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Soul food nourishes in Seymour area

You can’t help but notice Christine Glendinning in the crowded café. She’s the one with the vivacious personality and bright red rimmed glasses to match. Regulars at Riverside Café know her story but others can be curious.
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You can’t help but notice Christine Glendinning in the crowded café.

She’s the one with the vivacious personality and bright red rimmed glasses to match.

Regulars at Riverside Café know her story but others can be curious.

There are hats and wigs Glendinning could wear – but it gets too hot, “so forget it,” she says. Besides, the English-born chef can be politely blunt.

“If I get that funny look – I just tell people, I’m going through chemo,” says Glendinning, taking a seat after a lunch rush in the café.

She bought the place in November and was diagnosed with breast cancer in December. The café opened in February – after her first day of chemo.

Glendinning had been up all night feeling nauseous and very ill to the point, she says, where “nothing else mattered.”

On that February morning, Glendinning’s mom, Linda, was determined to rally her daughter, whose dream it was to have a place to cook for people. 

“She looked at me and said: ‘Christine, you’ve got a café to open, you’ve got to get up,’” recalls Glendinning. “And I said, ‘I can’t, I can’t. Anything that happens outside that bedroom door I don’t care about – I’m just so ill.’”

Her mom got on the phone with the oncologist and had Glendinning’s medication adjusted, to increase the anti-nausea effect.

Half an hour later she found the strength to take a shower. Then she steadily made her way to the café and opened the doors.

Regulars in the area started filing in, commenting they were glad the space was open again. Glendinning informed them the café would only be open three days a week: Tuesday to Thursday, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.

“We call them chemo hours,” she says, choking up.

Glendinning didn’t want the community to think she wasn’t dedicated or had abandoned the lunchtime regulars in the Maplewood industrial area.

Waiting until her last chemo treatment in June to open wasn't an option.  

“I want to become part of the neighbourhood. I’m a feeder and I’m an open person,” says Glendinning.

She’s upfront about her reduced hours and short menu of gourmet sandwiches and soup – each one lovingly cooked to perfection.

Cooking is a good cancer distraction, she has learned. Instead of sitting at home sick, worried, crying or Googling cancer – Glendinning keeps busy in the café.

“I get energized by all the people. This place has saved me,” she says, even though some days it feels like a ton of bricks are strapped to her body.

Many of them relate to Glendinning’s journey. She’ll hear stories from customers who will say: “I’ve had cancer,” or “My wife’s had cancer.”

At first, some of the local workers, who remember the café in its previous iteration offering meatball sandwiches, didn’t know if they were ready for a change.

“There was this big, really buff, really rough looking guy who came in,” recalls Glendinning.

The burly guy wondered out loud what he going to have for lunch. A popular Filipino dish, chicken adobo, was suggested to him.

He scrunched up his face at the sound of it. Glendinning wasn't going to take no for an answer. 

“He said, ‘Fine, I’ll have it.’”

The truck driver took the adobo to go. Soon after, Glendinning heard the double tap of a blaring horn.

“He was like: ‘That was so awesome! I told all the guys at work it was awesome,’” recounts Glendinning with a smile.

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Christine Glendinning checks on a simmering curry at her cafe in the Maplewood area. photo Paul McGrath

The chicken adobo is no culinary experiment at this café.

In fact, the menu has a decidedly Filipino influence.

Customers will make a point of coming in for the finger-size Filipino spring rolls packed with minced shrimp and pork and coated in a fish sauce.

Glendinning was raised on chicken adobo and other Filipino food, while living on an oil tanker as a child. Her dad was the captain of the ship which had a Filipino crew.

When Glendinning was done her schoolwork she would explore the ship and help out where a kid could.

She could often be found in the galley with the cook and became the adopted daughter of the crew members whose family was back home. 

Reflecting on her unique upbringing, Glendinning is grateful. A small anchor tattoo on her wrist is an homage to that time in her life.

“I think it’s given me a perspective of being able to relate to people from any background. And you take a bit of culture from everywhere you go,” she says.

Glendinning, who has lived in the Seymour area for two decades, previously worked as a recruiter and ran employment programs through WorkBC. She stepped down from the job about a year and a half ago when her mom was diagnosed.

What happened next is how Glendinning ended up owning the Riverside Café. 

Her mom had breast cancer first. To comfort and nourish her through chemo, Glendinning made her mom home-cooked meals and “chemo picnics.”

She packed the soups with a plethora of flavour and spices “because the chemo fries your taste buds,” as Glendinning now knows firsthand.

Glendinning’s catering company, Belle and Roast, was borne out of that unfortunate time. After her mom’s friends praised her cooking, Glendinning decided to make a job out of it. She has since done some catering for North Shore Rescue, along with some corporate gigs.

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Riverside Café owner Christine Glendinning and her mom Linda found comfort in soul food during their mutual battle with breast cancer. photo Paul McGrath

Linda was five days cancer-free when her daughter called and said, “I’ve got the diagnosis.”

Her mom put her celebrating aside and walked her daughter along the path she had already been down.

“You just have to do what you have to do,” says Linda.

Glendinning broke the news to her two daughters, ages eight and 11, on a special family trip to Bowen Island. She reassured them everything will be fine.

“Just like granny, I’ll be OK,” Glendinning told her daughters.

Glendinning still has more chemo, radiation and a big operation ahead of her.

In another breath of honesty she says she is terrified of the mastectomy, “because it’s going to completely change me as a woman.”

“I’m a big-chested woman. To have something that’s such a big part of your identity … being taken away from you … it’s a big deal, but I have no choice,” says Glendinning.

She just has to take it one step at a time. Her daughter dances to her own drum, says Linda. And she’s a fighter.

“I refuse to become just a photograph, and I refuse to become a memory,” affirms Glendinning. 

For now, Glendinning is focusing on what she does best. She loves making curries.

“I like the way they sit and they get better over time,” she says. ■