“The whole idea of Prontissima Pasta was born of busy nights, not feeling like cooking, but not wanting take-out food and not wanting to go to a restaurant,” says owner Sarah Walsh at her Tintown storefront.
Photo by Boomer Jerritt
It’s a typical Friday afternoon at Prontissima Pasta in ‘Tintown’—otherwise known as Rosewall Crescent in Courtenay. Customers are browsing the products in the storefront coolers and shelves, lining up to get ingredients for the evening dinner. Proprietor Sarah Walsh is preparing for the Comox Valley Farmers’ Market on Saturday, but being a master at multi-tasking, manages to satisfy everyone with a full shopping basket and a whetted appetite.
“The whole idea of Prontissima Pasta was born of busy nights, not feeling like cooking, but not wanting take-out food and not wanting to go to a restaurant,” says Walsh in between customers. “The idea is that it’s a quick gourmet meal that you put together at home but takes only 15 minutes total. Then you have a meal where you know all the ingredients are good and it hasn’t taken any time to put together. Pronto means ready, so Prontissima means ‘really ready’!”
A few minutes earlier Walsh was behind the scenes in the kitchen, labeling containers of Artichoke & Roasted Garlic Pesto. “This is our number-one-selling pesto,” she says, sticking the circular labels on multi-sized containers. “It’s our own creation, from a recipe just from my head. It turned out to be a great hit—we have to make it every weekend.”
Their products have a wide-ranging distribution. “We sell the pasta to Edible Island, the pesto to Butcher’s Block, Edible Island, Seeds Market in Cumberland, Healthy Way Organic Foods in Campbell River, Sunshine Organics, which is a home delivery of organic groceries, then we sell here and at the Farmers’ Market. We stay at the outdoor market until October 22, and then move indoors to the Native Sons Hall—we go all year round now.”
While the labeling continues, a couple of plumbers in the kitchen replacing a faucet seem to be getting distracted from their work as Walsh describes her products. Everything is natural with no preservatives. “We started with a traditional egg pasta,” continues Walsh, “then the Citrus Black Pepper, and the Chipotle and Lime, and the Spinach. The Spinach pasta has real spinach in it. A lot of fresh pasta will have dehydrated spinach powder, but ours, you can see the fibers of spinach.
Recent additions to their pasta menu include Paprika and Oregano, and Curry, but perhaps their most exotic pasta creation is flavored with squid ink. “We’re waiting for our shipment of squid ink to come in,” says Walsh, smiling. “The pasta becomes black—it’s not a strong flavor, but the oils from the ink give the pasta a really nice texture. You just put a little lemon and salt on it—it has a really silky flavor.”
The plumbers are definitely listening now. “You’re making me hungry!” says a voice from under the cabinet. Walsh has barely begun to describe the mouth-watering pasta and pesto combinations possible. “Some pastas we do seasonally, like the Pumpkin pasta—people wait for it. Our first batch was yesterday, so people were coming for it. We finish making that around March. We also do beet pasta; it gets the real beet flavor.”
With all these flavors, Walsh has trouble choosing a personal favorite. “If we’re having prawns, I really like the Citrus Black Pepper with the basil pesto,” she says. “With salmon, I love the Carrot and Dill pasta; with red meat, I would go with one of our tomato sauces like Sun-dried Tomato. The fun is making all the different combinations. Customers often tell us what they’ve done and give ideas.”
As if on cue, a flurry of customers entering the shop interrupts the descriptions. Walsh is instantly out providing suggestions to the first young woman for tonight’s dinner. “We made a batch of Pumpkin pasta yesterday—it’s very pumpkin-y! The combo with walnut pesto and fresh chopped parsley is really good.”
As the customer browses the shelves for other ingredients—including such delicacies as Bison Sausage, Black Truffle Purée and Apple and Sage Jelly—Walsh greets the next couple, who are regulars. They had Chipotle and Lime pasta the last time and want some recommendations on combinations. “I would go traditional or Spinach with tomato sauce so you get the flavor of the sauces,” Walsh recommends. “With the Curry pasta, I would do the Black Olive or Artichoke Roasted Garlic pesto.”
Along with the nuances of the dozen different pasta shapes, Walsh calls out the preparation instructions as they leave the shop: “The instructions are all on the package!” The next young woman, with a baby, is buying shell pasta stuffed with spinach, ricotta and basil. “It’s the same filling we put in the lasagna,” says Walsh, indicating the coolers packed with prepared servings. “It’s pre-made, but not baked—when you bake them it tastes just like you just made them.”
Many customers get their entire meal in this one location. “The storefront allows us to offer all the other things that go with pasta and Italian fine food. It’s basically about completing the meal,” says Walsh. “You can get everything from an appetizer to dessert, like Benino Gelato or Dark Side Chocolates. If you need olive oil, it’s here. Parmesan is here. Or if you want some meat with the meal… I try to keep all the meats local.”
Walsh appreciates the support of the Tintown community—many parents stop in after classes at the Motif Music School or Gemini Dance Studio. “Rosewall is a good location, a nice community,” she notes. “It’s the right location for a production area.”
The Freakin’ Coffee Shop on Rosewall Crescent is another supporter. “We make a pasta bake for them—a short pasta combined with a pesto and local Natural Pastures cheese that we sell, then they serve it up hot on a Friday and people can go and try it there. We’re not going to get into being a restaurant!”
Several restaurants already serve Prontissima Pasta products. “Locals Restaurant has been with us since the beginning,” says Walsh. “The Kingfisher, Atlas, Toto’s in Comox, the Royal Coachman in Campbell River, Strathcona Park Lodge, the Old House—they order every week. Then we have a Quadra following—my mom and dad live on Quadra so my mom picks up a Quadra delivery every week.”
Walsh’s husband, Wally, also helps with the deliveries, though he has another job. “He’s really a carpenter!” she says with a laugh.
Walsh’s career in pasta began as a result of the couple’s adventures traveling. After getting married in Canada in 2001, the couple sold their house in Dublin and headed to Spain to buy a sailboat. Their plan was to fulfill their dreams of traveling by sailboat and explore the different cultures and food of the Mediterranean.
Three years into their sailing adventure, they pulled into one of the most historic ports in history; Venice, Italy. It was there that they fell in love with Italy and met friends Toni and Anna, who inspired them and planted the seed of passion for Italian food. In addition to teaching them the Italian language—they had arrived knowing only a few words—Toni and Anna also taught them many traditional family recipes and the art of making fresh pasta, “La pasta fresca”. From their first lesson in Toni and Anna’s kitchen, they were convinced that fresh pasta was something special and delicious. A month later, their Venetian friends threw Walsh a birthday party and gifted her with her first fresh pasta machine.
When they returned to the Canada and the Comox Valley in 2005, they decided to put the skills Walsh had learned to good use, and started Prontissima Pasta. She still counts on the moral support of her friends and mentors, Toni and Anna. “We speak on the phone often—they get very excited about what we are doing. Anna is just a really great woman, and Toni always wants to know how many kilos of flour we go through!”
Today, Walsh shares pasta-making duties with Judith Storring, “our other ‘Pasta Master’.” Prontissima Pasta started out home-based before moving to Tintown a year ago. “The whole time we’ve been in business there’s been a steady increase every year,” says Walsh. “The whole local food movement has been a big hit.”
While well-known locally, the pasta will soon be known nationally. “We actually just found out on the weekend that we were mentioned in Chatelaine Magazine with Locals Restaurant,” says Walsh. “We didn’t know that was going to happen! The Chatelaine food writer went across Canada—they called it a ‘Tasty Road Trip’. They highlighted quite a bit of the Comox Valley, like Fanny Bay Oysters, and our Farmers’ Market. We were mentioned with Locals by Ronald St. Pierre who uses our pasta. So that was exciting! It’s the October issue, out now.”
Walsh notes only Canadian Durum Semolina flour is used in their pasta. “They can grow it in the Ukraine too, so in Italy, they would get it from there,” she says. “It’s an unbleached flour, ground from the kernel of the wheat so it’s considered a whole grain. It’s a slow release carb so it’s considered a good carbohydrate. Also it’s lower on the glycemic index, so can be in the diabetic diet once a week or so.”
A couple other specialty products are wheat free. “We make an ancient grain pasta with organic spelt and organic kaput,” says Walsh. “We want to do more products, more stuffed pastas—we eventually want to get a machine that makes ravioli, because you can be creative with the fillings, and it’s a nice frozen meal too.”
The entire range of pasta shapes are made from only two machines at the back of the kitchen. Walsh laughs. “That’s it! Our machines have all the different attachments—we don’t need a lot of space. We make up the pasta flavor and then decide what shape to make it—everything from fusilli to shells to penne to linguini or fettuccine. We can do sheets for lasagna and cannelloni.”
For now, local gourmets can not only get a taste at the restaurants, but at the Rosewall storefront. “We do ‘Sample Saturdays’ between 1:30 and 3:30, every Saturday but the long weekends,” says Walsh. “We give out free samples—different combinations of pasta and pesto. It’s a good way for people to try different combos.”
Remembering that tomorrow is Saturday, Walsh heads back into the kitchen. “I have to get back to work to make pumpkin pasta for tomorrow’s Farmers’ Market!”