ONE DAY almost 20 years ago, we were dining in an old
yellow house at the south foot of Hornby, near the kitchen
door of Umberto Menghi’s new restaurant.

Gary.
Bannerman

Umberto had moved from
Gastown, following the lead of a
friend. Jean Paul Patertini had
launched the Pacific Avenue res-
taurant district in 1972, with his
tiny, sxperb L’Escargot.

We were sipping soup at
Umberto’s when a solidity built,
broad-chested waiter, emerged
from the kitchen carrying a tray
of food. Wearing a white shirt
and tie, and an ankle-length
apron, the waiter abruptly stopped
and burst into an operatic solo.

As my spoon descended into the
esophagus, I was about to have
my first meeting with Franco

i.

The entire city would learn
‘about Francesco Alonghi’s culi-
nary talents, when he opened his
own Richards Street restaurant,
but for years, his marvellous sing-
ing voice gave Umberto an edge
on the competition...

This flashback came to me as
we encountered this week an im-
portant bit of North Shore news:
the nasne Verdicchio is back in the
Vancouver restaurant scene.

Frauce (also Francesco) Verdic-
chio sold his Muin and Broadway
restaurant in 1987. He joined
brothers Joe and Alfredo at the
West Vancouver institution Pep-

pi’s

Whea they sold the landmark to
Klaus Faerniss in carly 1991,
Franco staried planning a come-
back.

Last Monday, he and his wife
Sharon opened a beautiful new
restaurant at 2042 West 4th Ave.

Withovt a word of advertising,
the jungle grapevine racec through
the North Shore. Peppi’s regulars
and friends filled the establish-
ment...

They joined the curious West
4th Avenue habitues, who have
been quite spoiled ‘by the
oeighboring Italian fare at Por-
tobello, Chianti and Ruffino (the

. latter two are separate restaurants
with different owners). This area
is now as Italian as Cornmercial
Drive.

As we dined Monday night,
waiter Mark Grimaidi-Booden
(Italian mother, Dutch father),
paused to sing a beautiful aria.
We had heard this 25-year-old
tenor before (at Peppi’s).

He has performed with several

_ Canadian opera companies, and,
last year, he enjoyed a career
highiight in the company-of _
Rome’s celebrated Teatro
dell’Opera for a concert in:
Abruzzo.

‘Between operatic opportunities, :
Mark and his wife Jennifer will
serve customers at Verdicchio’s on

. 4th Avenue.

When we voiced our only com- .
plaint to the management, Sharon

. promised to make the appropriate

changes.

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OPEN LINES

We suggested that the elegance
was better suited to a Four
Seasons Hotel. Noted for my
unique sense of restaurant design,
T suggested carloads of Italian
junk and photos.

We also dined this week with
Jack Munro, now the chairman of
the Forest Alliance, the 4,000-
member organization uniting all
of the groups who care about the
province’s forests: industry, labor,
environmentalists, politicians and
recreational users.

Munro presented a colorful
Forest Alliance T-shirt.

“See these little trees?”’ he ask-
ed, with a huge finger stopping on
a small drawing. ‘*When I put on
this shirt they suddenly turn into a
giant stand of first-growth
timber!"

After the headline two weeks

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ago ever this column, ‘‘Kim
Campbell to replace Chuck
Cook?,’’ I became convinced that
my editor is practising for a job
with a London tabloid.

In what was not even the lead
item on the column, I reported
that Justice Minister Kim Camp-
bell denied rumors that she plan-
ned to move from Vancouver

* Centre to contest Cook’s North

Vancouver seat.

Not only did the headline ask
the question, the column had
photos of both Cook and Camp-

* bell.

Under Cook it read, ‘‘...plans
to retire,’” and under the minister,
it asked: “‘ready to move north
ward?”’

Cook was not amused. He
wrote the editor screaming about
‘lies.”? He said we lied about
Kim's proposed move (wrong: we
reported her denial) and we lied
about his impending retirement.

We'll bypass his less than liter-
ate phraseology, but take full
blame for this one.

However, the honorable
member better get onto the phone
and fax rather quickly: everyone
in his own party has — until now
—~ assumed that he would not be
seeking re-election..

Sorry, Chuck.

Surday, September 20, 1992 - North Shore News - 9

Breaking bread with the high and mighty

We shared some Wiener
schnitzel in recent days with Bill
and Lillian Vander Zalma.

The least understood aspect of
the former premier is his capacity
to deliver the occasional intellec-
tual zinger, the kind of thoughts
one would usually assign a student
for a masters thesis.

This week he asked: ‘‘Tell me,
what is the difference between
native self-government, as itis
proposed in Canada, and the trib-
a! homelands as they were created
in South Africa?’’

Derisively called ‘‘Bantustans”’
by Hendrik Verwoerd, blacks were
given full democracy and fusil
autonomy with tribal homelands
such as Transkei, Venda,
Bophuthatswana and the recently
tragic Ciskei.

The move was internationally
condemned as racist.

In Canada, a theoretically simi-
far agreement is considered
brilliant and compassionate.

Vander Zalm also figures in a
splendid new book titled Political
Babble, the 1,000 Dumbest Things
Ever Said by Politicians.

Author David Olive quotes
Richard Nixon (‘‘I would have
made a good Pope’), Dalton

Camp describing Jean Chretien
(‘‘He looks like the driver of the
getaway car’’), and Bob Rae
(‘Being attacked by Joe Clark is
like being savaged by a dead
sheep’’).

A whole chapter — titled
Quayludes — is devoted to the
musings of Dan Quayle. Asked
about his lack of a war record,
Quayle replied: ‘‘1 did not know
in 1969 that I would be in this
room today.”’

In another context, Quayie
described himself as a ‘‘Viet-
nam-era veteran.””

Yet reporter Olive backfills the
book with profound and witty
comments by Pierre Trudeau,
Adlai Stevenson, Winston
Churchill, Margaret Thatcher and
others.

“*T wanted to provide a stark
contrast to the babblings of most
politicians ... to at least show that
there is some intelligence and
humor in public life,’* he told me.

Into this category he placed the
famous Vander Zalm quote, when
he was accused of being all style
and no substance.

“*Style IS substance,”’ Vander
Zalm said.

I could write a book about that
one phrase.
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