Portland, Canada, San Diego, anything goes...
This time we are back in Canada. Manitoulin Island to be exact. We had our hearty breakfast of bacon, eggs, and fruit as well as the surprise Poke made with rainbow trout a few hours earlier.
C's husband, FarmerJohn was out in the fields while we piled into their minivan to do errands and see some sights...
The island lifestyle is very laid back. No one is ever in a rush here. To give you an example, the nearest grocery store from C's place in Tehkummah is a half hour away. So factor in the thirty minutes of drive time, plus the same amount (or more) to shop and then a half hour drive back. Yikes. But hey, when in Manitoulin Island, do as the natives do right? It was time for me to put my anal/Type A personality on the back burner.
So we made it out to the Foodland in Mindemoya. This is one of two Foodlands (the other is in Little Current at the Northern end of the Island). The other types of grocery stores are smaller mom and pop type mini marts or general stores scattered throughout the island. This is a fairly large market and is centralized for most of the community.
I don't know about you, but whenever we're traveling, I always like to check out the grocery stores. It's always exciting to see the different food products, such as this candy, Dessert Bites, which is a pie flavored candy ball covered with white or milk chocolate. I bought several as gifts. I hope they tasted all right since I didn't keep any for myself. Underneat this shelf they had small bags of various candy "bites" by Aero, Smarties, and Coffee Crisp.
The candy aisle is also fun to look at such as these our-packs of Aero bars - these are chocolate bars with air pockets or 'bubbles' in them. You can actually get these at Fresh and Easy (individual bars not the four pack).
One of C's husband's favorite snacks is "Bits & Bites". This is kind of like Chex Mix or snack mix.
And yeah, I love looking at the Pringles flavors. Although I initially thought the Ketchup flavor was 'wierd' when we first visited two years ago, it grew on me. I kept thinking about and dreaming about ketchup flavored chips so when we finally visited again, I ended up buying out the last remaining six cans of the ketchup Pringles (one for us, the rest as gifts)!
I think I took a shot of these Old Dutch chips last time, but here they are again. Don't you just love the stereotypical "Asian" writing for the Sweet and Sour flavor? WTF... Do you see the flavor, "All Dressed"? That was a flavor we saw over and over again. It's a term Canadians use to describe how a hamburger or sandwich is fixed up. All dressed would be "all the flavors" combined. One of the potato chip bags (not pictured, I think it was Ruffles brand) had a picture of an oil bottle, a red bell pepper, and a green onion. In any case, the All Dressed was another flavor that we really liked.
These Tim Tam cookie biscuits are actually Australian...
The Dare Maple cookies are pretty good. I refrained from buying some this time. There's a comparable cookie from Trader Joe's but I like the Dare version much better.
I was suprised to see this dragon fruit here. I wonder if anyone bought these.
Although I've seen red apples before, I hadn't seen this type, Red Prince.
Nor had I ever seen Spartan apples either (they are from Canada).
Various cheeses from a local company, Thornloe Cheese from Northern Ontario.
We can't ignore the bacon...Maple Leaf brand with "lazy maple" flavor!
More bacon from Compliments brand - maple and smoked flavors.
Another local brand, Farquhar's - Milk is sold in plastic bags here. There were a few cartons up top but for the most part, milk was bagged. Farquhar's used to be based on the island but is now in nearby Espanola.
Sausages from Bavarian Link Meats which is located in North Bay, Ontario.
Freshwater fish from Purvis Fisheries. Their fish comes from Lake Huron, which is the Great Lake that Manitoulin Island is located.
I was curious about this frozen tourtiere from Schneider's (another Canadian brand).
This is basically a meat pie. During our last night on the Island, I helped C make a couple of these. I had "crust duty".
Inside Foodland was their LCBO, which stands for Liquor Control Board of Canada. It's a liquor store within the grocery store. You must pay for your booze in here.
We got a bottle of this ice wine. We bought some ice wine a couple of years ago when we went to Niagara-on-the-Lake. We finally drank that Late Harvest ice wine earlier this year. We won't wait that long to drink this. I really enjoy sweet wines but it's not like I partake of this stuff on a regular basis.
See my original post here, "Stuff bought at Foodland" (from our 2010 trip).
C and I stocked up on a few snacks and fruit to bring for our road trip. I also bought some snacks (chips) and candy. We also bumped into the folks who owned the miniature horses. What was also funny about this shopping excursion was that C saw a few others folks that she knew and they thought we (Bert and myself) were Foreign Exchange Students (since C is an English teacher who hosts foreign students).
"Excuse please...I no speak English"! (said while "bowing")
No, I didn't really say that, but I thought it a bit humorous that they thought we were "foreign".
Yeah, foreign from California! That was pretty exotic, I'm sure.
Our next stop was at a local bakery since I was hell bent on finding a particular Canadian dessert...
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