Back Porch scenes

You may have noticed, I’ve been talking a lot about Manitoba. Now I’m back in Toronto, after a blissfully relaxing two weeks at my parents’ farm in Sainte-Anne, Manitoba.

I played with the border collies, walked on the frozen river with my mum and helped (sometimes) with feeding grain. And because my parents have been locavores since before locavores appeared in the lexicon, and because Manitoba winter’s are, um, harsh, eating locally means eating cheese and meat. Lots of it. Potatoes, onions and beets too. And some sharp, crisp pickles. I return to Toronto well fed and, I think, slightly fat. I feel great.

I also did some eating outside the farm, which brings me to this place.

Back Porch is a café on the outskirts of the small farming community of Linden, 30 or so kilometers south-southeast of Winnipeg. Denise Collins and her family opened the café in October, in a house once owned by her great-grandparents.

It’s a house that’s been in the family, and it feels like it. A narrow staircase leads to a cozy second floor, which has been renovated into an open space that somehow comfortably fits a half dozen tables and a few reading nooks.

Back Porch is open for breakfast and lunch. The kitchen serves coffee and espresso, breads, buns, bagels, cinnamon rolls, soups and sandwiches. On Saturday mornings, Collins offers a robust brunch buffet, complete with bacon, eggs and sausage. Brunch is just under $9, which is especially good when you consider the prairie view from the top floor.

You couldn’t pay for this in T.O.

Willie's Magic Mash

I realize that most people will remember their grandfathers as the sweetest men on earth. But I will go ahead and say it: My grandfather really was the sweetest. Really, he was.

In 2003 , Willie was left nearly speechless by a stroke. Yes, he became more dependent upon family members, but he never failed to find ways to be helpful. At family gatherings, he made sure everyone’s drink was filled. He had an extensive liquor cabinet, and a good memory for cocktails.

He used any occasion as an excuse to find something special at the jewellery store for Marge, my Grandma. He attended our graduations, and hugged his grandkids tightly. Without words, he was able to find ways to tell us that he loved us, was proud of us.

I suspect that making wine was, for Willie, a way to show how much he loved his friends, his family. Long before I could drink the stuff, myself, and long before he lost his speech, he was notoriously generous with his homemade wine. I’m not sure there was ever a visit when my parents didn’t come home with a bottle, or twelve, of the stuff.



Willie died last August, exactly a year and a half after Marge. My dad found this bottle of homemade crab-apple wine in the basement stash. It’s old, from 1995, and amber coloured. You wouldn’t necessarily think that homemade fruit wine ought to last that long, but it did. We opened the bottle yesterday. It was delicious, sweet, and as Grandpa would have it, nice and boozy

January blues

Oh, hi. This is awkward. Here I am, more than a month after those beers, during which time I didn't call, write, or make any attempt to connect. Not so much as a peep.

Well this time it’s different. Really. And there are a few things I need to tell you.

First, you’ll be seeing a lot more of me. On Mondays, specifically. Perhaps not every Monday, but most Mondays. If I’m not mistaken, today is Monday. Hi.

I should also tell you that I’ll be bringing cheese around a lot more. Today, for instance, I brought a feisty little cheese that I want you to meet.




So here it goes. Meet Blue Haze, an Ontarian smoked blue cheese.

Blue Haze is well-travelled, for a cheese. Monks start this semi-firm blue in l’Abbaye de Saint-Benoît-du-Lac, in Québec. The wheels travel to Cayuga, Ontario, where they are smoked of a bed of cherry and hickory chips by an affineur, Provincial Fine Foods.

And in this case of this particular wedge of cheese, photographed by my father, Randy, it also travelled with me to Manitoba, where it was laid to rest. In our stomachs.

While blue cheese and smokiness may be flavourful extremes, the result is mellow and well balanced. Because the cheese is fairly dense, the effects of the smoking process don’t fully penetrate the salty, buttery blues. But the golden, sweet caramel smoke rind creates a surprisingly delicate contrast.

The girl at the cheese shop recommended I have this cheese with fig chutney. I tested her theory, but with ground-cherry jam instead. Beautiful. Then I tested it again. And again. And again. I suspect Blue Haze and I will meet again.

Booze, out of season

This is going to seem all wrong:

It’s early December, the sky is grey, and the air is cold. I should be telling you about a hot, steamy, boozy drink, perfect for evenings spent under a blanket and on the couch, while watching Christmas movies on CBC. Instead, I’m going to share a recipe for a cold beer cocktail best enjoyed outside, in July, under the hot afternoon sun.

I discovered micheladas, or cervezas preparadas ("prepared beers") in Mexico City. To be fair, I arrived in January, and for the first month it did hover around freezing temperature at night. So I did learn to love them while I was wearing a jacket.

This recipe is also going to seem all wrong, simply because it’s a beer cocktail. I suspect some beer fans might consider them a travesty. Why add lime, salt and spice to a perfect good beer?, they might ask. I’ll tell you. Because it’s awesome. Maybe not to everyone, and probably not when it’s cold outside. But I don’t care. This beer is good.

Michelada
(makes one cocktail)

1 cold Mexican beer, preferably Negra Modelo or Indio
1/4 cup fresh lime juice
1 tablespoon (or less) Salsa Valentina (available in Latin America grocery stores)
A dash of Salsa Maggi or regular soy sauce
Ice cubes (if desired. Not necessary if you have a chilled beer glass)

for the rim preparation:
3 tablespoons Kosher salt
1 tablespoon crushed/powdered piquín pepper

First, prepare the rim mix. Mix the salt and the piquín pepper in a small bowl, and sprinkle a spoonful onto a plate. Rub lime juice on the rim of a well chilled pint glass, and dip the glass into the salt mix.

For the drink, start with the "condiments". In your rimmed pint glass, add your ice, both salsas and the lime juice. Pour the beer (there might be a little left over in your bottle. Keep it to top off your drink), and gently mix the cocktail with a spoon. Garnish with a lime wedge and serve.

Manitoba Dreaming

I look forward to care packages from home. They’re always perfect, and my parents put a lot of thought into them. My mother always sends me her watercolours, which are stunning. The packages often include some home-grown literature (The Carillon, for instance. That way, columnists like J.D. Lee can make me kick, scream and sob, all from a distance. On the plus side, I’m also able to keep tabs on the properties in Manitoba that I could buy one day. There, I will raise poultry and grow cabbage).

There's more, and the boxes are always full of surprises. One thing I know for sure, though. There is going to be some kind of food in there. I can count on that.

It’s always been that way. When I was fifteen, and living in Québec on a student exchange, my father sent me a box full of Easter chocolates. It came with a letter telling me to take charge, as the Easter Bunny. I did this, dutifully.

Today, I got a package. It was packed full of goodies, but not chocolate this time. Instead, everything smelled like sweet, beautiful garlic, grown by our friends Kelly and Gerry Dubé, in LaBroquerie, 15 minutes away from my parents’ farm. I now have massive amounts of garlic, and by God, I will use it.

The box was also heavy with fingerling potatoes, which I helped dig up back in September. I also found two very firm, cylindrical beets.

Which brings me to tonight's dinner. I roasted fingerling potatoes, a beet, and an entire bulb of Kelly’s garlic, along with some yam and eggplant that I found in the crisper. I tossed everything in olive oil, salt and pepper, and topped it off with some nice feta. I also tucked in half of a lemon into the roasting pan. Once all my veggies were happily roasted, I squeezed hot lemon juice onto the roasted vegetables. A little fresh parsley, and BAM. Dinner.

Ah, yes. You want additional instructions, because that wasn’t really a recipe at all. 450 F, half an hour to 45 minutes...or whenever everyone in the roasting pan is tender, and even a bit charred. The denser veggies, like potatoes and beets should be cut into smaller pieces than softies, like eggplant or yams.

It may not have been a recipe, but I am damn excited about roasted vegetables in the fall. And so should you be.

Meringues aren't for breakfast

I’ve been eyeing a meringue recipe for days now. Finally, yesterday, when I felt my hands were steady enough to separate the whites without a speck of yolk, I dove in.

I made them with lemon zest, and they were beautiful in the oven. Their outsides puffed up crispy, while their insides caved in.

When they finally came out, I was unsure. Too soft? Now, too dry? I tested, sampled, and stuffed myself until I was miserable, full of sugar and immensely cranky (Andrew will attest). Worse, I had lost all perspective, and I couldn’t tell anymore if they were any good.

This morning, after yoga, and before eating anything else, I tested them again, with fresh eyes and a fresh stomach. Now I’m sure. These are good! Crunchy on the outside, slightly gooey on the inside, only interrupted by little zesty bursts of lemon.

This isn’t much of a recipe, because I’m sure you’ll find a meringue recipe in any basic cookbook. But here is what I learned:

-Be sure there isn’t any yolk or eggshell in your whites. The best way not to become insane is to use three bowls: one for your whites, one for your yolks, and one that you use to break and separate the egg into. Just slide the whites into to the larger bowl as you go. That way, if you screw up one egg, you won’t ruin the rest.
-Before you add the sugar, be sure your eggs are so stiff you could hold the bowl upside down, over your head.
-Before you fold in any flavouring, make sure the sugar has completely dissolved. The meringue should feel perfectly smooth between two fingers.
-Parchment paper works very nicely.

Mr Trout pleads not guilty

Yes, this little fish looks like he’s done something wrong.



He looks guilty, ashamed. This is a terrible photograph. To this tasty little trout, I owe an apology. I’m sorry your picture looks like a mug shot. It doesn’t do you justice. You were delightful, not a criminal. You were moist, buttery, and you got along really well with the parsley.

That being said, you didn’t photograph well.

This trout recipe is so simple, so quick, and rather quite perfect. The real treat is the hot lemon juice, which practically pours out of the broiled lemons. It’s from my recipe book crush of the week, Jamie Oliver’s Cook with Jamie.

Crispy Trout with lemon and Parsley
Adapted from a recipe in Cook with Jamie, by Jamie Oliver

For 2 people:

1 whole trout (1 to ½ lb), gutted, scaled and cleaned
a drizzle of olive oil
coarse salt and freshly ground black pepper
a bunch of fresh parsley (enough to stuff the fish’s cavity)
1 lemon (zest one half and slice it and leave the other half intact)
10 small knobs of butter

Preheat the broiler as high as it will go. With a sharp knife, slash the fish about ten times on each of its side, about a quarter of an inch deep. Rub the fish with olive oil, salt and pepper. Stuff it with the parsley and the lemon slices. Place Mr Trout on a broiling rack or on a baking rack set over a roasting pan. Put half the lemon zest and 5 knobs of butter on the upside of the fish. Place the intact half of the lemon on the rack beside the fish.

Place the fish in the oven, about 6 inches from the heat. Cook for about 6 minutes, or until the skin is crispy and golden. Take the fish out, carefully flip him over and put the rest of the lemon zest and butter on his uncooked side. Place him back on the rack for another 6 minutes.

Squeeze some hot lemon juice on the trout and serve immediately.