Brian Alsford

Farewell to a friend
By Ron Eade
Citizen Food editor

The greatest legacy one can hope to leave behind, I think, is a feeling of genuine love and affection held by those we have touched. So it is with particular sadness that I reflect on the passing of an affable and kind man, Brian Alsford, 60, who is today mourned by family and so many friends.

Brian was the smile behind the counter at Brian’s Butchery & Sons on Cobden Road in west-end Ottawa, by any measure a small family business with a loyal following of customers drawn by his cheerful demeanour.

Brian died on Thursday after a brief battle with esophagus cancer.

"He was always very polite, very thoughtful and cheerful," recalls Jack O’Neil, a customer of 15 years.

"His product was always excellent — fresh and properly trimmed. His steak was always cut properly, and it was a real family business. This is quite a shock."

No less saddened is Khalil Rabay, owner of Iris Food Mart next door in the little strip mall, and friend of 16 years.

"We were always very good to each other," Mr. Rabay says. "He was a hard worker, honest, friendly, always with a happy face. We will miss him."

Born in London, Brian in 1963 achieved a Duke of Edinburgh gold award for achievement at the age of 17. He honed his trade skills at the Institute of Meat in England, where he obtained his Craftsmanship of Meat certificate in 1964. A butcher for more than 40 years, at one time he taught a retail meat cutting course at Algonquin College.

I first met him almost 10 years ago while researching a Food story about steak for the barbecue. I quickly discovered this man was passionate about his trade and the products he sells, a characteristic that always draws me to people in the food business.

He insisted on nothing less than Alberta beef, which he aged a minimum of 21 days for flavour and tenderness.

"Even if you start with Western beef, if you don’t age it then it won’t be tender," he told me with conviction.

In another article seven years later, a Citizen tasting panel with two top chefs picked Brian’s rib steak as the most perfectly cut and trimmed from 19 samples purchased across the city.

For my family, I chose ground beef only from Brian because I knew he was the man who prepared it with care.

I also went to him for specialty cuts like pork belly, shoulder and beef brisket because I knew his quality is consistent and would not be an issue when testing recipes for the Citizen.

Three years ago, Food columnist Gay Cook turned to Brian for a story about deboning turkey for Thanksgiving. Cooks at home who may be intimidated by the task, she wrote, could always ask Brian to debone their birds for a small fee …

Little did the butcher imagine the response among readers: For Thanksgiving in 2003, he spent at least 80 hours deboning 100 turkeys for customers after the article appeared. "He wasn’t really expecting to debone that many turkeys," says Bradley Alsford, 31, one of five children, all of whom have worked at the store at various times since Brian bought the business in 1989.

"He started deboning turkeys for a few people, and it snowballed from there."

Few people knew this, but, in England, Brian was a vocalist and professional musician on the keyboard and bass guitar. His band, called Amalgamation, recorded albums and toured Europe beginning in 1969, and opened for such British rock stars as The Who and Rod Stewart.

But the economy in Britain was not at its best in those days, and in 1976 Brian immigrated to Canada with his wife, Suellen, and children Melanie, now 36, Daniel, 34, and Bradley. Canada was a land of opportunity, he reasoned, so he joined his parents and sister who had already landed in the Ottawa area. "Once he had us, his music came second so he moved here for a better future for his kids," Bradley recalls.

Daughters Krystal, 23, and Alexandra, 19, were born in Ottawa.

Brian worked at Steinberg’s before opening his own butchery about a dozen years later.

"He was brought up in the old school where everyone was special," Bradley says. "And, basically, he passed that along to us."

Young children who dropped by with their parents soon discovered Brian kept a stash of lollipops for them under the counter. (One youngster, now a grown woman, wrote a touching poem of her memories on learning that he died.)

"No matter how bad a day you may be having, the customer always came first," Bradley says.

"While he was serving one person, his attention was always on them and he was interested in what they had to say, in their lives and their kids."

Daniel adds: "He took his craft beyond just cutting meat. He’d tell customers what they could do with a particular cut, whether it was marinating or smoking, roasting or braising.

"The store was such a big part of his life; it was his passion. They weren’t just customers, they were his friends."

Among the little extras, customers appreciated Brian’s signature marinade based on a recipe handed down years ago from his mentors in Britain.

I once tried to pry the secret from him for the Citizen, but Brian would not let it out. "I promised I would never divulge the recipe," he told me, "nor would I ever charge extra for meats marinated with it."

To this day, a sign on the counter proclaims that marinating is free.

Brian made his own meat pies, sausages, frozen dinners and meatballs sold in the store. "There hasn’t been an employee here from outside the family for at least nine years," Bradley says.

In many ways the story of Brian Alsford and his little butcher shop around the corner is one of so many unassuming mom-and-pop businesses that punctuate so many neighbourhoods across this land. Brian didn’t forge a big corporate conglomerate, he didn’t broker world peace, nor did he discover a cure for some horrible disease. But his memory burns bright among those who knew him as a good and decent man, a chap who came to this country to build upon his optimism with a growing young family.

Customers may take solace in the fact that son Daniel, a product manager at an electronics company in New Zealand, plans to relocate with his wife and two young children to run the store in Ottawa. As it was with the other Alsford children, Daniel learned the trade through years of hands-on training at his father’s side.

In the next two months or so, Brian’s Butchery & Sons will be run by Bradley, who works in the local high-tech industry. Dad never pressured the kids to take up the family business, but that is what they have now decided to do.

"I know he would absolutely love to see us here," Daniel says.

We do too.

A funeral service for family and friends will be held at 1 p.m. Thursday, January 11th at Britannia United Church, 985 Pinecrest Rd.