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Last week’s trip to Leamington was a huge success. Despite the poopy weather, I loaded up the dogs and drove out to find Lakeside Jersey Dairy. The dairy is right downtown between a brand new medical building and a residential neighbourhood. It seems strangely out of place, especially when you enter into the paneled office/store and are greeted by happy workers who are stomping around in their wellies. A 4L bag of milk will cost you $4.75 and eggnog (a popular treat that they say will not last long!) is $2.25. That’s with tax and friendly service. They have a great selection of milk products including 1%, 2%, homogenized, cream, etc.

Just over a few streets I stopped in at Alberto’s European Bakery. Despite having a large store that looks like it used to have a lunch counter and eat-in area (now dark), the store is sparse with 2 shelves in the whole place and everything on them seems to be Portuguese imported cooking ingredients (if you did not know, there is a large Portuguese community in Leamington). A small rack behind the counter held only a few baked items. I asked for the buns that they sell in the Zehrs stores but they were not exactly sure what I was looking for, so we settled on kaisers. $4 got me 6 kaiser rolls and 6 hot dog buns. These buns do not come with the ingredients listed as the Zehrs ones do so next time I get the buns from Zehrs, I will post the ingredients.

From there I went to the Leamington Market. It is not an actual market… it is more like a convenience store, dollar store, and foreign grocery rolled together. It was very quiet and a bit disheveled; I maneuvered through the store wondering what I had walked into. I did not see anything that local (apart from a good selection of Yasmeen Bakery products from Windsor), but they have lots of great middle eastern and Mexican spices, canned goods and other ingredients. If you are looking for something different (or hard to find) for a recipe, this would probably be a good spot to look. I grabbed a Yasmeen coconut cookie (sooo good and fresh!) and a drink and headed to the counter where two boxes of Turkish Delight (made in Mississauga) jumped into my hands. The box managed to stay closed all the way home too, you should be proud of me!

The next stop was at Aleksander Estate Winery. I was happy to see that they again created their magical bottles of Cassis and Peach wines. Unfortunately they were sold out of their Baco. Isabella graciously offered me a tasting of two other reds and I decided on a nice Shiraz.

Then it was back to Highway 3 with one more stop for a Christmas tree and to let the dogs run around. A very successful day.
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Victoria Rose Aleksander Estate Winery, Lakeside Dairy, Leamington, dogs, milk