blinkit

Bargains and lack of choice

WMD: I've discovered Costco. I've gone perhaps once before, some years ago, but never shopped on my own. Last week, I embarked on a journey into warehouse land, where I spent $123 to ensure that I have enough tissue, cat litter, garbage bags, porridge, pasta, tomato sauce, tomato paste, whole wheat bread and buns to last me for at least two months. I also have 20 new fancy coat hangars. Just this past weekend, I returned to ensure a similar supply of toilet paper, paper towel, mushroom soup, Raisin Bran and other items. By buying at a wholesale level, I am saving money. But choice of goods is quite constrained. Quality is not assured. The ginger snap cookies I bought will last all week, but they are moderately enjoyable. The cat litter was less than $8 for 50 pounds, and it's subpar. But just one box, about one fourth of the supply I have now, of my regular litter costs $9, so the cat will have to deal with it for the next few weeks. And that's what Costco is about. Note: the tomato sauce is just fine ...

Today's bLINKit: Tor is offering free science fiction and fantasy e-books for download. And need to sync bookmarks over two or more computers using Firefox? Try Foxmarks. I was sceptical, but so far, works well between my main PC and my laptop. And a site with headlines about how Barack Obama has added you as a friend/carries a picture of you in his wallet/thought you could use some chocolate. Click on what you find here and keep clicking.

A berry good feeling; driving in Ireland

WMD: Catching up. Yes, I arrived back in Canada after a successful trip to Ireland. My two last locations visited in Ireland were an archaeological site, at 5,000 years the oldest known farming site in Europe, and Skerries, an incredibly charming seaside resort a short hop north of Dublin. I'll be writing an "official" story about my trip for my employer sometime later this month and will post it here. Note: it will be largely cribbed from posts here, so regular Blinkit readers will see some overlap.

Meantime, I'm enjoying summer, especially the local farms, which in my case are 5 to 10 minutes drive away, a fantastic situation. I've already frozen strawberries for the winter and hope to do the same for some green vegetables, although the search for a suitable small freezer continues to be a bit of a journey. I was all set to buy a 5.5 cubic foot model at Future Shop, but the $55 delivery charge on an item that cost $229 made me choke. I still might get it, thanks to there not being much available in this freezer size, but Costco has a smaller freezer I'm going to check out. It's $199 with delivery included.

Today's bLINKit: If you're driving through Ireland, this trip planner might help. Driving in Ireland requires assistance like this, and a good map, because signs in that country are not always helpful. And the locals, at least in the countryside in the west, tend not to say "take the N51 to get to Dublin" but instead talk in folksy tones about "take the Longford road, which is shorter than the Charlesport road, unless you want more scenery." Which of course has you looking at your map wondering where the heck Longford is. And if you drive, you'll want to know the weather, which in Ireland is one of damp, wet, moist, drenched or flooded.

Beginner's Dublin

WMD: first hours
1. It has lots of pedestrians.
2. it has little cars
3. dark striped suits worn without ties are in
4. everyone has a mobile phone and must be on it always
5. more people smoke here than in Vancouver -- and they're still allowed to smoke on outdoor public patios
6. Book of Kells at Trinity College is over interpreted: by the time you get to the actual manuscripts, which are cool, you're exhausted (if not bored) by all the interpretive stuff
7. The Long Room at Trinity College, a long library hall of wood and mouldering books, is simply amazing
8. foreign cities are the best places to drink
9. Dubliners walk very fast

Sweet blues

Photo at left: blueberries drying on paper towel on my kitchen counter. I bought 40 pounds of blueberries Friday, and I hope it will be enough to get me through the winter if I can freeze them in the next few days. They remain my favourite fruit: when I was a kid from the Interior, they were my strongest association with the Lower Mainland. They remain one of the best things about living here.

Today's bLINKit: Some video games are simply ahead of their time, according to the Onion.

Strawberries in the freezer

Today's bLINKit: This might come a bit late for people in my biozone, since strawberries seem to be pretty much done here, but for those with different growing seasons or those still enjoying the little red fruits, here's one of the better bits of online info I came across on how to freeze strawberries. I've frozen three big Ziploc bags of 'em (now that the bug war is done, I have to find another use for my Ziplocs other than protecting my clothing). I didn't want to smother them with sugar, since they're sweet enough, so I froze them using the non-sugar method. So far, so good, and we'll see how they last during the winter. Strawberries don't freeze especially well, or at least don't hold their shape when they thaw, but they do thaw tasty and, I imagine, at least nutritious in a way that junk food is not. When the blueberries come out next month, I'll freeze at least 40 pounds of those as a winter reserve. It's my small contribution to buying and eating local. And in reference to that, I was appalled last week when entering a local Save-On: here we are in the middle of local abundance, with farms bursting with produce only a few klicks away, and almost all the vegetables and fruit were from California.

Speaking of local abundance, when in my area check out the Westham Island Winery. I recommend the rhubarb and currant wines as great summer sippers. Also note in the winery tasting room the signed pictures of people like Charlie Sheen. Lots of filming goes on around Westham, I'm told, including this and this.

Writing I admire: More Max Hastings

Recommended reads: I'm now into Max Hastings' Overlord, his great account of the Normandy campaign in the Second World War. So far, it's just as good as Armageddon (although so far he's relatively weak or at least not very detailed, but also frank, on the Canadian involvement), and the reason I like his writing can be illustrated by a quote from one of the anecdotes he uses to flesh out the greater historical drama. Here, he describes the preparations of Fayette Richardson, an American paratrooper preparing for the invasion:

"Now, in his hut in Nottinghamshire, he stood among the rest of the men joking self-consciously with each other as they struggled to stow a mountain of personal equipment about their bodies. A 32-pound radar set was strapped below the reserve parachute on his stomach; fragmentation grenades were hooked on his harness; gammon bombs and a phosphorous grenade, chocolate D rations, fighting knife, waterbottle, anti-mine, a morphia syrette and an armed forces paperback edition of Oliver Twist were stowed about his body. Richardson, as platoon guinea pig for a morphia demonstration a few weeks earlier, had plunged the tiny needle into his leg and fallen promptly asleep, to dream in brilliant colours of sailing boats against a sunset sky, green tropical islands, flowers and rainbows.

Today's bLINKit: A guide to eating the 100-Mile diet north of the 49th parallel. The advice, from two people in Vancouver who did it: "Preserving and storing food is the key to local eating in the Canadian climate."

Bavaria, beer and belief, part two: food and formality

WMD: The food in Bavaria is very good: fresh ingredients, robust presentation, and good solid flavours along comfort food lines. It tilts heavily toward meat and starch, (Bavaria would be a difficult place to be a vegetarian -- kind of like Alberta) but I was pleasantly surprised to see vegetables on my plate, and I don't think I had a bad meal the whole trip. Breakfast buffets in the hotels include scrambled eggs, breads and rolls, local jams, fresh squeezed juice, various cereals, a wide variety of fresh whole and cut food and yogurt. Lunch and dinners seemed almost interchangeable. Pork is common, chicken not as much, but you also see beef and venison. Fresh fish is also available from local lakes. And of course, there are sausages. A Bavarian favourite is the disgustingly albino-looking white sausage, which by tradition must be eaten before noon. Desserts are common and include dumplings filled with fruit fillings, pancake-like things, custards and cake.

Most of the towns we visited had sizeable outdoor foor and farmers' markets, which are popularly attended. A local delicacy seen only in May and June is white asparagus, and we saw stacks of it for sale in local stalls. It is often served steamed on a plate, but it also makes tasty soup. Another Bavarian specialty, coming from Swabian cuisine, is spaetzle, an egg noodle that originated as peasant food and has now gone upscale. My little tour group was treated to a demonstration on how to make spaetzle by the chef of the Bauerntanz restaurant in Augsburg. It wasn't half bad, served with sauer kraut (I avoided that), mixed with spinach or made plain and topped with mushroom sauce.

The beer in Bavaria is also the best I've ever had, and I wish I could stop saying that. Locals claim it's the pure quality of the water, and the German purity laws of 1516 also might have a hand. The weise wheat beer is especially good: smooth, sweet but not cloying, filling, with a golden hue. Sadly, while it's cheap in Germany, it's $2.75 a bottle at my local liquor store. Little known World Cup fact: the beer sold in the Munich stadium during World Cup games is, thanks to FIFA sponsorship deals, a major U.S. beer brand (I can't remember which one). That's globalization: one of the cities with the best beer in the world serving some of the worst beer in the world at an international sporting event.

Meals are important moments for Bavarians, and what impressed me was the formality of the service and the social encounters. Service in a restaurant, even if it is brusque, is all "dankes" and "bittes" and, as far as I could tell, none of the "Hello my name is Hans and I'll be your server today." (Waiting tables in Germany, I was told, is a profession, so it's common to see people in their 50s or older serving you your food. Tips are also included in the price of the food, which seemed comparable to Vancouver prices.) Even between friends, acquaintances or strangers sitting down at a common meal table, formality is apparent. The common wish before eating is "Guten appetit," which is routintely followed by "Danke, gleiche falls" or "Thanks, to you likewise." I tried out that phrase on the plane coming home, when an elderly German man was seated next to me. As our meal was served, I said "Guten appetit." Instantly he replied with "Danke, gleiche falls." It made me feel almost German.

WMD2: Photos explained:

Top: White sausage, as ordered by our tour guide at a restaurant in a restaurant off the Stadmarkt.

Second from top: Spaetzle, served at the Bauerntanz restaurant in Augsburg. From left to right are noodles served with sauer kraut and topped with bacon; noodles made with spinach; and noodles served with fried onion.

Third from top: Weise beer, already partly enjoyed during lunch at a restaurant in Prien on the shore of Lake Chiemsee.

Bottom: a corner stall in the Stadmarkt in Augsburg. The woman in the blue and red dress is a city tour guide dressed up (and acting as) the cousin of Mozart, with whom he had a brief fling and to whom he kept up a naughty correspondence. Yes, she was really his cousin. It was the 18th century.

A recipe for waffles

Tara passed on this recipe, originally from Mike Wafflerama Gower. I've never made it, I'm not really a fan of waffles, but I'll pass on it for those that are:

Buttermilk Waffles

This mish-mash of about 3 recipes traces its origin back to my mom's Five Roses 
cookbook -- recipes so time-tested, that the book has long since lost its spine 
and cover and is now bound with an elastic. 

2 cups flour 
1/2 tsp salt 
1 tsp baking powder 
1 tsp baking soda 
1 TBsp sugar 
2 beaten egg yolks 
1/2 c melted butter or vegetable oil 
2 cups buttermilk 
2 egg whites beaten stiff

Combine the dry ingredients in a large bowl and make a well 

Separate the eggs, and combine the yolks, oil and milk in a medium bowl 

Beat the egg whites stiff 

Pour the wet ingredients into the well, mixing only until just blended 

Fold in the egg whites. 

These take much longer to cook than the yeast waffles, but they can absorb a 
lot more toppings.

Line of the week

WMD: I heard this today from the girlfriend of a colleague. A bunch of us attended a reception for the one-year anniversary for this place, which when it was proposed by the parks board some years ago ignited a rebellion among the privileged of Kits Point who didn't want it on the beach. (Too bad, it's a public waterfront, and when you see what was built, you'll wonder what the fuss was about.) It's a lovely room, amazing view, but it when it first opened last year, got slammed for the food. I haven't eaten there yet, but the little noshes at the reception were just fine. And the line is: "I miss the '90s. There were a lot of good reruns then." I believe this line is aching for a short story to be built around it.

Also, thank you to all the people who sent in either recipes for waffles (I'll post one tomorrow), invitations for "real" pancakes or advice on how to get a bigger fry pan. It's appreciated. Nothing excites regular readers like food.

Today's bLINKit: This U.S. public radio show has swiftly become one of my favourites, downloaded for podcast pleasure. Whether it's Iraq, food or popular culture, it's like a salon on air.

Flat as a ...

This past weekend, I tried to make pancakes, perhaps the second ever I've attempted to do so. I've never been a huge fan of them. They make me feel very full very quickly, which is not my idea of a leisurely weekend breakfast. But I'm tired of having the same thing all the time and am trying to add some variety to the morning meal. I used an organic mix (Nature's Path buttermilk mix) and it turned out OK, but it seems to take an awful lot of time, especially under the recommended low heat setting. And I must need a bigger pan, since I can only make one at a time. Good thing I'm not cooking for a family, or else they'd be starving and annoyed. Cooking pancakes, it seems, is an art, not a science. I wish it was a science.

Today's bLINKit: Speaking of science, or at least social science, a local student is writing her honours thesis on community blogs. You can find her site here. It looks pretty fascinating. And cool enough, she's blogging the whole effort, including putting her thesis online as a PowerPoint with some podcasting there, too. Back in the day, we banged out our papers on stone tablets. Lord help us if the chisel broke. Students have more fun these days.