A little trip to Banff

Hello again! As per usual, a little way behind on keeping things up to date, but here's the rundown of mine and Wendy's trip to Banff!

Considering which, I should probably do an introduction:

This is Wendy! She's a lovely young lady from the Czech Republic, and we have been dating for 6 months or so. Possibly weird that I haven't mentioned her until now, but I had an approximate publishing schedule and it felt weird to shoehorn her in. Here, however, definitely makes sense, as we finally had a few days off together, and decided to make the most of it.

Some of the scenery on the way there

Since we both work for a hotel chain with properties in both Jasper and Banff, we get discounts at their properties, so it was the most sensible choice, and one of the best local beauty spots (outside Jasper, anyway).

And rather pleasantly, it started snowing just as we were leaving Jasper, which made our entire trip almost aggressively Christmassy, which was absolutely delightful.

Banff is a lovely little town. Substantially larger than Jasper, and rather more touristy, but that does mean that it has an excellent range of restaurants, cafes, bistros, and touristy shops. It's still only a short walk out of town into the surrounding hills and forests, and there are a variety of hiking trails nearby.

Much like Jasper, there are mountains in every direction, although given the general location that's not really very surprising. On the topic of mountains, thanks to the Banff Gondola, I've finally made it up to the top of one (having spent the majority of summer waiting for it to stop raining, and it not doing so very often). Though it did start snowing again on the way up, which was very scenic and atmospheric, but did make good pictures a bit difficult.

It was also about 10 degrees colder up at the top, which took it from about 6 C in the town to -4 or so at the peak. On top of the peak in question is also a decommissioned cosmic ray observation station, situated for the high altitude and clear skies. There's only a small hut left on the peak now, but it's still nice to see how science can take you to all sorts of unusual places.

If you're looking for a way to warm up after visiting the mountain top, you can't do much better than the thermal springs at the base of the mountain, and just across the carpark from the gondola.

Hot spring at the entrance to the baths

The thermal springs have been a popular tourist spot since the first baths were set up in 1888, and now have a rather nice modern swimming pool enclosing the spring. If you're feeling more traditionally inclined, however, you can hire an 1880's style swimming costume, as I did. And I have to say I looked rather good in it. There are no pictures, you will probably be pleased to hear.

Another highlight of the trip was the tour of the Park distillery. It's a free tour, and if you go on it you get a discount in the restaurant. That alone makes it very worthwhile, as the cocktails are excellent.  

They produce a variety of different drinks with a rather excellent variable still, including whiskey, unaged rye, vodka and gin.

Depending on what has been produced, it is then either bottled or barreled for ageing. In the case of the vodka, it may be infused with either coffee beans or vanilla pods, if it's for a flavoured batch. They also produce a chilli vodka, but that one is flavoured by being bottled with three small birds eye chillis, and then left for a few months. Apparently, the first attempt at batch infusing chilli vodka produced a rather good alcoholic hot sauce, which, while tasty, wasn't really suitable for drinking.

Most of the barrels are stored off-site, but a few are kept in the distillery. Using smaller barrels means more contact between liquid and wood, allowing the desired flavour to be achieved quicker.

And on the topic of those cocktails:

This was called the Observation Peak, if I remember correctly, and was essentially an Old Fashioned served under smoked cedar. Absolutely delicious!

Right, that'll do for now I think. Next time, the hot spring caves and surrounding mountains. Cheerio till then!

Canadian Food and a Spot of Cooking

Before we get into this too deeply, I feel that I should add a disclaimer. I do not claim to be able to provide an overview of all Canadian food, but I do feel inclined to present my impressions so far.

First of all, the restaurants I have been to have set a very high standard, especially in Jasper and Banff. Keep an eye out for a food review section, coming to this blog sometime soon! Well, eventually anyway. But the point is that there's nothing wrong Canadian cuisine per se, and some of it is absolutely excellent. Which probably give you a bit of a hint as to the central theme of what I have to say next...

Tinned and frozen food is never the best. I'm used to that. The small number of pre-prepared things I've tried have still managed to disappoint, though. With an exception for the tins of frozen fruit punch, that is, which are perfect on hot days. Even a lot of the fresh produce is either somewhat bland or very expensive. An interesting exception to this is the meat. The beef is excellent, if a little expensive, and the pork is both excellent and cheap. The salmon is pretty good too, though I personally cannot recommend the salmon jerky. It sounds like it should be good, and I may give it a second chance at some point, but initial experiments have not been promising.

Coffee creamer, on the other hand, is absolutely something we need in Britain, primarily on account of the excellent range of flavours. My current favourite is Cinnabon- if there's something better to start the day with than a cup of hot, caffeinated, liquid cinnamon roll, I haven't found it yet. Unless perhaps it's the same but with a shot of rum in it on the weekends. I'll try that at some point and let you know.

And now we come to the big one- cheese. If anyone can explain to me what is wrong with Canadian cheese, I will be most interested to hear about it. It seems to almost all be big, extruded plastic slabs and slices, or imported a phenomenal cost. The other day I found Snowdonia Cheese Company cheddar, but it was something in excess of $7 for a rather thin slice.

This stuff with a raspberry ale washed rind is pretty damn good though- which is why there isn't very much of it left.

(There were supposed to be pictures of different sized pieces of cheese here, but I keep eating them before remembering to take a picture. I'll put some in later)

To be fair, I suspect that there is a difference between food in Jasper and in the rest of Canada. We are right up in the mountains, so shipping is a bit of an issue, presumably.

However, I have managed to make the most of the situation, and have developed some new cooking skills to help with preparing lunches and dinners for strange and variable shifts. First, weeklong sandwiches:

Started with the classic Shooter's Sandwich, full of steak and mushrooms. Very nice, but a bit expensive for every week. 

A pork variation, since that's a lot cheaper here.

And an attempt a creating a variation on a muffuletta. Couldn't get any proper giardenia, and didn't feel like stopping to pickle my own vegetables, so it was a tad crunchy, but still pretty good.

And then, for a change of pace, pies! Started with pork and broccoli, using a variation on a recipe from the 1800's. In fact, it does seem a little similar to something that Great Uncle Jack mentions in his journal, but his recipe is, uh... interesting.

Beef, carrot and onion.

A giant beef burger. This worked pretty nicely, stayed tender even when cold.

And the latest variation, chicken with aubergine and olives. My best yet, I think.

Had a bit of success with some desserts as well- primarily bread pudding, and peach pie:

Both of the bread puddings are topped with an improvised whisky caramel sauce, which turned out rather nicely. Truth be told, it's all the faffing about with this that has been keeping me from the blog to a certain extent- working 6 days a week and doing lots of cooking and food prep on the 7th hasn't left a lot of time and energy for very much else. Fortunately, the summer rush is over, and things are starting to calm down enough for me to have a bit more time. Ergo, bicuits:

At some point, I'll get round to some restaurant reviews, and I'll try to make sense of Uncle Jack's recipe notes. But next time, Banff!