NEAROF

Why am I drawn to Ikea’s Swedish Food Store? Hard to say. Maybe because the prices are generally crazy cheap. Maybe because they have so many curious products that seem vaguely familiar, yet different. And maybe it’s because, unlike trips to some other oddball/curious food shops in town, there’s usually at least a bit of [...]

I feel silly saying this, but the I think the first time I tried real, honest-to-goodness Turkish delight (a.k.a. lokum) was around five years ago, at Edmonton’s Heritage Festival. I bought a small baggie full of jellied Turkish delight cubes at a pavilion that, I think, belonged to one of the “-stans.” I had no [...]

How’s this for an interesting chocolate bar flavour: blood orange and mango filling. In recent years, mango has become a trendy taste to add to all sorts of things, and the fruit itself is getting easier and easier to find in North American grocery stores of even moderate size. Blood orange, however, is still a [...]

There’s something magical about the first Slurpee of the season, isn’t there? The sweet, frosty, icy, slushy soft drink is a staple of the summer season in this part of the world, and there is much to celebrate on the first day warm enough to enjoy one outside, on a walk through the neighbourhood. Nothing [...]

Another quirky find at Calgary’s fabulous Kalamata grocery store, this homely looking jar of Grenache “creamy spread” is mysterious, yet sounds yummy. It’s made by Smucker Foods of Canada, so it’s not some tiny artisanal product. And yet, this is the first time I’ve seen it. When I think Grenache, I think of the common [...]

Shortly after I moved to Calgary in the fall, my friend Jason introduced me to the most amazing little shop in the city’s Beltline area. It’s called Kalamata Grocery, and it’s an old-fashioned corner store – quite literally on the corner of 11th Street and 15th Avenue SW – with a Greek/European flavour to it. [...]

They’re an Easter season staple in Canada and in many other parts of the world, yet they’re banned in America. While the Kinder Surprise menace is apparently clear and present, I’d venture there are at least a handful of greater threats to U.S. national security than chocolate eggs with toys inside them. And so, as [...]

Eggs are great, aren’t they? But you know what would be even better? Eggs with chocolate shells, so that you could eat the shells instead of throwing them away or composting them. And wait … you know what would be even more amazing? If instead of having yolks and egg whites inside, they were filled [...]