One Of EVERYthing If You Please...

When we first moved to Ottawa the agent that was showing us homes told me that I just HAD to check out the Carp Farmers' Market if I wanted to see a larger farm market in our end of town.  I of course had to bite on that.  There is something about garden to table cooking for me.  I am sure I have mentioned a bajillion times that I was raised in Minnesota right??  Right.  By a Momma that grew up on a farm in Grand Rapids.  I know for myself that you can take the girl outta the farm but you never get the farm outta the girl.  To this day..she lives "in town" and keeps her own chickens so she can have organic free range brown eggs and when it is time to cull the flock...she has fresh, organic fed chicken to eat.  These are the kind of things I go to the market for, things that my Momma has right in her back yard.

Every Saturday that we go, the market is teeming with people, and sometimes even dogs.  As soon as you walk through the gates at the Carp Fairgrounds you start to smell amazing things.  Not the least of which is actually the fresh dirt smell on some of the vegetables, amazing hand made soaps but most of all...fabulous food.

 One of the first places that stood out to me, of course, was a little food shop inside the market building.  I took one look at the table and initially, based only on colors only, I thought to myself "Boy, this stuff looks pretty plain."  But there were samples...

Eccles Cakes

And if I have learned one thing with food in my lifetime, it is that you can't base your opinion on looks...you have to try it before you can see the whole picture unfold....

Sausage Rolls

I tried one of each of these little gems and knew that I clearly had misjudged by doing so on looks alone.  I wanted to eat MORE....  A lot more.  I struck up a conversation with the shop owner, Rosanna Salter, and she clued me in on the simple, straightforward method used in traditional English cooking.  It was so refreshing to hear someone talk about "less is more" with food, especially at a farmers market.  We chatted for quite a while before I started noticing out of the corner of my eye a crowd building up at her table.  She had to excuse herself from our conversation a number of times to complete sales and speak with her other customers.  I didn't mind.  I listened in while I looked around at her signs and display...

                                  

 I don't know HOW many times I heard comments such as "My father was straight from the Isles, he would LOVE this food!" and "This reminds me of the pies my mum used to make me when I was a girl.", on the first trip; I heard these comments over a dozen times in the 20 minutes I was standing there.  On this trip, I let myself get lost in my own mind a bit when Rosanna was talking to her other customers...  I got to thinking of the pies and pasties my Momma made when we were growing up and yes, Rosanna's food DID take me back to that kitchen table in Minnesota.  My maternal grandfather was half Scot, half German but the only cooking style retained in the household he grew up in was traditional English food.  My Momma learned these things from her Grandmother Ivy and, in turn, has taught me.  There are some beautiful traditions brought about by food in families all over the world and one morsel of Rosanna's food can give someone a moment of total recall of their traditional English childhood in 2 seconds flat.  I love that...

On that trip (there have been a couple since the first) I bought one of everything but the desserts.  I have since been back and purchased an Eccles Cake to enjoy.  The presentation of crusts on Rosanna's food is just outstanding.  Such attention to detail like, flowers and leaves made out of the dough...something else my Momma does and has taught me to do.  It really makes you feel like the person who made it did it with {love}.  Love of the food, love of the traditions and love for YOU, the person about to enjoy this food.  The phrases "Love and best dishes, from our kitchen ta yers." (Paula Deen's closing phrase on her television show) played through my head when I thought about all the love in those little tins on Rosanna's table....

Last night the Mister and I popped a chicken pie and a steak and mushroom pie in the oven for our dinner.  It had been a long day for me, the last day of my Jam & Jelly Fest of 2012 (I'll tell you more about that some other day!), and I was beat; my feet were killing me.  Rosanna's pies to the rescue!

Chicken Pie

Steak & Mushroom Pie

 We took turns with each pie, switching plates back and forth.  I was really loving the wonderfully moist pieces of meat in each one.  I've never eaten any of Rosanna's pies or pasties and had overdone meat.  The vegetables were perfectly cooked and they are never "mushy".  But the biggest star of the dish for me EVERY time is the tender, flaky crust on her pies.  I let my Mister eat as much of the guts as he wanted while I gobbled up the mesmerizing crust.  Rosanna has cooking directions on the back of each one of her items, telling you exactly how to cook it properly.  In fact, as I type this out I am sitting on my couch enjoying an Eccles cake...  It was easy as 1, 2, 3...  Take it out of my freezer, pop it in the toaster and DONE!  I am enjoying a warm, tender Eccles cake riddled with raisins and other mixed fruit.  The layering in this delight is amazing...

You can't just walk into a kitchen and DO that!  Those tender layers of flakiness take years...sometimes decades to master!  What a accomplished chef Rosanna is.  And to think...it all started 18 years ago in Plymouth.  In that tiny little part of Devon county, when a man walked into Rosanna's place and wanted to buy some of her Cornish pasties!  Back when she'd work to make and sell 2 dozen Cornish pasties and turn around and invest everything she had earned back into ingredient...  Although, now, she is most known for her English Steak & Kidney pies...which some have tried to imitate but NEVER duplicated.  Her dedication, experience, love, passion....you taste it ALL when you eat Rosanna's food.  Because I understand a love and a talent like that so well, I feel like I have found a kindred spirit in her.  An uncommonly talented visionary in the kitchen.  I'd call her the "Pie Whisperer" but I think it doesn't do her quite enough justice.

I obviously can't say enough about the English Pie Shop's food...and recently, CBC radio decided enough hadn't been said.  So they featured her on "All In A Day" last Wednesday, where she could tell her story in her own words.  You can listen to the full interview on their website (click on "All In A Day" to get to the website)  I am only here to inform my readers about where the great food is and sometimes try to educate them so they know without thinking twice that they are eating fabulous food.  But, in this case the real work will need to come from you.  Drive, walk, bike...RUN yourself over to the Carp Farmers' Market and get inside the main building to the English Pie Shop, sample Rosanna's sausage rolls and her eccles cakes and you'll begin to see just how irresistible her food is and you'll never want to be without "a little something" of hers on your table once in a while.