My Aunt Heather was the first woman entrepreneur I ever knew of. She would drive to Seattle and buy up coffee beans and sell coffee to the formerly exclusively tea-loving Canadians at the Granville Market in a proto-Starbucks. So every time we went to Vancouver we hit the market. Last time I tried going there with my nephew, it had exploded into a giant mall and there was nowhere to park. Now, thanks to Uber I can get dropped off at the front door.
They had such a wide variety of fruit, including my two favorites, Golden Plums and Rainier Cherries. Golden plums have a deep ruby red flesh. As a kid, my parents had a friend named Little Bill who had a small farm with one of those plum trees. I didn’t find them again until maybe ten years ago and only found out the name for them this week.
They had something I didn’t recognize. But when I cut it open in my room later I saw it was cherimoya, also known as a custard apple for its creamy sweet flesh (shown here behind the dragon fruit).
I was happy to see Scotch meat pies, and also got a sausage roll and a slice of tortierre, a French Canadian spiced pork pie served on Christmas Eve. They served the tortierre with a side of rhubarb compote, which worked kind of like a turkey-cranberry sauce combo. I may try it next time.
I always hear about how polite and apologetic Canadians are, but I never noticed it before. Someone barely bumped my chair and he was mortified, “SORE-eee!”
Later I was looking at the charcuterie and cheeses when I felt something pressed up behind me. I figured it must have been someone’s backpack to be so close and not to even notice. I reached behind me, grabbed it and pushed it away, but it wasn’t backpack. It was flesh. The cheese lady looked shocked, and I asked her, “What did I just grab???’ I looked and saw an old man scurrying off, head down, with no crowd near to have forced him into me.
She said, “I’m so SORE-eee, I’m so SORE-eee.”
I said, “You don’t control that old man.”
“Well, I’m SORE-eee that happened to you.”
“Ahhh, it’s nothing.” Worse happens to me in front of the stage at concerts.
I picked up a few weird macarons, like Gouda and bacon.
and of course, butter tarts
The world’s biggest Nanaimo Bars. If you know, you know.
I wished I had an air B&B so I could make fettuccine with these lobster mushrooms
