Archive for category Food

Cinnamon

Jan 12

During breakfast on August 20 in Billings, Montana, Paula asked the waitress for some cinnamon to sprinkle over her oatmeal. The kind waitress bought her a plastic cup, normally used to hold barbecue sauce or ketchup (an inch around and nearly as tall) heaped with cinnamon. Even after liberally sprinkling some of it on her oatmeal there was a lot of cinnamon left. Fearing that they would throw it out if we left it and knowing we could use it, she wrapped it in a napkin and we took it with us.

Today, January 11, 144 days later, that container of cinnamon (kept in a larger plastic container) finally was used up. Nearly every day we added some of that cinnamon to our coffee, pancakes, and other items. Amazing. Kind of sad though, that cinnamon container had been with us so long it had become part of the family.

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Vancouver

Dec 2

Posted by Douglas in Food, Travel

Of all the cities I have been, I think Vancouver is my favorite; although London, England is right up there. Vancouver does not have the long history and historic significance of London, but it makes up for it in other areas. Vancouver is a beautiful city with a very diverse population, surrounded by natural beauty, very welcoming to visitors, and offers so much to see and do.

The best part of Vancouver though is the food. For example, the full day we were in Vancouver, we had Malaysian for breakfast (brunch really), Italian for an afternoon snack, and French-Chinese fusion for dinner, and a British pub for a nightcap. Gotta love it! You can have a full vacation in Vancouver doing nothing but walking around and eating. This was our second trip to Vancouver, the first was in 2006, and unfortunately, we had only time for two nights.

Vancouver has a very efficient mass transit system of buses and trains so it is easy to get around. The downtown is very modern dominated by glass skyscrapers, Vancouver is not for admiring old buildings except for the adjacent “gaslight” district, which is the oldest part of the city. The gaslight district are worth a few minutes to walk around, but it’s really the only place in Vancouver that feels “touristy.” The best place to go is the west end, especially Robson Street, which is a riot of restaurants and stores the stretches from downtown out to the water shore. Vancouver is not on the ocean, but it has a lot of waterfront on a calm bay. There are beaches, marinas and many waterfront parks and restaurants. Stanley Park is an amazing urban park. Imagine New York’s Central Park but on a peninsula and more natural. It’s great for hiking. Not far from the city centre is North Vancouver where just across the bay are high mountains and gorges with fabulous hiking. Just south is the city of Redmond that has a fantastic Chinatown with amazing restaurants. Though it is an an industrial park away from any other attractions, La Casa Gelato is a MUST stop. Yes, they serve gelato, but they have on hand over 200 flavors of gelato at any one time (they rotate among three times that number of flavors) and they have flavors of fruits you have never heard of and spices you never thought of. You get free samples of anything they have. You know you want to try onion or curry gelato. The prices are high but worth it.

Vancouver is a fabulous place. We can’t wait to return. Someone please give us a job there!

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More Desert Adventures

Jul 30

Posted by Paula in Culture, Food, Nature, Self, Travel, Work

Flagstaff is a really cute little town. The Grand Canyon is not cute. The road there also is not. Everything is impossibly huge. Seems a lot of European tourists visit the Grand Canyon—heard French, Italian, and German frequently—and I really wonder how Wild West the experience is or is not for them. We went along the South Rim and got to see rain from afar and up close and the shifting of the light over the course of the afternoon—it sometimes appears almost a solid thing, and I’m sure there’s a bad quantum physics pun in there somewhere, but I prefer watching it to quantifying it. I felt a great sense of peace at Navajo Point, as if I could lay my whole self out over the entire canyon and feel the immensity of it. I wished I could stay there for a long time.

Instead, we drove late into the night to Las Vegas. We drove through the Hoover Dam, since they are repairing the bridge that would normally go over it. It was like driving through a Dr. Who set in the dark (current Dr., not the old ones). It was a bit creepy, actually, despite being intriguing, probably because we couldn’t entirely see what was going on in the dark. By the time we got to Vegas, it was quite late, and we were quite tired, but we drove the Strip and attempted photography anyway. We stayed at a casino hotel a bit on the edge of the whole shebang; we got a room for $18, but they added an $11 “resort fee” when we got there. We did not appreciate the misinformation, but still—not an expensive room. And it was a big suite with lots of space, which we thoroughly took advantage of for yoga in the morning.

Today we went to one of those giant lunch buffets and felt a bit shamefacedly like delighted greedy little piggies. I don’t think I’ve had sushi and enchiladas at the same sitting before. We perhaps overstayed our welcome slightly, since we picked a quiet corner for me to do some editing, but we had so much fun laughing at everything, and we didn’t think we were keeping anyone from a table or our waitress from her tips, so we indulged our guilty pleasure. Afterwards, we wandered around and looked at the slot machines for awhile before picking one to put a dollar in. They are so complicated looking. How weird! We did not win.

Things got interesting after we left. We were heading west again, out across the Mojave Desert, but did not get too far before being rear-ended on the expressway in Vegas. I was driving, but it was not my fault. Really. Nevadans drive like maniacs. I suspect someone was trying to merge onto the expressway, but things did not go well, and everybody in front of me slammed on their brakes. I did, too. The young woman behind me, unfortunately, did not. She mentioned something about “looking up”—I suspect a cell phone may have been involved. Nevertheless, the Rabbit has a bit of a dent and the trunk is a little sticky to open, but everybody and everything else is fine (shaken, not stirred?).

After the requisite calls and forms and conversation with the police, we did indeed cross the Mojave and go through Barstow and all and are in a slightly stuffy little room in San Bernardino. Can’t say I’m too happy with the drivers on the freeways in California, but I suppose that’s to be expected.

The highest temperature the Rabbit registered was 109 in Las Vegas.

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Burlington and Toronto

Jun 25

Posted by Douglas in Food, Travel

Two cities we have visited in recent days have struck me – Burlington, Vermont and Toronto, Ontario. Montreal, Quebec also impressed me greatly but Paula has already written about that.

Burlington is a small city just south of the Canadian border on the eastern shore of Lake Champlain. It is the birthplace of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream and has a reputation as a progressive hippie place. We didn’t see any hippies there though there was one tacky head shop and three people begging for spare change outside it. Mostly what we saw were restaurants and other touristy things catering to a middle-class crowd which indeed did draw a middle-class crowd. Maybe Burlington has changed in recent years? If it has is that better or worse? Is it better to have head shops and hostels with homeless teenagers or brew pubs and bistros with minivan-driving tourists? I admit I have far more use for a brew pub than a head shop. At least Burlington hasn’t gone overly commercial like Gatlinburg.

Toronto I had visited before to give a talk at the University and I had been eager to go back. Toronto is a big city with plenty of grit and diversity. We stayed at a funky hotel in he heart of Chinatown. which is quite large, over twice the size of Chicago’s Chinatown. It is just one part of the incredible ethnic diversity in the city. Though mostly English in its heritage it hosts many different cultures. Like Chicago, it is a city of neighborhoods. Someone told me that Toronto has more pubs than any other city in the world. I wouldn’t bet against that claim and it is absolutely a beer drinkers paradise. While it is easy to have a great time there, my one complaint about Toronto is that it is not a beautiful city. There is very little access to the waterfront, few parks, no effort was made to retain the character of the original areas of the city, and some neighborhoods are in serious disrepair. It is too bad that Toronto didn’t do like Montreal and maintain the charming old section of the city or like Chicago and make room for parks and the waterfront. Not that I won’t come back to Toronto mind you.

After four nights in Canada we are back in the USA.

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Montreal and Time

Jun 22

Posted by Paula in Culture, Food, Travel

We spend an awful lot of time arranging things or moving things or trying to find things, either in our luggage or in the place we happen to be. Montreal was the same—some apprehension upon arrival, some scurrying to figure things out, taking what we always think is too long to actually leave the hotel, and then rolling through the day as a great romantic adventure. My superb good fortune is to be married to someone with an excellent sense of direction and the capacity to follow a map (my prior experiences on my own are that it would take me twice as long to figure out where I’m going). That said, we really do wander around an awful lot and find nice restaurants and nice people to chat with and tons of scenery and all. We begin with that bit of fear and end up fat and happy. It always turns out that way. So why can’t we just be happy at the beginning part, too? Or maybe that’s just the ebb and flow of How It Works. We are neither monks nor people who see things as black-and-white, so maybe we’re kind of stuck with this method.

As it turns out, the drivers in Montreal are quite aggressive, but we have been able to make our way safely thus far, and even got cheap parking in Quartier Latin, where we met my old pal Phil, who has been living here the last four years or so, for lunch. He gave us pointers on where to wander, so we wandered the Quartier Latin and practiced our French (old for me, new for Douglas). We saw the old part of the city and the port. We shared a poutine (my first!) and a fair amount of really nice beer of various sorts in various cafes and bistros. And I’m happy to say this was the first day of wandering that actually gave me energy rather than making me tired. I’ve probably gotten a bit stronger with all the hiking and hauling, but I wouldn’t underestimate the beer.

Great panorama photo of Montreal even though we didn’t take it.