If you are traveling in Canada, these specialty gourmet food shops make it easy to find the best of what a province has to offer. In Montreal, Le Marché des Saveurs du Québec has over 7000 products all sourced from within Quebec and a wine shop of all Quebec made product where I purchased Pinnacle Iced Cider from the slopes of Pinnacle Mountain near the historic village of Frelighsburg in the Eastern Townships of Quebec and Île d’Orléans Cassis Liqueur.

Edible BC run by Cecilia Leong is in the Granville market houses a large selection of BC sourced product, if you are lucky (more…)

While visiting Vancouver this past weekend I received a press release for the hottest coffee spot on the west coast, 49th Parallel Café. They are carrying a new coffee, Devon Estate Selection 795 Arabica from Indian that is hand picked and chewed by monkeys. Coffee cherries are chewed and then stored for hours in a monkey’s mouth. Later, they eat the juice and spit out the coffee beans to be manually collected, flash-processed and thankfully washed. (more…)

More on Carmelis’s goat cheese. Carmelis is a farmstead operation, they raise there own goats without hormones, milk everyday and make cheese everyday. The diversity of product they are making is impressive. They are producing creamy flavoured goat cheese; Camembert style and rind washed cheese; blue cheeses like the goatgonzola and piccolo; as well as aged raw milk cheese. They had recently introduced goat Gruyere to the line up when I was there. Here are pictures of Carmelis’s delicious cheese. (more…)

When I was visiting the Okanagan, I had a chance to visit Ofri Barmor at Carmelis Goat Cheese farm. Her family raises goats and is making delicious goat cheeses that are a hit of the west coast. Everywhere I went chef’s were using Carmelis’s cheese and it was for sale all over Vancouver. Barmor and her family had only just arrived in Canada from Isreal, the year of the Okanagan Mountain Park Fire. The fire has become part of the folklore of the region. Many of the farmers I went to visit had incredible stories of survival and community that rose out of the ashes, the Barmor’s proudly share their story with their visitors . They finished building the farm and the herd of 60 goat’s arrived August 12th, 2003. On August 16th the devastating fire wiped out the mountain. They had not been part of the community long and had no connections. Barmor tells her guests the story of being told they needed to leave their farm, “In Israel, if there is a terrorist attack you don’t get an evacuation notice” . (more…)

M&M Meat Shops with their annual barbecue fundraiser raised over $2 million for the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation of Canada this past Saturday. Staff and thousands of volunteers at more than 465 M&M Meat Shops locations across Canada joined together to beat their own charity barbecue day record. To date M&M Meat Shops’ franchisees, customers and volunteers have raised more than $16 million for this vital cause!

Saturday marked the 20th annual event, and Canadians from coast-to-coast including myself, were out enjoying thousands of hamburgers and hot dogs in support of the CCFC. Every cent raised will go directly to the CCFC to help find a cure for IBD, a disease that affects more than 200,000 Canadians. (more…)

My food find for the week is Poplar Grove’s Tiger Blue cheese. Gitta Sutherland is making this creamy blue at Poplar Grove Cheese in Penticton, BC. I visited her while in the Okanagan Valley last week and have posted pictures of her operation. I saw Tiger Blue all through the area as well as in Vancouver’s delis and restaurants. A distributor has picked up this artisan cheese so look for it in Ontario as well. Better yet, have it at Poplar Grove when you are there and you can pair it with a glass of yummy Monster Merlot from their vineyard!

Here are pictures of Gitta and her cheese.

Tiger Blue is the wedge

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Bocuse D’or is the original iron chef competition. Started in 1987, every two years international chefs from around the 24 countries are chosen to compete in Lyon for the coveted title. The chefs are chosen three years before the competition, have mentor chef to work with and an apprentice that trains with and assist the chef. The current team is gearing up for competition in January 2009 in Lyon France. Our homegrown contender is David Wong of Vancouver. (more…)

Spot Prawns have a six to eight week season starting in May on Canada’s west coast. The annual Spot Prawn Festival in Vancouver celebrates the local bounty of this fresh, sustainable, affordable and delicious alternative to frozen tiger or gulf shrimp. The festival helps to encourage the development of Vancouver’s day-boat fishery delivering high quality spot prawns directly to the local community.

Lasting for the duration of the season, the six to eight week Spot Prawn Festival will kick off on (more…)