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Food and drink: On the shelves of a Canadian classic with a healthy Canadian

What’s in Maria Mattei’s fridge?

She's a Jack of all trades. Trained in photography, she's had stints as a photo lab assistant, a snowboard instructor at Whistler Blackcomb, a kids' camp instructor and a landscaper.

But it was a personal health issue combined with the entrepreneurial genes she comes by honestly - almost everyone in her Greek/Italian family back in Sudbury is an entrepreneur or owns their own business - that led Maria Mattei to open her first business and me to her fridge.

Maria owns In the Raw Organics in Squamish, a great little store that shares space with Gelato Carina on Cleveland Avenue in the heart of "downtown" Squamish. Here you'll find one-stop shopping reinvented.

You can get your quality organic bulk goods, your locally made soaps, interesting spices, odd sods like compost bins, your intriguing Euro-style deli favourites - olives, good cheese and olive oil, imported condiments - and your fresh local/organic produce, then relax and have an espresso, a panino (singular of "panini") or, of course, a gelato before you visit the "wool wall." Think retro village shop redux.

Almost all of the products are organic and/or local, plus you'll find a wide range of gluten-free items and healthy teas. The irony is that Maria worked with a naturopath and followed a special diet for a year, including no gluten to restore her health, and it's these same types of products that form the heart of her store. But she no longer eats that way.

"Since I've opened up my business, my diet and my lifestyle have not been that great," she says with a laugh. "It's gone totally downhill to be quite honest with you. I used to be really good in my food choices, but I have to say they've changed a lot."

But as you'll soon see, if what we find is "downhill," I can't imagine how healthy her diet once was. To me, it's an intersection of the ideal with the practical - principals shaped by real life - that we find in the fridge Maria shares with her two roommates.

Here it sits in their comfortable townhome in Squamish's Shannon Estates, a classic white General Electric that's about as quintessentially Canadian as Tim Hortons. It's a freezer-on-top model sporting art and handbills, including one suggesting 25 healthy ways to feel better. No. 1: Put on your favourite music and write in your journal.

The bright yellow and white kitchen contains an island where two can perch for a quick meal. Like her store, this is a pleasant, practical people space. Roommates could cook separate meals here without killing each other and, as in most communal homes, what we're about to find inside the fridge reflects three separate lives.

"We don't share meals as much as we'd like to because our schedules are all different. But if one person cooks a big batch of something, we'll all eat together. Otherwise, we're on our own," Maria says. "Usually I try to cook as much as I can at home. Lately, that's been a lot of stews, which consist of a lot of stuff from the store - vegetables from Pemberton that we're getting and a lot of beans and lentils.

"And I'm really proud of my breakfasts because I'll have a good cereal from the store, like flakes with chopped up apples, cinnamon and a bit of maple syrup, or I'll have some scrambled eggs, organic and free range.

"That's a big thing for me and the girls in the house. We're very cautious on the whole dairy and meat side, going more to the organic side of stuff. All of us are on the same page in that regard, but sometimes the Save-on Foods chicken comes in, too."

So what do we find inside Maria's fridge? Pretty much what you might expect given the above: a mixture of organic and non-organic food that's essentially healthy, despite her claims to the contrary.

On the top shelf, there's organic cheddar cheese from Nanaimo, tahini, homemade roasted pumpkin seeds, homemade blueberry jam, French vanilla Astro yogurt, another yogurt container with what looks like water, organic free-range eggs, some celery from the store and some cilantro that's not.

Moving down, we find a yellow onion (not organic); Bragg's all-purpose soy seasoning (non-GMO); acidophilus bifidus capsules; Adam's chunky peanut butter; Mandarin organic pressed tofu (made in Vancouver and highly recommended); organic Western Family black beans; Rabbit River Farm organic eggs; and a pot of orzo salad Maria made. (You'll find the recipe below.)

Next, there's a bag of sunchokes; another dozen eggs, these from Ontario; Thai red curry sauce; Polish herring fillets; a piece of raw organic chicken; Better Than Boullion organic vegetable base; and a couple of salamis.

One of Maria's roommates loves putting up preserves, so we also find a jar of homemade "blue-barb" jam made from blueberries and rhubarb, a jar of peach butter, and some preserved local pine mushrooms.

Below that, the two crisper drawers hold an assortment of veggies - most of them organic - and, surprisingly, no fruit.

The door shelves feature an eclectic mix of condiments, including more tahini, wasabi mustard, some organic goji Bliss Spread and Yogourmet, a great yogurt starter from Jako's Health Food Haven in Squamish.

There's also grapefruit seed extract - good for colds, Worcestershire sauce and Brendan Brazier's Vega Whole Food smoothie infusion, something Maria swears by for its great taste and making you feel even better.

Finally on the top little shelf meant for butter, we find a bunch of film. Film? In this digital age? Yes - it's Maria's and her roommate's, who's also a photographer.

Somehow I find this as reassuringly retro as her store and kitchen. It all points to that fact we don't usually stray too far from our roots, no matter what winding paths we follow.

If you'd like to get down-home and healthy like Maria, try this salad recipe - it's her own creation and, you guessed it, she sells most of the ingredients at In the Raw.

 

Maria's Orzo Salad

Cook 2 cups of orzo by boiling 6 cups of water, salted to taste. Turn the heat down to medium, stir in the orzo for a bit. Simmer it for 8-9 minutes with no lid. Drain, rinse and let cool. Stir in ¼ cup or more of good olive oil and juice from 1 lemon. Add 3 coarsely chopped tomatoes, ¼ bunch coarsely chopped cilantro, and 2 cloves of minced garlic. Try the organic kamut orzo from Maria's store - it adds texture and a slightly nutty flavour.

 

Glenda Bartosh is an award-winning freelance writer who's never cooked orzo.