Tending to the neighbourhood Exchange District BIZ executive director sees his job as akin to cultivating a garden Homemade: Downtown Edition
By: AV Kitching Posted: 7:00 PM CDT Friday, Aug. 26, 2022

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 25/08/2022 (852 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

‘No, never,” David Pensato says when asked if he’s planning on running for mayor. “I’ve seen enough of that; I would feel frustrated.”

He rolls his sleeves, unpacking groceries as he talks. Today Pensato is cooking us a family favourite: steak with chimichurri, green beans and a salad. He learned to cook by “absorbing” from his parents, watching his mom or helping his dad in the kitchen.

“I’ve talked to other people who have had the same kind of experience. You become an adult and you find yourself doing the things your parents did and you somehow know how to do it. There is enough in your memory that you know how to sort it.”

Pensato’s father, who was originally from Sicily, Italy, emigrated to Argentina before coming to Canada, where he met Pensato’s mother, who came to the country from Portugal.

Pensato recalls being a picky eater as a child, fussy to the point people would worry about him being malnourished. Now there is very little he wouldn’t eat.

“There were certain things my dad would eat that I thought were disgusting that I now really like, a lot of fish, which I couldn’t stand, canned sardines, which I didn’t even like, but now I love them,” he says.

Cooking — and eating — is an integral part of who he is.

“I like cooking and being cooked for. What I am making is not comfort food, necessarily; it’s celebration food. It’s enjoying-life food, enjoying it together with friends and family.

“I think it may be my favourite thing in the world: getting together with friends and family, cooking and eating together, that just all goes together really well… enjoying people’s company.”

Pensato himself is good company. Charming and eloquent, Pensato enthusiastically shares his love for downtown, although he is liable to wax lyrical about the Exchange District, befitting a man whose job title is executive director of the Exchange District BIZ.

But his isn’t a rehearsed spiel, far from it. He has a solid emotional connection to the place. For Pensato, this isn’t just any old job.

The love affair started when Pensato was in junior high and would tag along downtown with his older brother, sneaking into concerts at the Royal Albert and Wellington’s. He would visit Cinematheque and pop into different galleries, including Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art, which is now located on Portage Avenue near University of Winnipeg.

“My brother was quite a bit older than me. He had just started university, and the Exchange District was a cool place to go to. It was where you found cool music and little cafés. My brother introduced me to it all,” he says.

“There were just lots of little interesting nooks and crannies and shops and things just all over the place. It was the most urban, a real taste of a real city. When we have people visiting, they walk around the Exchange District and they all love it. It’s just got a unique character and atmosphere to it.

“I’ve watched it change and evolve but I definitely fell in love with it. It’s been a big part of my life and it’s a big part of who I am.”

Pensato was born in Toronto but has lived here most of his life, spending his formative years in Charleswood before leaving briefly to study. He came back to the Prairies to raise a family with his wife Sarah, a teacher. Their two children are grown up now; Simon recently got married while Nicole — “she’s the baker in the family” — just graduated from high school.

Pensato’s working as he talks, prepping the chimichurri (“It needs to sit for a while”) and chopping vegetables for the salad. He works methodically and swiftly, nary a hair out of place, not even when the flames on the grill soar, nearly touching his forearms as he swiftly moves the steak from one end of the grill to the next.

Generally he can look at a piece of meat he’s cooking and know when it’s done, but everything is different today. He’s apologetic; things are not how they would usually be.

“Usually I would use wood on a barbecue, and I would buy my meat from another place. I don’t like the way it’s turning out, sorry.”

The meat may not be perfect but, like his beloved city, in the right hands, it has potential.

Pensato’s love for Winnipeg does not blind him to its shortcomings. Downtown is still a place many would not venture at night, although he makes sure to point out crime is not unique to us.

“My observation and experience is when there’s lots of people around it’s pretty safe, and this is true anywhere in the world. Any part of the city, when you’ve got darkness and a lack of activity, then it provides opportunity for people who are looking to do ill.”

His ambition is for the Exchange to become a complete downtown neighbourhood. A walkable, livable place with a thriving community propped up by responsible businesses and building owners who want to preserve its character.

These are lofty ambitions, but certainly not impossible to achieve.

“We are only recently starting to see people moving back towards downtown. We need more housing in the Exchange because that’s where people want to live. There’s a lot of room, there’s a lot of buildings there that people are looking at for conversion.

“The Exchange District is full of walkable walks. These blocks were built before cars were the dominant form of transportation, so the block lengths are 100 metres or less; we can build on that. We’re starting to see more residential buildings pop up. It’s something we would like to see more of in the next five to 10 years,” he says.

“We are only recently starting to see people moving back towards downtown. We need more housing in the Exchange because that’s where people want to live.” – David Pensato

The displacement of current residents, drawn to the area because of its relatively low rent, is a valid fear. It’s his job to strike that balance: attract investors who will maintain the heritage buildings — the Exchange District is a national historic site — while not losing the artists, makers and start-up companies.

On the whole, Pensato errs on the side of positivity, both eyes firmly looking to the future. He acknowledges it’s all too easy to mourn what was; he is loath to get mired in the “if onlys.” He is not a man who lingers upon old mistakes, it seems.

For Pensato, forging ahead is the only option.

“It’s easy to lament the past,” he says, referring to the changes the city went through between the mid-1950s to the ‘70s, when Winnipeg lost its iconic streetcars, and residential properties were removed from downtown.

“When the streetcars were running, conductors would migrate from between here and San Francisco. A few things were done and now there is a disconnect. Prior to that, we would have been closer to a city like Montreal but then we imposed a structure of more roads for all the cars everyone was going to be driving,” he says.

”We need to look forward. Where can we emulate, what can we do differently?” – David Pensato

“You sort of think about it, it’s easy to lament because you think, if we hadn’t gotten rid of them…” he trails off.

“Look at how iconic it could be for Winnipeg. But it’s too late for those, though. We need to look forward. Where can we emulate, what can we do differently?”

It’s a question Pensato often ponders as part of his job, which is to work on behalf of the businesses in the Exchange District, one of the 16 city-deemed business improvement zones (BIZ), making the area “better.”

But better, in this context, is a loaded word. Does it mean more prosperous? Less gritty, more sanitized? Would making these kinds of “improvements” somehow extinguish its essential character?

“I want to see the city thrive,” Pensato says earnestly. “I see it more like tending to a garden than trying to build something. You pull the weeds and you put up the trellises and you add fertilizer, but you really want to take a look at what’s going on and help let more of that happen. That’s it, really.”

“I want it to be the same but more. I want more people to see it and love it and appreciate it for what it is.” – David Pensato

So what does Pensato want for the Exchange? He laughs before answering.

“I want it to be the same but more. I want more people to see it and love it and appreciate it for what it is. I think you’re right, that there are neighbourhoods that get ruined because people come in with their own vision for it and they end up flattening the place. I don’t want to see that happen to the Exchange District and I don’t think it will.”

He firmly believes that Winnipeg has tremendous potential to model what 21st-century city-building should look like.

“There is nowhere else, certainly not in North America, where you can find this unique collection of heritage buildings and mid-century modern buildings. We don’t have to look at the past and go, ‘Oh we, lost all this stuff.’ Yes, mistakes were made, but the bones are still here. Let’s work with it and let’s do some really interesting things. I think there is so much opportunity to bring it all together. I think Winnipeg has a very bright future.”

Ending, aptly, on a very positive — though to be clear, not mayoral — note.

av.kitching@winnipegfreepress.ca

 

Steak with Green Beans, Chimichurri and Salad

Canadian Garden Chimichurri

½ bunch Italian parsley
½ bunch curly parsley
15-30 (1–2 tbsp) fresh oregano
1 bunch basil
½ firm-flesh tomato (like a beefsteak)
Chili flakes
Red wine vinegar
Olive oil (enough to cover the herbs and vegetables)
Salt
Pepper

Finely slice all the herbs and vegetables before steeping in a mixture of olive oil and red wine vinegar. Season with salt and pepper. The taste improves with time, so it’s best to prepare this first.

Spicy Citrus Balsamic Green Beans

500 g (1 lb) skinny green beans (whole)
1 lemon
Balsamic vinegar
Chili flakes (as desired)
Salt

Slice the lemons into rounds and caramelize in hot skillet until they are soft and sticky. Add the green beans and balsamic vinegar, cooking until tender-crisp. Add chili flakes and salt and cook a little more.

Everyday Salad

1 romaine heart
2 firm-flesh tomatoes (like a beefsteak)
250 ml (1 cup) pitted kalamata olives
250 ml (1 cup) feta cheese
15 ml (1 tbsp) dried oregano
Salt

Chop vegetables into equal-sized pieces, add the olives and feta cheese. Season with oregano, salt and pepper.

Steak

340-g (12-oz) rib-eye steak
Salt
Pepper

Cook the steak, on a grill or barbeque, according to how well you like your meat done. Season with salt and pepper. Slice and serve with the chimichurri, green beans, salad and baguette.