The Baking Project: Tales From Our Kitchen
In 2010 I started “the project”. It was in the dark days when I was working on my thesis and was looking for something that would keep me happy. I admit that I was a bit inspired by the movie “Julie & Julia”, but my idea was a bit less ambitious. I wanted to try to bake at least one new recipe a week. We have many cookbooks at home so it wasn’t a problem to find new recipes. I kept a list and baked away. By the end of the year I reached 56 new recipes. On average it was more than one recipe per week (the goal was…
The Tower of Ritter
Early this summer we found ourselves with an astonishing collection of Ritter Sport bars. This wasn’t exactly planned – we had a few bars at home, and when friends visiting Germany offered to bring us some more, we of course took them up on the offer. It turns out Ritter Sport is about a third of the price in Germany, so they got us ten bars, an excellent foundation for our Tower of Ritter. As you might notice, we have a weakness for the marzipan flavour. If you aren’t familiar with Ritter Sport, I urge you to check them out, you won’t be disappointed. There are many flavours, but the…
More Explorations of Seattle and Nearby
In early December we headed to Seattle again. Not exactly a place of sunshine and warmth this time of year, but a city with many attractions and good food to offer. Tal, Gili’s brother, was assigned to work in Seattle for a few weeks. He visited us in Vancouver for a week and after his first week at work we went to visit him on his days off. We left Vancouver very late on Thursday, which was a good move border-wise: there were no line-ups whatsoever. Also the drive was smooth, although we both were struggling to stay awake by the end. We reached the deserted downtown, it didn’t seem…
The Lonely Planet on Beer Sheva
Friends were visiting recently and had an older Lonely Planet guidebook for Israel. While looking through it, I looked up a few favourite places. I found that Ramle was labelled, somewhat aptly, as “off the beaten track”. But I was surprised to find out that the authors make fun of Beer Sheva, the town Maya and I spent three years in before coming to Vancouver. “Unattractive and with little to see and little to do, Beersheva (sic) is unlikely to impress many visitors. It’s the kind of town that gives most satisfaction when seen from the rear window of your departing bus” Now, it’s true that Beer Sheva is not…
Best Travel Insurance for Canadians
You like to travel, right? But, what if you are involved in an accident or serious illness, who will pay the bills? It might be a good idea to get some travel insurance. Since we’ll be leaving on an extended trip soon, I’ve been busy doing some research on insurance companies, which I’m sharing so that it can hopefully save you some of the time I already wasted on it. My criteria for a good travel insurance policy, besides being cheap, is: 1. it covers outdoor recreation, specifically hiking, cycling, climbing, scuba diving, white water rafting, etc. 2. it has adequate medical coverage, and covers accidents, illness and evacuation. 3.…
Wreck Beach: A Different Kind of Trip
UBC is the only university I know of that has a nude beach. Imagine yourself, on a mid summer day, clambering down the wooden stairs to Wreck Beach, through pristine forest, coming out to a scene in the spirit of the free love atmosphere of the 60’s. There are volleyball nudes, beer hugging nudes, sunbathing nudes, ice cream selling nudes and even magic mushroom and pot selling nudes. They come in all types. If you return at the end of summer, Wreck Beach transforms completely. A wilder, undeveloped and more pristine beach: the nudists disappear, and the beach is reclaimed by quacking seagulls. On a beautiful sunny fall day, the…
Tel Aviv the Bike City
When I was in high school I used to cycle everywhere. It wasn’t the easiest thing to do in Tel Aviv, although this city is actually perfect for cycling: it’s flat, the distances are short, and the climate is convenient. However, riding my bike was always a battle between the parked cars (sometimes parked half or fully on the sidewalks), the dog shit and other obstacles such as human beings (I did not dare to ride on the road). Lately, every time I visit Tel Aviv I see an improvement in the biking field, and this time the biggest change was the shared bike system. It’s really cheap and convenient,…
Plums, Plums & More Plums
We always say that my friend Mari knows everyone, and in a way it’s sort of true. So when I mentioned at work how much Gili and I love picking fruit, and that we would be happy to pick some plums, she immediately connected us with friends of hers in Burnaby. We cycled to their place on a beautiful Sunday morning, and we weren’t sure what to expect. When we arrived, we knew we didn’t ride for nothing – the tree was absolutely full of fruit. We immediately got started and as soon as I tasted one plum I was in heaven. These dark purple prunes were so sweet and…
- British Columbia (and nearby), Hiking & Scrambling, Sea to Sky, Trip Reports, Varsity Outdoor Club (VOC)
Hanging Lake Trail: The Gratification of Trail Clearing
British Columbia contains some of the wildest wilderness on Earth, and yet very few trails run through it. For us, outdoor fanatics, there is constant tension between wanting more trails to access the back country contrasted with wanting less trails to keep the wilderness as it is. Those few trails are generally maintained by volunteers, at least the ones outside of parks, and BC Parks suffers from an ongoing lack of funds that hampers their work. Other than lobbying the provincial and federal government for more funding for new trails and the maintenance of the existing ones, what are we to do? Go trail clearing ourselves, of course! Scott Nelson…
What to do with 130 pounds of Cherries?
A few weeks ago we had a crisis. While driving back from the Rockies we stopped at friends in Creston and returned with about 130lbs of intensely purple cherries. Like my sister said, it’s like we drove home with a whole person worth of cherries. And a very tasty person at that. We had to figure out what to do with them before they went bad. After giving some to friends, we still had a lot. I couldn’t resist and immediately began baking, which is when I discovered the sore reality of pitting cherries by hand – it is a lot of work. The next day we bought a cherry…
