My husband Brad recently closed the doors to his 10-year-old business, Kitchen by Brad Smoliak, in downtown Edmonton.
I’m Leanne, Brad’s wife of 31 years, partner, best friend and companion in the kitchen. Both of us are professionally trained cooks, although I gave it up as a career many years ago. If you had a dinner or took a class at Kitchen you may have seen the two of us occasionally working side by side. We particularly enjoyed doing cooking classes together where we would tell stories of our cooking and travel adventures. We always seemed to get ourselves into some kind of trouble. Mary, the editor of The Tomato, thought readers would want to know what we were up to, post Kitchen. –Leanne
by Leanne Smoliak
Autumn is often associated with gratitude.
For us every month is abundant with gratitude. You may know that our family has had its share of bumps. Since January 2019, Brad has spent over 500 days at the Mazankowski Alberta Heart Institute. Most people would say, ‘why are you grateful for this? This sounds tragic’. We are grateful because, on January 19, 2019, Brad was given a chance to live when the amazing team at the Hotel MAZ (as Brad lovingly refers to it) implanted an artificial heart, which he has been living with ever since. Is it perfect? No. Is he alive? Yes. Have there been bumps? Yes, but every time he goes back to Hotel MAZ, the incredible team gets him rocking and rolling again. Why would we not feel grateful? If we lived almost anywhere else, Brad most surely would not have survived.
Since January 2019, Brad has spent over 500 days at the Mazankowski Alberta Heart Institute.
Charlie Brown says; ‘You only live once.’ Snoopy says; ‘Wrong. You only die once. You live everyday.’
These past few years have given us pause to take note of how much we have to be grateful for. We live each and every day with a new appreciation for life.
We savour every second of every moment. We appreciate the little things. We enjoy our new puppy, a girl name Stanley. We love to play in our garden.
We are drinking the wines that we were saving for a special occasion. We are doing as much volunteering as we can.
One of the most gratifying projects we are involved in is David and Aimee Benjestorf’s P3 Farm (Pandemic Planting Project). When the pandemic hit, David knew he needed to do something to combat the rising food security crisis amongst Edmontonians. He thought one of the solutions could be to grow food himself. David had a piece of property west of St. Albert that he always dreamt of farming on, the only problem being, he had never put a seed in the ground before. They reached out to some very helpful market gardeners that got them on their way and a huge team of volunteers planted, weeded, watered and harvested.
In the first season David and Aimee hoped to get 20,000 pounds of vegetables, with the bulk being potatoes. They exceeded that goal by a landslide, donating 95,000 pounds of 22 different vegetables. Year two exceeded that, and this year it looks like they might be ahead yet again. This project is completely volunteer operated with David and Aimee backstopping all the costs.
We have learned so much about growing and the effort it takes. We are employing these principles in our own small garden at home. It’s our goal to eat more from our small patch than from the store.
The Smos can’t do as much hard lifting as some of the other volunteers at P3, but we like to take care of the others by doing what we do best—feeding people. We often bring home-baked bagels or cookies and we hosted a volunteer dinner at the farm for 120 people including 24 Ukrainian evacuee families. Smoked Alberta beef and new potatoes and vegetables harvested from the farm were on the menu.
We hope that you continue to read our column in upcoming issues of The Tomato. We are going to share stories of our favourite three Fs—family, friends and food. We will also be sharing a recipe or two with you, nothing complicated, just good food that brings people to the table.
P3 Farms Potatoes with Brown Butter and Sage
This is the ideal autumn side dish for Sunday or holiday dinner.
| 8 med | Yukon gold or red potatoes, quartered | |
| ½c | reserved potato water (may not need all of it) | |
| ¾c | unsalted butter | |
| 8 leaves | fresh sage | |
| ½c | whipping cream | |
| 1¼ t | kosher salt | |
| 1t | fresh ground pepper |
It is your choice whether to peel the potatoes or not. Simmer until fork tender in enough heavily salted water to cover by 1 inch. Depending on the potatoes, cook anywhere from 10-25 minutes. Drain into a colander, reserving 1⁄2-cup potato water. Put potatoes back in the pot to dry on low heat for 2 minutes.
Meanwhile, heat the butter in a sauté pan on medium heat to brown. Watch carefully, there is a difference between brown butter and burnt butter. Add sage leaves and get them nice and crispy. Take out with a slotted spoon and reserve. Mash potatoes in mixer or by hand. For fluffier potatoes, use a ricer. Mix in whipping cream, browned butter, salt and pepper until well blended. If the potatoes are too thick, use some of the reserved potato water to thin to your liking. Taste for seasoning. Turn into a serving dish and finish with crispy sage leaves.
Serves 6.
Leanne Smoliak’s greatest compliment came from her father-in-law, early in her marriage: “She’s the perfect Ukrainian wife, she keeps a full fridge and a well-stocked bar.”