ottawa foodies

To clear up potential confusion, I should mention that I've changed my screen name here from Fresh Foodie to warby to align with my identity in other social media. And after 10 successful years of OttawaFoodies, the "Fresh" bit seemed somehow less appropriate. ;-)

When I moved to Ottawa at the age of 22 I was pleased to find a decent selection of restaurants. In the years since, the overall quality has improved remarkably. Even better, the food choices and ingredients in our grocery stores and markets are continually getting closer to that of a truly metropolitan city. Tracking the availability of hard-to-find foods has always been a hobby of mine and until I created Ottawa Foodies there was no good way to share it.

You can find me on Twitter as @warby and on Instagram as @warby_ottawafoodies.

Ancient history:

I was born in Victoria into a family that loves food. My mom is Swiss and has worked hard in the kitchen ever since her kids were born. My dad is English and loves to eat (and he helps with the dishes). I grew up sitting next to the stove and watching Mom's every move as she concocted wonderful feasts. Much of our fare was prepared from scratch: home-baked bread, soups, pies, jams, kefir, birchermuesli, a dozen kinds of cookies at Christmas. We had apples, pears, walnuts, raspberries and plenty of vegetables in our garden. We picked blackberries in the countryside and went shrimping in the Pacific. There was always plenty of Swiss chocolate and cheese around too. But I was not always open-minded about food: when Mom made nasi goreng for us, we kids screwed up our faces and nicknamed it "nauseous gangrene." ;-)

In my professional life I'm a code monkey. For more info you can snoop at my resume: markwarburton.com