{"id":306,"date":"2010-09-06T08:45:17","date_gmt":"2010-09-06T13:45:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jameschatto.com\/?p=306"},"modified":"2012-05-01T10:20:09","modified_gmt":"2012-05-01T15:20:09","slug":"niagara-tour-part-one","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jameschatto.com\/?p=306","title":{"rendered":"Niagara Tour part one"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Szechuan buttons discovered growing at Tawse winery. Boldly we tasted!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Halfway across Lake Ontario in a 40-foot Hunter sailboat, we were having a most invigorating morning. The wind was strong and from the west and with our sails reefed we were speeding along at a rate of knots, the boat tilting dramatically so that I, high on the starboard side of the cockpit, could look down between \u00a0my feet at the faces of my companions on the port. The urge to shout \u201cWoohoo!\u201d was almost irresistible. We were two hours out from Port Credit, still two hours from Port Dalhousie on the Niagara side when the squall smacked into us. Fortunately, our skipper, Mike, had seen it coming and taken in sail. One of our other boats was less fortunate and its sail was torn asunder. Lake Ontario \u2013 330 feet deep at that point \u2013 had never felt more like an inland sea as we motored on through the warm but rough water (three-metre waves according to the CBC), soaked by rain, holding tight to whatever seemed steadfast. It was altogether excellent. But that squall blew away the summer in a single violent gust. The temperature had dropped ten degrees by the following morning and those with a nose for such things looked up at the grey and white clouds scudding across the blue and sniffed the first intimation of autumn.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 But what an amazing summer it has been! Too hot for strawberries and cherries \u2013 too hot for the pickerel and perch in the Great Lakes who have stayed in the cool depths, to the dismay of our commercial fishermen \u2013 too hot for the buffalo herd at Koskamp Farm so that the awesome cream-filled burratta cheese we tasted on Saturday night at Hillebrand was made not with their milk but with that of their less sensitive understudies, the Koskamp Farm cows. That said, everyone else on the peninsula seems to have a smile on their face. The grapes are ripening several weeks ahead of schedule \u2013 picking of Chardonnay Musqu\u00e9 has already begun \u2013 and it\u2019s going to be a spectacular vintage as long as it doesn\u2019t rain too much in September. The peaches are better than I can ever remember and still have a week left in their season. This year, the tomatoes \u2013 especially the 300 or so different heritage varieties that grow at Linda Crago\u2019s Tree & Twig Heirloom Vegetable Farm in Wellandport, some of which we tasted at various restaurants throughout the weekend \u2013 are historic in every sense of the word.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 They began our weekend \u2013 almost \u2013 as the first course served at our winemaker\u2019s dinner at Treadwell in Port Dalhousie. We actually started with flutes of 13th<\/sup> Street\u2019s 2006 Cuvee 13 Rose, sipped outside on the terrace looking out at the swift green eddies of the old Welland canal that passes right by the restaurant \u2013 the sun had come out and it was warm in a windy kind of way \u2013 but I\u2019m not going to describe every last thing that passed our lips on this long weekend (45 wines, five amazing meals, various sundry breakfasts, snacks, leaves and foraged treats). The tomatoes, however, were exemplary. There were half a dozen different varieties, some red, others yellow, orange, green and purple, some like tiny pears, others thinly or thickly sliced, each one offering its own interpretation of summer\u2019s balance of tangy acids and sweetness. Our host and chef Stephen Treadwell had paired them up with a little tomato sorbet, some crumbled feta (mild, sweet and creamy) from Best Baa Dairy out near Dundas and a crispy deep-fried basil leaf from a farm we visited on Sunday \u2013 Victory Organic Greens (of which more later). As one of our group wisely pointed out, the tomatoes were perfectly salted \u2013 evenly, invisibly, as opposed to having someone fling a handful of fleur de sel at the plate \u2013 which enhanced their spectrum of flavours immeasurably. The wine poured with this bouquet of tomatoes was the stunningly delicious Hidden Bench Rosomel Vineyard 2008 Fume Blanc, introduced to our party by none other than Hidden Bench\u2019s affable proprietor, Harald Thiel. I had intended to be very scientific and try to work out which tomato worked best with the wine but it was all so yummy and we were all so hungry after our sail that our plates were empty far too soon for any forensic work.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Next up was a dish built around some of those elusive Lake Erie pickerel \u2013 perfect little fillets, their juices just seized in the pan. Treadwell orchestrated them with some Saskatchewan chanterelles acquired through the area\u2019s new mushroom source, Marc\u2019s Mushrooms (of which more later). They were some of the best chanterelles I have ever eaten \u2013 so fresh they were almost crunchy, squeaky as silk and tasting of sweet, creamy woodland flavours. Tossed in amongst them were little crispy pieces of Mario Pingue\u2019s guanciale, a stem of smooth-stemmed, thick-leaved New Zealand spinach grown nearby by Dave Irish, some impeccable fingerling potatoes and a subtle sauce salted with soy and some shaved summer truffle. Treadwell showed me the truffle in question. It was the size of a man\u2019s fist and though it had only a fraction of the potency of a winter truffle it was ideal for this dish. \u201cWhere did you get it?\u201d I asked. \u201cEr\u2026\u201d Treadwell, always so generous and precise about the provenance of his ingredients, hesitated a moment. \u201cFrom a guy\u2026\u201d Okay, Stephen, we won\u2019t be pushy. Everyone tends to guard their truffle sources. The wine match, Flat Rock\u2019s 2007 Chardonnay Reserve, introduced by Flat Rock\u2019s owner, Ed Madronich, was the best wine match of the entire weekend.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 A little palate cleanser was in order before the next course (veal Wellington matched with Southbrook\u2019s rich, elegant, supersmooth 2007 Whimsy Cabernet Franc) but Treadwell took it to a new level with a zapper rather than a cleanser. Each one of us was presented with a single Szechuan button, a slightly conical seed ball of the Brazilian plant Acmella oleracea, about the size of a fingernail. I\u2019ve mentioned these things before in a posting about the national cocktail championship but if you missed it let me explain that this plant contains a strong analgesic called splianthol which numbs and tingles in the mouth like the cold-hot sensation you get from Szechuan peppercorns \u2013 something like licking a 9-volt battery. Bravely our group bit and chewed the buttons! It was a nice little coup on the chef\u2019s part though I wondered how it would affect our appreciation of the Cabernet. So did its creator, winemaker Anne Sperling, sitting at the far end of our table. In the end, time solved all \u2013 a ten-minute gap, some water and bread, soothing the effect.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 After that, it was plain sailing through the marvellous Wellington followed by a roasted peach topped with Mennonite granola, sheep\u2019s milk sorbet and rosemary caramel sauce and finally lingering, satisfied conversation and a teeny taste of Anne Sperling\u2019s awesome Riesling from her family property in the Okanagan<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 All in all, an excellent start to the weekend. What happened next must wait until tomorrow\u2019s posting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Halfway across Lake Ontario in a 40-foot Hunter sailboat, we were having a most invigorating morning. The wind was strong and from the west and with our sails reefed we were speeding along at a rate of knots, the boat tilting dramatically so that I, high on the starboard side of the cockpit, could look […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[104,91,94,1,103],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jameschatto.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jameschatto.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jameschatto.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jameschatto.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jameschatto.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=306"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/jameschatto.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2111,"href":"https:\/\/jameschatto.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306\/revisions\/2111"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jameschatto.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=306"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jameschatto.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=306"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jameschatto.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=306"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}