A group of twenty or so people convened at the Urban Deli on a sunny Sunday afternoon on March 14th to participate in the first cooking class hosted by UD. The restaurant is normally closed on Sundays, but Liz decided to open up for a few hours to host this reservation-only event. Bob McVicar was the instructing chef and the subject of the day was Italian-style cabbage rolls.

The afternoon began with some informal introductions and delicious snacks (check out this sautéed red pepper recipe), and then we all found seats at the communal table in groups of four. To ensure that the objective of the class was clear, Bob served us each a sample of his Italian cabbage rolls that he had put together a couple of days prior – Bob swears that they are better a few days after making them. We also sampled some homemade Italian sausage that UD has recently started making in-house.

Next, we worked in our groups of four to create some of Bob’s Italian cabbage rolls. We made half of the recipe below, which resulted in a roasting pan full of cabbage rolls. Bob did some of the prep work before we arrived and had already softened and peeled the cabbage leaves off of the head for us as well as having prepared the tomato sauce. Our main tasks were to create the filling and put the rolls together.

Bob’s recipe for the filling is simple to put together and rolling it in the leaves is pretty easy once you get used to it. You’ll need to be willing to get your hands dirty for this dish, so dig in and have some fun. Just follow the recipe and preparation instructions below and you’ll have no problems.

After assembling all of our rolls, we packed them up and topped them with some delicious tomato sauce. Each participant received a portion to take home, at which point they simply had to be baked and served fresh, saved for a few days before eating, or placed in the freezer to consume at a later date.

The cooking class was an enjoyable afternoon and a great value at only $12 per person, which was to help cover some of the costs. Beverages were also available to purchase and the snacks continued to flow throughout the afternoon. This cooking class was a successful first for UD and I suspect that there will be many more to come. Stay tuned to urbandeli.ca for info about future cooking classes that Liz has in the works.

Italian Cabbage Rolls – download recipe by Bob McVicar:

• download Word doc
• download pdf file

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This article was written by our guest author, Trisha Gallant, who is also an Urban Deli regular.

We’re going to try something a little different. We have a cooking class coming up on March 14th with ‘Chef Bob.’ That would be Saint John’s Bob McVicar and the date is for a Sunday, when we’re normally closed. And the subject of the class? Italian cabbage rolls.

This will be a ‘reserved seating only’ class with just sixteen (16) tickets available – enough to fill our communal table and to break into four groups of four. There is a cost — $12 – to help offset some of our costs. But we’ve tried to keep it as minimal as possible.

Participants will receive:

• A delicious sample tasting of Bob’s cabbage rolls that you will be making prior to making your own
• Tasting of Urban Deli’s Italian sausage (made in-house at the Deli)
• Copy of Bob’s Italian Cabbage Roll recipe
• Hands-on experience in making your own cabbage rolls
• Portions of cabbage rolls to take home for your next dinner party or keep for yourself

We’re pretty sure it will be a lot of fun. If you get thirsty, beverages will be available for purchase: beer, wine and non-alcoholic drinks.

If you’re interested in what promises to be a tasty and entertaining afternoon, just give Liz a call at the Urban Deli: 652.3354.

The details once more time:

Cooking class at the Urban Deli – Italian cabbage rolls with Bob McVicar
Sunday, March 14, 1:00pm to 4:00pm
Cost: $12

We hope you can join us!

It’s the season for get-togethers and last night we hosted Avant-Garde Construction and Management Inc. for their Christmas party. If you look at the photo below you’ll see they were seated at our long communal table.

What kind of food might be involved at a Christmas party at the Urban Deli? For Avant-Garde it began with appetizers. We served up roasted garlic and artichoke dip, bacon  wrapped scallops and char crusted pork tenderloin. There was also a choice of seafood chowder, spinach salad, caesar salad, or house salad.

For the main course guests had a choice of smoked whole lobster (smoked in house, at the Deli), rack of ribs, smoked herb crusted 1/2 chicken accompanied by rice garlic mashed potatoes or fries (our potato frites).

And for dessert it was a choice of molten chocolate cake, our now famous sour cream lemon pie or a candy cane cheese cake.

We also had some evening musical entertainment provided by Jessica Darrah.

And that was our Saturday night at the Urban Deli. A big thank you to everyone, including our wonderful staff, and a Merry Christmas to Avant-Garde!

The Avant Garde Christmas party at the Urban Deli. That's our Liane on the left and way off in the background you can see Jessica Darrah performing. Photo via Gord's phone.

We’ve found quite a few people interested in the story of our communal table. Where’s it from? Who made it?

Gord, who has been one of the stalwart people behind getting the deli up and running, put together a bit of information on the table for us.

Apart from the food, one of the most unique aspects of the Urban Deli, if not the most unique, is our communal table, a concept that finds its roots in Europe – food and community, natural companions.

There is a local history behind our communal Table. The wood itself is pitch pine from the United States and is reported to be between 400 and 500 years old.

It was originally a single support beam in the Saint John Lantic Sugar Cane factory, which was built in 1912 and decommissioned in 2000.

The table is made of approximately 400 square board feet of lumber. The tabletop is fourteen feet of continuous lumber, made of two-inch thick, six-inch wide single strips, which have been laminated together to create the 36-inch width. The base is made in two sections with the total weight being well over 400 lbs.

The beam was purchased from and milled by Hunter Lake Lumber of New Brunswick.

What you see today in the Urban Deli is a table commissioned and created by local carpentry artisan  (via Germany) Christoph Malinowski of CM Woodcrafters Inc.

The end result is a beautiful, lovingly made communal table, an idea that allows patrons to sit down and enjoy our Urban Deli food while also enjoying the friendly Saint John community as they meet both new and old friends.

See also:

• Our communal table

To the extent that we can, we’d like to do things locally — as in eastern Canada and, more specifically, New Brunswick.

Now, you when you think “coffee” you may not immediately think New Brunswick – but you should!

Last week, one of the many things we did was get our coffee machine in place. The machine is one thing, but the coffee is another. When it comes to java, we’ve arranged to get ours from Sean  and Dawn — and that would be Red Whale Coffee Inc., just up the road in Rothesay, near Quispamsis.

The local idea will also be true of the beer we serve. We’re lined up to carry Saint John’s Moosehead and Moncton’s Pumphouse and we’re hoping to be able to have Fredericton’s Picarroons on board.

We may be a deli, but it’s our hope to be a distinctly New Brunswick deli!

(Okay so not 100% local … we did get our plates at Fishes Eddy on our New York trip. But our communal table is local!)

Liz is particularly excited about the Urban Deli’s communal table (sometimes referred to as a “sharing table”). And what’s a communal table? As the name suggests, it’s a table where anyone and everyone can sit down to enjoy, not simply the food, but each other’s company. Some people are reluctant to try it because it’s not the way they are use to dining. But once they do try it, most love it.

At the Deli, we thought, “Atlantic Canada is famous for how friendly everyone is. Where better to have a communal table?

Our table was built by Christoph Malinowski of CM Woodcraft Inc. And the craftsmanship that went into it is amazing. If you see Liz and ask her about it, be ready to sit down for a while because she’ll go on and on about the table, Christoph and how thrilled she is to have it.

As for communal tables, they’re new but not really. According to an item from the Seattle Times, “Across Europe, in bistros and beer halls, tavernas, trattorias and tapas bars, people are accustomed to eating at large shared tables.”

You don’t have to go to Europe to see them, however. They’ve become increasingly popular in places like New York, Seattle, Montreal, Los Angeles and most other major centres. A story about communal tables in San Francisco from the San Francisco Chronicle provides a good sense of what they are like (including the romantic aspects!).

So … we’re pretty excited, especially Liz, with the possibilities of our table. And don’t fret, there will be other, more traditional tables for those reluctant to give it a try. We suspect, however, when you see how others are enjoying the communal dining experience, you’ll want to give it a try too.