Roadtrip to Burlington, VT, USA

G and I took a little road trip to the USA a couple of weeks ago. We stayed in Burlington, which is 160km south of Montreal and lies on the eastern side of Lake Champlain.

Such beautiful blue skies! The weather on our first day was amazing - cold, but brilliant sunshine. We wandered around the downtown area, and along the foreshore, stopping to sit awhile in one of the swinging park benches that line the boardwalk. The great thing about going outside of peak season - everyone had a bench!

The top picture is looking out over Lake Champlain - you can see the Adirondack mountains on the other side of the lake. I will have to visit in the summer and see how busy this area is! The bottom picture is a random, municipal building in Burlington, which was so vivid against the sky and the burnished red of the autumn leaves.

A late lunch at American Flatbread in downtown Burlington. This place was recommended on a number of websites - a big draw being their looong list of house and locally brewed beers. I enjoyed a Cornucopia Spiced Butternut Squash Harvest Ale - it hit the spot after a morning of driving and border crossing negotiations! We shared their house salad, with goat's cheese, and two of their signature pizza-style flatbreads. They were good, although not as good as the raves would suggest - a little dry and the toppings were a bit sparse. Still, they tasted pretty great and the ingredients that were fresh and high quality.

Breakfast at Penny Cluse Cafe, also in downtown Burlington. I decided to embrace the Americana and had the southern-style biscuits smothered in herb cream gravy, with eggs and a fruit plate. The fruit plate was actually the highlight - there was about 11 different fruits on it, including pomegranate, fresh fig and a melon which I couldn't even recognise!

The next day was the opposite of the last - rain that turned into icy pellets that turned into snow, yuck! Luckily we had decided to play tourist and visit the local (indoor) attractions! We went wine tasting at Shelburne Vineyard (see above, they grow special vines which have been cultivated to withstand the extremes in temperature), chocolate tasting at Lake Champlain Chocolates (try their Five Star bar if you get a chance!) and ice-cream tasting at the Ben and Jerry Factory (I know, ice-cream tasting when it is snowing outside? Let me tell you, totally worth it!)

  

On our way back, just before the border, we needed fuel for the rental car (it is cheaper in the USA) and fuel for the border crossing. A quick stop at a McDonalds and look, our visit happened to coincide with the limited edition run of McRib. I think we had these in Australia way back when, but I can't remember them tasting this good! Not sure if they will make it to Canada....

Anyway, it was a great little trip - I can't wait to visit again in the summer!

Scenes from Verdun

Not everyone goes all out with fall and Halloween decorations, but there a couple of houses around me that always put in the effort

See, those big, orange plastic bags? They are multi-functional - they are full of leaves (if you have a tree on your property, you do a lot of raking in the fall) but they are sold with spooky Halloween images printed on the sides, so they can be decorative as they await pick up by the garbage man!

The end of the farmer's markets

Montreal has some wonderful, all-year farmer's markets (Marche Atwater and Marche Jean Talon are the biggest and best) but, during the summer, lots of little neighbourhood farmer's markets pop up as well. Last year a couple of organisations (Le Sud-Ouest Montreal, Nourrir Montreal and Agriculture, Pecheries et Alimentation Quebec) started an initiative to bring low cost, healthy, fresh food to some of the, well, poorer neighbourhoods. Lucky me, they started one in Verdun, at the Parc du Souvenir, right near the Verdun metro. Open on Fridays 3pm - 8pm, and Sundays 9am - 3pm, the market is a very welcome addition - the produce is local and super fresh and the prices are super cheap! (Think five jalapenos for $1!) I love it! And though it is small, I think that is part of its charm. I really don't enjoy the "challenge" of trying to find the best produce or the best price at the different stalls in the larger markets, so this "one stall" version, that you can see below, suits me just fine!

It was also at this market that I discovered Sweet Lee's Rustic Bakery, a brother-sister baking team that sells a pretty huge array of muffins and cheesecakes and cookies and crumbles and..... you get the idea! They are looking to open a bricks and mortar stall in St Henri soon, but manned a stall at the market to sell their wares and drum up business! Yum! I would often buy a vegie muffin to nibble on whilst I decided on my fruit and veg....

But, as I alluded to in the title - this weekend marked the final weekend for the market. The cooling weather, the end of the harvest and the fast approaching first snow fall mean that a little outdoor market can't survive the winter. It is part of the cycle of life here in Montreal, and is something that takes a little getting used to for an Australian! But the markets will be back next year and so in February, when it is -25C outside and the little park is covered in snow and I am hurrying past to get into the warmth of the metro, I know one of the things I will be looking forward to!

Balcony! Critters! Basil!

The nights are getting colder and it is almost time to bring in the plants on my balcony. I am not sure where I am going to put them all - in my rush of planting this Spring I forgot about the fact that they can't stay outside all year. I have too many pots this year to just keep them on the kitchen floor as I did last winter!

One thing I do know - there are some little critters who are going to be very sad to see them go! I only hope they haven't hidden too many of their goodies in my plants......

I can't take any credit for it, though I do take pride - when I planted these basil plants they were nestled *under* the geranium! I was worried they weren't going to do well! I have eaten caprese salad all summer and still have not made a dent in it! I should have borrowed a food processor and made a kilo of pesto!

Seemingly abandoned in the middle of rue Bernard

I like how they matched their balloons to the pumpkins!

Scenes from an alley on the Plateau

 Fall in Montreal is a beautiful time of year and this past long weekend (Canadian Thanksgiving) was gorgeous!

 Even the slowly shrivelling summer flowers were looking good 

This is the back of a triplex (a three storey apartment building with one apartment per floor). The red ivy was just shining in the morning sun! These "back" balconies are quite common and very popular - most people have a little BBQ set up for summer time grilling and some planter boxes for herbs and flowers.

Not all of the foliage has turned yet. There are many cats on the Plateau and this guy's favourite place is hiding in the leaves on this low stone wall. Whilst other cats around M's house are super friendly (Pistache, the white cat, the subject of a later post) this one is shy and doesn't like to be petted. I am not sure where he will hide once all the leaves fall!

Civilised scenes from the weekend: the forest floor

Rhubarb, apple and strawberry crumble

Autumn/fall is definitely here - the nights are much cooler now and it is no hardship to have the oven on in the evening! At last Sunday's little farmer's market in Verdun I picked up a huge bunch of rhubarb.Not my favourite vegetable but an awesome addition to fruity desserts, especially pies and crumbles! It is only since living in Quebec that I have discovered the deliciousness of adding of strawberries to pies and crumbles (why don't we do this in Australia? My guess, berries are waaay to expensive to "waste" in a crumble!) and so I thought this was a perfect opportunity to test out a rhubarb, apple, strawberry concoction.

You could follow any normal crumble recipe, using your favourite fruits, but here are my hints -

- partially cook the apple and rhubarb in a saucepan, with a bit of water and lemon

- use a shallow dish for optimal crumble to fruit ratio!

- get creative with seasonings for the crumble topping - I love a little bit of ground ginger and even some black pepper, and I always add rolled oats to the flour/sugar/butter mixture

Mmm, and of course, serve with your favourite dairy deliciousness!

Seasons

Summer in Montreal is short. However, it is hot and humid and full of sunshine so it feels like a real summer and you can get away with wearing just shorts and t-shirts for a couple of months (This balance was one of my "conditions" in moving to a city that is blanketed in snow for four-six months of the year) But, summer in the Northern Hemisphere is coming to an end (the blogs say that it is so....) and whilst there are lots of things to love about the fall - the beautiful leaves, the huge collection of scarves I've managed to amass, the pumpkin jam at Cafe Souvenir - I really despise the first day when I forced to choose a pair of jeans over a pair of shorts. Today is that day. Just yesterday we were golfing (!!) in brilliant sunshine, today, well it is pretty miserable outside and the jeans (and socks!) are welcome....