FAST GETAWAY
by: Alison Peacock
Publication: TEKBUG - The tech-savvy lifestyle magazine
Date: August 12th, 2002
SOAKING IN SOOKE
WRAPPED IN SEA WINDS and lingering clouds, Sooke, B.C., maintains a peaceful presence. The tidal town on the east coast of Vancouver Island has a history of keeping to itself. Just 45 minutes from tourist-favored Victoria. It has created its own distance so well that locals consider the drive-similar to the Seattle-Tacoma route-an ordeal. Residents are quirky, eccentric, international and often famous; visitors welcome the personalities, solace and secrecy.
A private bed-and-breakfast haven, Sooke offers far more than a place to relax. Known for its challenging and wet, but rewarding, rainforest trails, the area also boasts some of the best dining experiences in the Northwest, as well as water adventures that pair Zen with zeal.
Rest Assured
Cooper’s Cove Guesthouse offers cozy rooms in a stylish home. It offers water views, as well as bedside trays of sherry and a breakfast buffet infused with chef Angelo Prosperi-Porta’s bountiful talents.
THE ART OF DINNER
IN ANGELO PROSPERI-PORTA’S kitchen, guests are a vital dinner ingredient. The chef’s gentle energy requires an audience, and so the granite island in the center of his domain doubles as a table. (As many as eight can witness their dinner-in-the-making.) Prosperi-Porta may be a celebrity chef-he competed a s a member of Culinary Team Canada in 1994-but his humble joy is what makes dining in front of him such a treat
When the corn bisque with crab and sorrel oil elicited a chorus of “mmmmm” from our group, he simply smiled. When the fennel and black olive salad with tuna carpaccio caused five pairs of eyes to shut in reverie, his face conveyed bliss. Softly, he explained that the albacore tuna was caught in local waters; same for the sorbet’s “gummy berries”-tart, red Asian fruits that grow outside his door.
Before our very eyes, he painstakingly crusted halibut fillets with flax, sesame, pumpkin, poppy and sunflower seeds, then wrapped them in pancetta and doused them with a mixture of lime, lemon, orange juice, roasted garlic, honey and basil. When the finished masterpiece traveled from the pan to five plates to five forks to five tongues, the resulting octaves of exclamation prompted a tempered grin and the comment: “It’s a great way to eat, isn’t it?”
Prosperi-Porta wants nothing more that to show all of his secrets. That’s because he doesn’t have any. “Let it be what it is,” he says of food. “Let everything be recognizable.” It truly would be a shame if he kept his adeptness at mashing roast garlic-an almost sleight-lf-hand flipping of the knife-hidden behind a kitchen door. Likewise for his valuable tips on how to create stiff chocolate flourishes for the top of desserts-see it for yourself. Just make sure that between his grins and yours., you don’t miss the eye candy of his colorful presentations. “Food is life, “Prosperi-Porta says, adding, “It can be art.”
– Alison Peacock
Lodgers at Coopers Cove Guesthouse have the option of taking a cooking class with chef Angelo Prosperi-Porta.
Otherwise, dinner is a learning experience of the most delectable kind. For $60 apiece (Canadian), you get five courses to eat, memorize and apply in your own kitchen.
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