For the Love of Kale

Making connections with the community and with local producers, and developing mutually beneficial working relationships is incredibly important for Graham, who calls the café a “community kitchen.” Graham likes that the kitchen is a wide-open space that can easily be seen from the dining room. When it’s not in use during usual business hours, Graham likes to see the café used by local groups or clubs for workshops, camps and other community events.

Growing up in Alexandria, Graham didn’t always pay much attention to where her food came from, but now she realizes that she was raised in a home where meals were only made from scratch. “It was always innate. As a family, we didn’t open a bottle of salad dressing at home — we made the salad dressing. We didn’t have canned soup — we made soup,” she says.

This passion for wholesome, nutritious food is certainly a family trait. Graham explains that both of her parents were always phenomenal home cooks and ran food service franchise businesses. But her father, Fred DeBennetti, was really the trailblazer when it came to adopting healthy and clean foods.

After a career running a fast food and ice cream franchise, he had an epiphany about the sort of food he wanted to produce. “I started reading up on nutrition and realized that fast food isn’t something you should make a habit of eating on a daily basis, it’s not the most nutritious choice. I had a change of heart. I didn’t believe in the business anymore. I was making my own whole grain sourdough breads at home because I wasn’t happy with store-bought bread, which is one of the most adulterated foods on the planet,” DeBenedetti says.

After researching and a period of trial and error in his own kitchen, DeBenedetti took an apprenticeship position in a Montreal bakery. Over eight months, he learned to commercially produce a natural sourdough bread. With that knowledge, he ventured to Kingston, where he opened up his own bakery. Fred’s Bread thrived for more than 20 years, before DeBenedetti sold out and moved to Alexandria in 2015.

DeBenedetti now produces bread for The Quirky Carrot, although he admits it’s on a much smaller scale than when his French deck oven produced hundreds of loaves per day. The café uses his sourdough in its popular avocado toast, which comes drizzled with balsamic-lemon dressing with hemp seeds and radishes, and the option of adding an egg. Or you can request a slice or two as a side dish. He also makes bagels and, at Easter, his hot-cross buns always sell out.

“They’ve become a little cult favourite. The locals are well addicted to them now and it’s usually really exciting at that time of year,” Graham says.

The secret, DeBenedetti explains, is in the high quality and natural ingredients. “It’s a sourdough bread. I don’t use any candied fruit or refined sugar. Just butter and a combination of unbleached flour and whole grain wheat flour with currants. The result is a bun that you cannot find in any store,” he says. Along with her father, Graham’s eldest daughter, who has worked there as a barista, regularly joins her in the café. Her younger daughter brings not only baking skills, but musical talent to the table. In fact, if you attend one of the farm-totable dinners in Avonmore, you can hear her perform.

Along with Avonmore Berry Farm, The Quirky Carrot also receives produce deliveries from Alexandria-based Just Farms. “We’re so fortunate to have them and get fresh deliveries almost daily. They’re also at the farmers’ market here in Alexandria on Saturday mornings. Right now, they are bringing us strawberries, tomatoes and zucchini and we’re switching into gorgeous yellow beans this weekend,” Graham says.

Building collaborative relationships with other food vendors across the region is key to Graham’s success and one of the reasons she was excited to join Feast On, a not-for-profit organization that aims to increase regional food tourism and help vendors connect with one another. To be certified, food businesses pay a membership fee and offer annual proof that they source Ontario-grown foods. In exchange, businesses such as The Quirky Carrot receive e-introductions to various producers and have the opportunity to work together on a range of pop-up dinners and special events. “You’re part of a community, a brotherhood-sisterhood of businesses and farmers, vendors and producers who are all promoting and supporting each other and celebrating what Ontario has to offer with food and beverage,” Graham says.

The café, which opened in October 2013 to an overwhelmingly positive local reaction, is also involved in an annual sandwich competition with the local high school as part of Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution Day.

The sandwich challenge features a preliminary presentation class by Graham. “It’s always a wonderful opportunity for me to talk to the kids about our local farmers and vendors. And I usually do a little demo to pique their interest — you always need food samples when you’re working with kids.”

She then challenges the students to design and create a sandwich, which, if chosen as the winner, will find its place on the café’s menu.

This role is familiar to Graham, as she was formerly a teacher, delivering a hospitality and tourism course to teenagers at the local school.

In fact, she was in her classroom when she first entertained the idea of owning a café. “When I was teaching at the local high school, we ran a student café once a week, so the kids could have a real-world experience. We spent the week planning a menu and then, on the Friday, the teachers would come in and be served by the students. They did everything — the food prep, the cooking, the serving, the marketing, the selling. It was beautiful.”

This weekly experience developed into what Graham describes as “an entrepreneurial itch,” and when the unpredictability of securing long-term teaching contracts became too much, she decided to make a major career move. “I was spending all my time teaching about the industry and encouraging my students to follow this journey and path into the culinary world, and I really had that desire within me. I was about to approach a milestone birthday — I was turning 40 — and I thought it was now or never,” she says.

She left her teaching position in June and spent the summer months planning for an autumn opening. Although Graham still enjoys working with students when the opportunity arises through the café’s cookery school, full-time teaching is not a vocation that she misses at all.

In fact, she says she has never looked back. It’s obvious her happy place is in the café, prepping for the next day, chatting with customers and enjoying the delicious and wholesome local foods she prepares daily with her team.

You can pop into this family-run business to enjoy breakfast or lunch, which includes options for sandwiches and soups, or sample Graham’s favourite dish. “I’m a salad girl through and through and I am still in love with our house kale salad,” she says.

Don’t forget to also taste Fred’s bread or pick up a half dozen sourdough bagels to go.

The Quirky Carrot Café
1 Main Street South, Alexandria, Ont.
thequirkycarrot.com | 613.525.2229