In The Boutique

The cure for the common cold shoulder

Tired of noisy malls and indifferent “sales associates”?

Try Christmas shopping where the welcome is genuine!

For over 40 years, PaSu has been dedicated to providing you high quality items at a reasonable price in a relaxing ambiance.

Right now, pick up a pair of authentic Rabbit Fur Slippers, hand-made in Canada by Indigenous people, for just $80! These slippers are not only beautiful, they’re very comfortable.

You’ll also enjoy 15% off our knitted wool mittens and toques!

For that special man, PaSu has some impressive and richly woven Aran Crafts cardigans, knitted with the finest Aran wool. Traditionally designed with authentic Aran stitches, these cardigans are both stylish and incredibly warm, perfect for protection against the elements.

Speaking of warmth, PaSu also offers a fine selection of mohair socks. Make cold feet a thing of the past! These socks are so warm they’re used by climbers on Mt. Everest and in the Antarctic!

Hikers, or anybody who wants to give their feet a break, will also appreciate our own hand-crafted pure lamb’s wool Footsies. These inexpensive little gems make perfect stocking stuffers! Each Footsie is a full ounce of washed and carded pure wool, with much of the lanolin retained, and can be used in ballet shoes, ski boots, golf shoes, hikers, runners or normal shoes. Wicks away moisture and is a miracle relief to stressed feet.

Of course, sheepskin mitts are a perennial favourite. These elegant mitts are made with top quality shearling with a roll cuff, and will keep hands warm even in extreme temperatures.

Our little alpaca teddy bears are such a delightful gift – very, very soft and loveable – and our alpaca socks are to die for. Wonderfully fun and soft. The perfect gift.

For the artists on your list, how about a pillow case with a fun and whimsical drawing they can paint themselves in whatever colours they choose. Made for ages 4 to 13, but adults enjoy them, too. A hot iron sets the colour and the painting will stay bright for at least four to five years, even after regular washing and drying. The paints are non-toxic, vibrant, professional fabric paints.

And check out our collection of head bands and leg warmer socks. So comfortable and beneficial.

We invite you to leave all the frenzy behind, and do some of your Christmas shopping in the comfortable ease and friendship of the PaSu Boutique, where winter is warmer!

Victorian Christmas Dinners

Christmas Elegance in a Country Setting

We still have a few places left for this perennial favourite, but please reserve your table as soon as possible.

PaSu is so pleased to carry on the tradition of our refined eight-course, plate service, English Victorian Christmas Dinner. For years now, this evening has been a tradition much loved by people who enjoy experiencing a certain elegance at Christmas.

The entrée is a choice between roast leg of lamb and prime rib, both served with a delicate Yorkshire pudding, roast dauphinoise potatoes, fresh green beans, and honey dill carrots.

Prior to the main course, you’ll be treated to duck terrine with orange and Cumberland sauce, our famous apple stilton soup, Dover sole with mornay sauce and mushrooms, and passion fruit and champagne sorbet.

After the main course, you’ll enjoy a traditional Christmas pudding with hard sauce and English custard, a selection of fine cheeses, biscuits and fruit, and tea or coffee.

To enhance the warm, hospitable atmosphere our staff will be dressed in Victorian garb, candles and crackers will be placed on the table and the plum pudding will be flamed for all to see.

PaSu has an excellent wine list, but if you would like to bring your own special bottle, our corkage feel is just $18.50.

Dates: December 16^th and 23^rd

Time: Seating and cocktails from 5:30. First course served at 6:15.

Cost: Only $97.50 per ticket, and that includes service, also known as the tip!

Reservations are essential and this dinner books up fast! Call 403-337-2800 or 1-800-679-7999.

Special Christmas Hours and Goodies

We want to give you a little extra time and your schedule a bit more flexibility as you get ready for the holidays. We are normally closed on Mondays, but we will be opening the Boutique each Monday before Christmas, starting December 4^th.

As usual, we’ll be serving hot cider and cookies or cakes during the festive season prior to Christmas.

The Boutique will also be open Christmas Eve (Sunday the 24^th) until 4pm, and New Year's Eve (Sunday the 31^st) until 4pm. The Boutique will be closed Christmas Day, Boxing Day, and New Year's Day, reopening Tuesday, January 2^nd. We’ll be open regular hours (10am to 5pm) December 27^th, 28^th, 29^th and 30^th.

The Restaurant will be open normal hours during the holidays, except for December 24^th, 25^th, 26^th, and 31^st, and January 1^st, when the Restaurant will be closed. The Restaurant will reopen Tuesday, January 2^nd.

On the last Saturday before the New Year, December 30^th, the Restaurant will offer our famous carvery service at lunchtime. We invite you to enjoy this delicious way to close out the year.

We would love to see you on the days we’re open between Christmas and New Year's, and look forward to making the holidays even more special for you.

Gift Certificates

The perfect present for discerning diners and savvy shoppers. Call us at 403-337-2800 or 1-800-679-7999 and we’ll create a PaSu gift certificate especially for you.

Winter Wellness

At this time of year, it’s not unusual to notice your skin starting to feel a bit drier and rougher. If so, you might appreciate soothing solutions that don’t require you to be a chemical engineer in order to know what you’re putting on your skin!

Welcome to the PaSu collection of moisturizing creams and lotions. Developed over many years, these fine preparations will have your skin feeling like you’re on a tropical vacation.

PaSu Relaxing Lotion gently moisturizes the skin and leaves it feeling soft. Essential oils of lavender and citrus will have a relaxing effect.

PaSu Invigorating Lotion is made from lanolin, avocado, and macadamia nut oil that gently moisturizes the body. Essential oils and a unique combination of citrus oils have an invigorating effect.

PaSu Intensive Foot Cream contains lanolin, cocoa butter, essential oils, peppermint and tea tree oil. Say goodbye to dry cracked heels!

PaSu Hand Cream is ideal for those who work hard with their hands and for dry, chapped hands. A no-nonsense cream that is enjoyed by both men and women. Contains lanolin, cacao butter, a synergetic blend of essential oils to help de-stress you, plus tea tree oil.

PaSu Face Cream is a rich, rejuvenating cream. Use sparingly. Contains lanolin, cocoa butter, vitamins A, D, E, essential oils of carrot seed, rose geranium, palmarosa and tea tree oil. Recommended for night use.

Pat's Perspectives

Memories of Christmas in South Africa

As the days shorten and begin to grow colder, I turn my thoughts from the cares of the past year and begin to contemplate the Christmas season. For me, this is a time for celebration and a time to share.

There is something very special about Christmas. I have never grown tired of it. Indeed, each year I look forward to it with joyful anticipation.

What I really hope for is a Christmas with lots of snow, big white drifts against the house, smoke curling from the chimney, pretty coloured lights everywhere and folk in warm clothing pulling sleighs.

Every year I long for this experience, because as a kid growing up in South Africa, I was deprived of it. My access to the “real” world of Christmas came from comics and department store windows, with their enchanting snowy winter themes. I can still remember, although I must have been only six or seven, the big window in the front of Greatermans. They decorated it with pine trees covered in white fluffy, ersatz snow. On a small mound there were a couple of manikin kids lying on a sleigh. They had rigged the scene so that snow was blowing all over the place. From a speaker above the display came the "rapturous" melody of Jingle Bells being played over and over.

I spent hours in front of that window in my sandals, shorts and beach hat. The humidity at that time of the year was always high, and my shirt would stick to my back despite the fact that I was in the shade of the building. There would be others there of all ages equally entranced with the winter scene.

Had I been older and wiser, the expressions of the people around me would have been fascinating. Both Africans and Europeans of all ages stopped a moment to admire the scene. I know now that every European person there was either reliving past Christmases, or like me, dreaming of experiencing a real Christmas one day.

The Africans, however, were totally perplexed by the whole thing. In a country where the temperature hovered in the thirties at this time of the year, and even in the middle of winter only dropped to the high teens or low twenties, snow was an inconceivable concept. They had no folk tales about it. No wise toothless sage sat by the cooking fire and told tales about Santa, the North Pole, or little elves in green tights and hats with bells.

So, Christmas was a bewildering concept to them as all the pageants and the decorations of this season were imported by the white colonials in homage to their nostalgic memories. Nothing of the African culture was incorporated into this special occasion except for the feasting and making merry, for which every African has an inborn propensity and always gave it full throttle.

Christianity was well established in Africa by the time I was a boy, and to many the more auspicious event of the birth of Christ was celebrated in earnest. This, however, did not distract from the central theme of making very, very merry, but only gave it a more meaningful substance. Truly, Africans really knew how to celebrate the birth of a child, and since the white folk seemed to believe that this particular birth deserved to be feasted, the Africans were not going to short change the occasion. Those not inclined to Christianity did not have their fervor in any way curtailed by lack of faith. They were usually the soul of the party, ready to accept the event for whatever reason.

Christmas celebrations were so serious that Boxing Day was declared a day of recuperation. No businesses were open. Europeans typically nursed their livers by the pool side after having eaten a traditional English Christmas meal totally ill-suited to the sweltering climate. The Africans just enjoyed another party day. Their diet was far more in keeping with the environment and the season. The days between Christmas and New Year were used for essential services only. Most factories closed for two weeks over the season to let the celebration run its course.

We have now been in Canada for several decades, and for me the discomforts of winter are always dispelled by my thoughts of Christmas, family, friends, parties and a warm exchange of gifts no matter how big or small.

I’m always reminded that Christmas is not just a Christian celebration. I learned that in Africa, where everyone got in on the act. Indeed, I think that anyone who insists upon such a tenet, is being a little selfish, especially considering the Christmas season appears have its origins in the ancestors looking to celebrate the season in order to break the monotony of winter. The wise old sages at the time determined that the advent of the return of light was a wonderful and portentous occasion to whoop it up.

Now, the fact that both the Christmas celebration and the festivals marking the return of the light fall at about the same time of year is more than mere coincidence, and proved an excellent strategy by those who were spreading the Gospels. In essence, it means that the celebration is universal and can be shared by all.

Of course, there are always doom and gloom ascetics who see Christmas in a rather singular way and vociferously denounce the commercialization and festivities surrounding this period. I find their incessant whining rather irritating.

But despite the bellyaching from some corners, Christmas for me will always be a celebration and a time to make merry, each in his or her own way. I think that it can also be a time to bridge gaps between all humanity and those less fortunate than ourselves, while having a lot of fun doing it.

I sincerely hope you have the merriest and most heartfelt of Christmases.

Your Own Private Country Oasis

Host your next gathering in the relaxing tranquility of PaSu Farm

Make any occasion easier and more enjoyable. This year, host that special anniversary, birthday, or other event in the carefree casual elegance of our scenic countryside haven.

Imagine strolling about the grounds, taking in the gorgeous view as you anticipate a dining experience that has been ranked among the best in Alberta. Or sitting back in the large restaurant area letting our thoughtful staff cater to every essential.

PaSu can host gatherings for up to 100 people, with a menu created to suit your needs. The food is always prepared from scratch, using the very best ingredients, often grown right on our farm. Simple, healthy cuisine or fine, formal dining. Your choice.

You and your group will love the non-commercial, warm and friendly ambience, far from the maddening crowd.

Just leave everything to your gracious hosts, Pat and Sue, and feel the rolling hills of the PaSu countryside infuse your event with cheerfulness and harmony.

Call 403-337-2800 or 1-800-679-7999 to speak with our event planner.

Food Angels!

Thinking about a little winter get-together with friends or family?

Planning a party or a gathering can mean endless details. Who has time to prepare nutritious food as well?

We do!

For your event, we know you need the food fast but you don’t want fast food!

Could you use an angel to help with the meals?

Food Angels

It’s PaSu’s Food Angels to the rescue! We supply custom meals ready to serve or frozen. Everything from delicious home-made soups and sandwiches to pies, stews, curries and scrumptious desserts.

Call us at 403-337-2800 by noon, and you can pick up a fresh, nutritious meal between 4:00 and 5:00 the same day!

Try the PaSu Farm Food Angels. And enjoy heavenly peace of mind.

Fun Facts About Sheep

Sheep are thought to have descended from wild mouflon that roamed Europe and Asia. They were particularly common in ancient Mesopotamia, an area that covered a large portion of what we now call the Middle East.

These ancestors had mighty horns with which to defend themselves, but humans largely bred those out of modern sheep, after they were domesticated between 11000 and 9000 BC for the use of their woollen fleece, meat and milk.

Nowadays, domestic sheep are bred to be big fluffy creatures, covered in wool that never stops growing.

Visit PaSu at the Calgary Farmer’s Market

Christmas shopping convenience!

Did you know you can also do your Christmas shopping with PaSu at the Calgary Farmer’s Market South, on Blackfoot Trail near Heritage Drive. We hope you’ll drop in and give us a chance to make your day a little brighter.