All they want to do is give bees a chance
Joel Comer checks the progress on a beehive frame. Honey cells are being capped with wax at the top and bottom.
Jen Comer has been in love since she was 13, when she was living in Nelson and fell for an older man, Joel Comer, age 14. Now with a baby, and a dream of self-sufficiency, the couple recently celebrated their eighth anniversary and are on an odyssey to make a living as farmers in the Creston Valley.
Joel was a home-school student when he met Jen, who was attending L.V. Rogers Secondary School at the time. After graduating, they headed to Victoria, where they both earned degrees in geography at the University of Victoria.
“We always wanted to return to the Kootenays to live a back-to-the-land kind of life,” Jen says. “Then the opportunity with the farmers’ market came up and we had our reason to make the move. We’ve been trying to figure out how to make it work ever since we came back.”
Jen was hired to manage the Creston Valley Farmers’ Market in 2010, the first time the market has ever had a paid person to organize and promote it. Under her leadership, and with the help and guidance of a volunteer Creston Valley Food Action Coalition board, the market has thrived, growing into a two-day-a-week hub of activity.
Managing the market (she’s currently on parental leave, having given birth to a daughter, Aspen, in July) is only part of the plan, though. Joel’s parents, Jim and Val Comer, have King Creek Farm on the Creston flats and are providing the young couple with the opportunity to explore their interests and test out what direction they want to take as farmers. Jen and Joel recently renovated his grandparents’ mobile home on the property, which gives them their first shot at home ownership, not to mention the pressures of a mortgage on the house.
This year, the Comer family team has expanded what started as a small beekeeping venture, purchasing the honey business from Lew Truscott, who continues to act as mentor and support system while they learn the ropes.
Jim and Val had started out with two hives in 2009 and 2010, and 10 the next year, with Jen and Joel, but the jump to 75 hives has required a big learning curve.
“We’ve just fallen in love with it,” Jen says. “They are amazing creatures. And it’s fantastic for me to have an unlimited supply of honey in my kitchen — it’s pretty well the only sweetener I use and it has so many health properties!”
Bees hibernate through the winter in their hives, but come spring the familiar stacks of white and coloured boxes pop up on farms, orchards and even mountainsides. It is in the spring, once the weather warms sufficiently, that they slowly start to become active and fly out from the hives to collect nectar from flowers — dandelions offer the first major opportunity for life-sustaining pollen and juice.
“As long as the bees are healthy, our biggest concern is swarming,” she says.
If the bees find something unsatisfactory about their hive — insufficient space or a sense of danger, for instance — they begin to cluster together in the air, then fly away from the hive in search of a more suitable home.
“It’s an amazing sight,” she says. “Ten to twenty thousand bees moving en masse.”
If the beekeeper’s luck is bad, the swarm isn’t found in time to recover it. With luck, the bees can be gently collected into a box and moved back to their hive.
“The swarm will gather on a tree and it might require that branches be cut away so the beekeepers can get at them — it’s pretty tricky.”
A couple of swarms have added to the Comers’ experience this spring, but they were able to recover all of the bees.
“We are out there every day or two, checking on the hives.”
This year, the Comers’ hives are set out on their own property and three farms in Lister.
The bees need to be in close proximity to suitable flowers, but they will travel for upwards of five miles from their hive before returning. That means beekeepers have to be cognizant of the placement of other hives.
“We need to be aware of what other beekeepers are doing,” she says. “We have to play nice with everybody!”
At the Comer farm, bees feed primarily on clover, alfalfa and wildflowers and the ones on the other farms get a different variety of flowers from which to collect nectar. July is “honey flush” season and in a period of about two weeks, Jen says 80 to 90 per cent of the season’s honey is produced.
Once the frames within the beehive boxes are filled with honey, the bees change their activity and work to put a wax cap on the surface. At that point, the honey has a high water content. Warm weather helps to evaporate the moisture, but the bees, remarkably, do their part by flapping their wings to fan the air in the hive. Until the moisture content is reduced, the honey is susceptible to fermentation, something neither the bees nor their keepers want to happen.
“From that point, it’s a waiting game as we bide our time until the moisture content is down to about 16 or 17 per cent.”
Extraction of honey from the combs within the frames takes place in August. The frames are pulled from the “supers” — the boxes that are stacked one on top of another in the fields — to a machine that scrapes off the wax. The building, or honey house, is heated to make the honey flow easier and the frame — there are nine in each super — is placed into a centrifuge that spins the liquid honey free. It is collected in large vat, where it is screened to filter out bits of wax or “bee parts”, then ready to be put in containers.
“I haven’t been stung since we started beekeeping,” Jen laughs, “but Joel and Jim have. Bees aren’t really aggressive — it’s wasps that are really nasty! Bees only sting when they are threatened and are protecting their hive.”
“Michelin man” white suits with screened face masks are used when keepers are working with the hives, but slow movements and a calm demeanor are key to ensuring the bees don’t’ feel threatened and get overexcited.
“Bee stings actually have health benefits,” she adds. “They are good for arthritis and other ailments.”
Jen says honey production can become specialized, with bees being placed in locations that have flowers that impart distinct flavours and aromas — clover, lavender or wildflowers, for instance.
“Small-scale honey is so different from grocery store honey, which is more bland, being blended from huge quantities,” she says.
In large-scale production, honey is often a byproduct, the main job for the bees being to pollinate huge farms or orchards.
“The difference in small scale honey is amazing,” says Jen. “It’s one of the reasons we are so fascinated with local food, why we love it so much.”
August 2012 – Creston Valley Advance
Joel was a home-school student when he met Jen, who was attending L.V. Rogers Secondary School at the time. After graduating, they headed to Victoria, where they both earned degrees in geography at the University of Victoria.
“We always wanted to return to the Kootenays to live a back-to-the-land kind of life,” Jen says. “Then the opportunity with the farmers’ market came up and we had our reason to make the move. We’ve been trying to figure out how to make it work ever since we came back.”
Jen was hired to manage the Creston Valley Farmers’ Market in 2010, the first time the market has ever had a paid person to organize and promote it. Under her leadership, and with the help and guidance of a volunteer Creston Valley Food Action Coalition board, the market has thrived, growing into a two-day-a-week hub of activity.
Managing the market (she’s currently on parental leave, having given birth to a daughter, Aspen, in July) is only part of the plan, though. Joel’s parents, Jim and Val Comer, have King Creek Farm on the Creston flats and are providing the young couple with the opportunity to explore their interests and test out what direction they want to take as farmers. Jen and Joel recently renovated his grandparents’ mobile home on the property, which gives them their first shot at home ownership, not to mention the pressures of a mortgage on the house.
This year, the Comer family team has expanded what started as a small beekeeping venture, purchasing the honey business from Lew Truscott, who continues to act as mentor and support system while they learn the ropes.
Jim and Val had started out with two hives in 2009 and 2010, and 10 the next year, with Jen and Joel, but the jump to 75 hives has required a big learning curve.
“We’ve just fallen in love with it,” Jen says. “They are amazing creatures. And it’s fantastic for me to have an unlimited supply of honey in my kitchen — it’s pretty well the only sweetener I use and it has so many health properties!”
Bees hibernate through the winter in their hives, but come spring the familiar stacks of white and coloured boxes pop up on farms, orchards and even mountainsides. It is in the spring, once the weather warms sufficiently, that they slowly start to become active and fly out from the hives to collect nectar from flowers — dandelions offer the first major opportunity for life-sustaining pollen and juice.
“As long as the bees are healthy, our biggest concern is swarming,” she says.
If the bees find something unsatisfactory about their hive — insufficient space or a sense of danger, for instance — they begin to cluster together in the air, then fly away from the hive in search of a more suitable home.
“It’s an amazing sight,” she says. “Ten to twenty thousand bees moving en masse.”
If the beekeeper’s luck is bad, the swarm isn’t found in time to recover it. With luck, the bees can be gently collected into a box and moved back to their hive.
“The swarm will gather on a tree and it might require that branches be cut away so the beekeepers can get at them — it’s pretty tricky.”
A couple of swarms have added to the Comers’ experience this spring, but they were able to recover all of the bees.
“We are out there every day or two, checking on the hives.”
This year, the Comers’ hives are set out on their own property and three farms in Lister.
The bees need to be in close proximity to suitable flowers, but they will travel for upwards of five miles from their hive before returning. That means beekeepers have to be cognizant of the placement of other hives.
“We need to be aware of what other beekeepers are doing,” she says. “We have to play nice with everybody!”
At the Comer farm, bees feed primarily on clover, alfalfa and wildflowers and the ones on the other farms get a different variety of flowers from which to collect nectar. July is “honey flush” season and in a period of about two weeks, Jen says 80 to 90 per cent of the season’s honey is produced.
Once the frames within the beehive boxes are filled with honey, the bees change their activity and work to put a wax cap on the surface. At that point, the honey has a high water content. Warm weather helps to evaporate the moisture, but the bees, remarkably, do their part by flapping their wings to fan the air in the hive. Until the moisture content is reduced, the honey is susceptible to fermentation, something neither the bees nor their keepers want to happen.
“From that point, it’s a waiting game as we bide our time until the moisture content is down to about 16 or 17 per cent.”
Extraction of honey from the combs within the frames takes place in August. The frames are pulled from the “supers” — the boxes that are stacked one on top of another in the fields — to a machine that scrapes off the wax. The building, or honey house, is heated to make the honey flow easier and the frame — there are nine in each super — is placed into a centrifuge that spins the liquid honey free. It is collected in large vat, where it is screened to filter out bits of wax or “bee parts”, then ready to be put in containers.
“I haven’t been stung since we started beekeeping,” Jen laughs, “but Joel and Jim have. Bees aren’t really aggressive — it’s wasps that are really nasty! Bees only sting when they are threatened and are protecting their hive.”
“Michelin man” white suits with screened face masks are used when keepers are working with the hives, but slow movements and a calm demeanor are key to ensuring the bees don’t’ feel threatened and get overexcited.
“Bee stings actually have health benefits,” she adds. “They are good for arthritis and other ailments.”
Jen says honey production can become specialized, with bees being placed in locations that have flowers that impart distinct flavours and aromas — clover, lavender or wildflowers, for instance.
“Small-scale honey is so different from grocery store honey, which is more bland, being blended from huge quantities,” she says.
In large-scale production, honey is often a byproduct, the main job for the bees being to pollinate huge farms or orchards.
“The difference in small scale honey is amazing,” says Jen. “It’s one of the reasons we are so fascinated with local food, why we love it so much.”
August 2012 – Creston Valley Advance
when asparagus is in season
The way asparagus is picked in Creston Valley--lying down on the job, trailer towed by a tractor.
In Creston, the weather might not look like summer has arrived, but there is a more certain sign that June is arriving. Local asparagus is in season and, for many of us, it will appear on our tables at pretty much every dinner until the short—six week or so—growing season is over.
Asparagus has a reputation for being extremely difficult to pair with wine. The same amino acid, methionine, that reacts with about half the population to produce a distinct odour in their urine, also creates a sulphuric taste that doesn’t go well with a lot of wines. Before I give my own views on the subject, I thought I would check some web sites and see what others have to say.
A writer for Epicure magazine kicked off the topic nicely: “No other ingredient, not even cheese or chocolate, is the target of such fear, disdain, and discussion. Asparagus has been likened to Kryptonite; it is the enemy, it ruins perfectly nice vino.”
She goes on to recommend grilling the asparagus until it is slightly charred or covering it with a cheese or hollandaise sauce, or creamy dressing. Wine recommendations included Sauvignon Blanc, unoaked Chardonnay, Pinot Gris, Riesling, Gewurztraminer or sparkling white wines.
“Asparagus makes everything you drink with it taste green,” says Sid Goldstein, author of The Wine Lover’s Cookbook. “The worst white wine with asparagus is Chardonnay, which not only tastes vegetal, but also exaggeratedly oaky. Steam or microwave the asparagus until almost done, then grill it and serve it with Sauvignon Blanc or Pinot Grigio. The grilling process--maybe it’s the flavour of the char--takes the bitter edge off the greenness of the asparagus. Then you can create a harmonious balance by serving it with a wine that also has light green flavors.”
A writer for The Wine Press Northwest forum says, “Pairing is not as hard as some would make it out to seem. Last night, Melissa had a glass of Gehringer Brothers 2005 Pinot Gris from British Columbia’s Okanagan Valley. It went really well with the steamed asparagus, thanks to the fresh fruit flavors and ample acidity.
“I went in a completely different direction: a Pyramid Thunderhead IPA. I was equally pleased, as the hoppiness of the beer with just a hint of sweet spiciness on the finish paired well with the asparagus, grilled sausage and risotto on my plate.
“The bottom line: A crisp white wine with good fruit and little or no sweetness should pair well with asparagus. If in doubt, try a regional microbrew.”
So there you have it. Difficult, but not impossible. Last week we were driving home from a weekend trip to Calgary and I starting thinking about dinner. I stopped to pick up some asparagus, nice large sausage buns and some tomatoes. As I headed down to the wine cellar I was thinking of Sauvignon Blanc. But, alas, there wasn’t a bottle to be found. As an alternative, I chose a Baillie-Grohman Gewurztraminer to go with our meal.
I put the asparagus on the grill after tossing the spears in olive oil. When they started to brown on one side I flipped them over and placed the open buns over the flame to toast. A minute or two before the asparagus was ready (lightly charred but still slightly crisp) I pulled the spears into closely packed groups of six or seven, then laid slices of double smoked white cheddar cheese on top. As soon as the cheese began to melt I slid the combination onto the buns, added a bit of mayonnaise, salt, pepper and tomato slices.
The sandwiches were, in a word, fantastic. So good, in fact, that I repeated the process the next night, adding slices of French herb salami. Restaurants should consider adding either to their menus. The wine pairing was only moderately successful. The Gewurz was slightly sweet and went beautifully with the smoked cheese, but less so with the distinct asparagus flavours. When we had the salami-added versions we opted for glasses of Corona beer. That pairing was just so-so, too.
My first wine choice, upon further reflection, would still be Sauvignon Blanc. A crisp, dry Sancerre from France comes to mind. For beer, I would opt for an Alexander Keith’s IPA.
But here’s the best thing: asparagus is so-o-o-o good that it doesn’t really need much help to make it taste great. And there is absolutely no need to complicate the cooking process. Toss them on the grill or bake in a 350 degree oven. Don’t cover them, steam them, boil them or do anything else—they should remain slightly crisp to provide maximum flavour and best sensation in the mouth.
June 2011 – La Dolce Vita
Asparagus has a reputation for being extremely difficult to pair with wine. The same amino acid, methionine, that reacts with about half the population to produce a distinct odour in their urine, also creates a sulphuric taste that doesn’t go well with a lot of wines. Before I give my own views on the subject, I thought I would check some web sites and see what others have to say.
A writer for Epicure magazine kicked off the topic nicely: “No other ingredient, not even cheese or chocolate, is the target of such fear, disdain, and discussion. Asparagus has been likened to Kryptonite; it is the enemy, it ruins perfectly nice vino.”
She goes on to recommend grilling the asparagus until it is slightly charred or covering it with a cheese or hollandaise sauce, or creamy dressing. Wine recommendations included Sauvignon Blanc, unoaked Chardonnay, Pinot Gris, Riesling, Gewurztraminer or sparkling white wines.
“Asparagus makes everything you drink with it taste green,” says Sid Goldstein, author of The Wine Lover’s Cookbook. “The worst white wine with asparagus is Chardonnay, which not only tastes vegetal, but also exaggeratedly oaky. Steam or microwave the asparagus until almost done, then grill it and serve it with Sauvignon Blanc or Pinot Grigio. The grilling process--maybe it’s the flavour of the char--takes the bitter edge off the greenness of the asparagus. Then you can create a harmonious balance by serving it with a wine that also has light green flavors.”
A writer for The Wine Press Northwest forum says, “Pairing is not as hard as some would make it out to seem. Last night, Melissa had a glass of Gehringer Brothers 2005 Pinot Gris from British Columbia’s Okanagan Valley. It went really well with the steamed asparagus, thanks to the fresh fruit flavors and ample acidity.
“I went in a completely different direction: a Pyramid Thunderhead IPA. I was equally pleased, as the hoppiness of the beer with just a hint of sweet spiciness on the finish paired well with the asparagus, grilled sausage and risotto on my plate.
“The bottom line: A crisp white wine with good fruit and little or no sweetness should pair well with asparagus. If in doubt, try a regional microbrew.”
So there you have it. Difficult, but not impossible. Last week we were driving home from a weekend trip to Calgary and I starting thinking about dinner. I stopped to pick up some asparagus, nice large sausage buns and some tomatoes. As I headed down to the wine cellar I was thinking of Sauvignon Blanc. But, alas, there wasn’t a bottle to be found. As an alternative, I chose a Baillie-Grohman Gewurztraminer to go with our meal.
I put the asparagus on the grill after tossing the spears in olive oil. When they started to brown on one side I flipped them over and placed the open buns over the flame to toast. A minute or two before the asparagus was ready (lightly charred but still slightly crisp) I pulled the spears into closely packed groups of six or seven, then laid slices of double smoked white cheddar cheese on top. As soon as the cheese began to melt I slid the combination onto the buns, added a bit of mayonnaise, salt, pepper and tomato slices.
The sandwiches were, in a word, fantastic. So good, in fact, that I repeated the process the next night, adding slices of French herb salami. Restaurants should consider adding either to their menus. The wine pairing was only moderately successful. The Gewurz was slightly sweet and went beautifully with the smoked cheese, but less so with the distinct asparagus flavours. When we had the salami-added versions we opted for glasses of Corona beer. That pairing was just so-so, too.
My first wine choice, upon further reflection, would still be Sauvignon Blanc. A crisp, dry Sancerre from France comes to mind. For beer, I would opt for an Alexander Keith’s IPA.
But here’s the best thing: asparagus is so-o-o-o good that it doesn’t really need much help to make it taste great. And there is absolutely no need to complicate the cooking process. Toss them on the grill or bake in a 350 degree oven. Don’t cover them, steam them, boil them or do anything else—they should remain slightly crisp to provide maximum flavour and best sensation in the mouth.
June 2011 – La Dolce Vita
amateur winemaker scores a hit with tannat
This story is as much about the delights of small-town living as it is about wine. And it’s a cautionary tale in case we need a reminder about the need not become wine snobs.
It started on a beautiful Saturday when I dropped into a local street festival to take photos and show my support for the cause. As I wandered around I nearly passed by a man whose smile triggered something in my brain.
“You didn’t recognize me?” grinned Marcel, embracing me in his trademark bear hug. Marcel Leal-Valias was wearing a hat and sunglasses, and I hadn’t seen him since last year. He spends most of his time in Calgary, where his expertise in oilfield safety practices is in great demand.
As we chatted to catch up, Marcel told me about a wine he had made, one that won him both provincial and national recognition in amateur winemaking competitions. Tannat, he said. Tannat?
Tannat grapes are historically grown in the southwest of France, but they have become increasingly popular in Argentina, Brazil, Peru and Italy. In Uruguay, of all places, Tannat has become the national grape. The grape makes a very tannic, dark and full-bodied wine and it has typically been used as a blending variety.
“Don’t worry,” Marcel said before we parted ways, “I have a bottle for you.”
An hour later I was at Baillie-Grohman Estate Winery, talking to owner Bob Johnson. He began to rave about a bottle of wine he had with friends the night before. He was referring to Marcel’s Tannat.
“It’s really good,” Bob said.
Not many days later we were invited to dinner with friends who live half the year in Britain and the other, summer half, in the Creston Valley. Another couple that is planning their retirement to Creston from Calgary joined us. Host Gerry brought out a bottle of wine that “you just have to try.” Sure enough, it was Marcel’s Tannat. To our amusement, the cork proved very difficult to extract, crumbling at Gerry’s efforts to remove it. Eventually he pushed the cork in, then strained the contents to remove bits of cork. (Later, to our astonishment, he performed a parlour trick, using a cloth napkin to remove the cork from the bottle.)
The Tannat was as good as its now growing reputation had led us to believe. It is a huge wine — lots of tannins, very full-bodied, amazing blackberry notes and extremely dark in colour. I was immediately reminded of Amarone, the Italian wine from the Veneto region made from grapes that have been air-dried for several weeks to evaporate some of the water content and intensify the flavours. We all agreed it was an amazing wine, one that we would happily pay $40 for if it were available on a store shelf.
A few more days passed before we attended an outdoor festival in Wynndel and who did we come across but Marcel. “Let me know when you are ready to leave,” he said. “We’ll go to my house and get your bottle of Tannat.”
As we prepared for our departure, Marcel came up with a better plan. He rounded up the friends we had that earlier dinner with, ordered us all to purchase lunches to go and the six of us joined him on his deck. Out came a bottle of Tannat and another of Zinfandel, which he had also made. Our motley crew ate our lunch, sipped the wines and laughed away a couple of glorious hours, all the while enjoying a jaw-dropping view that encompasses Duck and Kootenay lakes.
We left, one of the few remaining bottles of Marcel’s Tannat in hand, determined to share it with our son, also a wine lover, and daughter-in-law. A week later we did just that and the amazing tale of Marcel’s Tannat came to an end.
I always describe myself as a wine enthusiast, by no means an expert. And I’m certainly not a wine snob. I’m as happy to try a friend’s homemade cherry wine as I am a $200 bottle of Bordeaux. Marcel’s Tannat was another in a lengthy list of happy experiences that serve to reinforce that attitude.
September 2012 – La Dolce Vita
It started on a beautiful Saturday when I dropped into a local street festival to take photos and show my support for the cause. As I wandered around I nearly passed by a man whose smile triggered something in my brain.
“You didn’t recognize me?” grinned Marcel, embracing me in his trademark bear hug. Marcel Leal-Valias was wearing a hat and sunglasses, and I hadn’t seen him since last year. He spends most of his time in Calgary, where his expertise in oilfield safety practices is in great demand.
As we chatted to catch up, Marcel told me about a wine he had made, one that won him both provincial and national recognition in amateur winemaking competitions. Tannat, he said. Tannat?
Tannat grapes are historically grown in the southwest of France, but they have become increasingly popular in Argentina, Brazil, Peru and Italy. In Uruguay, of all places, Tannat has become the national grape. The grape makes a very tannic, dark and full-bodied wine and it has typically been used as a blending variety.
“Don’t worry,” Marcel said before we parted ways, “I have a bottle for you.”
An hour later I was at Baillie-Grohman Estate Winery, talking to owner Bob Johnson. He began to rave about a bottle of wine he had with friends the night before. He was referring to Marcel’s Tannat.
“It’s really good,” Bob said.
Not many days later we were invited to dinner with friends who live half the year in Britain and the other, summer half, in the Creston Valley. Another couple that is planning their retirement to Creston from Calgary joined us. Host Gerry brought out a bottle of wine that “you just have to try.” Sure enough, it was Marcel’s Tannat. To our amusement, the cork proved very difficult to extract, crumbling at Gerry’s efforts to remove it. Eventually he pushed the cork in, then strained the contents to remove bits of cork. (Later, to our astonishment, he performed a parlour trick, using a cloth napkin to remove the cork from the bottle.)
The Tannat was as good as its now growing reputation had led us to believe. It is a huge wine — lots of tannins, very full-bodied, amazing blackberry notes and extremely dark in colour. I was immediately reminded of Amarone, the Italian wine from the Veneto region made from grapes that have been air-dried for several weeks to evaporate some of the water content and intensify the flavours. We all agreed it was an amazing wine, one that we would happily pay $40 for if it were available on a store shelf.
A few more days passed before we attended an outdoor festival in Wynndel and who did we come across but Marcel. “Let me know when you are ready to leave,” he said. “We’ll go to my house and get your bottle of Tannat.”
As we prepared for our departure, Marcel came up with a better plan. He rounded up the friends we had that earlier dinner with, ordered us all to purchase lunches to go and the six of us joined him on his deck. Out came a bottle of Tannat and another of Zinfandel, which he had also made. Our motley crew ate our lunch, sipped the wines and laughed away a couple of glorious hours, all the while enjoying a jaw-dropping view that encompasses Duck and Kootenay lakes.
We left, one of the few remaining bottles of Marcel’s Tannat in hand, determined to share it with our son, also a wine lover, and daughter-in-law. A week later we did just that and the amazing tale of Marcel’s Tannat came to an end.
I always describe myself as a wine enthusiast, by no means an expert. And I’m certainly not a wine snob. I’m as happy to try a friend’s homemade cherry wine as I am a $200 bottle of Bordeaux. Marcel’s Tannat was another in a lengthy list of happy experiences that serve to reinforce that attitude.
September 2012 – La Dolce Vita
creston valley baker brings passion to his work
Yuri Jmaeff said he’s been around a bakery for as long as he can remember.
“Since I was small enough to fall into the bowl of a 20-quart Hobart mixer.” Fortunately, the mixer wasn’t running at the time.
Jmaeff came to Creston from Fruitvale, where he had been running his own bakery for five years, but in a rental property whose owner wouldn’t sell.
“My dad (Alex, a master baker) was in Vancouver picking up supplies and someone pointed out an ad listing a bakery for sale in the Kootenays,” he recalls. “He called me and we decided to check it out.”
Jmaeff agreed to purchase the building, which had been sitting abandoned since the previous operator left town.
“That was in the winter of 1986. We thought we’d be open by Blossom Festival.”
No such luck — there was a ton of work to do and Alex supervised much of the renovation and rebuild while Jmaeff kept working in Fruitvale. It took eight months of work before opening day.
“Dad said he would help me to start it up, but that it would be my bakery. I always remember him saying, ‘It’s not what you do — it’s how you live your life.’ That was a defining moment for me — I’ve never forgotten those words.”
Jmaeff is proud to have become Creston’s longest serving “food business operator” but has some regrets about never having taken a baking course.
“I learned so much from my dad, who studied baking in Chicago,” he said. “And of course, I’ve done tons of reading. I was invited to write the master baker exams by the American Institute of Bakers, but it just never worked out for me — one of the few regrets in my life is not getting the accreditation for my knowledge — it would be nice to have that piece of paper.”
His work at Alex’s bakery in Port Alberni — where the family had relocated from Nelson when Jmaeff was a child — became more formal when he worked for several hours each morning before going off to high school. Even before that, he’d fill in if one of the other bakers called in sick.
After graduating from high school he played junior hockey for a year, did a year at Malaspina College, then went to work for a construction company.
“I mixed mortar for the old Italian bricklayers,” he says. “They loved my mud — it was consistent, never too thick and never too watery. When they had to work overtime they always requested that I get the extra hours, too, so I could mix their mortar!”
Jmaeff smiles when he remembers reading an ad in Washington’s Nickel’s Worth advertiser when he was in Fruitvale.
“There was an ad for a 20-quart Hobart mixer. I needed one so I called the guy in Spokane, but he wouldn’t tell me how much he wanted. ‘You need to come down and see it,’ he said.”
Jmaeff left work that day and drove to Spokane. The owner was a retired German baker, but he still wouldn’t tell the young business owner how much he wanted for the mixer. Eventually, he told Jmaeff just to take it.
“I’ll come up and see you. We’ll work something out,” said Henry, the baker.
“About a week later, Henry and his wife, Ann, arrived at my bakery wearing their ‘whites’ (traditional bakery garb),” said Jmaeff. “Henry came into the back and just started baking with me. Ann started washing dishes and cleaning up, then she ended up serving customers!”
Jmaeff began fast friends with Henry and Ann, then with their children. He would eventually serve as a pallbearer at Henry’s funeral and remains friends with his offspring.
“Henry was like a second father. He shared his recipes and taught me so much.”
By investing his life in the Creston Valley Bakery, Jmaeff says he has fulfilled a dream.
“I was renting in Fruitvale and the owner wouldn’t sell to me. I didn’t want to feel temporary and coming to Creston was a great decision. My dad was right when he said, ‘If you want to make a business successful you’ve got to be in it for the long haul.’
“It seems almost unbelievable that on Sept. 16 I’ll have been open for 26 years.”
It was a good business decision when Jmaeff decided to add a deli to the bakery business, he says.
“What better way to get people to taste my bread than to get them to have lunch at my place? And the community has supported me from day one. I still have regular customers who came in on that very first day. And I really love to see young families come in to buy their family packs of bread — it’s a very satisfying feeling.
“It still amazes me that customers might have to park a block or two away and then walk down the street to buy my bread.”
Being a “scratch baker” is important to him. Increasingly, it’s something that the market is supporting, too, as customers want natural (he uses no preservatives), healthy food.
A couple of years ago, he introduced a line of artisan breads, using flour milled at the Pride of the Valley Flour Mill, a non-profit enterprise operated in Grand Forks by the Doukhobor Heritage Milling Society.
“That old hammer mill produces the most incredible flour,” Jmaeff says. “I’ve never used any other flour like it.”
There is even more heritage in those artisan breads, too. All are made from a rye sour starter that Alex brought back in a suitcase from Russia a dozen years ago.
“That was pre-911,” Jmaeff smiles. “I don’t think you could get away with that today.”
Much of his bakery’s success he attributes to his employees, many who worked through high school and have gone on to other careers.
“I’m always hearing back from them, asking for a reference or updating me on their life — what a wonderful feeling!”
Support from retailers and restaurants is a big deal to Jmaeff, as well. He supplies locally to, in no particular order, Famous Fritz Meats and Deli, Real Food Café, A Break in Time Caffé, Jimmy’s Pub and Grill, Chatka Family Restaurant, Broaster House, Sirdar Pub, Wynndel Foods, Coffee Creek Café, Crawford Bay Store, Paul’s Superette, Wynndel Foods, Kokanee Inn and the Creston Golf Club dining room.
“It’s great when I go out and see my products in other businesses — what a satisfying feeling. And it reminds me that I’ve always meant to order plastic bags with the bakery’s name on them!”
Creston Valley Advance
“Since I was small enough to fall into the bowl of a 20-quart Hobart mixer.” Fortunately, the mixer wasn’t running at the time.
Jmaeff came to Creston from Fruitvale, where he had been running his own bakery for five years, but in a rental property whose owner wouldn’t sell.
“My dad (Alex, a master baker) was in Vancouver picking up supplies and someone pointed out an ad listing a bakery for sale in the Kootenays,” he recalls. “He called me and we decided to check it out.”
Jmaeff agreed to purchase the building, which had been sitting abandoned since the previous operator left town.
“That was in the winter of 1986. We thought we’d be open by Blossom Festival.”
No such luck — there was a ton of work to do and Alex supervised much of the renovation and rebuild while Jmaeff kept working in Fruitvale. It took eight months of work before opening day.
“Dad said he would help me to start it up, but that it would be my bakery. I always remember him saying, ‘It’s not what you do — it’s how you live your life.’ That was a defining moment for me — I’ve never forgotten those words.”
Jmaeff is proud to have become Creston’s longest serving “food business operator” but has some regrets about never having taken a baking course.
“I learned so much from my dad, who studied baking in Chicago,” he said. “And of course, I’ve done tons of reading. I was invited to write the master baker exams by the American Institute of Bakers, but it just never worked out for me — one of the few regrets in my life is not getting the accreditation for my knowledge — it would be nice to have that piece of paper.”
His work at Alex’s bakery in Port Alberni — where the family had relocated from Nelson when Jmaeff was a child — became more formal when he worked for several hours each morning before going off to high school. Even before that, he’d fill in if one of the other bakers called in sick.
After graduating from high school he played junior hockey for a year, did a year at Malaspina College, then went to work for a construction company.
“I mixed mortar for the old Italian bricklayers,” he says. “They loved my mud — it was consistent, never too thick and never too watery. When they had to work overtime they always requested that I get the extra hours, too, so I could mix their mortar!”
Jmaeff smiles when he remembers reading an ad in Washington’s Nickel’s Worth advertiser when he was in Fruitvale.
“There was an ad for a 20-quart Hobart mixer. I needed one so I called the guy in Spokane, but he wouldn’t tell me how much he wanted. ‘You need to come down and see it,’ he said.”
Jmaeff left work that day and drove to Spokane. The owner was a retired German baker, but he still wouldn’t tell the young business owner how much he wanted for the mixer. Eventually, he told Jmaeff just to take it.
“I’ll come up and see you. We’ll work something out,” said Henry, the baker.
“About a week later, Henry and his wife, Ann, arrived at my bakery wearing their ‘whites’ (traditional bakery garb),” said Jmaeff. “Henry came into the back and just started baking with me. Ann started washing dishes and cleaning up, then she ended up serving customers!”
Jmaeff began fast friends with Henry and Ann, then with their children. He would eventually serve as a pallbearer at Henry’s funeral and remains friends with his offspring.
“Henry was like a second father. He shared his recipes and taught me so much.”
By investing his life in the Creston Valley Bakery, Jmaeff says he has fulfilled a dream.
“I was renting in Fruitvale and the owner wouldn’t sell to me. I didn’t want to feel temporary and coming to Creston was a great decision. My dad was right when he said, ‘If you want to make a business successful you’ve got to be in it for the long haul.’
“It seems almost unbelievable that on Sept. 16 I’ll have been open for 26 years.”
It was a good business decision when Jmaeff decided to add a deli to the bakery business, he says.
“What better way to get people to taste my bread than to get them to have lunch at my place? And the community has supported me from day one. I still have regular customers who came in on that very first day. And I really love to see young families come in to buy their family packs of bread — it’s a very satisfying feeling.
“It still amazes me that customers might have to park a block or two away and then walk down the street to buy my bread.”
Being a “scratch baker” is important to him. Increasingly, it’s something that the market is supporting, too, as customers want natural (he uses no preservatives), healthy food.
A couple of years ago, he introduced a line of artisan breads, using flour milled at the Pride of the Valley Flour Mill, a non-profit enterprise operated in Grand Forks by the Doukhobor Heritage Milling Society.
“That old hammer mill produces the most incredible flour,” Jmaeff says. “I’ve never used any other flour like it.”
There is even more heritage in those artisan breads, too. All are made from a rye sour starter that Alex brought back in a suitcase from Russia a dozen years ago.
“That was pre-911,” Jmaeff smiles. “I don’t think you could get away with that today.”
Much of his bakery’s success he attributes to his employees, many who worked through high school and have gone on to other careers.
“I’m always hearing back from them, asking for a reference or updating me on their life — what a wonderful feeling!”
Support from retailers and restaurants is a big deal to Jmaeff, as well. He supplies locally to, in no particular order, Famous Fritz Meats and Deli, Real Food Café, A Break in Time Caffé, Jimmy’s Pub and Grill, Chatka Family Restaurant, Broaster House, Sirdar Pub, Wynndel Foods, Coffee Creek Café, Crawford Bay Store, Paul’s Superette, Wynndel Foods, Kokanee Inn and the Creston Golf Club dining room.
“It’s great when I go out and see my products in other businesses — what a satisfying feeling. And it reminds me that I’ve always meant to order plastic bags with the bakery’s name on them!”
Creston Valley Advance
wheat crop pays homage to creston flats history
A good chunk of history is reflected in the 100 per cent whole grain bread now being made at the Yuri Jmaeff’s Creston Valley Bakery.
“The first wheat grown in the Valley was grow not by my dad (Art Sutcliffe), but his future father-in-law (Frank Staples), my mother’s dad, in 1936,” Doug Sutcliffe said in a recent interview.
In recent decades Sutcliffe Farms has become synonymous with the spring asparagus crop. It is the largest asparagus farm in Western Canada. But the original farm, on land reclaimed with construction of a dyking system in the 1930s, was a partnership between Sutcliffe’s father and Doug’s uncle, Dick Staples.
Doug’s family didn’t live on the farm, but as a kid that’s where he wanted to be.
“As a child I always wanted to go to the farm,” he said. “But my mom (Marion) didn’t want me playing around the machinery until I was old enough to be responsible—she wouldn’t let me work until I was 13. With mom it was also a fight—‘take me out to the farm.’
“I rode around with my dad on a steel-wheeled John Deere tractor,” he recalls. “The first crop he grew was wheat. My dad and his brother-in-law grew their first crop in 1949—actually they planted one in 1948 but the dykes broke and the land flooded.”
Later, when he was old enough to work, Doug remembers getting the ground prepped and then preparing to sow the crops.
“I was getting the seed cleaned, getting the seed drill out—we wanted to get the seed in as soon as possible, as soon as ground was warm enough.”
In the early days, the Creston Valley produced more grain than it needed for chicken feed and human use so farmers shipped through the Canadian Wheat Board. The grain went to the Prairies by the train-car load.
“I think my dad got $1.25 a bushel for the first wheat he sold,” Doug said. (The price for wheat this week wasn’t much higher--$5.25 a bushel.)
Harvest time was another time of battle between a young Doug Sutcliffe and his mom.
“Harvest was always very important and hectic. I couldn’t talk dad into staying home to be with me--I had to go the farm to see him,” Doug said.
As harvest time neared, the weather was the big issue. As soon as the grain’s moisture began to drop, preparation began for combining.
“We had to bring it in soon as it was ready, when moisture was low enough that it could be stored in bin,” he said. “We’d get in the old pickup and run to get a test sample, then run to the grain elevator where they had the fancy moisture meter to test it.”
When the grain was deemed ready the race was on.
The crew was ready to go. We didn’t stop for lunch. We didn’t stop for supper.”
Heavy dew that start early in the evening each fall stopped the combining at night. And they delayed the startup in the morning. Nights or early mornings were devoted to fueling, greasing, repairing. Combines and trucks were all cleaned out so they were ready for the next day.
“And then, all of a sudden, it was over,” Doug said. “I remember think, ‘It’s done. The weather can do what it wants. It can rain.”
While the Creston Valley is commonly believed to be extraordinarily, the soil varies in different parts. Some farmland is on clay, where swamps used sit long ago. The existing soil in those spots relies on what organic matter has fallen on it to grow crops. Under even the best circumstances crops have to be rotated.
While grains were the main crop when Doug and his father were farming together, much has changed today. Alfalfa, timothy and canola dominate the scene on the Creston Flats. A number of factors have contributed to the general decline in grain production.
So when baker Yuri Jmaeff approached Sutcliffe to grow some wheat for him, he was starting all over again. A unused six-acre plot on Marion’s property was lying in fallow—Doug found a seed source, got out the seed drill and other equipment, and went to work last spring, planting his first wheat crop in many years.
The results were good, and Doug said it was a particular thrill to have his son ride on the combine with him, just as he himself had ridden with his dad as a child.
Success? The proof, it might be said, is in the bread, a tasty, silky loaf that rises as easily as its bleached and whitened cousins. In creating the new bread, its connection to the Valley’s history was important to Jmaeff, and no less so to Doug Sutcliffe.
February 2010 – Creston Valley Advance
“The first wheat grown in the Valley was grow not by my dad (Art Sutcliffe), but his future father-in-law (Frank Staples), my mother’s dad, in 1936,” Doug Sutcliffe said in a recent interview.
In recent decades Sutcliffe Farms has become synonymous with the spring asparagus crop. It is the largest asparagus farm in Western Canada. But the original farm, on land reclaimed with construction of a dyking system in the 1930s, was a partnership between Sutcliffe’s father and Doug’s uncle, Dick Staples.
Doug’s family didn’t live on the farm, but as a kid that’s where he wanted to be.
“As a child I always wanted to go to the farm,” he said. “But my mom (Marion) didn’t want me playing around the machinery until I was old enough to be responsible—she wouldn’t let me work until I was 13. With mom it was also a fight—‘take me out to the farm.’
“I rode around with my dad on a steel-wheeled John Deere tractor,” he recalls. “The first crop he grew was wheat. My dad and his brother-in-law grew their first crop in 1949—actually they planted one in 1948 but the dykes broke and the land flooded.”
Later, when he was old enough to work, Doug remembers getting the ground prepped and then preparing to sow the crops.
“I was getting the seed cleaned, getting the seed drill out—we wanted to get the seed in as soon as possible, as soon as ground was warm enough.”
In the early days, the Creston Valley produced more grain than it needed for chicken feed and human use so farmers shipped through the Canadian Wheat Board. The grain went to the Prairies by the train-car load.
“I think my dad got $1.25 a bushel for the first wheat he sold,” Doug said. (The price for wheat this week wasn’t much higher--$5.25 a bushel.)
Harvest time was another time of battle between a young Doug Sutcliffe and his mom.
“Harvest was always very important and hectic. I couldn’t talk dad into staying home to be with me--I had to go the farm to see him,” Doug said.
As harvest time neared, the weather was the big issue. As soon as the grain’s moisture began to drop, preparation began for combining.
“We had to bring it in soon as it was ready, when moisture was low enough that it could be stored in bin,” he said. “We’d get in the old pickup and run to get a test sample, then run to the grain elevator where they had the fancy moisture meter to test it.”
When the grain was deemed ready the race was on.
The crew was ready to go. We didn’t stop for lunch. We didn’t stop for supper.”
Heavy dew that start early in the evening each fall stopped the combining at night. And they delayed the startup in the morning. Nights or early mornings were devoted to fueling, greasing, repairing. Combines and trucks were all cleaned out so they were ready for the next day.
“And then, all of a sudden, it was over,” Doug said. “I remember think, ‘It’s done. The weather can do what it wants. It can rain.”
While the Creston Valley is commonly believed to be extraordinarily, the soil varies in different parts. Some farmland is on clay, where swamps used sit long ago. The existing soil in those spots relies on what organic matter has fallen on it to grow crops. Under even the best circumstances crops have to be rotated.
While grains were the main crop when Doug and his father were farming together, much has changed today. Alfalfa, timothy and canola dominate the scene on the Creston Flats. A number of factors have contributed to the general decline in grain production.
So when baker Yuri Jmaeff approached Sutcliffe to grow some wheat for him, he was starting all over again. A unused six-acre plot on Marion’s property was lying in fallow—Doug found a seed source, got out the seed drill and other equipment, and went to work last spring, planting his first wheat crop in many years.
The results were good, and Doug said it was a particular thrill to have his son ride on the combine with him, just as he himself had ridden with his dad as a child.
Success? The proof, it might be said, is in the bread, a tasty, silky loaf that rises as easily as its bleached and whitened cousins. In creating the new bread, its connection to the Valley’s history was important to Jmaeff, and no less so to Doug Sutcliffe.
February 2010 – Creston Valley Advance
Erickson ceramic artist's love of pizza leads to construction of wood-fired oven
Attribute the wood-fired oven that now inhabits her yard in Erickson to Andrea Revoy’s persistence.
Revoy, best known to Creston Valley residents for the ceramics she creates in her home workshop, had her first brush with a similar oven while she was attending Red Deer College several years ago. Australian ceramic artist and wood-fired oven-making guru Alan Watt ran a course in how to make outdoor ovens at the college.
“It was really expensive and I couldn’t take the week off to do it, but I saw the oven and there were aspects of it that I really liked,” she says. “When I did more research into wood-fired ovens, there was the low-tech, ultra-hippie — dig your own dirt and mix it with your feet — and there was his, sort of the mid-range where you use bricks and some of the same ideas as the low-tech oven. And then there were these $10,000 high tech ovens. I liked Alan’s.”
Drawn to the simple design and the fact that Watt’s ovens are weather resistant, impermeable to rain and snow, she knew what she wanted, especially because she envisioned a patio connecting the lower floor of her home with an oven that was easily accessible.
“I knew I wanted one like Alan’s but I was sure I would want one before I would ever be able to take the workshop.”
She contacted Red Deer College about getting notes from Watt, didn’t get a response and then found “a really obscure Australian website” selling Watt’s book. Two months after ordering, having received nothing, she emailed him directly.
“I told him I was Canadian. Did he have any copies of his book that I could buy from him?
“He promptly emailed me back, stating he didn’t have a book published. It took me about an hour searching the web to find that weird, obscure publisher and I finally found his book. I then noticed that it wasn’t going to be ready for sale until May (this was March) and then I knew why the book had never arrived.”
She emailed the link to Watt, only to learn that he hadn’t even written the first draft and was shocked to hear from someone in Canada that the book was supposed to be available in two months.
“I told him he had better get on it — I had a lot of friends and neighbours wanting pizza!”
Revoy ended up back in Red Deer last October, taking Watt’s workshop in person. There, not knowing she was present, he told the story about his book that wasn’t published and the Canadian who had told him about it.
“I raised my hand and said, ‘That was me.’ We had a good laugh and I guess the rest is history.”
Watt was back in Red Deer as an artist in residence at the college last summer, and offered to conduct other workshops. Revoy took him up on the offer and in short order had 14 people registered for a $200, two-day hands-on course. The bonus was that, for the price of the materials, she and her husband would end up with a brand-new dome-shaped oven in their yard.
Her fascination with outdoor ovens began with a love of bread making, but the workshop was a demonstration in how social outdoor pizza making can be.
“Making ceramics is very sociable at times and it’s the same with these ovens,” she says. “What’s the point of heating an oven to 800 degrees when you are cooking a couple of pizzas for yourself. It’s way more fun to have a community thing.”
The oven’s construction was simple enough. On top of a concrete block base, a layer of high temperature bricks is laid down to create the oven floor. Ordinary red bricks or high temperature bricks are stood to form a circle and the dome shape is gradually created — when the inward curve starts the area is filled with sand, which is then molded to create a dome shape. A slurry of high temperature concrete is poured over the dome, layers of ceramic blanket (an insulating material) are added, then more concrete is poured on and worked to create a smooth finish. The dome has a hole to accommodate a steel chimney.
At the end of the first day, after the students had left, Revoy and Watt worked to smooth out the dome, then put a tiger torch on low inside the dome overnight to speed the drying process.
“Before noon the following day we had a wood fire going inside and were getting ready to cook our pizza,” she said.
While the oven is attractive in itself, Revoy is an artist and she’s not content to leave well enough alone. Next year she will make her own ceramic tiles and turn the whole thing into a yellow submarine, complete with a ceramic figure to perch on top of the dome and peer through a tube that joins the chimney, which in Revoy’s mind creates a perfect periscope. She has plans to turn a nearby retaining wall into a ceramic mural with an underwater theme to go with her oven/submarine.
While she’s only made a few batches of bread, the oven has been used to make plenty of pizza. On a recent rainy afternoon, a group of eight friends gathered for a pizza lunch, each rolling out balls of dough to make personal-sized pizzas, adding the toppings of their choice. In the oven, where the temperature hovered between 600 and 700 F, the pizzas cooked in a couple of minutes. Even in the rain, guests were happy to stand around the warm oven and chat while they watched their pizzas cook.
“There are people in Quebec who start the oven the day before,” she days. “Then when they get up in the morning the fire is lit up again. When it gets to the right temperature, they throw in all their breads. Then they take them out and cook their cookies and cakes. As the oven cools down they cook different things.”
Eventually, when the internal temperature drops below 300 F, meats and stews are placed inside, the door is put into position and the oven becomes a large slow cooker.
When she uncovers the oven next spring and fires it up, the only question is how long it will be until neighbours are dropping by, wondering where the aromas of fresh bread or pizza are coming from. Or, she jokes, they might sneak over in the night to try a little baking themselves.
“Which is no problem,” she says. “As long as they leave some pizza and wine!”
Creston Valley Advance
Revoy, best known to Creston Valley residents for the ceramics she creates in her home workshop, had her first brush with a similar oven while she was attending Red Deer College several years ago. Australian ceramic artist and wood-fired oven-making guru Alan Watt ran a course in how to make outdoor ovens at the college.
“It was really expensive and I couldn’t take the week off to do it, but I saw the oven and there were aspects of it that I really liked,” she says. “When I did more research into wood-fired ovens, there was the low-tech, ultra-hippie — dig your own dirt and mix it with your feet — and there was his, sort of the mid-range where you use bricks and some of the same ideas as the low-tech oven. And then there were these $10,000 high tech ovens. I liked Alan’s.”
Drawn to the simple design and the fact that Watt’s ovens are weather resistant, impermeable to rain and snow, she knew what she wanted, especially because she envisioned a patio connecting the lower floor of her home with an oven that was easily accessible.
“I knew I wanted one like Alan’s but I was sure I would want one before I would ever be able to take the workshop.”
She contacted Red Deer College about getting notes from Watt, didn’t get a response and then found “a really obscure Australian website” selling Watt’s book. Two months after ordering, having received nothing, she emailed him directly.
“I told him I was Canadian. Did he have any copies of his book that I could buy from him?
“He promptly emailed me back, stating he didn’t have a book published. It took me about an hour searching the web to find that weird, obscure publisher and I finally found his book. I then noticed that it wasn’t going to be ready for sale until May (this was March) and then I knew why the book had never arrived.”
She emailed the link to Watt, only to learn that he hadn’t even written the first draft and was shocked to hear from someone in Canada that the book was supposed to be available in two months.
“I told him he had better get on it — I had a lot of friends and neighbours wanting pizza!”
Revoy ended up back in Red Deer last October, taking Watt’s workshop in person. There, not knowing she was present, he told the story about his book that wasn’t published and the Canadian who had told him about it.
“I raised my hand and said, ‘That was me.’ We had a good laugh and I guess the rest is history.”
Watt was back in Red Deer as an artist in residence at the college last summer, and offered to conduct other workshops. Revoy took him up on the offer and in short order had 14 people registered for a $200, two-day hands-on course. The bonus was that, for the price of the materials, she and her husband would end up with a brand-new dome-shaped oven in their yard.
Her fascination with outdoor ovens began with a love of bread making, but the workshop was a demonstration in how social outdoor pizza making can be.
“Making ceramics is very sociable at times and it’s the same with these ovens,” she says. “What’s the point of heating an oven to 800 degrees when you are cooking a couple of pizzas for yourself. It’s way more fun to have a community thing.”
The oven’s construction was simple enough. On top of a concrete block base, a layer of high temperature bricks is laid down to create the oven floor. Ordinary red bricks or high temperature bricks are stood to form a circle and the dome shape is gradually created — when the inward curve starts the area is filled with sand, which is then molded to create a dome shape. A slurry of high temperature concrete is poured over the dome, layers of ceramic blanket (an insulating material) are added, then more concrete is poured on and worked to create a smooth finish. The dome has a hole to accommodate a steel chimney.
At the end of the first day, after the students had left, Revoy and Watt worked to smooth out the dome, then put a tiger torch on low inside the dome overnight to speed the drying process.
“Before noon the following day we had a wood fire going inside and were getting ready to cook our pizza,” she said.
While the oven is attractive in itself, Revoy is an artist and she’s not content to leave well enough alone. Next year she will make her own ceramic tiles and turn the whole thing into a yellow submarine, complete with a ceramic figure to perch on top of the dome and peer through a tube that joins the chimney, which in Revoy’s mind creates a perfect periscope. She has plans to turn a nearby retaining wall into a ceramic mural with an underwater theme to go with her oven/submarine.
While she’s only made a few batches of bread, the oven has been used to make plenty of pizza. On a recent rainy afternoon, a group of eight friends gathered for a pizza lunch, each rolling out balls of dough to make personal-sized pizzas, adding the toppings of their choice. In the oven, where the temperature hovered between 600 and 700 F, the pizzas cooked in a couple of minutes. Even in the rain, guests were happy to stand around the warm oven and chat while they watched their pizzas cook.
“There are people in Quebec who start the oven the day before,” she days. “Then when they get up in the morning the fire is lit up again. When it gets to the right temperature, they throw in all their breads. Then they take them out and cook their cookies and cakes. As the oven cools down they cook different things.”
Eventually, when the internal temperature drops below 300 F, meats and stews are placed inside, the door is put into position and the oven becomes a large slow cooker.
When she uncovers the oven next spring and fires it up, the only question is how long it will be until neighbours are dropping by, wondering where the aromas of fresh bread or pizza are coming from. Or, she jokes, they might sneak over in the night to try a little baking themselves.
“Which is no problem,” she says. “As long as they leave some pizza and wine!”
Creston Valley Advance
Creston chef still cooking after three decades
With 32 years of experience in restaurants around the Kootenays, Dennis Munro is as well known as, well, his caesar salad.
“That’s the first thing people usually mention when they talk about my food,” he admits. “Caesar salad and steaks and roasts.”
Munro was born and raised in Vancouver, but it was in Calgary as a young man that he began to develop his skills in the kitchen.
“It started at home on Sunday nights — friends would arrive and we would sort of have a potluck dinner. I would work in the kitchen, putting dishes together.”
He left Calgary, where he had been in sales — waterbeds and cars — and headed for Kaslo in 1980.
His first job was cooking breakfast at the Treehouse Restaurant, which still remains a Kootenay icon today.
“It was the first job I could find,” he said.
And he hasn’t been away from the restaurant and bar business since.
After being laid off from the Treehouse, Munro moved over to the Mariner Inn, where he worked as a bartender, cook and did night security, a task that provided him with a room in the hotel.
“Then I met Terry Jones (of Jones Boys Marina fame) and he said he was opening JB’s Pub in Woodbury, at the marina. That was the first time I actually had control, producing my first full menu, hiring staff and working long, really long, days.
“If you aren’t prepared to put in 70-hour weeks you shouldn’t even think about getting into this business. But I guess it’s in my blood. My wife, Debbie, doesn’t understand why I do it, but she’s always been a great support.”
In the 1985 he ventured back to Vancouver to open a cafeteria-style restaurant downtown, in time for Expo 86.
A year later, Jones called to put another bug in Munro’s ear. He was purchasing Mountain Shores Resort on Highway 3A and asked Dennis to open a restaurant there. Soon he was back in the Kootenays, building a lounge and renovating the kitchen.
It was a short-lived experience. Mountain Shores went into receivership in 1988 and the restaurant’s lease wasn’t registered. Munro sold his equipment to the receiver and bought Sirdar Pub.
“The first thing I did was buy a shuttle bus — I was way ahead of the curve on that one,” he said.
For years, a 15-seat Dodge Maxivan shuttled Sirdar Pub patrons back and forth from Creston.
His good friend, Tom Browne, backed him by putting in dining loft as an addition to the pub. What once was a pub that offered only a few food items became known for its menu and atmosphere. The view from the loft, overlooking the lake, was nothing to sneeze at, either.
Munro owned and operated the pub for 13 years, but he began managing the Creston Golf Club restaurant in 1996, too, after a sale of the pub fell through.
“I was committed to running the golf course restaurant that spring, so I had to run it and the pub at the same time,” he says.
Three years later, the chance to create a fine dining establishment beckoned, and he took on the lease of what had been operating as Kelly O’Brien’s on Canyon Street. And Munro’s was born.
“Fine dining — that was my goal, and it was a learning curve,” he laughs. The restaurant was successful during the tourist season but it was a tough go in the winter.
Opportunity knocked again during a Sysco Canada (food distributor) golf tournament.
“I met the general manager of the Prestige Inn in Cranbrook and he said the food and beverage operation was for sale.”
In 2004, he took over the restaurant and pub in Cranbrook for a six-year run. Then, as if that and keeping Munro’s running in Creston wasn’t enough of a challenge, he added the restaurants in the Nelson and Rossland Prestige Inns to his portfolio.
How did he manage all that?
“I’m still not sure,” he smiles. “You just put your head down and keep going. And it helps to be stupid!”
In 2009, the bottom dropped out of the hospitality business and he got out of the restaurant industry for a while.
“I took a year off and I didn’t think I was going to go back into the business,” he recalls. “But I couldn’t think of anything else I’d rather do.”
Munro takes a moment to think about what really keeps him going in an industry that can consume one’s life.
“I love the challenge of a big event,” he says. “Seeing if you can pull it off and see people leaving happy at the end — it doesn’t get any better than that.”
He thinks back to running the food service for the second Kokanee Summit, and having to serve 11,000 meals in five hours.
“We lost our electrical power right before we started,” he says.
A mad scramble led to a rewiring project, all while guests began to get more and more hungry.
“We were in the weeds for sure,” he laughs. “We ended up with nine food lines with about a hundred people in each one. But we got it done!”
In the last few years, Munro settled into a routine, running the golf course operation for about eight months a year, until once again came that familiar rap-rap-rap sound of opportunity knocking.
“Tyler Hancock (a real estate agent) mentioned that Joan and Robin (Morris) were wanting to retire after 35 years of running the Broaster House,” he says. “We found a way to make a deal that benefits both sides in the long term.”
Getting involved with yet another business was made easier when he convinced his former chef and manager at Munro’s to become a partner in the Broaster House.
“Brad Sutherland was my ace in the hole. I know what he’s capable of and he’s one of the few people I would have considered.”
“If it’s not broke, don’t fix it,” is how Munro explains his approach to his latest venture. “People have grown up with Robin and Joan’s Broaster House — customers’ sons and daughters are now eating there. You can’t change it.”
The constant among the many changes over Munro’s career in restaurants and pubs has been his wife, Debbie.
“You have to have support from your spouse to survive in this business,” he says. “Debbie has been with me for seven moves and supported every one.”
As for his well-earned reputation?
“I hope people know they are getting home-made food and that they get flavours they don’t get anywhere else, “ he says. “And, after 30 years, hardly a day goes by that I don’t learn something — that’s what keeps me going.”
Creston Valley Advance
“That’s the first thing people usually mention when they talk about my food,” he admits. “Caesar salad and steaks and roasts.”
Munro was born and raised in Vancouver, but it was in Calgary as a young man that he began to develop his skills in the kitchen.
“It started at home on Sunday nights — friends would arrive and we would sort of have a potluck dinner. I would work in the kitchen, putting dishes together.”
He left Calgary, where he had been in sales — waterbeds and cars — and headed for Kaslo in 1980.
His first job was cooking breakfast at the Treehouse Restaurant, which still remains a Kootenay icon today.
“It was the first job I could find,” he said.
And he hasn’t been away from the restaurant and bar business since.
After being laid off from the Treehouse, Munro moved over to the Mariner Inn, where he worked as a bartender, cook and did night security, a task that provided him with a room in the hotel.
“Then I met Terry Jones (of Jones Boys Marina fame) and he said he was opening JB’s Pub in Woodbury, at the marina. That was the first time I actually had control, producing my first full menu, hiring staff and working long, really long, days.
“If you aren’t prepared to put in 70-hour weeks you shouldn’t even think about getting into this business. But I guess it’s in my blood. My wife, Debbie, doesn’t understand why I do it, but she’s always been a great support.”
In the 1985 he ventured back to Vancouver to open a cafeteria-style restaurant downtown, in time for Expo 86.
A year later, Jones called to put another bug in Munro’s ear. He was purchasing Mountain Shores Resort on Highway 3A and asked Dennis to open a restaurant there. Soon he was back in the Kootenays, building a lounge and renovating the kitchen.
It was a short-lived experience. Mountain Shores went into receivership in 1988 and the restaurant’s lease wasn’t registered. Munro sold his equipment to the receiver and bought Sirdar Pub.
“The first thing I did was buy a shuttle bus — I was way ahead of the curve on that one,” he said.
For years, a 15-seat Dodge Maxivan shuttled Sirdar Pub patrons back and forth from Creston.
His good friend, Tom Browne, backed him by putting in dining loft as an addition to the pub. What once was a pub that offered only a few food items became known for its menu and atmosphere. The view from the loft, overlooking the lake, was nothing to sneeze at, either.
Munro owned and operated the pub for 13 years, but he began managing the Creston Golf Club restaurant in 1996, too, after a sale of the pub fell through.
“I was committed to running the golf course restaurant that spring, so I had to run it and the pub at the same time,” he says.
Three years later, the chance to create a fine dining establishment beckoned, and he took on the lease of what had been operating as Kelly O’Brien’s on Canyon Street. And Munro’s was born.
“Fine dining — that was my goal, and it was a learning curve,” he laughs. The restaurant was successful during the tourist season but it was a tough go in the winter.
Opportunity knocked again during a Sysco Canada (food distributor) golf tournament.
“I met the general manager of the Prestige Inn in Cranbrook and he said the food and beverage operation was for sale.”
In 2004, he took over the restaurant and pub in Cranbrook for a six-year run. Then, as if that and keeping Munro’s running in Creston wasn’t enough of a challenge, he added the restaurants in the Nelson and Rossland Prestige Inns to his portfolio.
How did he manage all that?
“I’m still not sure,” he smiles. “You just put your head down and keep going. And it helps to be stupid!”
In 2009, the bottom dropped out of the hospitality business and he got out of the restaurant industry for a while.
“I took a year off and I didn’t think I was going to go back into the business,” he recalls. “But I couldn’t think of anything else I’d rather do.”
Munro takes a moment to think about what really keeps him going in an industry that can consume one’s life.
“I love the challenge of a big event,” he says. “Seeing if you can pull it off and see people leaving happy at the end — it doesn’t get any better than that.”
He thinks back to running the food service for the second Kokanee Summit, and having to serve 11,000 meals in five hours.
“We lost our electrical power right before we started,” he says.
A mad scramble led to a rewiring project, all while guests began to get more and more hungry.
“We were in the weeds for sure,” he laughs. “We ended up with nine food lines with about a hundred people in each one. But we got it done!”
In the last few years, Munro settled into a routine, running the golf course operation for about eight months a year, until once again came that familiar rap-rap-rap sound of opportunity knocking.
“Tyler Hancock (a real estate agent) mentioned that Joan and Robin (Morris) were wanting to retire after 35 years of running the Broaster House,” he says. “We found a way to make a deal that benefits both sides in the long term.”
Getting involved with yet another business was made easier when he convinced his former chef and manager at Munro’s to become a partner in the Broaster House.
“Brad Sutherland was my ace in the hole. I know what he’s capable of and he’s one of the few people I would have considered.”
“If it’s not broke, don’t fix it,” is how Munro explains his approach to his latest venture. “People have grown up with Robin and Joan’s Broaster House — customers’ sons and daughters are now eating there. You can’t change it.”
The constant among the many changes over Munro’s career in restaurants and pubs has been his wife, Debbie.
“You have to have support from your spouse to survive in this business,” he says. “Debbie has been with me for seven moves and supported every one.”
As for his well-earned reputation?
“I hope people know they are getting home-made food and that they get flavours they don’t get anywhere else, “ he says. “And, after 30 years, hardly a day goes by that I don’t learn something — that’s what keeps me going.”
Creston Valley Advance
