Stuffed grape leaves are a cultural tradition all over the Mediterranean.

Many people are familiar with them by their greek name dolmades. In our family they are simply called feuilles de vigne (grape leaves), and we make them with ground beef as well as rice.

I think they’re a real treat, but I know from family lore that making them well is something that can only be taught by example. Accordingly, we asked my dad’s cousins to our place for a rolling session. It was a lot of fun, produced lots of tasty food, and now I think we can do it ourselves.

 › food     2006-11-28 14:37   ...0 comments

Here’s three random shots I like. The first two are over Dow’s Lake when we had a picnic there with Andrew and Keltie. Dow’s lake pavillion and Carleton University.

The last is from our cooling supper, we had it outdoors on May 30. The humidex was 38, so everything was supposed to be cooling dips, from homemade yogurt with cucumber and hummus, to salsa and homemade guacamole, to olives and red wine. All soaked up with fresh pita. It was a treat… even if I do say so myself!

    2006-11-23 10:22   ...0 comments

Earlier this week, Erin linked to BLDGBLOG which I have been very much enjoying since that time.

Today, a link for both Jen and Andrew. It seems that original Tudor houses are more energy efficient than modern houses built as replicas.

It’s a link for Jen because of the reference to energy efficient housing. It’s a link for Andrew because it alludes to repair rather than replacement of windows.

ObPhoto: The Elne Cloister

    2006-11-21 15:25   ...1 comment

PhoneValet 5. That is all.

    2006-11-20 20:28   ...0 comments

New Zealand is a beautiful place, and well worth taking the trouble to visit. This is a random highway shot taken on the north island on the east side.

One of the most striking features of that part of New Zealand is Waipoua Forest, the forest of giant Kauri trees. These trees are of unbelievable size. Here’s a snapshot of the base of one.

That photo gets much more impressive when you know that the red stick things that look like they’re coming from between the trees are Jen’s arms sticking up over her head. (You can see the boardwalk at the left and right edges of the image.) You can see Jen with another one on wikipedia, that one is Te Matua Ngahere (the Father of the Forest)… 5-6 m in diameter.

The Kauris are just one of the things about New Zealand that make people look small. here’s a funny pair of hobbit shots.

    2006-11-19 14:26   ...1 comment

I don’t usually post photos of people without asking, unless it’s like cottage pictures or some type of reportage. However, I came across this funny shot that I like very much… so I’m posting it anyway.

    2006-11-17 12:11   ...2 comments

Since we’re writing about meeting Keltie recently I thought I’d post photos from the day I met Keltie. It was at the distillery district and it was, in fact, a lovely day.

 › photos › nablopomo     2006-11-16 19:57   ...3 comments

One of the most exciting things about our trip to Europe was the driving.

Upon arriving in Barcelona we rented a car to drive to Perpignan in France (where the actual conference was). It was a nightmare. We were told to follow the signs to Girona, but the problem was that we didn’t know what to expect from European road signs. Turns out they expect you to follow the directions and not get upset/worried if there isn’t another sign for 20 km or more. So after following the first sign towards Girona, we began to get worried as we passed exit after exit (including bifurcating highways) for other places with no further mention of Girona.

We then began randomly searching for Girona by coming up with more and more crazy ideas about where to go to find it. We discovered, exhaustively, that the city of Girona is not located in downtown Barcelona… a location for which we had no maps.

Eventually we figured things out. We then got to Perpignan, a small town for which we had 3 sets of (different) directions to our hotel. At 1 am there is no one around and no stores open to help us (a) get a map or (b) give us directions or (c) sell us a phone card for the public phones that do not take cash.

As we drove aimlessly around Perpignan, we discovered that not only do the streets have names, but the intersections (and roundabouts) do too. So businesses have addresses like 105 rond-point de la mongolfière. The side effect of this is that — when it tells you to take a particular street that comes off a roundabout — you have to actually drive down ALL the streets from the intersection you’re at; this is in order to get far enough from the intersection that you can find a real street sign.

We did eventually find our hotel without killing each other, but we did badly want to kill Google, Mapquest and the hotel management. None of them actually gave us usable directions. We later found out that we basically drove in and out of town several times. The one easy route to the hotel, which we discovered eventually, had this sign on it. What does it mean? You decide.

    2006-11-15 23:00   ...2 comments

I was recently in Catalonia (the south of France and the north of Spain) for a conference. I spent three days touring and photographing Barcelona. As many have before me, I arrived not exactly sure what I’d be focusing on, and left having discovered Antonio Gaudi.

I have been planning an extended entry on the topic, but that hasn’t occurred yet. Instead, here are two pictures of the awesome Casa Batlló. This residence was converted from an existing structure by Gaudi for his patron Josep Batlló Casanovas. The work was done between 1904 and 1906.

Nothing in this house is square. Most (traditionally) flat survaces like doors are curved. The idea was to use the organic shapes of nature — and in this house waves — to create a more pleasing interior feel. It’s Seuss-like qualities really work.

The upstairs of this house has baffles to allow natural breezes to pass through and dry clothes. Some of the common rooms on the top floor are straight out of Star Trek… even though they were designed in the early 1900s.

    2006-11-14 11:56   ...1 comment

Last year or so, Jen bought me a lovely evening trip on the Wakefield steam train for my birthday. The waitress took a photo of us that I really liked, but it’s far too dark to really see anything. I was planning to lighten it a bit in PhotoShop, but I found I liked the effect of it a bit overboosted.

And as a bonus shot, here’s Jen’s meal… not too shabby!

    2006-11-13 11:24   ...1 comment

And yes, I did miss yesterday so I guess my nablopomo efforts aren’t entirely successful. Perhaps I’ll post twice one day soon to make up for it.

We’re having a nice weekend with Jen’s parents.

 › photos › nablopomo     2006-11-12 11:22   ...1 comment

The nablopomo image stream is interrupted today to allow me to make a point about cluster bombs.

Cluster bombs are large weapons that are dropped from bombers. Upon landing (or just before) they open up and scatter tiny bomblets around an area. Large numbers of these bomblets are dangerous duds that fail to go off — until they are disturbed.

These bomblets can lie dormant for years until they are discovered by children. Their bright colours, meant to serve as warnings, make them look like toys.

This pattern has been repeated over and over around the world, but perhaps the most notorious bomblet fields are in Northern Laos, where more bombs were dropped by the US between 1964 and 1973 than were dropped on Germany and Japan combined during world war II. An estimated 90 million cluster bombs were dropped on Laos. 12 000 civilians have died in Laos since the end of this so-called “secret war”. Thirty years later 2-3 Laotians are killed every month, and 6-7 are maimed.

These appalingly bad munitions are still in active use today in Iraq & Afghanistan. In Lebanon, the UN estimates up to 1 million are left unexploded. The cluster bombs dropped upon Afghanistan are yellow packets. The first 100000 food rations dropped by the Americans were also yellow packets.

One of the reasons I have such little respect for militaries around the world is the existence and apparently wide use of these weapons. When will we realize that wars end and we shouldn’t mine every available square inch of land within an inch of returning residents’ lives?

A UN official has today called for the banning of cluster bombs and a Canadian NGO has suggested that Canada should repeat the mine-ban treaty with cluster bombs.

 › normative     2006-11-07 14:49   ...1 comment

LJ is screwing up the fetching of my blog for some reason. I’ve made some changes to the feed which hopefully should fix this. Sorry for spamming you!

 › blogging     2006-11-01 11:55   ...0 comments