Eat, Golf and Sip your way through the Kawarthas

by Margaret Swaine Columnist and Author www.margaretswaine.com

EAT, DRINK AND GOLF IN THE KAWARTHAS

When Karen Irvine, Editor of this magazine, suggested I do my summer column on golf in the Kawarthas area, little did I imagine how delicious the task would be. Not only did I play some great tracks, but I was also introduced to excellent local food and drink produced by talented entrepreneurs in the region.

First on my itinerary was to check into Burleigh Falls Inn. It was originally built in 1857 by a Mr. Holmes to offer a welcome bed to tired lumbermen driving logs through the lakes and rivers southward on their way to the lumber mills in Lakefield and Peterborough. After a devastating fire in 1899 it was rebuilt as a summer destination for fishermen. Over the years it evolved to include lodging, a market for supplies, a marina and a restaurant.

When I arrived on Monday of the July Canada Day long weekend the inn staff was busy cleaning up after their influx of guests had departed. I checked into my large, comfortable room with a balcony and found it well equipped with a fridge, kettle, coffee machine and snacks. As I headed out to dinner, I learned that the inn’s restaurant was closing until Wednesday evening and I was alone in the inn for the night. For reasons I’ll reveal later, I was in for a restless sleep. www.burleighfallsinn.com

Hobart’s Lighthouse Rib Eye Steak dinner

I was off to meet Karen at Hobart’s Lighthouse at McCracken’s Landing on beautiful Stoney Lake for a meal and to have a chat with owner Wesley Found. The original Hobart’s, a steakhouse in Lindsay, was founded 20 years ago by Wesley’s father Ken and Frank Peters. It was named it after Frank’s father, Dr. Hobart F. Peters, an agrarian researcher with a distinguished career in beef cattle.

A second Hobart’s Steakhouse was opened in 2013 in downtown Peterborough on Hunter Street. This latest restaurant (Hobart’s Lighthouse) opened this May and is aiming for uncompromising service and product with a lakeside twist, according to Wesley who now oversees all three locations. Wesley has a Master of Arts degree in Economics.)

Chef Scott Hudson who helms the kitchen at Hobart’s

Lighthouse has 35 years of experience in the industry opening multiple restaurants. His deft hand shows not only in the delicious tender ribeye meal but also in the lighter vegan dishes and salads. My chili lime and avocado greens salad starter was super tasty and artfully plated. www.hobartslighthouse.ca

After dinner we headed to Kawartha Country Wines for a tasting with owner and vintner John Rufa. Rufa, a former teacher who had been cottaging in the Kawarthas for years, comes from a long tradition of family winemaking. His skill shows in his products of which there are 52 selections currently on the shelf. He sources largely from growers in the area offering everything from the more common fruit wines such as apple, pear, wild blueberry and raspberry, to the more rare saskatoon berry, shiro plum, gooseberry, barley and pumpkin. www.kawarthacountrywines.ca

He produces about 60,000 litres a year of wines in styles ranging from dry, to off-dry (which he calls ‘social’) to dessert sweet. He also makes some lovely ciders. I was really impressed by all his products and especially liked the shiro plum, off-dry raspberry, blackcurrant mead and gooseberry. To pair with the wines we sampled local goat and sheep cheeses from Mariposa Dairy in Lindsay (some hand rolled in blueberry, cranberry and other flavourings) and savoury hand crafted aged cheddars from Empire Cheese in Northumberland County.

On Tuesday I headed out for a game of golf at Wildfire Golf and Country Club, a private club on the shores of Stoney Lake. Opened in August 2003, it features a gorgeous 18-hole layout designed by Canadian golf architect Tom McBroom. Joining me on the course was Canadian television sports anchor Dan O’Toole of the SC With Jay and Dan show on TSN. We had a blast – which started on the first hole when O’Toole broke the head off his seven iron with a hard hit.

www.golfwildfire.com

Wildfire’s clubhouse, designed by Richard Wengle Architect Inc, is a stylish cedar shake cottage-styled building overlooking both the forested parkland of the course and picturesque Gilchrist Bay. We grabbed a drink on the patio and then headed in for dinner. Food under Chef Heather Robb is rightfully delicious here. President and founder Glenn Stonehouse is also president of One Fine Food in Peterborough, an Italian-themed, marketstyle, fine food store and restaurant where Robb has worked in the past. Continued on Page 16

While Wildfire is private and the equity membership fee is a steep $22,600, golf and stay packages are available for guests of Village Inn and Pine Vistas with access to the course offered at certain times of the day. Dining Club memberships are available for $500 plus HST.

After our meal, we headed with Karen to Black’s Distillery in Peterborough. Head distiller Robert Black, a born and raised local, aims to craft the spirit of Peterborough county in his products starting with the personality packed Heritage Vodka made with red fife wheat, a grain that Dave Fife and family began to grow in 1842 at their farm in Peterborough. (Its name is derived from the original red colour of the wheat kernel and the name of the farmer.)

He also uses the red fife wheat spirit as a base for his gin, which he flavours with cubeb, coriander, sage, lavender, cardamom, angelica and juniper. I loved the gin’s layers of flavour and good solid hit of juniper. Black’s also makes a white rye that’s very aromatic with nice rye spice intensity, an aged rye Miller’s Toll with a minimum of nine months in custom casks and an unoaked barley spirit that’s sweetly smooth. www.blacksdistillery.com

Wednesday I golfed on my own at Black Diamond Golf

course in Pontypool. Set on rolling terrain this pretty track cuts through some dense forest and has multiple elevation changes. Ponds and wetlands come into play on a number of holes and sharp doglegs add to the challenge of keeping shots on target. One caveat - this public course takes tournaments and you could be faced with slow play. I had a good number of geriatric foursomes in front of me who defeated the course marshal’s attempts to manage the flow. On the plus side, deals to play here can be as little as $35 a person. www.blackdiamondgolfclub.ca

After a hot, slow day on the links, I was delighted to meet up with Karen at Bobcaygeon Brewing Company for a sample of their suds and a chat with president and co-founder Richard Wood. The brewery started just over four years ago with under contract brewing and now finally has their own facility in Peterborough which they opened on June 27 of this year. (They also have a site in Bobcaygeon which is still a work in progress. Construction is expected to start this fall.) On tap when I visited was Firefly, a Belgian witbier with orange peel and coriander in the mix, Northern Lights a deliberately hazy fruity IPA with heavy dry hopping, Big Bob’s Brut IPA a dry and hoppy refresher which I loved, and Common Loon, an American Pale Ale which was the first beer they launched and their flagship easy drinking best seller.

The brewery also produces seasonal beers and one of a kind specialties. We tried a sample of their sweet ginger molasses cookies beer – almost like a liquid dessert – and a German Weissbier style to which they had added 30 kilos of fresh strawberries. www. bobcaygeonbrewing.ca

For dinner we stopped at Black Honey Café to sample the flank steak meal that owner Lisa Dixon offers in her catering business and her excellent butter tarts. Dixon told us that Black Honey has won awards for their butter tarts and is one of the top ten of the 50 stops on the Kawarthas Northumberland Butter Tart Tour – a sinfully sweet tour that started in 2011.

Black Diamond Golf Course

My last day in the area, I golfed at Peterborough Golf

and Country Club with members Dr. Bill Rogers and his wife Deborah a senior travel consultant with Merit Travel. The course, designed by Stanley Thompson, Canada’s premier golf architect of the 1920’s has a tremendous history featuring many of Ontario’s greatest golfers including Thompson himself, holder of the course record.

Golfing at the club began in 1897 and curling in 1959. The 71 par golf course, fun to play and very walkable, features lovely mature trees, the Trent Canal along a number of holes and pretty vistas. It was a delight to play and while private, offers fabulous membership packages that seemed a real steal to a Toronto girl like me.

General Manager Michael Gillan showed me a fee schedule that offered many levels of membership with a one time initiation fee of $1,000 and as low as $1202 annual dues for a “30 points” category level. Weekend play costs one point and weekday three for 18 holes which means for example you could play 30 times a year on weekends annually, or about $40 a round. It’s even less for adults under 40, ladies evening league, social memberships and juniors.

After golf I had lunch with the Rogers and with Carol Wilton, the fourth woman in 122 years to be president of the club. Under executive Chef Blair Walker the food and beverage at the club is really excellent. My cobb salad with freshly grilled tender chicken breast was about the best rendition of this dish that I’ve eaten. Chef Walker came out at the end to present us all with her house made angel food cake with fresh strawberries. www.ptbogolf. com

As a final treat to bring home with me, Karen gave me a dozen of Doo Doo’s Bakery butter tarts which have won “Ontario’s Best Butter Tarts” at Midlands Annual Butter Tart Festival. Diane Rogers, the baker and owner of Doo Doo’s Bakery in Bailieboro, also won Royal Winter Fair Royal Reserve Grand Champion and the Kawartha Butter Tart Taste Off (classic and gluten free) plus multiple other awards for her tarts over the years.

Now about my restless nights at the Burleigh Inn. Even in its own literature, the inn confesses to be haunted by spirits of the

past. Karen confirmed this by showing me a spooky video of a séance held there one night. Every creak of the old building had me jumping up reaching for the light switch. However while my imagination ran wild, I never did catch sight of a ghost.

And in the end, my memories of my Kawarthas and Peterborough trip are sweet indeed.