Recipe for Success

What does it take to create a wonderful B&B experience?

Reflecting on this question while recently returning from a trip to KeriGlen, three essentials come to mind:

   

Location: You are beat. You have been driving for a few hours. You are heading south on Highway 97 and as you are about to turn east into Penticton, you realize your bed is three minutes up the mountain on your right. From KeriGlen you are also five minutes from Starbucks, Quality Greens and T-Bones (ready to BBQ food). KeriGlen sits at the end of the road, overlooks a golf course and is one hundred steps from the KVR hiking trail. You can walk the dogs to the mailbox and back, 1 km return, and not see a car. From the deck, you have an unobstructed view of Lake Okanagan. The closest winery is 12 minutes away. You start to uncoil.

Detail: Did you know that Elsie hand irons the sheets on the beds? That she hand makes fresh quiche tarts in the morning if you have ordered the continental breakfast...I mean whose continent is she from? Continental breakfast is typically coffee, a roll and jam! After your wine touring you can pick up ready-to-BBQ meats at T-Bones store, cook your own supper on the Weber grill and test that new wine- test it in the hot tub if you like. Did you know that as the stars emerge and the lights of Penticton begin to twinkle across the lake, Fred often lights up the propane campfire on the deck and offers glasses of wine, inviting relaxing company and conversation to those guests who are inclined?

    Heart: It’s so simple yet so hard to do well-your hosts have to actually enjoy people! And Elsie and Fred do have a desire for their guests’ well-being and comfort. They understand that for many travellers this trip to the Okanagan is their one shot at their precious annual vacation getaway or an anxiously anticipated and sorely needed weekend of R&R. I often hear Elsie saying, “If there is anything you need-please just ask.” 

      

     But let these words of a guest explain it more

     succinctly:

  

Spring, 2010

Hi Elsie,

I know it’s been a long time and you may not remember me (and my husband E.), but I have been thinking of you and your lovely home for some time now.  It was last Sept/Oct when we came to stay and you gifted us with a bottle of your most wonderful wine.  We stayed in the little queen room, which was just awesome.  E. and I were into the local ice wines and we only could stay a couple of days, but it is one of the most wonderfully memorable trips I have had to date.

I just want you to know that I still think of our stay with lots of warmth and I thought you should know how much I truly enjoyed our getaway at your home.

Blessings on you,

S S

Elsie's Wunder Waffles

What is it about travelling that compels us to crave a fabulous breakfast?

Is it because we finally have that most precious and delicious of all ingredients-the luxury of time- to actually sit and savor?  It is within that glorious context of “vacation” that the dreary workday, soul numbing bore of cold cereal or peanut butter and toast can finally be banished. On vacation, finally one has the luxury of a leisurely breakfast, enjoying the perfectly executed creations that can only come from Elsie’s kitchen.

After our recent delightful stay at KeriGlen I could rave about the breakfast selections– but each deserves its own article. Yet how can one talk about breakfast without remembering the five topping omelets, the sweet or savory crepes, or the creamy cheese blintzes. But I must focus on my favorite of Elsie’s breakfast creations-her Belgian waffle. First though, you must put aside all notions of those egg and flour discs that share the name “waffle” but bear little resemblance to Elsie’s Wunder Waffle!

 

 As Fred seats you at the breakfast table and you ponder your choices of the fresh fruit from a bountiful platter of the seasonal best cherries, peaches, nectarines, and plums that have traveled all of five minutes from the orchard to your plate, Elsie is whipping up a fresh waffle batter to the perfect consistency. Now she pulls out her secret weapon – the gravity, double-sided waffle 

 griddle. This summer Elsie imported this bad boy that has such deep waffle grooves that your waffle is one inch thick. Each waffle square could accommodate a Bing cherry if need be! Imagine the possibilities for keeping your butter, fruit or maple syrup, and whipped cream hidden in the light and golden baffles. Elsie rotates the waffle iron and out slides the most perfect waffle that you thought you could only get from a street vendor in Amsterdam. Elsie’s Wunder Waffle is the perfect contradiction of an outside golden crust and the soft inside that invites the butter and syrup and cream to join together in a lovely medley of summer.

Now if that isn’t enough Elsie, without preamble, slyly offers you her homemade fruit compote. “Try this on your waffle,” she invites casually. “You might like it.” So I scoop out a ladle of fruit syrup laden with cherries that have been warmed with a touch of sugar. As I slide the golden waffle, cherry, syrup and cream laden fork into my mouth I gasp in wonder as my tongue realizes these cherries have spent the night at the wine spa!  Wine-soaked cherry compote on the Wunder Waffle.

Now this is why the traveler travels.

This is how you can truly experience the bounty of the Okanangan-savouring the fruit of the very valley that is spread before you.

And this is the moment I will unwrap in the doldrums of November, when my dreary breakfast choices once again become cold cereal or cold toast. I will think of Elsie’s sun-drenched alfresco dining table and the fabulous Wunder Waffle and wine soaked cherries. 

And it will warm my heart.

KeriGlen Lakeview Bed and Breakfast: Elsie’s Waffles

2 cups all purpose flour

4 tsp. baking powder

½ tsp salt

2 Tbsp. sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

2 ½ cups milk

½ cup melted butter

3 egg yolks, well-beaten

3 egg whites

1.     Stir all dry ingredients together in a large bowl.

2.     Combine milk, egg yolks and melted butter in another bowl.

3.     In a third bowl, beat egg whites until stiff but not dry.

4.     Add liquid ingredients to the dry, whisk till smooth.

5.     Fold in beaten egg whites until just blended.

6.     Cook on hot waffle iron.

Serve with assorted fruits, butter and whipped cream.  Enjoy!