SCRIMP: $6 CHEESE & ONION LOAF «OR» SPLURGE: $825 TEA PARTY FOR 60
The Roost is a cafe, bakery, pizzeria, catering company, and more. Photo: Susan Rybar
Scrimp or Splurge features a guest post today from Victoria writer/photographer Susan Rybar (www.susanrybar.com, http://tunicate.blogspot.com).
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The Roost Farm Bakery is a one-of-a-kind family business on the Saanich Peninsula north of Victoria. What the owners describe as a “Passionate Farm Experience” is a bakery, pizzeria, catering company, and sustainable food producer rolled into one. Visitors can indulge in sweet treats from butter tarts to cinnamon buns in the bakery/cafe, or take home locally raised roaster chickens or ducks, fresh produce, local cheeses and preserves from the Roost’s garden market.
Bakers at The Roost create an irresistibly savoury Cheese & Onion Bread. Photo: Susan Rybar
What keeps me coming back is the Cheese & Onion Bread, a soft white loaf swirled with cheddar cheese and golden onions and packed with garden herbs. A $6 loaf is a savoury steal at approximately 46 cents a slice.
Even better, The Roost owners grow their own red spring wheat, mill it at the farm, and use the flour for baking. Vancouver writers Alisa Smith and J.B. MacKinnon celebrated this sustainable field-to-table enterprise in their recent book, The 100-Mile Diet.
Looking to splurge? Host a tea party for 60 farm-friendly friends in the Roost’s “Secret Garden.” For $825, The Roost will provide tea, fruit platters, mini scones with local jam and Devonshire cream, sandwiches made from bakery-fresh bread—cut in dainty quarters, of course— and, for dessert, assorted cookies, squares, and brownies. Groups as small as 20 can be accommodated; $13.75 per person.
The Roost offers dining in the bakery/cafe as well as inside this charmingly converted old bus. Photo: Susan Rybar
- The Roost (250-655-0075; www.roostfarmcentre.com), 9100 East Saanich Road, North Saanich, BC
