Meat

So this trip now has a soft opening and a grand opening date. The soft opening was this Friday, when I went and visited Two Rivers Meats, then went and picked Fabian up in Whistler. Definition of a good time. Two Rivers is an awesome butcher/supplier that rock out in North Vancouver. They are in the midst of moving, so I got a two for one deal. The owner and operator, Jason, gave me a tour of their facility is progress, IE his dream meat processing facility, and I also got to see where they work out of now. The contrast was startling. The new facility is going to be beautiful on a seriously organized, spacious and professional angle. The old one is charming and interesting, but they've definitely outgrown it as a company. They supply exclusively from boutique farms and places practicing ethical and sustainable farming, which makes them even more amazing than just being a really cool group of people slinging meat. I'm also a great appreciator of the fact that they wear proper butchery jackets when working and on delivery.
I'm really excited to see what they can do in the future and will post pictures of the new facility when its up and running. Another cool part of their business is that they are really interested in charcuterie. The master butcher there is a massive German guy who probably rolled 100 sausages in the duration of our 5 minute conversation. Monster. Germans are like that. I feel like it's okay for me to make vague generalizations about peoples who I happen to be traveling with for the next three months. Anyways, there is also a chef working with them, and he'll be competing on team Canada for the culinary olympics is 2012. Pretty amazing stuff. Much thanks to Jason and the whole team there for showing me around and answering all the questions I had. I wish you the best of luck in the coming years and look forward to seeing what you can do.

The Goods

THE RIDE

So, these are the straight goods...
This is Red Betty, she is a nice Astro van. She will get me across Canada.
Hopefully. If she doesn't I will explode her in a field in Saskatchewan. (Well aware of the intrinsic grammar flaw there, but I find without it the sentence lacks that childlike relish that I'm going for) That will be enjoyable, should it happen. I personally believe she is so scared of the latter fate that she will happily ferry me all the way to Halifax before dying out. In any case, despite how violent that last threat to Betty was, I actually have quite a bit of affection for her. Shes quirky, and that dash of hers doesn't light up like it used to. Actually, it doesn't light up at all. The rest is good, new battery, engine is relatively sound, and all the seats turn around and reverse and come out to fit my bed in. This will be my house for the next three months, a fact I'm still struggling with but is nevertheless pretty exciting. Anyways, next order of business.

THE CAMERA

This is a Kodak Playsport. It is amazing. It shoots 1080p HD video and is the size of a small cell phone. This sneaky little thing is going to make videoblogs easy, traveling partners embarrassed, and document a lot of stuff that will probably interest no one but me. It can film up to 10 ft underwater, a point I intend to test vigorously. I'm pretty excited about this little tool and its potential damage to my otherwise stellar reputation as a dignified person.....


The Traveling Partner

This is Fabian, he's the german goof who is kindly going to put up with my nonsense as we go from coast to coast to coast of a country 28 times larger than the one he grew up in. The shenanigans will be endless, much like the roads will feel across the prairies. On top of being a more experienced perspective on the food we come across, he is also intolerably European and will provide a lot of foreign input on Canadian culture. His blog is www.thepananimal.wordpress.com. Be sure to check it out for such fun as "the sandwich report" and "one-pot wonders" across Canada.

That's all for right now, finishing this week up, getting set up, and then heading out. Haven't been more excited for a long while now. I'll see you in your respective places soon.

The Basic Layout

So this trip is going to be large and long. 3 months of Canadian food and culture. The basic layout starts west and then goes north, then east. That's the very basic layout. Following is a slight more detailed, but we're leaving a lot of room for movement and ad lib travel.

June 1st- Leaving Vancouver for the Island
June 19th- Comox Shellfish festival
June 23rd-Okanagan
July 1st-Dawson City, Yukon!
July 8th-Jasper
July 12th- Calgary, Stampede status
July 19th-Edmonton
Aug 2nd-Winnipeg
Aug 4th-Toronto
Aug 14th- Ottawa, home for a second, returning shortly
Aug 20th-Montreal
Sept 2-3rd- Drummondville PoutineFEST!
Sept 5th- Quebec City
Sept 10th- Halifax
Sept 17-18th- Charlottetown Shellfish Festival
Sept 20th- Ottawa, trip finished, and my birthday.

Gonna be a wild ride.

Welcome

Hello and welcome to StoveTrotter, a silly name I know. The point of this blog/v-log is to document a cross Canada food voyage. If I find I like blogging, it might turn into a regular thing. I'll be concentrating on restaurants and food production, so working at farms and the best establishments in Canada is a big part. A second part is eating all the local stuff, as weird as any of it may be. The basic underlying message is that this blog is really for me, not for you, but if you feel inclined to occasionally see whats going on as I meander across this country, you are free to. I want at least one person to get really obsessive and mad when I don't post often enough, but I think that's probably just vanity. In any case, enjoy watching me demean myself for my personal satisfaction and possibly yours as well. Eat well.