WHERE DID YOU GO?

To Mariposa Farms.

WHY?

Well, it’s been on my list of places to visit with fork and pen for eight years. I have tried. But clearly not hard enough. I’ve learned that calling a day before won’t cut it. They open only for Sunday lunch, and it’s well-liked.

WHERE IS MARIPOSA?

The farm’s in Plantagenet, about 45 minutes east of downtown Ottawa, spread over hills and dips of some very pretty countryside.

AREN’T THEY THE DUCK PEOPLE?

Yup. Mariposa’s best known for their free range Barbarie ducks, but they also raise geese and pigs, grow vegetables for Ottawa chefs, and sell fresh and frozen treats – foie gras, whole ducks, magrets, sausages, confit, rillettes, patés, cheeses, jellies, pickles and more.

SO YOU WENT OUT THERE TO BUY SAUSAGES?

No, I went out there to have lunch. Mariposa converted a barn into a restaurant about ten years ago, and they serve Sunday lunches in a room wrapped in window.

JUST SUNDAYS?

Well, they’ll also open for a variety of private functions, but the public is invited to dine only on Sundays.

IS THIS AN ALL YOU CAN EAT BUFFET STYLE LUNCH?

No, let me tell you how it works. Once you’ve manoeuvred your way past the stately, greying Bouviers lounging on a well lounged-on Persian carpet on the front porch, you travel through what I would call (enviously) the mud room to the dining room and a second greeting from the owners of the dogs.

WHO ARE THEY?

Mariposa Farms owners Ian Walker and Suzanne Lavoie – he at the door in a plaid shirt with an armful of plates, she in chef whites in the open kitchen, behind a display of dishes – and that’s when I’m told how the whole Sunday lunch business at Mariposa works.

HOW’S THAT?

There is no menu, there is no buffet. You examine the edible models displayed and make a choice, then you sit and it comes to you. There are nine such model plates. Suzanne briefs you. On this Sunday, you may start with a turnip soup, a foie gras sandwich or a plate of house made charcuterie. Then there are three main dishes – based on duck, goose and venison. And finally, there’s a choice of a cheese plate, a raspberry panna cotta or a fantastic looking apple tart.

HOW DO YOU CHOSE?

There seem to be no rules.  You can have one, or two, or three, or nine dishes, I suppose, or you can create a table d’hote from door A, B and C. That’s the $35 option I opt for.

WHAT DID YOU EAT?

Well, I started with foie gras. Not sure I’ve ever had foie gras before noon, but it worked for me. The foie gras is luscious and fantastically rich, and the pickled onions cut the fat. The bread is baked in the wood fired oven, and has a great crust and a gentle fennel flavour.  Next course, slices of pink duck with a thin layer of lovely fat and a bronzed skin, fanned over a white bean purée, served with braised carrots that taste like carrots.  Very good. And finally, I had the cheese plate – a chevre, a Mamirolle, and a gentle blue, all local, served with homemade strawberry preserves.  I washed it down with water and coffee, aching for a glass of wine.

SO WHAT STOPPED YOU?

Me. I stopped me by not doing my research. This is a BYOB establishment – licensed to pour, not to serve. Everyone around me was much cleverer. They all had brought wine and beer from home. Next time, I’ll come prepared.

WILL THERE BE A NEXT TIME?

Absolutely. The food is hearty and real, the atmosphere rustic and charming. This is a working farm, and the food is prepared and served by the owners with help from house chef Nick Johnston. It’s a rare treat for a city girl to mingle with those who raised the animals on which she sups.

WHAT IF YOU’RE NOT INTO MEAT?

I wouldn’t suggest this a great place for vegans, although I should think the vegetables that will soon be ready to harvest could be fashioned into something suitable. Best call.

WHAT ELSE DID YOU DO?

I read old Harrowsmith magazines (did you know llamas all give birth between 9 and noon in the morning?) chatted with chef Nick about a tenth anniversary celebration being planned for the fall, and had the pleasure of an Ian Walker guided tour of the barn.

WHAT’S IN THE BARN?

Hissing geese, ducks in various phases of life, baby pigs and their mums. Eggs. Some beneath ducks, some buried in hay, some just waiting to be walked on. The incubator. The greenhouse. The buckets of kitchen waste ready for slopping pigs.

WHAT DID YOU LEARN?

To look non-plussed and cool walking past hip level hissing geese, and not to step on their precious eggs. Also, that ‘wild’ boar are a pain. That it’s never easy to bid adieu to an old sow you’re fond of. That Whalesbone’s new chef Charlotte Langley just picked up two baby pigs. That allium chef Arup Jana is – according to Ian Walker – ‘the new John Taylor’ (of Domus Café.)

ANYTHING ELSE

That Ian Walker bought this land when he was 19 years old. That he did all the carpentry himself. That he likes to spend holidays working on farms in Spain through WWOOF (Willing Workers on Organic Farms) and that Mariposa Farms takes on WWs too.

NICE TO HAVE A WILLING WORKER.

Indeed. And nice for the willing worker to be on a farm with chefs in residence.

DID YOU LEARN ANYTHING ELSE?

Well yes, actually. I saw first hand the symbiotic relationship Mariposa Farms has with some of our finest local restaurants.

WHAT DO YOU MEAN?

There was a crew of chefs from Beckta Dining and Wine getting down and dirty, creating a garden in the back forty on land ‘lent’ to them from Mariposa. They grow vegetables for the restaurant, they buy beasts from Mariposa. There was also a table of chefs having lunch – Steve Wall and Chris Lord, most recently of Whalesbone Oyster House, Arup Jana of allium and others – all of whom use Mariposa products on their menus.

SO WHERE EXACTLY IS MARIPOSA?

The mailing address is 6488 County Rd. 17. Plantagenet. Once you’re past Rockland, Clarence and Wendover, you cross the Nation River on a green bridge and 2 kms after the bridge, look hard to the left for the sign welcoming you to Mariposa Farms. As they say on their web site, if you come to the village of Plantagenet, turn around.

Reservations can be made by calling 613-673-5881. Lunch is served from 11am to 1pm. The store is accessible from 9 am to 4 pm on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. You can find all this information on their web site www.mariposa-duck.on.ca

It was early Saturday morning late last fall. I was on one of my twice-annual trips to Halifax, visiting my eldest son, a second year poli-sci student at Dalhousie University. To be sure, I love the lad, and miss him, but truth be, there are other reasons for visits. I have a deep weakness for the city of Halifax, its rich history, its colourful architecture, and increasingly, its welcoming restaurants and other fertile grazing spots.   

On this particular morning I was wandering the Halifax Farmers’ Market looking for breakfast options. A crepe? A pain au chocolat? A three-inch thick waffle smothered with strawberry sauce?  No, no and no. I venture deeper into the maze of tunnels and stalls. Garlic sausage on a bun? Now we’re getting somewhere. And then I see it. Like a lighthouse in a sea of jagged rocks. The oyster stand.  Philip Docker’s ShanDaph oysters, caught in the waters off Big Island in Docker’s self-designed suspended cages. I used the first ShanDagh in sacrificial fashion, to purge the flavour of harsh coffee. Which freed up the second oyster to taste purely of itself – creamy, briny, salty.  Docker shucked me a third and final, before I moved on to sausages courtesy of Bill Wood of Wood ‘N Hart Farms, whose handmade stall sign reads encouragingly: “Eat More Lamb. 50,000 Coyotes Can’t Be Wrong.”  Final Market stop, Boulangérie La Vendeénne, for the best croissant this side of the Atlantic. 

But it was those oysters that lingered with me longest, their supple delicacy, their fleshy sea-sweetness, bobbing to mind all day.

It had been a happy morning.

Waddling up the steep hill from the Farmers’ Market to my hotel, in search of a good cappuccino, I discover The Smiling Goat Organic Espresso Bar, conveniently located next door to The Lord Nelson.  It became a twice-daily pleasure.

I ended the day at a big, raucous, Greek eatery. Opa is an excellent place to be hungry. It is impossible to imagine sitting down here for a meal and rising at the end of it with a shred of appetite left.  (This news may not surprise you – Greek restaurants are not known for dainty portions.) But it’s not the quantity of food that impresses at Opa; it is the quality. 

I dropped a small fortune there, feeding my son and his roommates, all ravenous and permanently broke blokes. But I went alone to Fid.

I’d had enough of hungry college kids and Fid was my favourite of Halifax’s high-end restaurants. By way of amuse bouche, a sea urchin, harvested 25 minutes up the coast I’m told, served in its shell, splashed with sake. And then scallops, five perfect beauts, coral roe attached, deeply bronzed, on a smoky bed of roasted tomatillo. They haunt me still. Squash ice cream and a Parmigiano tuile were the escorts for a tarte Tatin.

The ten-year-old Fid is owned by chef Dennis Johnston and maitre d’ Monica Bauch. Named for the wooden, cone-shaped tool used by mariners to splice lines, Fid the restaurant is all about splicing flavours, weaving the local, sustainable products of the region with the British and Asian inclinations of its chef. 

Now, I must tell you, Fid shut its doors a few months ago, for a renovation and a re-think. It reopened in April, as Fid Resto. Word is the white linen has been stripped off the tables, prices have been slashed and the new menu is filled with comfort food – fish cakes, gnocchi, lamb pie, steak and mash, cider-braised rabbit, scallops. Those gorgeous scallops I re-eat in my memory? University is four years. Gives me lots of time to check out the Fid changes and report back.

A Halifax visit is not complete without brunch at Jane’s on the Common. Jane Wright’s seven-year old project has been a resounding success, judging by the noon queue for a Sunday table. Food is hearty and homey: ricotta pancakes, poached eggs and fish cakes, beet and fennel salad with maple sesame dressing, and a very fine bowl of seafood chowder.

Memorable meals can also be found in a pizza joint. In an Italian oven fired with fruitwood from the Annapolis Valley, Morris East is a newish restaurant for Halifax, serving thin crust pizzas, soups, small plates and yummy desserts. And what pizza!  As well as traditional sorts, with tomato, fresh mozzarella and basil, there are more unusual varieties. The poached pear pizza with maple and sage aioli, blue cheese and roasted shallots is surprisingly very good. They also offer an endearing lunch deal of a half pizza with a bowl of soup or a salad, for about $10, and have an admirable wine list.

TAKE A DRIVE…

My son had a significant hole in his travel resumé. Having lived in Halifax for over a year, he had never toured the serpentine Lighthouse Route that hugs the South Shore, never leaped the rocks at Peggy’s Cove, or had a meal at Fleur de Sel in the lovely Lunenburg.

So I rent a car and take the boy west. It’s November, and the road seems almost untravelled. We arrive at Peggy’s Cove at dusk. The light is glorious, slicing through the clouds in stunning rays. We have the place pretty much to ourselves. It is utterly, eerily lovely and whipped with a shockingly cold wind. We landlubbers always forget to bring a tuque.

We might have felt alone at Peggy’s Cove, but Fleur de Sel restaurant was packed. Housed in a yellow clapboard, Arts and Crafts-style house, smack in the centre of Lunenburg’s historic district, this French restaurant draws deliciously from the sea and local farms for inspiration. The dish that best warmed me was a seafood risotto of stunning flavour and freshness.

We take our time on the way home. Stopping at the Kiwi Café, an emerald green restaurant and coffee shop in the Village of Chester, owned by transplanted New Zealander Lynda Flinn.  Toys and books for visiting kids, water bowls for visiting dogs and solidly good home-baking keeps the place crowded and the crowd happy. 

The fire greets you more cheerily at the Biscuit Eater Café in Mahone Bay than does the donkey sign that demands you “Get your Ass in Here” – though this turns out to be good advice.  We order biscuits and as we sink our teeth through the salty, cheesy crust to the crumbly hearted inside, there is a moment not just of mouth-pleasure, but also of relief – the relief of knowing that this little café-bookstore with its sunny walls and bulging shelves, is perfectly named.  That good cheese biscuit came with a thick bowl of black bean soup and a pulled pork and blue cheese sandwich, and ended with a strong espresso and a slab of chocolate cake – like the old fashioned, from-scratch birthday cake your mother made. Only considerably better.

“You’ve saved the best for last, Mum,” I’m told on my final night in Halifax.

I am to dine at my son’s home – the purple house on Robie Street, the top floor of which he shares with four other guys. “Just pasta,” he warns me, “But we make our own sauce.”  (One of the guy’s has an Italian girlfriend. I take heart.) They make their own wine. (God have mercy.)

I climb the stairs, littered with bikes and shoes and backpacks. Candles are lit. The table is set.

Of a home cooked meal by the first to leave my home, I’m probably not the most objective critic.

WHERE TO EAT…

Halifax Farmers’ Market, 1496 Lower Water St., www.halifaxfarmersmarket.com

Open Saturdays from 7am to 1pm

 The Smiling Goat, 1551 South Park St., Halifax, 902-446-3366 www.smilinggoat.ca

 Opa! Greek Taverna, 1565 Argyle St., Halifax, 902-492-7999 www.opataverna.com

 Fid Resto, The Courtyard, 1569 Dresden Row, Halifax, 902-422-9162 www.fidresto.ca

 Jane’s on the Common, 2394 Robie St., Halifax, 902- www.janesonthecommon.com

 Morris East 5212 Morris St., Halifax, 902-444-7663, www.morriseast.com

 Kiwi Café, 15 Pleasant St., Chester, 902-275-2570 www.kiwicafechester.com

 The Biscuit Eater, 16 Orchard St., Mahone Bay, 902-624-2665 www.biscuiteater.ca

 Fleur de Sel, 52 Montague Street, Lunenburg, 902-640-2121 or 1-877-723-7258  www.fleurdesel.net

 WHERE TO STAY…

 In Halifax: The Lord Nelson Hotel was closest to the Dalhousie campus, which is why I selected it. It also offers reduced rates to families associated with any of the area’s universities. (2009-2010 rates, $145 November to April; $169 May to October) www.lordnelsonhotel.com

 In Lunenburg: The Kaubach House, 75 Pelham Street, Lunenburg, NS, 902-634-8818 Toll Free: 1-800-568-8818 www.kaulbachhouse.com

Innkeepers: David and Jenny Hook

Circa 1880, this heritage Victorian offers 6 guest rooms with en-suite bath. Breakfast included. Open May 1 to October 31, off season by reservation only. Room rates vary from $99 to $169, depending on room and season.

But the last part of the plan backfired, and so I cannot report on what Matt Carmichael (Restaurant E18hteen, Social) was planning to do with all those zucchinis, or what John Taylor (Domus) with all that elk. While trailing them, and others who came (Beckta chef Mike Moffatt, NAC chef Tim Wasylko, among others) I bought so much myself, I was left with no choice but to go home and make supper.

This staying home and cooking nonsense has been a difficulty of mine since Mother’s Day weekend, when the farmers’ markets opened. I now bounce out of bed on the weekends, grab some bags, a kid, a dog, a husband, and head to St Paul’s University on Saturdays, to Lansdowne on Sundays. I wander the stalls, chat with bee farmers and strawberry pickers, elk ranchers and bread bakers, and come home with bags bulging, wallet depleted, a fridge full of material I then have to face, and a big silly grin on my face.

Last weekend, breakfast was a spiced chicken burrito at Zucante’s. Mid morning snack was a smoked bison sausage from Pykeview Meadows on sourdough bread from Bread & Sons Bakery, and dinner were rib eyes from Fitzroy Farmers, with beets and salad greens from Jambican Studio Gardens, fresh peas from Limeydale Farm (with a drizzle of the coriander-mint chutney from Emerald Bakery) and strawberry love tarts with rhubarb compote from Four Sisters Food.

Last Thursday supper: peas with garlic scapes, elk burgers, strawberries from Abby Hill Farms, with chocolate cookies from Art-is-in-Bakery.

If it’s grown, reared, smoked, pickled, fired, sewed, designed, caught, collected, foraged, brewed or baked by folk who live and work roughly within a one hundred kilometre radius of the Greater Ottawa Area, it’s fair game at either the Main Farmers’ Market on Saturdays, or the much bigger Ottawa Farmers’ Market on Sundays (and now on Thursday afternoons from 2-7). Both these markets insist on particular criteria: goods must come from a defined local area; and they must be grown, reared, processed or caught by the stallholder.

There are immeasurable benefits to this sort of face-to-face buying and selling.  Plus there’s an energy, a social buzz, a pioneering spirit at these markets that’s impossible to put a price on.

These markets are in their infancy. They are makeshift, established in parking lots, under rows of tents, at the mercy of the elements, birthed by people with vision and commitment. They are vitally important, and deserving of our support as they grow and evolve into something more permanent.

So go. Go with kids, your dog, a hat, maybe a raincoat. Bring some reusable bags and some cold hard cash. But do go. You are buying, directly from the source, the freshest, most flavourful, most local produce possible, and in doing that, you are supporting your home community and economy and helping the environment by reducing food-miles.

Ottawa is the richer for these places.

PLACES LIKE…
From the Main Farmers’ Market (Open every Saturday until September 27, from 9 am to 2 pm on the grounds of Saint Paul University. See www.sustainablelivingottawaeast.googlepages.com)

• Jambican Studio Gardens (Colin Samuels and his nieces) sell me bunches of Easter egg radishes and promise me raspberries in July.
• Cora and John Beking of Bekings Poultry have great eggs. www.bekingseggs.com

• Limeydale farms on NCC property and when not at the market, sells at a summer stand at Hawthorne and Hunt Club. Their main product is sweet corn in season, but right now, they have the sweetest peas for sale.

• Terre a Terre Farms near Montebello, and have been a certified organic farm since 1988. Elise Charette sells me salad stuff, including mizuna, beet greens and arugula

From the Ottawa Farmers’ Market (Open every Sunday until October 26, from 8 am to 3 pm and Thursdays from 2 pm to 7 pm.  See www.ottawafarmersmarket.ca for details)

• Neil Family Organics uses the natural pectin in apples to thicken her jams and jellies. We stock up on rhubarb-raspberry and buy a jar of her “curry in a hurry” sauce to throw on chicken one of these nights.

• Ottawa Valley Honey. Mike Kositsin, Arnprior beekeeper and honey producer. Trained by ninety-year-old grandfather. Russian by name, Rasputin by hair style. A chronic grinner, Mike explains that he has 80 colonies and no website, that he gets stung “all the time”, that honey is made from just two things, flowers and bees (or, more specifically, the nectar of one and the enzyme of the other) and that his job is to take out the “bee bits” (antennae, wings, legs) through a series of screen filters. That nothing is added to what he takes from his hives. We stock up on basswood and wild flower honey.
• Four Sisters (“Healthy Food that doesn’t taste like Dirt”) are indeed four sisters who make, other than those terrific strawberry love tarts, a wicked curry and smoked-paprika hummus.
• Art-is-in-Bakery Bread has a line up 20 minutes long at noon on Sunday. Its breads and buns and cookies are fantastic, and Ottawa clearly knows it.
• Bread and Sons Bakery does not enjoy the same crowd, but its breads are also excellent. Buy some and compare!

Fleur de Sel Restaurant, Lunenburg, NS

First published, February 2, 2008

Two months ago there was big news in the Maritime food scene. Chef Martin Ruiz Salvador and his team from Fleur de Sel, a tiny, perfect restaurant in little Lunenburg, beat out the big city boys of Halifax to take the top prize at the Nova Scotia Gold Medal Plates culinary competition, part of a national competition aimed at drawing attention to Canada’s best chefs, while raising money for our Olympic and Paralympics athletes.

Salvador’s win means he’ll join six other gold medalists from major Canadian cities (including Ottawa’s own Mike Moffatt from Beckta Dining and Wine) at the Canadian Culinary Championships this February in Toronto – three days of intense gastronomic mêlées with some of Canada’s finest cookers vying for the honour of being named Canada’s Culinary Champion.

Sure, lovely Lunenburg – real old and awful pretty – is already on the map, a major tourist attraction and a UNESCO World Heritage site too (only the second urban community in Continental North America to make the list, along with Quebec City).

But this, well this (for the foodies of the world) would really be something, eh?

Shortly after Chef Martin won gold, a freshman son of mine at Dalhousie University seemed suddenly in urgent need of a visit from his mother and a good shot of non-cafeteria food. After noshing around Halifax a bit, we took the longer drive, the snaky-slow one, along the byways of Nova Scotia’s south shore to old, pretty Lunenburg, to soak in the scenery, walk the history and taste that gold.

Fleur de Sel is an elegant restaurant that makes the most of the graceful bones of the old Arts and Crafts clapboard-covered house it occupies. Inside is all creamy yellow and starched white, softened with rounded arches, sunny daisies and thoughtful service.

Our opening dish was the one that convinced the judges in Halifax to give Salvador the edge. My son declared it the best thing he had ever tasted. (I was not offended, comforted by the notion that three months of residence food had no doubt obliterated from his memory eighteen years of his mother’s exquisite cooking.) And it was hard to disagree with him. A stuffed shank bone, the beef slow braised and stripped off, the tender meat then mixed with the marrow, a little foie gras (why ever not?) and some cep (porcini) mushrooms. This concoction was then spooned into the hollow shank, and served with a smooth purée of celery root, dotted with a vibrant chive oil and swirled with reduced beef jus. A foam fashioned with foie gras and more cep was then spooned over the top of the beef-marrow-foie gras-cep potion, which oozed down the sides of the bone and into the waiting puddles and squiggles of green and brown and beige on the shiny white plate.

I could feel my arteries hardening just looking at the thing. My son ate his slowly, moaning a bit, then finished mine. He next looked beseechingly around the room at neighbouring tables with theirs. A kinder mother would have ordered another round.

We moved on. My mewings were more for the risotto — fragrant and flecked with saffron, the yellowed rice of text book texture, dotted with peas, soft onion and roasted red pepper — and for the sea treats imbedded in this lusciously soupy bed, perfectly seared Digby scallops, grilled shrimp, poached mussels and soft chunks of fish.

Everything was perfect. The only drawback is that, as you read this, Fleur de Sel is closed until April. File it away. It is a gem.

Fleur de Sel

52 Montague Street, Lunenburg

902-640-2121 or 1-877-723-7258

www.fleurdesel.net

Access: many steps to negotiate

Price: starters, $10 to $18; main dishes, $26 to $32. Packages are available starting at $179 for two, which includes an overnight stay in one of the local Bed and Breakfasts and a three course meal for two at Fleur de Sel. Details are on the web site

Open: Fleur de Sel is open for dinner Thursday through Sunday, and for Sunday brunch, from April to December, and for special occasions only, from January to March.

I have a deep affection for Chez Piggy. Its first year of business was my first year at Queen’s. I was “froshed” (humiliated, in toga and diaper) in the restaurant’s narrow courtyard. I applied for a waitress job in 1980 and was turned down flat. At the time I thought it was because I wasn’t weird (or cool) enough. But whenever my dad and his credit card came for a visit, it was at the Pig we shared a meal. The imaginative variation on classic themes and the odd Asian inflections didn’t really appeal to him, but he always found at least one thing on the Chez Piggy menu recognizable enough to order.

When Chez Piggy turned 20, in 1999, I shared a long lunch with its owners – the wild and woolly rock-‘n-roller-turned-restaurateur Zal Yanovsky, and his gentle wife Rose Richardson – and wrote a story for this paper about those first two decades. Three years after that great lunch, Zal died of heart failure. In 2005, the Kingston community lost Rose to cancer. But still, in its 28th year, Chez Piggy soldiers on, and probably remains the best-known restaurant on the Kingston dining scene. For me there’s more to Piggy’s longevity than tradition, marketing and good food. The place just has spirit. You can blame Zal and Rose for that.

Earlier this summer I managed only a beer on the Chez Piggy patio, long enough for a sentimental pause on my way to other eateries. That was the goal – good eating beyond the Pig.

And indeed good eating was to be found – in Luigina’s pasta, Le Chien Noir’s parsnip soup, Tango’s scallops and Pan Chancho’s spinach tortellini with roasted garlic and chillies.

Herewith the details:

Luigina’s
354 King St. E., (613) 530-3474
www.luiginarestaurant.com
Price: starters, $7.50 to $8.50; pasta and main dishes $14 to $28
Open: Tuesday to Saturday for dinner only

Long and narrow, on two levels, with tile floors and limestone walls, Luigina’s is a romantic restaurant of formal appointments and good smells. It is not a restaurant, however, where I would stray far from the pasta dishes. Happily, there are a good number of these, and the quality of the homemade product is impressive. Whether paired with a porcini mushroom sauce, greened with parsley and pungent with garlic, or stuffed with spinach and ricotta in a sage butter sauce, the noodles here are perfect. The simple insalata mista is a plate of sparkling leaves, of considerable flavour. Other dishes disappoint: the carpaccio is happily covered with arugula leaves and sharp parmigiano, but the thin slices of raw tenderloin have “cooked” in their marinade of oil and lemon and arrive at the table almost grey. The swordfish is dry and fishy tasting and the veal may come with superior vegetables, but the meat and its mushroom sauce are so over salted, they are inedible. Back to form with tiramisu.

Tango Restaurant and Tapas Bar
331 King St. E., (613) 531-0800
Price: tapas $4 to $11, main dishes, $10 to $18
Open: daily 11 am till 2 am

“The experience is to talk with friends and share the gossip of the day over a glass of wine or 2,” explains Tango’s Tapas menu. So we do that – a group of four friends – in this stylishly contemporary spot of glowing wood with black and blue accents, settling on all the “s” dishes – satay, scallops, shrimp, and sweet potato fries – along with a fruity entry of pears and goat cheese. The shrimp are dubbed “firecracker.” They arrive appropriately cooked in a spicy butter sambal flecked with coconut and black sesame. Scallops are even better, very fresh tasting, perfectly cooked and served on greens. The sweet potato fries are dandy, the pears with chevre come wrapped in phyllo and the package is tasty. The only let-down is the dry chicken sate and an insipid peanut sauce.

There is food other than tapas – salads, sandwiches, burgers, pasta and perhaps a half-dozen main dishes (grilled salmon, lamb shank, filet mignon…) – none of which I can comment on other than to suggest the prices are reasonable. We were there to graze and groove. For that, Tango fit the bill.

And if you’ve ever thought, mid-manicure, say, that a martini might be called for, Tango can deliver. It devotes Wednesday evenings to a package deal: a manicure and a martini for $13. Ladies only.

Le Chien Noir
69 Brock St., (613) 549-5635
www.lechiennoir.com
Prices (lunch menu): sandwiches/burgers and main dishes $11 to $23
Open daily, for lunch/brunch and dinner

The setting is casual and pleasurable. A zinc bar dominates the long, tall room, interesting art visits the brick walls and we spend some time discussing whether the gleaming pressed tin ceiling is original. Tables are bare at lunch, white linen with brown paper toppers come out for dinner. The large front windows flood the space with midday light.

Lunch at Le Chien Noir is mostly very pleasant, but its beginnings (a superior roasted corn and parsnip soup) and endings (lemon tart with blueberry sorbet) are perhaps more memorable than its middle bits. Though a beet salad with a lemon tarragon crème fraiche is a winner, and the spinach and chevre salad with its spiced pecans and cubes of triple smoked bacon also hits the spot. But soggy fries and dry duck confit mar the house poutine, and the mussels are nasty: thoroughly fishy tasting and steamed to oblivion. The Chien Noir wine list is a strength. The selections are well thought out and kindly priced, and there is considerable choice by the glass or half litre.

Pan Chancho
44 Princess St., (613) 544-0459
Open daily

To call Pan Chancho a bakery would be misleading. It is a bakery and its breads (try the anise and organic fig) and desserts are marvellous, but it’s also a cheese shop (over 70 on offer), a prepared-foods-to-go shop (highlights include pork and arugula dumplings, duck brioche, incredible potato salad with pepita seeds and curried cauliflower, fragrant lamb shanks, moist salmon with salsa verde and perfect ratatouille) and a dandy place to pick up superior products for the pantry shelves.

Freebies are always on offer – a couple of raw milk cheeses, a hunk of stinking Stilton and slices of fresh bread, with no surly sign attached “One sample only please.” When the cheese runs out, the house pate arrives on chunks of pain de campagne. Servers move about with breezy grace and on a Sunday morning the place is wildly busy. At the rear, the Pan Chancho café serves breakfast, lunch and dinner daily.

We go wild at the take away counter and at the cheese shop, and have a fine picnic by the lake. Zal and Rose, I suspect, would have been impressed.

In the first year of his new post at Le Massif, Paris-born chef Guy Bessone commuted from the village of Petite-Riviere-Saint-Francois to his job at the top of the mountain in an old school bus loaded with weekend skiers. Bessone would head to the kitchens and his bus mates would take to the six ungroomed trails, enjoying the highest vertical drops east of the Canadian Rockies, on a direct and dramatic path toward the ice choked Saint Lawrence Seaway below. At the base, they’d remove their skis, clamber back on the bus, and do it again. Maybe three times again. Maybe four.

Those days are gone. Now you can get from top to bottom three, maybe four times an hour. The first ski lift went up in 1992, and when Cirque du Soleil co-founder and former president Daniel Gauthier bought Le Massif in 2002, he injected $25 million into the mountain resort. Today, Le Massif boasts 43 runs, five lifts (three are high-speed quads), a couple hundred snow guns, a national alpine ski training centre, plus a remarkable annual snowfall (something like 270 inches), and unquestionably one of the most splendid views of any ski hill around. And mid-week in February, not a line up anywhere.

But Le Massif is still a topsy turvy kind of mountain: you park your car at the top. You ski down to the lifts.

That was just one of the happy oddities of my adventures in the Charlevoix region, an hour east of Quebec City. Two weeks ago, a massive dump of fresh snow – 65 cm in 24 hours – was drawing me, white-knuckled on the wheel, and thousands of other balaclava-covered skiers to the only Quebec ski resort I have ever encountered that does not sell poutine.

The skiers at Le Massif have Chef Bessone, the man in charge of all food service on the mountain, to thank for that. Forget for a moment the zaniness of a ski resort where base camp is at the summit, where the highest verticals east of the Rockies are queue-free in mid-winter, notwithstanding all that fresh powder frosting their edges. No, to my mind what really makes this place stand out is that Le Massif has declared itself fast-food free. No deep fat fryer in these kitchens. No burgers, no hot dogs, no French fries, and yes, no poutine. Walk into the cafeteria and see the box lunches for the kiddies: carrot sticks, a hard boiled egg, a ham sandwich on whole wheat, fresh fruit, carrot cake. The special for the day is veal (from Charlevoix) in a citrus sauce with roasted green beans and potatoes ($10); pasta with escargots and wild mushrooms ($8) a smoked meat panini ($9) For dessert, an apple tart with Migneron cheese. By the cash, impulse buys of organic chocolate bars. I kid you not. You eat these meals in a vaulted cafeteria dining room framed with local works of art, all originals.

There’s a mid-mountain soup shack, selling steaming bowls of homemade soups and chilli. Or you can head to the Summit Creperie for sweet and savoury crepes.

Le Massif’s commitment to healthy choices and regional ingredients is most obvious in its fine dining room.

Le Mer et Monts Restaurant

The dress code at Le Massif’s fine dining restaurant seems to be polypropylene and Rossignol suspenders. Chef Bessone’s three-course table d’hote ($22 to $26) is a parade of local ingredients – duck, lamb, organic pork, hatchery trout, local cheeses, root vegetables. The producers who furnish the raw materials are listed on the menu. The drinks list includes a variety of beers brewed 20 minutes away in Baie St-Paul. The view out the picture windows is dazzling: skiers poised at the top of a run, ready to take the 2,500 vertical feet plunge to what appears to be a direct landing on the icy Seaway. A lone ice-breaker crunches its way through the frozen waters of the St Lawrence. And all around, the snow-iced, dark-green Group-of-Seven-famous forests of Charlevoix, a World Biosphere Reserve that bears the fascinating stamp of a fallen meteorite some 350 million years ago.

The Flavour Trail

Mer et Monts is one member of the Route des Saveurs de Charlevoix (The Flavour Trail) a gastronomic road map and an alliance of producers and restaurateurs promoting and showcasing products from Charlevoix’ rich soil.

When skiing loses its appeal, or when the aching knee and burning thighs need a rest, a pilgrimage along the Flavour Trail is delightful. It’s also doable as a one-day-trip from the mountain during winter, when a number of the producers (notably the farms) are closed for the season.

Still, there’s a lot to see and taste. If you begin in Baie St Paul, stop at Le Saint-Pub for a flight of its own beers (all brewed on site) and for a bowl of pea soup and local duck confit. Then cross the street to La Chocolaterie Cynthia for a mug of home made hot chocolate-milk and some Charlevoix truffles. View the process of cheesemaking at La Laiterie Charlevoix where windows overlook the factory floor, a museum of cheese describes the history and practices of the craft. Sampling is encouraged and all is for sale.

I bought a Lacoste hothouse tomato at La Laiterie and munched it like a peach. The flavour was of August sunshine and the pink juices trickled down the sleeve of my down-filled parka. I ate this treat along with a day-old hunk of cheddar and the finest smoked sturgeon I have ever had (caught in Montmagny, cured and smoked at Le Fumoir Charlevoix) while watching the men of Baie-St-Paul shovel the two feet of fresh snow from the roofs of their homes.

A few kilometres to the north is La Ferme Basque, where Isabelle Mihura and her husband Jean-Jacques Etcheberrigaray raise their 2 daughters and 3000 ducks, supplying all manner of duck meat and products (including foie gras of a quality I have rarely tasted) to area restaurants and shops.

Gingerly picking my way around the snow drifts, along the Route du Fleuve that winds its way through the rugged beauty of the St Lawrence River’s north shore from Baie St Paul to Baie Sainte Catherine, I follow the pictograms of a toque blanche on an orange square. Other than the company of snow ploughs, I have the route pretty much to myself. From Baie St Paul down to pretty little Saint-Joseph-de-la-Rive, to Les Eboulements where Les Finesses de Charlevoix sells regional products and where, in softer season, you may picnic overlooking the St-Lawrence. Twenty minutes later, I am at La Malbaie, where the Trail takes me to Le Veau Charlevoix, a specialty shop which offers a complete range of veal products, as well as organic meat, local emu, cheese, duck, smoked fish, preserves, ciders. Next, I was on to Fromagerie Saint-Fidele, which sells daily fresh cheddar, and Swiss cheese.

My last stop was at the Fairmont Manoir Richelieu, a splendid property on the cliffs of Pointe-au-Pic, with excellent winter rates for any of their 400-plus recently refurbished rooms. A package of bed and a generous breakfast in a sun-filled dining room overlooking the River, was $183.

In a few months the Flavour Trail will be fully open, every one of the 35 businesses in full bloom, and it could well occupy your time for days.

Until then, consider the Trail a delightful distraction from the hill – or just a tasty way of fuelling up between runs.

If you go…

Getting there:
Fly or drive to Quebec City, then follow highway 138 east for forty minutes to signs for Le Massif
Twenty minutes back along 138 east straight to Baie St-Paul.

Where to stay:

In Baie-St-Paul
La Maison Otis www.maisonotis.com or 1-800-267-2254

In La Malbaie
Fairmont Le Manoir Richelieu www.fairmont.com/richelieu
or (418) 665-3703

Other sites to explore for rental accommodation
www.hebergementbaiestpaul.com
www.imcha.com
www.hotelleriechampetre.com/auberge-hotel-quebec/index.cfm
www.genevrier.com

Where to eat:

For Mer et Monts 1-877-536-2774 (ext 4047) or (418) 632-5876
www.lemassif.com/en/services.restaurants.meretmonts.asp
Restaurant Le Saint-Pub 2 rue Racine, Baie-St-Paul (418) 240-2332 www.microbrasserie.com
For restaurants along the Flavour Trail:
www.tourisme-charlevoix.com/en/circuits/saveurs.asp

In La Malbaie:
Vices Versa, 216 rue Etienne (418) 665-6869
www.vicesversa.com

Contacts:
www.lemassif.com
www.bonjourquebec.com
www.tourisme-charlevoix.com
www.tourisme-charlevoix.com/en/circuits/saveurs.asp