Fourth Creek Food’s Sweet Red Pepper Relish

Last year I explored Maine for the first time ever on a four day road trip. As I pecked around Portland to Belfast to the LL BEAN HQ, I found lots of great bites. One of my favorites was the very publicly applauded, yet new to me, Raye’s Mustard. With 100 years of history and what seems like as many flavor concoctions, there’s a version for everyones taste. Boasting small batch crafted, high in antioxidants, gluten-free, low sodium and no GMOs, makes you love it even more. Founded in the family smokehouse to produce mustard for Maine’s burgeoning sardine industry, the origins story only adds to the quintessential American dream story. We dig the Raye’s Horseradish Mustard on a roast beef sando, in fact, we knocked back one of those today.

Impossible to drop into Montreal without some David McMillan and Frédéric Morin touchpoint. This trip, it was snacks and drinks at their newish wine bar Le Vin Papillon and some Joe Beef Butcher’s Blend. This souvenir was acquired at a local market in the Westmount proving that the Joe Beef dynasty reaches far from the humble, pioneering roots of Little Burgundy into even the shishiest of Anglo-Quebec ‘hoods. As it should.

This is what happens when an Indian woman finds a conduit in frozen cream. Thankfully this happened so we can now indulge in Pooja’s Malai Ice Cream flavors. I always explain Indian cuisine as complex because of how much prep goes into building the depth of flavor many Indian dishes so successfully share with our palettes. Taking that same development process and using ice cream base as the delivery vehicle is a brilliant idea. Not to mention the beauty in her packaging design and flavor combinations. Apparently Pooja’s been like this about flavor since she was a kid. When we met, mom was by her side to prove this true. All that said, the flavor descriptions do all the selling themselves. Rose with cinnamon roasted almonds, golden turmeric, orange fennel, of course, masala chai. My personal fav was her lemon cardamom. Two incredibly distinct flavors mixed perfectly. The list is 14 flavors deep. Each one an incredible mashup of distinct flavors. So much for our attempt to ween ourselves off of our ice cream habit.

On a walk up to Jean-Talon Market we walked into a store that at first seemed to be all duck. As we made our way to the front counter we discovered the Ils En Fument Du Bon sausage counter. Technically they classify themselves as charcuterie but it’s their sausage selection that grabbed us by the taste buds. Scanning the counter our tongues watered over tequila lime, foie gras and spaghetti sausages. There’s spaghetti IN the casing. Crazy. These are only three of about 30 different concoctions. All of them twisting your brain around contrasting ingredients. The picture above does the perfect job of explaining the owner and the vibe of this artisanal brand. If these guys aren’t on VICE by summer someone in editorial blew it.