Montreal's Atwater Market

Atwater Market was built in 1930s Art Deco style

Chef Andersen Lee took us to his favourite public market in Montreal called Atwater Market near Lachine Canal. It's not touristy, more locals who come here to buy perennials and wines, as well as meats, vegetables and cheeses.

Thick-cut slices of smoked meat at Alywin's

The market is named after Edwin Atwater, a 19th century businessman and city councillor, and the Art Deco building opened in 1933 during the Great Depression in a bid to stimulate the economy. 

Inside there are two floors housing butchers, cheesemongers, a shop selling coffee beans, a boulangerie and patisserie. We went into Aylwin Deli to try their smoked meat sandwich (C$16) on rye and pumpernickel bread, but the thickly sliced meat tasted flat, with no peppery taste.

Nevertheless, we marvelled at the stalls selling an abundance of asparagus, not only green but purple and white as well, fresh bulbs of garlic, giant stalks of rhubarb, and fresh herbs.

Large selection of vegetables and fruits for sale

We also tried some pastries -- a coffee-flavoured eclair, and one with chocolate ganache inside, and a small lemon tart with lime zest. They were all delicious, washed down with a refreshing raspberry lemonade.

There were lots of baskets of colourful perennials to hang or place in small balcony boxes at home, while oenophiles enjoyed wandering the aisles of a giant wine shop selling a wide variety of bottles.

Lee likes to come here, pick out a bottle, buy some cheeses, cold cuts and a baguette and have a picnic.

It's such a French way of organising a casual bite that also tastes amazing -- with a glass of wine. 

If you don't drive, it's also relatively easy to get to Atwater Market by metro too.

Colourful perennials ready to be taken home

Atwater Market

155 Green Avenue

Montreal

Fresh Vegetables Inspire Good Eating

Fresh mixed greens with cucumber slices and cherry tomatoes

Yesterday I went to Harvest Community Foods on Union Street, at the edge of Vancouver's Chinatown. It's an inviting small grocery store that has fresh vegetables and fruits. At the entrance there were large yellow-orangey globes of peaches, verdant green English cucumbers, giant russet-coloured tomatoes, pears that had yet to ripen, and bright red cherry tomatoes.

The shop sells CSA produce, or Community Supported Agriculture, where they connect with local farmers, get their produce, and Harvest bundles them up in paper shopping bags to sell. It's a farmer's market mixed bag of veggies that changes weekly depending on what's harvested.

French fingerling potatoes from an organic farm

The owners, chef Andrea Carlson and Gabrielle Meyer, had just signed a lease on a space a few doors down just weeks before the Covid-19 pandemic in the spring of 2020. They had just started doing the CSA bags with about 40 subscribers. When everything shut down and people were worried about going to supermarkets, they began inquiring about Harvest's CSA bags and instead of 40 subscribers, they got 400.

While it was a lot of hard work for Harvest's team in sorting out the vegetables evenly into bags, it was a lifeline for local farmers who didn't know how else to get their produce to customers.

I was given a bag of CSA produce to take home too and today I started eating some of it.

For lunch I made a spring salad and cut up some of the English cucumber and the ripe cherry tomatoes. The tomatoes were so good, almost as juicy sweet as the ones in Tuscany! 

The roasted potato slices with salt and pepper

Then for dinner I took the French fingerling potatoes, sliced them, marinated them in oil, salt and pepper and then roasted them for 20 minutes. They tasted so fresh, and complemented roasted chicken drumsticks.

I also took the bunch of spinach and stir-fried them Chinese-style with shallots, garlic and ginger. The spinach was delicious mixed with leftover shrimp and tofu with vermicelli.

There's still a bunch of kale, the exotic-sounding Dragon Tongue beans, a red pepper, onion and corn left!

Eating Local at Farmer's Market

Blueberries, raspberries and blackberries on sale today

This afternoon I checked out the farmer's market at Riley Park, next to Nat Bailey Stadium where the Vancouver Canadians play baseball. I hadn't been to this farmer's market for decades and was keen to see what the different stalls had.

I managed to get a parking spot in the community centre connected to Hillcrest Park, where there is a library, swimming pool, ice rink and playground.

My lunch of two samosas with chickpea sauce

A short walk away I could see small tents and many of them were selling berries -- strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, blackberries and even boysenberries. Others sold vegetables like corn, kale, zucchini, English peas, beets, and potatoes. 

Others sold breads, donuts, and cookies, or perogies, meat pies, frozen salmon fillets, and fresh pasta. One had a slow day selling mushrooms -- the guy wore a T-shirt with a large mushroom on it and it said "funguy". He was offering lion mane mushrooms, oyster and shiitake, and even sea asparagus or salicornia, a crunchy but salty vegetable that looks like a mini asparagus.

There were also exotic foods like Balinese sauces, Cambodian seasonings, Indian chilli sauces. 

I ordered lunch from an Indian food truck: a dish called samosa chaat, featuring two samosas with a chickpea sauce drizzled on top with a bit of tamarind chilli sauce. It was delicious with a bit of pickled cabbage.

Vegan chocolate ice cream bar!

And hankering for an ice cream I had a vegan cookies and cream ice cream bar. It was covered in white chocolate shell and underneath was a black ice cream bar, as if you had crushed the black cookies of an Oreo and froze them with a bit of plant-based milk. 

I enjoyed the food while listening to a group of singers performing songs a cappella.

While the prices are a bit more expensive than supermarkets, many people come here for organic produce or want to support local farmers. There's a warm community atmosphere here!