WRITER - Western Living -
Chefs in the Forest (Continued)
Lemon Creek Lodge
They liked the water. The drinking water. That’s why Barry and Judy Derco moved with two teenage kids from the top of the corporate food chain at 7-11 Stores (living in White Rock, but traveling constantly to cover a territory embracing all of Vancouver Island and most of the Lower Mainland) to a cathedral of pine trees somewhere off highway 6 in the Slocan Valley. Good-bye Paycheck Land! Hello hard work and love of life! Things started slowly when they bought the old 10-bedroom lodge on Barry’s birthday in September of 1994; but when they replaced a few of the light fixtures and puffed up the pillows, business picked up. Then they added Louella Kooznetsoff to the kitchen and traffic in the woods became downright hectic. Actually they stole Louella away from her ten years up the road a piece at the Hungry Wolf Café, which, of course, you all remember as the Duck Stop Café. Right. The food is fresh and bright and beautifully presented and the easy rival of any of the great restaurants in our Western Canadian cities. There are the Apple Curry Prawns; or the Chicken Neptune (breast poached in white wine and home-grown garden herbs topped with a Seafood Neuberg sauce of scallops, crab and prawns); Veal Marsala; or an original take on Beef Wellington (filet topped with Alaskan crab and portabello mushrooms wrapped in a puff pastry and baked in a demi-glaze.) Their guests - and so many of these are repeat guests, mind you – their guests are from Swansea, Tasmania, Shanghai, Australia, Germany, Holland, Denmark, England, Spain and Hawaii. Spain and Hawaii? Check out the comments in the Guest Book, a lexicon of superlatives. Of course, there’s the post and beam lodge itself, the cabins, the hot tub, Finnish Sauna, campgrounds, gardens of herbs and vegetables, and the silence. But mostly, there’s Judy and Barry, whose own natural warmth and sense of hospitality create at once an atmosphere familial and at ease. (Website: www.lemoncreeklodge.com
A rule of biking in the mountains is that, since most towns and rest stops lie in valleys, it’s only reasonable – if cruel – that all mornings begin with a serious climb. Day Two is no exception. Heading north along Highway 6 in a light rain, we work our way past Slocan City to the summit above Slocan Lake. Now it is pouring and there is no shelter for our picnic lunch. Thus begins the one and only truly terrifying part of our trip. Down twisting roads in a driving rain. Very little shoulder and serious local traffic. Thank God for good brakes and plastic ponchos! Thank God for the warmth and hospitality of our next stop. 42K.
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