City Palate March April 2012

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city palate

the travel issue citypalate.ca

MARCH APRIL 2012

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CITYPALATE.ca MARCH APRIL 2012

TRY THE FONDUE 2437 4TH STREET SW . WuRST.ca

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Rembrandt used oils. We chose passion, vision and ambition as our mediums.

When building a stately home, you must first choose a lot worthy of your new masterpiece. The last remaining lots in Crestmont offer the perfect canvas for your work of art. Mountain, river valley and natural reserve views are everywhere. So come and visit our greatest showhome parade to date. Featuring two new luxurious estate homes from two of Calgary’s most respected estate home builders, Augusta Fine Homes (403-233-9265) and JayMack Custom Homes (403-828-9596) at 53 and 57 Crestridge View SW respectively.

One might say that they’re artists in their own right.

Prices start from the $900’s for lot and home.

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Crestmont • evanston • silverado • the hill • ravenswood Coming soon – redstone • Painted sky • double Creek

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Cooks, Chefs, Dishwashers, Bussers, Servers, Hosts/Hostesses, Bartenders, Managers

Ridiculously Good Food Crazy Inexpensive Festive Italian Scene - Open Late Cool Restored Bldg.

Serious Kitchen

www.cibocalgary.com

Brought to you by the people behind:

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Safari Brunch Sundays, 9:30 am to 1:00 pm.

Zoo admission included before noon.

One great price, one great day.

Purchase your tickets at calgaryzoo.com

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CITYPALATE.ca MARCH APRIL 2012

contents City Palate March April 2012

features

NG IS IN I R P S

24 n A Night Out in Cyprus

Full plates in a halved city.

Marcello Di Cintio

26 n Belgium is NOT Boring

Take a look at a country whose food is as worthy of mention as its beer.

Mike Tessier

THURSDAY – SUNDAY b 9AM – 5PM 510 77TH AVE SE b CALGARYFARMERSMARKET.CA

28 n Winners of City Palate's Photo Contest

We were impressed to see just "how far" people took City Palate and a camera!

30 n Give Us Our Daily "Artisan" Bread

Calgary’s bread offerings have improved dramatically in the last bunch of years. Here’s where we find our good daily bread.

Karen Anderson

36 n From Codfish to

Custard Tarts:

Portugal’s contributions to the world’s cuisines.

Barbara Balfour

38 n Eating Rome

Tips and tricks for finding great food in the Eternal City.

Holly Quan

40 n A Culinary Tour of

Toronto the Tasty

Toronto’s hopping food scene puts the lie to its lacklustre nickname.

Kate Zimmerman

42 n A Year on the Farm

A chef and food writer who made her mark on Calgary’s food scene moves back to the family farm.

Dee Hobsbawn-Smith

51 n City Palate Crossword Solution

Cover artist: Dean Stanton graduated from the Alberta College of Art and Design.

He’s an illustrator, painter and graphic designer working in traditional and digital media. Happy collectors may be found in Canada, the US, Germany, Australia, England and Japan. See his work at ilovestanton.com.

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city palate Wines & Spirits

editor Kathy Richardier (kathy@citypalate.ca) publisher Gail Norton (gail@citypalate.ca) magazine design Carol Slezak, Yellow Brick Studios (carol@citypalate.ca) contributing editor Kate Zimmerman contributing writers Matthew Altizer Karen Anderson Barbara Balfour Marcello Di Cintio Richard Harvey Dee Hobsbawn-Smith Ellen Kelly Holly Quan Allan Shewchuk Mike Tessier Julie Van Rosendaal Kate Zimmerman

Food Trucks & Wine

Join us foarsting Events Fun T

Perogy Boyz - Yes, Wine and Perogies!

Authentic Mexican Cuisine with Los Compadres.

Gourmet Doughnut Makers - Jelly Modern Doughnuts.

Food trucks hit our city last summer and created quite a stir, so we have teamed up with some popular favourites. The food truck will be parked outside one of our tasting centres. Tasters will grab a plate of food and then head back inside to learn what wine works best for these dishes.

Tasting Rooms Be sure to check out our new on-site tasting rooms, and our exciting line-up of classes and events for every level of enthusiast.

These beautiful rooms can also be used for your own private functions. Contact us today for information on how we can help plan your own event or set up a professionally facilitated tasting.

contributing photographer Carol Slezak advertising representatives Ellen Kelly (ellen@citypalate.ca) Liz Tompkins (liz@citypalate.ca) Janet Henderson (janet@citypalate.ca) prepress/printing Calgary Colorpress distribution Gallant Distribution Systems Inc. The Globe and Mail website management Jane Pratico (jane@citypalate.ca) City Palate is published 6 times per year: January-February, March-April, May-June, July-August, September-October and November-December by City Palate Inc., 722 - 11 Avenue SW Calgary, AB T2R 0E4 Phone 403-232-6767 Fax 403-262-3322 For advertising rates, information, letters, suggestions or ideas, contact us at the above phone or fax numbers.

Subscriptions are available for $35 per year within Canada and $45 per year outside Canada.

Editorial Enquiries: Please call 403-282-5376 For questions or comments please contact us via our website:

For more information about our tasting events visit www.coopwinesandspirits.com

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CITYPALATE.ca MARCH APRIL 2012

citypalate.ca

contents City Palate March April 2012

departments

11 n word of mouth

Notable culinary happenings around town

13 n eat this

What to eat in March and April Ellen Kelly

14 n drink this

Gunning for grapes Richard Harvey

16 n get this

Must-have kitchen stuff Karen Anderson

18 n one ingredient

Peanut butter Julie Van Rosendaal

20 n feeding people

The best thing I ate in 2011

22 n well matched

Made-in-heaven food and wine pairings Matthew Altizer

48 n stockpot

Stirrings around Calgary

52 n 5 quick ways with...

A tin of tuna

54 n back burner... shewchuk on simmer

The cruelest season Allan Shewchuk

check out our brand new web site @ citypalate.ca join us on facebook

like us to win monthly prizes!

CITYPALATE.ca MARCH APRIL 2012

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CITYPALATE.ca MARCH APRIL 2012

word of mouth Notable culinary happenings around town

culinary travel grant for restaurant cooks City Palate calls all backof-the-house restaurant cooks!

We want to help you further your culinary education with a grant to help pay for your travel and expenses so you can go somewhere in the world to learn about a new food culture.

Where would you like to go? What would you like to learn about food in another part of the world? We can help you get there! Go to citypalate.ca to learn all the details about how City Palate can help you get where you want to go. Deadline is March 23.

“like us” on facebook winners Congrats to Joni Carroll who won the Chocolaterie Bernard Callebaut chocolates prize for November. “Like us” on Facebook and you could win a monthly prize. Congrats, too, to Betty Conklin who won the January Skoah gift certificate for a facial.

calgary chef in top chef canada Be sure to tune in to Top Chef Canada, season two, to root for our very own Xavier Lacaze, exec chef at Muse, who will be competing against chefs from across Canada for title of Top Chef. Lacaze grew up in the Gascony region of France on duck, foie gras and truffles. Then, he married a Calgarian, and now Calgary is home. He applied to Top Chef Canada hoping to help his dream of opening a French restaurant in Calgary come true. Top Chef launches March 12 on Food Network Canada – don’t miss it.

seriously good ribs We’ve said it before, we’ll say it again – The Main Dish, in Bridgeland, makes some of the best pork ribs this city has to offer – generously doused in bourbon barbecue sauce. Meaty, tender, succulent, sexy. Get some. Look for Main Dish at the Calgary Farmers’ Market too.

a celebration of the porcine

the real thing

Don’t miss City Palate’s 2nd annual Pig and Pinot Festival, June 20th at Hotel Arts. Teams of chefs will work their magic on delicious local piggie parts – their creations will be matched with pinot noir and pinot blanc from around the world.

Proceeds go to Meals on Wheels.

Tickets are $100, available at The Cookbook Co., 403-265-6066, ext 1.

See our ad on page 27.

A City Palate Palateer says that Los Chilitos tacos and salsas are “the most authentic north of the border, soft corn tortillas, ample toppings and four salsas. Great margaritas too.” The taco sampler includes five soft corn tortillas topped with five meats, cilantro and onion. House salsas on the side. 1309 - 17th Ave SW.

charPOP! calgary’s first temporary restaurant In mid-January, it was three days only, dinner only, a big secret about where and what, by way of menu. Like, “Green Door, what’s that secret you’re keepin’?” Too much fun. Turned out to be hosted by Sidewalk Citizen baker Aviv Fried in his baking digs, along with CHARCUT owners/chefs John Jackson and Connie DeSousa. The menu included the likes of – crispy pig ear salad, rabbit pie, beef heart steak, smoked veal sweetbreads, cabbage and bone marrow soup, hot vinegar beets, octopus and chorizo – as you would expect from the CHARCUT crew. Online booking started at 4 p.m. on January 5 for a total of 60 resos. One seating had 3,000 on the wait list! Jackson and DeSousa are talking about taking CharPOP on the road, and launching it in Calgary again. Keep your eyes popped, you don’t want to miss it... again!

pretty bags to hold your stuff Everybody gives you a bag these days... but not all bags are as pretty as the ones Lina’s Italian Market has.

Sturdy, colorful and with side pockets for stuffing your celery, cucumbers and more into. While you’re at Lina’s, pick up the La Cosentina oven-cooked figs.

Oven roasting takes figs way beyond their figginess. Then grab a bar of plain chocolate. Melt the chocolate in your microwave, then cut the figs into quarters or halves, push around in the chocolate to coat, put the pieces on waxed paper and into the fridge to firm up.

Eat. Yum!

knife & fork optional

Downtown Calgary’s Best Pizza, Wine & Beer

read this

tel. 403.265.9559 www.doublezeropizza.ca

In this intimate guide to Alberta’s sustainable food scene – Foodshed, An Edible Alberta Alphabet (Touchwood Editions, $19.95, soft cover) – exCalgarian foodie Dee Hobsbawn-Smith profiles more than 75 of the province’s growers and producers. Learn the A to Z’s of each producer, from Asparagus growers to Zizania cultivators, and enjoy 26 recipes, one for each type of produce.

The book also examines the ground that farmers stand on: government involvement, sustainability and the environment, animal welfare, farm labour, and organizations from Slow Food to grassroots CSAs. Don't miss Dee's book launch party – see the ad on page 20.

Across the street from Holt Renfrew just off Stephen Ave. 751 4th street SW. Calgary

What Au Pied de Cochon chef Martin Picard did for poutine, he’s doing for maple syrup with his new book, Au Pied de Cochon Sugar Shack (self-published, $69.99, hard cover), a collection of maple-based recipes that range from classic to crazy, including duck drumsticks. It’s as unique as the international rep of the Au Pied de Cochon restaurant – a touch of literature, a smattering of sexy images, cutting-edge gastronomical research.

Join Martin Picard at The Cookbook Co. on March 30, 5-7 p.m. for a book signing launch and to meet the chef/ author himself. $85 includes food, wine and a copy of the book! Call for tickets: 403-265-6066, ext 1.

CITYPALATE.ca MARCH APRIL 2012

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Explore the complex and ancient cuisine of South India with Karen Anderson of Calgary Food Tours and the #1 Tour Operator to India, Indus Travels.

The exclusive itinerary customized for Karen visits Cochin, Munnar, Periyar, Kumarakom, Alleppey and Kovalam.

Highlights include visits to spice gardens, tea gardens, hands-on cooking demonstrations, special dinners, cultural evenings, daily yoga, visits to ayurvedic spas, nature preserves and comprehensive sightseeing!

Tour starts on

Nov 17, 2012 and has very limited space!

Contact Karen Anderson

for detailed itinerary and booking information: 403-968-2783 Email: karen@calgaryfoodtours.com www.calgaryfoodtours.com

Have a

HOPPY

Easter!

Ladybugandcafe.com 10 Aspen Stone Blvd s.w 12

CITYPALATE.ca MARCH APRIL 2012

Store Ph: 403-249-5530 Marie Ph: 403-689-0244

eat this

Ellen Kelly

What to eat in March and April

At this time of year, the reverie of the winter-weary cook turns to thoughts of spring. Although the ground is still in winter’s thrall, our generous neighbours to the west and south once again provide us with a semblance of spring and the promise of our own bounty down the road.

Asparagus and rhubarb from Washington and British Columbia can be found; fresh herbs and greens festoon market stalls; fresh broccoli raab and broccolini appear in Italian markets; watercress and parsley join the salad and become something more than mere garnish.

Days are longer. There is a faint green light at the end of that long cold tunnel that is our prairie winter. It’s March, and March sings out “spring!” no matter what the thermometer says.

BEST: Buy rapini with bright green, perky leaves and tidy clusters of buds. Eschew yellowing wilted leaves and slimy stalks.

TIPS: Don’t worry about the odd little yellow flower. Unlike ordinary broccoli, this does not indicate a vegetable that is past its prime.

DID YOU KNOW? Although rapini is a strongflavoured vegetable, broccolini (often misidentified as baby or young broccoli and similar in appearance to rapini) is quite mild flavoured, even sweet.

Also a member of the cabbage family, it is a cross between broccoli and Chinese gai lan.

Illustrations by Pierre Lamielle

Broccoli loves the cooler weather; fall through winter and into the early spring.

An interesting cousin is broccoli rabe or raab, also called rapini. Lovers of arugula, endive and radicchio will instantly take to this pungent vegetable. The flavour is assertive, nicely bitter and nutty, with hints of mustard and turnip greens. It’s even sometimes referred to as “turnip broccoli.” Usually bundled together like asparagus, the stalks are longer and thinner than broccoli, with small loose florets and darker green spiky leaves, which are edible.

This is no wall flower. Strong flavours like garlic, anchovy and chile flakes can be used with abandon with no fear of pushing this pungent vegetable to the edge of the dance floor. As a matter of fact, blanching before sautéing is often recommended to tone things down a bit.

Blanche 2 bunches of trimmed rapini (cut into 2-inch pieces) in lots of salted boiling water for 3 to 4 minutes; drain and refresh under cold water to stop the cooking and keep the vegetable bright green. Start cooking some penne rigati or rotini, and while the pasta cooks, sauté 2 chopped shallots in 2 T. of good olive oil. Add 2 minced garlic cloves, 1 to 2 mashed anchovy filets and a pinch or two of chile flakes. Stir well, and add the rapini along with a scant handful each of toasted pine nuts and currants. Season with Maldon salt and freshly ground black pepper. Add the drained pasta to the rapini, reserving a cup of pasta water. Toss well, adding some of the pasta water, bit by bit, if the dish seems a little dry. Serve topped with lots of parmesan cheese curls. The addition of Italian sausage makes a hearty non-vegetarian dish. Or, for something truly sublime, substitute toasted walnuts for the pine nuts, chopped dried apricots for the currants and finish the dish with dollops of good chèvre and a generous drizzle of good walnut oil.

In a time when there were no blueberries from Peru or asparagus from New Zealand, we had to wait until those first pink shoots promised us something more than last year’s wrinkled apples. Rhubarb was the first taste of something fresh and tart after a long prairie winter. The root was valued as a medicine long before it appeared on a menu. Acting as a mild diuretic, rhubarb stalks are still appreciated as a spring tonic.

After you’ve had your fill of pies, fools, crisps and compotes, make this excellent rhubarb grapefruit preserve inspired

by Chez Panisse. Start with 2 lbs. of cleaned rhubarb stalks, cut into 1/2-inch dice. Remove the zest from 2 large Ruby Red grapefruits with a sharp potato peeler and cut it into a fine julienne. Put the rhubarb, zest and 4 c. of sugar into a large, heavy stainless-steel pot and juice the grapefruits into it.

Stir to start dissolving the sugar and let it stand overnight. Next day, bring the fruit to a boil over high heat and cook, stirring occasionally, until the jam has reached the consistency you like. Then, ladle it into prepared canning jars and seal according to the manufacturer’s instructions. You should end up with about five 8-oz. jars.

BEST: Whether you are picking or buying, choose rhubarb stalks that are neither too large nor too thin and are firm and unblemished with bright glossy skin. Skin colour does not affect quality, although the red varieties will give a pretty colour.

Use fresh rhubarb as soon as you can or freeze the chopped fruit for another day.

TIPS: During World War I, people were encouraged to eat the rhubarb leaves as one would spinach, which resulted in cases of poisoning.

According to Harold McGee, the leaf toxin that is the culprit has yet to be identified. Regardless, don’t ever eat the leaves.

DID YOU KNOW? Although botanically a vegetable, it is almost exclusively used as a fruit in pies and preserves. So much so, that settlers moving west after the Revolutionary War called it the pie plant, as many still do today.

Try serving baked rhubarb compote alongside pork belly or foie gras. The tartness of the rhubarb complements the rich savoury meat to perfection.

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drink this

Richard Harvey

Gunning for grapes

Ah, the thrill of the hunt. For a wine lover, is there any more bracing and stimulating pursuit than the search for elusive, rare and obscure wines produced from the tens of thousands of wine grape varieties grown around the world?

This pursuit is for the voracious, restlessly curious, and tenacious wine drinker. It is not simply the sport of trophy-hunting punters, casually dropping a few hundred quid on Château Margaux this or Screaming Eagle that. Anyone with a full wallet can indulge in that pastime, but true devotees of diversity, novelty and the thrill of the chase need not deny themselves this particular hunt due to pecuniary concerns.

Alberta is well supplied with an array of far-from-mainstream wines, so a search for obscure grape varieties does not require travelling far from home. Seemingly every month, Alberta importers and retailers add to their range of potential new discoveries worth looking for. There are many new and unique wines that are more than affordable.

Is the hunt always rewarded? Emphatically not, but you will walk away from the experience enriched, pleased to have run the game to ground, even though you may not discover the next “must drink” wines to knock chardonnay and shiraz from their pedestals.

THE THE FINER FINER THINGS THINGS IN IN LIFE LIFE ARE ARE CALLING. CALLING.

130 366 Aspen Glen Landing SW | Calgary, Alberta www.aspenwineandspirits.com | 403.239.4904

Will it get a bit strange at times? You can only hope so.

Due to my pursuit of the oddball bottles, I’ve had the pleasure of a ride on Las Vegas’s light rail line, sipping the remnants of a glass of the rare Vien de Nus, a supremely obscure wine of the vien grape, grown in snowy Val d’Aosta, Italy. The glitz of The Strip passed by as I dreamed of Alpine meadows and mentally noted the bagging of another new grape variety, caught and tasted in the Nevada desert, far from its home range in the hills of northwest Italy.

Be aware that your pursuits will be filled with linguistic and cultural snares.

What someone might call mataro or monastrell is also called mourvèdre, so you may have already encountered the grape without knowing it. Many countries, and even regions within countries, will have different names for their local subvariety of what is essentially the same grape. For a revelation of the massive list of “classic” and “lesser” European-origin grape varieties, consult this link: aperitif.no/media/drueleksikon/index.htm#duct. This compilation is a bit technical, so for more fun (but less detail) try Appellation America to discover your new wine targets: wine.appellationamerica.com/varietal-index.aspx.

While we could go chasing the quasi-mythical grapes such as lafnetscha, précose de malingre or tazzelenghe, we’ll begin by trying to flush out some locally obtainable, yet still very rare, game. Armed with my trusty Bouchon Patron Mark IV “The Terminator” (a stainless steel corkscrew with burnished cherrywood handle that would make Ernest Hemingway envious), I stalked the streets of Calgary for my exotic prey. Here is what I found:

Nascetta Our chase begins with nascetta, a wily little white grape from Italy’s

Piedmont region. Some hunters think another local grape, arneis, is elusive game, but the hills of the Piedmont region are positively overpopulated with the latter compared to the rare nascetta. She makes a vixen of a wine – all slap ‘n’ tickle, with great acidity, pleasantly bitter almond flavours, grapefruit and a slightly banana cream pie round finish.

Loureiro Ah, the Portuguese vinho verde. You might think you know it, but to

capture it in its rare subspecies, made from the single grape variety loureiro, is a true coup. Vinho verde, coming paradoxically from a country renowned for its rich, sweet, red port wines, is willowy light and white. Usually, the creature is a blend of the alvarinho and loureiro grape varieties, but the real challenge is finding the latter.

Many sharp-eyed hunters for top vinho verde would say that the alvarinho by itself makes too heavy and boozy a wine. The pure loureiro is light, agile and fresh (with only 11 percent alcohol), but shows attractive aromas of musk melon and lychee.

Grechetto Greeks may have introduced this variety to the central Italian region of Umbria, since its name hints at Greek origins. Grechetto is often found hiding in Umbrian wine from around the city of Orvieto, where it’s blended with other grapes.

Dry examples show floral aromas of apple blossom and acacia, which are a nice balance to the pear-drop freshness that this grape shows in its vigorous youth.

When dried, fermented and aged to make the local vin santo, grechetto becomes a lovely animal with nutty, caramelized flavours and a delicious sweetness.

Carignan This grape is a crafty bugger. It often seeks cover in blends with other grapes, such as grenache, in places like the wilds of Spain’s Priorat region. It also

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roams the wild hillsides of southern France. When this wine is tracked down in its pure form, beware! French wine maker Jean-Marie Rimbert calls it “insoumis,” which could be translated as “rebellious” – it’s known to be a bit wild in its behaviour. The beast favours rocky, poor soils, and seems to taste of molten rock, meat and the underbrush of a dark forest, all with sharp acidity (teeth!). When dedicated wine makers attempt to tame it, however, the creature shows a gentle side. Look for this grape under names such as carineña and mazuelo (Spain), carignan (France) and carignano (Italy).

Mencia Often spotted by those intrepid enough to walk the pilgrimage path of

Santiago de Compostella, the prized mencia grape is synonymous with the Bierzo region of northwestern Spain. Sometimes discovered displaying a serious, dark side, mencia can be a more light-hearted quarry. In general, look for soft tannins, soft acidity, delicious plummy / blackberry fruit, with a whiff of sandalwood incense. Though delicious, and worth making a pilgrimage for, this grape will not be found roaming far from its home range, so don’t expect a Napa Valley example to appear anytime soon.

Tannat This grape is most likely to be encountered when wandering the rugged

hills of France’s Gascony region, but it has also found a New World home in Uruguay – of all places – and Brazil. Look for these countries in your pursuit, as well as France’s Madiran district. Fierce and tannic (the name’s evocative, non?), this beast can only be safely subdued with such fare as a roast leg of lamb. In that pairing, the protein and fat of the lamb lies down with the wine and makes it almost purr.

I trust I have whetted your appetite for taking part in this most sporting of exercises.

Why would you not join in? Do you want to drink malbec or merlot, sauvignon blanc or chardonnay – or even pinot noir – only? Even worse, would you choose a single specific wine to drink forever? Join the hunt! Become a seeker, hunter, stalker of an array of wine experiences. Ten lifetimes would not be enough for you to discover them all.

Own a Luxurious Apartment in the South of France In the heart of the Languedoc, the world’s largest wine-growing region, the fully restored Château Charlotte awaits you. One studio and one 1/4-share in a 1 bedroom apartment remain...

• surrounded by vineyards and olive groves, situated in the center of the bustling town of Olonzac • salt water swimming pool, garden courtyard, barbeque area • wonderful hiking and biking countryside, with a recreational lake and the Canal du Midi just a ten minute walk • half hour drive to the Mediterranean Sea, Narbonne and historic Carcassonne Completely Canadian owned.

A unique experience and opportunity.

Contact: david.furneaux@gmail.com And starting this spring... Jardin de Charlotte with village houses, pool and gardens.

The hunt is on... prices are approximate Cascina Adelaide Langhe Nascetta 2010 (Italy) $26 DNA! (Definitely Not Australian). The liveliness of this wine gives much pleasure to the chase. This is a wine to serve with grilled scallops with a lemon butter sauce. The creature has been spotted prowling the dark recesses of CHARCUT Roast House.

Quinta do Ameal Vinho Verde Loureiro 2010 (Portugal) $19 This makes a classic aperitif, but it also works with the yin ‘n’ yang of a classic Portuguese dish – steamed clams with spicy sausage. Tingly but not effervescent, try this with a milder Thai curry.

Sportoletti Assisi Grechetto 2010 (Italy) $16 The animal-loving St. Francis of Assisi would have been proud of his local wine from this region of Italy. The clean, lightly mineral, lightly menthol aromas float across a dry, medium-bodied white wine. The food partnering could be some fresh halibut with a tarragon butter sauce.

Domaine de Nizas Carignan “Vieilles Vignes” 2009 (France) $27 This wine is all about the Mediterranean – red fruit, black olives and wild Mediterranean herbs (thyme, juniper, rosemary) with a bright, snappy acidity. A lamb stew echoing some of these elements would provide great comfort on a late winter/ early spring evening with this wild little number.

Dominio de Tares Bierzo Mencia “Baltos” 2009 (Spain) $19 Here’s a playful companion to everything from a bison burger to a slice of cold prime rib with fresh horseradish on the side. Plums, incense, and a bouncy balance between tannins and acidity.

Miolo Tannat 2010 (Brazil) $19 Here’s a case where the fearsome tannins of this grape are tamed by skillful wine making. Described by the importer as having a “lurid” (oooh!) fruit nose, you’ll find lots of aromas of red and black berries, plus citrus, and just a hint of fruit leather.

Richard Harvey is the owner of Metrovino.

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get this Wines & Spirits euro elegance The Provençale Collection by Appolia of Brittany, in France, is available at North Hill Mall’s new kitchenware store, Orangeworks. The formulation of the clay of this bakeware makes it able to withstand temperatures up to 250ºC, and its gracious modern French country lines guarantee oven to table ease for the busy cook.

the Grape Escape

Appolia bakeware, $23.50 - $88, Orangeworks

rice cooker conversion

Wine, Spirit s and Be er Festival An event for Co-op members and their guests.

The world is divided into those with a rice cooker and those without.

People with rice cookers say there’s no going back. The Tiger brand 5.5 cup Rice Cooker is so durable it will likely outlast its owner. This size is big enough to feed a crowd when used to maximum capacity, but it cooks one cup equally well. It also does double duty as a steamer and porridge cooker and it can be used to sauté onions, garlic and spices, before the rice is added. If you want to get really serious about rice, pick up a copy of Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid’s Seductions of Rice when you get your rice cooker. This incredible duo explores rice in such rich and vivid detail, a year wouldn’t get you through all the recipes.

Tiger Brand Rice Cooker, 5.5 cup size, $159.95, Hing Wah Imports, Centre St. N

salt cravings

You don’t want to miss these informative and entertaining evenings featuring wine, spirits and beer samples from producers from all over the world.

Featuring

Culinary talent from Calgary’s own Escoba Bistro at the cooking stage.

March 23 & 24, 2012 • 5pm to 9pm BMO Centre, Stampede Park • $50 per evening, plus GST Tickets are available at all Co-op Wines & Spirits locations.

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Virginia Marion, graduate of George Brown College’s culinary school, former restaurateur, chef and teacher, started her own certified salt cellar in Cremona about a year ago. She imports, stores, plays with and packages salt. Browsing thesaltcellar.ca is like taking a culinary tour of the salt world. You’ll find exquisite salts, but the fun begins with blends and fusion offerings like aged balsamic, espresso brava, ghost pepper, and vintage merlot.

Chef Marion also offers lots of recipe ideas on the web site. Try sprinkling sun-ripened tomato salt on top of your next tomato, basil and fresh mozzarella crostini.

Order by leaving your email and phone number at the “Contact us” section of the web site.

The Salt Cellar salts, $6.95/55 g, thesaltcellar.ca

Karen Anderson

Must-have kitchen stuff

great taste in paste Aki’s Fine Foods makes great chutneys. The tamarind and coriander mint are favourites for eating with samosas and pakoras. As good as the chutneys are, Aki’s garlic and ginger pastes have proven themselves indispensable. These two ingredients are so frequently called for in the preparation of Indian masalas and pan-Asian stir fries that they disappear in no time. Although available at supermarkets, it’s fun to find them in Calgary’s “Little India” area in Falconridge.

Like all culinary travel you’ll be rewarded for making the trip by finding other great ingredients to inspire further cooking adventures.

Aki’s Fine Foods Garlic and Ginger Pastes, $2.99/250 ml, OK General Food Store

rice and shine There’s rice for every purpose, and if it’s a fluffy pilaf you want, basmati rice is the one. Basmati means “fragrant one” in Sanskrit and the best basmati rice, like Lal Qilla, is aged to increase flavour and fragrance. The rice picks up a bit of dust while aging so rubbing the grains gently together with your hands while rinsing under cool water, until the water runs clear, is an important step in its preparation. Soak the rice for 10 minutes and avoid any further touching, as the grains are fragile and prone to breaking. Taking care of your basmati will guarantee a praiseworthy pilaf.

Lal Qilla Basmati Rice, $17 - $20 /10 lbs, Fairmont Spiceland

yixing is just the thing Our access to the great teas of the world has increased dramatically – it only makes sense that the fine accoutrements that go with those teas would follow.

The Naked Leaf has teapots from the city of Yixing (pronounced ee-shing) in China. The pots have come from this one city only for more than a thousand years because the purple clay from which they are made is only available there.

The pots are very porous, are never glazed and take on the flavour of the tea brewed in them. Connoisseurs reserve their Yixing tea pot for their favourite tea and eventually enjoy it with only the addition of hot water to the pot because of the clay’s flavour-retention characteristic. The Naked Leaf has a beautiful selection to choose from.

Yixing tea pots, $36 - $249, The Naked Leaf

CITYPALATE.ca MARCH APRIL 2012

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one ingredient

Julie Van Rosendaal

Peanut butter

There are few foods so versatile and so universally loved as peanut butter – the culinary equivalent of George Clooney, in my opinion.

“Peanut Butter” has more Facebook friends than George C., but even before the onset of social media, this nutty paste had fan clubs. As well-suited to culinary dressing up as to filling a child’s lunchbox sandwich, peanut butter delivers the best of all worlds in a package too good to be typecast as simply a spread.

It’s at once indulgent and healthful – peanut butter brownies seem the epitome of decadence, yet peanut butter granola bars are a practical package of nutrientdense protein. Rich and caloric, but not in a bad way, peanut butter is as accessible as it gets. It’s affordable for everyone and available at the corner store.

Barely touched by trends, and with neither a shred of vanity nor an ounce of environmental baggage, congenial peanut butter is timeless and irrefutably loveable (unless you’re allergic to peanuts, that is).

Although George Washington Carver is credited with the invention of peanut butter, it was, in fact, Marcellus Edson of Montreal who patented the process of milling roasted peanuts to “the consistency of butter, lard or ointment.” Peanut butter could be considered a Canadian invention.

With the exception of the Goober Grape brand – peanut butter and jelly swirled together in a jar, Aquafresh toothpaste-style – it took time for peanut butter to evolve into something that’s available in more than just crunchy and smooth varieties. Devotees didn’t want it messed with. But, finally, besides au naturel, peanut butter knows many bedfellows; it now comes infused with ingredients like chiles, honey, maple and chocolate. It’s still best-known for its starring role alongside jelly in the timeless classic peanut butter sandwich, glamourized even further by Elvis, who made his grilled with bananas, but PB makes a perfect pairing with far more than J.

QuickTime™ are decompressor needed to and see a this picture.

From seedling...

COMMUNITY

Relationships

Direct Trade

...to cup

www.goodearthcafes.com 18

CITYPALATE.ca MARCH APRIL 2012

In the kitchen, peanut butter is known for its cookie prowess, and easily upgrades cheesecake, cupcakes or brownies. But a peanut’s affinity to curries and Asian dishes, and its versatility in a classic peanut sauce, are evidence of its broader potential on the savoury side. Peanut butter adds richness to sweet and savoury dishes alike. While it can replace some of the fat in a cake, muffin or loaf, it can also add depth to soups, sauces, stews and braises. It gets along just fine with most meats, seafood, tomatoes and chiles. A spoonful of peanut butter adds an element of richness – the way a splash of cream or crème fraîche does – to complex dishes and cuts of meat, or to finishing sauces done quickly in a hot pan after pricier cuts of meat (like lamb chops) have been seared. It’s worth experimenting with peanut butter, swirling it in where you’d least expect it.

If you’re a peanut butter purist, a morning eater of smooth or crunchy spread on toast, I urge you to make your own. It takes under five minutes of actual prep time and is well worth the effort. Start with the freshest roasted peanuts you can find, shelled and skinned, and blend them in the bowl of a food processor with 1 t. canola or peanut oil per cup of peanuts, until the nuts turn to butter.

It will take 2 to 3 minutes, and will look as if it might remain finely ground peanuts for a while. You can add a pinch of salt or a dribble of honey, or get creative and add curry powder or paste, maple syrup, scraped seeds from a vanilla bean, a spoonful (or more) of melted chocolate, or any other flavours you think taste good with peanuts.

Whatever your peanut butter preference, life is short – spread it on thick.

FREE RANGE PARKING.

(Lots of it, too.)

recipe photos by Julie Van Rosendaal

Crunchy, Clumpy Peanut Butter Granola 6 c. old-fashioned (large flake) oats 2 c. sliced or slivered almonds 1 c. shredded coconut 1 t. cinnamon (optional) pinch ground ginger 1/2 c. creamy peanut butter 1/3 c. maple syrup 1/3 c. brown sugar 1/2 t. fine sea salt 1 c. dried fruit, such as raisins, cranberries, cherries, chopped dried figs, dates or apricots

Preheat the oven to 325°F. In your largest bowl, mix together the oats, almonds, coconut, cinnamon and ginger. In a small saucepan, stir together the peanut butter, maple syrup, brown sugar and salt over medium heat and stir until everything is melted and smooth. Pour the peanut butter mixture over the oat mixture and toss the mixtures until well combined. Spread the granola onto 1 or 2 large sheet pans and bake for 30 minutes, stirring once or twice, until golden. Divide the dried fruit between both sheets, stirring it into the granola. Cool it completely and store in a well-sealed container.

Makes about 10 cups of granola.

VISIT ICON’S REVAMPED DESIGN CENTER And, of course, plenty of wholesome goodness from Calgary's favourite farmers & vendors.

Salted Peanut Butter Hot Chocolate We first drank thick, steaming peanut butter hot chocolate one November at the Shake Shack, an outdoor burger joint in New York City. Lovers of chocolate peanut butter cups will adore this molten version in a mug.

1/4 c. sugar 1/4 c. cocoa 1/4 c. water 3 c. 2 % or whole milk

Where family, friends & neighbours shop, meet and eat!

2 - 4 T. creamy peanut butter 3 oz. good-quality bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped pinch sea salt

Let the hot chocolate sit for a few seconds, then blend it with a hand-held immersion blender.

Pour the hot chocolate into mugs and sprinkle with a bit of salt.

These recipes Serves 4. are on our website

continued on page 44

Glenmore Trail

Macleod Trail S

In a saucepan, stir together the sugar and cocoa to get rid of lumps. Whisk in the water until smooth, then whisk in the milk over mediumhigh heat. Heat the mixture until it’s steaming.

Remove the pan from the heat and stir in the peanut butter and the chocolate.

Heritage Drive 2008

7711 Macleod Trail S

403-255-3276 www.KingslandFarmersMarket.com Thu, Fri & Sat 9am-5pm; Sun 10am-4pm

CITYPALATE.ca MARCH APRIL 2012

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Join us We welcome back our favourite ex-pat foodie and food advocate

dee Hobsbawn-Smith

Join us for a drink and a bite as we celebrate the launch of her 5th book...

Foodshed

An EdIblE AlbErtA AlpHAbEt

Book Launch Party

Tuesday, April 17th, 6:30 pm, at: The Cookbook Co. Cooks 722 - 11th Avenue SW 403-265-6066, ext 1 “You know your doctor, you know your accountant.

Who’s your farmer?” In Foodshed: An Edible Alberta Alphabet, dee Hobsbawn-Smith answers this provocative question as she introduces you to over 75 Alberta farmers and the food they produce. From Asparagus growers to Zizania cultivators, Foodshed is an intimate guide to Alberta’s sustainable food scene. Includes 26 original recipes.

“As an author, an artist, a cook, a thinker... dee has created an important treatise on the evolution of culinary Alberta. This is a great book, as free-form and unconventional as the author herself.”

Anita Stewart, Member of the Order of Canada,

Culinary Activist, Author, Founder of Food Day Canada

feeding people The best thing I ate in 2011

Once again, we turn to some of our fave foodies to pronounce on what perked their palates last year.

Claire Cameron Vin Room I have two best things: rack of hogget (a lamb that has just passed its first birthday) from Driview Farms, near Fort McLeod. Rich, meaty and tender, roasted medium rare with salsa verde.

Also, Tofino crab with drawn butter – freshness unlike anything I’ve tasted before. You could taste the ocean.

The crab is best served steamed with home-made butter.

Paul McGreevy Craft Beer Market

Some of the best things I ate last year: the maple bacon doughnut at Jelly Modern Doughnuts – a perfect balance of salty and sweet; crispy pigs ears at Brasserie Kensington, with just the right amount of crunch and saltiness that went perfectly with the Fullers ESB; and last, but far from least, I was fortunate to enjoy the cherry porter from Wild Rose Brewery. I know it’s a seasonal brew, but it seemed better than ever last year, for some reason.

Erin Rosar Co-op Wines & Spirits The best thing I ate in 2011 was the home-made bacon jam from Wade Paterson, Boreal Cuisine catering. I had never had anything like it before, and it was amazing. I love it. It is sweet and savoury all at the same time, and is a delicious addition to burgers, steaks, eggs, fresh bread and anything you think might go with bacon – like, pretty much everything!

Jennifer Norfolk Brûlée Patisserie

The best things I ate this past year were the chef’s tasting menu at Zen Kitchen in Ottawa, the chickwich with jerk sauce at Holy Smoke, the pulled pork marinara sauced spaghetti at Pig in Victoria (because spaghetti has to be there somewhere), and the ono fish tacos at Monico’s Taqueria in Wailua, Kauai. Each one of these meals had me making noises that are not for polite company.

Thankfully, I wasn’t eating with easily offended people at the time.

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Geoff Last Bin 905 Distinctive Wines & Spirits This past fall, my family and I spent three days paddling down a particularly lazy section of the Red Deer River, an ideal family trip because it’s scenic yet doesn’t require any mad paddling skills. It was a beautiful day that became a perfect evening – warm and moonless, and with more stars in the sky than I have ever seen.

We set up camp beside the river, built a fire from scavenged driftwood and deadfall and prepared our dinner. On the menu was a beautiful slab of free-range Alberta Galloway prime rib, which we grilled to perfection over the wood fire. I have had this particular cut and brand of beef at home many times, and it is always delicious.

But this was a new level of delicious. Even the dog, who reverts to his wolfish ancestry when you get him into the wilderness, recognized that there was something special about the table scraps that night and stuck close to the camp site.

The wood fire certainly contributed, but like many great food and wine experiences, it was the company and the setting that made this meal one of the best I ate in 2011. We washed the beef down with inexpensive red wine and marveled at the perfection of the meal.

David Bransby-Williams Wine Inkorporated

The best thing I ate in 2011 – well, actually, in most years – was Willy Krauch’s cold smoked salmon.

My mother-in-law brings it when she visits from Nova Scotia. This may seem a trifle pedestrian, but I make no excuses. I love smoked foods and especially salmon. There may be someone out there making better smoked salmon, but if there is, I haven’t tasted it. Lightly salted and delicately smoked, using maple wood, this salmon is melt-in-yourmouth. No capers or cream cheese required, just a top quality baguette and a glass of extra-brut champagne.

Heaven is in the simple things.

Kyle Groves Catch Deciding on the best thing I ate last year ended up a battle between the candied ivory salmon I had from a fisherman in Vancouver and sensual fresh burrata – a soft mozzarella enhanced with cream – with tomatoes we grew in our rooftop garden drizzled with 12-year-old balsamic vinegar. Both of them were beautiful in their simplicity and the setting that they were eaten in made for a memorable meal each time.

Jackie Cooke sommelier These are four of the best things I ate last year: crispy pig’s ears at SPQR restaurant in San Francisco.

This is a very simple dish, but it is rarely executed well. SPQR does it like no other! Perfection. The porchetta sandwich at Meat & Bread restaurant in Vancouver.

These guys have the right idea – less is more. The porchetta is moist, flavourful meat on fantastic bread and nothing else! Colville Bay oysters from Calgary’s oysterman, Eric Geisbrecht, with friends at home. They have a perfect balance of salt and beautiful minerality. Last, but far from least, the grilled beef ribeye at the International Pinot Noir Celebration in McMinnville, Oregon.

Prepared by the chef from Paley’s restaurant in Portland, Oregon, it was cooked perfectly, and after a long shift of pouring wine, nothing could have tasted better.

Alberta Ennest Open Range, Big Fish, Vue Café

Paris offered some of the best food we ate in 2011. In the restaurant, Les Croquettes, it was braised pig’s feet stuffed in twice-baked potato.

The pig's feet were pulled off the bone and stuffed into a baked potato and then baked again with the juices soaking into the potato, all done in a French cast-iron skillet. A glass of bordeaux rosé was perfect with it.

At Jadis, it was wild red grouse done three ways: sausage pan-fried crisp and served on thinly shaved sauerkraut in broth, the breasts panseared on cherry jus, and the leg confit served on potato purée. With a touch of butter – ha ha! – and a lovely Côte du Rhône.

At Afaria, a runner-up for best was magret of duck for two, roasted with a raspberry gastrique, then sliced but left on the bone and served on an antique ceramic roof tile, accompaniments of roasted potato croquettes and mirepoire veggies in a juicy stock. Wow! And a bottle of burgundy, of course.

Susan Hopkins

Red Tree Catering/Kitchen The best things I ate in 2011: the sablefish prepared by Jan Hrabec, Canmore’s Crazyweed Kitchen.

After I’d downed one, I wanted another plate of the same dish, regardless of my full stomach.

The sablefish was on a classic Thai peanut sauce with flavours beautifully balanced. The dish also included small cubes of pork belly, fried and sauced with tamarind, lemongrass and chile. An unusual combination but brilliantly thoughtout and executed.

Cochinita prepared over wood coals in an oil drum on the side of the road in the interior of the Yucatan peninsula. Smoke was billowing down the highway in our direction, so I hit the brakes, peeled into this small family business, sat down at the traditional white (well, they used to be white) plastic chairs and tables and held up two fingers. Spanish is the Mayans' second language and English is not even on their radar. This slow-cooked pork dish flavoured with Mayan spices was always served with fresh tortillas and salsa. A meal for two generally ran us about $8 Canadian. I now have a reputation for not being able to pass up a smoking oil drum!

Stuart Allan Buzzards, Bottle Screw Bill’s The snapper in Yelapa, Mexico, was the best meal I ate in 2011. We were on a Holland-America cruise off the Pacific coast of Mexico and the ship stopped for the day in Puerto Vallarta. We decided to go exploring and ended up in a teeny village called Yelapa, maybe a dozen houses and a big sandy beach with three or four beach-side cafés. We hiked up to a waterfall, then settled into the sand for a couple of hours.

When it was time to eat, we sat at one of the cafés that offered snapper simply fried whole on the coals. It arrived with head and tail flopped over the edges of the plate, beautifully grilled – hot, spicy, tender and as fresh as you could get. We had cold Coronas, sat under an umbrella with our toes in the sand, and it was wonderful. Afterward, the café owner made me shoot back a large glass of his home-made tequila, which involved some ritual with ice, lots of shaking and forehead-rubbing, and then a slap on the back of the head which gave me a mild concussion.

Or it could have been the tequila.

The boat ride back was shorter but rougher, but the food stayed down nicely – all things considered. continued on page 45

Liquor Depot presents

Celebrate fine wine, premium spirits, import beer, gourmet food (and mountain life) in Banf f

2012 BANFF GRAND TASTING HALL THE FAIRMONT BANFF SPRINGS President’s Hall and Van Horne Ballroom Friday, May 4th: 7 -10 pm Evening Session Saturday, May 5th: 2 -5 pm Afternoon Session Saturday, May 5th: 7 -10 pm Evening Session Minors including infants/babies are not permitted.

For tickets, side events & hotel packages visit rockymountainwine.com

Calling all restaurant cooks!

Ever wondered what a fresh baguette tastes like from a Paris bakery?

Or how tuna is prepared by the sushi chefs in Tokyo?

Or why Morocco is the spice capital of the world?

City Palate can help you further your culinary education with a Culinary Travel Grant to help pay for your travel and expenses.

For details on how to pitch us on where you’d like to go and what you’d like to learn, go to

citypalate.ca

Deadline for entries: March 23rd, 2012

We look forward to hearing from you.

CITYPALATE.ca MARCH APRIL 2012

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well matched

C E L E B R A T I N G

3 5

Y E A R S

Fish Soup with Fennel and Grape Leaves Add any seafood you like – prawns, squid and scallops all make wonderful additions. Serve with lots of crusty French bread for dipping.

1/2 c. grape leaves in brine 4 T. olive oil 2 heads fennel, cored and finely diced 1 garlic clove, minced 1 t. fennel seeds 3 T. ouzo (anise-flavoured Greek apéritif) 3 c. fish stock salt 1 lb. halibut, cubed 20 mussels, cleaned 1 c. Greek yogurt 1 egg yolk

Rinse the grape leaves and slice them finely, then set aside. Heat the oil over low heat and sauté the fennel, garlic and fennel seeds until soft and translucent, about 15 minutes. Add the grape leaves and ouzo to the pan, followed by 2 c. fish stock and a pinch of salt. Simmer for five minutes, and add the seafood. Cook for 3 minutes, or until the fish is just finished. Whisk together the yogurt, egg yolk and remaining stock, then mix it into the soup, check for seasoning and heat the soup gently. Serve immediately with lemon wedges to squeeze into the soup and garnish with a sprinkling of dried mint and chile flakes. Serves 4.

1 lemon, cut into wedges dried mint and chile flakes to taste

EXPERIENCE SOMETHING UNIQUELY DELICIOUS For the connoisseur of everything “gourmet“ a stop at Willow Park Village is a must!

Visit www.wpv.ca to learn more about how you can help the Calgary Interfaith Food Bank and have a chance to WIN big!

Promotion runs from March 31- April 8, 2012

www.wpv.ca Follow us on Facebook and Twitter for contests, specials and everything that’s happening at WPV!

@ willowparkshops

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CITYPALATE.ca MARCH APRIL 2012

Anselmi San Vincenzo (Italy) $20 This wine matches perfectly with fish dishes, soups, and aromatic salads.

The aromas are reminiscent of lemon and lime zest with delicate white peach undertones. The palate is round and savoury with stone fruit attributes.

Light and fruit forward, this is best served chilled.

Haywire Pinot Noir 2010 (Okanagan, BC) $37 This pinot noir offers pleasant cherry and strawberry characteristics, with balanced acidity that makes it a great match for oily dishes. A soft, silky texture allows for lighter meat or fish pairings.

Matthew Altizer

Made-in-heaven food and wine pairings

Lunch Time

220 42AVE SE CALGARY AB 403 287 9255

WWW.ALLOYDINING.COM

Oyster Mushroom and Barley Salad with Sweet Herbs The earthy flavours in this salad make it an excellent match for grilled meats like kebabs. Use whatever herbs you have on hand.

2/3 c. pearl barley salt and pepper 4 T. grapeseed oil 1 lb. fresh oyster mushrooms, cleaned and torn into bite-size pieces 1/4 c. dried porcini mushrooms, soaked in hot water to reconstitute, then drained 1 small bunch parsley leaves 1 small bunch tarragon leaves 1 small bunch dill leaves 2 T. finely chopped red onion 1 T. sherry vinegar

Boil the barley for 20 to 30 minutes, until al dente, then drain, season with salt and pepper and set aside to cool. Preheat grapeseed oil in a large sauté pan over medium-high heat.

Sauté the oyster mushrooms until they’re cooked through and golden brown. Then add the porcini mushrooms and cook until softened, adding more olive oil to the pan if necessary.

Allow the mushrooms to cool slightly, then toss them in a bowl with the barley, herbs and red onion. Toss the salad with the vinegar, lemon juice and olive oil, then season with salt and pepper and serve immediately. Serves 4.

Rise&Shine with Cravings Breakfast!

2 t. lemon juice 3 T. olive oil salt and pepper to taste

These recipes are on our website

Lustau Don Nuño Dry Oloroso (Spain) $20, 375ml The Don Nuño is a nice complement to savoury or earthy dishes. It offers delicate smoke and savoury caramel, a finish that is somewhat soft and smooth, with a delicate dried fig quality.

Kooyong Estate Chardonnay 2008 (Australia) $40 This chardonnay pairs nicely with rich, savoury dishes as it is, itself, rich and savoury. Ripe melon and pear aromas entice the palate, and green apple notes finish on the palate with a lingering mineral tone and a dried apricot note.

7207 Fairmount Drive SE Calgary Ph: 403-252-2083 | www.cravingsmarketrestaurant.com Mon-Thu: 7am-9pm | Fri 7am-10pm | Sat: 8am-10pm /cravingsmarketrestaurant |

cravingsyyc

CITYPALATE.ca MARCH APRIL 2012

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A Night Out in Cyprus Full plates in a halved city.

by Marcello Di Cintio

On my last night in Cyprus, I had dinner in a place that does not exist.

I sought out Aviclar, a Turkish-Cypriot tavern restaurant famous for meze. I arrived early for dinner and was the only diner in the place. My waiter suggested a bottle of raki. I poured a healthy dram of the aniseed liquor into my glass, added water, then used tongs to drop a few ice cubes into the glass. The raki turned snow white as if by magic.

Instead of bringing me a menu, my waiter started bringing out tiny plates of food. Chunky hummus with smoked paprika. Almonds. Fava beans, both marinated and puréed. Thin slices of salty beef pasturma.

Yogurt tzatziki. Pickled celery. Fatty dried lamb. Three kinds of cheese.

They arrived rapidly and I could barely keep up. Eventually I lost count.

I remembered that grilled quail was my main course and fresh watermelon was for dessert. By the time my coffee arrived, I must have eaten close to twenty different things, but the raki dulled my math.

As I ate, a group of men collected at a table with the owner. One man appeared to be hearing impaired and mentally challenged.

Oddly, he held a scented candle covered with glittering pink hearts in his hand. The men noticed I was alone and one brought over a plate of fresh strawberries to augment my dessert. Then fresh almonds, still tender and sour inside their fuzzy green jackets. Another walked over and refilled my raki. Then everyone decided it would be easier if I just joined them. I surrendered.

The raki kept flowing, but the quality was better than what I had ordered. We drained the bottle and switched to Johnny Walker Red. A few men spoke English and one pointed to the tavern owner and said, “He’s a fascist.” The owner shrugged and pulled over more chairs for two men who’d just arrived, a journalist and soccer player from Abkhazia. The Republic of Abkhazia – bordering Russia, Georgia and Black Sea – is another political anomaly that considers itself an independent state even though almost no one else does. I wanted to talk to the man about going from one place that doesn’t exist to another, but he only spoke Russian and Abkhaz.

Then a woman joined us. Her arrival excited the man with the pink candle because, as it turned out, the trinket was for her. He waited until she went to the ladies’ room and placed the candle on her plate. When she returned she acted flattered. Another man told me that she, too, was a fascist and that her name was Zahra.

“That’s a lovely name,” I said. My wife was pregnant at the time and we were looking for baby names.

“A lovely name for a lovely woman, don’t you think?”

“Uh, sure,” I said, though I found Zahra a little snaggle-toothed.

“The Canadian says Zahra is beautiful,” the man announced to the table. I blushed and Zahra turned away as if troubled by the multiplying admirers at the table.

Another hour or two passed and I excused myself to leave. The men refused.

“You can’t go anywhere! We’re going to eat.”

“Eat? I’ve been eating for hours,” I said.

“You don’t understand. We’re going to have the chef’s specialty. Macaroni.”

This hardly inspired me – my family is Italian. The man read my unimpressed face and added. “This place is famous for its macaroni. It’s not cooked in water.”

“What is it cooked in?” I asked, now intrigued.

“Grouse stock.”

I sat back down.

In 1983, after decades of bloody struggle with Greek-Cypriots, Turkish-speaking Cypriots in the northern third of the island declared their independence. They made their capital out of the already-halved city of Lefkosia – called Nicosia on the other side – and announced that a U.N.-monitored ceasefire line was now an international border. Then they christened themselves the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, a “nation” no other country in the world aside from Turkey recognizes. A place that does not exist.

I’d arrived in Cyprus weeks earlier to write about the divided capital and the struggle for the island. I met with poets and artists, shopkeepers and soldiers, all who relayed narratives of division, destruction and war. Everyone showed great generosity with their personal stories, and I was grateful for them, but after nearly a month of these stories I found I needed a lighter night out.

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After half an hour, the waiter set a steaming platter of grouse macaroni on the table. The chef had dusted the pasta with shredded cheese and dried mint and the men shovelled a heap of noodles onto my plate. The pasta tasted richer than any I’d ever eaten. I made a drunken vow to boil my pasta in stock from then on.

My hosts released me at two in the morning. They did not, however, accept my money. The whole table bellowed in protest when I pulled out my wallet. I insisted, but the fascist owner was suitably rigid. He just kissed my cheeks and walked me to the door. Someone drove me back to my hotel, but in the raki-grog of morning I couldn’t remember who. ✤ Marcello Di Cintio’s third book, In the Shadow of the Wall: Travels Along the Barricades, will be published in fall 2012. He still wonders where he can find grouse stock in Calgary.

WEST CALGARY

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CITYPALATE.ca MARCH APRIL 2012

25

Belgium is Not Boring story and photos by Mike Tessier

Take a look at a country whose food is as worthy of mention as its beer.

For years, Belgians have been peddling the myth that Belgium is boring, but the whole “Belgium is bland” thing is nothing but a trick to hide the country’s tumultuous past. Belgium has been invaded so many times that, I suspect, its people have tried to make their country seem as uninteresting as possible.

One of Europe’s best-kept secrets as a travel destination, tiny Belgium is tucked in amongst Germany, France and the Netherlands – it’s no wonder many travelers overlook it. That’s a mistake, however.

This multi-lingual country – where locals may speak Flemish (nearly identical to Dutch), French or German – offers first-time visitors two brilliant travel options in Bruges and Brussels.

Bruges is a beautiful city of canals, nicknamed “The Venice of the North.” Brussels is one of Europe’s great cities and the headquarters of the European Union. Its Grand Place is a UNESCO World Heritage site, stunning any time of day or night. There’s a lot to see in this quirky country that is four percent the physical size of Canada, has a population that’s one-third of Canada’s, and has spawned both The Smurfs and the saxophone, invented by Adolphe Sax. Belgium also produces more comic books than any country in the world.

Although Belgium does attract tourists, there aren’t as many as the country’s charms merit. The best time to visit is during the fall festival season. In my wife’s and my fall travels to Belgium, we’ve encountered everything from Hop Picking Festivals to Stilt Walking Festivals.

One of Belgium’s best-kept secrets is its food. The usual take on Belgian cuisine is that it largely consists of waffles, chocolate and mussels served with frites covered in mayonnaise, but there’s much more to it than that. Thanks partially to its history and location, Belgium has a culinary tradition that has been heavily influenced by other European nations, with a focus on indigenous ingredients.

In the funny book, A Tall Man in a Low Land: Some Time Among the Belgians, which I highly recommend, author Harry Pearson writes: “In Belgium they make hundreds of different types of cheese – orange, white, blue, hard, soft, goat’s cheese – and no-one has ever heard of them. In the Netherlands they make two very boring sorts of cheese and the whole world knows about them.” Belgians don’t boast about their cuisine as much as they should, but if pushed, they will tell you they eat as much as the Germans and as well as the French. In addition to being some of the world’s top carnivores, Belgians rank among its leading beer consumers.

Belgian beer is renowned, but though many have tried, you can’t live on beer alone.

Because Belgians like to eat and drink, they tend to organize their days around doing both. One of the best ways to experience the Belgium of Belgians is by having a three-hour lunch in one of its cafés or restaurants.

You’re in luck there – according to the Antwerp Tourist Guide web site, as of 2009, Belgium had the highest density of Michelin-star restaurants in Europe. More recently, Frommer’s 2011 Guide to Belgium, Holland and Luxembourg revealed that Brussels boasts more Michelin-star restaurants per head than Paris. But you need not rub elbows with gourmands to get a great meal. You’ll find food of French quality and German quantity at reasonable Belgian prices everywhere.

Try specialties like moules frites, wild hare that might be braised in a dark Belgian beer, hop sprouts in salads or baked into a tart, leeks in the traditional Flemish soup, waterzooi, smoked hams from the Ardennes region, and an endless selection of seafood. The country’s crispy frites are legendary, but it’s the dizzying array of accompanying sauces – such as mayonnaise and andalouse, a blend of mayonnaise, tomato purée and sweet peppers – that separate Belgium from the global fry herd.

For chocoholics, Belgium is heaven, and, yes, you must have waffles.

Belgians take their beers as seriously as the French take their wines. You’ll even find some of their beers corked and wired like a bottle of champagne.

In cafés, each beer is presented beautifully in its own distinctive glass. Here are some suggested study materials to introduce you to Belgium’s vibrant beer culture and provide a small taste of this great travel destination.

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Beers with monastic roots: In medieval times, beer was healthier than water.

Early 19th century monastic beer production developed into a source of revenue for rebuilding monasteries that had been ravaged by the French Revolution. There are seven abbeys (six Belgian and one Dutch) of the strict Cistercian, or Trappist, order that are approved by the Vatican to sell beer under the Trappist appellation. Today, the profits go to the abbeys' upkeep and global charitable efforts. Alberta’s market is one of the few in the world where six of the Trappist breweries’ beers are available, and soon, we’ll have access to all seven. These beers are heavenly: Orval A spicy brew that undergoes a secondary fermentation with a wild yeast, brettanomyces, for layers of flavour that make a dry and funky beer.

Achel Blond A flavourful fruity ale based on the most popular of Belgian beer styles, the single or blonde ale with a dry finish.

Rochefort 10 A big contemplative sipper with notes of plums, brandy and Christmas cake.

White beers: Known as witbier in Dutch or blanche in French, this thirst-quenching wheat beer is typically cloudy. Brewed with orange peel and coriander, it’s built for summer afternoons on a patio.

There are many examples in our market, but Hoegaarden is the one they’re all trying to best.

Lambics and fruit beers: This is one of Belgium’s most unique beer styles: sour, sharp, acidic and spontaneously fermented with airborne yeast from the Senne Valley, southwest of Brussels, the lambics’ sourness is softened by adding fresh fruit during the barrel aging process.

In our market there are two excellent examples: Boon Kriek and Boon Framboise, cherry- and raspberry- infused ales, respectively, and two great introductions to this lambic beer style.

Belgian blondes: A golden ale hybrid that visually tempts lager drinkers but seduces the ale enthusiast with its flavour. There are many examples of this style of beer in our market, but the prototype all others are trying to emulate is Duvel (which means “devil” in Dutch). ✤ Mike Tessier writes about beer for beer magazines and is the “chief purveyor of fine suds” at Artisan Ales Consulting Inc., an Alberta-based beer agency.

A Great Wine Store New Arrivals

Ferrando (Spectacular wines from Carema, Italy), Pfeffingen (Pfalz), Skylark (California), Donelan (California), Massican (California), plus dozens of new artisan ales.

Upcoming Tastings

David vs. Goliath, Chateau de Beaucastel vertical, Brunello 2006, Sparkling Extravaganza, Rhône Rangers, Old Ass Whites.

See our website for details.

pig & pinot festival

J O I N U S F O R C i t y Pa l at e ’ s S e C O N d A N N U A l

Wednesday, June 20th, at Hotel Arts 119 - 12th Avenue SW 7 - 10 p.m.

Music by Simply Sinatra Tickets are $100, available at The Cookbook Co. Cooks 403-265-6066, ext. 1 Proceeds go to Meals on Wheels

BIN 905

Distinctive Wines and Spirits

2311-4th Street SW 403.261.1600 / bin905.com

Teams of chefs will work their magic on delicious local piggie parts – their creations will be matched with pinot noir and pinot blanc from around the world.

CITYPALATE.ca MARCH APRIL 2012

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We wondered how far you’d go with City Palate and a camera... and we were thrilled to see how far you went! Photo entries came in from Australia, France, Jamaica, Malaysia, Mexico, Myanmar, new zealand, Republic of georgia, spain, sweden, Trinidad and Tobago, Turkey, usA, zimbabwe and, of course, Canada.

“st. Paul sneaks a peek at City Palate at the hagia sophia submitted by Peter Mosque in istanbu Boland, Calgary AB l Turkey.” .

To ThE ThREE luCky WinnERs oF City Palate’s

Show US where YoU read US

p h o t o

C o n t e s t !

“i just can’t put this magazine down!” submitted by Alan haley, Elko, BC.

View all of our great photo contest entries at citypalate.ca Thank-you to all of our loyal readers who packed us up and took us with them!

We really liked these 3 snaps too, and wanted to give them an honourable mention!

l!” the cora tion than n e tt a y ore of m ptured m alate ca P y it C here cation w aican va Calgary, AB. m a J t n e , y rec acos “From m by shauna Tub d te it m b u s

3 fabulous weekend resort packages were awarded to our winners A big thAnk-you to our wonderful sponsors...

A 2-night stay in The Winemaker’s Cottage lAkE BREEzE VinEyARds a naramata Bench Wine Farm

A 2-night stay at Canadian Rocky Mountain Resorts’ EMERAld lAkE lodgE Plus... a tasty collection of gift baskets from...

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CITYPALATE.ca MARCH APRIL 2012

A 2-night stay at the exclusive TinhoRn CREEk guEsT housE in oliver, BC

ARRIVING SOON. CITYPALATE.ca MARCH APRIL 2012

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Give Us Our Daily “Artisan” Bread Calgary’s bread offerings

have improved dramatically

in the last bunch of years.

Here’s where we find our

good daily bread.

Cobs Bread cobsbread.com for locations

Wilde Grainz Artisan Bakery

by Karen Anderson

Calgarians are increasingly interested in the quality of their food – one example is the rise in the number of artisan bread bakers. Does this reflect how much we travel and enjoy good bread elsewhere?

Have our tasty travel memories created a demand for similar products here?

Maybe we’ve just gotten over our fear of carbs. Finally. Whatever the reason, Calgary’s artisan bread bakers are now able to make a living at their ovens. Our daily artisan bread has arrived.

Sidewalk Citizen Bakery 5524 – 1A St SW Owner/baker: Aviv Fried sidewalkcitizenbakery.com One of our most celebrated bakers, Aviv Fried, was included in Avenue magazine’s Top 40 under 40 in 2011.

He started playing with bread making while working as a store manager at Janice Beaton Fine Cheese. People continually asked for “good bread” to go with their cheese.

Fried began to knead in response. Once Fried got doughhooked he travelled to learn technique in both Vermont and Paris. Having a master’s degree in biomedical engineering helps him run his steam-injection oven, but only love of the craft gets him up for that 3:30 a.m. “rising with the dough” rooster call. Fried’s breads are wholesome whole grain and sourdough with toothsome crusts.

Urban Baker 802 - Edmonton Trail NE Bakers: Jenny Davy, Rebecca Zubot, Brad Simon, Kayla Haugrud / Owners: Vince, Stan and Leanne Wong and Ryan Turbide urban-baker.ca City Palate publisher/editor, Kathy Richardier loves the dense, slightly sour sourdough baguette. SAIT grad Jenny Davy and her team have learned that “proofing” bread in Calgary’s dry climate takes a lot of “jury-rigging” to create moisture. They’ve pinned it, and you can tell by the taste of their Yukon gold potato bread, Tuscan peasant loaf, the honey oat and the apple-flax rosemary sourdough. The Palliser, Taste and The Coup all have Urban Baker breads on their menu.

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CITYPALATE.ca MARCH APRIL 2012

1218 - 9 Ave SE Owners/bakers: Karen Schoenrank and Teddi Smith wildegrainz.com These two ex-SAIT culinary program pastry instructors opened shop in 2010, seriously raising the artisan breadmaking bar when they did. Their hand-crafted loaves take three days to make – they use a sourdough starter and let their bread rise and rest until it’s ready for the oven on day three. There are several different loaves on offer each day, such as pear walnut, buckwheat and sprouted grainz, as well as sticky buns, tarts and cakes.

At Christmas, look for the extraordinary stollen.

La Boulangerie 2435 - 4th St SW (La Crêperie at Kingsland Farmers’ Market) Owners/bakers: Shosh Cohen and Navot Raz Navot Raz received his Grand Diplome at the Cordon Bleu, Ottawa, and thankfully decided to settle with his young family in Calgary. La Crêperie in the Kingsland Farmers’ market was such a hit that, last month, Cohen and Raz were able to expand and open the doors of La Boulangerie next door to Wurst on 4th St SW. They offer three types of baguettes daily and have a few tables where you can sit and enjoy pastries, crêpes and soups.

Prairie Mill Bread Co. 129 - 4820 Northland Dr NW Owners/bakers: John and Karen Juurlink prairiemillbread.com In business for more than a decade, the Jurrlink’s turn out every loaf by hand, and because they mill their own organic whole wheat as they need it, the bread stays fresher without preservatives. Honey Whole Wheat and white, Yukon sourdough, nine grain, milled flax, sunflower whole wheat, corn millet and muesli whole wheat are available daily.

Yum Bakery Calgary Farmers’ Market Owners/bakers: Debbie and David Catling yum-bakery.com The Catlings take bread-making so seriously they have even given their sourdough starter a name: Eduardo.

They picked a macho name so “he” would be strong and productive, and Eduardo does them proud. The offerings include a classic and multigrain baguette, wild rice with green onion, multigrain with roast garlic/cumin, ciabatta, walnut/stilton, brioche, braided challah, and cinnamon raisin each weekend.

The first COBS BREAD bakery in Canada was launched in 2003. Now there are more than 60 in the three most western provinces and a total of 700 stores in Australia, New Zealand and Canada. Each bakery bakes its breads, including rustic and European-styles, from scratch daily.

The new chia bread has nine grams of protein and a third of your daily fibre needs in two slices.

Artisan bread bakers with European heritage and flair:

A Ladybug Bakery and Espresso Bar 10 Aspen Stone Blvd SW Owners/bakers: Marie and Yves Ghesquiere ladybugandcafe.com Organic goodness and quality, plus the experienced and artful approach rendered from Ghesquiere’s 40 years of baking in Belgium and France, are expressed in the beautiful breads on offer here. Spelt, multigrain, countrystyle and sesame, all made with local organic flours, lend themselves perfectly to the organic chicken liver pâté. Take frozen baguettes home for sudden baguette “emergencies.”

Rustic Sourdough Bakery 1305 - 17 Ave SW & Kingsland Farmers’ Market Owner/baker: Jos Rehli rusticsourdoughbakery.com All the baguettes and breads are hand crafted using natural sourdough without preservatives, emulsifiers or additives. The downtown store has a tiny café and was noted as a place to get a great custom-made sandwich in City Palate’s “great cheap eats” 2011.

Manna Bread Artisans

Available by email or at Heritage Bakery and Deli, 1912 - 37 St SW & Market 17 in Casel Marché Owners/bakers: David and Nikayla Reize and Eftihia Sintihakis MannaBreadArtisans@gmail.com The trio of newcomer bakers of Swiss and Greek heritage describe themselves as grass-roots artisan bread makers determined to make bread a vehicle to help consumers connect with the local producers who provided the ingredients. The wheat and rye flours come from Nanton and High River and the honey from Three Hills. Try the heritage Swiss light rye bread. Rustic is its middle name.

Glamorgan Bakery 19, 3919 Richmond Rd SW Owners/bakers: Don and Jannette Nauta glamorganbakery.com The Nauta family has owned this Dutch heritage bakery since 1977 and now have five children helping run the business. They make a variety of breads but are most famous for their cheese buns and Parker House rolls.

continued on page 32

simplicity is the ultimate sophistication

Willow Park Village 10816 Macleod Trail South | 403.278.1220 Compleat Cook Cooking Classes 3400 – 114 Avenue SE | 403.253.4831 www.compleatcook.ca

CITYPALATE.ca MARCH APRIL 2012

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Give Us Our Daily “Artisan” Bread continued from page 30

Manuel Latruwe Belgian Patisserie & Bread Shop 1331 - 1 St SE Owner/baker: Manuel Latruwe manuellatruwe.com Latruwe started baking at age 12 and was already winning prestigious international awards for his baking by the time he turned 27. He moved to Calgary and opened shop in 1998. Today, he offers more than 20 styles of classic-method, preservative- and additive-free bread, including treats like pear and peppercorn, sourdough rye kalamata olive, sourdough blue cheese, pain de campagne, and rye walnut raisin.

Gunther’s Fine Baking 4306 - 17 Ave SE Owner/baker: Helmut Forsthuber gfbaking.ca Handcrafted Austrian, German and Swiss rye and whole grain breads have kept this family-owned bakery a mainstay of Calgary’s Forest Lawn neighbourhood since 1971.

King’s Bakery Available at Polcan, Heritage Deli, Edelweiss, Cracovia & Jan’s Meats Owner/Baker: Mariusz Gaska kingsbakery.ca Gaska started King’s bakery in 1995 and has been supplying Calgary’s European delis with his hand-formed sourdough loaves which he describes as Polish, German, Euro rye breads ever since. The web site also has a beautiful gallery of cakes that can be special ordered.

Malicher European Deli & Bakery 1414 Kensington Rd. NW Baker: Jana Loncikova malicher.com This new bakery in Kensington focuses on traditional European breads using organic flour, no preservatives.

Look for the likes of Russian rye, holiday challah, whole wheat bread with roasted pumpkin and sunflower seeds and a three-pound sourdough loaf. Lots of pastries too.

Artisan bread where you might not expect to find it:

Mercato 2224 - 4 St SW & Unit 5000 873 - 85th St SW Baker: Mamma Cathy mercatogourmet.com Cathy Caracciolo has always loved baking bread. She shared her recipes with the staff at Mercato, who are doing a good job of creating her rustic Italian loaves.

Her zesty spin on focaccia, of which the restaurant goes through dozens of loaves daily, is always available, but there’s always a surprise or two as well.

Lina’s Italian Market 2202 Centre St NE Owner: Lina Castle linasmarket.com Castle employs a cadre of capable Italian men and women to make authentic Italian breads a reality for Calgary. The daily fresh focaccia and crusty buns just seem to jump into your cart. And the bread that doesn’t jump into your cart the day it’s made is made into crunchy, seasoned croutons that jump into your salad.

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CITYPALATE.ca MARCH APRIL 2012

Double Elle Bakery 703 - 23 Ave SE (formerly Valta Bison, Ramsay) Baker: Leah Layden doubleellebakery.ca Think grandma’s bread, biscuits and buns, made the way baker Leah Layden’s grandmothers taught her to make them – with locally milled flour – and you’ve got the birth of an Alberta heritage artisan baker nestled in Valta Bison’s tiny Ramsay store. Thanks to City Palate writer and foodie extraordinaire, Julie Van Rosendaal, for this fresh-from-the-oven tip.

Rise Bakery and Cafe 181, 250 - 6 Ave SW in Bow Valley Square 129, 207 - 9 Ave SW in Penn West Plaza Owners: The Vintage Group of Restaurants risebakery.com This group developed its own recipes and hired a bakery to make and deliver the bread to their two locations.

Though Rise is primarily a source of great sandwiches for the downtown lunch crowd, there are always tasty rustic loaves for sale each day, including the signature chocolate bread.

Pastry bakers who also bake artisan bread:

Yann Haute Patisserie 329 - 23rd Ave SW Owners/bakers: Yann and Jeraldine Blanchard yannboutique.com Blanchard describes his bread as a rustic sourdough which he developed with the help of his dad, who visited from the south of France to help him find the formula that could withstand Calgary’s dry climate. The two came up with a recipe that helps them deliver baguettes and a daily loaf for those who want more crumb than crust.

Hint: phone and reserve your baguette because they tend to sell out early.

Panino Bakery Baguettes available frozen at CRMR@Home, Bite Groceteria, and Market 17 in Casel Marché Owner: Canadian Rocky Mountain Resorts Head baker: Aaron Davies crmr.com On the web site, you’ll see Panino is a sophisticated cake bakery located in Bowness, open by appointment only. The bread baking portion of CRMR’s Panino is still located in its original Canmore location, cranking out the many artisan loaves and baguettes needed daily

by CRMR’s hotels and restaurants. Head baker Aaron Davies and his team have perfected a way to partially bake their baguettes fresh from the company’s steam injection ovens, then deliver them to select outlets in Calgary for retail sale. You can buy them frozen and bake them at home.

Itza Bakeshop Suite 111, 908 - 17 Ave SW Owner/baker: Alexandra Chan NAIT grad Alexandra Chan left her successful restaurant, Bistro 2210, to follow her baker’s heart and open a small neighbourhood-centric shop in The Devenish building. Itza is primarily a Viennoiserie featuring astoundingly good pastries, but Chan makes demi-baguettes daily because she caters to the locals who pop by for their loaf on the way home from work. She also cleverly takes the bits of leftover dough from her croissants and weaves it into her wonderful, fine-crumbed whole wheat butter bread, and she makes challah on Fridays and Saturdays.

Sweet Provocateur 4024 - 26th St SE Owners/bakers: Matt and Kira Desmond sweetprovocateur.com Although they’re gaining a reputation for their exotic flair with cakes and pastries, this brother and sister team produces artisan breads by custom order. The list includes sweet potato brioche, olive oil and herb focaccia, multigrain rolls, challah and an eastern European holiday favourite, paska, with saffron and raisins that’s definitely worth the phone call.

Gluten-free bread bakers:

Earth’s Oven Bay 4, 417 - 53 Ave SE Owner/baker: Yeung Lee earthsoven.com The bread is made Monday, Wednesday and Friday and I will drive across the city for a loaf of quinoa raisin whose dense moistness makes incredible toast to slather with almond butter. The corn bread and cranapple ginger loaf are other favourites.

Big Star Bake House 1510 - 6 St SW Owners/bakers: Nathan Head, Rich Adams and Liam Millard These Milk Tiger Lounge owners bought the GF Patisserie franchise that used to be located in Cochrane, took some months of intense baking training from the founder and opened Big Star Bake House in late 2011. Breads include flax, cinnamon raisin, cheese and Italian focaccia. Pizza shells are available as is a gluten-free flour mix for those who’d like to give GF baking a try on their own.

Lakeview Bakery 6449 Crowchild Tr SW Owners: The Hinton Family; baker, Brian Hinton organicbaking.com Lakeview bakery caters to gluten-free and allergenfree organic baking, making more than 150 specialty products, including wheat-free, yeast-free, sugar-free and low-carb breads, all made from scratch by certified master baker Brian and his staff. The Hintons are also renowned for their delicious gluten-free treats, like brownies and molten chocolate lava cakes that leave nothing wanting.

Grocery Store bread bakeries: Even the grocery chains have vastly improved their products to include tasty artisan-style breads.

Calgary Co-op – the seed breads are good and the purple wheat bread with walnuts and cranberries is delish.

Safeway – the ciabatta is really good.

Sobey’s – thick crusty country loaves are the in-house specialties.

Sunterra Markets – grab the muesli bread – it’s chock full of goodness.

Superstore – look for bread made with western Canada’s red fife wheat. It’s delicious.

continued on page 34

Join us this Spring Learn something NEW about OLD world wines.

Metrovino has a full line-up of fun, delicious and inspiring classes all spring long.

A Splash of Spain Fun with France A Thirst for Mersault Tempted by Tempranillo The Wines of Chateauneuf-du-Pape To learn more or to register for a class go to Metrovino.com or call 403-205-3356.

722 -11th Avenue S.W. 403-205-3356 www.metrovino.com • wine@metrovino.com

CITYPALATE.ca MARCH APRIL 2012

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We Have Baguettes

continued from page 32

There was a time, believe it or not, when you could hardly find a baguette in Calgary. I teamed up with two City Palateers to taste 11 baguettes from different bakers, and it was a revelation that this “mother of breads” is so widely available here and in so many different styles. Something for everyone.

The “classic” baguette tends to have a firm crust of a rich, dark caramel colour with a crumb (mie, in French) that’s creamy and with large, irregular air pockets. A good baguette should be moist and slightly chewy, with a full, almost nutty flavour.

We happily discovered that every baker has his/her “ideal” baguette, so they tend to differ – with an interesting array of crusts, from pale golden to deep caramel, from a dry to a firm crispness, to an almost delicate softness.

The crumb was mostly moist.

Some baguettes had a regular crumb, others were rustic and air-pocketed. Flavours varied from very mild to mildly sourdough-sour to a stronger – but pleasantly so – sour.

If you are looking for good baguettes, you will find many to choose from, and you’ll certainly find your favourite style. Yes!

Here’s a selection we tasted, supplied by our artisan bread bakers: Yann Haute Patisserie – a beautiful sour baguette with a classic golden crust and a rustic, moist crumb with a complex, elegant taste.

La Boulangerie – a crisp, toothsome caramel brown crust with a good, rustic, moist crumb, and a pleasant, faintly sour flavour. A beautiful, lightly caramel colour throughout.

Itza Bakeshop – not a classically styled baguette, but one that’s pale gold with a delicate crust, an even crumb and a mild flavour.

Urban Baker – a pleasantly “sour” sourdough baguette, with a pronounced flavour and odor, good caramel-coloured, firm, toothsome crust and a fairly even, moist, slightly chewy crumb.

Yum Bakery – a nicely browned crust that was crisp and toothsome, with a tasty, moist crumb.

Manuel Latruwe Belgian Patisserie & Bread Shop – the crust of L’Ancienne (one of four baguettes on offer) is golden and crisp with a moist, fairly even firm crumb and a pleasant, slightly sour odor and taste.

Panino Bakery – a soft, delicate golden crust and creamy coloured crumb with a slightly sweet yeasty flavour.

A Ladybug Bakery & Café – deep caramel-coloured crust that’s firm and slightly chewy covers a tender crumb of a fairly even consistency, with a wholesome flavour expressed in the freshness of the whole grains.

Rustic Sourdough Bakery – a nice golden, dry crust revealing a moist, even crumb.✤

Wild Grainz – a friendly golden, crisp, toothsome crust yielded a tasty, moist even crumb in a pretty, curvy-shaped loaf.

Sidewalk Citizen Bakery – this crust is very dry and crisp, with a golden colour and a rustic crumb punctuated with large air holes. As one of the tasters said, “it’s a perfect vehicle for chicken liver pâté.”

Karen Anderson is the owner of Calgary Food Tours. She also connects city folk with farm folk through City Palate’s Foodie Tootles, which she organizes and hosts.

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Half our seats are always open to walk-in guests.

Yes, we do take reservations for all occasions. But most NOtaBLY, we always have half our seats open and available for spontaneous moments. It’s part of our commitment to being an approachable neighbourhood restaurant.

So feel free to drop by, pull up a chair and enjoy your gourmet casual experience.

4611 Bowness Road NW | 403. 288.4372 | notabletherestaurant .ca

CITYPALATE.ca MARCH APRIL 2012

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From Codfish to Custard Tarts: Portugal’s contributions to the world’s cuisines. story by Barbara Balfour, photos by Hamed Sanei

Later, on a rest stop while driving in the Algarve, an area of stunning beaches and ghostly reminders of its long-ago occupation by the Moors, I tuck into fat, gleaming sardines that have been slapped on the grill and seasoned with crushed garlic, squeezed lemon and sprigs of rosemary.

Then, back in the northern city of Porto, where I will eventually catch my flight home, I toast this gastronomically vibrant country with the first of many glasses of vintage tawny port and inexpensive, thirst-quenching vinho verde (meaning “green wine” in Portuguese, but referring to its young age rather than to its actual colour).

On the road for two weeks in Portugal, I find that fuel for the weary traveler comes in particularly tasty forms. From its capital, Lisbon, a half-day’s worth of sustenance is found in the flaky, cinnamon-dusted custard tarts, known as Pastéis de Belém, that I polish off for breakfast. Made from a secret 175-year-old recipe, this is the Holy Grail of Portuguese custard tarts, served hot from the oven and so addictive the waiter will look at you askance if you don’t order in multiples of two. Luckily for my taste buds – not so much for my waistline – I’m a quick study.

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Today, Portugal is one of the poorest countries in the European Union, struggling with financial turmoil and high rates of unemployment. Yet, centuries ago, this seafaring nation was among the world’s wealthiest global empires.

During the Age of Discovery that spanned the 15th and 16th centuries, Portuguese explorers opened the world to extensive trade routes and colonization. Thanks to such far-reaching nautical pioneers as Vasco da Gama and Ferdinand Magellan, Portugal has had a profound influence on the international cuisines we enjoy today.

It was the Portuguese who brought sweet oranges, tea and coveted spices such as cinnamon from Portugal’s colonies in India and Asia to their European neighbours.

As the first Europeans to land in Japan, it was Portuguese Jesuit missionaries who introduced the Japanese to tempura, the concept of dipping seafood, meat and vegetables in thin batter, then deep frying them in oil. Other dishes that would become Japanese staples, such as kabocha squash and the deep-fried pork cutlets called tonkatsu, were also brought to the country by the Portuguese.

CANADA’S PREMIER SPICE SHOP IS RIGHT HERE IN INGLEWOOD

incredible selection • expert knowledge

We mustn’t forget the incendiary piri-piri, both a chile and the hot sauce made from the chile.

The sauce is used as a marinade for shrimp, or, as I sample it at a Lisbon restaurant frequented by locals, brushed on chicken roasted until it’s golden brown, then served on the side in a small pot for those who crave an extra kick of heat in the mouth.

While it was the Spanish explorer Christopher Columbus who brought piri-piri chile peppers back to Europe from North America in 1493, it was the Portuguese who introduced them to the world. They distributed the pepper seeds at trading posts in West Africa and around the Cape of Good Hope, including its future colonies, Angola and Mozambique. Years later, the peppers were cultivated in Portugal where, over time, they developed a much milder flavour than those grown in Africa.

While the roots of many of the delicacies consumed in Portugal can be traced back centuries, a local favourite found exclusively in Porto has only been around since the 1960s. The dish, called francesinha, which means “little French girl” in Portuguese, was created by a chef who had lived in Paris and wanted to put a local twist on France’s croque-monsieur, a grilled ham and cheese sandwich. This sandwich on steroids is anything but little.

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1316 9th Avenue SE Calgary AB 403 514-0577 www.knifewear.com

Canada’s AWESOMEST

knife shop Where chefs and foodies shop.

donating 50% of all sharpening proceeds for 2012 to the SERVANTS ANONYMOUS SOCIETY OF CALGARY

Between two thick slices of bread you find a combination of baby shrimp, steak, sausage and ham, baked with cheese melted over it, doused in a warm tomato and beer-based sauce and sometimes crowned with a fried egg. The sandwich is served with a mountain of fries that are then dipped into the sauce in which the francesinha soaks, because heaven forbid that any of it goes to waste. I order it one late summer evening, and the only reason I can make a good dent in my francesinha is that I’ve barely eaten anything else all day. It tastes like heaven.

To start a spirited debate with Porto locals, one need only ask which is the best francesinha joint in town – they each have a personal favourite, and there are at least 20 places to choose from. Thanks to the friends I’ve made on my travels, I discover my own favourite, Cufra, a modest diner where locals sit tightly packed at communal tables and many of the waiters don’t speak a word of English.

Here, as in many other local eateries, olive oil, garlic and potatoes, either steamed or boiled, are the stars of the food show. So, too, is freshly caught seafood. Hence, one of the first Portuguese words I learn, along with obrigada (thank you) and olá (hello), is bacalhau, or codfish, which, the locals say, can be prepared in 365 different ways.

Cufra – one of the area’s oldest eateries – is where I eat some of my most memorable meals. While there is no shortage of high-end contemporary dining establishments in Portugal, at its very best, Portuguese food is simple and hearty.

This, I discover, can also be said of its people. The Portuguese are some of the kindest, most hospitable people I have ever met on my travels. Whether they’re leaping off a train platform to chase after my ticket blown away by the wind, or giving a complete stranger like me a ride to the opposite end of town, the Portuguese truly go out of their way for visitors.

I can taste the care with which Portuguese food is prepared and I realize it’s another ingredient – along with the centuries of history behind it – that makes it taste so good. continued on page 45

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Eating Rome Tips and tricks for finding great food in the Eternal City story by Holly Quan, photos by Vireo Creative Communications

Vini. Vidi. Vacuumi.

I came. I saw. I hoovered up a whole lotta food.

Most people travel to Rome to see the marvels of antiquity and religion: the Coliseum, the Forum, the Vatican. And while we – my husband Ken and I – were interested in at least a passing glance at these places, our purpose in Rome was more visceral: we were there to eat.

From street food and snack bars to beautiful full-service trattorias, Rome is a food lover’s candy store. From web sites and blogs – including newyorktimes.com, chowhound.com, saveur.com, adorerome.com, plus restaurant web sites – we compiled a hit list, then left the rest to chance.

For the benefit of future visitors, I’ve divided up Rome’s good eats according to their proximity to popular sights.

Termini area, Spanish Steps and Coliseum Many hotels, including our Hotel Giuliana, are situated near Termini, Rome’s main train/bus/ subway station. Neapolis Café, on the ground floor of our hotel on Via Agostino Depretis, is a stylish snack bar where we made daily stops for espresso, cappuccino, pastries and prosecco (who says you can’t have bubbles for breakfast?) while planning the day.

On the advice of our hit list, we visited Volpetti Ristorante Pizzeria on Via Principe. We sat at an outdoor table, enjoying the people watching and a calabrese salad (sliced tomato with buffalo mozza), prosciutto with cantaloupe, and a glorious thin-crust pizza piled with cheese and artichoke hearts. The couple next to us had minestrone that looked and smelled so wonderful we ordered a bowl of that, too – rich and thick with kale, beans, carrots and noodles.

Ricci Est Est Est on Via Genova is Rome’s oldest pizzeria, which began as an enoteca (wine bar) in 1888 and retains that vintage feel with dark wood paneling and period lighting. The pizza is Neopolitan style. Our mixed appetizer plate was a meal in itself, the tripe in tomato sauce meltingly good, the pasta with porcini mushrooms thoroughly unctuous, and the panna cotta divine. anticapizzeriaricciroma.com Another great find from our list was Monte Caruso on Via Farni. We joined friends from home for dinner at this formal restaurant, where the service was impeccable. Among our selections: paperthin tuna carpaccio, veal scallopini in truffle cream sauce (mama mia!), turkey in orange sauce and a bottle of the house red wine. montecaruso.com Another discovery: porchetta. A specialty of Umbria, northeast of Rome, porchetta is whole roast pig seasoned with pepper and fennel. At its best, it’s juicy and spicy with crispy, crunchy skin and smooth, flavourful fat. Porchetta is scarce in Rome but we did find it in a couple of sandwich shops, notably ER Burchetto on Via Viminale, where this tasty piggy has been served since 1890.

Not far from the Termini district, the Spanish Steps is a people magnet where you can sit for hours watching the city’s grand pageant. Then you can go to the nearby McDonald’s for two reasons: to use the bathroom and to get dessert. This location is a McCafé, serving espresso and all manner of cakes, pastries and gelato. In true Italian fashion it’s a marvel of glass, chrome and marble.

The Coliseum is Rome’s iconic ancient stadium famous for setting lions against Christians and gladiators. The bloody battles are long gone, but the crowds are not. After circling the enormous structure, we went looking for lunch, and found Pasqualino al Colosseo on Via dei Santissimi Quattro, a quiet side street. It’s been serving traditional Roman food since 1956. We sat outside and spent most of the afternoon with swordfish carpaccio, pasta with wild boar sauce, and pecorino-stuffed ravioli in tomato sauce.

Trevi Fountain, Pantheon, Piazza Navona The Trevi Fountain district has streets lined with upscale sidewalk cafés. You’ll also find roasted chestnuts sold by street vendors. In high summer, you can buy a cone of hot, tasty chestnuts to munch while checking out the locals and tourists.

The Pantheon is one of Rome’s most ancient sites. The square out front, with its busy little fountain, is another great people-watching spot, and the area’s many side streets boast a host of bars and restaurants. One of those – Armando al Pantheon, specializing in Roman regional specialties – was among the dining highlights of our visit. Who knew salt cod could be so delicious? We also shared a plate of sausage and cured meats, a lush ball of fresh buffalo mozzarella, pasta with asparagus and pancetta, minestrone, sardines with radicchio, veal marsala, and a bottle of Valdipiatta 2007. Then we waddled to the hotel, vowing self-restraint at our next meal. armandoalpantheon.it.

Piazza Navona is a touristy square surrounded by good eats. A unique experience is Open Baladin on Via Degli Specchi, a brewpub that serves Slow Food creations including free-range chicken wings in beer and paprika batter. We quaffed several beers, then devoured the single best burger I’ve ever had in a restaurant – luscious rare beef slathered with cheese and black truffle jam!

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CITYPALATE.ca MARCH APRIL 2012

continued on page 46

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CITYPALATE.ca MARCH APRIL 2012

39

A Culinary Tour of Toronto the Tasty Toronto’s hopping food scene puts the lie to its lacklustre nickname.

by Kate Zimmerman

With cheese, of course, one must have bread. The glorious organic loaves at St. John’s Bakery would have eluded yours truly if I hadn’t taken a food and cultural walking tour of Riverside/Leslieville with Chef Scott Savoie. This “bakery with a cause” is a social enterprise that’s run by St. John the Compassionate Mission. Its three-tiered Italian stone oven turns out sourdough baguettes, loaves of Red Fife and country rye, and Celtic multigrain sourdough, as well as cranberry-pumpkin seed and wild Quebec blueberry scones. Linda Karounou, who calls herself “head of sweets” at St. John’s, says its executive director spent a year at a French monastery learning to bake bread.

Grab some early in your visit to go with any cheese you sample while in town.

Chef Savoie, who also offers tours of Little Italy and picnic paddles in heritage freighter canoes to the Toronto Islands through his Culinary Adventure Company, calls this excursion a “mile-long taste’n’stroll.”

He loves the Riverside/Leslieville section of the Riverdale neighbourhood – part of the late NDP leader Jack Layton’s Toronto-Danforth riding – and liberally salts his jaunts with local and regional history. Wandering past a bar called the Avro, for instance, he sums up the tale of Canada’s famous delta-winged interceptor aircraft, the Avro Arrow, permanently grounded by Conservative Prime Minister John Diefenbaker in 1959.

Savoie and the merchants on his tour offer many taste sensations along the way, including samples of Ontario wine at a store called Wine Rack. There are numerous art galleries, funky clothing stores and vintage furniture shops along Queen Street East, but Savoie focuses on the foodie high points. (You can always double back to shop later.) At Olive & Olives, for example, you’ll taste olive oils and vinegars, learning the differences between early and later harvests, types of olives, and vinegar flavour profiles.

Other stops include Hooked, a fish market promoting sustainable species, and the chic Bobette & Belle Artisanal Pastries for salted caramel macarons. Don’t miss Ed’s Real Scoop, which makes almost every aspect of its ice cream flavourings in-house, ranging from sponge toffee, peanut butter fudge and apple pie to bacon bits for its Maple Bacon Crunch. Try Burnt Marshmallow for shades of campfires past.

The label “The Big Smoke” does Toronto an injustice. The brand is neither inviting nor accurate – it only conjures up a repellent, carcinogenic haze lurking northwest of New York’s shinier “Big Apple.” A week spent succumbing to the city’s culinary wiles convinced this new enthusiast that Toronto needs to re-name itself. “The Big Cheese” is too limiting. “The Whole Enchilada” is accurate, but ethnically confusing. So, I dunno – Feast Central?

Dominating that feast is a startling supply of outrageously good cheese. Where in this country but in Toronto would you find a gourmet store so savvy that it ages wheels to order for celebrities? In the vault at the west end’s 30-year-old Cheese Boutique, you can spot the names of The Barenaked Ladies’ Tyler Stewart and several hockey honchos attached to fragrant discs, as well as a hanging provolone so enormous it could double as a tugboat bumper.

This foodie destination off the south Kingsway is crammed with delicacies of every description – there’s an entire Little Italy room whose shelves, floor to ceiling, are jammed with pastas and other Italian ingredients – but its vast cheese collection is sufficiently cosmopolitan that two members of its staff belong to the Confrerie des Chevaliers du Taste Fromage de France.

Cheese Boutique also supplies the beech-wood shelves of the cheese cave at TOCA (an acronym for Toronto, Ontario, Canada), the swank restaurant on the mezzanine level of the city’s elegant new Ritz-Carlton Hotel. There, in a refrigerated glass room, the in-house affineur (or “cheese lady”) presides over TOCA’s curated selection of 60-plus types. “There are only four real ingredients in cheese, but a million possibilities,” she points out, resisting the urge to genuflect.

With locals so reverent, it’s no wonder that the Globe and Mail's bi-weekly cheese columnist, Torontonian Sue Reidl, never seems to lack for material. Naturally, there are countless European offerings at any self-respecting deli, but Ontario’s cheddars and Quebec’s goat cheeses abound. Make sure to try the ash-rinded Grey Owl pasteurized goat’s milk cheese from Fromagerie Le Détour. Ready access to the United States’ finest helps diversify the offerings – in the trendy east end neighbourhood of Leslieville in the fall, staff members at Leslieville Cheese Market & Fine Foods were handing out samples of a swoon-worthy Wisconsin beauty called Merlot BellaVitano, a fandango of cheddar and parmesan flavours soaked in wine.

All this to say that visitors to Toronto ought to put cheese tasting at the top of their to-do lists.

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Guided tours like Savoie’s are the way to go in this complex, bustling city. Hitch your star to historian Bruce Bell for a whirl through the St. Lawrence Market, established in 1803. Bell calls this two-building complex bisected by Front Street “the birthplace of the city of Toronto.” The north building now hosts a Saturday farmers’ market and, on Sundays, sells antiques. The south building, from 1845 to 1899 the site of Toronto’s first permanent city hall (and a jail that was, for a time, crammed with suffragettes), houses the current market.

Start your St. Lawrence Market day with a local favourite, the peameal bacon sandwich from 30-year-old Carousel Bakery. Once upon a time, boneless loins of pork were cut horizontally into ribs, cured in brine in oak barrels, then rolled in crushed yellow peas to preserve them, but the peas would eventually go rancid. One clever butcher substituted yellow cornmeal, and – bada-bing! – that’s the way it’s been ever since. Carousel sears its bacon on a griddle, loads thick slices of it into a tender Portuguese sourdough bun, and offers you a choice of condiments from nearby vendor Anton Kozlik’s Canadian Mustard. Choose the Amazing Maple Mustard (with horseradish) and you’ll be hooked, its silky, spicy sweetness perfectly elevating the salty, grainy heft of the pork. (Other flavours at Kozlik’s, established in 1948, include Lime & Honey and Triple Crunch.)

Close by, check out the many-splendoured snacks at Olympic Food & Cheese Mart (est. 1962), and, if you’ve got a kitchen where you’re staying, consider picking up some frozen kangaroo and wild boar sliders at White House Meats, which sells musk ox rib eyes along with its Sunday roasts. Take a terrific cooking class in an unfamiliar cuisine like Filipino in the three-year-old Market Kitchen on the mezzanine level. Saturdays at 9 a.m. the kitchen presents a Food Tasting and History Show where chefs cook recipes using seasonal ingredients available downstairs.

Tourists can’t dine out forever on tales of what they ate. Luckily, friendly characters also populate the market. Our guide ushered my group downstairs to the stall named A Bisket, A Basket for a chat with owner Urs Aeby. In 2002, the late Pope John Paul II visited Toronto and happened to taste Aeby’s “home-made style” strawberry, lavender and merlot jam, one example of his creative flavour combinations. When the pope’s henchman phoned to order more, Aeby suspected the fellow was one of his wisenheimer friends.

“I don’t have any,” he told the caller. “I sold it all to the Dalai Lama.”

Eventually, the pope won out, and A Bisket, A Basket got boasting rights. Being located on the edge of Toronto’s Financial District has clearly rubbed off on Aeby, who, at the very least, pretends to be shrewd. “I can assure you that the moment he gets canonized, the price goes up.”

The Big Smoke’s reputation with Albertans for stodginess and arrogance clearly deserves to be deep-sixed. All hail Feast Central for its chatty merchants, intriguing neighbourhoods and stellar food scene.

Revel in the understated opulence of a guestroom in the Ritz Carlton. Then book the Chef’s Table in the hotel’s restaurant, TOCA, meet Chef Tom Brodi, and demolish seven or eight courses of dishes like BC crab stuffed into half a marrow bone with marrow foam.

Book into The Thompson, a modern hotel with a superb Italian restaurant, Scarpetta, featuring mind-boggling dishes like duck and foie gras ravioli.

Take “the world’s highest full-circle handsfree walk,” around the outside of the CN Tower, 356 metres above the ground.

Edgewalk’s witty guide escorts your group and gets you dangling over Toronto on a tether. Your entry fee includes photos and video. Afterward, or while your braver friends are outdoors, give in to the artistry of Executive Chef Peter George and drink in the view while dining at 360, the tower’s elegant revolving restaurant.

Toronto Lower Dive into a few bivalve mollusks at charming Starfish Oyster Bed & Grill, whose loquacious owner, Patrick McMurray, is a World Oyster Opening Champion.

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A Bisket, A Basket; Anton Kozlik’s Canadian Mustard; Carousel Bakery; Olympic Food & Cheese Mart; Market Kitchen; White House Meats; stlawrencemarket.com

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Experience Evergreen Brick Works, a community environmental centre that keeps urbanites in touch with their roots.

The site of a former brick factory located on the edge of a quarry, it includes a café in one of its 10 restored buildings, and offers guided walking tours and bicycle rentals for exploring the trails in the adjacent ravine.

Brick Works also hosts Toronto’s biggest farmers’ market on Saturdays, 9 a.m.-1 p.m.

www .m

Tour Steam Whistle Brewing, enjoying a pilsner at tour’s end.

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Bruce Bell Tours, brucebelltours.ca Cheese Boutique, cheeseboutique.com Edgewalk, edgewalkcntower.ca Ed’s Real Scoop, edsrealscoop.com Evergreen Brick Works, ebw.evergreen.ca Hooked, hookedinc.ca Leslieville Cheese Market & Fine Foods, leslievillecheese.com Olive & Olives, oliveolives.com Starfish Oyster Bed & Grill, starfishoysterbed.com Steam Whistle Brewing, steamwhistle.ca St. John’s Bakery, stjohnsbakery.com The Culinary Adventure Company (Chef Scott Savoie), culinaryadventures.com TOCA by Tom Brodi, Ritz-Carlton, tocarestaurant.com The Thompson, thompsonhotels.com Wine Rack, winerack.com ✤ Kate Zimmerman lives in Vancouver but now plans to visit Toronto a lot more often.

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CITYPALATE.ca MARCH APRIL 2012

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A Year on the Farm

story and photos by Dee Hobsbawn-Smith I stayed on the farm for three years. Then, as soon as I finished high school, I took off for the coast and professional cooking school. My brothers left in their turn. Our folks aged and began to wonder who would occupy the farmhouse when they retired.

Two years after their tentative proposal to me to take over the farm, I’m back on the Saskatchewan prairie, digging my own spuds, the sky as piercingly blue and the wind as insistent as they were when I was that bad-mannered teenager.

In July 2010, after three years of long-distance romance, my better half, Dave Margoshes, packs up his Regina apartment and I rent out my Calgary bungalow.

We move our belongings into the 100-year-old farmhouse where my mother and aunt were raised, where electricity didn’t brighten bulbs until the mid-‘50s. We haven’t come to farm, but to write. Dave, a former journalist (who worked at the Calgary Herald in the ‘80s), is an established writer of fiction and poetry, and I want to write more than recipes and food columns. Writing requires time and a degree of separateness – in Calgary, I couldn’t hear the natural world for the shouting of the city.

We are greeted by swarms of charming barn cats and Amigo, my folks’ lionlike but gentlemanly Great Pyrenees guard dog, who wouldn’t adapt to town living. The yard and nearby Gopher Hill resemble a graveyard for rusting cars and abandoned farm machinery. The greying barn and outbuildings are filled with remnants of previous generations. Dave and I shrug and begin to make the place our own. Our renovations are predictable – a half-kilometre gas-line to fuel my cooking stove, fresh paint and flooring, an updated bathroom, a new pipe for the cast-iron wood stove that keeps our large kitchen cozy. One sunny autumn day, I walk gingerly across the slippery roof, patching gaps in the shakes while Dave watches anxiously from the ground.

The pump, ensconced in its own building across the yard, still draws water from the sixty-five foot well. Until running water was installed in the mid-‘70s, my mother and grandmother – and even cranky me – hauled water in white enamel buckets that slowly corroded, becoming rust-red from the minerals in the water.

Now, as then, we watch our water usage, listening anxiously for the pump, trying to stay calm each month as we insert compressed air into the well, a tricky manoeuvre we’re finally getting used to. Water is our lifeline. It defines our first year in unforeseen ways.

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The farmhouse began modestly in 1910 as two granaries bolted together, with a basement beneath them and a long kitchen alongside.

My dad made rambling additions – bedrooms, a spacious upstairs studio, a glass-walled sun room.

The house, set half a kilometre from the washboard gravel Township Road 3072, is located in the dryland sand hills of central Saskatchewan – not hills as Albertans understand the term, but geography is relative. Our 18 acres occupy the base of the local watershed, and in April 2011, the barely noticeable 10-foot rise of the landscape rapidly becomes a salient issue.

After a week visiting my sons in Calgary, I drive my Beetle down the driveway toward the yard. It’s been a snowy winter after a rainy summer, and the high ridges of snow that line the drive are in full melt. I stop halfway, barred by water – the remainder of the driveway is submerged. So are most of the fields around our house and yard. I leave the car and climb through the barbed wire fence into our neighbour’s adjacent oat field, where Dave waits on a borrowed ATV. Now we live beside a brand-new 15-acre lake whose edge laps 40 feet from our house. Duckweed and cattails stitch the perimeter, and my boots crunch over countless black-shelled snails. Water comes to the very foot of the outbuildings and lies four feet deep in the hay barn. Stands of water-logged aspens blacken.

Access to the house remains a problem. For five months, until the water abates somewhat, we use our generous neighbour’s ATV to drive through the oat field.

We trade my low-slung Beetle and Dave’s city car for a high-stepping four-wheeldrive to take us through mud holes. The west driveway remains under the lake, so we revert to the original driveway – on land we no longer own.

We become bird watchers, and learn to identify the dozens of species of waterfowl who find our new landscape appealing–horned grebes in gold masks like Mardi Gras celebrants; blue-billed ruddy ducks; cranky coots who flap across the water like poorly tuned Evinrudes; Canada geese who arrive on wings like thunder. In May we’re serenaded by courting frogs, their voices like Phil Spector’s famous wall of sound, and in July, the dragonflies arrive in full force to hunt the mosquitoes. We set our picnic table beside the water’s edge for dinner, and at breakfast we drink our coffee on the sheltered deck with hummingbirds and chickadees for company.

Despite the challenges it poses, the water is an unexpected blessing. It inspires short stories and poems, and is a fixture in the novel I begin to write.

Each day, sitting in my second-storey studio, I study the birds in the south field as they dabble past my high-water mark, a rusty deserted Model A, its chassis covered, its windshield finally visible.

Life is oddly disjointed in some ways. My body now resides in Saskatchewan, but my head is still in Alberta, as I complete a book about my former home and its farmers. My sons, both professional cooks, remain in Calgary. The pangs of missing them stop me in my tracks from time to time.

Dining out in nearby Saskatoon involves a narrower selection of choices than Calgary offers, then a long drive home in the dark over rough roads. Mostly, we eat at home. In Calgary, I fed my sons locally-raised food. Here, my sourcing circle is even tighter. My beef comes from our neighbours’ animals that graze in the field adjacent to our lake, and the pork and chickens are raised 20 miles away. I learn how to use a smoker. I return to canning, and make sausages, breads, pasta, yogurt. I brine a brisket and make pastrami. Our pantry and freezer are filled with home-cured bacon, smoked sausages, raspberry vinegar, asparagus pickles, rhubarb jam. We eat porchetta on chard agrodolce, sandwiches on home-made bread with house-smoked bacon, and short rib ravioli on relish made with my grandmother’s recipe and my garden’s vegetables.

My garden is in the same south-facing spot where my grandmother and my mother hoed corn and spuds. My mother tells me my granddad grazed cattle on this patch in the early days. “It has a bed of manure down there this deep,” she says, holding her hands a couple of feet apart. I use a John Deere garden tractor to till it, then plant my rows too closely, accustomed to the pocket handkerchief garden that lapped my front deck in northwest Calgary. When quackgrass and chickweed threaten to overrun the chard and potatoes, I turn to my farmer friends for advice.

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As I write, borscht burbles on the stove. It reminds me that it’s time to harvest the last of the beets. More than any other vegetable, beets taste of the earth, their mineral richness a reflection of the place where Dave and I now live. Most days, I count the costs we’ve paid to live here as worthwhile. I’ve become a full-time writer, with fiction and poetry in print, and manuscripts in process. I miss my sons and my friends, but not city life. Country living is not cheaper than life in town –we pay a premium for our utilities, and a steep travel charge for any service that requires on-farm attention. Our life is quieter, slower, and I walk each morning to the edge of the lake to study the world.

Deer thread their way from the south pasture to the north each evening, and our cat and dog are enthusiastic explorers despite the swooping shadow of a great horned owl and the coyote songs that surround us at night. The sky and landscape are vast and silent. After a busy urban life, living under the swathe of Saskatchewan stars is another kind of gift. ✤ Dee Hobsbawn-Smith is a poet, writer and chef. Her latest book, Foodshed: An Edible Alberta Alphabet, will be published in spring 2012. Visit her at curiouscook.net

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In late summer, we welcome Julia Spitale and Shera Kelly, young musicians travelling with videographer Jessica Gates on a cross-Canada sustainable farm concert tour dubbed the “Wheely Slow Cooking Tour.” During their outdoor concert, we have a chance to observe our lake and land through the appreciative eyes of their audience, our potluck dinner guests.

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CITYPALATE.ca MARCH APRIL 2012

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one ingredient Peanut butter continued from page 19

The Quintessential Peanut Butter Cookie This is both the simplest and the most delicious peanut butter cookie you’ll ever eat. It doesn’t contain flour, so there’s nothing to dilute its peanut buttery flavour. Three ingredients produce a velvety, melt-in-your-mouth texture.

1 - 1/2 c. peanut butter 1 c. sugar (white, brown or half and half) 1 large egg white

casually elegant. uniquely vintage. distinctly canadian.

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Preheat the oven to 350°F. In a medium bowl, stir together the peanut butter, sugar and egg white; the mixture will be pasty at first, but the more you stir the thicker it will become. Stir until well blended and thick enough to roll into balls. Roll the dough into 1-inch balls and place an inch or two apart on an ungreased baking sheet. Press down on each cookie with the tines of a fork in a crisscross pattern. Bake the cookies for 12 minutes, or until just set and pale golden around the edges. With a thin spatula, transfer them to a wire rack to cool. Makes about 2 dozen cookies.

1/4 c. canola or mild vegetable oil 1/4 c. peanut butter 2 T. brown sugar 2 T. soy sauce 2 T. rice vinegar or lime juice 1-2 t. grated fresh ginger 1-2 garlic cloves, minced

2 c. cold cooked spaghetti or Asian noodles

1 T. canola or olive oil

2 chopped green onions

1 T. butter

1/4 c. chopped fresh cilantro

1 onion, peeled and chopped

toasted sesame seeds or chopped peanuts, for garnish

1/4 c. balsamic vinegar 1 - 2 T. chili powder 1 t. cumin

Slaw: 2-3 c. thinly sliced green cabbage (or bagged coleslaw) 1 small red pepper, seeded and thinly sliced 1 carrot, coarsely grated

Shake all the dressing ingredients together in a jar. (You can do this any time, and store it in the fridge.) Toss the noodles, cabbage and veggies of your choice together, toss the salad with the dressing, sprinkle with sesame seeds or chopped peanuts, and serve. Serves 4.

1 t. freshly ground black pepper

Quick Peanut Butter Beef Curry

1 t. hot sauce or finely chopped chiles in adobo

1 boneless steak, about 3/4 lb., cut into bitesized pieces or strips

4 c. chicken stock

canola or olive oil, for cooking

1 medium dark-fleshed sweet potato, peeled and diced

3 garlic cloves, minced

1 c. smooth peanut butter finely chopped cilantro and/or peanuts, for garnish (optional)

CITYPALATE.ca MARCH APRIL 2012

Dressing:

I love a creamy peanut soup. I liked a version from Cook: You Can Cook Fast, Healthy Meals for Your Family, by Deborah Anzinger, but thought it needed a little more substance in the form of sweet potato. Use the darker-fleshed kind for a bigger beta-carotene hit.

1/4 c. ketchup

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Peanut sauce has long been popular as a dip for rice paper rolls, satay and other Asian finger foods, as well as a dressing for peanut noodles. Turns out, it makes a great crunchy slaw dressing, too. This makes use of leftover cooked spaghetti or other noodles. Use any kind of veg you have on hand, like pea pods, jicama, steamed broccoli or asparagus.

pinch red pepper flakes (optional)

1 28 oz. can diced tomatoes

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Crunchy Peanut Noodle Slaw

Spicy Sweet Potato Peanut Soup

4 - 5 garlic cloves, crushed

11 Calgary loCations inCluding nEW storEs at aspEn landing and Chinook CEntrE

These recipes are on our website

In a soup pot, heat the oil and butter over medium-high heat. When the foam subsides, add the onion and cook for 4 to 5 minutes, until soft. Add the garlic and cook for another minute or two. Add the tomatoes, ketchup, vinegar, chili powder, cumin, pepper and hot sauce or chiles and cook for another 3 to 4 minutes. Add the stock and sweet potato and bring the soup to a simmer. Cook it for 20 to 30 minutes, until the potatoes are very tender. Add the peanut butter and purée the soup with a hand-held immersion blender (or in batches in a regular blender) until it’s as smooth or chunky as you like. Bring it to a simmer and cook until slightly thickened.

Serve hot, topped with cilantro and/or peanuts.

Serves 4 to 6.

2 t. curry paste (or to taste) a big spoonful of peanut butter half of a 14 oz. can of coconut milk

Pat the beef dry with a paper towel and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Add a drizzle of oil to a large, heavy skillet set over medium-high heat.

Brown the meat well, but don’t worry about cooking it completely through. Transfer it to a plate. Add the garlic and curry paste to the pan, then the peanut butter and coconut milk. Stir to blend and melt the peanut butter, scraping up any browned bits from the bottom of the pan.

Cook the sauce for a minute or two, until well blended and thickened, then return the beef to the pan and heat through, simmering a little longer if the beef is still too pink inside. Serve immediately, over rice. Serves 2 to 4.

feeding people continued from page 21 Nan Eskenazi Good Earth Cafés I make frequent trips to Seattle and one of the best things I ever eat is a variation of Hangtown Fry. My favourite variation is a blend of the traditional Hangtown Fry and a Joe’s Special – scrambled eggs with bacon, spinach, a little tabasco, and, best of all, oysters!

From Codfish to Custard Tarts: Portugal’s contributions to the world’s cuisines. continued from page 37 When in Portugal’s two largest cities, the following are dining must-dos.

A Hangtown Fry consists of fried oysters, eggs and fried bacon cooked together like an omelet. In the California gold-mining camps of the late 1800s, Hangtown Fry was a one-skillet meal for hungry miners who struck it rich. They had plenty of gold to spend on live oysters brought to the gold fields in barrels of sea water after being gathered in and around San Francisco Bay. A few drinks and a Hangtown Fry were considered a gentleman’s evening.

LISBON 1. Restaurante Bonjardim at Travessa

A Joe’s Special is a frittata made with eggs, ground beef and spinach, and according to some, was devised by a San Francisco chef as a variation on the Italian frittata. Others attribute the dish to miners who frequented the city’s riotous Barbary Coast district in the 1850s. I love that these dishes have good stories to tell and they’re good comfort food. What could be better?

3. Restaurante O Filho de Menino

Patrick Dunn

InterCourse Chef Services The best thing I ate in 2011 was a dinner at the home of my close friend, Tai Graham. I brought over some lamb chops I picked up at Second to None Meats to add to her stash of lamb from TK Ranch.

We marinated it overnight in orange juice, gin, garlic and herbs. We browned the lamb on the stove, before finishing it in the oven. The sauce for the lamb took her two days to make, but man-oh-man, was the effort worth the reward. She used an Emeril Lagasse recipe for a classic demi glace along with components from about six other recipes she found online, added some of her own touches and made the most incredible citrus-infused sauce I’ve ever tasted.

The lamb was accompanied by roasted root vegetables, and Tai’s delicate chevre-polenta cakes, which are always light and fluffy when they come out of the oven. When we sat down to dinner, I took a couple of bites and had that rare “Oh my God! This is one of the best meals I’ve ever had” reaction. Tai has one of the best palates of anyone I know. To this day, she loves telling the story of how a professionally trained SAIT and Cordon Bleu chef got his taste buds blown away that night!

de Santo Antão 11, for wonderful piripiri chicken in a restaurant frequented mostly by locals.

2. Antiga Confeitaria de Belém, at Rua

de Belém 84. Only three people in the world know the secret recipe for these custard tarts, which are pumped out daily by the tens of thousands to meet demand. Eat them fresh – they don’t taste the same the next day.

Júlio dos Caracóis, Rua Vale Formoso de Cima 140 – B, for hot, garlicky caracóis. These tiny snails are cooked in the shell and served by the platter along with toast and beer, during the May to September season. Locals consume about 4,000 tons every year.

Slurped right out of the shell or coaxed out with a toothpick, the snails have the texture of cooked mushrooms and are really delicious. It helps knowing they’re actually classified as mollusks, like clams or squid, but if you’re still squeamish about eating them, do what I do and avoid eye contact.

PORTO 1. Solar do Vinho do Porto, Rua de

Entre-Quintas, 220. Best place in town to watch the sunset and enjoy sweeping views over the Douro River, with a glass of port or a port-based cocktail.

2. Cufra, Avenida da Boavista 2504.

Split the francesinha with a friend; for dessert, try the natas do céu, or “heavenly cream,” a confection of egg yolks, cream and crushed biscuits.

3. Restaurante Shis, Praia do Ourigo,

Esplanada do Castelo. Built right below the boardwalk on the beach, you can watch the Atlantic waves crash only metres away from its floor-to-ceiling windows while you enjoy an extensive seafood menu. ✤ Barbara Balfour is a freelance journalist, editor and author who can be reached at barbarabalfour.com.

The Light Cellar Superfood Shop | Raw Chocolaterie & Elixir Bar | Teaching Kitchen

ORGANIC fair trade Authentic Living BULK ingredients raw nuts & seeds CACAO exotic dried fruits and berries

seaweeds & algaes Vanilla Beans TONIC herbs & teas unique ferments & raw HONEYS superfood powders

May You Be Nourished with Light 6326 Bowness Road NW

thelightcellar.ca

visit our website for current classes and events

403 453 1343

CITYPALATE.ca MARCH APRIL 2012

45

Eating Rome

continued from page 38

This near-orgasmic experience was followed with a stop at Enoteca Cul de Sac on Piazza Pasquino. The menu features snacks like sausage, paté and cheese, but the restaurant’s main claim to fame is a 1,500-bottle wine list. It’s a rustic, laid-back place, ideal for whiling away a drizzly afternoon. openbaladin.com, enotecaculdesac.com.

Vatican City The Vatican is a must-see. St. Peter’s Basilica is glorious and the Vatican Museum’s collection is astonishing, crowned by the Sistine Chapel with its famous ceiling by Michelangelo. After we’d soaked up culture and art for hours, our feet told us to take a load off. Since we hadn’t researched restaurants in the area, we sat ourselves in the vast outdoor patio of a close-at-hand pub for pizza and beer. The food was just OK. We later learned there are better restaurants on side streets near the Vatican.

Trastevere South of Vatican City, this is one funky neighbourhood where we found unique shopping and great food. While nibbling panini from a tiny sandwich bar on the main drag, we were treated to a parade of 200 Ferraris – most of them red – complete with police escort.

Later, craving good food and beverages, we stumbled into the first little restaurant we encountered and it turned out to be another gastronomic highlight – Conte di Montecristo, a family-run affair on Vicolo dei Bologna. With sunflower-yellow walls and a homey atmosphere, this sweet little place served sautéed cheesestuffed squash blossoms, house-made pasta, braised radicchio in aged balsamic, and risotto with crisp spring vegetables. ilcontedimontecristo.com Before flying home Rome’s busy Leonardo da Vinci Airport is located in the town of Fiumicino, 30 minutes from Rome. If you have an early morning flight, consider spending the night at one of the town’s handy hotels, many of which are located right on the Mediterranean. The sheltered beaches are glorious and we ate a sumptuous seafood salad at BiBiKiu, a beachside bar and restaurant. We moved on to spaghetti with mixed seafood in tomato sauce, a dish of lobster ravioli, then scampi. Can’t have too much seafood, I say. So much for self-restraint.

The last word Although it’s walkable and friendly, Rome is also wild and chaotic, utter sensory overload. Its traffic is noisy and constant, the buzz of conversation is everywhere. Crossing a street can be daunting and restaurant hours puzzling.

Never mind. Take good walking shoes, a sense of adventure, a sense of humour, and a huge appetite. Ahhh... la dolce vita!

Tips from our travels • The water spouts located throughout the city – a legacy from ancient Roman aqueducts – provide cool drinking water. Take a water bottle and fill it frequently.

Don’t fill it from the fountains – it’s illegal and the water’s unhealthy.

• In trattorias and other high-end restaurants, the bill usually includes gratuities (it will say so on the menu), so tipping is not required.

• Your main dish, whether it’s meat, poultry or seafood, comes by itself on the plate with no veg or salad. Order those separately.

• Don’t be surprised if your pizza comes unsliced. Eat it with your knife and fork.

• When eating alfresco, you’ll be a target for buskers who troll the streets. If you make eye contact or give them a nod, they’ll come over to serenade your table, then expect to be paid. If you don’t want to shell out a few Euros, just wave them away.

• You’ll probably get a breakfast at your hotel, but you could do it the Italian way, standing at a snack bar counter, espresso in one hand, pastry in the other. You pay more for sitting at a table versus standing at the counter.

• It’s a long stretch from breakfast to a lunch that starts about 1:30 – hence the plethora of snack bars. When you’re hungry, stop for a coffee, wine or beer and a salad or small sandwich. And gelato, of course. Many stores and services close during the afternoon, so you won’t miss anything by lingering over lunch.

• Like lunch, dinner usually takes place later than you might be accustomed to.

Restaurants open about 6, but the party doesn’t really get going until about 8, and we ate as late as 9:30. After dinner, take a leisurely stroll back home and call it a night.

www.unapizzeria.com

• Follow your nose and wander into a salumeria, essentially a deli specializing in sausage, cured meats, cheeses and such. Ask questions. Even if your Italian is rusty (or non-existent) you can usually make yourself understood, and most deli owners are happy to give samples. ✤ When in Rome, Holly Quan has her priorities straight: café to trattoria to bar. Coliseum? What Coliseum?

46

CITYPALATE.ca MARCH APRIL 2012

Go Your Own Way with Co-op Travel

Wine River Cruise

A Calgary Co-op Travel exclusive, hosted by a Co-op Sommelier

SEPTEMBER 22 - 29, 2013

From Avignon to Chalon-sur-Saone Ô on the Viking Europe, cruising the wine growing areas Paris of Southern France. Learn about wines as you explore the historic sites, villages and foods of SEINE Provence. Join us for private wine tours, tastings and culinary experiences FRANCE Dijonjust for Calgary Co-op guests.

Beaune Chalon-sur-Saône

Starting from

SAÔNE

Paris SEINE

Tournon

FRANCE

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Dijon

3619* RHÔNE

Specialty spirits and beer also offered

per person

RHÔNE

Viviers Cruise Beaune If you add the Paris extension, Avignon transfer from Paris to Chalon. Chalon-sur-Saône SAÔNE Nice Monaco Arles Cannes Marseille

Tournon Cruise If you add the Paris extension, transfer from Paris to Chalon.

N

Lyon Vienne

Lyon Vienne

Join Nicco and his international staff for exceptional service as they globetrot you through the wine world at Eau Claire Wine Market

RHÔNE

Viviers toRHÔNE Avignon Chalon

X

8-day cruise with 6 guided tours

Complimentary

Wine

Avignon Nice Monaco Arles Cannes Marseille

2012 Portraits of Southern France 2013 DAY

DESTINATION

1 2

Avignon Arles

ACTIVITIES

DAY DESTINATION ACTIVITIES Complimentary Avignon to Chalon X 8-day cruise with 6 guided tours Embark your Viking ship, free time 5 Vienne Walking tour featuring Temple ofWine Augustus & Livia Walking tour featuring Les Arènes & St. Trophîme, a UNESCO Site; afternoon at leisure 6 Saône River Cruising France’s Burgundy region 3 Avignon Guided walk featuring Pont d’Avignon & Lyon Tour of city, a UNESCO Site, with guided walk guided tour of Palace of the Popes, a UNESCO through Vieux Lyon; evening at leisure Site; free time or optional winery tour 7 Beaune Burgundy wine route excursion featuring Hôtel 4 Tournon Tain L’Hermitage excursion with wine tasting Dieu with wine tasting; afternoon at leisure DAY DESTINATION ACTIVITIES DAY DESTINATION ACTIVITIES Viviers Evening guided walk through Old Town 8 Chalon-sur-Saône Disembark your Viking ship 1 Avignon Embark your Viking ship, free time 5 Vienne Walking tour featuring Temple of Augustus & Livia 2 Arles Walking tour featuring Les Arènes & St. Trophîme, a UNESCO Site; afternoon at leisure 6 Saône River Cruising France’s Burgundy region Road . . . . .Guided . . . . . 403 299-4370 Crowfoot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Lyon . . 403 - 216-4500 Trail Crossing . . . . . . walk 403 - 257-7247 3Richmond Avignon walk -featuring Pont d’Avignon & Tour of South city, a UNESCO Site, with guided Palace of the Popes, a UNESCO . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 403 - 299-4130 through Vieux Lyon; evening at leisure Oakridge . . . . . . . . . . . .guided . . . . . tour 403of - 299-5316 Shawnessy time- 299-4401 or optional winery tour Burgundy wine route Hôtel Village Square . . . . . . .Site; . . . .free . 403 Hamptons . . . . . . .7 . . . . . . Beaune . . 403 - 299-5414 Toll Free . . . excursion . . . . . . . .featuring . . . . . . . 1-800-360-3572 4 Tournon Tain L’Hermitage excursion with wine tasting Dieu with wine tasting; afternoon at leisure Viviers Evening guided walk through Old Town 8 Chalon-sur-Saône Disembark your Viking ship

2012 Portraits of Southern France 2013 Join us for Calgary Co-op Travel's Exclusive Wine Cruise

Join us for Calgary Co-op Travel’s www.calgarycoop.com/travel Our Exclusive cruise to the wine growing area of Southern France will be hosted by a Exclusive Calgary Co-op Sommelier.

Learn aboutWine wines asCruise you explore the historic sites, villages, and foods of Provence.

Join us for Calgary Co-op Travel's Exclusive Wine Cruise Our Exclusive cruise to the wine growing areas of Southern France will be

Join us for Calgary Co-op Travel’s

We set sail September 22-29, 2013 from Avignon to Chalon-sur-Saône

*Terms and conditions apply.

tel 403-262-9463 eauclairewine@shaw.ca

Just inside the Eau Claire Mall southwest entrance across from the Sheraton

CITYPALATE.ca MARCH APRIL 2012

47

stockpot Stirrings around Calgary

restaurant ramblings

The Real Italian Experience Full Specialty Grocery Line In-store Bakery Deli Meats & Cheeses Salad Bar ~ Antipasti ~ Olives Imported Olive Oils & Balsamics Fresh Produce Cappuccino & Dessert Bar In-store hot & cold lunches Home made take home dinners Ceramics and Kitchenware Catering & Gift Baskets

Good food, Good wine, Good friends...that’s Boccavino!

Full menu including: Antipasti & Our Signature Rosticini Pasta Risotti Seafood Authentic Pizza Veal Dishes Chicken & Steak dishes

All day Happy Hour Sundays & Mondays 2202 Centre Street NE 403.277.9166 www.linasmarket.com

2220 Centre Street NE (beside Lina’s Italian Market)

403.276.2030

www.boccavino.com

n Look for an April opening of the charmingly rustic Cibo, a casual restaurant that moves into the massively renovated space that was once Roger’s Video on 17th Ave. SW, between 9th and 10th streets. Cibo is a sister to Bonterra Trattoria, and its well-respected chef Glen Manzer will take charge of the Cibo kitchen. We also happen to know that a fave young chef, Charity Mann, winner of City Palate’s 2011 culinary travel grant, will be working in Cibo’s kitchen with Manzer. All good. Look for pizza, pasta, salads, entrées and desserts, food geared as much to families as to late-night diners. n Toscana Italian Grill serves traditional Italian food and wine. Starting in March, look for “A Taste of Italy,” a monthly wine-tasting event accompanied by delicious Tuscan antipasti. Check it out at 8330 Macleod Tr. SE at Heritage Dr., 403-255-1212, toscanagrill.ca. n Monroe Grill & Lounge, 308-1919 Sirocco Dr. SW, was inspired by Chef/ Owner Jad Kashour’s roots in Lebanon, in an area named Monroe that was always lively even after being damaged by war. The menu includes wood-fired pizzas, hand-crafted burgers, salads and seasonal seafood, all featuring signature Mediterranean flavours and seasonings.

Visit monroegrillandlounge.com or call 403-246-5353. n Saturday night family-style dinner at Franca’s Italian Specialties: her family fixes it, you eat it, and you have a glass of wine, too. Franca Flaviano’s family cooks a different four-course menu every Saturday night and all you have to do is reserve, show up, sit down and enjoy.

Look for the likes of fettucine alla toscana, chicken and mushrooms in white wine, eggplant parmigiana and tiramisu. All this for $39.95. Reserve at 403-277-0766, 3811 Edmonton Tr. NE.

Ever wonder what else is out there?

Find unique and exciting wines at J. Webb Wine Merchant.

n A new Grumans Catering and Delicatessen opened in February at 230-11th Ave. SE (403-261-9003). Look for all the great favourites from the original delicatessen and a few new Jewish deli offerings: mom’s chopped chicken liver, chicken matzo ball soup, slow-roasted beef brisket, potato knishes and so much more. Private parties and catered events in the evenings and on Sundays. n Crepe Avenue in Kensington, 330-10th St. NW, has a new spring menu featuring the Phad Thai Crepe. Crepe claims it is the only place in Calgary to make this authentic Thai crepe, so you need to check it out. The sour, sweet and salty tastes are a perfect combination.

330-10th Street NW, 403-452-6160.

J .Web b Wine Me rch ant Glenmore Landing: 90th Ave. and 14th St. SW Casel Marché: 24th St. and 17th Ave. SW (45 minute free underground parking)

w w w. j w e b b . n e t

48

CITYPALATE.ca MARCH APRIL 2012

Uncorking delicious since 1985.

n If you haven’t discovered it yet, stop into the sleek and sexy new TYN Lounge/The Yellow Nectarine, 815 - 8th Ave. SW. Good energy, great lighting and very fun contemporary food from chef Brent Taddeo: duck confit poutine, house-made potato, beet and yam

chips, thin-crust pizza, smoked brisket and smoked pulled pork sandwiches, Noble Farm duck breast, Broek Acres pork chop – good food, imaginatively executed.

Sax and the City with Oliver Miguel on Thursday nights. A fun place, check it out. n Coming events at Craft Beer Market include 100 Beers for 100 Years, countdown to the Stampede Centennial. Book with Janad@craftbeermarket.ca. Don’t miss the monthly Brewmasters Dinner, March 27. Tickets and event details, visit craftbeermarket.ca.

Patricia Koyich, owner of Il Sogno, has taken a teaching postition at SAIT in the Highwood Dining Room as instructor of Hospitality Management! She joins a great team of talented chefs that SAIT has scooped from our restaurants. She says: “After having my own restaurant, this was my second ‘dream job.’” We wish her well and congratulate Il Sogno on 12 successful and delicious years.

wine wanderings n Celebrate fine wine, premium spirits, good beer and gourmet food in Banff at the Rocky Mountain Wine & Food Festival, Fairmont Banff Springs, May 4 and 5. For tickets, events and hotel packages, visit rockymountainwine.com. n Explore the world of wine with sommelier Laurie MacKay: Wines of the Mediterranean, March 6; California Dreaming - Wines from Napa & Sonoma Valleys, Mar. 22; Viva Italy in a Glass, April 13; Canadian Wines 101, April 26; Old World versus New World Wines, May 1. Travel & Study: Epicurean California, June 21-26; Wine Tour of the Okanagan, October 19-21. For more information, or to register, visit liveabetterlife.ca or call 403-410-1546. n Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra presents Cork & Canvas: Vintage Wine Tasting, March 6, Beer is the New Wine, March 8, High Tea, March 10, La Chaumière lunch, March 14, The Art of Whisky, March 21, and Wine Makers’ Dinner & Auction, March 31. Tastings at Willow Park Wines & Spirits. Tickets at 403-571-0849, cpo-live.com. n Calgary Co-op’s Grape Escape, a Wine, Spirits and Beer Festival, March 23 and 24, 5-9 p.m., BMO Centre, Stampede Park.

Taste products from all over the world and check out the culinary talent from Escoba Bistro at the cooking stage. Tickets at all Co-op Wines & Spirits locations. n Don’t miss The Big Taste, Calgary’s Dining Festival, March 2-12, an 11-day fling of culinary temptations, classes, wine tastings and other events. Check it all out at bigtastecalgary.com.

whisky wanderings n The Scotch Malt Whisky Society got its start in Scotland to celebrate and bottle only single cask, single malt whisky from more than 125 distilleries. When a particular bottling is sold out, it’s gone forever.

Calgarians Rob and Kelly Carpenter launched the Canadian branch of the Society, with Kensington Wine Market its exclusive retailer. KWM hosts “First Fridays” on the first Friday of every month where members and those interested in joining can sample the Society’s new monthly releases. Get more information at smws.ca or by emailing curious@smws.ca.

cooking classes n Catch & The Oyster Bar: exec chef Kyle Groves offers a taste of his culinary talents at his cooking classes. March 24, Oysters Rockefeller, BC spot prawns with dill gnocchi, BC ling cod with navy bean cassoulet; April 21, mussels, Dungeness crab cakes, miso-glazed halibut, noon to 3 p.m. Exec pastry chef Karine Moulin teaches how to “bake like a pro” with baking classes: St. Patrick’s Day Specialties, March 17; Easter Specialties, April 7. Learn how to make home-made marshmallows! To book, phone 403-206-0000 or go to catchrestaurant.ca for details and to book online. n The Compleat Cook small-group classes: Date Night, Around the World Series (Germany, Spain, South America, African Nations/Mediterranean), Flavours of India, A World of Curry and Stir Fry – Fast & Fresh. Call 403-253-4831 to register or visit compleatcook.ca for all the tasty details. n Atco Blue Flame Kitchen Learning Centre: Lunch ‘n’ Learn Demonstrations, including grains, pizza, Easter classics, Tapas, Mexican, Grilling, Thai and Spring Salads; Hands-on Cooking Classes,

including, In the Bakeshop, Chef’s Table – French Twist, Beyond the Basics – Pasta & Gnocchi, Chef’s Table – Authentic Italian.

For full details, phone 403-245-7630 or visit atcoblueflamekitchen.com. n At The Cookbook Co. Cooks: Off the Menu of Alloy with Metrovino, Couples Cooking Classes, Steakhouse Favourites, A Turkish Menu, Gnocchi Making, Vegetarian Cooking, Cake Decorating, Jamaican Reggae Party, Breadmaking Workshops, An Ethiopian Menu, Knife Skills... and much more. Visit cookbookcooks.com for a full calendar. n The Start From Scratch program – that debuted as “Kick the KD” in 2010 – that provides free cooking lessons to post-secondary students in hopes of improving their eating habits, just celebrated its first anniversary. Calgary Co-op, a major partner in the cooking initiative, presented a cheque for $500 to the University of Calgary’s food bank on behalf of the founder of the initiative, Dan Clapson (dansgoodside.com), and his cooking partner, Jacinthe Koddo (foodwithpresence.com). It started at U of C and has now spread to Mt. Royal University. For more information on Start From Scratch, visit startfromscratch.ca. n At Sunterra Market Keynote: spring cooking classes highlight global flavours and sweet seasonal fruits. Try the Italian, Thai or Australian wine pairing classes, or get a taste of the tropics in Lunch ‘n’ Learn featuring Maui ribs or Hawaiian luau classes. For details and to register, visit sunterramarket.com and click on “what’s new” or call 403-263-9759.

general stirrings n Check out the chocolate Easter eggs at the Italian Supermarket, corner of Edmonton Tr. and 20th Ave. NE. Delicious, high-quality dark chocolate eggs contain a toy – for the kid in all of us! n At Savour Fine Foods in Inglewood, you will find the Hibiscus Vinegar from Rozendal in South Africa that won the SOFI Gold. The SOFI awards are the Oscars of the food industry that recognize outstanding foods and beverages.

Also look for Lavender Vinegar and Green Tea Vinegar. The hibiscus is infused with hibiscus, rose hip, elderflower and vanilla bean, it’s hand-crafted by a small winery and aged in oak for 12 years. Yum! At 1331-9th Ave. SE. n Kingsland Farmers’ Market Hosts Joel Salatin, known as “The Most Influential Farmer in America. It’s a workshop on how to make your small farm more ethical, profitable and integrated with your community. Tickets available at 403-255-3276 – check the website for dates. kingslandfarmersmarket.com. n The hunt for a delicious but effortless Easter ends at Sunterra. The four-course, fully-prepared meal of Carrot and Ginger Soup, Birchwood-smoked Spiral Ham, Herb-Crusted Salmon, Lemon Pepper Yams and rich Carrot Cake tastes of rare treasure. Find it at sunterramarket.com, $21.99 per person.

continued on page 50

Visit Brian’s place for:

FRESH FISH & SEAFOOD Chef-prepared meals to finish at home, including: fish pie sCallop pie loBster thermidor stuffed salmon CraB Cakes salmon Burgers shepherd’s pie

staples for home cooking:

Looking for the best food out of the blue? Visit Brian Plunkett at Blu SEAFOOD & MARkEt. And with two blu locations, Brian’s getting even easier to find!

ORIgInAl lOcAtIOn:

meat and poultry ValBella sausage and pâté sylVan star Cheese BrassiCa mustard Blue kettle dressings, sauCes and dips oils, Vinegars & speCialty salts

510 - 77 avenue se | 403.775.7055

cucina italiana lunch • dinner • before theatre • after theatre

more yummy things like: gourmet-to-go gluten-free produCts

9675 Macleod trail S. (Brick Plaza, on the west side of Macleod between Southland and Heritage) In tHE cAlgARy FARMER’S MARkEt:

PREGO’S

Taste the tradition Eau Claire Market On the 2nd level

SEAFOOD & MARKET

403-233-7885

www.bluesea.ca CITYPALATE.ca MARCH APRIL 2012

49

Join us

To celebrate Jennifer Cockrall-Kings’ new book, we’re hosting an exciting free event, with food, wine and a GLoBaL Garden-hoPPinG sLideshow tour! the City Food and

Urban Agriculture and the New Food Revolution

Book Launch Party

Thursday, March 29th, 6:30 pm, at:

The Cookbook Co. Cooks 722 - 11th Avenue SW 403-265-6066, ext 1 While researching her book Jennifer Cockrall-King visited five countries to get a wide-angle view of how forward-thinking cities are relocalizing their food.

Join her for a discussion and global garden-hopping slideshow tour of community gardens in Paris, commercial urban farms in Havana, rooftop veggies above a grocery store in London, Calgary’s community orchard pilot program, Toronto’s urban fruit rescue outfits, SPIN farming in Kelowna, urban beekeeping in Toronto and the world’s first vertical farm in Chicago.

Jennifer Cockrall-King is an Edmonton food writer with a serious fascination for finding food growing in cities. She blogs at foodgirl.ca, and writes for various national magazines and food pages.

stockpot continued from page 49 n Inspirati, fine European linens, is now at its new location at 103, 2115-4th St. SW. It was formerly located in the Devonish building, you will recall. Check out all that is beautiful for bed and bath, kitchen and dining, including Busatti linens and linen purses from Italy. Inspirati is the exclusive retailer for Busatti. n Find this friendly cleaning product – Cinderella’s Organic Housekeeping from Nelson, BC – at Amaranth, Community Natural, Sunnyside Market, Blush Lane, Muttley Crew and Calgary Farmers’ Market. It’s organic, biodegradable and fair trade, and comes in pleasant orange and lavender scents. It really works too, replaces all household cleaners and is safe for humans and pets. n Karen Anderson of Calgary Food Tours and Indus Travels offer a two-week getaway to Kerala, India, in November.

Visits to food markets, tea gardens, organic spice gardens, hands-on cooking demonstrations with local teaching

experts, cultural evenings and festive cookouts balanced with daily yoga, visits to ayurvedic spas, treks in nature preserves and time for rejuvenation in luxurious accommodation in Kerala’s famous “backwaters” and Arabian Sea beaches. Visit calgaryfoodtours.com for booking info. n Calgary Food Tours presents a Greek Girls Night Out, March 16, including sensuous Greek food and wine pairings by Dwayne and Alberta Ennest at Vue Café in the Virginia Christopher Gallery, the rollicking fun of belly dancing lessons with Minya, a champagne reception, dessert at intermission and the best seats for Theatre Calgary’s soul-reviving production of Shirley Valentine. OPA! Tickets @ calgaryfoodtours.com. n Amaranth Whole Foods Stores, upcoming health and wellness series.

Topics include: An Alkaline Body, BrainFood, Digestion & Food Intolerance, Road Bumps in Weight Loss, and Going Gluten Free. Go to amaranthfoods.ca and click on “Spring to Health Invitation” for northwest location

,000POURED 90 6 OUTSTANDING EVENTS

GLASSES

1 incredible orchestra

Vintage Wine Tasting

Tuesday, March 6 – 7pm Tickets $60

Beer is the New Wine est. 1963

Thursday, March 8 – 7pm Tickets $45

High Tea

Saturday, March 10 – 2pm Tickets $50

...from our family to yours

Wednesday, March 14 – 12pm Tickets $95

The Art of Whisky

AL

La Chaumière Luncheon

FEST

IV

Wednesday, March 21 – 7pm Tickets $60 Hot lunches Monday to Saturday Woodburning pizza oven Thurs, Fri, Sat, Sun 11:30–4pm

Winemakers’ Dinner & Auction

Saturday, March 31 – 6:30pm Tickets $195

Get ready for Easter...

We’ve got chocolate Easter eggs from Italy, in a variety of colours and sizes.

403.277.7898 I 265 20 Avenue NE italiansupermarket.com

50

CITYPALATE.ca MARCH APRIL 2012

TICKETS · 403.571.0849 · cpo-live.com

lectures or “Words on Wellness Invitation” for southeast location lectures. n Look for delicious Farchioni DOP Umbria extra-virgin olive oil at Market 17, Sunterra, Community Natural, Springbank Cheese Marda Loop, Lina’s Italian Market and Cookbook Co. Also look for these other denomination-controlled olive oils: IGP Toscano, DOP Puglia, Liguria and Valli Trapanesi. They’re very good. n Learn how to brew your own beer at the hands-on Big Rock Brewing Workshops. Four weeks after the course is finished, you can pick up a sample of beer that you brewed, transforming you from a beer drinker to brewmaster!

Workshops take place in the Big Rock Interpretive Brewery at Heritage Park Historical Village on March 8, April 12 and 26, May 24, June 7 and 21. Pre-register by calling 403-268-8500. Last year’s workshops sold out quickly. For more information, visit heritagepark.ca. n Oh Naturals Inc. of Calgary, makers of affordable, healthy, tasty snacks,

AROUND THE WORLD

introduces flavoured banana chips in chocolate, melon, strawberry and vanilla.

The banana chips can be found in bulk at Safeway and Co-op in late March or early April. n Overcome obstacles to making healthy food choices with The Whole Foods Lifestyle System by Bundles of Energy, a monthly guide featuring meal plans, recipes, shopping lists and more.

Visit bundlesofenergy.com for details.

City Palate Crossword 

Solution

  

n The 2012 Okanagan Food and Wine Writers Workshop takes place June 12 to 16 in Kelowna. With two full days of professional development seminars by some of Canada’s best food and wine writers and editors, plus hands-on culinary experiences and wine-country touring, this workshop is open to writers of all levels. Pricing, program details, and special workshop rates at the Hotel Eldorado can be found at... okanaganfoodandwinewriters-workshop.com. n Seasoned Solutions Culinary Tour of New York. Gail Hall, culinary tour expert, hosts a tour to New York, May 17 to 21. Food tastings from delis and bakeries, with stops in Little Italy, Hell’s Kitchen, the Meat Packing District and Chinatown. Cooking classes, fine restaurants, Broadway and Eataly. Itinerary and registration details at seasonedsolutions. ca, 780-437-0761 or gailhall@shaw.ca. n Pre-order your Easter egg-shaped doughnuts from Jelly Modern Doughnuts. These are hand filled with your choice of chocolate, marshmallow, vanilla cream, lemon, raspberry, peanut butter and a maple bacon version of course. Try them all! 403-453-2053 jellymoderndoughnuts.com. n Join tourmeister Peter Blattmann on a Culinary & Wine Tour of AlsaceGermany-Austria, October 7 to 20. For details, visit gourmet-experience.com or call 403-230-5375 or e-mail blattman@ telusplanet.net.

Bo ok No wf or ou 40 3-2 r $25 48 -72 Food 88 To ur

IN 35 BLOCKS INTERNATIONAL AVENUE 26 - 61 Streets on 17 Avenue SE • free parking, cheap eats, fabulous people •

• The location for authentic ethnic food shops •

n Local, all-natural, grass-fed and finished beef direct from the producer, Bite Beef, raised in Balzac. Delicious!

To learn more, visit bitebeef.com or call Carli Baum at 403-472-4992 to order.

Purchase small portions at Community Natural Foods. n Double ELLE Bakery opened in December and has been operating alongside Valta Bison Farms at its location in Ramsay (703-23 Ave. SE). As of March 1, Double ELLE takes over the entire location as Valta Bison Farms closes its business. Baker/owner Leah Layden will expand the product line – all made from scratch, no preservatives and made from old family recipes. n Calgary bartender Christina Mah created an award-winning cocktail – Earl’s Garden – for the 2011 Calgary Cocktail Competition that was presented at the Tales of the Cocktail competiton in Vancouver in February. To make it, shake together on ice, 1-1/2 oz. Hendricks Gin, 1 sprig lavender, 3/4 oz. Sour Apple Shrub, 5 dashes Fee Brothers grapefruit or peach bitters. Strain into a chillled glass Pyrex beaker, top with ginger beer and a lavender sprig.

Congrats to everyone who completed the crossword puzzle published in the last issue of City Palate!

The 2 winners, drawn from all the completed puzzles, were : Suzanne Journault-Hemstock and Shevaughn Smith.

Both enjoyed tickets for two to: ATP's Wine Tasting Fundraiser, Flavours of BC’s Naramata Bench.

www.internationalavenue.ca

CITYPALATE.ca MARCH APRIL 2012

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5 quick ways with A tin of tuna

Baby, it’s cold outside, so why not stop by Crowfoot Wine & Spirits for the perfect bottle of wine to help you warm up and wind down after the busy holiday season. With sommeliers on staff and a wine boutique to satisfy any wine lover, we’re here year round. Stop by and see what we have in store.

2. White Bean & Tuna Pasta Salad

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CITYPALATE.ca MARCH APRIL 2012

1. Tuna Wraps

Mix together corn kernels, chopped bell peppers, a 6-oz. can of tuna in olive oil, drained and flaked, a good squeeze of lemon juice and 1 t. of capers. Salt and pepper to taste, then gently stir in enough mayonnaise to just moisten the mixture. Wrap in warm flour tortillas with your fave greens.

C

Wine Boutique Vintage Boutique

Cans of tuna are staple items in everyone’s pantry. But did you know that canned tuna has much more of a culinary presence than just mashed up with mayo and slapped between two pieces of bread?

Of course you did. Tuna’s a good source of protein, too. Sometimes a can of tuna is just what dinner calls for – here are a handful of creative ways with that can of tuna, sometimes two cans.

From Julie Van Rosendaal’s fine book, Spilling the Beans. Cook 2 c. dry rotini or other small pasta according to package directions. Run under cool water, then drain well. Transfer to a bowl and add 2 c. cooked white beans or a 19-oz. can, rinsed and drained. Flake in a 6-oz. can of tuna, drained, then add 1 to 2 celery stalks, chopped, and 1/4 c. chopped fresh parsley and/ or basil. In a small bowl, whisk together 1/4 c. olive oil, 3 T. red wine or balsamic vinegar and 1 garlic clove, crushed. Drizzle over the salad and toss to coat. Season with salt and freshly ground pepper and serve on a bed of lettuce. Serves 6 to 8. (Great additions are hard-cooked eggs, grape tomatoes, chunked artichoke hearts and pitted olives.)

3. Tuna Brandade

Peel and cut 2 large potatoes into cubes. Place in a saucepan with 1 c. milk, 2 garlic cloves, crushed, and 1 shallot, finely chopped. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to medium-low and simmer about 10 minutes, or until the potato is soft. Remove from the heat. Drain a 6-oz. can of tuna and add it to the potato mixture. Mash gently, leaving some larger chunks. Gently stir in 1 T. white wine vinegar, 1/4 c. olive oil and half of a 1/4 c. of dill sprigs, chopped. Stir to combine. Serve the brandade on crostini with arugula and the remaining dill.

4. Tuna Pasta for Two

From Fan Fare! Best of Bridge Cookbook. Cook 6 oz. spaghettini or angel hair pasta according to package directions. Drain, reserving 1/3 c. cooking water. In a large, nonstick skillet, heat 1 T. oil over medium heat. Sauté 1/2 c. chopped red, orange or yellow bell pepper and 1/4 c. chopped onion about 5 minutes. Add 2 minced garlic cloves and cook until fragrant.

Add 3 c. roughly chopped ripe tomatoes and cook 4 minutes until softened.

Add a 6-oz. can of tuna, drained and flaked, 3 c. packed baby spinach, 1 T. drained capers, grated zest and juice of 1/2 lemon, and salt and freshly ground pepper to taste. Remove from heat and add the pasta.

Toss to coat and loosen a bit with the reserved cooking water if necessary.

Serve sprinkled with lots of parmesan cheese. Serves 2.

5. Tuna Corn Chowder

A Karen Barnaby recipe. In a large pot, cook 6 slices of chopped bacon until browned. Add 1 c. each diced onion and celery and cook until the onion is translucent. Stir in 1 t. smoked or regular paprika. Add 2 Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks, 4 c. chicken stock and salt and pepper to taste. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat, cover and simmer 15 minutes, or until the potatoes are tender. Add 2-1/2 c. corn kernels and 2 c. light cream.

Cook 5 minutes, then add two 6-oz. cans of water-packed tuna, 2 T. chopped parsley, 1/4 c. thinly sliced green onion and These simmer until heated through. Serves 6. recipes are on our website

TASTING ROOM

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WITH HOST TERRY DAVID MULLIGAN Wednesdays 6 - 7 PM 93.7 FM Calgary | www.ckua.com

CITYPALATE.ca MARCH APRIL 2012

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back burner

Allan Shewchuk

Shewchuk on simmer

The cruelest season

Whew! I have once again barely made it through another season of false promises, intellectual dishonesty, long-winded speeches and endless suffering. No, I’m not talking about the American presidential primaries or the opening of the new sitting of Parliament. I’m relieved to say that I have survived another January in the wake of my annual New Year’s resolutions. Those 31 excruciating days on the new calendar always bring home the truth of that old saying “slower than molasses in January.”

Those of you in the same boat know there’s nothing more interminable than any period in which you, and everyone around you, have given up alcohol, carbohydrates, butter, sugar, caffeine, sloth and everything else that makes this so-called life worth living. Mercifully, January and February are now in the rear view mirror, and although Martin Luther King Day is also behind us, when I think of the end of any food- or alcohol-restricted period, I invoke his famous words: “Free at last!

Free at last! Thank God Almighty, I am free at last!”

When it comes to resolutions, hell starts in the home. Every year I swear off my beloved wine and I go on a soul-crushing diet in January, the lead-up to my February birthday. Usually my darling wife follows suit, which turns out to be a recipe for marital discord if I ever saw one. We have learned the hard way that to make a “happy” marriage, at least one person in that wedded union has to be remotely “happy” at some point. When we’re both deprived of the pleasure of our usual glass of wine apiece when we come home and make dinner together, the air in the kitchen gets astonishingly testy.

Innocuous questions like “Do you want some pepper?” are met with snippy replies from me such as “What’s the point? Grinding it will only prolong this agony.” We then sit in silence and eat our low-calorie rations in shared misery.

Occasionally she’ll try to cheer me up with a chirpy “This firm tofu is sure better than the medium-soft, don’t you think, Baby?” to which I snarl “Yeah, I prefer a firm-tasting eraser to one of those wobbly ones every time… ” More silence ensues and lasts through the dishwashing until we head upstairs for a night of fitful sleep complete with visions of sugarplums (and chardonnay) dancing in our heads.

We occasionally have to take our suffering out in public, too. Grocery shopping by two people on a diet is high comedy indeed as whatever normal food I put in the cart is taken out by my stealthy spouse the minute I turn my back and replaced with low-cal tasteless products. I do the same to her when she has tossed in something that she wants that would tempt me, so we do this dance of rotating the stock for the grocer up and down the aisles. When we arrive at the checkout, all that’s usually left to put on the conveyor belt is a bag of brown rice, a spaghetti squash and some of those Danish crackers that look like roofing shingles (but don’t taste as good). We exchange knowing glances with other dieting couples as they unload their kale and rice cakes with stony faces. It really is like something out of the former Soviet Union, everybody pale and miserable heading out in the cold with famine food.

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dutchtreatsinfo@gmail.com 403-251-4140

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CITYPALATE.ca MARCH APRIL 2012

Our friends who make resolutions also loom large in our lives out of shared suffering.

This year we got a panicked call from a desperate housewife pal who swore off booze, then made the mistake of cooking coq au vin for dinner. She needed to be talked down from wanting to submerge her face in the boiling pot of wine and chicken fat like someone bobbing for apples. I know that what she really wanted was for us to say that we were going off our diet and that it would be okay if she did, too. Everyone trying to diet is constantly on the lookout for an accomplice who will play hooky on his or her regime and succumb to the pleasures of the grape or a big wedge of pizza. But we resisted and made it through this period without cheating on the program.

After that hellish experience, I’m left to wonder who eats those Danish crackers after their winter penance, anyway. The Danes, I suppose. At least now I understand Hamlet’s angst...

Allan Shewchuk is a lawyer by day, and an Italian ”chef,” wine taster and food writer by night. Sometimes he tastes wine before nightfall.

Red? White? Indoors or out?

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