ottawa foodies

When I moved from Victoria, BC, to Ottawa in the mid 1990's Ottawa's restaurants were mostly uninteresting. Starting in the early 2000's, the quality and variety improved remarkably. Even better, the food choices and ingredients in our grocery stores and markets continue to catch up 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 @warby613.

Ancient history:

I was born 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 wash dishes. I grew up sitting on a chair next to the stove and watching Mom's every move as she concocted wonderful feasts. Money was tight early on and much of our fare was prepared from scratch: home-baked bread, soup, pie, jam, 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. The chocolate was mailed to us by my grandmother in Switzerland as Lindt was not available in Canada then... see how far we've come!