Food as Art: FireWorks Feast at the Inn at Bay Fortune
In 2021, I again put my European travel plans on hold and instead travel with my daughter to Nova Scotia and stunning Prince Edward Island. On one magical evening, we splash out on an Experience with a capital E—a stay at the five-star Inn at Bay Fortune and an evening enjoying the FireWorks Feast. Billed as an “immersive farm-to-table dining experience”, the FireWorks Feast is the brainchild of Chef Michael Smith.
As a long-time fan of cooking shows, I was familiar with Chef Michael, one of Canada’s best-known chefs. He and his wife purchased the Inn at Bay Fortune a few years ago and have transformed it into a truly memorable destination.
Is Food Art?
When food is presented like it is at the Inn at Bay Fortune’s FireWorks Feast, I’d say yes. Very much so.
Farm Tour at the FireWorks Feast
We arrive at the Inn at 4 pm just in time to grab a drink and head out across the massive lawn overlooking Bay Fortune on the southeast coast of Prince Edward Island to join our fellow FireWorks Feasters for the first leg of the FireWorks Feast Experience.
The Inn’s resident farmer, Kevin Petrie, stands in the middle of a circle of vibrantly painted Muskoka chairs (also known by my U.S. readers as Adirondack chairs) and holds forth about the Inn’s remarkable herb garden.
Kevin’s talk is the start of an hour-long farm tour that will take us from the front lawn to the extensive farm behind the Inn that features greenhouses, nursery beds, a mushroom patch, apple orchards, and even a Pots & Pans Trail.
Kevin is a font of information about growing organic food. I learn that the cilantro plant yields at least eight edible parts, including roots, leaves, and flowers that each have a different taste and texture. The seeds are called coriander – a tidbit of knowledge I’d vaguely known and have now confirmed.
I also sample a chunk of the crispest, sweetest cucumber I’ve ever tasted—almost crisp and sweet enough to turn me from a cucumber tolerator to a cucumber enthusiast.
I learn that the soil on the farm is like a chocolate layer cake – aerated and full of goodness, spongy, dark, delicious – and a wellspring of nutrition for the plants.
We tour an experimental area called the nursery to view dozens of varieties of tomatoes, some of which are almost black The purpose of the nursery is to discover which tomato varieties work best in the climate and the terroir.
Ah, the terroir – the earth from which the plants spring. Terroir garners tremendous respect, veneration even. The terroir creates the food we put into our bodies to nourish ourselves.
Oyster Hour at the FireWorks Feast
We walk from the farm back toward the Inn to find a tall man with grizzled grey hair tied in a tight ponytail. It’s Chef Michael himself standing with shovel in hand in front of a large, smoky fire on which oysters will soon be roasting.
An engaging speaker, Chef Michael exudes an infectious enthusiasm and passion for food, for sustainability, and for terroir. He tells us that the oysters we’re about to slurp were harvested in Bay Fortune that very afternoon. No more than a few hours separate their plucking from the sea to Chef Michael’s shucking knife.
We’ve reached the Oyster Hour portion of the evening that is devoted to sampling a variety of appetizers, including as many oysters as we can slurp. First up are oysters dotted with butter and nestled into the coals of the open fire. I select one and suck it back—tasting the sea, of course, but also a warm, smoky, buttery flavor.
Raw oysters are offered next, shucked right in front of us by Chef Michael and then dotted with dollops of fresh-chopped tomatoes from the farm. My daughter Julia is not a seafood lover (where did I go wrong?), but she gamely agrees to try her first raw oyster. Chef Michael instructs her—slurp, chew, swallow.
Julia holds the oyster to her lips, closes her eyes and tilts her head back.
And then, in full view of Chef Michael Smith, she spits the oyster back into the shell. Oops! But he is good-humored about it and commends her for at least trying.
Julia has better luck with some of the other appetizers. She enjoys slices of smoked salmon, delicate pink and so fresh as to be practically swimming, served atop a crisp, salty cracker, along lobster mushrooms on a taco with Sriracha – heat exploding across chewy smoothness.
Pre-Feast Toast
After an hour of sampling appetizers, we gather in front of the flagpole on the lawn overlooking Bay Fortune. Chef Michael directs our attention to the large Canadian flag snapping in the wind at half-mast. He alludes to why, but doesn’t explain, evidently trusting that the gathered company already knows. I wonder if they do and hope so. For readers who may not know, most Canadians have flown the flag at half-mast throughout the summer of 2021 in memory of the thousands of indigenous children across Canada who never returned from residential schools.
Chef Michael then proposes a toast with a sparkling, bubbling Prince Edward Island “champagne” (Benjamin Bridge Bubbles). The assembled guests (about 75 people) raise their glasses and then troop gratefully into the airy dining room to enjoy six more courses of the FireWorks Feast. Julia had thought we’d eat to the accompaniment of real fireworks, but no. FireWorks refers, literally, to fire and works, meaning that most of the food we consume has been cooked over fires fed with local wood.
The FireWorks Feast Begins
We are seated at the window – a perfect spot from which we survey the wide expanse of lawn leading to the sparkling waters of Bay Fortune. As the evening progresses, golden light floods across the grass, turning it into a shimmering expanse of brilliant, molten green. Slowly, the sky turns soft pink, then mauve, then indigo as night descends over peaceful Prince Edward Island. A bonfire flares, its bright orange flames a promise of life in the darkness.
Special FireWorks Feast Bread
First up is the bread tree – a metal “tree” in which nestles a small loaf of warm, fresh-baked sourdough bread described as made from 100-year-old naturally fermented heritage flour and baked in a wood oven. It is brown, dense, and sinfully delicious.
A trio of spreads invites extensive investigation. My favorite is the maple brown butter – sweet and creamy, but also light—frothy even. Pork pâté made from a happy pig (that’s what the server said!) is subtly flavored; again, the texture is silky smooth. Finally, I savor a lighter-than-air cheese pâté, the flavors so delicate as to be almost undistinguished.
Although I’m already almost full from the oysters and other scrumptious appies from the Oyster Hour, I nevertheless chow down on two hunks of fresh bread and far too many slatherings of spreads. I know this is a mistake – the bread is only course two of seven. Seven! Already, I need a rest.
A cool white wine from Nova Scotia provides the perfect accompaniment – not too strong, a blend that truly complements the food rather than overpowers it. There is the option to have four pours of four different wines for $75. I am tempted, but decide that even my indulgence quotient has limits.
Soup Swimming with Seafood
Course three is seafood chowder for me and a chicken broth with veggies for Julia. My chowder overflows with plump and sweet scallops and clams, bright orange mussels, dense clumps of crabmeat and lobster, along with haddock, salt cod, beach wort (whatever that is), dulse (seaweed?) and potatoes, all swimming in a delicate creamy broth. The flavors do not overpower. They blend and dance across the palate, inviting slow savoring.
This is not the place to gobble your food.
Both of us eat only half our soups, prompting the lovely young server to ask if we liked it. I hastily reassure her that the chowder is spectacular but that I need to leave room. I’d taken Chef Michael’s exhortation to eat as many oysters as we wanted far too seriously and, not wanting to let down the side for western Canada, had eaten three or four too many.
The Best Salad in the World at the FireWorks Feast
The next course is my favorite – all vegetables, and OMG what vegetables! I watch Chef Michael at the open-plan chef station dump fresh greens plucked mere hours earlier from the farm into a massive bowl. Surrounded by an impressive number of earnest-looking and mostly young chefs-in-training, Chef Michael tosses the greens with his hands. The hefty price tag for this foodie experience is feeling increasingly reasonable considering the value we’re getting.
The chefs portion the salad of herbs, shoots, stalks, stems, leaves, buds, fruits, and a plethora of brilliantly colored edible flowers into a bowl for every two people. We also receive an individual plate smeared with root vegetable purées – ash-baked beets, smoked parsnips, and roasted carrots, along with lentil sprouts and something called seedy soil that turns out to be a pleasantly crunchy, sweet and salty garnish I could have eaten all night.
We are instructed to place a few tongfuls of the greens (studded with popcorn – seriously!) over the plate of pureed vegetables to experience the different textures and tastes.
The parsnip cream is to die for, and I don’t even like parsnips. Even the beets go down a treat – the rich red color alone worth the price of admission. I want to eat every scrap of the greens, but my tummy is starting to groan. How am I going to manage the main course?
But back to the greens – crisp, tart, sweet, earthy, fresh – I feel like I’m eating a garden, which I suppose I am. My favorites are the flowers – startling orange nasturtiums and soft violet pansies that are peppery and sweet and crunchy. I’ve only just discovered the glories of eating flowers and am now a firm convert. Every so often, a leaf from one of the farm’s 26 herb beds—mint, basil, and many more tastes I don’t recognize—glides across my palate like an Olympic speed skater.
I reluctantly leave a fair amount of greens in the salad bowl, having practically licked the plate clean of its purée smears, and await the main course. Chef Michael and his crew are hard at work plating the two choices—brisket or halibut. I made the difficult choice when we arrived earlier but was torn. I adore halibut and almost never get it, but brisket! And I figure brisket smoked and prepared by a world-class chef had to be, well, world-class.
Main Course – FireWorks Beautiful Brisket
The main course arrives, the slabs of brisket and flatiron steak artfully (well, duh) arranged over an intriguing assortment of roasted root vegetables. But alas, my stomach rebels. I can manage only a few nibbles of wonderfully flavored kale and some brisket before having to give up. Would it be completely low-brow to ask for a doggy bag in a place like this? I envision enjoying a slab of the brisket (melt-in-your-mouth, for sure) later that evening. It would taste sooooo good then, whereas now – nope. I am far too full to appreciate it.
But as my dad used to say, they’ll not see you again, so I asked our server if I could have the brisket to go and she cheerfully offers to bring me a box. Phew! Later that evening and again for breakfast, I feast on the most tender, flaky, flavorful brisket I’ve ever tasted. Just enough of the salty au jus clings to the meat to give it flavor without overwhelming it.
Always Room for Dessert
Can we manage dessert? Well, of course. Dessert is a different stomach, right? Also, the gap between main course and dessert is, to my relief, long enough to give my system time to re-calibrate.
Dessert is a haskap berry tarragon meringue/sponge cake topped with blueberry cream and a scoop of lemon verbena ice cream. I eat every morsel.
And still we are not done! Over at the chef station, one of the young chefs is affixing rectangles of blueberry marshmallow to the ends of long sticks. Outside the window, the crackling flames of the campfire beckon. We pick up our marshmallow sticks and proceed to the campfire. Melty, blueberry, sticky. Oh yeah!
But unfortunately, swarms of unwelcome guests also show up to enjoy campfire time. We learn the hard way that the mosquitoes on Prince Edward Island are tiny but vicious. Funny – I never remember reading about mosquitoes feasting on Anne of Green Gables.
The Morning After
Before checking out the next morning, I take a copy of my novel Love Among the Recipes to Reception and ask that it be given to Chef Michael as a thank-you for a wondrous experience. The woman at the desk tells me I can give it to him myself since he’s just around the corner in the dining room working on the evening menu.
Feeling a trifle presumptuous, I nevertheless present Chef Michael with my novel. He graciously accepts, telling me he thinks it looks like something he and his wife would enjoy. I’m honored, and float away from the Inn feeling that our Prince Edward Island splurge is one for the memory books.
If you’re traveling to Prince Edward Island during the summer months, consider spending the night at the Inn at Bay Fortune and an evening enjoying the FireWorks Feast. You’ll come away with a renewed appreciation for fresh and nutritious food grown with love.
