, I eat greedily, without speaking, as if I haven't seen food for days. I lick the salt from lips, fingers. When the last chip is done, I tip the cone back, drink the last drop of vinegar. 

My mother has warned me vinegar will rot my insides. I put her warning aside with all her other food dictates: eat bread with watermelons to help your stomach absorb the juice, corn is only good for pig feed, sliced bread is inflated with air.

We are careful to eat at home where we know what we are eating. We are also frugal. Each Saturday afternoon I am allowed to buy one cone of chips. This is fine with me. There are only two other places to eat in the town--neither one suitable for a ten year old. The Golden 
Palm and the diner near the LaSalle Theater. The former is always full of teenagers drinking floats and Coke; the latter serves "breakfast all day" specials to bachelors. 

At twelve, I leave Northern Ontario for the first time to visit cousins who live near Toronto. I learn chips are called fries, French fries. They're served "with"--as in "will you have fries with that or mashed." The older folks order mashed; the young order fries.

Fries usually accompany hamburgers. They come with ketchup. I eat these fries without thinking too much. Hand goes to chip, goes to mouth. I learn from my cousin that it's okay to let someone finish your fries. That's good, because I don't care for fries that are limp and splotchy brown.

Like most of the young people in Kirkland, I move south to live and work. I marry a Frenchman, from France not from Northern Ontario. He loves food as much as he loves me. We spend our time talking about food, reading cookbooks, and searching for the perfect recipe. I rave about the chips at home. Frites, he says.

I tell him how they're made, but it's not easy to make chips, frites, fries. We haul out The Joy of Cooking and Julia Child. Compare. Try different potatoes, different fats and oils, blanching the potatoes, dipping them in ice-cold water.

Sometimes the potatoes come out lightly golden, but raw inside. Sometimes they're over-cooked, soggy brown. Inevitably the kitchen smells, in spite of the fans working on high. Small fires are not uncommon; we learn to keep a large box of baking soda nearby.

My hometown is now 800 miles away. It takes a full day to get there with two children. I have an urge to visit. Perhaps I'm in the throws of hormonal change.

We pack the car and take Highway 400 and then 11 North. The road passes ditches clogged with fireweed and tiger lilies, walls of pink and red granite, and trees. So many trees. I recognize the spindly poplars and birch, but I can’t name the evergreens. And so much water, at every turn there’s a lake or river or marsh.

Along the way we stop for food. When the rest of the family orders fries with burgers, I abstain. I don’t want my senses dulled before I get to the Duncan Avenue chip stand. 

We arrive in the early evening, deposit our bags at the town motel and go for a walk. 

Kirkland Lake is one main road with offshoot neighborhoods. The small town sits on rock, the Canadian Shield. And it is this rock that held the gold once minded by my father. Most of the mines have closed down, so have many of the stores and restaurants, but the Duncan Avenue chip stand’s still there. Without Reeshard. 

My husband points out that we’ve passed two other chip stands and if we are to be fair, we must try them all.

I won't be part of the testing. "Some things you just know," I say. 

For added emphasis, I tell them Todd and Alan Thicke have eaten at the Duncan Avenue chip stand. Neither my husband nor my children know who they are. "Screen writing, television," I tell them.

"So, what makes them experts with food?" says my husband.

"Indulge my  little eccentricities." 

And they do. 

There’s a man and woman team behind the counter. We order four cones of chips, watch as the man shakes the frying basket once, twice, then dumps the fries out into a stainless steel bin. The woman scoops the chips into a four small paper cones.

My children ask for ketchup; my husband wants to know if they have malt vinegar. I sprinkle my helping liberally with salt and white vinegar. There are little toothpicks to use instead of fingers.

"Eat," I urge and show them how it's done: dangle the first chip over your mouth, and eat it from the bottom up. They follow suit, exclaim how hot it is, lick their fingers and lips.

I eat the rest of my chips with my fingers, my family opts to use toothpicks. Maybe it’s the northern air, the color of the sky, nostalgia, but it seems that right now these are the best chips in the whole world. 

I don’t ask my children or my husband if they like what they’re eating, watching them eat is enough. We concentrate, walk quietly back to the motel.

I eat slowly, savoring each hot, salty, vinegary morsel, dig out the little crunchy bits at the bottom, until all that’s left is a puddle of salt and vinegar in the cone tip. I bring the cone to my mouth, ready to drink the last drops.

"That can't be good for you," says my husband.

I pretend not to hear, drink anyway.