The best part of the weeks leading up to Christmas? Holiday craft sales. From tiny indy affairs hosting young artists with edgy, Etsy-style offerings, to old-lady church basement sales chockablock with crocheted sweaters, knitted scarves and hand-painted ornaments, I love ‘em all. Edmonton’s biggest holiday craft sale, which takes place at the Butterdome, the University of Alberta’s ridiculously yellow, butter-pat-shaped athletics building, combines the best of both worlds.
As much as I love looking at arts and crafts, my favorite corner of the Butterdome craft sale is the one where the food vendors are – or, as I like to call it, “sample city.†After mooching more than my fair share of ciders, hot chocolates, baked goodies and more different kinds of dips, spreads and tapenades than I can count on both hands, I went looking for candy items to review – no easy task. From several kinds of home-made toffees to chocolate-covered fruits to the folks from Calgary with 50 kinds of fudge, the candy options were as numerous as they were delicious.
Finally, I settled upon an offering from Davenport’s Tasty Sensations, who make a very fine caramel toffee popcorn, as well as “Cowboy Crunch,†which you can think of as a more upscale version of Clodhoppers. I selected a bag of Davenport’s Chocolate Covered Caramel Corn. (Though caramel corn straddles the line between “candy†and “snack,†in my opinion, anything coated in this much chocolate and caramel has left snack territory and wandered firmly into candy country.)
