Sunday, July 3, 2011

Long Weekend Food Adventures

We decided to stay home this long weekend for a number of reasons.
Most importantly, my bff of over 20 years was moving into her very first home.  How could I miss that?! Our morning started around 9:30 and the truck was empty by 10:30am which of course would allow plenty of time for us to head up to the cottage but we decided sitting in bumper to bumper traffic for over an hour wasn't high on our priority list.

We had also wanted to kick back at home, do some gardening and cleaning (god does my house need an overhaul!) and hopefully take a trip down to historic St. Lawrence Market, Toronto, Ontario which we did end up doing.

For those of you who have never been to Toronto or even to SLM it is a wonderful conglomeration of meat, cheese, produce, and baked goods vendors as well as antiques dealers and other unique vendors throughout the South Market, North Market and Market Gallery.  There are many places to buy organic items, cultural items not found in your traditional supermarkets, flowers, you name it you can likely find it here!


The market has been in existence since 1803 and thousands visit each weekend.


Since SLM is about 30-45 minutes from our house we generally visit a few times a year unless there are specific items we are in search of that we know we can find here.
Sometimes we buy things we normally wouldn't dream of just because we can - enter the Camel Burger (I`ll let you know the reviews on that in a later post).  We also picked up 2 kangaroo burgers!


My treat however were some awesome berries and goats milk cheese curds.  These berries honestly were ginormous!

I just love the freshness, quality and quantity of the goods you can get.  Just look at these colours! 


I wish I would have taken a picture of one of my favorite vendors - Aziz Hosseini from St. Lawrence Pizza and Ice Cream.  He stood there making fresh lasagna sheets while I chatted him up.  He is a character and is earnestly a lover a food, good fresh, food.
We all know Mr. BM is not a fan of pasta however they were doling out samples of freshly made ricotta raviolis with a tomato and pesto cream sauce and he loved it so much we bought a container of sauce.  Imagine my surprise!  I didn't even have to dig into  ``my treat`` stash to get some.

We left the market with 2 bags full of meats, fish, cheese, fruits and veggies and headed off to the next destination on our Food Adventure:
Food Truck and Jazz Festival at the Distillery District.

The Historic Distillery District is certainly a unique location boasting unique stores, shops, boutiques and cafés.
The brick lined streets remind me of Old Montreal and some say it reminds them of small European cities.
As of the end of June, patrons are now able to walk the streets with open alcohol which makes festival goers even happier.
Parking is a little tricky as there are limited spaces along the streets and not many lots in the area.  The lines were crazy long for all of the food trucks although we did arrive around 11:30 - 12ish at the event itself began at 11am.
Mr. BM however walked right up to a beer cart and had himself a lovely beverage within seconds while Little Ugh and I were left fighting the crowds looking for a bottle of water.  We finally found a little cafe and grabbed the last 2 cold waters we found - then waited for over 15 minutes to pay for the now empty bottles.
I wish I could say that we were able to enjoy at least one of the delicious items I saw others munching on but alas it was hot, we had food in the trunk and we weren't willing to wait in the lineups.
We decided to grab a few items from Brick Street Bakery instead (mmm custard filled brioche!), take a few phots and be on our merry way.


What a great day downtown!
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