Savour Stratford Rocks!!!

Stratford has done it again. They've brought it up another notch with their Savour Stratford Festival!

Savour Stratford is a week of culinary events beginning with the Stratford Garlic Festival on the 18th and ending with the Savour Stratford Culinary Festival on the 25th/26th. This was their 3rd year (see: http://www.savourstratford.com/).

I was at the event last year and thought it was good. This year, it was superb! I can barely put into words how great the festival was.

When we arrived we parked our car (for free) and walked over to the event (also free--monetary or food donations were welcome). We visited several vendors and tried many different samples. I ended up buying some raspberries, peaches (which by the way I can't believe they are STILL in season), Ontario popping corn from St. Mary's, goat cheese curds with garlic and sundried tomatoes from Montforte Dairy (yum!), pickled garlic (tried some at Garlic Festival and hubby didn't stop talking about them all week), a loaf of bread from O'Sheas, green onions, broccoli, Full-o-Beans brownie mix, etc..

For lunch my daughter had a grilled cheese. But it wasn't just any grilled cheese--the Big Brothers Big Sisters of Stratford and District were making grilled cheeses using freshly made sourdough bread, Mornington Heritage Dairy goat cheddar cheese, and local butter from the Millbank Cheese Factory. Wow! It was delicious (I begged my daughter for a bite). For myself, I got myself a corn, beans, and squash soup from the Stratford School Garden Project. The sandwich was $4.00 and my soup cost me $3.00.

The food available for sale to eat were what impressed me the most. Nowhere was there a 'branded' food seller (i.e., Pizza Pizza) or typical festival food vendor (i.e., french fries, fried fish, etc..). All of the food vendors at the Festival were local not-for-profit organizations preparing food from scratch from local only ingredients. AMAZING!! Any other place would have perhaps offered the grilled cheese but it would have been made from processed bread, single slice processed cheese and margarine. There definitely wouldn't have been made-from-scratch soup either. There were burgers available through Community Living of Stratford and area, but they were locally made and served on freshly baked buns, and topped with locally grown onions and tomatoes from Oliver Gardens.