Meat Shopping in Beverly...and Beyond

I was invited to attend a fancy gentlemen night out at at buddies place last week with the requirement of bringing a meat dish and booze (scotch preferred). With a requirement to bring meat, there was only one destination in Edmonton in which to shop: The Beverly Area.

Beverly is home to a bunch of great butcher shops, deli's and sausage houses. It is a carnivores dream.

When meat shopping in NE Edmonton somethings are just a given; a link of Garlic Ham sausage from Widnyoswki'. But another meat option was escaping me. I wanted something different.

Chrissy and I browsed the selection at the Italian Bakery and the Mundare Sausage House but even with the great looking cuts, nothing jumped out at me. That all changed though when I walked into Smokin Iron Farms. I browsed through Muskox, Kangaroo, Camel striploins and then stopped....Python! This was surely what I was looking for.

To celebrate the great find I picked up a celebratory Pop Shoppe. Obviously, this is my kind of place.

With my food selection determined, we decided to take in some local Beverly color. First stop, the Drake Hotel. 

Chrissy, who has lived around the area her whole life admitted some trepidation about going inside, as it has quite a reputation. Eventually, she agreed to join me for one drink if I would goto the antique store nearby afterwards. We arrived at the Drake just after 2pm and the bar was pretty busy. Apparently, they just finished a bingo lunch and the band was about to start. Chrissy became relaxed and was won over by the waitress legitimately asking her if she was old enough to be in the bar. We ordered our beers and the band started.

The country band was pretty entertaining, and aside from a rusted chair with screws jutting out of it, our experience at the Drake was pretty good. 

Fulfilling my end of the bargain I accompanied Chrissy to the nearby Antiques Alberta. I have to admit I was quite surprised by their wide selection of goods. Definitely some cool stuff including this old school camera apparatus.

With all of our errands ran uncharacteristically fast we decided to check out a well regarded greenhouse and it's Christmas exhibit in Sherwood Park. A quick drive later we arrived at Salisbury Greenhouse. 

It was a fantastic feeling to leave the monotone and dry Alberta environment and enter the moist and colorful greenhouse.

Even with my Movember nose filter it was a joy just breathing in.

I usually frequent greenhouses in the spring and early summer so it was neat to see the different types of plants offered by season. I don't know why I was so surprised to see so the amount of poinsettias and Christmas cactus's; in retrospect it just makes sense they would be prevalent.

By The Way - For anyone wanting to know about the Python. I prepared it by scoring it and thinning it out a bit and then cooked it in butter. It ended up a bit rubbery in texture with a taste somewhere between pork and chicken. Not too bad really.