followed, with a cream cheese base, baked apples, cinnamon, crumbled oatmeal topping and strawberries roasted in strawberry balsamic reduction. Dulce de leche and strawberry balsamic reduction were drizzled on top. Artisan style pizza dough was handmade earlier that morning. A delightful side to your pizza is Solar Gardens’ famous Fire Roasted Beet and Goat Cheese Salad, dressed with the café’s own cara cara orange vanilla white balsamic vinegar, along with a sprinkling of candied pecans. Solar Gardens is considering growing their own spinach yearround, and with a surfeit of greenhouses on the premises, that could be an easy fix. All menu items at the Firestick Café are made in-house. For a delectable finale, the spectacular No Bake Cookie Dough Ice Cream Sandwich is a case where food imitates art. Finished with a drizzle of dulce de leche and reduced espresso balsamic, the dessert is a definite pleaser. Redl loves the rush of food service. He also loves being immersed in the cooking subculture. He found that in Melbourne, Vancouver and London, cooks ‘eat, breathe and sleep’ cooking. “When I lived in Vancouver and worked with Cousins, you did your ten or 12 hour shift and then you would sit with other cooks from different restaurants and you would talk about food and it was a complete 24 hour lifestyle. It was consuming almost, but in a good way.” He hasn’t found that kind of subculture here although he believes it’s growing. Being at Solar Gardens is helping to fill that void. “There’s a vibe here. It’s not a 30-minute lunch special kind of place, you come out here to experience this. It’s like a community out here,” he says. He’s been working as a cook since age 15 and it’s a passion for him, not just a job. That community is expanding again with another project well underway. It’s the new, “Take Me to Church” winter dining hall, which will allow Solar Gardens to stay open all winter and host Christmas and other events. “It’s going to have a tin ceiling just like in the Tasting Studio. All the tables are going to be antique and it’s going to be gorgeous,” says Chris. The dining room will feature a central 12-foot hand-built ceramic fireplace. An adjacent games room will have a pool table, video games and smart TVs. Egyptian doors open onto a deck from both rooms. The 2015 season at Solar Gardens opened in April. Chris says they’ll be hosting private events almost every night of the week over the summer. Cooking and baking classes, like the Artisan Bread Baking class,run from October through December. Succulent classes take place at various times of the year. Guests to Solar Gardens have responded exceptionally well to the concert series offered with dinner in the conservatory. This summer the series will feature Lisa Moen and Teresa Sokyrka. These three-hour concert evenings offer a five-course meal from the Firestick Café. Solar Gardens is fueled by an unflagging energy and guided by creative visionaries. “The really hard part about Solar Gardens is we’re never followers, we’re going to be leaders,” says Roger. “We push ourselves to the utmost to have everything 100 per cent all the time.” “It’s a pretty sweet spot,” says Redl. “I’ve worked in a lot of kitchens and most of them don’t have windows. To have an open air kitchen and to have sunlight, that’s pretty spectacular, and to be upfront with guests, it’s really nice.” Part of the appeal of Solar Gardens is the lack of formality, a sense of laissez-faire in a unique and intimate environment which combines to deliver an exceptional experience. “This is our home,” says Roger, and a visit to Solar Gardens makes you feel part of that home for a while. LS
GRANDMA’S APPLE CRISP PIZZA Pizza dough (store bought or homemade) rolled out to a 10-inch diameter For base: 1/3 cup cream cheese 1/2 crisp apple such as Pink Lady or Granny Smith 1/4 cup brown sugar 2 Tbsp. white sugar Pinch of salt 1/2 tsp. cinnamon For topping: 1/4 cup melted butter Scant 1/2 cup rolled oats 2 Tbsp. brown sugar Butter-flavoured olive oil Dulce de leche cream for drizzle 1. Roll out the pizza dough as thin as you can. 2. Spread on the cream cheese leaving about a 1 centimetre rim of bare dough. 3. Core apple and using a mandolin, slice into 1/8 inch slices. 4. Mix brown sugar, cinnamon, white sugar and pinch of salt in a small bowl. 5. Throw in the apple slices and toss until all apple slices are well coated on both sides. 6. Melt butter, mix in brown sugar and add oats little by little until all butter is absorbed. Be careful not to add too much oats or the topping will be too dry. 7. Crumble evenly over the pizza. 8. Bake in a wood-fired oven for 3 to 4 minutes or the highest possible setting on your home oven for approximately 10 minutes if your oven is hot like 550 degrees (longer of course if your oven is cooler). It’s best to use a pizza stone if you have one. You can buy them really cheap these days. 9. Remove from oven and give a good drizzle of butter olive oil around the bare dough edge and a few drizzles over the pizza. 10. Lastly don’t forget the dulce de leche. Drizzle as much as you like. At the Firestick we use lots!
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