Back at The Ranche: New Prairie Food
by dee Hobsbawn-Smith

The year is 1899. The occasion: a reception at the toniest address in Calgary. The location: the southern home of William Roper Hull, often nicknamed the unofficial vice-regal residence of the province, alongside Fish Creek. The dress: morning coats, top hats, and dresses of the finest silks, satins and lace. Carriages roll up, spilling out the jewels of Calgary society, all eager to take in the splendors of the Bow Valley Ranche.

Hull sold the house in 1902, to Patrick Burns, another high-profile rancher who went on to even greater visibility as a Senator and a "Big Four" founder of the Calgary Stampede. The Foreman was an integral part of a working ranch. He held the day-to-day reins of ranch management, and his status was naturally considerably higher than the working cowboy's was. Billy Bannister, who wed young Annie Birney, managed the Ranche. Their growing family required a house apart, so Burns had a house "moved in" for Annie, Billy and their offspring.

The old Foreman's House has been lovingly restored, and now greets patrons as Annie's Bakery Café. Investigate the nooks and crannies of this delightful building as you enjoy some wonderful and wholesome food. Annie's is positioned just west of The Ranche, beside a grassy meadow.

In 1973, the house and surrounding land was purchased by the Alberta government as part of its development of Fish Creek Provincial Park. Painted stones in the flowerbed have couples' names and the year, 1999. Another sign acknowledges the restoration society that has restored Hull's showcase Victorian home, dormer windows, bricks, and all.

The house is embraced by a railed verandah. We step across its wooden floor and enter, passing The Library. A former parlour, a fire crackles in front of a couch and old armchair. A stenciled wall runs around to the bay window, the perfect retreat. Next, we stick our heads into Charley's Room, and can almost see the fierce old ranch cook dishing it out next to the old ranch table centered by a slowly spinning Lazy Susan. The chairs, hard-backed and upright, are all different. The hostess whispers that Charlie the cook can be felt and heard -- by the night staff.

We parade past the formal dining room; its small confines the only smoking room of the house.

The gleaming stainless of the restaurant's pulsing heart - the kitchen is visible just beyond the stairs. We catch a glimpse of restaurateur Witold Twardowski conferring with chefs John Donovan and Dany Lamote as they design the day's fresh sheet, incorporating flavours and textures of two centuries into a happy marriage of regional dishes. "It is steeped in history, was inhabited by prominent Calgarians who shaped the city," says Twardowski, adding, "visitors want a Canadian, not a European, experience." The Ranche is just that authentic experience, he believes, set in a breathtakingly beautiful old home wrapped in Prairie verandas and relevance. Lamote, whose long-term business relationship with Twardowski embraces the last fifteen years, states, "Regional cuisine owes its development and accessibility to local growers and ranchers willing to step out and provide a better, more interesting product didn't exist ten years ago, wasn't possible three or four years ago. Earth to Table (a local chefs-growers organization) gave a voice to what was happening." High-profile local products, Hotchkiss tomatoes, Highwood Crossing cold-pressed canola oil, Shepherd Gourmet Dairy sheep's cheese-- are listed on the menu, as the chefs develop and expand their network of suppliers willing to grow specialty produce to order for a large restaurant.

Donovan at age twenty-seven is unapologetically ambitious, thirsty to learn and develop his food lore, ingenuously awed at the chance to work with Lamote, and honoured to be part of a chance to revitalize a historic setting. "Local food in this climate," he says, "can be interpreted with canning in the summer, drying, putting food by, making chutney and jam for use in the winter. We are beginning that soon...this summer." The food style at The Ranche may seem familiar by now. Canadian regional cuisine is visible at several popular venues in the city and the mountains, including River Café, opened by The Mescalero Group in earlier days. (Lamote wryly grins as he acknowledges the touchy politics of outright competition with River Café and Teatro, whose menu he guided from its inception until the arrival of Michael Allemeier from Vancouver two years ago.) "Within a year," the co-chefs agree, "the menu at The Ranche will have evolved into something entirely different from what it is now." What it is now is a melange of au courant ingredients from near and far, as Donovan and Lamote cope with the exigency of a suddenly-busy two hundred seat restaurant thrust into full throttle from opening day, victims of their own early success. One of the advantages of two chefs is that Donovan's presence allows Lamote to be more visible than usual, patrolling the dining room at peak times, schmoozing and ensuring that all guests are contentedly fed, any discontent caught early and "taken care of".

The fresh berries used this season by pastry chef Tony Schwarz will reappear in the winter as jam or jelly when the kitchen draws on its stocks of "put-by" summer flavours. That remembrance of summer, played against the austere flavours of the winter pantry, will lure Calgarians and their guests to the ranch that houses part of Calgary's history.

We pass into the grand dining room. Doors and windows open north and south, gazing onto the hillside and parkland beyond the picket fence. Hardwood floors gleam, wooden pillars rise majestically to the ceiling, smoky umber light fixtures are umbrellas inverted to diffuse their glow.