Part two of my summer column in Winnipeg Women/Dish Magazine.

“You’ll find Rembrandt’s Bistro at 1 Wellink Drive in Lockport.  The service and food is fantastic – like being at Terrace 55 but in the country.  Of special note, is the Red River cereal crème brulee which is served as a first course on the winter brunch menu.  

If you are ever heading south on Highway 59 en route to St. Malo, stop in at St. Pierre-Joly’s Le Bebe Rouge Drive In.  They are only open in the summer and the burgers are sensational (we can’t quite figure out what makes them so).

While en route to Clear Lake, driving west on the Trans Canada, you’ll want to veer into Portage la Prairie for a visit to Tres Unique Café in the historic Land Titles Building.  Check out their Facebook page to see what’s for lunch.  I’ve seen messages about Fiddleheads and asparagus (just picked from her garden) being made into quiche.  Chefs that I follow on Twitter are raving about Horfrost at 190 River Road also in Portage.  The inventive chef is serving up local ingredients prepared in a classical style but with surprising twists.

Honourable mentions from other Facebook friends go to Pine Ridge Hollow at the edge of Bird’s Hill Park and the Harvest Moon Café in Garson.  All of these little finds are within an hour of Winnipeg and definitely worth the trip.”

Kath’s quote: “A favorite dish in Kansas is creamed corn on a stick.”-Jeff Harms

Part one of my latest column in Winnipeg Women/Dish Magazine:

Our cottage is named “Life is Good” as indicated on this vase

Our drive to the cottage on the west shore of Lake Winnipeg is often delayed by a supper stop.  Barney Gargles on Main St. in Selkirk is a popular choice.  The décor is not fancy but the home-cooked food and baking is fabulous.  The platters of fish and chips that we thought we saw going by the table are actually their chicken finger platter.  Whole chicken breasts are covered in a crunchy beer batter.  The milkshakes are so huge they’re served in wine flagons. 

The Sandbar’s Breakfast Skillet

The Sand Bar Motor Hotel just outside Grand Beach Provincial Park is another favourite destination.  Tyler Gray is the chef putting out savoury breakfast skillets as well as confections like maple pecan Danish.  Friday nights we stop in for his steak special –an 8 oz. sirloin with all the fixings INCLUDING a beer or glass of wine for $10!  We also head there on Wednesdays for AYCE (all you can eat) Pickerel with their yummy hand-cut French fries. At $11, I know that they lose money on us.

Sandbar’s Omelette

Le Gouter is an amazing find on Saffie Road in Albert Beach.  Last summer they installed two huge crepes pans.  I like the one made with hollandaise, ham and cheese on a hearty Buckwheat crepe.  And although they do not use cheese curds in their poutine, every thing else about their offering is perfect in my humble opinion-sharp, gooey cheese, a savoury gravy and the best French fry along highway 59 north.

“Fisherman’s Breakfast“

The “other” side of Lake Winnipeg offers a bevy of exceptional dining too.  I recently enjoyed the Fisherman’s Breakfast at Mask Café in Gimli: pan-fried pickerel with a lemony hollandaise, crispy bacon, an egg and lacy hash browns.  Acquaintances also tell me of Jane and Walter’s Restaurant in Sandy Hook.  There is a lot of buzz from Facebook friends about Casa Bianca in an old house across from the park in Winnipeg Beach.  Samplers say that if you’re a garlic lover you’ll particularly enjoy it.  

Kath’s quote: “One of the very nicest things about life is the way we must regularly stop whatever it is we are doing and devote our attention to eating.” –Luciano Pavarotti

I’ve not known until this morning, the translation of this restaurant’s name: “the witch or sorceress, a hag”.  We’ve met the owners of La Bruja and I can’t imagine that he named this neighbourhood destination after his wife, who he clearly adores.  He and D compared notes about how it was quite pleasant that the kids were grown and we had had more time to spend together-nudge, nudge, wink, wink.  Although he professed that all of their time was spent in keeping the restaurant  open. 

There were no other tourists sitting around us at the tables that spilled onto the sidewalk.  But as the locals came to visit, they stood in the kitchen, chatted and ate.  Perhaps this lack of business, was because it was Ash Wednesday.  Although we are quite aware of the church calendar back home, we had to be reminded by the goings on by the service occuring right next to the restaurant.  This proved to be very enjoyable for us, as the babies were getting fussy and so older siblings were given permission to escort the little ones outside to try to distract them, until the festivities were concluded.    We love the Mayan children with their big brown eyes and quiet smiles.

But to the food.  D ordered shrimp tacos

and I the pan fried fish. 

I apologise for the photo quality-this trip was the last straw before I purchased my new camera.

The fish, as is typical on Isla, tasted just caught-because it likely was.  I was a little disappointed by the frozen fries but perhaps I should have avoided indulging in fries by this point of our trip.  D said that the shrimp were perfectly cooked (still firm) and the fresh veggies and salsas a delectable combination of tastes.

All toll, I recall that we spent about $17.  including cervesas that evening.  We walked home through the various neighbourhoods on the colonias peaking into living rooms and seeing hammocks swinging in the light of TV sets.  A perfect night on Isla.

Kath’s quote: “I wonder, now and then, if the prevalence of divorce has any connection with the decline of home cooking?”-Martha McCulloch-Williams

“Auntie’s chocolate cake (was) a moist, sour-milk, two-layer concoction spread thickly with Jennie’s soft, white frosting and covered in grated coconut.  As a child I loved to watch the vinegar -Heinz’s white, not my grandfather’s red-start to sour the warm milk.  If I stared long enough I could see the milk begin to thicken and coagulate from the chemical reaction of the vinegar.  When the cake was pulled from the oven, leaving moist, dark crumbs on the toothpick tester, I loved the sight of it sitting on a cake plate in the center of any of the tables from my childhood, whether it was my birthday’s or someone else’s.”

“A single bite of that cake still conjures up the days when all the characters of my childhood used to sit around Jennie’s kitchen table on Whitney Avenue celebrating the joy of birth, when I was little, when my parents were young, when my grandparents were still only in their sixties.  It keeps those Sunday dinners alive in my memory,”from Paula Buttuini’s “Keeping the Feast”

Well here it is the weekend of Daughter #1’s birthday and what has she requested for her birthday dessert?  A recipe for the chocolate zucchini cake from her childhood-one that I haven’t made in years.  But not surprisingly, I find it in one of my many “Best of Bridge” recipe books and as I scan the ingredients to ensure that I will have everything I see that it calls for sour milk…

Daughters #1 and 2

I’ve run out of time and space this morning but I will post the beloved recipe soon and also dig up one for the requested chocolate cream cheese icing.  Have a wonderful Canada Day weekend.  Find a food treat to celebrate this great country that we live in and the memories of the day will live on.

Kath’s quote:  “We have never been a melting pot. The fact is we are more like a tossed salad. We are green, some of us are oily, and there’s a little vinegar injected when you get up to Ottawa.”-Arnold Edinborough

Universities across Canada have a special exchange program to accommodate English students who wish to become more fluent in French and French students who wish to do the same in English.  Daughter #1 spent a summer of at Universite Laval in Quebec City a couple of years ago.  Sister #3 has hosted two of these students in her home-Emilie last year and this summer Gabrielle.  We celebrated Gabrielle’s last weekend of the program with a pitch in supper last Saturday night at the cottage.  “Pitch in” meaning that everyone took on a dish or a course:

Sister #3 and I shared the appetizer course:  Mushrooms Neptune and Mussels whith bread to sop up the mussel juice.

D broiled the strip loins and shrimp kebabs

and Sister #2 made an artichoke & zucchini salad, a brown & wild rice pilaf,

sauteed mushrooms & feta and local asparagus. 

The guest of honour made the dessert course-a special treat of sugar pie!

Quebecois recipes must be handed down by verbal tradition because Gabby had never written this one out.  I noticed the same thing when I’ve asked the “Frenchman’s” Mom for a favourite recipe and when his sister-Vanessa stayed with us this Christmas.  She had made us crepes and when I requested that recipe she told me that you started with one egg per person and that you added milk, flour and sugar according to look and feel. 

But without further adieu…Tarte Au Sucre

Combine 3/4 c brown sugar with 1/2 c milk, 1 beaten egg, 3 heaping T flour & 2 t spoons melted butter.  Pour into a prepared pie shell and bake at 375 degrees until set.  Topped with ice cream or whipped cream as we choose to. 

Happy Belated Saint John Baptiste Day.  I love that Canada is such a mosaic and people and cultures and food traditions!

Kath’s quote: “Food is a central activity of mankind and one of the single most significant trademarks of a culture.”-Mark Kurlansky