Delicious Christmas Indulgences You’ll Want to Eat and Drink All Year

At Black Maple Magazine, we’re on top of our game with the best workouts, our commitment to healthy eating, and down for all of the best wellness practices and health documentaries. But we also know that a healthy life entails balance, and balance means being nice, but also being a little naughty too! So, just in time for Christmas, we’re thrilled to recommend a trio of delicious goodies (and Canadian alternatives) that will make your jingle bells ring.

 

Savoury

Trader Joe’s Ridge Cut Potato Chips Seasoned with Horseradish & Chives
Just in time for the Thanksgiving and Christmas, Trader Joe’s offers its Ridge Cut Potato Chips Seasoned with Horseradish & Chives. Now if you just made a funky facial expression at the sound of horseradish, we suggest that you stop, rewind, and give these bad boys a shot. While you may have previously associated horseradish with salad dressings, sauces, and spreads, this spicy root vegetable (from the mustard family) makes for a subtle kick when combined with the tried-and-true potato chip staple of sour cream. But beware, this out-of-the-box combination is an addictive, savoury surprise that’ll keep you coming back to the bowl!

 

Miss Vickie’s Sweet Chili and Sour Cream Chips
Founded by Vickie and Bill Kerr of New Lowell, Ontario, Miss Vickie’s chips have been bringing the flavour since 1987. These premium, thick-cut, kettle cooked chips pack the crunch and texture in the flavour combinations that we love. We’re particularly hooked on Sweet Chili and Sour Cream. While the sweet chili brings the spice, the sour cream tempers the heat, maintaining peak flavour while ensuring that you won’t be overwhelmed by a fiery kick.

 

Sweet

Eastanbul Dubai Chocolate
Eastanbul’s brand of Dubai Chocolate is…how can we put it…life changing! We already know that the cacao in dark chocolate – the less sugar the better – is packed with antioxidants, flavonoids, iron, and nutrients like calcium and magnesium. This bar’s got 60% dark chocolate, but that’s not what makes it so special. It’s what’s between the two layers of dark chocolate that makes this premium confection an out-of-body experience. Nestled between the two decadent layers of dark chocolate is a creamy pistachio paste mixed with phyllo dough called kataifi. This kataifi has a crispy texture because it is roasted and shredded. The experience of eating this luxurious treat is initially the subtle, smooth, and slightly bitter taste of the dark chocolate, followed by the sweeter crunchiness of the green pistachio filling which combines for a perfect party-in-your-mouth of naughty indulgence.

 

Rocky Mtn Chocolate, Chocolate Seafoam
Founded in Whistler, B.C. by husband-and-wife team Brian and Tammi Kerzner, Rocky Mtn Chocolate has been bringing us delicious and inventive creations since 1988. Making chocolate in store in small batches, not only keeps the quality high, but it also inspires passersby to stop and watch the magic in progress. We are especially hooked on their Chocolate Seafoam, a treat which it is almost impossible to eat slowly (meaning suck as opposed to chew). While the outside is a coating of delicious milk chocolate, the inside is the seafoam, a hard, but melt-in-your-mouth, porous sponge toffee that has a magnificent light texture.

 

Wine

McBride Sisters, Black Girl Magic Riesling
In the world of wine and alcohol manufacturing, few black-owned or woman-owned businesses have broken through. Wine and alcohol businesses are complex because they entail the mastery of the disparate but intersecting branches of agriculture (viticulture), manufacturing, and distribution, often with some hospitality and tourism thrown in. Hence, the fact that the McBride Sisters Wine Company is both the largest woman-founded and the largest black-owned wine company in the USA is a triumph worth celebrating. The sisters’ story is screenplay ready! Raised separately, without knowledge of the other, in the wine loving regions of Monterey, California and Aotearoa, New Zealand respectively, this dynamic sister duo of Robin McBride and Andréa McBride John, were united by fortune and their shared love of wine in 1999. The rest, shall we say, is history! We especially love the aromatic and luxurious Black Girl Magic Riesling with notes of sun-kissed apricot, jasmine, and honey. But we also love knowing that when we buy McBride Sisters’ wine, we’re celebrating two women whose mantra is, “Go where you don’t belong, because one day you will.” Amen to that!

 

Peller Signature Riesling Icewine
Although Germans invented Eiswein, leave it to Canadians to perfect it, become the world’s largest producers, and market it to the world. This sweet dessert wine – red or white – is made from grapes that are naturally frozen on the vine using a technique first popularized in Germany. Born from the rags to riches immigrant story of Andrew Peller of Hungary, who arrived in Halifax, Nova Scotia in 1927 with five dollars in his pocket, Peller Estates is today Canada’s largest premium producer of wine and a highly awarded company. We suggest trying Peller Signature Riesling Icewine for its elegant, luxurious mouthfeel and citrus and pineapple notes.