PATTE BLANCHE

Over the last year we have had to chance to visit some great producers and artisans within a modest radius from our home. It's not the hundred mile diet but it's close enough and I'm not following any strict guideline at the moment. On each of these trips there"s always plenty of discoveries to be made and nice folks to meet, this past weekend Véro had a rare Saturday off and we wanted to take a drive in the country. I suggested we go toward Hawkesbury and it's bordering Quebec towns, I wanted to check out some properties and figured we would find some other things to do at the same time. Some quick research before yielded a couple of interesting destinations plus a mandatory trip to the LCBO. We woke up too late to do lots of exploring but still intent on exploring a bit we headed out in the beginning of the afternoon. One site that caught my interest and the only farm we ended up visiting that day was la Ferme Albé. I found them while searching out info on Canadian Katahdin sheep farms. I had heard a lot of positive things about this breed of sheep before and lo and behold there is a farm just a little over and hours drive from Montreal. We made a point to stop in and see if we could purchase some lamb and maybe see a couple of cute sheep, the farms is a little off the beaten path but getting there is very straightforward. Micheline greeted us warmly and I think we took her off guard by our eagerness, when we couldn't quite make up our minds about which cuts to buy she showed us in and rummaged through her freezer to show us what she had and gave us a couple of choices, we settled on a pack of the cutest chops and a boned out shoulder roast. We then got a little tour of the place, we saw the weaned sheep in the barn, because of the unseasonable weather most of sheep we're in the barn ( we did see some out in the fields from afar with their Llama guardian). There we're some beautiful gals keeping cool and having a rest, We also got to see their laying hens, broilers and also turkeys that are going to be fattened up for thanksgiving. Luc and Micheline greeted us warmly and took the time to chat with us about a little of everything, really passionate folks who are doing something they truly love and with ideals that they are not willing to compromise for a quick buck, if only more folks could be like this. We ended having the chops that night for supper with a red rice and bulghur wheat salad, think tabbouleh but with red rice and chickpeas. Yesterday I pot roasted the shoulder with some tomatoes, anchovies, lots of fresh thyme, rosemary and a nice chicken/pork/beer broth I froze after braising ribs a few weeks back. Today I finished some Flageolet beans in the broth and called it supper. From our quick trials the meat has a nice flavour, not too intense or gamey but it's from fairly young animals, I found the fat to have a nice succulent quality (tasty even when cold) we really need to get a roasting joint next time to get the full range of flavours. Good folks making great food.