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Photos by Dominic Maggiolo

Post by Dominic Maggiolo, Ottawa food philosopher and blogger on vegetarian food and culture. Check out some of his other writings on his blog, Le Jeune Gourmand.

You’re not going to find mustard, relish or ketchup at this street vendor; no stocky polish man yelling at you for not taking the “special” sauce on your hot dog; nor are you going to have gulls taking a swipe at your freshly deep fried golden strips of love. I’m talking about something different, something Ottawa needs: an individual passionate about baking and food, and he’s taking it to the streets.

I had originally written this article as part of a series exposing Ottawa’s street food scene, but was surprised and quite frankly annoyed by the lack thereof. Its seems that, despite being a medium sized city, we are not reaping the benefits of local taco stands, oatmeal buggies, burrito trucks, shaved ices, ice cream mobiles, etc.

However, this does not stop Brad Campeau from producing delightfully interesting street food: a wide variety of mouth-watering homemade cookies that are 100% vegan. His business, the B.Goods Bakery, is almost entirely run in a massive RV/bakery hybrid, which not only looks cool but runs extremely well.

You can instantaneously taste the love within his cookies. Among the few that I’ve devoured: Spelt Molasses Ginger, Whole-wheat Chili Chocolate and Whole-wheat Chocolate Chip. The cookies are sweet, but not too sweet, moist, malleable, perfectly dense, and NOT cakey. With their signature dipped-in-sugar-on the-one-side,  it goes without saying that these cookies were perfectly thought out.

About a month ago, I was able to see a demo done by Brad at Ottawa’s VegFest and was surprised by the way he approached baking. He’s assertive and I immediately saw he knew what he was talking about.  A true public speaker with a charismatic approach to creating his cookies, Brad’s vegan baking demo was inspirational and made it seem extremely user friendly. While he did, however, restrain from divulging all of his secrets, nonetheless he gave a few informative tips .

I think it’s safe to say that tracking down B.Goods should be on everyone’s to-do list this summer. Brad is often found at most local events and farmers markets, or you can hunt for his cookies at many local stores. I had a chance to talk to him numerous times and came up with a quick profile of his business, locations and motivation.