There’s a little shop in Carlingwood I like to visit called Swiss Pastries. It’s an Ottawa-area chain (there are 5 retail locations) and as I recently found out, was founded in 1965 by Hans Ulrich Zuberbuehler.
This is precisely the kind of store which sends me careening back to my childhood.
My parents used to bring me to a similar kind of store called Brandt. (I can’t believe they have a website. With audio!) The one we went to was located in a shopping mall in Brampton.
It was kid heaven. There were shelves overflowing with German chocolate, jams, baked goods, and in the back there was a deli counter. I loved the smell of that place. I still do. It is sweet and salty and smells overwhelmingly of salami.
Swiss Pastries gives me that same feeling, and I love it. What’s more, it’s my new source for wieners.
I want to clarify that wieners are not hot dogs. Nor are they sausages. They are the precursor of hot dogs.
The first time I brought some home I found myself explaining the proper way to eat them, or should I say, the way I ate them growing up so EasternEuro.
Buns are verboten. This is finger food, maybe the kind that is served at a cheery biergarten and eaten to the tune of a brass band playing a nice polka. Maybe someone (hopefully not you) is wearing lederhosen. Everyone is drinking beer.
These wieners are long and slim and have a delicious snap to them. These are boiled in water …
… and served with a dollop of mustard (grainy is best but Dijon is a good substitute) and a slice of good German rye.
The bread pictured below is “Canadian Rye” a.k.a. rounded white bread. TOTALLY the wrong kind of bread. Oh well.
I walk into the store with plans to buy our family some lunch but can’t seem to avoid the other merchandise. It is very easy to spend money at Swiss Pastries, especially this time of year. Easter is coming, and Easter is what they do best. I couldn’t get a good enough photo of the rows of smiling bunnies, all wrapped in bright foil. There are tables overflowing with chocolate ladybugs and chocolate sheep, and jellybeans and bunnies and candy eggs, of all shapes and sizes.
Me: I like good chocolate. I want my kids to have good chocolate too. So I will get them a bunny or two from here instead of buying an overpackaged High School Musical-themed-chocolate-whatever from Loblaws.
I walked away with this:
… which I thought had a chocolate base but is actually pure sugar.
I also bought these (because they’re a classic and I like them with tea):
and this:
… which I was happy to find because it means we can colour our easter eggs and not have to buy into an egg dying kit, which is always more than we need.
I’m pretty happy with my haul. Now, for some tea and cookies.
