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Food and drink: Edible Whistler’s best-kept secrets

Shop like a local, eat like a local, remember like a local

Got a dear cousin you haven't seen in 20 years staying with you for the Games? Or your boss' sister from Calgary? Or maybe you're a lucky visitor who's got a hotel condo with kitchen, or you want the inside track on authentic Whistler "secrets" when it comes to packing souvenirs back home.

Either way, Whistler's homegrown, food-fancy entrepreneurs offer so many tastes of the town you'll have no problem finding some real gems that bottle or bag the spirit of the place.

After all, what better souvenir can you find than one you eat? Taste that mountain air locked inside? Those local flowers?

To make life easy for you, the grocery stores sprinkled throughout the valley - The Grocery Store, Marketplace IGA and Upper Village Market right in beautiful downtown Whistler; Nesters Market on Nesters Road ("where the locals shop"); and Creekside Market in Creekside - all have the happy habit of practicing what they preach when it comes to buying local. This can mean Whistler, Pemberton/ Lillooet or B.C., depending on your view.

"People are coming here from all over the world so I try to carry all these local products," says Scott Aldrich, assistant manager and buyer at The Grocery Store. "I figure when people are travelling they want to find something they can't get back home. Plus we're all supporting the local food community - and we have a lot of it around here."

Most local products, if they aren't grown or raised by farmers or picked in the wild, arise naturally from the Whistler lifestyle. Many of the producers are boarders, skiers, mountain bikers or some kind of adventurers by day, and entrepreneurs by night - or something like that - earning their living in between the stuff that really counts.

"There are a lot of characters in this town, that's for sure," notes Scott.

Even the packaging is often as natural (read: eco-friendly) and distinctive as the local skunk cabbage, featuring funky artwork and images created by local artists. Plus the producers are often cooking or roasting, bottling or packaging their products with their own hands right in their homes. How local is that?

So without further ado, here are some top local picks of favourite Whistler irresistibles. Try even one and you'll see what we mean...

 

Zippy vinegar, earthy 'shrooms, top potatoes and more

Norm Strim's mom, Pia, better known to Norm and Natasha's kids as Nonna Pia, is known for her down-home cooking skills honed in Northern Italy. So it's only natural that Norm, a Red Seal Chef, followed his DNA coding and early inculcations to package up a balsamic reduction he's been known for for years in commercial kitchens. The result: Nonna Pia's Balsamic Reductions.

They start with a six-year-old Italian balsamic vinegar, then slow cook it. Try the strawberry/mission fig, rosemary or the classic (plain), all available at Nesters Market. This fantastic staple is in so many Whistler kitchens you have to wonder how everybody got along without it.

While you're at Nesters, Whistler's Mushroom Queen, Ophra Buckman, says to check out the great selection of wild local mushrooms. They aren't in season at Whistler right now, but these are the same varieties, albeit from Vancouver Island. Try the delicious little hedgehogs or chanterelles, slightly peppery and perfect with eggs or in a creamy pasta sauce, or the B.C. shiitakes, good in stir-fries or a mushroom salsa.

And while you can't lug them home in your suitcase, it's worth finding Across the Creek Organic potatoes to cook in your hotel-kitchen. They're grown by the Millers in Pemberton Valley, north of Whistler - world-famous for its soil and seed potatoes.

Or try the Lillooet honey from Golden Caribou Apiaries at The Grocery Store. Gathered from sweet clover, this stuff will knock your ski socks off. Then check the dairy cases for excellent B.C. cheese.

For a quick pick-me-up, go for the big local (chocolate) bars with the catchy name - Whistler Pocket Chocolate. These organic beauties include milk chocolate almond and dark hazelnut. Bonus: the hazelnuts are from the Fraser Valley near Vancouver and the eco-friendly packaging features funky black bears by local artist Cary Campbell Lopes.

 

Liquid pick-me-ups that won't let you down

When in Whistler, if you want to do as Whistlerites do, you'll need a lift from that reliable stalwart, Sister Caffeine.

It's no coincidence that long before the Games hit town, Whistler bred two local coffee roasters and a master tea blender. All feature unique products that are as typically colourful inside and out as the Local Loonie mountain bike races.

In locals' books, Paula Robertson is cool and not just because she roasts a mean and consistent coffee bean at her Pemberton Valley Coffee Co. She also rides a mountain bike. In fact, she sometimes delivers her fair trade, organic, shade-grown coffee by bike. As you sip away, think of Paula roasting her beans in small batches, gazing out the window at her touring skis and her beautiful, locally-made mountain bike at the same time.

Whistler Roasting Company also delivers a mean cup of coffee with socially and environmentally responsible beans. Owners Sheila Sherkat and Mark Bevan (also a Red Seal Chef with years under his belt at a favourite local spot, RimRock Café) roast the beans in their home beside Alta Lake. With names like Lower Insanity (named for a Whistler ski run) and Don't Harsh My Mellow, plus cool artwork to match, you'll get as much kick out of the packaging as the coffee.

If you're a tea head, Isabelle Ranger has pulled it all together in more ways than one with her six gorgeous Namasthé Teas. Trained as a consulting herbalist, Isabelle blends amazing teas in some of the most sustainable packaging on earth.

She even uses green Bullfrog Power, but it's the tea itself that's the real powerhouse. The Jasmine Green is intoxicating by its aroma alone; in the Earl Grey, she uses real bergamot cold-pressed essential oil. And the Mountain Mint features a blend of intense peppermint, sweet and smooth spearmint, and a spicy wild mint native to B.C. Almost all of the mint is grown right in Pemberton.

Fitting, then, that this is a mint tea unlike any you've ever tasted before - the straight and natural goods from another local who cares about delivering a small but beautiful Whistler experience with zing.

 

Glenda Bartosh is an award-winning freelance writer who always brings home something tasty from away.