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What's in your fridge when you run a great little café

On the unpretentious shelves with Martini Bart
food_glenda1

If it's lunch or dinnertime in Whistler and you're looking for a local who's not home, good chance you'll find him or her at the Alpine Café.

Owned and operated by Kevin Wood and Martini Bart, the café and its related catering business is a longstanding favourite — one of those comfortable eateries that you enjoy again and again because, A., you never get tired of the food since it's quintessentially "homemade" as they say in TV commercials, only in this case it's absolutely true, and, B., the place is so comfortable you feel right at home, or at least at a really good friend's house where you can kick off your shoes even if you have holes in your socks, and hit the couch after dinner.

Alpine Café, located just off of Highway 99 at the first entrance to Alpine Meadows, also gets rave reviews from more than locals. Sunset Magazine calls it a "don't-miss spot, just out of town."

Not only do they run a great café show, Kevin and Martini also play large when it comes to community events — not splashy, but large. They're often the ones on deck for school barbecues and events, cooking up a hot dog or 50. They're also the faces behind the popular No Trace Loonie Race, baking up their homemade bread into bowls that they fill with vegetarian chili, which is served with a wooden spoon. You eat up the chili, scoff down the bread bowl, then throw your wooden spoon into the fire — no trace!

Given all this, I thought it would be fun to peek into the fridge of someone who's behind such good food and good vibes, and Martini graciously agreed. (You'd be surprised how many people turn me down for "what's in your fridge?" — or maybe you wouldn't!)

But before we went poking around his shelves, I had to ask Martini what he figured was the secret to Alpine Café's magic.

"I think it's mostly the staff," he says. "What my business partner, Kevin, and I are trying to achieve is a relaxed, fun atmosphere and that's kind of what bounces off on the staff. That's how we hire people, too. We look for that that big smile and bubbly kind of attitude."

Plus the homemade food concept is key to this "every day, every people" kind of place. They wanted a menu that mimics going to the grocery store yourself and buying a chicken breast and some vegetables, then going home and cooking it, but the café does the work for a similar price and — bonus — no dirty dishes.

So it's no surprise when Martini describes his fridge as almost bare — a bachelor's fridge, his girlfriend Shelley Ledingham calls it — because he eats most of his meals at work.

But the fridge — a classic white, freezer-on-top GE tucked into the cozy kitchen of his cozy Adventures West townhouse looking out over Alta Lake — isn't bare at all, even though he hangs out at Shelley's four days a week, coming home to feed Betty, his orange tabby.

Starting on the top shelf, the first thing we find is a jar of Bonne Maman raspberry jam for the toast he has with his French-press coffee before heading to work. It can be an early start (5 a.m.) if he has to bake, but otherwise it's between 7 and 8 a.m. (While they are both trained chefs — they met at Araxi before launching their joint venture, Martini hailing from Zurich via his cousin's café at Silver Star ski resort; Banff's Cedar Café; and heli-ski operator, Mike Wiegele, who connected him to Whistler — Martini now handles most of the hands-on baking and cooking, while Kevin does most of the paperwork.)

Next are McLarens gherkin pickles and little silverskin onion pickles he likes to snack on with some nice cheese, dried meats and bread after mountain biking; a little jar of orange brandy cranberry sauce left over from Christmas; some margarine; two nice, red apples; and some flax seed oil capsules.

On the next shelf is feta cheese to go with those pickles; Greek-style yogurt for snacking, sometimes with frozen wild berries picked by a friend; and another jar of sweet gherkins. That's it.

Shelf three holds some orange juice; a bottle of Baileys Irish Cream, which is usually his milk for coffee since milk goes off by the time he uses it up; and some Canadian Club barbecue sauce in case he wants to grill a steak.

Below, are the two produce drawers, one of which is empty. Inside the other we find a red onion, a zucchini, Roma tomatoes, garlic, carrots, and a couple of potatoes from one of his restaurant suppliers — he takes home a lot of things from the restaurant, so much in his fridge is from suppliers, he says.

But the café also likes to buy from Pemberton farmers. In fact, they take a box of organic vegetables from Rootdown Farm every week, and he and Kevin buy into Rootdown's pig-share program. As well, farmers heading north after the farmers' market will stop by Alpine Café and sell their wares. Last week it was rhubarb that ended up as strawberry rhubarb pies.

"If I know I can use it I'll buy it and put it into some kind of special," he says.

Now we move on to the fridge door, where we find the bottom shelf stocked with a nice selection of micro-brewed beer including a Red Hook from Oregon that he's brought back from a recent bike trip with Kevin to Washington's San Juan Island.

"We're in the process of changing up the menu a bit so we checked out some restaurants for some inspiration," he says. "Actually, we had a really good experience — everything was really tasty down there." One of the highlights was a Montreal hash with poached eggs — doubly ironic finding Montreal smoked beef in a U.S. resto because Alpine Café serves a Mexican hash that would be more at home in the U.S. with its chilis and salsa.

But back to the fridge door, and we're almost done. Along with the beer are some butter and eggs; grainy Dijon mustard and horseradish Martini enjoys on sausage; landjaegers and prosciutto for those post-biking snacks; mole sauce from Cabo San Lucas; and some brie and cheddar.

All in all, a happy, nicely balanced, unpretentious fridge — much like the man himself and the great little café he and his partner are known for.

Glenda Bartosh is an award-winning freelance writer who knows a good-looking fridge when she sees one.