BANFF: Sustainable AND delicious

I’ve never spent so much time in a restaurant bathroom before, and I mean that in a good way. The toilets in Banff’s Bison Courtyard sense, ahem, your presence on the seat, activating a foam that slowly flushes and pulls waste down into a composting tank.

I was fascinated by the system, which is thoughtfully explained on a sheet taped to the bathroom door.

So what does this have to do with food and eating? Well, the toilets are a small part of the sustainable ethos held by the owners, residents, and businesses of the Bison Courtyard, including the Bison Mountain Bistro. The complex uses 70 per cent less energy than standard buildings in Banff.

It’s a heartening story of how green can prevail. A local developer bought the Crag Cabin that was built in 1890 with plans to restore it, and grander plans to turn it into a sustainable living community.

They rejected chain restaurants with money to burn for the second-floor space, in favour of a husband-wife team with a vision for “Rocky Mountain comfort food.”

We got a perfect, sunny spring Sunday for the always stunning drive into the mountains to celebrate JJ’s birthday with a brunch at the Bison Mountain Bistro.

The menu screamed local and fresh, with an assortment of benedicts, bison burgers and pizzas from the wood-burning oven.

Three out of eight of us got the duck confit eggs benedict ($16) with fresh goat cheese, wild mushrooms, preserved lemon zest and hollandaise. This is the rough transcript of what was going through my head: “Mmm! Duck confit! Whoa! Goat cheese. Yum! Wild mushrooms!”

All the benedicts come on a cheese and herb biscuit with roasted potatoes and a hothouse green salad.

Jason opted for the French toast ($14) stuffed with Sylvan Star gouda and double-smoked bacon, topped with wild blueberry sauce and matchstick apple pieces.

The mountain breakfast ($12) was a hearty three eggs, double-smoked bacon, roasted tomatoes and potatoes and grilled toast. (Thanks to JJ for voluntarily burning his hands while holding the hot plate up for my photo.)

The bacon was a real hit, especially with three-year-old Sloane happily munching on a fistful of it.

Martin got a huge plate of wild mushroom tagliatelle with fresh goat cheese, leeks, herbs, peas and white truffle oil. It was so good that it prompted him to get a glass of red wine too. Now, that’s a real brunch.

There’s a general store on the ground floor, featuring gourmet baguettes, fine cheeses and specialty meats, if you don’t have time to sit down for a meal. (The co-owner used to be a partner in Calgary’s Janice Beaton Fine Cheese.)

We picked up a jar of the bistro’s amazing smoked tomato ketchup ($8.95), which I’ve pretty much eaten for the past five days straight (not by itself!).

By the way, the bistro’s patio on the second floor is no doubt the best place to take in the mountains and great food. And don’t forget to check out those bathrooms.

Bison Mountain Bistro & General Store, 211 Bear St., Banff, Alberta, (403) 762-5550. Click for website here.

 

CALGARY: Rejoicing in roti

Roti in essence indicates bread, but it means different things depending on which world cuisine you’re talking about. Indian roti is usually a flat bread made of whole wheat and eaten alongside main dishes like curry. Malaysian roti canai is layered, crispy on the outside and fluffy on the inside. I think it tastes sweeter like a pastry dough.

Then there’s West Indian roti, which can be found wrapped around stews or curries. I haven’t had many rotis in my lifetime, but the goat curry roti ($10.95) at Joycee’s Caribbean Foods was awesome.

Joycee’s is a grocery store featuring Caribbean supplies and a little hot food counter that sells rotis and Jamaican patties.

The goat curry was tender and full of slow-burning spices — not the kind that flash-bomb your tongue, leaving you numb for hours. The roti skin was thin and soft and so yummy. It was so big, I managed to finish only half of it.

There’s a small area near the front windows to sit and eat, but I got mine to take out, which came with a little green salad. (Sorry about the photo — it’s hard to make food in Styrofoam look good.)

Another reason to stop by Joycee’s this month is to buy tickets for the 16th annual Black Gospel Concert on Feb. 23 for a bargain $20.

I went last year and it blew me away. First, not only that there were so many talented black gospel choirs in the city, but also that the audience is so much fun to be part of. You will be hard-pressed not to stand up and yell “Hallelujah” just once, regardless of your faith.

Bonus: By buying tickets at Joycee’s, you bypass Ticketmaster’s “convenience” charges.

Joycee’s Caribbean Foods, 630-1st Ave. NE, Calgary, (403) 234-9940. Closed Sunday and Monday.

 

ST. ANDREWS: The best for last, part I

I’m not one for superlatives but our time at the Rossmount Inn counts in my top 10 favourite stays of all-time. Not only for the location in idyllic St. Andrews-By-The-Sea, New Brunswick, but for the service, the value, and most of all, the restaurant.

You drive along the highway with nothing but trees and then suddenly, a yellow mansion rises up out of nowhere at the end of a long driveway.

The three-storey inn has 18 rooms, the dining room and a lounge/reading room with an antique piano. Graziella Aerni runs the front of the house (and a lot of other stuff too) and her husband Chris runs the kitchen. They bought the estate in 2001.

I first found the Rossmount Inn because of a killer package deal - two nights in a queen room, two breakfasts and one three-course dinner in the restaurant - for $252. Total. For both of us. TOTAL. We hit the low-season rate, but the same package in the high season is only $319.

The house is all 1920s class, with a grand chandelier in the lobby in front of a grand staircase. The wide hallways upstairs have reading areas and coffee tables full of magazines. The bedrooms are furnished with antiques and simple country quilts but have modern bathrooms - and no TVs.

A path next to the inn leads up to Chamcook Mountain, the highest point in Passamaquoddy Bay. Really, it’s an easy half-hour hike up a hill, but mountains in New Brunswick are different from mountains in Alberta. At the top is a pretty view of the fall colours and the bay.

The dinners we had in the inn’s restaurant deserve their own entries, so here’s a small taste. For breakfast (included in the package), we had oatmeal soaked overnight in milk with yogurt and fresh fruit, as well as eggs, bacon, potatoes, toast and coffee.

So what, you might be wondering. Well, I loathe oatmeal. Like cross my arms in front of my chest, clamp my mouth shut, and furiously shake my head type of loathe. And I was hoovering this oatmeal, cleaning my bowl in minutes. It was smooth and delicious and unlike any lumpy oats I’d had before.

We did a lot of eating at the Rossmount Inn. Stay tuned for part II.

Rossmount Inn, 4599 Route 127, St. Andrews, New Brunswick, (506) 529-3351.
More info here.

 

LUNENBURG: Postcard perfect brunch

Growing up, whenever someone mentioned the Maritimes, I pictured in my head colourful wooden buildings along a coastline. I’m sure that was because of postcards I had seen as a kid. Kind of like how you think of the Eiffel Tower for Paris or the pyramids for Egypt.

Turns out my iconic image is Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, its waterfront photographed a thousand times over. For that perfect shot, you have to drive to the golf course, park illegally along the narrow driveway and shoot back at the UNESCO World Heritage site with a telephoto lens. Or buy a postcard.

While I’d like to say this part of the trip was to fulfill some longtime dream, I had an ulterior motive. I wanted to eat at Fleur de Sel for no other reason than it came up time and again when I googled must-try places in Halifax - even though Lunenburg is an hour’s drive away.

Fleur de Sel is in a bright yellow wooden house near the water. (Though I suppose almost everything in Lunenburg is in a wooden house near the water.) It’s elegant and definitely not stuffy, with butter yellow walls and crisp white linens.

We only had time to stop in midday and luckily, the weekend brunch here is fabulous. Even though the menu was short, we still had a hard time narrowing down our choices.

The full breakfast ($9) sounded good - two eggs, grilled tomato, baked beans, potatoes, and two of smoked bacon, sausage or blood pudding - but so did the pan-fried whole sardines ($11) with fresh tomatoes, garlic and capers.

Jason and I both finally settled on the lobster benedict ($13). Large chunks of lobster lay under a sinfully smooth hollandaise sauce with pea shoots as garnish. The house potatoes were a nice surprise with hints of garlic and parsley. And even someone as averse to fruit as me couldn’t resist the refreshing slices of watermelon, kiwi and grapes.

I think Nora and Tom had the bacon and spinach benedicts ($11) which were just as good.

As with any respectable brunch, the coffee was strong, hot and plentiful. We were excited to be given sugar cubes instead of loose sugar, as we discussed our mutual appreciation of tidy symmetry.

Sugar cubes aside, the service at Fleur de Sel is superb and with a brunch this good, I can only imagine how wonderful dinner would be.

Fleur de Sel, 53 Montague St., Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, (902) 640-2121 or 1-877-723-SALT. Click here for more info.

 

PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND: The honour system

Several potato stands line the highway from the Confederation Bridge into Charlottetown. They are not manned. They are run on the honour system. Imagine that happening on the 401.

You can pick up 10 ($3.00) and 50 pound ($8.00) bags of P.E.I. potatoes on your way home or back to the mainland, I suppose.

“In you we trust. Please pay to money jar.”

 

FREDERICTON: At the Market

Everyone has a favourite food at the Fredericton Farmer’s Market every Saturday. Mine always come from Kurt’s. Today, it was schnitzel (the unbreaded kind) with German mustard and sauerkraut. Others like the garlicky chicken donairs or Patel’s samosas. Ah, the infamous samosas.

As I’ve written before, the samosas are so popular people are willing to lineup forever for these things. The lineups got so big, they interefered with other vendors, so the market moved Patel’s to a different part of the building and most recently, to its own structure outside.

The market used to be the only place you could get samosas in Fredericton, but now they’re quite widely available, including some really good ones from Chez Riz that include whole peppercorns. Patel’s samosas are good, but I think the market lineup is also a strong part of the lure.

Here’s a Fredericton site that documents the ongoing tradition that is the Saturday market. But you may not find any pictures of Tinsel the clown there. He makes balloon animals for the kids, but no one’s EVER seen him smile. Ever.

W.W. Boyce Farmers’ Market, 665 George St., (at the corner of Regent and George Streets), Fredericton, New Brunswick. Open year-round Saturdays, 6 a.m. to 1 p.m. More info here.

 

PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND: Lobster supper

The very first time I went to Prince Edward Island, I did the natural tourist thing and went straight to Cavendish to visit the site that inspired Lucy Maud Montgomery’s classic novel, Anne of Green Gables.

But I really should have done the OTHER thing P.E.I. is famous for - the lobster supper.

The very first lobster supper was held in 1958 as a fundraiser for the New Glasglow and District Junior Farmers Organization. They served dinner for $1.50 in a building that had just been hauled from a nearby community.

Now 49 years later, New Glasglow Lobster Suppers can feed an average of 500 people in one sitting. Four original Junior Farmer members still own the restaurant which feels like a giant community hall with friendly checkered tablecloths.

To start, you pick your size of lobster from 1 lb. ($29.95) to 4 lbs. ($65.95). While that price may sound steep, consider this: everything in the supper, except the lobster, is all-you-can-eat.

Virginia, who’s just moved to P.E.I., and I already had a strategy to avoid filling up on bread so we could maximize our seafood intake. But as soon as the basket of buns arrived, our game plan went out the window. These were fluffy, warm, truly homemade pieces of love.

Then came the mussels. Nothing elaborate, just a big bucket of meaty yummy steamed mussels. Did I mention all-you-can eat?

Bowls of creamy seafood chowder arrived next, with chunks of shrimp, haddock and scallops. Chris went for seconds on this one.

Before I could finish my soup, I had to make room for the plates of potato salad, garden salad and coleslaw. Nothing remarkable but refreshing nonetheless.

The table was quite full as the main course arrived. Three of us got 1.5 lb. lobsters, while Virginia got a “baby” one-pounder. There’s really nothing fancy to lobsters other than how fresh they are, and these ones were top-notch.

Here at the supper, you can get your lobster hot or cold and it comes with lemon wedges and little cups of melted butter. Oh, and plastic bibs of course.

I love that the children’s menu offers a half-pound lobster for $13.95. I would’ve ordered that if I was little.

Topping it all off is a choice of homemade pies. From which I can remember, there was pecan, raisin, cherry, apple, and their “famous” lemon meringue. That’s all-you-can-eat too. I only half a piece of raisin pie, too stuffed with everything else.

New Glasgow Lobster Supper, Route 258 off Highway 13, New Glasglow, P.E.I. (902) 964-2870. Open 4-8:30 p.m. June to mid-October. More info here.

 

ST. STEPHEN: Sweet chicken bones

Ganong is Canada’s oldest candy company, started in 1873 by the Ganong family in St. Stephen, New Brunswick. Today, it’s run by the family’s fourth generation and the town is still home to the head office and manufacturing plant on One Chocolate Drive.

St. Stephen is known as Canada’s chocolate town and naturally has a chocolate museum which features the history of Ganong. There, you learn fun facts like former president R. Whidden Ganong used to eat two pounds of chocolate every day before he died at the age of 93.

In 1885, Ganong invented the chicken bone, a cinnamon hard candy with a soft chocolate centre. Apparently, it’s still a best seller today.

The Ganong Chocolatier Shoppe puts out little dishes of pink chicken bones to try. It’s kind of like grabbing a mint from the dish your grandmother always has out, including the part where you pry a piece apart from the rest of the sticky pile.

You suck on the hard chicken bone, until the cinnamon candy dissolves and splinters into pieces in your mouth. Like a chicken bone! Then while you try not to choke, the chocolate centre hits your tongue. Mmm. Weird.

In 1920, as the story goes, a candy maker was asked to create a chocolate bar with the texture of cheese to take along on fishing trips. I still don’t understand the cheese texture part of the request.

Anyway, that’s how the Pal-o-Mine was born, a bar of yellow fudge and coconut covered with chocolate and peanuts.

Ganong also makes Jason’s favourite Roman Nougat bar, white nougat embedded with bits of fruit-flavoured jellies.

Admission fee to Ganong chocolate museum: $5

One Pal-o-Mine chocolate bar: 89 cents

Jason clutching candy from the Ganong store: priceless

The Chocolate Museum, 73 Milltown Blvd., St. Stephen, New Brunswick, (506) 466-7848. Open March to November. Museum website here. More info on Ganong here.

 

JASPER: Best bagel ever

Food tastes better in the Rocky Mountains. Even if it’s just a cheese bagel with vegetable cream cheese and a banana. And especially after a two-hour, five-kilometre, mostly uphill hike in Jasper National Park.

The trail up Bald Hills has an elevation of 480 metres along an old fire road. It ends at an old hitching rail for horses. The view, already pretty. But the girls insisted on a farther 2 kilometres and 130 meters up to a stunning vantage point overlooking Maligne Lake.

I was amazed at how fast the weather changes in the mountains. In four hours, we went from hot and sunny to cold and snowing and back again.

As much as my legs were tired, the view was worth it. I’ve never tasted a better bagel.

Oh yes, and a red fox toddled up to see what we were up to, too.

More info on the Bald Hills hiking trail here. Jasper is 362 kilometres from Edmonton and 414 kilometres from Calgary.

 

I scream, you scream

It’s sweltering out. The only relief is ice cream. And these days, the only ice cream for me is Marble Slab Creamery. It’s a franchise started in Texas and it’s making its way through Canada.

They make each batch of ice cream and the waffle cones fresh in the store every day. The shtick is you choose one flavour and one “mixin” (crumbled chocolate bars, fruit, nuts, cookie dough etc.), then the hard-working, underpaid kids behind the counter mix them together by hand.

This involves strenously folding the ice cream and topping together on a frozen slab of marble with ice cream scoops in each hand. That falls into my “you could not pay me enough to do that for 8 hours” category.

A big cone with one topping is $5. It’s not a bargain but it’s one of those summer splurges that’s worth it.

My favourite is birthday cake ice cream - it tastes like angel food cake - with sprinkles or cherries. I forgot to take a picture until I was halfway done my cone.

Steph got banana ice cream with Skor bits (”Tastes like banana bread.”), Katherine got plain birthday cake (”So yummy!”), and Catherine got banana ice cream with strawberries (”Yum!”).

How good is Marble Slab? Steph was driving and got Katherine to hold her cone for two seconds while she backed the car out. Well, next thing you know, perfectly sweet Steph is yelling, “Stop licking my cone, b**ch!” But in a good way, you know?

We were four happy girls, savouring our Marble Slab ice cream, sitting on the edge of the beautiful wading pool at the Alberta legislature at dusk. It doesn’t get any better.

Marble Slab Creamery, click here for locations in Canada.
Looks like only B.C., Alberta and Ontario so far.

 

CALGARY: Deep-fried things on a stick

So the Calgary Stampede is finally over and the city has returned to its senses. I did go to see what all the fuss was about. There’s something about record-breaking heat, a midway and ridiculous numbers of people in ridiculous cowboy hats. It means one thing. An excuse to eat things on sticks and gorge on overpriced greasiness.

This is the first year that all fried food on the Stampede grounds was cooked in oil free of trans fats. But really, who are we kidding?

First stop, corn dogs! A hot dog coated in cornbread batter and deep fried in hot oil. Sweet golden outside crunch, hot doggy insides. You either hate it or love it. I love it. But only once a year.

Did you know they’re called pogos here in Canada, dippy dogs in Australia, hot dogs in South Korea, amerikan doggu in Japan and toasty dogs in Europe? Corn dogs ($4) get around.

Someone at work came back from Stampede raving about a new product in the Big Four building called a porksicle. So of course I had to seek it out. Unfortunately, I was disappointed to find the porksicle was just a BBQ rib with one end of the bone as a stick. Man did I get suckered. Plus it was $7 with a side of fries.

But no matter what, I knew the mini donuts (2 bags of 15 for $5) would make everything okay. It’s kind of fascinating as well as morbid for me to watch the dough circles roll down the little chute, float into the pool of hot oil and then get counted out and coated with cinnamon sugar.

I know I just watched them get deep fried and yet there they go, down my gullet. Always save “those little donuts” for last, and eat them fast. Otherwise, they really suck after 15 minutes.

No time to try the deep-fried Coke (spongecake soaked in Coke and deep-fried) this visit. Maybe next year.

 

SARNIA: Ralph’s favourite fries

Dear Ralph,

Thank you for inviting us to your beautiful wedding in Sarnia, Ontario. I didn’t know anything about your hometown except that lots of trucks and RVs drive through it to cross the Canada-U.S. border, so your insider tips were very helpful.

You advised us to head for the chip trucks “under the bridge” and that there, we would find the world’s best French fries.

So we drove toward the only bridge we could see - later I found out it’s the Blue Water Bridge - and easily found two chip trucks with their own special parking spots. Both had huge lineups so we picked Albert’s Rolling Lunch because we liked the name and it said it’s been around since 1957.

Albert’s offers other goodies like hamburgers and pogos but we stayed simple and got a box of fries for $4.50. From a picnic table, we took in the cool breeze and the stunning blue water of Lake Huron. I can see why this is one of your favourite spots in Sarnia.

As we watched the organized chaos between the long lineup to order and the gaggle of people to the left waiting for their orders, we noticed a handy little contraption. A vinegar hose hanging inside the pickup window to spray vinegar over the fries. Brilliant!

The fries were great. Hot, crispy and salty. And they disappeared fast. I don’t know if I’d call them the world’s best fries but since you’re family now, Ralph, I’ll say they came pretty darn close.

Sincerely,
Your new cousin-in-law

PS: I hope you’re enjoying your honeymoon, and not on your Mac surfing the Internet.

Albert’s Rolling Lunch, under the Blue Water Bridge, Point Edward, Ontario, (519) 337-2828. Sarnia is 400 km southwest of Toronto on Highway 402.

 

CALGARY: At the Grand

Built in 1912, the Grand Theatre is the oldest theatre in Western Canada. But it’s got a decidedly shiny new look since a stunning makeover and reopening a year ago.

Past the coat check and box office are a cool lounge and restaurant called Velvet. I love that the lobby includes this space to eat or just to mingle and have drinks before or after a show. If the main floor is full, head upstairs where there’s another bar and more seating.

I only got a chance to have a nice glass of prosecco, but I’d definitely come back to try the food.

The bathrooms are fun. Hidden behind a pink lit wall, the men’s and women’s stalls are separate but the two areas meet at a long wall of sinks. I was momentarily startled by the man washing his hands next to me, but then I thought, “Well, how progressive!”

I really enjoyed the actual theatre - just intimate enough for couples to steal kisses and just big enough not to get annoyed by them. The acoustics were great. Okay, I have no idea what that really means but everything sounded good to me.

In its heyday, the Grand hosted legendary acts like Fred Astaire. He makes me swoon. So I guess it was aligned in the stars that I swooned a little for the cute boy on stage with just his guitar and the spotlight.

Dave Simpson is a singer/songwriter from Calgary. He tells stories about his pants splitting open on stage and what it’d be like to fall in love with a stripper. He’s a little John Mayer and a little Joe Cocker and very adorable. Check him out here.

(Of course, not as cute as my boyfriend but he’s away and my friends were late, so I was smitten, but only for about 20 minutes.)

Simpson opened for Serena Ryder who was stunning. She just started a cross-Canada tour. Catch her before it’s too late. She’s going to be big, I tell ya. Take a listen here.

The Grand, 608-1st St. SW, Calgary, (403) 205-2922.
For reservations at Velvet, (403) 244-8400.
Open for lunch Mon-Fri, 11 a.m.-2 p.m., dinner Tues-Sat 5 p.m.-close.

 

NEW BRUNSWICK: Noah’s Ark

A pastor in this town of Florenceville had a vision in the late ’80s that he was supposed to build an ark so he did. The ark is 2 stories high and about 2/3 the size of the ark as described in the Bible. It has portholes.

It serves as the dormitory for the Bible college that the pastor also started. There are about 30 rooms as well as administrative offices inside. I think it’s available to rent as a retreat centre as well.

If you’re in this part of the world, don’t forget to have French fries and visit the Potato World museum. They harvest a lot of potatoes around here.

Noah’s Ark, Burnham Road, Florenceville, New Brunswick. South of the town, about half a kilometre east of the Transcanada Highway.

 

OTTAWA: Portraits and giant baby heads

When you live somewhere long enough, it’s easy to overlook places you always mean to visit but never have the time to. Mine was the National Gallery of Canada, a beautiful glass and steel building on the Ottawa River.

I called Ottawa home for more than four years. The first time I ever stepped foot inside the gallery, I was covering some charity ball in the stunning grand hall. The second time was for the wedding of my good friends Shawna and Aires in the water court.

But I never had time to really explore until I found myself with a few free hours one morning. It was a perfect lazy day, gloriously sunny but bitterly windy. With the Parliament buildings in the distance, I watched gallery staff put the finishing touches on the gigantic Christmas tree in the grand hall. I love all the light that streams through there.

The current exhibition featured two Quebec artists. One specialized in landscapes which aren’t my thing, but the other was Edwin Holgate, the eighth member of the Group of Seven. Who knew?

I had never heard of Holgate before, but his portraits are utterly captivating. He’s supposed to be most famous for painting female nudes in Canadian landscapes, but I think Holgate’s amazing woodcuts are pretty kickass too.

The gallery is a relaxing place to roam. Off the interior garden is the fully reconstructed interior of a 19th-century chapel.

There is of course a huge Canadian collection but I found the contemporary art pretty fun and eclectic, like this creepy oversized Head of a Baby (2003) by Ron Mueck, made of silicone, fiberglass resin and mixed media.

National Gallery of Canada, 380 Sussex Dr., Ottawa, Ontario, 1-800-319-2787.
For hours and admission, click here.