WINE, NATURALLY, AT DARLING BAR
A few years back, Justin Jones and his husband Derrick found themselves discussing the growing trend for natural wines with noted Portuguese winemaker Luís Pato.
“He just said, `It's funny, because I've been making natural wines all my life,'” laughs Jones, co-proprietor of the recently opened Darling Wine Bar on Whyte Avenue. “He doesn't add stuff to his wines, he doesn't mess around with anything, he just has fun and keeps it as traditional as possible. They label it as natural wine, but really, this is something that's been going on forever.”
Jones, who also acts as general manager of hospitality at Biera, has been itching to open a bar dedicated to natural wine with his husband for some time now. The opportunity arose after discussions with the owners of Take Care Cafe and Weekly, a hair salon, who share the same retail space. Since both the café and salon shut down at 6 p.m. every night, that gave the two the opportunity to take over the space for the evening, opening the back patio area from 7-11 p.m. Thursday through Sunday.
“It's such a fantastic spot,” Jones says. “There's this beautiful courtyard that's tucked away in the back, and you would never know it exists from the sidewalk. The owners of Take Care and Weekly are friends, so it seemed like a good fit. We can experiment a little, and run it as something like a pop-up while we see if it works for Edmonton. We really hope so; there isn't anything else quite like this in the city.”
Jones is particularly interested in highlighting family-run operations in Canada and around the world who produce smaller quantities. This means Darling brings in only a few bottles of a particular brand, but Jones is fine with that. After all, he's more fascinated in offering new and interesting wines rather than unimaginatively stocking the same ones over and over.
“You can pop in and try something fun from New Zealand, and then the next day it might be an Okanagan natural wine or something from Australia,” he says. “That's the fun of it.
With only six bottles of each, it's always going to be different. Whenever the Cabernet Franc is out, we'll switch to a Cabernet from a different country and we'll keep things rotating where you can come in and always try something new. It's just a fun way to casually and unpretentiously experience wine by the glass.”
Jones feels that Darling fills in a void for city wine lovers looking for something unique.
“There's the thing where people will go out and just want a glass or two of wine but they feel obliged to order dinner,” he notes. “At Darling, you don't have to worry about that. There are just so many interesting wines out there. I know that I struggle when I walk into a place like Color de Vino; I would go broke if I bought every bottle I wanted to try. It's honestly so dangerous for my wallet,” he adds with a laugh.
The plan at the moment is to make it through the summer and fall, but winter presents something of a challenge for the bar.
“It's fine to be here as a pop-up, but since we keep everything in a storage container outside, we'll need to rethink things as the seasons change,” Jones says. “This won't be permanent. It's doing well so far, though. We're not advertised anywhere but people are finding out and coming in, and it's nice to see people from the neighbourhood pop in.”
ULIVIT
For close to a decade, Laura Gustafson saw the results of unhealthy eating in her position as a surgical specialist.
“I thought, there has to be a better way to do this than just pumping people up with pills all the time,” says the founder of Ulivit, a plant-based food company now setting up shop in both Leduc and Edmonton.
“There also needs to be a change in diet. That's when I started sitting in on nutrition classes at the University of Saskatchewan. I met the dean of agriculture there and started learning about pulses.”
The seeds of plants in the legume family, high-fibre and low–glycemic pulses are not only a sustainable plant-protein source, they've been known to reduce the risk of diabetes, cholesterol, heart disease and obesity. Best of all for Gustafson, her home province of Saskatchewan is the largest producer of lentils and peas in the world. As the granddaughter and great-granddaughter of farmers, Gustafson was sold; she quit her day job, and with her sister Carla began concentrating on making food products from chickpeas, lentils, dry peas and beans.
For those on a plant-based diet who have issues with soy, pulses may just be the answer they're looking for. Ulivit has already entered the market with superfood bars, pulse-packed trail bars available in such flavours as cocoa, Saskatoon berry and maple sugar, and now they're revving up again with a new product, the Plant Protein 2.0. According to Gustafson, the chickpea and fava bean tofu alternative makes delicious pancakes and cream cheese, and is an excellent substitute for beef, eggs and cheese.
Gustafson and her sister are spending days at Snow Valley educating people on Plant Protein 2.0. In Edmonton, it's only currently available at yegoriginal.com, but Gustafson says things are moving quickly; the two are talking to a national distributor, and a few local restaurants are expressing interest. Even the chefs who were working in Snow Valley as part of the summer dinner series have given in to curiosity, using Plant Protein 2.0 in some of their dishes.
“Chef Mai (Nguyen) put some in her dumplings yesterday and it tasted delicious,” Gustafson says. “It's been really, really exciting to see this start to take off.”
EAT JAMAICAN
There are a few options out there for Edmontonians looking to pick up Caribbean delicacies, but now the city has a grocery store devoted exclusively to Jamaican goodies.
Open as of last Saturday, Eat Jamaican at 9518 Ellerslie Rd. addresses the “lack of representation for this niche community” with items such as sugar cane, jelly coconut, D&G Soda and Kingfish steaks, all sourced directly from the island.
If you've got a hankering for an authentic beef patty, give them a shout.
According to the website, they'll be offering home delivery as well.