You knew just what I was there for...

One of the paradoxes of living a scant 55 minutes from the mountain town of Canmore, Alberta is that one never seems to find the time to just hop in the car and drive to Canmore for "something to do".  Which is a very great pity, I remind myself on my annual chance trip west of Calgary, promising that we really need to do so more often.

In the past, (deservedly or not), the sleepy little town had inherited a reputation for hyper-earnest ecofreakism - the kind in which hemp-wearing vegetarians could find mass solace in shouting down evil commercial ventures on general principles alone, and gather thereafter for a celebratory organic beverage in one of many equally earnest communal tea emporia.  Or, perhaps more irritatingly (especially to inhabitants) being thought of as a distinctly second-class cousin to Banff, aimed squarely at those who, after looking (but not touching) the rich and famous at the Springs, could still maintain the illusion of having "been to Banff and stayed in the Rockies" once returning from the National Park to the motley motels along the Trans Canada highway.

Well, folks, Canmore is all grown up.  Not simply because of a real estate boom beckoning investors from abroad, finding themselves unbelievably lucky to procure, with what buys a one-bedroom flat in London or Zurich, a 4-bedroom alpine mansion on a golf course.  The money helps, obviously - but fancy houses do not entirely a community make.  Walking through the neighborhoods - tastefully hidden from the highway (to the advantage of driver and resident alike), and into town, one gets the undeniable sense that Canmore has looked up from its Cinderellesque lot in life and suddenly realized it is every bit as pretty as the glamour girl next door - and maybe with even more depth and character.  Canmore has become a destination in its own right, with a new confidence in itself that has allowed it to spread its arms magnanimously to welcome not just those select few with an indentical mindset, but a full range of people who share a love of everything that living as part of the mountains means.

And those who'd like to drop in for a visit.

Which is how we five families, all interrelated by marriage and birth, found ourselves wandering last weekend down from our spacious mountain weekend retreat onto main street, downtown Canmore.  With several members of the tribe in the five-and-under age bracket, it was occasionally less of a stroll than a coordinated evacuation (especially when visiting the enormously well-stocked Candy Store), and by midday, left us splitting up into vague family groupings looking for food.

My clan stopped briefly in front of LunaBLUE, before being automatically turned away by the rest of the name - Pasta, Noodles and Grains.  No point taking a celiac sufferer into a pasta place, after all...But then Shauna stopped and, fatefully,  said - "Well, they do have salads..."

We filtered in, eyes adjusting from the brilliant mountain sunshine to a peaceful, jazz-infused cool room - nearly empty but for two guests left over from the lunch rush (since we arrived at about 1:30) - but were instantly greeted by a calm, friendly and completely attentive hostess.  May as well get the completely crucial and inevitable question out of the way first - "We'd like to try your restaurant, but do you have anything that's gluten-free (it's not a fad, it's medically necessary...)"

Well.  Not only are all their salads expressly gluten-free, but the chef is completely and utterly prepared to make any of the pasta dishes on the menu (except of course for the cannelloni and ravioli) with gluten-free pasta!  That settled it.  We were hungry, and to be absolutely safe, the salads sounded good enough to serve as a meal if the pasta was too risky.

We got our menus.  Outside, another subclan of the tribe gathered, reading the chalkboard menu.  Note that each branch of the tribe has at least one, if not two celiac members...so before long, over the span of ten minutes, all 22 members filed in, independently, to the same establishment.  Kudos to whomever is in charge of curb appeal at LunaBLUE - clearly whatever you do works to bring them in.

While sitting and admiring the constellations hand-painted and named around the perimeter of the ceiling, a flicker from the kitchen, behind the respectable wine rack, reveals an actual working forno - king of Italian wood-fired ovens, which makes pizza (and all other dishes) what they were invented to be.  That is a very good sign - as is the earnest, urgent but unconcerned conversation in front of that oven between chef and waitress, thinking quickly about how to feed the second, perhaps wholly unexpected lunch crush of the day.  Did I mention unflappable, friendly and accommodating?  They never wavered once, as family tables inexorably filled.

The menu is brief, and at first glance, spare - until you start reading the details.  There are but six salads - but listen:  The Spinach Salad has warm brie.  And dried cranberries and almonds.  With a blueberry vinaigrette.  It dawns on you that you've probably never had that particular combination in a salad before, and you can practically taste it as you read it.  The Scallop Salad has just three ingredients - but balsamic vinegar on warm scallops nestled in baby spinach greens makes a similar point - this is lunch!  Warm goat cheese, wild salmon fillet, portobello mushrooms, olive oil-red wine and orange-cranberry vinaigrette confidently round out the salad cast - again each one capable of starring in a midday meal.

In fact, we'd very nearly decided that since supper was not far off, these salads would absolutely do the trick - until we were graciously given an extra couple of minutes to browse the rest of the menu.  There are 11 main dish selections to choose from.  Every one comes in two appetite sizes, which is a stroke of simple genius.  Maybe a small version would be just as good as a salad for lunch....let's see... Spaghetti Al Capone, with grilled beef striploin, tomatoes, spinach, garlic, olive oil, and parmesan.

Now stop - if you hadn't read the salad choices first, that description could actually conjure up the usual boring image of barely-chewable noodles piled with bottled red sauce, the odd chunk of beef and a slap of minced garlic from a jar - found on the "Italian" section of gas-station diners across western Canada....

Well, you'd be wrong.  Shauna went no farther.  She was told they had a rice pasta, and she really wanted beef, so that is what she ordered.  What arrived on her plate was so surprisingly and compellingly unexpected - a skewer of the tenderest beef, grilled without sauce or accoutrement other than salt and fresh ground pepper, laid on a bed of perfectly al dente rice fettucine - properly and expertly tossed with a brace of fresh tomato chunks, and olive oil-enrobed and sauteed garlic, all covered with a filigree of fresh, long strands of grated parmigiano reggiano - (the real thing), and spiked with a heady, piney sprig of just-picked rosemary.  Take a giant sniff first - that long, lingering, heady lungful that promises a full commitment to your mouth with every bite.  The meat was tender, succulently juicy, the essence of the pride of Alberta beef.  The pasta was a perfect example of the magic of garlic, tomatoes, olive oil, and cheese.

My conundrum was that I wanted at least three of the remaining 10 choices.  Rae swiftly came to my rescue - she ordered Ravioli Summer.  They stuff the ravioli with sweet, mild butternut squash, paired with ricotta cheese (well, why not, indeed?) and tossed in ginger butter, almonds, onions and - raspberries?  Again, what an inspiration - ricotta with fruit.  Yes, that makes sense.  And butter with ginger?  That makes the butternut squash sing.  The smooth filling, the silky pasta - set off by the crunch of almonds and the tiny burst of raspberry seeds.  Rae said she should have ordered a large portion.

Craig rode to the rescue on the other flank.  A Vancouver man, ordering oven-baked, Asian-glazed Wild Salmon on Fettucine with Shiitake mushrooms?  In Alberta?  Isn't that a bit brave?  "Salmon is easy to do," he said.  "What's hard is to do salmon well!"   His verdict?  This was some of the best salmon he ever ate.  I got a bite.  I agree, though you should value the opinion of a person from the coast more than mine.

So far, the choices hadn't strayed much from my preconceived notion that this "pasta place" was by definition Italian, or at least Italian fusion.  But wait a minute - nobody made that claim, not on the door nor the menu.  In fact, scanning the rest of the entrees shows a remarkable appreciation and respect for other noodles and grains.  By the time the hostess came back for our order, I was thinking about some Spanish complaints about what I was about to order - a Couscous Paella.  Paella is rice, religiously and often fanatically prepared by men of that country in a certain, time-honoured and inviolable way.  Could you really replace rice with couscous, and get away with it?  What the heck - this is Canmore, not Barcelona.  I ordered it, because I wanted chorizo, and mussels, and shrimp.  I didn't realize that it also came with the freshest baby broccoli and carrots, tender chicken breast, and - saffron.  Real saffron, tiny threads of pure culinary gold suffusing perfect little pasta spheres of couscous.  The mussels were big, and juicy, and as fresh as if they were pulled from the ocean that morning.  The chorizo, with a bang of proper spice, is made right in Canmore, they said, by Valhalla meats.  Perfect.  Everything - the shrimp, the chicken, the vegetables - all were perfectly cooked.  Which means that chef back there, making not just my dish but 21 others simultaneously, knew exactly when to slide each one into the mix to guarantee complete harmony on my plate.

Alanna, whose baby does not yet care for tomatoes or cheese while gaining sustenance from Mommy, was very, very happy to find a Pad Thai on the menu.  I silently figured this would be the acid test - could this place treat that diversity of noodles with the respect they all deserve?  In a word, yes.  The fish sauce underpinning the the chicken, the cilantro, the freshly-crushed peanuts, and the magnificent slippery pad thai noodles...I have not had anything better in any of the good Thai places I have had the good fortune to try.

They have other things - including that great forno-fired pizza, and simple but incredible desserts - which I will try next time.  Before next year, I promise....

LunaBLUE was the icing on the cake for a great Saturday in Canmore.  Family whom you love, but don't get to see nearly often enough, a walk in the mountain air, deer grazing by the back step, and to top it off, finding a place where the people once again so obviously and lovingly care about the food they've found, who've listened to what it taught them, and faithfully shared it perfectly with every guest, whether resident or daytripping tourist.  If you want a one-hour glimpse into the heart and soul of the new and beautiful Canmore, stop into LunaBLUE.  She won't leave you standing alone....