THE MERRILL INN, ONTARIO, CANADA -- PICTON VICTORIANA

Please note: Photos and text © Gary Crallé 2008. All rights reserved.

To view the entire blog, click ‘2008’ on the right side of your screen, and you are set to go! For my initial blog, click on ‘Older Posts’ at the bottom of this page, then ‘2007’.

Prince Edward County is a peninsula and lovely spit of land stepping into Lake Ontario south of Belleville, my birthplace. What goes around comes around, and it was in the isolated spot called Cressy on the east side of the peninsula that I wintered two consecutive years in a modest renovated farmhouse, courtesy of my good friends Larry and Avery.

That was nearly a decade ago. The county is changing dramatically, with Toronto boomers retiring to the bucolic countryside, wineries gaining fame, and nouvelle cuisine rising with real estate prices.

The Merrill Inn, on the main street of Picton one block from the worn downtown shops and designated a significant architectural structure, is a step back to provincial Victorian elegance. Back to a time when agriculture nourished the economy, canneries were plentiful and ships would take produce from Picton over to New York state. Tourism is the new economy these days, and innkeepers Amy and Edward Shubert are keeping pace.

Amy is a good cook in her own right, with county fair ribbons for her fruit pies, but now she and Edward have lured talented Michael Sullivan from Toronto to run their restaurant. The menu accurately describes his style as “elemental French cuisine with North American sensibilities”. My wife, Lis, and I were overnighting between St. Patrick’s Day and Easter.

Particularly during the colder months, evening dinners are a highlight. March 17 was our anniversary of sorts, that being the date Lis and I had first met -- as I tell everyone -- in the dark, in the back of a bus, in Ecuador. (Explanation: We were both on a cruise to the Galapagos, and met our group in a minivan upon arriving at the airport in Quito.).

I began with a ‘Merrill Inn County Cider Cocktail’ – sparkling cider, Calvados, Triple Sec, cranberry pomegranate juice and apple slices.

First course was ‘skillet fried blue crab cakes’, followed by ‘herb crusted rack of Ontario lamb’ which I placed on a center table after asking the couple seated nearby if they would mind my taking a photograph. They didn’t, and loved the result. Dessert was a smooth bourbon chocolate cake.

We selected a bottle of Waupoos baco noir to accompany. Waupoos (aboriginal for rabbit) is a local winery. For a photo, I placed the cork with the rabbit diving into the bottle, recalling the Lewis Caroll story Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. With its eclectic wine list The Merrill Inn boasts the only restaurant between Ottawa and Toronto which has received The Wine Spectator award of excellence three times in a row.

From our bedroom window at the back of the mansion the snow covered patio and chairs reminded me of the Embankment in London, England on drizzly nights when I was a young film student in that city

Breakfast was precisely prepared by Edward. Although served in the dining room, to our host’s amusement I whisked each dish into the front drawing room to utilize the surrounding décor in my photos.

Following breakfast, we explored the inn, and couldn’t help notice the many Easter-theme rabbits dotting the rooms. www.merrillinn.com

A WEE TASTE OF NOVA SCOTIA

Belgian chocolate lobster by Rosemary's Chocolates, Halifax NS

Photos and text © Gary Crallé 2008. All rights reserved.

Note: To view the entire blog, click ‘2008’ on the right side of your screen. It will turn yellow, and you are set to go!

The average mean temperature in Canada’s ‘down east’ maritime provinces during winter months can be, well, mean. But weather should never dampen your sense of adventure. The Travel Media Association of Canada (TMAC), of which I am a member, was holding its annual conference in Nova Scotia, February, 2008, and I was looking forward to it. The salient point of any trip, I’ve learned from long experience, is exactly that: the experience. And when you are anywhere with a group of friends and kindred souls, it will always be an experience to savour. Particularly in a place of small communities like Nova Scotia, the many warm welcomes easily trump climate.