Text 18327, 102 rader
Skriven 2007-07-29 23:24:00 av JIM WELLER (1:123/140)
Ärende: Road Trip 2
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Monday afternoon we pulled into my SIL Aletha's place. She and Ike
are the ones I have spoken about in the past who had a huge ranch
and raised rodeo bucking horses and Brahma bulls as well as beef
cattle. They are 65 now and have sold off 5 sections (5 square
miles) and most of their stock. They still have 3 sections left
though, some mature rodeo stock and 5 oil field service trucks so
they are still more active than most young farmers. Aletha loves
animals and always has a pet; this year it was a three month old
orphaned colt they have hand fed since birth. She also has one
Holstein cow, partly for the colt's milk and partly because she
can't stand pasteurized supermarket cream in her coffee! She cooks
plainly but competently and always with first quality, farm fresh
ingredients and I teased her that she was a worse foodie than me for
buying a cow for her coffee cream and running 12 quarter sections of
pasture and hay just for a good steak.

Naturally we had a steak BBQ for supper.... amazing, properly rare,
huge, mature, well marbled, well aged rib steaks. (There were a lot
of steaks and burgers on this trip with salads on alternate days as a
pleasant penance for overindulging.) We took some frozen steaks and
a large free range chicken with us in a cooler for Roslind's parents
in Edmonton.

Tuesday: on to Edmonton. We had lunch at another small hamlet
en route. The place was packed with oil field workers, truckers and
a paving crew. The waitress was alone, about 12, and didn't know what
MSG was when we asked. It seems everyone else in town who was older
than her was working in the oil patch. Roslind had liver, onions
and bacon with a large Caesar salad subbing for the French fries and
veg. I had another steak, a small strip loin this time, with fries
and corn on the cob. We shared both plates so I had a little salad
and not too many fries. They were hand cut and fried in lard!
Delicious. The rest of the meal was even less good than the one in
Rycroft but this time the meals were only $9 each, so no complaints.

Previously, we had picked a whole bunch of places to try, mostly from
chowhounds.com. but we didn't get to Edmonton until after 10 P.M. so
supper was a simple, quick bite at the hotel. As a change of pace
from steak, but still sticking to bovine fare, I had a small veal
cutlet on a bun with marinara sauce and mozza. It was only fair
but got me thinking about going to a German place sometime later
that week for some real schnitzel.

Wednesday we checked out two of our chowhounds picks. For a light
lunch we went to an Italian place, Picco Lino's, where Roslind, her
mom and I shared two small appetizers and called it a meal. We had
three pieces, one each, of hollowed out zucchini stuffed with
seasoned semolina, topped with grated cheeses and then baked and a
beautiful little thin crust pizza made with Bocconcini cheese, fresh
basil and a modest bit of prosciutto. I had a glass of the house
red, a 2004 Sandhill Estate (an Okinogan VQA) Cabernet Merlot, which
was wonderful and is now on my "to get a case of" list. It was a
dark ruby red, lots of red fruit, some smooth tannins but very mellow
and balanced overall. It would go best with lamb or game and stand
up to highly seasoned red meat very well I would think.

For supper Roslind and I took her mom, Olive and step-dad, Hank, to
the Bistro Praha, a downtown Czech place with a great rep and
another chowhound selection. Hank, who is German, helped us all
select our choices. We started off splitting two cold plates loaded
with excellent rye bread, butter, several mustards, good ham, Edam
cheese, half sour dills, hard boiled eggs with caviar, sardines with
red onions, a very tasty herbed potato salad and assorted veggie
nibbles.

The beer list was longer than the wine list and full of names I have
never come across before. Hank and I split one each: Wild Rose
Calgary Industrial Park Ale, a great new microbrew (copper color,
robust caramel malt, slightly sweet and lots of hops for balance),
an Urquell Pilsner as it was after all a Czech restaurant and for
dessert a Krick cherry Lambric. (I discovered I don't really like
Lambrics!)

For mains, Hank and I both had smoked ham hocks with boiled bread
dumplings sliced, buttered and sauced with gravy, and kraut. These
meals were simply amazing: huge portions of red, heavily smoked
de-boned, well trimmed, not too fatty hock meat and lots of smooth,
rich (with melted pork fat), slightly apple sweetened braised kraut.
There was plenty left over to take home for Hank's lunch the next
day. (He didn't leave any for my next visit!) I didn't fall in love
with the boiled bread but it made Hank go all misty eyed with
nostalgia. He spoke of his mom preparing them 75 years ago on
wintery Alberta afternoons by making big dumplings out of chunks of
bread dough and steaming them for an hour before serving them with
maple syrup. I guess they hit the spot after walking home a mile
from school in a blizzard.

Olive had a nice little grilled rainbow trout with wild mushrooms
and Roslind ordered a so-called Wiener Schnitzel that I sampled. It
was not really what I think of as a proper Wiener (Vienna style)
Schnitzel at all as it was lightly battered rather than breaded but
very tasty all the same. It's what the Czechs call Vidensky Rizek.
 

Cheers

YK Jim


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