Jonas’ Restaurant eluded me for months. Years really. I’ve always meant to go there, and yet each and every time I tried the mission was a failure. When I went there on a spur of the moment it was closed. Then several lunch reservations failed due to work or weather. Then two dinner plans fell through. Jonas’ and I continued in this vein for quite some time, and just recently I e-mailed a friend and lamented that the stars just won’t line up for us. Until last week. Then I found myself with my food partner in crime Jen tucked into a corner table for two hungrily studying the menu.

The small and cozy restaurant has plain white walls with Hungarian themed decorations, and red and white checkered tablecloths. The lighting is quite dim as the place has almost no windows, but there are charming pots of silk flowers and tealights on each table. We started with wine – a lovely red Hungarian cab for myself and a white sauvignon for Jen, and since I know next to nothing about wine, my description will end here. Being rather hungry and wanting to sample a variety of dishes we asked the waitress for her favorites, and she suggested the Wiener Schnitzel, Chicken Paprikash with Home-Made Dumplings and Beef Stew with Pasta, Feta Cheese and Dill. While we waited a bread basket arrived with slices of light rye, a few fresh sliced jalapenos, and a couple of containers of butter. The food arrived steaming attractively just as we were emptying the basket. We’re not know for our restraint.

Chicken Paprikash was the mildest tasting dish on the menu. The meat was fall apart tender, with perfectly cooked tiny chewy dumplings. The sauce was a gentle pink blend of tomato and cream with smoky undertones. It was a lovely and comforting dish, perfect on a cold day or if you feel like the world has been too abrasive lately.

Beef Stew with Pasta and Feta was our mutual favorite. The feta was not gritty in texture or overwhelming in flavor as in some dishes but almost as if it was whipped with cream cheese. The salt and tang were muted and lovely over the bland foil of pasta. I adore dill and the herb added a bright familiar note to the sauce. The stew was dark and thick, tomato based with thick cubes of beef that were barely holding together.

The Wiener Schnitzel is where Jen and I disagreed. I thought it was a superb dish – very crisp breading, proper amount of salt, a large portion and chewy but not at all tough meat made it a winner in my book. Not at all oily, with fresh lemon juice squeezed over it, it was a tasty delight. The potatoes served with it were great too – very soft chunks tossed with dill, butter and salt they were a perfect contrast to the crispy schnitzel. What looked like frozen veggies served with it didn’t add any value, nor take any away. Jen was underwhelmed and said that had she found out it was from Safeway she would not have been surprised.

At this point we were stuffed, but had a great deal of catching up to do. Over wine and the lovely stupor that descends after a homey, filling repast we filled each other in on our busy lives and new interests. Comparing notes, books, sites and music we whiled away a pleasant hour and improbably arrived at room for dessert. Ninety percent of desserts consist of crepes with various fillings, and we chose one stuffed with ground nuts and chocolate sauce. It was an excellent concept with decent execution. The crepe is a bit too chewy suggesting that it’s frozen before serving, and the filling inside while warm and nutty has a funny aftertaste. Neither of us could identify the nuts. The chocolate sauce could be a bit creamier, it had a slight grit to it but it did provide the necessary sweetness to the dish.

Full and happy we waddled out of the restaurant contemplating escalators, taxis or any mode of transportation not requiring the use of legs. But use them we did, bravely walking off some of the food while we made our way to the core to say goodbye. Like a mother’s hug Jonas’ warm atmosphere and home cooked meal made everything better in the world.

4/5

I’ve already endorsed my main gardening resource by my man Ed Smith, and it’s a wonderful beginner’s book. However, just yesterday I received, opened and fell in love with another wee gem unusually titled Gardening When it Counts – growing food in hard times by Steve Solomon. I’ve heard lots of great things about this book from many a reputable source, but since it wasn’t available on Amazon (whom I single handedly keep in business some months, I swear), I’ve never tracked it down to check it out.  But the curiosity persisted, and one day some weeks ago I found another site that carries it, and ordered a copy.

I started reading right away since I have a garden to plant and all, and was immediately smitten. Written in a conversationally informative tone, the author promises to be the ‘gardening grandfather you never had.’ Once upon a time Steve Solomon ran a seed supply company and learned a great deal about growing vegetables. To run a good, meaning honest and ethical, seed supply company one needed to learn a great deal about seeds, where they come from, what their quality is, and plant many trials to see how the plants actually perform. Will they germinate at an acceptable or excellent rate? Will the vegetables grown be useful, properly formed and productive? Do they resist insects or diseases if grown organically? Are they well suited for the local climate? All these things can only be determined by growing many plants from seed and trying many different techniques while doing so.

The book teems with useful and informative bits – the stores of how your local garden centre may NOT be the best place to buy either plants OR seeds, was enthralling.  The expose of the seed business and why the pretty packets may be full of crap seeds entertained me thoroughly. How few tools you really need and how to select them eased my worries that I don’t know what a hoe is or how to use one. How vegetables use the nutrients in the soil and their root systems would typically be a boring subject, but this book makes it interesting, applicable and useful.  The gold mines for me were two: The complete organic fertilizer (COF) – a mix of soil amendments that work on any soil at all and will provide a complete nutritional supplement to veggies, all mixed by you from common sources and guaranteed to make your garden the best ever. And a complete (pretty current) list of reputable seed companies that actually do their own trials, set high standards, and stand behind the quality of their product. These he recommends as the companies to serve the bulk of your garden needs and they are split by geographic region, including many Canadian companies.  Many surprises in that section alone.

Other great things (that this book is chock-full of) include great techniques for starting seeds (which the author actually doesn’t recommend for most veggies), building beds and hills, techniques for using tools, making compost and irrigating intelligently. Every page of this unassuming book was an unexpected gold mine of information and I learned a phenomenal amount of actually useful, tried and tested information. He encourages his readers to grow the bulk of their vegetables, shows how easily this can be done on a 3,500 sq foot plot with minimal irrigation, and provides a ton of useful advice. Like the tile promises, if I only had one book and had to feed a family, I would feel safe and secure that this is it.   

·         Cucumbers: 2-4 plants

·         Peas: lots – spaced three inches apart go for at least a six foot row

·         Tomatoes: estimates vary from 2 to 8 plants

·         Peppers, sweet: 2-4 plants

·         Zucchini: 1-2 plants

·         Carrots: at least one 4 foot row

·         Herbs: one healthy plant should suffice

That covered the bulk of what I wanted to grow. I’d probably plant half as many radishes as carrots, and I had a rough idea that about a sixth of the bed would be entirely lettuce. I’d plant a succession of green onions and since they’re compatible with most veggies I’ll intersperse them here and there.

One thing I was sure of is that I wanted to grow heirloom seeds.  Most veggies today are bred for qualities other than taste, like shipping endurance and shelf-life and often taste like cardboard bought from the supermarket out of season. Wanting to enjoy the old-school taste of vine-ripened produce picked at the peak of quality, I turned to heirloom varieties sold by our very own Salt Spring Seeds.

Seduced by delicious sounding descriptions I ordered oh so many seeds, and at least five varieties of tomatoes. My little pouches arrived promptly, and planting began.  According to the seed packets most of my seeds should be started 8-10 weeks before last frost, which in Calgary is May 23.  So last Thursday the 26^th was planting day.

I share a home with three curious cats, so leaving seedlings in a cat-reachable area was out of the question. The only cat-proof room in the house is the office which does not get great sunlight, never mind the fact that nothing in Calgary gets great sunlight this time of year. Therefore a grow lamp was in order. I bought a long fluorescent full spectrum tube for about thirty dollars from the garden centre, and a large seed tray with a tall plastic lid that has an indent on each side. Once the seedlings germinate, you can cut out the indented parts and stick the tube right through the lid giving the new plants abundant light at about the right height. Without plentiful light the seedlings will get ‘leggy’ – tall and thin as they try to stretch toward light and that weakens them so they may not survive. Most veggies require a long-light day – 14 to 18 hrs so a light is pretty much mandatory in this region.

For optimum growing conditions and to avoid diseases, you want to start your seedlings in a soilless growing mix, not in garden soil.  An easy way to grow seedlings is to use the little Jiffy Peat Pellets available at any garden centre as well as Canadian Tire. From my extensive reading I found out that overwatering is a common problem with seedlings, and ideally they should be bottom watered – absorbing all the water they need by osmosis rather than from the top. This ensures a steady sufficient water supply and prevents the force of the water falling on the pot from disturbing the fragile seedling. Many companies recommend a watering mat which holds water that the pellets can draw from, which is a great idea, except for the fact that they’re expensive and not readily available. My solution is to pour a good layer of vermiculite on the bottom of the pot – about a half inch which is also very good at absorbing water and holding it for plants to use.

I set the Jiffy pots on top of vermiculite, added warm water until they all expanded fully (they should at least quadruple), planted two to three seeds in each pot, estimating the suggested depth on each packet, covered them with their dome to help hold moisture and warmth, and stuck them in the office. That was five days ago, and not one seedling has come up yet. I feel like a hovering mother hen waiting for her egg to hatch.

seedling in tray

So I’ve survived just fine for twenty nine years without the slightest urge to grow anything, and killing the odd houseplant here and there. Until this year. For some inexplicable reason I’ve wanted a garden since Christmastime and decided to plant one. Now, I’m not talking about pretty plants here, although the way this is going I may find myself planting petunias before too long, but a veggie garden with maybe some strawberries thrown in, because let’s face it – if you can’t eat it, it hardly seems worth the effort. This is a chronicle of what I’m learning as we get closer to spring.

Now some people would simply pick a sunny spot, remove some sod, throw some seeds down and see what happens. I’m not one of those people. I come with a gene for research and analysis (at least on some topics), so armed with Amazon reviews I ordered some gardening books. After reading a few, one floated to the top of the pile as the most user friendly and most informative for a completely clueless beginner like myself. That encyclopedia is called  The Vegetable Gardener’s Bible: Discover Ed’s High-Yield W-O-R-D System for All North American Gardening Regions, is available from Amazon (see link below), and really helped me get my bearings around this whole gardening thing.

I already knew that Calgary had clay soil, and decided that the easiest thing to do would be to build a raised bed. That way you can fill it with whatever mix of soil you want as deep as you want and avoid the bad drainage problems inherent to clay. Looking out the backyard with an eye to plant, I tried to pick a spot for this future masterpiece. The house opens to a wide, large deck with stairs descending to the large wavy concrete pad that covers a large portion of the backyard. Along the corners of the fence are two flower beds, which left the right side of the yard along the fence. Luckily all this faces south, so the whole area gets tons of sun during the day.  In the photo below we’re talking about the space between the semi-circular bed and the fence. 

Given the space restrictions the bed will be 3 X 15 feet and at least a foot deep, likely more but we’re not there yet.  As of today the yard is covered in snow a foot deep, so it’ll be a while before we even see the ground.  Once the bed is built we’ll have to fill it with quality soil and amendments, so googling I went to find what we need. Looking at the offerings of garden centers was extremely informative but very expensive. Clearly this was meant for repotting the odd houseplant, not filling a large raised bed.  Turns out that Burnco offers bulk garden soil that comes pre-mixed with compost and manure, making it more or less ready to go. At this time price hovers around $40.00/cubic yard which sounds very reasonable indeed.  Further research turned up a local mushroom farm near Airdrie that sells bulk compost for about $10.00/pickup truck load if you’re willing to load it yourself, and the farm gives compost away for free during Gardener Appreciation week which this year falls the week before Mother’s Day. They’ve just changed their name to All Seasons Mushrooms but I don’t see a new site yet, so below is the link to the old one with an address. Manure was the most interesting search –turns out the govt. of Alberta itself has a manure directory which offers a variety of different manure in various locations and stages of decomposition.  But hey – gardens like manure, so below’s the link.

The Vegetable Gardener’s Bible: Discover Ed’s High-Yield W-O-R-D System for All North American Gardening Regions
 

http://www.burnco.com/RetailWeb/web/retail/ProductList.asp

http://www.rollandfarms.com/english/essex-mushrooms/contact/contact.html

http://www.agric.gov.ab.ca/app68/manure?cat=For%20Sale&cat1=Manure+Solid

Stay tuned for Part 2 – starting seeds!