The Great Canadian Cheese Festival – PEC

It’s taking me a while to write this post just because I wasn’t sure what to say. Don’t get me wrong it’s not that kind of didn’t know what to say it was more like I was overwhelmed at how amazing The Great Canadian Cheese Festival in Prince Edward County (PEC) truly was. There were so many more vendors than I would have ever thought and there wasn’t just cheese, there was wine, beer, preserves, meat, cutting boards. Really everything that you would ever need to enjoy all the artisan cheese that was showcased.

First off as many of you know I did and ambassadorship with The Dairy Farmers of Canada earlier this year and let me tell you it was pure AWESOME! They were also the ones that hooked me for with the festival. Also because of them I was able to enjoy a fun day with my sister-in-law who – accompanied me around the county and ate cheese and other yummy things with me and didn’t laugh at me for being so in love with certain cheeses. She’s kinda awesome like that.

I know you just want to see some pictures so here you are……

It was really, really, really hard to pick out a favourite cheese from the weekend but here are a couple of my favs

1) Upper Canada Cheese Company – Guernsey Girl. It’s the first time I had ever had it and it’s completely amazing. In the slideshow above it’s the cheese that is being grilled. When I grilled ours I left some on longer than others and I will admit I preferred the ones that were grilled a bit longer. The crispness on the outside and ooohie goooieness of the onside was to die for. 

2) Quality Cheese – Brie – I had every intention of making me friend Candace’s (Life in Pleasnatville’s ) Cedar Planked Brie. Well I didn’t get that far. Everybody was out one night so I though I just have a bit with a glass of wine and some fresh bread I had just bought from the Hamilton Farmers Market. and well one thing led to another and a couple of neighbours popped buy and before we knew it the brie, bread and wine were gone an I didn’t even take a single picture. The ladies couldn’t get over how good it was. They each took a picture of the wrapper so they knew what kind to buy when they bought brie again. I love sharing things that I love with people.

3) Savvy Wine – Beer vs Wine. I had met Debbie a few years back in Ottawa at A YMC Winterlude event. It was the first tine I had ever done a wine tasting of any kind and I was really surprised at not only how fun it was but how much i learnt. Well I got to catch up with Debbie again at #TGCCF after watching her do her Wine vs Beer demo. Once again I was pleasantly surprised at what I learnt – You can pair beer with Cheese too. Who knew? Well Debbie knew and that’s why she’s so great at what she does.

my next favourite thing is not a cheese. I know, shocking! Rest assured though it’s a wine 🙂 In all the time I’ve been going to the county I had never tried any of their wines. Well that changed this weekend. I tried many from different vineyards as well as some craft beer. My favourite wine was the Pinot Grigio from Three Dog Wines. I’m not great at talking about wines but I know what I like and I loved this. I loved it so much that I bought two bottles and went back and bought two more. The other thing that I like about Three Dog is how interactive and fun they are on Twitter, ThreeDogWine, if you aren’t following them you might want to do that.

I need to give a huge shoot out to Chevy Canada for hooking me up with a great ride for this trip (don’t worry the day of the cheese festival I didn’t drive because I knew we’d be sampling wines and beer and drinking and driving is a big no-no in my book). I drove a Chevy Trax for the week and it was a lot more fun that I thought it would be but what blew me away was the gas mileage. I drove from Hamilton to Ottawa to Pec to Kingston and back to Hamilton all on 2400km ………$100 worth of gas. Oh I know I was blown away too. My daughter was with me and she loved the stereo. It was also great that although her iPhone was plugged into the stereo through a convenient plug-in in the dash I could still answer my Samsung because it was contacted through the bluetooth – the best of both words. The other thing for me is that with two teenagers about to get their licence it would be a great vehicle for them to learn on as there wasn’t any blind spots, it had lots of great safety features and of course tree was On-Star. I’m not going to lie thought as I’m looking very forward to driving the Buick version of this vehicle. Although it was fun and sporty I think I’m more at the stage in my life where I’d prefer more of  that trademark Buick ride or sporty. Stay tune as a comparison between the two.

Now go forth and eat some Canadian Cheese 🙂

xoxo