Springtime in Quebec means it’s now maple syrup season!

Maple syrup here is a serious deal. A few years ago, there was a heist at the Quebec Strategic Maple Syrup Reserve … I know, you don’t believe me. It happened in 2012 and you can read about by following the link!

Springtime means Maple Syrup Festivals!

This is about 2 minutes from our front door … close down the streets, have a festival

If you really want the full maple syrup experience (and really, who doesn’t?), you want to get outside of the city and go to one of the many cabane à sucre located through out Quebec.

Growing up in Ontario, we had “sugar shacks”, which is the translation in words only. You’d go, you’d see how they make maple syrup now and how it was done in the ‘olden days’, then you’d buy some maple candy, possibly get pancakes, go for a hay ride on a horse drawn cart and go home.

Quebec it’s a full experience, with a huge traditional meal (followed by dancing in the discotheque … yea, it’s about as amazing as you’d imagine!)

Of course, you’ll be greeted by the image of thousands of buckets tapping thousands of trees … the old wagon wheel thrown in there for atmosphere?

But it’s inside the cabane that you’ll find all the treats!

First of all, most cabanes are designed so it will feel like a home meal. Big long tables, communal seating.

Now, let’s look at the food you can expect … other than maple syrup

There’s usually ham (glazed in maple syrup), eggs (with maple syrup), baked beans with pork (and maple syrup), sausages (cooked in maple syrup), a myriad of maple based desserts, pea soup (the one non-maple infiltrated food) and the traditional treat oreilles de crisse!

Now, if you understand French, you may be a bit concerned about eating Christ’s ears … don’t worry, these are just pork jowls that are deep fried until super crispy, and then you drizzle maple syrup on them. Yes … a wonderful crunchy, salty, sweet treat that only Quebec would figure out!

The final treat of the night is tire sur neige or tire sur neige d’erable or tire de neige … any way you call this, it’s just this … you take hot maple syrup and pour it on snow …

Then, you let it cool for about 30 seconds, place a stick on the cooling maple syrup, and start to roll it up.

Pure maple taffy on a stick …

you want this …

So good, you may want to steal millions of dollars worth of maple syrup from the strategic reserve … see, now it all makes more sense!

Springtime in Quebec! Bon Apetit!

In February of 2014 we capped off our Scandinavian winter adventure with 4 days in Iceland

Having landed at the airport in Keflavik we immediately got on our shuttle bus taking us to Reykjavik, where we’d be put on another bus to our hotel. Grabbing handfuls of brochures at the airport, we eagerly tried to figure out all the cool things we’d do over the next four days.

I think during that drive the first thing I noticed about Iceland was that there were NO TREES. There also were very few signs of anyone until we got close to the city. This would be a scary place to have your car break down

Here’s what you see as you approach Reykjavik …

We arrived at our hotel, located at the corner of two very unpronounceable streets

The temperature here was around -5C, which coming off our time in the north of Sweden, seemed almost tropical!

Okay, you probably see that picture and wonder what I am so majestically looking out upon … (yea, that’s my best majestic look)

At the bottom of our street was a shallow, frozen lake. This would be great for taking a short cut to the other side!

Looked solid enough. Having spent a few weeks nurturing my inner adventurer, I decided best way to find out was to just walk across it

Brave adventurer has no fear!

This totally looks safe!

Yea, it’s all good. This little island of land is right in the centre of the lake.

In the area behind us, close to shore, there is an area of the lake that has hot water piped in, keeping part of the lake unfrozen for the ducks and swans!

We had come up with a general plan of going horseback riding on the lava fields the next day and visiting the Blue Lagoon hot springs and spa the day after that. Today we would walk around the city a bit, and then find a good place for our Valentine’s Day dinner!

The main shopping street was just a block over, so we headed to that and just walked uphill. Heck, seemed like as good a plan as any!

You want a stuffed animal that looks like a puffin and says Iceland, or perhaps a plastic horned Viking helmet? (must note here, actual Vikings never wore horned helmets!) This was definitely the street to go for that!

Wait, what’s this?

Iceland has a very unique sense of humour and kitsch. Behold, Lebowski Bar. It’s pretty much what you think … a restaurant and bar based on The Big Lebowski. With burgers named after The Dude, Walter, Donny and even The Nihilists (it’s chicken fingers, because they believe in nothing), this is probably the only Cohen brothers inspired restaurant I’ll ever come across … though if I ever see Chez Barton Fink, I may have to check it out!

(Okay, I did go in and have a “Walter” burger … I’m not made of stone!)

This is way better than “NO SHIRT, NO SHOES, NO SERVICE”

For Valentine’s Day, we opted for something a little more down to earth. We ended up at a wonderful little place called Cafe Loki

Located across the street from the spectacular Hallgrímskirkja, this cafe offered us a chance at some authentic Icelandic food … which as it turns out, is a mixed blessing

Claire, never one to shy away from a challenge, had heard many times of the Icelandic delicacy Hákarl

For those who don’t know what this is, here’s the basic rundown.

You take a Greenland shark, which is toxic, and let it ferment for 6-12 weeks. You then let it dry, cut away the brown crust, cut it into cubes and eat it. This gives it a very strong scent of ammonia (oh, and taste of it too!). While no longer toxic, it’s a stretch to say it has made this edible!

Time to order, I wisely go for a lovely lamb stew. Claire, goes for a special traditional plate called a  Þorramatur

A collection of traditional dishes, prepared to celebrate during the month of (English spelling here) Thorri, let’s get a run down of the things she’ll be eating …

There’s some Icelandic rye bread, liver sausage, blood sausage, smoked lamb, dry fish. These are all pretty tasty. Then there were a few things we didn’t recognize … and that little square on a toothpick, yea, that’s the hakarl

Note the toothpick with the Icelandic flag … that is attached to a food I will get to in a moment!

At this point I think that maybe if I can just quietly eat my stew …

Unfortunately, marriage is about sharing …

So, Claire tries the hakarl, making sure to save a bit for me, as there is no way she’s going to do this alone. Watching her face, I knew it was bad. Now, as it happens, we’ve got a video of ME trying it!

Imagine fish that has been sitting in blue cheese for a few months and then a cat came over and peed on it … yea, that’s about it

Okay, nothing could be worse than that. Everything’s okay now ….

That innocent looking cube of “food” with the Icelandic flag is known as Súrsaðir hrútspungar. Having just eaten the hakarl, I was feeling pretty confident I had just tasted the worst thing I ever would in my entire life. I was right for 30 seconds.

Súrsaðir hrútspungar is the testicles of a ram, pressed into a cube, boiled and then fermented in lactic acid (the sour part of sour milk!). My best description of taste of that is traumatizing.

Time for dessert. Again, something a bit strange … rye bread ice cream

Now, Icelandic rye bread is not like what you are used to here. Cooked very slowly, traditionally in volcanic steam vents, the starches turn to sugar. Icelandic rye is dense and sweet … and unique. When mixed in with a base vanilla ice cream, the results are fantastic.

Valentine’s Day meal is saved! This almost erased the memory of the Súrsaðir hrútspungar

I think Reykjavik is more beautiful at night

Time for bed. After all, tomorrow we take Icelandic horses out on the lava fields!

Icelandic horses are smaller, more hairy, and hella fast! They have 2 more gaits than horses elsewhere in the world. The unique “tolt” is pretty fast yet totally smooth … for anyone who knows about riding a horse, this means you can sit flat in the saddle while moving faster than a trot!

Oh, riding in the winter is cold …

This was what most of terrain looked like. You really didn’t want to fall off!

Our excursion included lunch. As we got to the dining room, as Claire headed off to wash up, she jokingly said “Well, hope it’s not another Thorri platter!”

Seriously?

Okay, it wasn’t just the platter … and we DID have brennivin to wash away the taste of the ram testicles this time. Yes, we did eat it … we’re Canadian, and we’d rather eat fermented testicles and cat-pee flavoured shark than be rude.

We got back with time to again explore the city

Some advice to anyone visiting, eating at restaurants is very expensive. Groceries on the other hand (other than any vegetables) are quite affordable. Try to stay somewhere with a kitchenette so you can prepare your own breakfasts … this will save you a lot of money!

Last full day, and we’re off to the famous geothermal spa, The Blue Lagoon

Located in the middle of a volcanic wasteland, time to go swimming outside in -5C weather!

Gonna get into that water quickly when you can see ice on all the rocks!

DCIM100GOPRO

DCIM100GOPRO

DCIM100GOPRO

The water was milky and pale blue … and so wonderfully warm!

Okay, after being sufficiently melted, time to head back and have one last meal before heading back to Canada. This time, really gonna try to avoid ram testicles!

After much exploring, we found a wonderful little bar where our choices for food were lamb stew in a bread bowl … or not eating anything

I think we made the right choice!

So, there’s a very brief recap of our introduction to Reykjavik and Iceland. Oh, we’re definitely going to go back!

It has now been six months since we packed up our lives in Toronto and moved to Montreal.

Now, for all of you who aren’t so familiar with the distances, it’s about 540km,

The trip takes about 6 hours by car, if you make a couple of pit stops and the traffic is light. Might not sound too bad, but if you do this trip with a dog and cat, well … it feels like quite a bit longer!

When people think of Montreal, they think winter. Winter is absolutely a huge part of the identity of the city. We moved in mid-July, on the hottest day of the year, with temperature getting up to near 40C. My first impressions of Montreal were not of a cold, snowy place!

Just watching the movers carry furniture up those stairs in that heat … they were gonna get a good tip!

Here’s a quick little tip for surviving the heat in Montreal if you don’t have air conditioning … on every corner there is a dépanneur (corner store). Just about every one of them has a walk in beer fridge. When you get too hot, go shopping for beer. Walk around until you are cooled off. You don’t need to buy beer every time … you may want to, but if you’re going there once an hour to cool off, probably isn’t the best idea!

Just for fun, let’s look at this same street, same view on Dec 29th …

People in Montreal can talk about the weather forever, so let’s just come to the mutual understanding that the weather here can be extreme and move on to my favourite topic here, the FOOD!

Okay, it’s breakfast time, which here in Montreal can mean only on thing …

a Montreal bagel with cream cheese and smoked salmon. (If you live in the west part of the island, you oddly pronounce the ‘l’ in salmon … just a thing I noticed.)

Want a big debate here? Ask someone where to get the best bagels! Myself, I go weekly to pick up piping hot bagels from Fairmount Bagel. How much do I like them compared to anyone else?

I trek out in -25C weather to get my bagels!

The other bakery you’ll hear mentioned all the time is St. Viateur Bagel, just down the street from Fairmount. Both bagels are pretty fantastic, but I have my favourite. Also, if you go to Fairmount, you can drop in to the famous Wilensky’s next door for a special. 

It’s a  grilled beef baloney sandwich. It can be ordered with cheese or without … that’s really the only choice you get. Get a side of pickles and a cherry coke (or my favourite, a vanilla egg creme). This is a Montreal classic!

Wait a minute … what about poutine?  I hope that by now, you all know me better than to think I was going to miss poutine!

Here in Montreal, I’d classify poutine into two categories:

Classic Poutine – This is your basic fries, cheese curds and gravy. It’s best if bought at a greasy spoon (or as one native of Montreal put it, a dirty place), or off a food truck! This wonderful mess you see above is from my favourite classic poutine joint Poutine Lafleur right near us in Verdun. It’s done right, where the container is half filled with fries, then covered in gravy, then more fries, then more gravy … then cheese curds completely smother the top … and then MORE GRAVY!

Have it with a beer … it’s not like this is gonna be healthy anyway!

Fancy Poutine – This is the poutine you get where you have many, many choices of toppings. Above some classics from our favourite fancy poutine place, La Banquise! Chicken and peas, or sour cream, guacamole and tomatoes, or bacon and hot dogs … yea, the combinations are fantastic. Claire still talks about the time she got their special Christmas dinner poutine, with tourtière filling, chicken and cranberry sauce on top!

Poutine is also the go to food if you’re heading home from the bar and possibly had a few too many … point of note, if you can’t finish your poutine, you can take it home and heat it up tomorrow

Montreal post party night hangover magic … add a fried egg to your poutine you couldn’t eat last night! Hey, I’m not a proud man …

For some more quintessential Montreal, we have to go to a Habs game!

For any of you who aren’t familiar the Habs is the nickname of Montreal’s legendary NHL team, the Montreal Canadiens

A little background here. The Canadiens have the most wins, most Stanley Cup championships and are the oldest team in the NHL (dating back to 1909, well before the NHL existed). The love for them here in Montreal is unchallenged.

Okay, now you’re starting to fit in (other than your terrible French … or maybe that is actually making you fit in even more!)

Montreal is very much about enjoying the winter.

At Parc Jean Drapeau , you can attend the  Fête des neiges, a winter carnival that happens for four weekends starting in mid-January

A ferris wheel? A zip line? Tube slide? Wait, is that maple taffy?!

This wonderful magic is maple taffy, created by pouring hot maple syrup into the snow and letting it cool for about 30 seconds, then you take a stick and roll up the maple taffy!

You know I’m gonna do this …

Pretty sure I could feel exactly where my pancreas was located in my body after eating one maple taffy stick … but worth it!

Now, I’ve just touched the surface of life here in Montreal

The photos above are just a preview of things to come, stories to tell

Hope you’ll join us on our journey!