Archive for the ‘Food and Drink’ Category

So, about that dinner

Tuesday, January 20th, 2009

Some time ago, I mentioned that I’d eaten guinea pig while in Ecuador. Here’s the photo I mentioned. Note that you can not only see the paws, but, if you look closely at the piece on the left, you can make out the ears.

Guinea Pig Dinner

Basically, it was sectioned and deep-fried. The meat was tasty enough (what there was of it), but the skin caused problems – it was thicker than I expected, and tough. Some days later, one of our tour guides said that grilled guinea pig was much better than fried. Ah, well.

There are several things that seemed to normally accompany meals. Popcorn is tossed into soup the way crackers would be here. The roasted corn was quite good to snack on, as were the fried banana chips. They weren’t as sweet as the ones I get here, but they were still good. Probably a different kind of banana – we saw several types being sold in the markets.

Ecuador Condiments

Ha! I laugh at your puny Turducken!

Sunday, December 16th, 2007

Behold, the True Love Roast!

Via Spluch.

Update: Corrected the link.

A gallimaufry of links and things

Friday, December 14th, 2007

I’ve been busy, and haven’t kept up with posting recently. I have, however, marked a few things of interest:

Via Coyote Blog, we have the World’s Hardest Easy Geometry Problem.

Via Jed, we have some cookies that sound absolutely delicious. I think my daughter will try these, actually.

Via a Yahoo Group to which I belong, we have a delightful a cappella holiday music performance by Straight No Chaser:

If that performance inspires you, perhaps you will wish to make your own motivational poster.

I happen to meet the Programmer’s Dress Code. I do occasionally wear suspenders, though, and the only pair I saw there was in part 2. It wasn’t even worn by a programmer.

A few days ago, Slashdot noted that Brandon Sanderson has been chosen to finish the late Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series. I have most, if not all of them, but I’ll freely admit that I haven’t read all of them, and I kind of lost interest around book 5 or 6. The best comment in the thread is this one:

Hansel and Gretel, outlined in the style of Robert Jordan:

Book 1: Hansel and Gretel live happily with their mother and father. Their mother falls ill and dies. The family mourns her loss. The father starts courting another woman in the village, to the dismay of Hansel and Gretel. At the end of the book, she wins over the hearts and minds of the two children and marries her father. They live happily ever after.

Book 2: Oh, wait, they don’t live happily after all. The stepmother turns out to be hateful and cruel. Ultimately, Hansel and Gretel resolve to run away from home. Gretel expresses fears about the wicked witch who is rumored to live in the Forest, but Hansel insists nothing could be worse than living at home with their stepmother. After much bickering, they depart.

Book 3: Hansel and Gretel cross the boundary between Village and Forest. Gretel reprises her misgivings about the dangers of the forest. Hansel reiterates his arguments in favor of running away. After much bickering, they agree to continue, using bread crumbs to mark their trail. They get lost. Gretel blames Hansel. Hansel stubbornly refuses to admit his mistake.

Book 4: Hansel and Gretel wander through the woods, lost and disoriented. Gretel continues to complain about the foolishness of running away from home. Hansel continues to insist it’s the right thing to do. Gretel continues to berate him about the bread crumbs fiasco. Hansel persists in his mule-headed self-righteousness. They meet a Wise Owl, who warns them about the Wicked Witch of the Forest.

Book 5: Hansel and Gretel wander through the woods, lost and disoriented. Gretel continues to complain about the foolishness of running away from home. Hansel continues to insist it’s the right thing to do. Gretel continues to berate him about the bread crumbs fiasco. Hansel persists in his mule-headed self-righteousness. They meet a Cunning Fox, who encourages them to visit the Wise Woman of the Forest.

Book 6: Hansel and Gretel wander through the woods, lost and disoriented. Gretel continues to complain about the foolishness of running away from home. Hansel continues to insist it’s the right thing to do. Gretel continues to berate him about the bread crumbs fiasco. Hansel persists in his mule-headed self-righteousness. They meet a Cryptic Raven, who warns them about the Wicked Witch of the Forest.

Book 7: Hansel and Gretel wander through the woods, lost and disoriented. Gretel continues to complain about the foolishness of running away from home. Hansel continues to insist it’s the right thing to do. Gretel continues to berate him about the bread crumbs fiasco. Hansel persists in his mule-headed self-righteousness. They meet a Devious Serpent, who encourages them to visit the Wise Woman of the Forest. … and that’s about the point where the Faithful Reader finally realizes that this hack has stretched a simple fairy tale into seven giant novels in which nothing actually happens.

And finally, Don Surber points us to to wacky warnings. Hie thee hence, and find out who won a copy of Remove Child Before Folding, and with what.

Mmmmmm…

Monday, October 22nd, 2007

I do love mincemeat pie. It’s just about time to start thinking about Christmas baking, too – it’s been a couple years since I’ve done anything special for Christmas. Maybe this year I’ll finally get around to trying to make Christmas pudding, which has to be started about now.

I didn’t know pumpkins came in a Skaros varietal

Sunday, October 21st, 2007

This is a cute idea, but it’s more work than I want to do for a Jack-o-lantern.

Via about:blank.

Catching up

Wednesday, September 5th, 2007

Internet access has been sort of spotty on the trip. So has cellphone coverage; I’ve got no service here at Smuggler’s Notch Resort. Pretty scenery, though, and the trees are showing signs of their autumn colors. For the most part, things are still green, but every now and then, you’ll catch a bit of orange or red peeking through.

In any case, we flew into Montreal on August 26th. Wandered around the old part of the city that evening, took a bus tour of local attractions the next morning, then drove to Quebec. We stayed at a B&B in the walled part of the old city for three nights, and had a really good time. However, there’s a tourist kitsch coffee cup where the cup portion is only a half-cylinder, which states “Quebec was so expensive I could only afford a half-cup of coffee!” Believe it. Even with the continental breakfast at the B&B, I don’t think we spent less than $100/day for lunch and dinner for the two of us. Another word of warning: don’t expect good iced tea in Canada. Apparently, “iced tea” is Canadian for “pre-sweetened, pre-lemoned somewhat-tea-flavored instant drink mix.”

We took a walking tour our second day, which was quite good (ask for Jules, he’s a very good guide). We also took a bus tour, which wasn’t anywhere near as good. I went off by myself for the Musée de la civilisation – they had an exhibit on Dragons I wanted to see. It wasn’t as good as I’d hoped, although they had a few interesting items included in it. What I did enjoy seeing there, though, was the exhibit “Au Pérou avec Tintin.” They were celebrating Hergé’s centennial with an exhibit about Peru using the related Tintin adventure, with original strip art interspersed with Peruvian artifacts. Fun stuff.

When we left Quebec, we drove out to Riviere-du-Loup, where we took a whale-watching cruise. It was pretty good … we saw beluga (which only appeared as white lumps in the water), minke whales, a pod of about 10 fin whales at pretty close range, and some white-finned dolphins.

The next day (Friday), I spent my birthday traveling down New Brunswick and into Maine, as we had reservations at a motel in Bar Harbor. I was sorry I didn’t pay more attention to the road signs. I’d love to have gotten a picture of the sign pointing the way to St. Louis du Ha! Ha!, but we were past it before I noticed. I expected there’d be a more interesting story behind the name, though.

No trouble crossing the border, but we did run into an immigration checkpoint about thirty miles in. That was interesting, for a moment or two.

“Both Canadian citizens?”
“No, American.”
“Both of you?”
“Yes.”
“Then who does this car belong to?”
“It’s a rental. We picked it up in Montreal.”
“Okay, thank you.”

A good place to eat in the Bar Harbor area is The Chart Room, by the way. Marion bought me a lobster dinner for my birthday, and she had the scallops. She got the much better meal; she says she’s been ruined for any other scallops (although I expect her to keep trying to find the equal). She had the blueberry pie for dessert; I had the strawberry shortcake. Loved them both.

Saturday, we toured Acacia National Park, then hit the L.L. Bean factory outlet store in Ellsworth. I bought way too much, but you couldn’t beat the prices. Then we went back to the Chart Room for dinner. I had haddock, shrimp, and scallops baked with cheese and seasonings. Marion’s become ruined for halibut, also. This time, I had the blueberry pie, while Marion had the apple crisp.

Sunday, we drove here, stopping near Ellsworth to go through The Big Chicken Barn, over 21000 square feet of antiques and used books. I picked up three 1964-vintage Analog magazines, one of which contains the H. Beam Piper story, “Gunpowder God.” If I’d realized that they were only $1 apiece before I got to the counter, I’d have picked up more of them. I also picked up a pen-and-ink drawing that looks like it’s an illustration from a 30’s pulp magazine.

We ate dinner at one of the restaurants here (the Morse Mountain Grill). The food was good, but they use instant for their iced tea, and the ambience was about like a Furr’s.

Monday was a day off … we sat around and did not much of anything. Went to Jeffersonville to check out the restaurants, and found nothing much there, so we had dinner at Stella Notte, which is just down the road and pretty good.

Yesterday, we took a day trip back to Montreal. We wanted to see the underground city (not that interesting, from the portion we saw) and the Botanical Gardens (second largest in the world, we were told). The Gardens were incredible. I can believe they’re the second largest; just the Chinese Garden itself takes up perhaps half the acreage of the Denver Botanic Gardens. Then you’ve got the Japanese Garden, the First Nations Garden, the Shade Garden, the Alpine Garden, the Ornamental Vegetables Garden, the Exhibition Gardens, and I haven’t even started on the greenhouses, the tree sections, the Courtyard of Senses, and the other sections I can’t remember off-hand. I’d want to have a week, to view them completely. Then I’d want a year, so I could review each section once a week throughout the year.

We ate dinner at Madison’s, which bills itself as a “New York Grill and Bar.” All dark wood and burgundy leather, black-clad attendants, and wonderful food. Marion had the salmon, and I had the seared tuna. We decided that I had chosen the better meal. Had to happen, sooner or later.

As we left the restaurant, my cellphone rang. It was my daughter, who had been trying to call me since Friday, but had run afoul of the spotty coverage. She didn’t get me, she didn’t get my voicemail, she just heard it continue to ring. I’d had some troubles, myself. In Quebec, Marion called and left me a message (I’d gone off to a museum while she did something else). I was able to call her after I left the museum, but I couldn’t access my voicemail until we got to Bar Harbor. Inconvenient, but such is life.
Today’s another quiet day. Tomorrow, we’ll take a sunset cruise of Lake Champlain. We also plan to tour the Ben & Jerry’s factory sometime, and we’ll probably dine a time or two in Stowe, which is just the other side of the Notch.

We fly back into Denver on Sunday, and I’ll be ready to take a break from taking a break.

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Thursday, July 26th, 2007

Someone might get the idea of importing these. Most of them (alright, almost all of them) I have no desire to ever try, but there are a few I may be willing to try, such as the Dracula Cool Garlic Mint.

Garlic is, after all, one of the major food groups.

Buy 2, get 1 free

Wednesday, July 11th, 2007

Breakfast this morning

Father’s Day Fun

Wednesday, June 13th, 2007

I saw this advertisement in the paper the other day:

Iron Dad newspaper advertisement

More information (but not much) here. Despite what the ad says, a web search shows that it’s a nationwide thing – I presume that the “Benihana Broomfield only” is so that nobody calls the number listed wanting to do this in Pueblo or Grand Junction. Anyway, it sounds like a lot of fun to me. Then again, I do have a button that says, “Cooking is great! It’s a wonderful excuse to play with knives and fire.”

At least, I used to have a button that said that … it appears to have gone astray, along with buttons that said, “Don’t just flirt, hit me with a clue-by-four” and “If the minimum weren’t good enough, it wouldn’t be the minimum.”

In any case, I won’t be doing this. I’ve already had plans set up for Father’s Day, and asking to add this would be a little over the top.

That turned out well

Monday, May 28th, 2007

I fixed dinner for Marion this evening. Although I often have timing problems, this time everything was ready at the same time. We had Alaskan salmon grilled on a cedar plank, grilled corn on the cob, wild rice, and a salad of field greens, sweet peppers, and mushrooms. Dessert was a blackberry crumble. It was all quite good; I’m pleased with how the meal turned out.