Sourdough Grilled Cheeses at the Mile End Market

I have one more favourite stall at the Mile End Market. I don't even know the name of the stall, but what I do know is they take their fresh sourdough bread (the only bread they make) and some incredible cheese and make very simple grilled cheese sandwiches in front of you.

Okay, so a lot of places are touting the simple grilled cheese, the gourmet cheese, the classic, the modern, etc these days. Comfort food. There are whole restaurants devoted to grilled cheese, and I don't even eat grilled cheese(!), but I love this stall. I've chatted with the woman who tells me that it's her husband (I'm pretty sure it was husband) who has spent the last year or something ridiculous like that honing his sourdough bread craft. He inherited sourdough starter from a former roommate of some sort and kept it going. All he makes is sourdough bread, and the lady bakes other things, but at the market her job is to grill this bread with some organic cheese. There is absolutely nothing fancy to this, but I love this couple.

Across the way a woman sells pickled asparagus and honey-dijon vinaigrette. Now honey dijon vinaigrette is about the easiest thing in the world to make, but this is from a very high-quality honey from her farm. I don't know how you would possibly get through all this vinaigrette without it going bad, since there are really no preservatives in it and it couldn't last more than a few weeks max after opening, but good luck.

Pickled asparagus are something I never would buy for myself, but house guests bought them after sampling them and left the bottle at my house. I do not throw out organic local products, no matter how much I dislike refined sugar. Basically the pickling mixture is vinegar, sugar and salt. I ended up loving these things, though. They're the dessert of vegetables - not sour or hot like kimchi or bitter or chewy like pickles. If pickles were this good I think I would like them. I do love asparagus, however, and the natural sweetness makes this a refreshing topping on a salad. It's basically a roasted asparagus salad pre-made and without the oily dressing; you don't even need to add anything to it. You can snack on them as they are, or combine them with something else, like lettuce or carrots, which actually helps to dilute the intensely sweet brine.

She also makes some tasty-looking muffins. I never buy them because I never want 6, but did you ever think of rhubarb and almond in a muffin? I didn't. She did. Her blueberries and wild blackberries also look plump and ripe in their muffin homes, as well as the more traditional strawberry-rhubarb option. Flavours change every week, so Thursday 4:30-8:30 at Parc Lahaie (St-Laurent and St-Joseph) is your chance to be surprised.

Mile End Farmers' Market: Corn

The Mile End Market is run by the same organization as the Sunday Plateau Market, but some of the vendors are different. Most important, La Perle and her baker aren't there, so no muffins or incredible bread for me, malheureusement.

On the upside, however, there is always a guest chef. Often they'll bring something half pre-done, like La Montée du Lait's chef did when he brought his eggplant pancakes, then put some goat's milk cheese available at the market on top and covered it all with some fresh arugula. Voila, snack.

Another chef from...hmm...I forget...somewhere that specialized in pig. Anyway, this chef made tacos with pork butt. I ran before they were done. Better to run away than explain my reasons for not-eating pork.

So my favourite stall is currently the corn and raspberries guy. The corn is a recent addition to the stall's offerings. I met him about three weeks ago when I was busily not buying raspberries. I was walking around the market and seeing all these raspberries that looked delicious but I'd try them and they just weren't. Nothing special, not worth the high price tag, but then I got to this guy and he had some that were bigger, and normally to me that's a bad sign. It often means they're genetically modified, like the oversized everything at normal grocery stores or even Atwater Market. Except the Mile End market is all organics, so I asked why they were bigger, and he said they were a different varietal of raspberry, a little sweeter...good salesman. So I caved and bought them, and yes, the bigger ones were sweeter, but they were mixed in with smaller ones that I didn't like much. Still, I somehow managed to get through them, force them down and all, while waiting for that day's chef to decide to make yet another salad with goat cheese...

Now what really got me with this man was that he immediately said, "First time? I don't think I've seen you here before," and he was right. Then when I came back two weeks later, he said, "I remember you," and I believe he did, even though I was wearing my contacts that day instead of my glasses, a very Superman-like change in appearance.

So I decided to buy his corn. I love fresh corn. I was in Appleton, Wisconsin one summer and bought corn by the dozen off the back of a truck. That was the sweetest, most amazing corn I've ever eaten. You don't even cook that corn. I've had good corn since then from the corn guy at Atwater, but so far this year neither his corn nor this Mile End Market corn guy's corn has compared. I'll try again in a few weeks. It's not bad, and I like this guy so much now that I will continue to buy his corn anyway. I mean, it's better than potatoes as far as starchy vegetables go, especially with some lime juice and salt, but it's not amazing. It's the human element that brings me back; this man remembers me. Maybe his week is a little more complete if he sees me, and mine a little more complete if I buy corn or berries from him.