• Cooking,  Food

    Dark Beer Onion Soup: Heaven on Earth

    Frying onions is the start of so many good recipes. I feel like the smell triggers something in us – any human noses in the area will perk up and come searching for the source of the heavenly smell. Onion soup is a simple way to concentrate the flavor and smell and allows us to keep enjoying them for days. After having beer onion soup at a restaurant a few months ago I decided to try making it at home, and it seems that the addition of a dark beer adds color, character and depth to the soup. For years I made onion soup that was tasty, but was not…

  • Cooking,  Food,  Travel

    How to Make Chocolate Milk, From Scratch

    I’m obsessed with chocolate. I guess lots of people say this, but I feel like I’m worse than others. Barely a day goes by without me digging in the cupboard for some dark chocolate, ideally Belgian and 72%. Since I also have a thing for making stuff from scratch, I was very interested to learn about making chocolate, and in particular, whether I could make chocolate at home. Two years ago while cycling through Central America, we took a chocolate making workshop in Nicaragua, and then another one in Guatemala. Then, in Belize, we cycled into a small Maya village named San Antonio, where a young kid climbed up a cocoa…

  • Cooking,  Food

    Easy and Delicious Lamb Shanks

    There is a fairly famous and excellent Greek restaurant in downtown Vancouver called Stepho’s. Fame brought with it large crowds, and if you expect to eat around the normal meal time, forget it – you’ll often be waiting in line for an hour or more. But then again, the lamb at Stepho’s is amazingly tender, and the sides are almost equally delicious – baked vegetables, rice and tzatziki. Thankfully, the owners have kept their prices as low as can be, with a huge lamb shank plate costing around $10. But, if you don’t live in Vancouver or don’t dare brave the crowds, how about trying to cook up some lamb…