Sabletine

It’s ever so hard these days to find a place to have something sweet that’s truly homemade. And by homemade I mean with quality ingredients, elbow grease and TLC. And not from a kit that’s prepared according to corporate standards. Sadly, it’s terribly easy to spend your Saturday morning or your weekday lunch eating franchise fare. Finding someplace to enjoy the opposite is not.

Which is why I was so pleased when I spotted a lovely little patisserie while driving down King Street in Waterloo earlier this winter. There it was, tucked in beside the everlasting chaos of the forthcoming Bauer Lofts. Judging a book by its cover – the flowery, curlicue-written sign, the charming window display – I knew I had to turn around and pop in.

As it turned out, winter hibernation had made me a little slow on the uptake. In chatting with Kate Sauer, the one-woman show behind the shop, I discovered that Sabletine Fine Pastries had been open since October.

The cosy spot has a display case full of tarts, cakes and pastries and scores of ribbon-tied cellophane bags full of all kinds of sweets. I picked up some wee flavoured meringues and lemon-ginger shortbread – the perfect little something to take to my brother and his wife, who were hosting us later that night. I was also tempted by freshly-baked butter croissants, pains aux chocolat and croissants aux amandes.

The three small tables inside – for those who want to enjoy their delectables on-sight – have been happily occupied on the Saturdays that I’ve stopped in since. Sauer serves coffee, tea and espresso and also makes light lunch. There’s a daily savoury tart and sandwich and, on some days, you’ll find soup and pizzettes, too. Sauer says she plans to expand into fresh salads featuring local produce with the warmer weather. She also does custom orders – wedding cakes included. Quality food and ingredients are her cornerstone.

Raised in the K-W area, Sauer trained as a chef at George Brown College before working at the Four Seasons in Toronto, among other places. Coming back to Waterloo to visit often, she saw nothing quite like the kind of pastry shop she’d always hoped to open. When she spotted the location on King Street a year ago, she jumped on it, left her job, and moved back to the area to start things up.

Her goal, she says, is to see the shop grow – but not overly so.

“When things get big, they can get too diversified and have too much going on,” she told me. “I want to try to keep it small. Simple. Good quality.”
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Lamb

Saturday March 22, 2008

How is it that, with Easter approaching, we continue to find ourselves in a perpetual state of winter? Easter should conjure up a plateful of springy pastels that match the mood brought on by crocuses pushing their way through the ground. Alas, not this year. Not only is Easter unusually early, the snow banks don’t show much sign of shrinking.

Let’s be optimistic. This is your opportunity to embrace the dying days of gooey, slow-cooked comfort food. Don’t succumb completely to thoughts of winter, though. How about a rich, slow-cooked lamb stew? Lamb’s springy, right? A bit of chopping and browning and the rest is up to a low temperature oven while you putter about. With that you could feed a big group coming for a family dinner or hunker down for a quieter evening.

I was thinking the latter on a recent weekend as I stopped in to a favourite vendor at the Kitchener Market clutching my ingredient list for Lamb, Olive and Caramelized Onion Tagine, a recipe I found in Nigella Express. This particular recipe involved an entire bottle of red wine -- part of the appeal, to be sure. Deliciously indulgent.

You'll find Shepherd's Watch Dairy Sheep Farm on the market's upper level every Saturday morning, where they sell locally produced, chemical-free, grass-fed lamb. They also run a booth at the Guelph farmer's market and welcome visitors to their farm site in Arthur (but ask that you call first). Their stand has a smattering of all things sheep-related -- homemade artisan cheeses, yogurt and butter (chemical free) and, of course, a variety of cuts of fresh lamb that are free of hormones, pesticides and injections.

When I last visited, I chose a boneless leg for my tagine and a “mitten kit” – complete with wool and a pattern – as a birthday token for my mom. Shepherd’s Watch sells socks, hats, mitts, blankets and wool, all, of course, made from the fluff of their flocks.

With some warm flatbread on the side, my stew was perfectly rich and just the kind of thing to lull us into a sleepy Sunday evening haze. The lamb was fantastically tender and tasty -- mild in flavour, too. As for the mittens, I’m not sure if they’ve been knit yet but, sadly, I could use them.

So an Easter weekend spent tiptoeing through the tulips is not in the cards this year. Instead, throw another log on the fire, cosy up with a good movie and concoct your own version of a lovely, braised Shepherd’s Watch lamb stew.

Before we know it, we’ll be whining about the heat, shuddering at the thought of turning the oven on.

I know. Hard to imagine.
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