Back from Canada (Montreal and Quebec City), and I tried a couple of new things there. One was called a beaver tail, and it seems like it's the funnel cake of the north. It's a flat, oval-ish (beaver-tail-shaped) piece of fried dough that was spread with chocolate and layered with banana slices. Easy to eat out-of-hand while strolling the cobblestone streets of Vieux Montreal.

In Quebec City we stopped by Erico Choco-Museum, which was basically a chocolate shop with the owners' chocolate memorabilia and some information on how chocolate is made in a back room. We tasted pure crushed cocoa beans and were surprised about how nut-like they were. I expected a lot more bitterness, like cocoa powder or baking chocolate. I got some truffles, and the sesame one, which had tahini in the filling, knocked my socks off. I picked up a pink peppercorn and a ginger dark chocolate bars, and I also really loved the l'Amazonian ice cream (not sure I have the name right), which was a spicy chocolate ice cream.

I had to try poutine before I left Quebec, so we stopped at McDonald's near the border. Now, you may think I didn't give it a fair chance, trying it at a fast-food restaurant. But it was exactly how it sounds: a gooey mess of french fries, curd cheese (Todd calls it squeaky cheese) and gravy. If you like gravy, french fries and curd cheese apart, you'll like them together. I'm not so big on gravy, so I wasn't that impressed.