Oh Canada…it’s your turn for national hurdles.

Last night we brought your Stanley Cup back to Boston after a 39 year absence (thank YOU!). Your postal system is shut until further notice, and Vancouver based Hootsuite has ticked off a few PAYING customers (http://www.mediabistro.com/alltwitter/hootsuite-publisher-fail_b10216) with its latest upgrade. Ok. Not a good day.

But, you still have plenty of Canadian goodies right at hand.

Here are two I made off with from The Great Canadian Cheese Festival:

Poplar Grove’s(http://www.poplargrovecheese.ca/index.asp)  Naramata Bench Blue a surface blued beauty: starts off with a tiny tang, wafts a buttery scent through your nose, then mellows with a bit of earth, all contained in a pleasingly runny round. There are a lot of people who would look at Naramata Bench Blue’s gnarly exterior and think there was something wrong with it. They would be wrong. The one I wolfed down sat out all day at the festival and was seriously soft, but that just encouraged it.

Evelyn’s Crackers:  Ed Rek and Dawn Woodward (and daughter Evelyn) make every cracker by hand, from local heirloom ingredients. This is a lot of work. Current in the Rye is very rye-forward, Slightly Seedy is well beyond slightly. They’re 6” long flat crackers, so, say you’re driving solo for 5 hours, you COULD happily heap a mountain of cheese on them and munch away for the next 50 miles.

These little troubles you’re having will all sort themselves out soon.  As Waupoos Estates Winery (www.waupooswinery.com) ‘s Sean Reid (just say it as one word, “hi seanreid”, “can I have another glass of riesling seanreid?”) said, “Canada’s like a really nice upstairs neighbor, with a downstairs neighbor who’s having a raucous party.”

Sorry ‘bout adding to your bad day. But victory champagne tastes best from the champion’s cup.