The Simple Goodness Of The Ontario 'terroir'

Fourteen years ago my in-laws bought a summer place outside of Toronto. Most Torontonians who make that decision head north, toward the primeval rocks and black water of Muskoka and Haliburton. But my mother-in-law craved sunshine and open views. Instead of the classic Canadian cottage on a hidden lake, they found an eccentric half-finished solar home, barn, and pheasant shed on 15 acres of farmland in Prince Edward County, south of Belleville, on the shores of the great inland ocean of North America.

And so my wife and I, and then one child, and then two, and now three, plus also two dogs, have found ourselves spending portions of almost every subsequent summer amid the fields and woods of Loyalist country. I have written three of my four books here, two of them in the past two summers. My wife finished two books here as well, and has spent this summer toiling on her third.

It has been in some ways a very strange place to work. For three years, I have been writing about war and terror and murder -- typing many thousands of those words on a battered old desk looking out over grass, butterflies, sumach, and then beyond to the fluttering blue of Lake Ontario. Violence and cruelty and fanaticism seem unreal here. I've been reading The Lord of the Rings aloud to my son this summer, and the County strongly reminds me of Tolkien's Shire: landscape of ponds and pastures, wildflowers and copses of woods, neat barns and austere churches -- a place of tranquility happily unaware of the struggles and griefs of the wider world.

The County has become a little less rustic in my time here. When we arrived, the area's few vacation properties were crowded upon the County's inlets and interior waters. The coastline that faced open water was unbuilt, given over to farming and pasture. Now only a few farms still reach all the way to the lake: Many have sold off their waterfront acreage to developers, and the land has been cut into lots on which wealthy people from Kingston and Toronto have built imposing dream homes: large edifices of artificial stone built in a styles that might be called quasi-Romanesque or demi-baronial or postmodern-Victorian.

Muskoka, however, this is not. The leading tourist attractions remain distinctly homely, and the best of them all is the homeliest of them all: the Bergeron sanctuary for discarded and ill-used exotic animals. Here, worn-out circus tigers, leopards who used to work in strip clubs, and monkeys driven crazy as household pets are allowed to soak up the sun in peace, with only a few yards of hand-laid mesh separating them from their visitors.

Inland, the County's dairy farms and wheat fields are giving way to spreading vineyards. One of the very best of them, Chadsey's Cairns, is owned by a former NDP MPP, Richard Johnston: He makes a lightly sparkling Riesling that reminds me of the light wines the Austrians drink on summer nights in the Vienna Woods.

Until this year, my favourite place to eat in the County was the Wellington Grill, a small diner at the crossroads of the nearby village. The Grill isn't fancy, but in its own way it is just perfect: It makes its own thick soups, carves by hand the turkey for its sandwiches, and grinds its own coffee.

Suddenly, though, the Grill has a rival. This spring, two chefs from Toronto -- Michael and Karin Potters -- opened up a tiny restaurant, the Milford Bistro (www.milfordbistro.com) in the little village of Milford, down the highway from Picton, the old County capital. The Potters are trying something never seen before in the County: sophisticated cooking that spurns the frozen prefab products of the restaurant wholesalers.

Every morning Karin Potters pulls her three-year-old into her van and drives from farm to farm to buy local beets, mushrooms, tomatoes, lamb, beef, and fresh-caught fish. Every day, Michael transforms these simple ingredients into astonishing meals: simple yet surprising. One day Karin brought back a load of yellow beans; Michael folded them into a startlingly tasty spaghetti. Even my son, whose idea of good eating is a well-ketchuped hamburger and a side of McNuggets, was impressed and wondered, "Why does this food taste so good?"

I don't normally have much time for foodie culture. I do not thrill like the restaurant reviewers to the perfectly composed plate. But I do admire the quest for excellence -- and there is something unusually inspiring about finding that quest being pursued at the end of an Ontario country road, past the silos and the Centennial-style post offices, in a converted country store.

The French call a rural neighborhood like the County a "terroir" and their best provincial restaurants take pride in serving only the food and wine of whatever terroir they inhabit. After a day spent brooding over the threat of Middle Eastern terror, there is something deeply reassuring about tasting the simple goodness of the Ontario terroir. The way of life that produced these simple joys has come under attack again and again over the past hundred years. Yet here in one place at least that way of life continues steady and undisturbed.

Here's hoping it will continue for many summers more -- and that the tree-shaded country roads through the fields of clover will long continue to wind their way without fear to simple delights like those the Potters offer.