La Cucina per Famiglia

"My heart nearly stopped", said Shauna, "when I walked into Kingsland Farmer's Market and saw that the space normally occupied by La Cucina Italiana had been usurped by someone else".  All kinds of things go through your mind - first, regret that some perfectly wonderful people with perfectly wonderful food somehow couldn't make a go of it.  Or, maybe they got too successful and moved into the big time world of full-time restauranting and moved out of here.  And so we were resigned to maybe trying one of the other admittedly wonderful lunch vendors at this very friendly farmers market...but wait!  There they are!  They just moved down two stalls to the prime real estate 'corner lot', complete with a wraparound bar and comfy elevated chairs accommodating a good 8-10 people for lunch.

It's odd, because even though Rob Principalli's place in the market looks at first glance like a basic take-out counter - somehow, the longer you spend standing and reading the menu board, the more he makes it feel like one of those family-run Italian places in New York City - you know, the kind where they say "Hey, come in, you're family", and they mean it.  Maybe it's because there's definitely nothing more charming than three handsome Italian guys who make it plain that their business (their only business) for the next 15 minutes is to make sure you're fed, happy, and relaxed.  I couldn't tell you if the guys working with Rob are his boys, but they look like him, and they work like he does, so yeah, this is one of those great little Italian family places.

We actually started out wanting one quick order of Italian chicken and apple sausage for Shauna - no bun, because of the gluten-free thing, of course.  But as she kicked back on her barstool, waiting for it to arrive, I was looking in the dessert cooler, because last time we were there, Rob had promised that the next time, there would be gluten-free dessert.  There was, by the way, and the berry cheesecake looked every bit as delicious and part of the menu as the giant chocolate layer cake sitting next to it.  All this visual stimuli unsurprisingly produced the same stomach rumblings in Alanna and me, so Alanna got herself a sausage too (also no bun, and also garnished with just-perfectly sauteed sweet onions and a rich tomato sauce).  I thought I should have a Porchetta - a cold pork-based cold cut sandwich with provolone, fresh tomato - and an olive tapenade to die for, all stacked on a baguette bun.  Make that with an Orangina soda on the side, with some sweet pickles - yup, that's lunch.

Except that wasn't all.  Shauna noticed there was no cannoli in the dessert cooler yet, but this time she had news.  She told Rob there was a chef in Calgary, who had just published a cookbook including dozens of new gluten-free recipes, and lo! - among them was a recipe for gluten-free cannoli.  Rob immediately wrote down the name of the cookbook, and began musing aloud that maybe he could get the guy to actually make him 100 or so cannoli tubes (clearly, the filling would come from an ancient Principalli family recipe).  I have no doubt that in a couple or three weeks, Rob will be pulling in the crowds for cannoli the same way he does with his gluten-free lasagne and canneloni recipes:  "If it isn't as good as your regular lasagne - come back and I'll give you a free one".

Lunch was nearly done.  I had both Shauna and Alanna's onions along with my sandwich.  Then came cheesecake for Shauna - Rob had something to prove.  It was so good that she got worried, thinking the crust was just a bit too good to be gluten free.  With complete and calming confidence, Mr. Principalli assured her it was completely safe.  He should know - he specializes in distributing gluten-free pastas from Italy (get your orders from him at www.glutenfreepasta.ca).  And for me and Alanna?  Tiramisu.  Alanna had never had it before.  She's been completely evangelized now!  Whoever builds these for Rob, in those perfectly-sized takeout dishes, is a  genius and a credit to the profession.

Somebody around the corner was selling some apricots, and some black cherries so perfect that they stain your fingers with one touch.  They appeared, freshly rinsed, heaped on a plate between us and the next two sausage-seekers who'd joined us at the bar.  "With service like this, we won't ever have to leave!" said the gentleman sitting next to me.

He hit the nail right on the head.  While you stock up on your small-batch roasted coffee and organic farm-grown vegetables at Kingsland Farmer's Market every week, drop in at La Cucina Italiana.  Pull up a chair, belly up to the bar, and let Rob and the guys make you part of the family.  Fine linen and crystal are great, but even more important are guys who treat their food, and their customers with obvious respect.

Buon appetito.

Comfort Me With Apples - (Falling Not Far From The Tree)

The second best thing to eating well is reading about someone else eating well. So it is with no little pride that I cede this space this week to a guest blogger, who has (as you shall soon see) not only discovered the sheer joy of a well-turned dish, but also of a well-turned phrase with which to lavish the experience on the rest of us.  Without further aperitif, then, may I offer these amuses-bouches by Rae, (my offspring and a veritable Smorgasboredette, if you will) - and her recent foray into an altogether comfortable niche....

When I originally started thinking about where to take Craig for his birthday, my only criterion was “one-up the Creperie” (where he had taken me for my birthday in April). Conveniently, I tend to have a lot of illicit Internet-browsing time on my hands at work, and lately I’ve begun to really enjoy reading Liane Faulder’s blog Eat My Words on the Edmonton Journal website, as well as many of the blogs she links to. I spent a good three weeks reading reviews of all the new and classic Edmonton restaurants –because it turns out that this city, for all its faults (and I could name a few) has an excellent, thriving food business. After reading many reviews and fishing around for some recommendations, I decided it had to be Niche.

Niche opened in the winter, although its Grand Opening was last month, and has quickly built a reputation as one of the better dining spots in Edmonton. It’s nestled on the first floor of an apartment building on Jasper Avenue, near the Edmonton General Hospital, and Craig and I nearly missed it walking on the wrong side of the street. It’s a small space, but tastefully decorated in black, copper and gold, and the arrangement of the tables and the gorgeous centrepiece bar reads as intimate rather than cramped. The exposed brick along the walls along with the glass tiles was my favourite design touch – elegant and modern, but not over-the-top.

Craig and I are not millionaires, but we would always rather spend money on a good meal than anything else, and we don’t skimp on birthdays – so once Amanda had immediately seated us at our reserved table beside the kitchen, even though due to the vagaries of public transportation we had arrived nearly a half-hour early, we went straight for the cocktail list. Craig chose a gin and tonic with cucumber and lemon, and I nursed my excellent strawberry mint mojito for the whole dinner. Watching the bartender across the room, I knew there were actual strawberries and mint leaves muddled in the bottom, but the sheer number of strawberry pieces that made their way up my straw made the choice go from good to perfect. There is nothing better than rum-soaked strawberry pieces. I will fight someone on this point if necessary.

We had looked at the menu beforehand on the website, so our appetizer choice was easy – it took us all of three seconds to decide to split the charcuterie plate. It arrived at our table quickly, artfully arranged with pickles, toasts and spicy mustard for our tasting pleasure.

I went Italian sausage first, because I very rarely turn down a good sausage, and tried it both by itself and on a ‘crostini’ with spicy mustard. The sausage itself had a good kick of spice, but not so much as to be distracting, and paired with mustard tasted like the kind of salami sandwich of which Italian grandmas dream.  Craig started with the Pembina peppered ham, and pronounced it by the end of the plate his favourite. He also made a proverbial beeline for the pickles, as he is somewhat of a connoisseur, and said that they had bite but were delicious. I, myself, am not a pickle fan; but I have a rule at new restaurants and in foreign countries to eat whatever arrives on my plate, and so I paired a pickle with another piece of Italian sausage with mustard. It was spectacular – clearly how it was meant to be eaten.  The more acidic taste of the pickles brought out the sweetness in the Dijon-style grainy mustard and married perfectly with the heat in the sausage. We also sampled a smooth, almost creamy wild boar prosciutto that melted in our mouths. I liked this more than Craig did – he was an immediate devotee of the cured, dry musk ox. We nearly fought for the last piece of that – it was what beef jerky aspires to be when it grows up. Its salty taste somehow was not overpowering, and I could have been happy with a plate full of only that. I preferred the musk ox alone – it was so good, it needed no accompaniment – but was also delightful married with grainy mustard and a sliver of toast.

Obviously, however, this was a birthday celebration and we were not settling for only musk ox. Craig picked the beef dish – braised Spring Creek Ranch beef cheeks in wild mushroom cream sauce over egg noodles with Parmesan.  I was allotted exactly three tiny pieces of beef from his plate and not one single noodle, although I concluded from the rate at which said noodles disappeared that they were about which to write home. The beef was silky and nearly melted in my mouth – it tasted like the exact essence of beef, a taste that seemed to be enhanced by the mushroom sauce, and was so tender it nearly flaked off the fork.  It was clearly a winner of a dish, and the fact that it came from a local farm made it seem better: we could eat this every day!

In the spirit of my “eat whatever arrives on my plate” rule, I went for a dish that included one of my lesser-favourite tastes – the Pembina pork tenderloin with polenta, tomato butter sauce and fennel salad. I have never had pork like that = pork you could nearly cut with a fork, which eaten with the tomato butter was almost sweet. The fennel salad was the perfect accompaniment – crisp, sharp and verging on bitter, it balanced the milder, softer taste of the pork perfectly. The polenta I found to be a tad dry and with less of a distinct taste on its own, but again, the tomato butter sauce brought out its full potential. I had to slow down and let Craig taste some before it was all gone.

Once Amanda had cleared our plates, it was all we could do to not quit sucking in our guts and allow full food-baby development right there at the table. We had to forgo the cheese plate, which was tempting with its list of mostly local cheeses. Dessert seemed like a nearly insurmountable feat…but then again, this was a birthday dinner. The special, lemon tart with berry compote, split between the two of us, was the perfect note of….well, tartness to complete the meal.

Staggering back into the Northern late-evening light, we immediately abandoned our somewhat ambitious plan of walking back to transit to go home and jumped in the nearest cab. Birthday dinners always end best when you’re in too much food-induced bliss to walk a block.

Rae Lemke usually blogs about nonsense at http://incandescentlyridiculous.blogspot.com