Monthly Archives: July 2012
Northern England (last part): Everything Else We Did
Our last day there was spent quite leisurely…just doing relaxing pleasurable activities after staying up until 3 am the previous evening.
We walked along the beach, and through the weekend market. We took advantage of the sales going on and I cannot tell you how much I love Holland and Barrett. It’s a natural health store and I bought lots of vitamin D, fish oil and aloe gel to last me until I return to my homeland once again, and all for pennies!
Max and I visited a butterfly museum which is such a beautiful experience!
And of course…sheep were involved in the day!
Posted in Lancaster/Liverpool
Tagged holland and barrett, lancaster butterfly museum, lancaster england
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Northern England (part 3): Beer, Tea and a Graduation
We started off the morning of the graduation day by stopping off at the Lancaster Brewery! When Max’s parents came back from Lancaster last time, they brought us some of this Lancaster beer and it was delicious. They have five varieties (straw, blond, amber and black…which is kind of like guiness) and it’s all brewed on location…
We got a nice taste testing of them all!
Next stop, the Atkinson tea shop! I loved the tea that they brought us last time soooo much that I wrote a whole post about it!
And finally, the graduation!
It was all fun and games afterwards! We had some ice cream and wine, Max stole this balloon and insisted on wearing it around all afternoon (so entertaining!)…
…we had a delicious dinner along the Lune river, and we had to follow the event up with Jager bombs! Actually quite delicious! The boys went out to party while I relaxed in my luxurious hotel room watching Atonement which devastated me for 3 more days.
Happy Monday everyone!
Northern England (part 2): The Beatles Museum in Liverpool
The Beatles Museum in Liverpool was so impressive that it deserves it’s own post. What is the point of heading out to Liverpool if you don’t plan on seeing and hearing about Beatles everything?!
I am such a huge fan of the fab 4 that there was no chance that I could miss out on this museum. The Beatles story was really complete. It takes a couple of hours to get through the museum but it starts at the beginning when they were born and goes until their breakup and even beyond that to what they made of their careers after The Beatles.
The story contains not only info about how they became the sensation they were and still are, but also goes into some interesting facts about song names and the making of album covers like the Sargent Pepper’s cover…so interesting! As many bands at the time were writing about famous places in the world and entitling songs as such (e.g. Route 66) the Beatles wanted to bring their home and how they grew up to the world so they entitled songs with average places they remembered from childhood such as Penny Lane or Strawberry Fields.
I even got a little teary eyed at some parts of the story…I am that big of a fan!
My blogging has been slow lately, mainly because I am planning month-long trip to the South and then heading to Canada right afterwards so thanks for sticking around!
Have a wonderful weekend everyone!
Guest Post on Loulou’s Blog
This is coming a day late but yesterday was Food Friday over on Loulou’s blog and I guest posted this delicious apple cinnamon muffin recipe!!
A big thanks for Loulou for hosting me and I hope everyone goes over there to check it out. While you are at it, check out her blog because it’s awesome and she is awesome too!
Posted in Breakfasts, Desserts, Guest Posts
Tagged apple cinnamon muffins, loulou downtown
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Northern England (part 1): Waking Up and Heading Out To Liverpool
Our hotel was just outside of Lancaster and right beside the sea. The tide is out in the morning and the night (and up at noon) so when we woke up we went for a walk on the sea floor. The hotel served us a full English breakfast which was quite heavy and very delicious! It was my first time having a full English breakfast!
After breakfast we headed out to Liverpool. In case you don’t know, Liverpool is where the Beatles originate from! I am such a huge fan of the Beatles so naturally I was ecstatic to visit! Tomorrow I’ll show you photos of the Beatles museum we visited but for now some other photos of Liverpool.
The Liverpool cathedral was quite impressive. It is the 5th largest cathedral in the entire world and you can really tell when you walk in. That indoor photo above is not even one tenth of the entire cathedral, it’s just a back corner!! Check out eery cemetery. All the the tomb stones were angled and lining the walls of the cemetery and placed kind of at random with green moss growing all over them…exactly as they are in the “scary” episodes of cartoon shows…not that I’ve seen a cartoon show for 15 years or so but that’s how I imagine them to be in cartoon shows anyway.
Happy Thursday everyone!!
Curry Mayonnaise
Mayonnaise is something that is so easy to make that it should never be enjoyed other than if it’s homemade. This mayo took me less than 5 minutes to make, with ingredients that I had on hand. It tastes fresh and I know exactly what is in it. It’s perfect to dip vegetables into, spread on a sandwich, or my favourite…to devour with some fried potatoes!
I made my mayonnaise with curry powder but try out some of your own combinations. Fresh herbs? Sundried tomatoes? Chilli peppers?
For this version you will need:
- 1 egg yolk
- 1 tablespoon of dijon mustard
- 1/4 cup vegetable oil (or any non-aromatic oil…olive oil won’t work)
- Salt, pepper and lemon to taste
- 1/2 teaspoon curry powder
Now do this:
Enjoy!! I’ll be back tomorrow with a nice look into my little voyage to England!
Happy Tuesday!
Old King Tut
I flew back into France yesterday after spending four days in Lancaster, England to watch and celebrate the graduation of Max’s brother, Jean-Phillippe. I am terrified of flying but seeing that I am heading to Canada on the 30th of August and then going to Hong Kong in January, I surely need to let this go…once and for all!
The trip was great but more on that later with many posts about the fun and unique activities I experienced while there.
First…remember last week’s post about the Bastille Parade and how I told you that I did something else afterwards? Well, there is a fantastic exhibit happening in Paris right now about King Tutankhamun. I believe they mentioned that he is the most well-known of all the Egyptian Pharaohs. He was lost in history at one point until researchers at the turn of the 20th century discovered that he existed and sought to find his untouched tomb, which they succeeded in.
The exhibit was so well-organized and I was really able to get a full story about this King!! It seemed like such an exciting adventure when the archeologist touched upon his tomb and found all of this treasure untouched…isn’t that every little child’s dream?! That and secret passage ways.
If you are in Paris this summer, I would seriously suggest going to see this exhibit!
Anyways, more from my adventure soon, plus a recipe and I’ve made a total of five dresses and a top so I have some catching up to do with you!
Happy Monday!
The Bastille Parade in Paris
It was Bastille Day in France on the 14th, which was last Saturday. Bastille day is the French national day and according to Wikipedia, French people call it La Fête Nationale. Every year there is a massive military parade in Paris along the Champs Elysee (sadly they do not throw candy to the audience). It was jam packed full of people! At night, like any good celebration of a country, there were fireworks. Max and I accidentally slept through them although we planned on going. So sad but the sleep was nice!
I jumped in front of these army guys for a quick photo!
They just happened to be in the same spot taking the same photo which happened to be the middle of the Champs Elysees where one cannot linger. Notice the massive French flag in the centre of the Arc de Triumph!! So impressive!
We had more adventures from this day but they will come up in a later post. For now, happy bilated bastille day!!
Apricot Chicken Curry
When I was juuuust about to turn 5 years old, I tasted chicken curry for the first time ever. My birthday party with my friends was coming up in the next week or so. After I took my first moutful and almost exploded in excitement I exclaimed, “I am definetely having this at my birthday party!” When my parents told me that my friends might not like it I yelled, “WHAT?! How could they not like this?!” And so began my love of Indian food.
This is not that same chicken curry and I will admit that it is not even as good as that chicken curry but it’s so so good none the less! There were a ton of apricots sitting around about to go bad and I wanted to do something with them. After a quick google search with the expectations that I’d find some type of dessert to inspire a recipe, I discovered that so many people were making curry with apricots! What?! How did I miss out on this trend?!
So I made my own.
And I have a little secret. The secret pertains to soup too.
It tastes better after a few days in the fridge.
Shhhh.
Anyways, you will need:
- 2-3 tablespoons olive oil
- 7 skinless chicken thighs
- 1 onion, diced
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 tablespoon grated ginger
- 1 teaspoon paprika
- 1 teaspoon saffron powder
- 1 teaspoon ground coriander
- 1 teaspoon ground cumin
- 1/2 teaspoon curry powder
- 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
- 400 mL (14 oz can or so) coconut milk
- 11 apricots, pitted and diced
- 2 tablespoons fresh cilantro, minced plus more for garnish (which is essential by the way)
- Salt and pepper to season
Now do this:
Serve with rice and have the same epiphany as I did when I was about to turn five!
Posted in Poultry
Tagged apricot curry, apricot recipe, chicken curry, chicken curry with apricots, chicken dinner, coconut curry
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Fun Cup…A.k.a. A VW Beatle Race!!!
Last Saturday we all packed into a car to head over to a city named Spa in Belgium. This is the city where the term “spa” originated from. Seriously.
Anyways, we headed on over to Spa (I wish I could say to “the spa” hehe) to go watch a race of VW Beatles which was 48 hours long but we just stayed for a few of those hours.
We were cheering for team M&Ms which originally had two cars in the race but after 2 or 3 laps around, one of the cars broke down and team M&Ms had to finish the next 47 hours and 56 minutes with only one car. I think they ended up finishing in 8th place which is incredible if you consider the fact that there were 82 cars in the race!!
There were also other races going on before this race that we checked out.
Although the talk of cars really really really really makes me tired for some reason, the sun was beautiful on this day and it was my first experience with this kind of thing so I appreciated it!
Happy Friday and have a good weekend!
