Bloggers Delight - Miramichi Leader, Friday June 24, 2011 by Alexandra MacLean
Relishing berries and foraging for fiddleheads were among the adventures 3 British food bloggers enjoyed when they visited the Miramichi this spring. Three internationally recognized food bloggers visited Miramichi to try the local cuisine and they fell in love. NB Tourism & Parks and the Canadian Tourism Commission invited the 3 popular UK food critic bloggers to northern New Brunswick to show off not only the local cuisine but culinary activities from the Canada's Signature Experience collection.
The bloggers, Cara Waters from the London based blog - www.gourmetchick.com, Niamh Shields - www.eatlikeagirl.com, and Oliver Thring - www.oliverthring.com landed in NB on May 19th and did a whirlwind tour of the northern part of the province experiencing more than just the food. Waters says she didn't know what to expect never having been to Canada before. A world traveller with almost 25 different countries listed on her food blog, she says New Brunswick is a place unique from any other.
'It was my first trip to New Brunswick and to Canada. Everyone we met was so friendly and hospitable, I had a great time," expressed Waters. The bloggers spent their first night at O'Donnells Cottages foraging for fiddleheads. They packed up and drove to Blissfield where they made jam with Darlene at the Homestead Inn
and then on to Darlene's Tea House, following the roadside teapot signs, where they had lunch.
Waters says she ordered the Miramichi salmon sandwiches which were a vibrant pink and tasted wonderfully fresh. After some fiddlead soup, Waters says came the best part - traditional scones with jam and cream. "The scones were a dream," she writes, "a cloud of light, puffy dough with a tart homemade jam". With suitcases weighed down with 3 bottles of jam apiece and their stomachs full from lunch, the bloggers made their way to Miramichi for a night at The King George B&B. Sara MacInnis, owner of the B&B was preparing for a nerve-wracking 10 days. "We've never had a food critic come and and stay with us," she laughed. "We had three at one time and the executive chef from Maison Tate House in Shediac, Chef Chris, staying with us during the TIANB conference the following week". MacInnis says she got a call from the CTC asking her if she would be interested in having the British food bloggers stay with her and participate in the Mystery Food Adventure. A new event that has been added to the Canadian Experiences for this year, the Mystery Food Tour invites guests to choose what they would like for supper, and discover the local ingredients themselves by following a GPS programmed with the locations of MacInnis' local suppliers and growers. "If you wake up and decide you feel like beef that night for your supper, I give you a GPS and send you off to Sevogle to meet Earl Sutherland and choose the cut yourself," she explained.
The 3 bloggers were delighted with the chance to explore the Miramichi region. Choosing seafood for their supper, the guests spent Saturday, May 21 like modern day hunter-gatherers to find local seafood supplier, O'Neil's Fishmarket in Baie-Sainte Anne. MacInnis explains that they did get lost and the fishmarket closed. She then had to contact a friend in Hardwicke to intercept them and he also managed to get the store to re-open, and get them back on track.
"We proudly arrived back at the King George bearing our bag of scallops and mussels," said Waiters. "We then got to enjoy our finds over dinner at the B&B that night. Sara is an excellent cook, so I would highly recommend a meal there for locals - don't let the B&B guests have Sara all to themselves!"
That evening, the guests were served mussels, moosemeat bolognese, and scallops. They rounded off their evening with Miramichi Potholes from the Napan Baykery.
"It wouldn't be a trip to Canada without trying some moosemeat so Sara had made a rich bolognese sauce using local moosemeat. 'The bolognese sauce was sensationally flavorsome with almost a gamey taste to the meat," Waters described in her blog post about the trip. Waters rated The King George B&B as a 9 out of 10 on her blog - the highest of all the places she visited in New Brunswick.
The bloggers ended their tip with a visit to La Pays de la Sagouine for an Acadian lunch of poutine rapee and visited Lobster Tales in Shediac for a lobster cruise and feast before heading back across the Atlantic.
Waters says she would love to come back to Miramichi and discover other sensational treats unique to the region.
"New Brunswick has some amazing and unique products that you can't find anywhere else in the world," she writes. "It was great to meet so many local people who are so passionate about local food. You would not believe the amount of people in London who have asked me where they can get fiddleheads. I've told them the'yll have to go to New Brunswick!"
WOW! What more can I say . . . .!