Yesterday I went to two of my favorite places ever. It all started with a hankering for cheese.

When you want great cheese in Vancouver, sure, you have some options, but many agree the best of the best is Les Amis du Fromage

With 300-400 cheeses from BC and around the world I could spend days in there trying cheeses before either passing out in a cheese-coma or being dragged away by the authorities. I can never resist trying the local cheese, so the owner Alice (with a borderline frightening amount of cheese knowledge) helped me pick out a nice chunk of Tomme D’or and Feta, both from farms in Salt Spring Island.

And since I was now only a couple blocks from Granville Island Market, how could I say no?

Browsing the usual stocks of amazing products, I overheard such things as a man giving a passionate presentation on corned beef. It was like on the Daily Show when Jon Stewart asked Barack Obama to “hope-up” some common everyday phrases like “Are you happy with your cell phone service?”

I also stumbled across some of this stuff :

Hickory Smoked Salt.

Now flavored salts are nothing new, they are easy to make and can add great flavor, but I was just amazed at the intense amount of smoke flavor these little babies had. I have actually tried to make my own smoked salt with semi-decent results, but this salt smelled and tasted like it had been living in the woods near a campfire for years like a wild man. You could seriously sprinkle this on a cucumber slice and it would smell and taste like Texas BBQ.

Go pick some up and see for yourself, and grab some cheese while you’re at it.

Tags: cheese, vancouver personal chef

This entry was posted on Friday, June 20th, 2008 at 6:12 pm and is filed under Ingredients. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.