Cafe Maplethorpe Blog

What a great weekend!

We worked hard all day Saturday and were loking forward to a fantastic PEI Sunday in the summer. We were not disappointed.

Glorious weather for the CyclingPEI Sunday event, trail ride from the Emerald Train Depot to Borden-Carleton and back. The great thing about these rides is…everything! Well organized, a small entry fee to pay for the food and drink waiting at trail’s end, and the amazing diversity of people. There were parents with tiny kids all the way up to an 87 year old enjoying our magnificent scenery. (I fall pleasantly in the middle of the age array, thank you for asking.)

I would really like a set of CyclingPEI bike wear…you know, those shorts with the padded bum and the really bright, tight-fitting shirts. First I need to lose about 20 pounds, though. Let’s not talk about that.

Off to Small Halls

After the bike ride it was time for a good shower, rustle up some grub for the family and off to a Small Halls Concert. We had tickets to the sold-out Songwriters Circle at Harmony House in Hunter River. I have driven past Harmony House for the past few years but this was my first opportunity to go inside. Great venue! Very beautifully transformed from a small church to an intimate concert hall. A lovely night of songs by an ALL-PEI line-up of songwriters, including Rose Cousins, Catherine MacLellan, John Connolly and Nick Gauthier.

Great music and lucky for us the Irving Station at the bottom of the hill stays open late for a quick fill before heading home.

All in all, a lovely PEI weekend, full of family, friends, outdoor recreation, great food and music!

This has turned out to be a busy week at Maplethorpe. Went up to Georgetown to hear the Men of the Deeps concert on Tuesday night. The Kings Playhouse in Georgetown is a great community theatre and is in the process of doubling its size. (Your tax dollars at work!) We hadn’t been up there in a few years–last time was to see Buddy Wasisname and the Other Fellas. (Also a super show!) We ran into a few people we knew at the concert who couldn’t believe we had driven all the way from Bedeque for a music concert.

Now let’s put this into perspective.

Georgetown is about an hour and a half drive from Bedeque. As Islanders say, Georgetown is ‘down east,’ on the other side of the world from where we live. From our perspective as westerners, Georgetown is easily half the distance we often drove to watch a high school basketball game when our boys were playing in Montana. An hour and a half was a crosstown drive to work when we lived in St. Louis. For us, Georgetown just isn’t that far. And since Georgetown was the only place on PEI where we could hear the Men of the Deeps, well, that was that.

Date Night Thwarted…Again

We had planned to leave early, see the sights and get some supper in Charlottetown, but that was not to be. The restaurant was just swamped with people at lunch and the last ones didn’t leave until after our 3:00 pm closing. That morning I was informed the daughter needed to be picked up from school at 4:30. Husband Jim was tutoring a math student until 5:30. We had overnight guests expected for the B&B, and they got checked in at around 5:45. So, we snarfed down sandwiches while standing in the kitchen and dashed out the door at 6:00 pm. Story of my life.

But we had a nice drive and got to Georgetown at 7:30 for the 8:00 show. The place was mostly full, but not sold out. We ran into some people we knew and even people who don’t know you on PEI are friendly. We had great seats 4 rows back from the stage, right in the middle. The show started on time at 8:00 when the place went dark and the miners came in from the back, singing, their path illuminated by the lamps on their hardhats.

They were great.

Well, you expected me to say that, didn’t you? We paid $35 a ticket and drove an hour and a half. I would never admit it if the concert was a disaster. The Men of the Deeps is a choir made up of professional Cape Breton coal miners–one requirement for prospective choir members is 2 years work in the employ of a mine. Most of the song were about mining work…loving the mine, hating the mine, mine disasters, mines closing forever. You could tell these guys were really singing from their hearts. At the end of the concert the choir members came out in the audience to shake hands and thank us for coming. We were touched.

We’ll give the kids the url and tell them to google it.

I wondered most of the drive home how much longer the Men of the Deeps will last. Several of the singers looked to be in their 70s. With the Cape Breton coal mines long ago closed, I wonder where the group will get replacements when these elders are ready to pass the torch. Maybe this will become another story we’ll have to tell our grandkids to imagine, like where fishermen used to be and where farmers used to be. Where coal mines used to be and where miners used to sing harmony together, celebrating a communal life above and below the ground.

It was a pleasure to recently host a group of Katimavik volunteers at Maplethorpe for their ‘Lunch and Learn’ session.

Uniquely Canadian

As an import to Canada from the United States, I am occasionally confronted by cultural practices or ways of seeing community life that really embody the difference between being ‘Canadian’ and being ‘American.’ Katimavik is one of those. It is a volunteer experience for 17-21 years olds. Canadian youth volunteer for this service opportunity that lasts 6 to 9 months. During that time, Katimavik volunteers live communally, frugally,  and provide their labor and expertise to community and not-for-profit organizations that need a helping hand. Through these service opportunities the Katimavik youth volunteers get to see and explore unfamiliar parts of this vast country as they are posted far from their homes. They practice group living skills  and are exposed to a rich variety of possible future endeavors through volunteer labor opportunities. Katmavik volunteers can ‘try out’ a variety of possible future occupations before making a final decision about the future.

Onward and Upward

The youth that were here were near the completion of their service obligation and talked with animation of next steps…university or college,  work, and happy return home to waiting family.  They also talked about how much they enjoyed working in daycare centres and with the elderly, how much they enjoyed snowshoeing through the Prince Edward Island countryside and the lasting friendships and impressions they were each taking away from their collective experience.

A new group of Katimavik volunteers will arrive shortly to replace these graduates and we hope to see them soon. More information on this great program is available at their website.

I fell off the blogwagon for a bit, but made a resolution to step up the postings in 2010. With the restaurant closed for the month of January every year, my routine is really changed up. In fact, for the month of January, I don’t cook. That’s my rule. I cook for everybody that walks in the door for 11 months of the year–last year over 5,000 meals from my little kitchen.

But in January, my stove is OFF.

My family is totally sick of pizza, Subway, Wendy’s, Tim Hortons, KFC, take-out Chinese, grocery store deli—you name it, we’ve carried it home and wolfed it down. It has actually been a good exercise in remembering why we decided to open a restaurant 3 years ago. And why we decided to specialize in cuisine that is fresh, local and organic.

I broke my January NO COOKING rule over the weekend, though, when our next door neighbor brought us a “feed of smelts.”

Smelt are tasty little fish that are speared through the ice from inside ice fishing shacks, and a “feed” is just what it sounds like—enough to feed your family. At one time this winter fishery was no doubt essential to family survival, but now smelt fishing is mostly recreational. Bags of fresh smelts are sometimes sold, but more often are given away to friends and neighbors.

When you are lucky enough to receive a bag of smelts, they have to be dealt with. Like fresh corn on the cob, smelt taste best when they are cooked and eaten quickly after they are caught. The ones Brian handed me in the driveway were mostly still alive, just pulled from Bedeque Bay a few short kilometers from our home. Talk about being a locavore!

Cleaning smelt isn’t too bad, but cleaning fish is cleaning fish. Heads and tails off, guts out, ready to go. I used several old newspapers under and around the cutting board and sharpened my knives before I started. It took me about a half hour to get them ready. Take out the trash immediately after or you will regret your laziness—guts get stinky fast.

I ran across a website that claimed 36 ways of cooking smelt.

It made me start thinking of Bubba in Forest Gump reciting all the ways to cook shrimp. But you know, smelt need to be fried. Smelt is not for fancy dining. Although we don’t normally deep fry around here, we make an exception for smelts. Once only, then we have had our smelts for the year.

I decided that since I was going to waste a quart of cooking oil, I would also make some homemade potato chips. Talk about simple—slice a potato thin! Throw the slices in the hot oil! Fish the chips out and add salt!

It helps immensely to have a thermometer to determine when the oil is hot enough. I use an ancient thermometer from my dad’s kitchen that has an arrow next to the word ‘fish’. It doesn’t even have numbers, just words on the dial like ‘hard crack’, ‘potatoes’ and ‘fish’.

I mixed a cup of white flour with salt, pepper and spices and dredged the smelts through it. Tossed them in the hot fry oil and waited for them to turn brown. About 5 minutes.

We drained them on paper towels and ate them as standing up in the kitchen, burning our fingers, washed down with cold beer.

It was worth breaking the January NO COOKING rule.

Hard to believe we made it to December 6, 2009 before the first snow of the new season. Even so, it caught us all off guard! Winter is officially here!

This has been our busiest year yet!

And one of the most fun activities has been providing culinary tourism experiences for Japanese tourists through our partnership with Prince Edward Tours.

During our afternoons at Maplethorpe, we have concentrated on pie making. Although we North Americans might view making a pie as fairly mundane, this is a new and interesting experience for most Japanese!

The type of pie we make depends on seasonal availability of local fruit. We started out in the Spring making rhubarb pies. Our Japanese guests did it all, from picking and cleaning the fresh rhubarb through to the finished pie. We have followed PEI’s seasons, moving through strawberries to raspberries and presently are working with blueberries. I can’t wait for the Fall to bring us fresh PEI apples…maybe I can come up with a recipe for cranberry pie, too!

Through the afternoon at Maplethorpe, our tourist guests truly become friends! As the pies bake we talk about the differences and similarities in our lives. We share a pot of tea and take a tour of our home, including the    vegetable garden, chicken house and (of course!) the bed and breakfast rooms.

Surprisingly, our guests report that they have been able to take their pies home to Japan! What a great way to share the authentic taste of Prince Edward Island and truly share their vacation experience with friends and family.

There. I said it. I hate yard sales.

The fact that I do not hold yard sales or attend any held by others makes me something of a freak on Prince Edward Island, home of the annual 70-Mile Coastal Yard Sale. (For information on the 2009 70-Mile Coastal Yard Sale, set for September 26 and 27, follow this link.)

I think people guess my lack of interest is simply because I am ‘from away,’ but more likely it is related to the way I was raised. Having lived through the Great Depression, my mother would never have allowed her children to be clothed in the cast-offs of others. She would never bring the used things of others into our home. Most of all, she would never stand in someone’s yard, even a stranger’s yard, and paw through their belongings. Not in a million years.

But we’re Islanders now. Every year my little village of Bedeque picks a date in June and everyone has a yard sale in their respective yards. Those who live out of the village, or who can’t hold their own yard sale on the chosen weekend for other reasons, often donate their things to the United Church where a collective yard sale is also held.

Peer Pressure

Although I have resisted participating in the Bedeque yard sale since our arrival, this year I agreed to have a sale. I don’t know if it was peer pressure or just the mountain of junk we have accumulated over the past 7 years. The important point is that I finally joined in the fun!

Well, it wasn’t fun. It was a cold and rainy day. Everyone in my family managed to have  somewhere else important to go that morning, leaving me at home to run the garage sale alone. We had many lookers, and sold a few things, but not enough to justify the time and effort spent on the project. A few people just stopped by to find out what times the restaurant is open or to see if I had any baked goods for sale.  Most of the things I really wanted to get rid of are still here, waiting to be carted off to their final destination.

I still hate yard sales.

For the past 6 years we have observed a Saturday morning ritual…driving 45 minutes to Charlottetown to buy locally-grown veggies, Island-made sausages, Fair-Trade coffee and so much more at the Charlottetown Farmer’s Market. We always bump into other Summerside-area residents we know–there are lots of people making the Saturday trek. The Charlottetown Farmer’s Market has always been THE place to mingle, nosh and stock up on the best provisions on Prince Edward Island. Some Saturdays we can barley squeeze through the crowded isles, let alone find a place to park. Sure, we think about the gas we burn on the trip, our sad contribution toward climate change, the added expense…all that guilt just leaks out of our brains and drips down the seats of our car. But bottom line is we love the Charlottetown Farmer’s Market vibe, the people and the food, and despite the nagging little why-don’t-you-do-the-right-thing-and-shop-closer-to-home thoughts, we just go. Marty Taylor’s sausages are calling and I don’t have call waiting.

Well. We Used to Just Go

Summerside steps up!

The one-year old Spring Street Farmer’s Market is keeping us closer to home these days. And by all measures, keeping lots of other western Islanders out of Charlottetown on Saturday mornings.

What a vibrant market!

The Spring Street Market is a beautiful year-round space in the historic downtown Holman Building. Exposed brick and stone walls, upscale vendor display areas and plenty of space for shoppers to linger and mingle have created a Saturday morning destination for hundreds. (Really–hundreds!)

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This morning I picked up certified organic pork, a week’s worth of locally-grown root vegetables, 5 dozen free-range eggs and a big package of fresh hand-made pasta. Then I sat down to visit with people I haven’t seen since last Saturday.

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I saw people snacking on plates of sushi and Belgium waffles, big cups of steaming coffee and giant moon pies from some of the food vendors. One of the girls was showing off a piece of pottery she just bought, a beautiful birthday gift for a friend. The squeals and laughter of children could be heard coming from the play area.

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Guest Chef

The Spring Street Market just launched a new program–weekly cooking demonstrations featuring local chefs. And guess who got to be the first guest chef!

My job was to offer some new cooking twists on seasonal foods…root vegetables, locally-produced meats–anything currently on offer by Market vendors. I met lots of our regular restaurant customers wondering when we are going to re-open (THIS TUESDAY!) and gave out samples and recipe cards.

We made two of our signature dishes, Apple Slaw and Country Mushroom Soup. (Cabbage is one of the “11 Best Foods You Aren’t Eating.” See the whole article here.) In honor of the Chinese New Year, we tried a new recipe as well, Chinese Five-Spice Braised Pork Loin. What a hit with the crowd!

Thank you, Emmerdale Eden Farms, for the donation of organic pork loin for this demonstration.

We signed up a whole sheet of e-mail addresses for our monthly restaurant updates and recipes. It was a really fun morning and a great way to ease back into restaurant cooking after 4 weeks off.

Still Off to Charlottetown…Sometimes

We are still visiting our friends at the Charlottetown Farmer’s Market once in awhile. But most Saturdays we’ll be supporting local growers even closer to home at the Spring Street Farmer’s Market in Summerside. Hope to see you there, too!

Welcome to the Cafe Maplethorpe Blog!

“Maplethorpe” is the name of our house, built in the 1860’s by the first Postmaster of Bedeque, Major Wright. Yes, at first we thought it odd that someone would give a house a name, but why not?

This is the story of an American family that chose Prince Edward Island in 2002, and have been working since then toward a sustainable organic lifestyle for our home and business. Our goal is to chronicle our life on “the gentle island” month by month throughout the year with a special focus on the food of Prince Edward Island.

We invite you to share our stories, post some of your own, try our recipes and pass along your thoughts.