Seven questions for seven courses

It’s a cool, calm morning here in Cape Breton. The hills beyond Margaree Harbour are clear in the distance, a textured tapestry of orange, reds, yellows and greens rising up to meet feathery clouds. I’m sitting on the porch in my pyjamas with a mug of hot coffee, feeling full from last night’s dinner. Crows and the odd car are the soundtrack of the morning. 

We’re here on a road trip - myself and one of my sisters, my parents and a big, red dog, to soak up the fall colours and to eat, last night, at WoodRoad, a restaurant in a post and beam home on the cliffs of Chimney Corner, Margaree Harbour - the sunset-side of Cape Breton.

Dining with my dad is always an experience. He arrives, quiet and shy in rust coloured corduroy trousers and a soft wool v-neck. We fill in the gaps, commenting on the view, the soft white lighting and the tiny vases filled with evergreen and sprigs of crimson firebush. He sits down, back to the wall, arms folded across his chest. 

We began the road trip a few nights before at our parent’s house in Sherbrooke. We arrive at dusk, just as the last of the sun glints across the river. Baseball is on the television and my mom is heating lentil soup on the stove. She serves it in her blue and white dishes with a warm slice of cornbread on the side. After dinner my dad tells us about his recent visit to a rust museum, located in his friend’s backyard. He often does this sort of thing - lobs a gentle line of conversation that turns out to be a whimsical curveball. 

Our server approaches the table, a smiling woman in a black canvas apron over a black t-shirt and jeans. It’s the end of a sold-out season for this restaurant. There is one sitting every night, an evolving seasonal menu and hundreds of guests who’ve come from far and wide since the season began in May. She must be tired. My dad leans forward as she fills our water glasses, arms still folded. I sense a curveball. 

“Tell me about the history of the name Margaree,” he asks. She has many water glasses to fill, and I can see the first course is being plated. But she leans in, warm and curious. She is from Margaree Centre and has thought about this herself. “Let me find out for sure,” she says, and heads back to the whirl of the open kitchen. This restaurant doesn’t have cell service. No one is on their phones, no one can google the answers. 

1. A warm salmon mousseline arrives, crowned in tiny North Atlantic shrimp slicked with beurre blanc and flecked with dill.  

“My mom used to tell us a story of a Mi'kmaw beauty named Marguerite, whose tears filled the Margaree River when her heart was broken,” she says as she clears our plates. “We just placed a call to the owner’s wife Mary, and she confirmed the story, adding that the Acadians who settled here likely named the area after St. Marguerite, the seventeenth century patron saint of poverty.”

And so went the evening, an orchestrated dance of delightful courses, questions, kitchen conversations, stories and answers. 

2. Mussel saffron soup with halibut and Acadian Sturgeon caviar. 

“Is the sturgeon caviar from the Saint John River?”

“Yes, here’s the tin, isn’t it gorgeous?”

3. Local vegetables en papillote with a touch of hollandaise.

“The writer Alistair MacLeod spent every summer here. Where did he write?”

“In a cabin at his homestead, across from the Macleod cottages.”

4. Butternut squash ravioli with scallops and sage in a brown butter sauce.

“Tell me, when does the Northumberland Strait become the Gulf of Saint Lawrence? I wonder if the divide is right here off the cliffs in Margaree?

“We’ll have to call Mary again.”

5. Beef tenderloin with foraged chanterelle mushrooms.

“How are the chanterelles this year? Do they like the salty air, or do they thrive inland?”

“It’s been tough this year. There are nights when we’re not sure we’ll have any, then we’ll find a cluster at the eleventh hour. Last year they were everywhere - inland, close to the ocean, clustered by abandoned barns, hiding under hardwoods and spruce. So we keep looking, there’s nothing like them.”

6. Wild Blueberry Sorbet.

“Where do you find your wild blueberries?”

“There’s an old landing strip in Margaree Valley. If you can stand the blackflies, you can fill a whole freezer full of them.”

7. Opera cake with vanilla ice cream.

“I can’t have another bite. But I’ll just finish this piece of cake, and ask you about Angus L. MacDonald, who is also from Margaree. He was one of Nova Scotia’s outstanding Premiers - he paved most of the roads in the Province, he started the Cabot Trail. He celebrated Acadian culture. Do you know his rank in World War One?”

“No.”

As we said goodnight, our server, Barbara, tells us that she likes to visit her father after her shift and he always asks, who’d you meet? What’d you talk about? 

“Tonight will be a good chat,” she says.

We relive the night the next morning over coffee, my dad in his blackwatch tartan housecoat and slippers, until the clouds lift above the hills.

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PS: Listen to The Food Podcast, Season 2, Episode 2 Making a Mark Nicola Bennett, over HERE, or wherever you stream podcasts.