If you’ve been following the crazy world of confectionaries, you’ll know that the latest global obsession is the “Cronut” – the hybrid love child between a croissant and donut. Staking controversial and debated claims to its conception and creation, the Dominique Ansel Bakery in New York has seen day long line-ups at their SOHO location for the product of sordid pastry love affair. Fuelled by a mix of demands and curiosity, sales have been skyrocketing to the point of cronuts being listed on eBay, Criagslist and even in-line scalping – there was even a listing of trading a daily cronut in exchange for sexual favours… but they’ve since made me take that ad down.
I was talking to a friend last night and he mentioned how he missed snowboarding. He accidentally walked out of my house with a black eye and I was less one friend. This kind of weather makes me not want to do anything other than sit in front of a fan and bitch about the heat. More seriously, it diminishes my appetite (imagine that!) and I find myself looking for lighter meal alternatives. Trying to wrap my head about the concept of light-eating, something in particular came to mind.
There’s a long standing statistic that says Montreal has the most cafés per capita in North America, and that we serve the most coffee and warm beverages south of the global 60 degree parallel. Actually, I just made that up because I can’t walk down the street without seeing some sort of cafe that serves fair-trade, local, organic, seasonal, homemade, cold-press, French-press, coffee shop, packed up the walls with jerkholes drinking a three-hour coffee mooching wifi, charging multiple devices and smoking cigarettes outside. If there’s one thing Montrealers do and do well (besides bitching and complaining about other people) is hitting up the cafe scene, supporting local entrepreneurs, sipping on dranks and watching people.