Laliberté Cheese Newsletter - May 2026 Edition

Hello! Welcome to the monthly, bi-monthly, quarterly Laliberté Cheese & Gourmet Pantry Newsletter! I was mostly finished this post and then the internet ate my draft. It feels like University all over again with a dog that literally ate my homework. Her name was Aspen, and she hated forest ecology papers.

If this version of the newsletter is not very fun it's because I used the bulk of my wit on the previous draft. This is a long one, with lots of photos, but read to the end because there's so much going on right now! Also...probably some grammar mistakes, but rewriting is hard...and it's sunny out and I just want to hit publish!

If you don't follow us on social media, you'll have missed the photos of beautiful and tasty things I posted as Ankia and I travelled through Italy and France. It's been a long time since I visited Italy and the experience this time around was very different from my poor student days of travelling. I have very few memories of that other trip...mainly visiting Venice, and buying what was probably the most expensive pair of shoes I've every purchased. Core memories!

The main focus of our trip was to connect with a couple of vendors in the Florence region of Italy, hopping between towns trying to pack in as much as we could. The results of those visits will be making their way across the Atlantic soon! But in between tastings, Ankia and I were able to keep ourselves amused with the spritzes, the super well-dressed people (best dressed of Europe???), the fancy dogs (more dogs than children) and of course the food! I, personally over-ate at every single meal. Ankia had to all but roll me onto the plane to head to France afterwards.

I'm not a huge pasta eater at home, but I couldn't stop myself from ordering the pasta course as my second appetizer at every dinner. Which was basically just a second entré. Then dessert, because everywhere I went they have profiteroles drenched in chocolate sauce.

France was a more relaxed part of the trip. We met up with our spouses and friends in Lauzerte, a couple of hours outside of Toulouse and other than daily excursions we stayed put for the time we were there. The area is spectacular! Lauzerte is a medieval town that is perched on a hill top, which made for some great views, but also required a long slog back up when we ventured anywhere for a walk.

The food there was no slouch either. Delicious, last minute pop-ins at cliff side bistros like the one we stumbled on in Saint-Cirq-Lapopie. Personal sized vats of hot fondue and melted pucks of Rocamadour goat cheese and little jars of locally-made paté. Oof!

While it's strange that we didn't eat pizza at all when we were in Italy, we more than made up for it in Lauzerte. Mine at the front was a tartiflette pizza with reblochon!

And shout out to the the French nougat producers we stumbled across...if we could have somehow stuffed this giant wheel into our suitcase we would have.

A highlight of the France visit, was a day trip to Bordeaux which was good enough on its own just to see the city, but the real goal was a baking class to refine the making of madelaines, financiers and most importantly, the canelé. If you've been coming to the shop of late, you will have noticed that Ankia's Canelé game is top notch!

We made the decision to invest in the traditional copper tins, and between those and a few trade secrets we've appeached peak Canelé! So much so that we have been sadly lacking in discard canelés...so no treats for us!

We came back to a well oiled machine with our amazing staff keeping things running smoothly for us! Ankia's been refilling the freezer with take and bake mac & cheese, savoury bread pudding ( we ate this the other day and no exaggeration...chef's kiss!) & frozen foccacia grilled cheese sandwiches.

Our next event is happening this coming Sunday to celebrate Mother's Day. For the Love of Mothers & Butter is an ode to mom's and to my personal favourite dairy product...butter.

We loooove butter at Laliberté, particularly the French version. It's hard to describe when asked what makes French butter so special, it just...is. And so to celebrate Mother's Day, we are going to be doing a curated tasting of butters, both French and local.

We will be hosting this small gathering at a seaside location in the Comox Valley. You will be greeted with a mimosa and sat down to enjoy a variety of butters, along with several savoury and sweet pairings. And then we can sit and chat about how butter is the most important condiment, how if we were stuck on a desert island and we could only have one type of food, it would be butter, or maybe how we are really unclear why nobody is doing butter wedding cakes? Could you imagine...just tiers of tasty compounds and creamy, room temperature buttery goodness? Is this a thing? I think I'm going to start this as a thing! You heard this here first...butter cakes are the new wedding cakes!

Weather permitting, we will be outside, so please dress accordingly for the day. There are limited tickets to this event and they can purchased on our website: For the Love of Mothers & Butter | Laliberté Cheese

Cheese-wise, biggest news of the year....STILTON is coming back. It's been soooo hard getting good UK cheese. I've just been waiting. And while I don't have any of the other good UK cheese arriving, I do have stilton. Back on the shelf on Friday!

And with Spring and the beautiful weather, Beaufort Vineyard and Estate Winery is open again! This is our 5th season working with this amazing winery! We started with the odd wine & cheese event back in 2022 and we are now stocking their fridge with great cheese and endless cheese & charcuterie boards which are available every day without a booking. New this year is their Estate Wine & Artisan Cheese Tasting. This is a bookable tasting that pairs their great range of wine with a curated selection of cheese specifically tailored to the wine selection.

So much happening in the Comox Valley these days and we are happy to be part of that great offering!

See you in The Shop!

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