Published: February 23, 2007 05:23 pm            

THE DISH: Lunch at Casa Antica with Brother Augustine

How many times has it been said? It’s all in the presentation. Both the restaurant and the guest of today’s The Dish column have reputations for exquisite presentations.

The Guest: Brother Augustine Towey

First, the guest. If there is a list somewhere that names people who would make delightful company for lunch, my guest — Brother Augustine Towey — would be on it. For those in the community wondering what he has been up to lately, the renowned creator of the theater department at Niagara University, allegedly retired several years ago, but you wouldn’t know that to talk with him. “Bro,” as he is known to his legion of friends, can still be found in the same place he’s been for the last 40 years: continuing his evolution as a writer, director and poet at NU.

The Restaurant: Casa Antica, Lewiston

It was lovely synchronicity, then, that the restaurant we chose to meet in recently was also in the process of evolving. Casa Antica in Lewiston has a new name, but the ownership remains in the family that has helped to create its reputation as a place for artisan Mediterranean food.

The restaurant, formerly Villa Fortunata’s, has been given a fresh new look, with a buttery coat of paint and a classy new bar area for the dining room, but the menu continues to offer Italian favorites with panache and comfort food with a flourish. Patrons of this restaurant can count on the freshest ingredients, dishes prepared in any manner you request, and a visit during the meal from someone in the family to make sure you are happy with your choice.

Brother Augustine and I were seated at a table near the window, and we were quickly served the appetizers that are compliments of the house. This triple treat include caponata (eggplant in tomato sauce); olive paste and a red bean mixture in olive oil. Dip into any of these with the homemade garlic knots, pizza and bread from the bread basket, and you have a little taste of Italian heaven.

What has the “Bro” been up to?

While waiting for our salads, Brother Augustine and I were able to continue a long conversation which started with, “so what have you been up to lately?”

In short, since retirement, Brother Augustine has beaten back a few threatening illnesses, continued his extensive travel around the globe with plans for more, is waiting on the spring publication of his anthology book of poetry, and has a world-premiere play that he has written opening next month at the college. As an aside, he’s currently in production for the student’s short play series, and he’s looking forward to directing the college’s spring productions of “As You Like It” and “Fiddler on the Roof.”

While retirement has allowed “Bro” to tip his hat and leave his office in the afternoon each day, it also provided a blessing of downtime that first year, because just a few months after he left his full-time post, he discovered he had bladder cancer. He also had to contend with a quintuple bypass heart surgery.

Unusual heart surgery

The whole experience involved strenuous testing and a month in the hospital, but the healing time for the heart surgery was reduced by a unique surgery invented by his doctor, who took the veins from his arms rather than his legs.

“I had wonderful care and wonderful people around me,” he said. “My hospital room looked like an Irish wake. There were flowers everywhere.”

“One day, I even got a phone call from Chita Rivera,” he smiled.

“I took the year to recuperate, and then I went back to teaching senior acting,” he noted. This past year, he directed two big productions including an opera about cloning for Opera Sacra, in Buffalo, called “Partheno Genesis,” and a musical called “A Man of No Importance.” He’s looking forward to producing another “absolutely gorgeous” opera for Opera Sacra, based on the Catholic mass, something Leonard Bernstein wrote at the request of Jackie Kennedy for the opening of the Kennedy Center.

The meal: Snow white sea bass

As we talked, our salads came: beautiful, crisp field greens with a nice house vinaigrette dressing. Then lunch. I ordered the day’s special, a sea bass with angel hair pasta, which arrived looking like a cook book photo. The bass, snow white and a couple inches high, was presented with a crown of fresh tomato sauce, and I detected some subtle flavors that included big, plump raisins. Crisp green beans framed the fish in a three dimensional design, and like much of the food I’ve had cooked by Chef Jack Soldano, you simply have to admire the food before you eat it. Jack makes several dishes that keep my husband and I on the list of his happy regulars, including Osso Bucco, Stuffed Bragioile and a fettucine Alfredo that my husband declares is the best he has ever tasted.

As for Brother Augustine, carefully watching his diet, he enjoyed a simple pasta oilio (with olive oil) after his salad, but he and I agreed that even a simple dish is elevated by a caring chef, and “Bro” declared it “very good pasta.”

Personally, I have to be honest, I like this place and these people so much that I asked them to cater my youngest son’s graduation party. Not only did I find it to be less expensive than when I cooked myself for my older son’s graduation, and not only did I have a much better time at the party because I wasn’t cooking, but my friends and family are still talking about how unusual and wonderful the food was.

More conversation: Bro’s play premiere

Dishes pushed aside, I ordered an espresso while Brother Augustine told me about his new play, created around a set of letters purchased on the Internet, detailing the life of a Niagara University student in the years 1911 through 1914. The play, which runs March 30 through April 1 at The Church in Lewiston, is called “Letters Home from Niagara.”

“This is a play about family,” the brother told me. “It’s about absence, about being away from home and missing each other. Young people don’t express that too much,” he said.

I asked him, after spending his life immersed in plays, which was his favorite production, and he smiled. “I always say it’s the one that I’m working on.” But, when I persisted, he told me his favorite of all time was “King Lear” by Shakespeare. I winced, because I struggled through Shakespeare in school, and he gave me an understanding smile.

“Rent the DVD of the movie starring Laurence Olivier,” he advised. “The play has everything there is to say about life and human behavior.”

The end: finishing a great meal and conversation

As we were finishing up, Angela, Jack’s lovely, dark-haired daughter who now runs the restaurant with her brother, Calogero (Charlie), came up and offered us a complimentary Limoncello. We both declined, but I must note here that if you ever have the opportunity to try one, do, as it is the most delicate lemony after-dinner drink, and utterly agreeable.

To end the delicious lunch and the compelling conversation, I asked Brother Augustine an impossible question: What he was planning to do with the rest of his life?

“I just want to write more poetry,” he said, thoughtfully, explaining that he loved poetry because it allows one to “express certain emotions more immediately,” than other forms of art. And “I’m hoping to travel more, to Spain, or Greece — and I’d love to go back to Italy.”

Apparently, he intends to remain intimately involved in the world, perhaps as homage to a younger self, who once wore love beads, grew his hair long, and protested the war.

“I called Congresswoman Slaughter the other day to tell her I think we need to get out of Iraq,” he admitted.

With the dramatic resolve appropriate for a man who spent forty years crafting an acclaimed drama department, he closed with this: “W.H. Auden, a poet whom I love, ends one of his poems with the line, ‘we must love one another or die.’” 

 “...and I think that’s true,” he said.

As we left the restaurant, I thought to myself how, like a stone tossed into the water creates far ranging ripples, Brother Augustine surely has touched so many with the gifts of his heart and soul.

To have shared a meal with him in such a lovely place, felt like a little blessing of my very own.



Contact Michele DeLuca at 693-1000, Ext. 157.





IF YOU GO

WHAT: Casa Antica.

WHERE: 490 Center St., Lewiston.

HOURS: Monday-Thursday, 5 p.m. to 9 p.m., Friday and Saturday, 5 p.m. to 10 p.m., Sunday, 4 p.m. to 9 p.m. Lunch Friday from noon to 3 p.m.

CUISINE: Upscale and traditional Italian.

METHODS OF PAYMENT: Cash, Mastercard, Visa and American Express.

NOTES: New Italian buffet at 5:30 p.m. each Wednesday at 5:30 p.m.; St. Joseph’s Table planned for March 18.





POEM

The Song in the Garden



by Brother Augustine Towey, CM



Dearest, under the dark bark of trees

Tall at the start of the woods

Your music began long ago.



I never heard them then,

Your songs, ribboned around

Trunks sometimes; sometimes

Caught in branches of extravagances,

More often suspended -- sustained

(O sostenuto!) -- in the air



In a thicket of my distractions.

What was lost when I left

You was your song.



I sought it again afterwards,

Only afterwards

When the nets were down

And the shutters closed.



I would halt in silence and listen

To hear what you had sung;

I spoke your name in a garden

Once to recover your song,

As if flowers might remember.













        

• Click to discuss this story with other readers on our forums.