As with wine-tasting, it's better to pace yourself. When you're on the Butter Tart Trail, small portions are the way to go. Otherwise you'll be overfull before you even get to your fourth tart, and that's just no good.

Dan, Tara, and I started in KW, pointed ourselves north, and set out around 9:30 in the morning. The weather was brisk but not hazardous. Morale was high.

Our first stop at River's Edge Goat Dairy was a disappointment as far as goats milk butter tarts, which we remembered as amazingly good from previous years. Sadly they haven't had the volume of demand necessary to make goat's milk butter for a while. We consoled ourselves by buying food for later: a strong cheese and a tub of chevre-in-spices-and-oil.

Kenilworth Country Kitchen was hopping at 11am. We decided on an early lunch and then a few of their 6? 7? butter tarts. These were definitely better than the best in our town from City Cafe. (And I liked them more than Dee's in Cambridge.) The crust was buttery and substantial, matched with strongly flavoured filling. We bought a few plain and pecan to share, both which were great. As we were finishing up, our waitress came by and said, "Hey, can you do me a favour? The baker forgot to label a batch." She thought they might be skor and toffee flavour, but she wasn't going to eat one to find out, but she thought we might possibly. ...Well, if you insist. Yes, they were skor and toffee, we guessed. It was tough to be sure. Maybe I'll have another bite to be sure. Yes, definitely.

In Mount Forest, we struck out at Farzer's Mercantile, which was one of a huge number of jumble shops we saw on this trip. He had just stopped buying tarts for the winter because the fall customers had dried up. Just as well, because the place was a bit on the creepy side.

Munro's on Main was a sit-down restaurant and nobody was free to take our order for a couple of tarts to go, so we went onward.

We finally broke out of our 1-for-4 record in the last place we tried in Mount Forest. The Spot Restaurant was happy to sell us a tart to go (the standard variety- with rasins). We saved it for later, and did not linger for their Butter Tart Pie, though I considered it. Next time. The tart was good, though not as good as Kenilworth's.

Heading East out of Mount Forest, Misty Meadows Country Market is a German-Mennonite general store, with everything from bulk-size cereal to baking goods to local cheese to butter tarts in the assorted pack of 6 flavours. So we bought two packs. The pecan one that we split was good, though a bit heavy on the lard flavour.

Finally we stopped in Arthur, at Shirley K's Coffee Cafe, tucked into the back of Sussman's, a men's clothing store (which had expanded to women's as well). Over the years we've driven past it a handful of times, and always scoffed a bit- but now we know to go back! They have surprisingly high quality, and prices are a bit high-end, but not crazy. I bought a newsboy-style hat and a button-down shirt. Tara was quite impressed with styles in the women's sections. They plied us with mulled cider and offered us cookies, but we held out for a butter tart. Only one. Standard rasin. Tara judged it to be her favourite- it was more custardy, and lighter in flavour than the others we'd tried. I may need to go back for another try.

On to Elora, through wonderful late-afternoon sun over stark countryside, and as the sun set (at 4:40! Grr) we looked in three or so galleries. All three  had great art, none of which came home with us on this trip, though it gave all of us ideas, some which might have been partially fueled by a group sugar high.

Back at our place, we had a light dinner of the goat's milk cheeses, bread from City Cafe, and one final tart. I don't remember where it came from, and it doesn't matter. It was good. And we have five [ no, six ] left to get through or share, which will be a challenge.

We saw Tara off on her bus back to Toronto, and now I've declared myself Done. This was a wonderful day from start to end, and I feel grateful for it. Although I wish I'd had the oomph to make it to Max and Jer's 8th annual housewarming wine and cheese party as well. Though the idea of eating anything more at all... Sorry guys. Next time.