Chef Ruth Wigman, Bistro Sofia

Chef Ruth Ellen Wigman of Bistro Sofia in St. John’s was born in Vancouver and grew up in Nanaimo and on BC’s Sunshine Coast. She knew from a very early age that one day she’d be a chef. The thought of being anything else never entered her mind.

Ruth Wigman cooks

Wigman graduated from the culinary arts program at Vancouver Island University in 2001. Her career since then has taken her to Alberta, Bermuda and Newfoundland. Despite the small number of moves Wigman still managed to cross paths with heavyweights like Anthony Bourdain and the current head chef of the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York, David Garcelon, who attended her Murray’s Pond wedding to Newfoundlander, Chef Matt McDonald.

I interviewed Ruth Wigman recently about her life, work and aspirations. Our conversation was long and wide ranging. What follows is a condensed version of the interview.

When did you first develop an interest in cooking?
My sister and I lived on the Sunshine Coast of BC for four and a half years with my grandparents. I remember at their house there was a whole bunch of gardens and we grew everything. Everything we ate we grew. They also managed a marina so we used to spend our weekends fishing for salmon, cod, lingcod and rock cod. And with all of the different people that lived there you could try out so many different cuisines growing up: Chinese food, Japanese, Indian and so on. My Granma used to make lots of different things. My Mom’s not so much a cook. She mostly was just happy that I was doing it. Then she got to try it. She was always willing to sample.

I started cooking for myself when I was in high school. My sister, my mom and I would always watch the cooking shows. I don’t think we had the Food Network back then. We had the Urban Peasant and that kind of program. So we used to watch all that stuff and then I started making things. The first thing I made was potato rostis with sautéed spinach and sautéed mushrooms. I grated the potatoes and mixed them with butter. Then I formed them into these little cakes and cooked them. I saw it on TV.

Tell me about your time at Vancouver Island University.
It was a yearlong program and at the time we had some of the only Master Chefs in Canada there. They were all pretty Old School chefs from Switzerland and Germany. It was a great place to learn. There was Chef Scheck and Chef Wagner. We also had a pretty cool guy from Ireland and he was the butcher. The university only brought in whole fish, whole cows, lambs, chickens et cetera. Everything came in whole so what we did was butcher everything for the cafeteria. We did racks of lamb and all that. They never spared any expense.

I really enjoyed it. I went for a two-week work experience at the Pan Pacific Hotel in Vancouver. At the time I thought I was really interested in pastries so they sent me on an early trip just to see if I wanted to do pastries and then I realized that it was not completely for me so I went up to their Five Sails restaurant where I did more work experience. I didn’t like pastry because of all the measuring. I like to be more, a little of this, a little of that. With pastries you really have to be exact. I liked the decorating but when it comes to the measurement it’s not for me.

What happened after you graduated?
I went to the Fairmont Jasper Park Lodge. I roomed with a girl from Newfoundland there. Her father used to be a fire chief here, the Corbett family. They recruit from a lot of the culinary schools – same as Kananaskis, Lake Louise, all of those spots. David Garcelon was head chef in Jasper. He’s very knowledgeable and had great advice. Now he’s the head chef at the Waldorf Astoria in New York.

In Bistro’s kitchen

Then I went to Bermuda to work at the Fairmont Southampton. Michael Scott was one of my chefs in Bermuda, a Scottish fellow. He’s probably one of the most fantastic people I’ve ever worked with for his knowledge and trust in you as well. A lot of times the chefs want you to do it a certain way and that’s it. He would say, I want this and just make it. And you would just go and make it. It was so nice to have that freedom and trust. And the team that he created from all of us was a full on team. Nobody left anybody in the soup or anything like that.

I met Anthony Bourdain while I was working there. He came down to Bermuda one time to guest chef and he was just so easy to talk to and that was really nice. And his food, when he was cooking was simple and he’s very knowledgeable about all the different cuisines as well. I like his show because he’s honest about things.

I met my husband, Matt McDonald, in Bermuda. We both worked at the Fairmont Southampton. I worked at the restaurant there and Matt worked at the steakhouse.
So, after Bermuda we moved here and I was at Blue on Water for three or four years and finally came over to Bistro Sofia. I don’t move around very much. I usually spend three to four-and-a-half years in one place. But with the big hotels, if you change departments it’s like a new job. That’s one thing I like about hotels.

How has your food evolved and how would you describe it now?
I’ve always stuck to simple things. That’s what I’ve always liked – a little more rustic, not too mucked with. Sometimes I find things too puréed up and formed into something. I like my carrot to look like a carrot. Take molecular cooking for example; personally, it’s not for me. I’d rather food be in its natural form. I think it’s weird putting what looks like a piece of paper in my mouth and having it taste like steak. Some of it looks beautiful but I think before someone ventures into molecular cooking they’d better make sure they’ve really honed their craft in the traditional ways of cooking things. Before you rely on that thermal circulator you’d better make sure you know how to cook a very good steak or a perfect piece of chicken. Then you can venture into molecular cooking. But again, I think if you’re working with a really beautiful product it’s not meant to be fooled around with too much.

Eager to learn more

I’ve always stuck with that idea. But as for my food evolving, with the different cultures I’ve been exposed to in my work, at different restaurants, I’ve learned a lot about using spices and herbs. So now there’s more depth in my flavours. Currently I’m at Bistro with Bulgarian chefs and I’m learning still more from them about their culture and their tastes. It really changes your palate a lot.

Finally, what would you like to learn more about at this stage of your career?
I enjoy doing charcuterie. It’s a pretty big art in itself. I can do terrines, pâtés, rillettes and all that stuff but I’d like to be able to work with the big equipment to do the big sausages and so on. I love that stuff. I love how it tastes and having said that I like the accompaniments that go with it. I love pickling things. I love mustards, and just lately I’ve been making different flavours of mustards and playing around with that. So, that’s also something I want to learn more about, the different recipes and putting my own spin on it.

I’d also like to travel in Italy and Spain and get a feel for the real food of those countries. I love that type of food. They have that authentic, old school way of doing things. I just hired a Venezuelan guy at Bistro and he was telling me about some of the cool stuff they have there. It’s just all around me and I’d just love to travel around and learn all about the different cultures, the food and wines. And to understand why their food is the way it is.

Thank you.

Dinner and a DVD
Oven BBQ chicken and Gone with the Wind

Going out for dinner and a movie is fun but staying home for dinner and a DVD can be fun too. This week I rented Gone with the Wind and preceded our viewing of the Old South Civil War epic with a southern style dinner. We had BBQ chicken legs, champ, green beans, corn bread and lemonade – a meal even Stonewall Jackson, I think, would have appreciated.

Southern style BBQ chicken

Given the time of year I cooked the chicken in the oven. It wasn’t authentic BBQ, but a good tasting approximation. I made BBQ sauce from what was at hand: tomato paste, vinegar, lemon juice, brown sugar, salt, cayenne, cumin, Worcestershire sauce, paprika and mustard. I put all ingredients in a saucepan, added a tiny amount of water and brought everything to a boil.

Browning
It’s important to get some of the fat out of the chicken before baking it. Browning in a frying pan is a good way because it also gives the chicken some colour. Then I basted the chicken with the BBQ sauce and placed it on a rack in a roasting tray. After that it was baked at 375 F (190 C) for about 20 minutes, basted a second time, and baked again for 20 minutes. 

Champ seemed a good accompaniment since the Irish mashed potatoes have long been popular in the south; and, Scarlett O’Hara, the main character in Gone with the Wind hails from an Irish family. Champ is easy to make. Just boil potatoes and mash them with butter, hot milk, thinly chopped green onions, salt and pepper. The green onions make a flavourful difference.

Even the cornbread for this meal was easy to make. Once I’d made a batter from corn meal, a little flour, milk and eggs it was just a matter of pouring the batter into a small skillet and baking it. Along with the BBQ chicken and fresh lemonade, the cornbread gave our ante Gone with the Wind meal some antebellum authenticity. 

Gone with the Wind

Gone with the Wind
I’ve seen Gone with the Wind twice. I was a teenager in 1969 and saw it during a limited theatrical release at the Paramount theatre on Harvey Road in St. John’s. It was the movie’s thirtieth anniversary. The movie was made in 1939 and had its St. John’s premiere in the 40′s at the Capitol theatre on Henry St. Line-ups for Gone with the Wind’s Capitol run went all the way east on Henry St. and around the corner.

Gone with the Wind Blu-Ray

Winning eight Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actress, Best Direction and others made most moviegoers want to see Gone with the Wind. Of course, the movie had been unbelievably hyped by producer David O. Selznick and MGM from the time it was announced a movie version of Margaret Mitchell’s novel about the American Civil War (1861-1865) would be made. For example, a well promoted worldwide search for the “perfect” Scarlett O’Hara – the main character – was part of the PR juggernaut.

My first viewing back in 1969 made a huge impression. I’d seen plenty of movies made in the 1930′s: Wizard of Oz, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Wuthering Heights, et cetera. Apart from Wizard of Oz, also an impressive example of movie making, Gone with the Wind, I realized as I watched it the first time, must have stunned audiences in 1939 – a year, by the way, when approximately one hundred Civil War veterans were still alive.

Tara

Technicolor
First of all, it was filmed in Technicolor. Very few movies were being shot in colour at the time. The Technicolor process required more labour and twice as many lights. The result was strikingly rich colour – in the landscapes, backdrops and extraordinary period costumes. For someone used to black and white cinema this must have been incredible.

Scarlett entertains her male friends

Along with Technicolor, meticulous cinematography ensured every frame of Gone with the Wind featured perfectly composed images, many of which reminded me of oil paintings. Some were sweeping images of Tara plantation, others featured hundreds of wounded and dying rebel soldiers laying in rows as far as you could see on the main road through Atlanta, or the burning of Atlanta itself.

Gone with the Wind centres on Scarlett O’Hara – Vivien Leigh – a selfish teenage brat southern belle who feeds on the attention of fawning male admirers. When one of them, Ashley Wilkes, dares to announce his intention to marry someone else Scarlett does her best to turn him from his intended toward herself. She fails and for spite offers her own hand in marriage to the first poor chump to come along.

The backdrop of the story is the American Civil War and the movie spans the entire course of the war and just beyond. Scarlett establishes a pattern of marrying men for reasons other than love, usually financial. She and her family fall on hard times when things turn sour for the rebel armies and southern lands are invaded by Union troops from the north. Tara, the O’Hara family’s plantation, is plundered and nearly destroyed.

Gable as Rhett Butler

Rhett Butler
Scarlett’s last husband is Rhett Butler – Clark Gable – who falls in love with her early in the movie but waits until he’s confident she’s over the obsession with Ashley Wilkes, before asking her to be Mrs. Rhett Butler. In the end tragedy and Scarlett’s insufferable selfishness bring the marriage to an end, even with her promise to change that comes near the end of the movie.

In my recent viewing of the DVD I found many of the scenes in Gone with the Wind laughter inducing for their melodrama and, in a few cases, over-the-top acting – even by Leigh who won an Oscar for the movie. Clark Gable gives, by far, the most natural performance. The contrast between Leigh’s stagy acting and Gable’s film style is obvious to the end where Scarlett, nearing hysteria says, “Rhett, where shall I go? What shall I do?” And he calmly answers, “Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn.”

Leslie Howard played Ashley Wilkes

It was fun hearing classic lines like those in the movie but mostly I enjoyed its no holds barred epic nature. Not since the silent era and movies like Ben Hur (1925) had this kind of effort been put into making a motion picture. Gone with the Wind was movie making on a grand and wonderful scale – over three hours of it – with one of the most recognizable and grandest of musical themes. Gone with the Wind is a major piece of motion picture history and despite dated acting styles, sometimes awkward dialogue and slow paced scenes, it is and will always be a movie worth viewing.

Wine Cellar interior view

Wine Cellar Steak House
Glynmill Inn
1 Cobb Lane, Corner Brook
Ph. (709) 634-5181

There is no hotel in Newfoundland and Labrador with a more attractive exterior, setting or landscaping than Corner Brook’s famous Glynmill Inn. There it sits in the original heart of the city, a grand old house surrounded by tranquil pond, rich greenery, river and walking trails – established in a time when such things were not taken for granted.

The Tudor style hotel was built in 1923 to house those supervising the construction of the Corner Brook paper mill – at the time, the largest paper making construction project in history. In that era there was a livery and tennis court behind the hotel. Inside, in addition to bedrooms, the Glynmill Inn housed two dining rooms, a club, two bars and a laundry. It was even one of the first buildings in Newfoundland to be kept clean with something called vacuum cleaners.

I remember the Glynmill Inn being one of my favourite places to visit when I was a youngster. Spending time on the west coast of Newfoundland was a summertime tradition in my family, and having a meal at the Glynmill Inn was top. So, as I write this piece I’m yielding a bit to feelings of nostalgia.

Henry VIII presides over bar at Glynnmill Inn

Reminders
Of course, everywhere you turn inside the place there are reminders of the past. It might be the beamed ceilings or a picture on a wall. There’s a beauty of King Henry VIII in the downstairs bar. Then there are the restaurants that really, in look have not changed a jot. The Carriage Room is the upstairs dining room, given a distinct touch of elegance by several chandeliers, and at one end, rotunda shaped viewing windows.  

The Wine Cellar Steak House is located in the basement of the Glynmill Inn. It was and probably still is the place to go for a special dinner, at least that’s the way many Corner Brook residents see it. Most of Corner Brook’s population is of a generation slow to move from tried and true restaurant dining – a great steak, for example – to something a little different. If their experience with a restaurant like the Wine Cellar is consistently good, then I can’t quarrel with that.

It’s a circular restaurant, the Wine Cellar, with a wall partly in flat stones and partly in damask design paper. Carpeting helps maintain a very quiet atmosphere. Beautifully constructed chairs, white linens and candle lamps suggest bygone era dining. As might be expected, servers dress in black and white uniforms. The room is remarkably comfortable and relaxing. 

Toasted baguette with jumbo shrimp

Food
My meal began with an appetizer of toasted baguette slices topped with sautéed jumbo shrimp. The shrimp had been smothered in a sauce of cream, garlic, bacon and spinach. Fresh grated parmesan and bits of red pepper finished the presentation. I was hungry and quite happily tucked into this decadent dish of juicy shrimp that brought a smile to my face. But it was filling and would definitely make a full lunch for most.

Spicy crab cakes

Next I tried the Wine Cellar’s spicy crab cakes made with rice. Since we catch so much of it in this province it’s good to see at least one crab dish on a menu. (Restaurateurs take note.) Crabmeat, rice, parmesan and red pepper had been mixed together to form the patties. Although the menu said they’d be “grilled,” I think they meant to say deep-fried. There’s no doubt they’d been fried, and beautifully, with a crispy golden exterior the result. 

Salmon with honey and balsamic sauce

The salmon entrée was done in very much the same way I’d do it at home. It was reasonably unadorned, sans heavy sauce, sans pastry et cetera. It was simply grilled and served with a reduction of honey and balsamic. It came with seasoned roasted potatoes, carrots and green peas. The salmon and vegetables were all perfectly cooked and flavours abundant.

AAA
Triple A Canadian Angus tenderloin is a quality product that can bring great satisfaction to anyone with a taste for beef. Of course, it must be done to your liking. Mine was. The glistening hunk of filet mignon (8 oz.) was covered in sautéed mushrooms and onions and surrounded by lightly golden French fries. I asked for medium rare, described on the menu as, “Seared outside and red fifty percent through the centre, core temperature cool.” And that’s exactly how it arrived. No steak lover could have wanted more.

Tudor style building on canvas at Glynnmill Inn

Despite its name, the Wine Cellar’s wine list is nothing special. It’s comprised mostly of New World wine of the less expensive variety – stuff that sells at the NLC for $18 to $20 (approximately). As for European wines, I counted 5 Italian, 1 German and 1 French – Fat Bastard pinot noir. I went with the Las Moras shiraz from Argentina, a much better choice with my steak.

Finally, the service at the Wine Cellar and throughout the entire Glynmill Inn was, and, in my experience has always been first rate. To be consistently excellent in service and food requires motivated, loyal staff and good managers. Obviously, the Glynmill Inn has what it takes. That’s why I will be going back.

Rating:
* * *          
Price:
Meal for two with wine, tax and tip – $165.00 (approx.)

Best Points:
Food, service, atmosphere 

Sound level:
Low

*Fair **Good ***Excellent ****Exceptional