Epic Diamond Road Trip - Day 3, Part 1: All Poutine, All Day

We woke up in Montreal set for a long day of driving...but first, breakfast in the lobby!  The hotel was in Chinatown, and so was decorated appropriately.  The whole middle part of the lobby was a huge pond with bridges running side to side, and there were goldfish in the water.  (I made J take a picture...)

The breakfast was pretty good - I mean, it was hotel breakfast buffet food, so how good could it be, right?  Fun times though, there were quite a few Chinese dishes along with the eggs, waffles, and sausages.

We then drove a route out of town that took us past the stadium built for the 1976 Olympics.  The stadium has the tallest inclined tower in the world (more than three times as tall as the Leaning Tower of Pisa!)  We didn't get out and look because we had a TON of mileage to go, but if when I get back to Montreal, I definitely want to take a better look - it looked fantastic as we drove by.

It really didn't look that tall, but when you imagine how
tall the tower is, just think about how large that stadium is!

On the road again...

Tunnels out of the city

Back into the Canadian countryside

The weather started clearing up as soon as we left the city

As we got nearer to Quebec City, we saw more and more signs...and billboards...and EVERYTHING in French.  Really.  No English at all.  (In Montreal, at least there was a chance of some English on the signs.  Here?  Nothing.)

This sign cracked me up, as I had read about the lawsuit that had been in the news in 2012 about Nutella being sued for advertising as being a item good for breakfast.  Translated, this sign means "breakfast loves Nutella" (In Canadian French, 'dejeuner' is the word for 'breakfast', as opposed to France, where 'breakfast' is 'petit dejeuner' and 'dejeuner' means 'lunch').  Just personally, I think suing the company that makes a product because they're trying to market it to you is bunk.  It REALLY gets me going when people try to sue food companies for stupid things because let me tell you, there is some seriously scary shit that ISN'T getting prosecuted that should be.  I can get all sorts of worked up about this - believe me.

so idyllic 

weird angle from the panoramic photo, but this is the St. Lawrence River

I couldn't resist.  There was grass.  My shoes immediately came off...

Quebec from the banks of the St. Lawrence

Quebec City is one of the first European settlements in North America, and as it is on the banks of the St. Lawrence River, there was a citadelle built to protect the city.  J and I walked all over on top of it, taking in the views of downtown from the grassy top, and we walked a little bit down into it, but we didn't want to pay to get in, so we took in the guards at the entrance, and turned around to walk around a little bit more.

At first I just thought these were pretty red pots, but there
were actual tomato plants in them!   Edible walkway!

We were almost done randomly exploring - I had two things on my to-do list...
1.  Find, and buy something from the oldest grocery store in North America - J.A. Moisan
2.  Find, and eat the hell out of some POUTINE!

Well, first things first - I located a map, and found the street that J.A. Moisan was on.  This was all me and my sense of direction, since I had approximately 2 more years of high school French than J did.  We ended up down some tiny alley ways with tiny apartments lined up.  It immediately felt very European, just like when we went out into Old City Montreal.

Right at the corner where I took this picture -

 - I took one sniff and the air was filled with the delicious smell of chocolate chip cookies.  I could smell the sweetness in the air, and whirled around to James - COOKIES!  He kept me from breaking into the nearest tiny apartment to eat fresh from the oven baked goods, and very soon after, I found the grocery store.

I was super excited.  I also had no idea what to expect from this store.  J and I went in, and I was pleasantly surprised.  It was a fully functioning store, a bit touristy, but fun.  I really wanted to buy something, but mostly just needed change for a $5 Canadian bill so we could feed the meter for the car. I picked out a nectarine - my favorite food ever in the entire world, and had an entire interaction with the cashier IN FRENCH!  Madam Steele of River Ridge High School's French language classes would have been so proud!  Haha, ok, I'll be honest - I just handed her the bill, and said a gracious "merci beaucoup" when she gave me my change back - but still, it was French and I was proud!

with my victoire nectarine

Task number two - find and eat poutine.  Poutine is a food of the gods - french fries with cheese curds covered in brown gravy.  That's three things that I love to eat, all in one container.  Yum.  We found some (though honestly, it wasn't quite as easy as I thought it would be...although, with no confident French speakers between the two of us, it's no surprise that we couldn't find a divey restaurant with Quebec City's finest poutine.)  We settled for the first place that had a poster in the window advertising it. 

OH MY GOD YES GET IN MY BELLY

J was amused by my enthusiasm for poutine

It took all my willpower to not start eating this before J took the picture.

And that is how I do.

Chez AshTon was where we ate.  Now, I'll give you this.  The poutine was good.  But it was a bit of a gut bomb.  And this was definitely NOT a fancy place.  Not even a kind of fancy place.  

Once I got back, I yelped this place.  This review from 2009: "Chez Ashton is like the McDonalds or maybe Arbys of QC. The poutine is the french fries drenched in gravy and cheese curds - famous in Quebec. It was amazing! I mean I have had better. But this is open like all hours of the night and its legit and its like $3.  I mean its like when tourists come to the US and are like i need a Big Mac from an American McDonalds - well go into Chez Ashton and eat some poutine comme les Quebecois."

Love it.

Our trusty steed - Canada looks good with our PA plates in it!

Next up is the journey back to America - going deeper and deeper into French speaking territory and sampling the best Canadian coffee and doughnuts that Tim Hortons has to offer!

Until then!
-Bethy

Chemicals vs animals

BuzzFeed posted a video on the site entitled Disturbing Facts About What You're Drinking.
I encourage you to watch it, and let me know what you think.

I saw this video, and it neither surprised me, nor disgusted me.  Clearly, it was designed to gross out everyone who saw it, and that simple fact made me think about the priorities that we hold in our food choices.  (In fact, I took an entire class on food values this last summer with Ellen Messer, one of the best professors I've had.)

It occurred to me that I don't have a problem with using animal products in foods in place of chemicals that will do the same job.  I would rather have little bugs crushed into my red flavored beverages than a chemical mixture that would never occur in nature.  Dried fish bladder doesn't super bother me either... Obviously, fecal matter in the tubes of fountain soda machines is gross...so I'm not going to agree that everything in the video is ok, but it's interesting how we are supposed to be disgusted by some things that are more "natural" than the commonly used alternatives.

What do you guys think?  Would you rather inject chemicals or animals?  How does the size or type of the animal change your thoughts?

-Bethy

Epic Diamond Road Trip - Day 2 Part 3: A Very Polish Dinner in Montreal

J and I went back to our hotel room after the basilica, changed, and redeemed our complimentary drink coupons (another perk of J being a baller!) in the hotel bar - I got red wine (how refined!  I know, I know, and uncharacteristic...don't worry, I made it up by ordering lots of beers later...) and we set out into Old City Montreal for dinner.

Gorgeous sky.  Don't worry, I wasn't standing in the middle
of the street with oncoming cars, it just looks like it.

We passed a Canadian First Nations store while we were winding down the very European-esque streets, and I had to take a picture.  The similarities between this art and Native Alaskan art were many (for obvious reasons) and it made me miss Alaska in a pretty extreme way.  The shop was closed, but I spent a good long time looking in the window.

We ended up at a Polish restaurant called Stash Cafe (um, could this get any better?!?) that was the right price for the right amount of class - after all, I WAS wearing a pretty dress, and I didn't want to be overdressed for the occasion.

I saw this dress, and had to have it.
Target clearance, you are so good to me sometimes...

 The menu in both French and English...although I like to think that I would have been able to explain to J what everything was just fine even if it hadn't been in English at all.

Fun placemats

James got the kielbasa dinner, which looked fabulous (and honestly, if I had seen it before ordering, might have swayed me...J let me taste a little bit of everything on his plate and it was FANTASTIC!)

I, of course, looked at the menu and got immediately overwhelmed by all of my choices - remember, this trip was in August - it had been since Easter that I had eaten any Polish food, and everything on the menu was making my mouth water.  As usual, when I get overwhelmed, I opt for the first thing that I see, and the thing that I know that I'll enjoy.  I went for the bigos, which is hunter's stew.  Basically, it's one of those "everything but the kitchen sink" meals - SO GOOD.  

The best bigos that I've ever had in my life I had when I went to Poland with my mother when I was 17.  We stayed with hosts through the Servas program all over the country for two weeks.  One of the families that we stayed with made bigos for lunch one day, and I could not believe how amazing it was.  I was still a quite picky 17 year old eater, and here I was, hungrily noshing on a stew made with God-knows-what by people who had no idea what my taste preferences were and didn't care.  The first bite was purely polite - the second (and every bite after) was because my mouth was in heaven.

This bigos was quite good.  Not quite as good as the first bowl of bigos ever, but damn good.

It doesn't look like much, but WHOO BOY!!

J got one beer, I got one beer, we each had half of each

The restaurant had a piano player who
played for most of our meal.  Super classy.

Street art

This scene just reminded me of traipsing around Europe in my late teens

We then proceeded to head off to a bar for a drink, and then another bar for another drink, and then another bar for another drink....

Delicious food, great company, amazing city.


-Bethy

Interesting HuffPo article

I thought this was interesting - the New Year's Resolutions we wish for Big Food.

It's a quick read, and definitely worth it to look at what some of the biggest problems with our food system are.

New Year's Resolutions for Big Food

-Bethy

Epic Diamond Road Trip - Day 2 Part 2: An Afternoon in Montreal

 This post begins where the last dropped off - right before we left the country.  This is mostly pictures, with just a few spurts of exposition here and there...

Getting ready to leave the country

Everyone else wants to leave America too!

aaaaaand here we go into non-English land

lots of corn grown right across the border

The wonders of technology... I was charging my
additional camera battery while James was driving

The scenes were extremely pastoral

The road signs were all in French, but understandable
enough to my 10th grade French skills...mostly

The weather was overcast, actually not too bad for driving.  We ended up having great weather for most of the trip, and it was nice to have a day without sun beating down on us.  The first glimpse of Montreal was drizzly and foggy...and completely gorgeous.

More French

Chinatown gate

From the top of Mont Royal, a huge hill overlooking the city that is a massive park

From Mont Royal, we saw the 1976 Olympic Stadium - for the first time.  I'll post more details about it later with the close-up pics.  Pretty sweet architecture though.

The 1976 Summer Olympic Stadium from the top of Mont Royal

J and the raccoon sign...hilarious

We stopped so I could go to the bathroom.
I took about 2 steps out of the car, slipped, and bit it in the mud.  Excellent.

Cooler sammie.  Delish.

...and chips.  Because road trip.  America.

J and the city in black and white

They had a piano out on the plaza for anyone to play

The cross on top of Mont Royal

City under construction

This is a wonderful picture of Canada vs America right here

Across the street from our hotel

James and I stayed in the Holiday Inn Select Centre Ville (which is a fancy (i.e. French) way of saying Center City).  It was located at the edge of Chinatown, right across the street from the convention center, and just a block or two from the basilica.  James got an upgraded room that had not one, but TWO bathrooms in it.  (TWO?!?!  Say WHAT?!?!  What does anyone staying in one bedroom with one bed need two bathrooms for?  Anyway...I didn't hate it.)  So there's a massive bathroom, a living room area, and two bathrooms.  Baller.

Bathroom number 1 - normal for a hotel

Bathroom number 2 - possibly larger than my entire Boston apartment

Then we headed out to visit the basilica - it was just a few blocks from the hotel.  Incredible.

Notre-Dame Basilica

I know it's been a long time, but I'll try to keep getting these posts up soon...

The night out in Montreal and our delicious Polish dinner next!!

-Bethy

That lengthy hiatus from blogging brought to you by...

...quite a few things, in fact.  (And honestly, I'm still about a week away from being able to spend some serious time working on posts...)

As soon as I can catch my breath, expect some posts about all the food related things that have been happening in my life, including:
*End of the semester/final projects
*My new job in a swanky office building downtown
*Making sauerkraut with one of the big ballers in the Boston fermentation world
*Brewing and then bottling beer in my kitchen
*At least 3 or 4 recipes and pictures from my Polish Christmas dinner.


Until then, eat well,

Bethy