Still playing catch-up around here, and this one is a long time coming. I wanted to write about these cafes a year ago after I visited them in summer 2011, but it just never happened. On our trip to Halifax this past September, I stopped in at one of them again, and I’d like to tell you about it.
I’d like to tell you a bit more about Claire and Alex’s great neighbourhood in Toronto. I feel I got to know it fairly well after staying with them for three weeks and getting out and about quite a bit.
(P.S.- can you believe the Junction was a dry neighbourhood until 2000?? That explains why there are still very few liquor stores…)
I’ve already talked about Crema – a great neighbourhood coffee shop – and the Junction Farmers’ Market. Here are a few other highlights:
Toronto has some great cafes. Like, really great. So great that I was spoiled for three weeks, and missed them once I was back in Edmonton.
I don’t mean to say Edmonton doesn’t have any good cafes, because it does. A few of my favourites are Credo, Transcend, Remedy, da Capo, and Elm. But to my mind, none of them manage to combine great coffee and wonderful atmosphere (not to mention GF baked goods!) like several of the cafes in Toronto.
It was so wonderful to have such an extended visit with my sister Claire. Especially since we both have little babies at the same time. Claire and Alex’s son Cash is just seven weeks younger than Lucie. What could be more fun?? The four of us (sadly, Alex and Jacques were both working) spent a lot of time in various Toronto cafes, one of our favourite activities. We relaxed, nursed our babies and our lattes, and enjoyed the good life of mat leave together. Claire and Cash, Lucie and I miss our cafe times!
Crema – 3079 Dundas St. W (also other locations)
I visited Crema a handful of times during my visit. It is Claire and Alex’s neighbourhood coffee shop, located just a few blocks away from their apartment in the Junction. It also has some of the best coffee in the city. The baristas here were always friendly, there were plentiful GF baked goods, and when Jacques arrived in town he really enjoyed the panini. What’s not to like? Well, I guess my one quibble is the decor and atmosphere are a bit stark … but I’d still happily go there all the time if I lived in the neighbourhood.
Te Aro – 983 Queen Street E.
We went to Te Aro on one of my best days in the city. Claire and I took the long trek on public transit out to Leslieville, a great neighbourhood in the east of Toronto. We started our day at this hip cafe, which roasts its own beans. The lattes were truly delicious and the atmosphere on the outdoor patio was perfect (the first shot above of Claire nursing Cash is also at Te Aro). Lucie slept in the stroller throughout this whole coffee date, allowing me to drink my latte before it got cold. What a treat!
Rooster – 489 Broadview Avenue
We truly visited cafes all over the city! Rooster is an amazing place tucked away even further east, in Claire and Alex’s old neighbourhood near the Danforth. We managed to make it here on one of my last days in Toronto, and I’m so glad we did. Site of the epic “two babies on one lap” photo shoot (see above), Rooster has cozy, eclectic neighbourhood charm in abundance. The clientele is wonderfully diverse – we chatted with an older woman, and I observed a few families with elementary-age kids dropping by after school for a pick-me-up. Rooster gets its beans from Te Aro, so you know the coffee is good. And again, GF baked goods! There is one baker in Toronto who peddles his or her GF muffins all across town, and I was happy to run into them almost everywhere I went, especially the orange and fleur-de-sel variety.
Writing this is making me miss these great cafes even more. For now, I will rely on Edmonton’s best cafes and our own home espresso machine with delicious Transcend beans. Maybe that’s not so bad after all.
Other places to get great coffee in Toronto:
Dark Horse – 215 Spadina Ave. (also other locations)
Ezra’s Pound - 238 Dupont St. and 913 Dundas St. W
The Common – 1071 College St. and 1028 Bloor St.
Jacques and I were in Calgary for a few days in July, right after we left Canmore. Since we were in the city on a Saturday, I wanted to check out one of the farmers’ markets. There are many of them, but the one that seemed the biggest and easiest to get to from our hotel was the Calgary Farmers’ Market.
The market is big, and since it’s open four days a week, many of the stalls are semi-permanent. In that sense it reminded me a bit of Halifax’s Seaport Farmers’ Market, though it’s bigger. There is a great mix of vendors, with lots of ready-to-eat food stalls, and plenty of people selling meat, vegetables and fruits, and cheese. We started off with some delicious coffee from Fratello Coffee.
Jacques went for some dim sum. He loves it, but hardly eats it anymore since there isn’t much choice at dim sum for celiacs (that I know of).
There were also many stalls selling desserts and baked goods, including the one below which specialized in middle eastern sweets. I’m not sure what exactly these kataifi are, but they look good. Jacques enjoyed his baklava from this stand.
I was excited about visiting Miss P’s Gluten Free stand. Here are some of her cupcakes. I bought a loaf of focaccia bread and some chocolate chip cookies, both of which I enjoyed. The bread had a delicious flavour, though the texture was on the dry side.
I had a gluten-free buckwheat galette for lunch. A galette is a type of French crepe made with buckwheat flour. I chose a filling of spinach, tomato and goat cheese, and it was tasty.
We really enjoyed strolling around the market. Lucky Calgarians who get to shop there all the time! Though I love our markets in Edmonton, it would be great to have one that was open more than one day a week.
Calgary Farmers’ Market
510 77th Ave. SE (Just off Blackfoot Trail and Heritage Drive)
Open Thursday – Sunday 9 am – 5 pm
My first week of mat leave has been awesome. It feels kind of weird and surreal to have so much free time – it’s like this strange transition period between my old life and my new life.
I’m really enjoying being able to decide exactly what I want to do with my days. This week we got a lot of stuff done around the house, including organizing all of our files and reorganizing the closets to make room for baby stuff. The baby’s room is almost entirely ready, which is so exciting!
I also did a bunch of grocery shopping and stocked up on staple pantry items and ingredients for all the freezer meals I plan to make – that’s on next week’s agenda. Our pantry has never been so full, and it feels great.
We also took some time to relax together this week since J wasn’t working much either. On Tuesday we went to Elm Café for breakfast. This is one of J’s favourite spot in the whole city. It’s a tiny cafe in the Oliver neighbourhood, opened a few years ago by Edmonton chef Nate Box. It’s been getting a lot of attention lately – both in a feature in Vue Weekly and on Avenue Magazine’s 25 Best Things To Eat in Edmonton list.
I suggested to J that he go to Elm for his espresso fix when he started working at the Edmonton General hospital last year. Though it’s six blocks away from the hospital, it has the best coffee in the neighbourhood. J fell in love with their sandwiches, and now he often leaves for work 45 minutes early just to walk to Elm.
The sandwiches are made on crusty, glutenous bread, so no tastes for me, but they look and sound divine. J will come home from work with a dreamy look on his face, remembering his breakfast sandwich: fried egg cooked perfectly, with the yolk slightly runny, Irving’s farm bacon or sausage, arugula, sometimes pickles, cheese, or some other enticing combination of ingredients.
Besides sandwiches for breakfast and lunch, Elm offers a daily soup and salad, yogurt with fruit and granola, muffins, coffee from 49th Parallel in Vancouver, and other hot and cold drinks. And they serve it all from a 195-square-foot-storefront tucked just off Jasper Avenue. There are a few chairs at a narrow wooden counter inside the cafe, and in nice weather there are several tables set up outside too.
The other morning J chose the Early Sandwich with fried egg, Irvings’ Smokies, horseradish mayo, cheddar, and spinach, and a pina colada muffin. I went for one of the only GF things on the menu, local Bleswold Yogurt with grapes and blackberries, and a cappuccino. It was all delicious.
It was such a treat to share a meal in the middle of the morning, and to eat it outside – I think our first outside meal of the year. It was one of many small, sweet moments this week as we savour our last days as a childless couple.
Tonight a few friends are coming over to celebrate J’s birthday, and I took advantage of my time off to prepare a dessert extravaganza: two kinds of cookies, whoopie pies, and homemade gelato. I’m pretty excited! Hopefully I can share the results with you in the next little while.
Elm Café
10140 117 st, Unit 100
Edmonton, AB
www.elmcafe.ca
A few weeks ago we spent the weekend in Banff with friends. It was a really nice getaway, especially as the birth of our baby gets closer and closer. We hadn't been to the mountains since last summer, and I always feel like I need to take advantage of their proximity while living here in Alberta.
Banff is a very gluten-free friendly town for tourists. Here are a few of the highlights:
We stayed at A Banff Boutique Inn, a B&B on the edge of town. I'd definitely recommend it. We got a deal on our rooms so it was a very reasonable price - not sure we could afford to stay here in the high season. It's an old house built in the 1940s, and the rooms have retained some old-fashioned charm. There are hardwood floors, big windows, and simple, classic furnishings. Our room had a cute little built-in vanity with two closets on either side. The rooms are comfortable but not big, and we were in a wing of the house with a shared shower/sink and shared separate toilet. It worked well since our friends stayed in the other room of the wing.
The breakfast they offered was fantastic. It was continental but quite deluxe: all kinds of breads and bagels, hard-boiled eggs, yogurt, fresh fruit including berries and pineapple, homemade granola bars and banana bread, cereals, nuts and dried fruit, coffee, and a good tea selection. And ... gluten-free bread and cereal! Unfortunately there was only one toaster so I didn't take a chance with the bread, but the cereal (Nature's Path Mesa Sunrise with raisins) was delicious, especially with all the nice toppings. I also enjoyed delicious chocolate mint rooibos tea from the Banff Tea Company.
There's a wonderful bakery in Banff, Wild Flour, that sells many gluten-free baked goods. We went there twice in two days so I could sample their treats. The mint "rawreo" (in second photo above) had a delicious mint flavour, though the texture of the cookie was a bit weird - I guess that's because they're raw. The next day I tried a ginger peach muffin which was a bit dense, but otherwise really good. Sadly I didn’t feel like I could indulge in the Mexican chocolate cookie or the brownie as well. The bakery also makes a delicious cappuccino and a yummy lunch, with lots of GF options for soups and salads. And of course, there are plenty of gluten-filled baked goods and fresh-baked breads.
We went to the Bear Street Tavern for supper because I read online that they have gluten-free pizza. I chose one with wild mushrooms, pine nuts, and pesto, which was just as delicious as it sounds. The crust was thin and crispy, with none of the beautiful puckering and air-filled holes of the gluten version, but still good. J unfortunately was disappointed with his pork belly mac and cheese, since the pork was rubbery and the flavour nothing special. But we all enjoyed the atmosphere of the place – casual and trendy.
We also had a taste of home in Banff at Cows Ice Cream, the company from PEI. We introduced our friends to the joys of 16 percent butterfat and whimsical flavours like Gooey Mooey (burnt sugar with chocolate caramel cups) and Wowie Cowie (vanilla with english toffee swirl, chocolate flakes and Skor bits).
When you enter the store, the intoxicating scent of freshly baked, sugary waffle cones (with just a hint of almond) hits your nose. Sadly, I can't eat the cones anymore, but my cup of Chunky Chocolate Mint was still delicious, and reminded me of summers on PEI.
The next time we visit the mountains it will be with our baby. With our baby! I still can't quite believe it.
Visiting food markets in new cities is something I love to do when I’m traveling. Sadly I haven’t had many opportunities. I’m hoping to take in a market or two when we visit Europe this summer – so excited! I’ve heard so much about the Pike Place market in Seattle and the Ferry Building market in San Francisco. I really hope I get a chance to visit them someday. When we were in Vancouver last March I loved the Granville Island Public Market, and it immediately reminded me of the St. Lawrence Market in Toronto.
I first visited the St. Lawrence Market about a year ago, and I went back when I was in Toronto recently. It’s a pretty cool place, and just like the one on Granville Island, makes me wish we could have a market that was open during the week in Edmonton. It’s in a big old warehouse building downtown on Front street, and covers two floors. The top floor is mostly food and some kitchen-related items. When you head downstairs there is more food but also some arts and crafts mixed in.
There is so much to see.
Tantalizing cheese – big creamy wheels of it.
Lots of meat too.
Many varieties of shellfish.
Several bakeries (my mouth is watering at that Challah…).
Fresh Montreal bagels.
There’s a store on the lower level that has an astonishing array of bulk items – nuts, beans, all kinds of weird candies I’ve never heard of. They also sell different kinds of bulk salt, like Himalayan pink salt and smoked salt. It’s a great way to try new kinds of salt without paying an arm and a leg for a whole box. Last year I bought a small container of fleur de sel that’s not quite gone, and this year I bought Maldon salt. I haven’t tested them side by side yet to see if I can taste a big difference, but they’re both fantastic for sprinkling onto your food right before you eat.
The market also has many produce stands, both organic and non. When I was there in mid-May, they already had local berries. Jealous!
I can’t wait to discover more markets on my travels. Where are your favourite markets?
