Many of you won’t remember because you were either too young or not yet born. I, like millions of others, remember hearing the news of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy’s assassination like it was yesterday. JFK was the main figure of Washington’s so-called Camelot era that also saw his brother Robert rise to prominence.

JFK won the respect and admiration of people around the world, but fear and despair gripped us on the afternoon of Friday, November 22, 1963 with news of the slaying of the young American President in Dallas, Texas. Social anthropologist, Elliott Leyton, recently described the event to me this way, “America, the beast we had always admired and envied, turned and began the unthinkable process of devouring itself.”

I thought I would ask some fellow Newfoundlanders to tell their stories about hearing the news of this horrible event. Some were attending school; others were at work, here, on the mainland or elsewhere. Some memories are vivid, some slightly vague. Each person’s emotional reaction ran the gamut, from an acknowledgement of the event’s high significance to devastating grief.

For me President Kennedy’s death created sadness and sorrow. I was only 10 years old at the time but I had an early interest in news and current events. My sadness came from realizing his children, Caroline and John-John, had lost their father, that the world had lost a leader, an attractive one with a real sense of fun.

My story
On the afternoon of November 22, 1963 I was inside Holloway School on Long’s Hill sitting at my desk in the middle of Lima Davis’s Grade 5 classroom. The room was on the third floor and situated at the southwest corner of the brick building. Davis, a tall thin woman with dark hair was reading to about 35 students, including me. You could have heard a pin drop as she related the story of David Copperfield. The silence was broken by a knock at the door. Davis answered the door by opening it partially and then whispering to someone outside in the hallway.

Next she opened the door wide to reveal Holloway’s principal, Miss Edgecombe. They both stepped forward and stood in front of us. Their facial expressions foreshadowed terrible news. In a quiet, serious voice Edgecombe said, “Boys and girls we have just heard that President Kennedy of the United States has been shot and killed. We have decided to close school for the rest of the day and your parents have been called to come for you.” I went outside and my father was parked in our new Ford Mercury Comet station wagon facing down Long’s Hill. I got into the vehicle hoping he’d be able to help me understand, but how could anybody explain this? We drove down the hill and onto Duckworth Street passing a long row of lawyers’ offices

T. Alex Hickman
A young St. John’s lawyer who would later become the Chief Justice of the Trial Division of the Supreme Court of Newfoundland and Labrador, is sitting in one of those Duckworth Street law offices reading documents. “My secretary came in with tears streaming down her cheeks,” said Alex Hickman, “She told me that President Kennedy had just been shot. I remember it vividly. It was a very sombre day. It was a Friday afternoon. Our office was empty within half an hour of hearing the news. My reaction was one of disbelief and then when I went home the drama continued to play itself out during the next two or three days.”

Ron Pumphrey
Further east on Duckworth, at the corner of Bates Hill, journalist/publisher Ron Pumphrey is on the third floor of the Empire Building busily getting an edition of his Mount Pearl paper ready. “I was at my machine with my printer’s apron on. Then it came on the news on a little radio on the wall and I sat down in utter disbelief. I was shocked beyond measure. My God, I looked out the window and I saw cars parking, I saw people getting out of cars and talking and inviting pedestrians to hear their car radio. I went across the street to the barber. He said, “Ron, I’m in more pain now than ever with this knowledge of President Kennedy having been shot.” We sat there and I said, “My God boy let’s go to the tavern next door,” and we did.

We went to the tavern and we sat down and ordered a few beers, he the barber and me the printer-editor. People began coming in and there was a hubbub of conversation and disbelief. And I remember my sister Mary having said to me something, which I never forgot, when I visited her that afternoon. She said, “You know, I think God took President Kennedy away because he was such a good man that he might have been in a position to sin and therefore be punished eternally, so God took him away.” And I said, “Mary, don’t be so foolish.”

Greg Malone
Across town at the new north end of St. John’s, in Gonzaga High School, a few hundred students anxiously await the final bell signalling the end of the school day. Among them is future NL Premier, Danny Williams, budding actor Andy Jones, and another star in waiting, Greg Malone. Suddenly Malone hears the classroom’s speaker come to life with a familiar crackle. “Father McKenna, the principal, came over the PA system and announced that President Kennedy had been shot. It was all very grim and I remember our teacher made some allusion to the fact that, “Well pretty soon now the missiles will be hitting, you never know but atomic bombs might start.” That was the age of nuclear terror anyway. There were still air raid sirens around. Walter Cronkite had us scared to death we were gonna be vaporized by a bomb.”

Elaine Dobbin
Turning southwest of St. John’s beyond it’s western boundary and down the Conception Bay Highway past Manuels, Upper Gullies and Seal Cove, a yellow bus is slowly making its way through the town of Holyrood. Future champion for autistic children, Elaine Dobbin, is one of many noisy passengers. “I will never forget that day. I was on a school bus returning from school, when it was announced. Almost everyone on the bus was in shock and deeply saddened. The assassination of President Kennedy devastated the world, including a bunch of young teenagers from Holyrood.”

Gordon Pinsent
Meanwhile, two time zones west, in the heart of bustling Toronto thousands of expatriate Newfoundlanders are at work or engaged in regular daily activities. Among them is Grand Falls born actor Gordon Pinsent. Pinsent and his actress wife, Charmion King, are in their Avenue Road home. “It was one of those times when – even though the television was on – our mutual activities were such that we only caught snippets of the early part of the broadcast. I forget the first actual bit on it, but caught the entire Cronkite announcement. And I recall, the two of us sinking into chairs, at the same time, in slow motion seemed like, and turning stone cold by the news. I left the chair for a moment or two, and when I came back, Charm had not moved from her initial position, but the tears had been flowing. We then watched the footage, over and over and over again, with all else fading from the day, and as it turned out, from the ensuing weeks.”

Martin Currie
A band of dark clouds over downtown Toronto and Lake Ontario is moving east, eventually it will cover Nova Scotia and the highway to Halifax where a young man named Martin is attempting to hitch a ride into the city. He is a student at St. Francis Xavier University. Years later Martin Currie will devote his life to God and become the Roman Catholic Archbishop of St. John’s. “The Atlantic Bowl game was on in Halifax and I was hitchhiking from Antigonish to Halifax to see the football game. I was picked up and we were listening to this man’s car radio as we were driving along, and the news came on that President Kennedy had been assassinated. We were surprised. How could something like this happen in the United States? There was a real sense of shock that such a thing would happen.

He was special to Catholics because he was the first Catholic to be elected President of the United States. It was sort of a battle and we thought, “Well, we’re here now.” And I remember at the University itself, St. of X in those days had a number of boys from Maine and Massachusetts there. They were in a state of mourning. They were given the day off to deal with it because it really struck those American lads very deeply.”

Elliott Leyton
From the east coast news is travelling across the Atlantic. Not yet residing in their beloved Newfoundland, but living in England, are Elliott Leyton, future MUN professor and his wife, artist Bonnie Leyton. “Bonnie heard it first on the radio and came running up the stairs to tell me. Like millions around the world, we had read and seen so much about the Kennedy couple that we thought they were part of our family; and now he was dead. Bonnie and I cried for days. It took months to absorb the loss.”

Fergus O’Byrne
From where the Leytons sit stricken in England trying to comfort one another, west across St. George’s Channel and then north in Dublin, Ireland a teenager and future Newfoundland educator and musician named Fergus O’Byrne is peddling his bicycle as fast as he can to get home. The brisk fall air chills his boyish round face. “I was sixteen years old, which meant I was bicycling back and forth to school on a regular basis. In those days I’d cycle 5 miles to and from school. I have this vague memory of cycling home so I probably heard the news at school and was cycling home to tell my parents. In Ireland at the time it was just a general knowledge that President Kennedy had been assassinated because he was the first Catholic that became President of the United States and it was a big, big deal in Ireland. You had the Queen and Joey hung up on the walls in Newfoundland but in Ireland it was the Pope and President Kennedy.” (After his death the same iconic photograph – JFK, seated, tanned and smiling, wearing a navy suit, white shirt and tie – would hang on the walls of homes around the globe.)

And so it was for these Newfoundlanders who lived through the tragedy of that black Friday, November 22, 1963 and ensuing days. Millions of others on this earth have stories to fill similar canvasses. It is a testament to the impact this promising young American President had on an entire world. John Fitzgerald Kennedy, 1917 – 1963.

The Restaurant Association of Newfoundland and Labrador presented its second annual From this Rock awards dinner recently. The St. John’s dinner – held at the Sheraton Hotel Newfoundland – was the culmination of a cross island series of dinners prepared by chefs using locally grown produce from the very area in which each dinner took place. Representatives of the provincial government, a From this Rock sponsor, went along on the tour to assist the chefs in sourcing their ingredients for each dinner. According to participating chef Roary MacPherson of the Sheraton Hotel Newfoundland, a sold-out crowd attended most events.

Emcee for the night was comedian Shaun Majumder of 22 Minutes, who, in addition to adding some spicy humour to the evening, took the opportunity to plug his not-for-profit summertime initiative in Burlington, Newfoundland called The Gathering, and his TV show, Majumder Manor.

Charlene Johnson, Minister of Innovation, Business and Rural Development opened the evening with a brief address explaining the government’s commitment to initiatives like From this Rock, that place a strong focus on local farms and local producers. Premier Kathy Dunderdale and several other government officials also attended the dinner.

Awards
The first award of the night was presented to the current President of the Restaurant Association of Newfoundland and Labrador, Michelle LeBlanc and her spouse, Chef Shaun Hussey, who together own Chinched Bistro. They received an award for serving and promoting locally grown, sustainable food at their restaurant.

Chris Rusted, long-time owner of Manna Bakery, received the evening’s most anticipated honour. He was inducted into the Restaurant Association’s Hall of Fame. Rusted was one of the association’s first members and has been active in the industry since the sixties. Kentucky Fried Chicken is what brought Chris Rusted into food service. That was back in the day when founder Colonel Harland Sanders was still alive and waving his cane and Rusted was working with the late Leo Marquis running numerous Kentucky Fried Chicken outlets across Newfoundland.

Tables for eight filled the ball room where the grand finale was held and I was fortunate to be seated beside two people who really appreciate good food and cooking, Barbara Garland of Mt. Pearl and her daughter, Kelly. I asked if they were there for any special reason or connected with the industry in some way. “No,” said Barbara, “We just love food!”

Crème brulée

After a cranberry and ginger ale cocktail spiked with Iceberg vodka we were served an unusually large amuse bouche, carrot crème brulée. It had been prepared by Ivan Kyutukchiev, recently elevated to the position of Executive Chef at Bacalao. Having looked at the menu beforehand, I had wondered how Kyutukchiev would present crème brulée in hors d’oeuvres form. It did not look as I’d anticipated. It was not presented in a ramekin as most are, but rather as a rectangular free standing block – some might say it looked like a stick of butter.

The Garland girls wondered where the brulée was – that’s the caramelized and slightly burnt sugary cap on a crème brulée. Kyutukchiev had presented a riff on crème brulée. Being one of the top chefs in the province, having won gold at the first Gold Medal Plates event held in St. John’s, Ivan Kyutukchiev is a freestyle thinker. The pudding part of the dish was a velvety smooth, slightly firm carrot cream. It was topped with some crispy bacon (the brulée) and strips of candied carrot. A swirl of reduced blood orange juice decorated the white plate. This was a sophisticated and delicious opening to our eight part meal.

More fresh and intense root vegetable flavour followed with spiced parsnip and carrot soup by Holiday Inn

chef, Andrew Hodge. The soup was puréed and with a good dollop of crème fraiche placed in the middle of the bowl. The crème was described as “turnip green.” I believe there were some finely chopped greens mixed through it. Partridgeberry gastrique, a reduced sauce, was swirled around the crème to provide extra colour.

Salad
Garde manger chef (cold dish chef) for the evening was Chef Roger Andrews of Relish. Andrews recently added greatly to his CV by winning the gold medal at Gold Medal Plates St. John’s. He was responsible for the salad course which consisted of a very pleasant mixture of local farm grown product and hazelnuts. Red and yellow beets, edible flowers, micro sprouts and daubs of tangy cream dressing gave lots of colour, taste and excitement to this plate.

Next it was local charcuterie, from the charcuterie king himself, Chef Shaun Hussey of Chinched, 2012 gold medallist at Gold Medal Plates. Hussey had created a pork and rosemary sausage. He did something similar for the wine pairing challenge at the Canadian Culinary Championships in BC, which I had judged in February. This time the sausage was matched up with pickled winter chanterelles, parsnip purée, and chicharron – Mexican style fried pork rind.

Our fish course was butter poached local cod by Chef Gary Gosse of Harbour Breeze Catering, Harbour

Grace. My friends Barbara and Kelly from Mt. Pearl loved this one. There was a lot happening on the plate but essentially Gosse easily had me with two words: butter and cod. Here are the other elements used to, as they say, gild the lily: crispy white pudding crumble, roasted tomato and bakeapple relish, roasted root vegetable hash, bacon braised turnip greens and crispy fried scrunchions.

Pork

Hans Uebel, the sous chef at the Sheraton, created a meat course of cider brined roast pork loin. Like most meats that are brined, Uebel’s pork tenderloin was especially moist and tender. Raised in Point Lemington, the pork was also savoury and flush with flavour. I don’t think it’s possible to have a better condiment to accompany pork than Uebel’s charred apple chutney.

Dessert, as prepared by Jillian Lake, chef de partie (pastry) of the Sheraton was a trio of sweets consisting of a partridgeberry macaroon, vanilla bean panna cotta with cranberry and flourless chocolate cake. Every item was impressive here. Macaroons are popular these days in St. John’s. Making a really good one isn’t that easy, but Jillian Lake has obviously perfected the technique. If I had to pick my favourite part of the trio that would be it.

Finishing off the From this Rock St. John’s meal was a plate of crumb coated soft artisanal cheese by Five Brothers Cheese. Beside and contrasting with the white and golden cheese presentation were nine chocolate truffles made by Newfoundland Chocolate Company.

Every course at this year’s From this Rock finale was executed brilliantly. Newfoundland and Labrador has some very good chefs. Well done.