It's Spring Break for us MIT students, which means I'm back in Ottawa to spend some quality time with my family. When people ask, I always like to say that the weather in Ottawa isn't much different from Boston, but apparently I lied.

It's really cold here. There's still snow on the ground. I went from nice 15 degree weather (celsius, and yes, it's been 8 years and I still haven't converted to fahrenheit and I still don't plan to) back to 0 degree weather.

For it being the hottest year on record, I am very cold.

On Saturday, Hera had a birthday party to go to in Wakefield, Quebec, which is about 30 minutes from where we live in Ottawa. While we were invited in, dad and I decided to brave the cold, walk around the town, and explore the area.

Wakefield is a small, picturesque little village. For someone who's used to the hustle and bustle of the city, Wakefield is quaint, quiet, and a nice breather - there isn't much here, but it's close enough to the city that I can see its appeal. It's by the Gatineau river, which probably partially freezes over the winter and allows for ice activities like skating and hockey.

It was a quiet Saturday afternoon when we visited, but apparently Wakefield is the home to quite a few little art festivals. I saw quite a few little artisan shops, and we explored one of them - this one sold jewelry and some other random goods like tea holders and socks.

More excitingly to me, because I like food so much, we saw a shop called "La Confiserie" which I dragged my dad into. It was a small rectangular shop lined with shelves that were covered in different types of jams and chocolates and sweets, with a little food display for chocolate truffles and fudge. I picked out a small "Canneberge et Cointreau" (Cranberry with Cointreau) jam to try out because I was curious about how the alcohol would play into the taste, and since we're in Canada, I got a wedge of maple fudge.

Look at all of the yummy jams!

Since we had the time, we sat down at a small restaurant called Café Pot au Feu to get something to drink. Dad got a latte. I got a hot chocolate and it was piled high with whipping cream and topped with cocoa powder. It wasn't too sweet, which I appreciated, though the whipping cream won me over - I'm a sucker for the stuff.

Of course, I couldn't help myself. The pile of whipped cream was too hard to resist - I had to draw it.

We then spent the next hour or so walking around the area and looking at the neighborhood. It was really cute and quiet, although we often had to sidestep into the snow to avoid getting splashed by the few cars that drove by. I joked that people were probably really confused by the two Asians wandering around their houses, but we didn't see anyone, even when we accidentally walked into someone's driveway.

Before we left Wakefield, I ran into the boulangerie to get some bread to have with dinner. I had been planning on getting a baguette, but they were out. Instead, I picked out a loaf of potato starch sourdough because I was curious about how it would taste. When I asked how it had potato in it, the woman at the counter explained to me that the water they used to make the dough was first used to boil potatoes, thus infusing potato starch into the bread.

The verdict on the items I bought (which, funnily enough, were all food):

The jam is really tasty. It smells pretty strongly of the Cointreau but it doesn't have any alcohol taste - the jam has a good balance between sweet and sour. I've never had a cranberry jam before but it does taste quite a bit like Thanksgiving cranberry sauce, although less sweet.

The maple fudge is pretty much pure sugar, as should be expected from fudge. There unfortunately isn't a strong maple flavor and the sweetness is quite overpowering. I have a soft spot for the fudge vendor at Quincy Market in Boston, and I think I prefer the fudge from there more.

The potato starch bread had mixed reviews - Hera wasn't a fan, but I liked it a lot. Granted, I love bread, so pretty much any fresh bread is amazing in my book (I really, really hate American supermarket bread. It's terrible. It doesn't taste good, the texture is off, it's all just wrong.) The starch gives the bread a really interesting texture, and the sourness of the sourdough wasn't as prevalent as it is in regular sourdough. It was different and tasty, and I would buy it again.

All in all, I think Wakefield is a cute village to go visit some weekend if you're in the area - perhaps when it's less cold. I looked at some pictures of Wakefield in the spring, and the greenery is beautiful!

What kinds of foods and souvenirs do you like to get when you visit somewhere new? Let me know!