This makes me want to build something!

Posted on 2006-02-14 by frank

This blog about rebuilding an old bike is inspiring! Who has an old frame for me? I wouldn’t mind having a single speed or a tourer or a knockabout bike I could chain to the lamp post downtown without worrying.

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Vancouver’s chocolate

Posted on 2006-02-11 by frank

My mom, who lives a bit less than an hour south of Vancouver, BC, brought me some bars of chocolate from Daniel Chocolates. These weren’t your typical tiny grocery store bars: each of these two bars weighed in at 500 grams!

The best of the two was the 70% organic. The 80% was also pretty good, but had a slight chalky texture that made it slightly less pleasant for snacking. We did make a couple of decadent chocolate desserts with the 80%, and were very pleased with how they turned out.

Browsing their website, I also saw some single-source Rare Vintage chocolates I’d like to try sometime. A friend sent me some single-source special edition chocolate from Scharffen Berger a couple years ago, and it was quite tasty and unique.

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A free tip for weary travellers

Posted on 2006-02-10 by frank

The complimentary shaving cream comes in the blue foil packet, the complimentary toothpaste in the red.

Do not confuse the two.

At least I didn’t try to brush my teeth with shaving cream.

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Toddlers, closets, and syllables, oh my!

Posted on 2006-02-10 by frank

It’s still amazing how much a child can change in a few days. I was away from the house for 3 days and 2 nights this week, and in that time, Elizabeth has developed a keen interest in doors, shutting herself in a closet, the pantry, or one of the bathrooms at least several times a day. She hasn’t yet figured out how to turn the knobs to open the same doors, so that brings up the 2nd change: she’s starting to put together different syllables. Most of her speech to date has consisted of repeating the same syllable, e.g. “mama” or “dada,” though she’s always managed to make an exception for “Melmo.” Whenever she manages to shut herself in one of those dark rooms, she belts out, “MOMMY MOMMY MOMMY MOMMY MOMMY…” until someone comes and lets her out!

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Wow!

Posted on 2006-02-05 by frank

Elizabeth rates my first attempt at making Turkish coffee a definite, “Bowwww!”

These Czeviks or Ibriks lack some of the things I’m accustomed to in making coffee, such as standard sizings or even marks to indicate sizing. I used about 1 tsp sugar, 3-4 ounces of water, and two headed tablespoons of coffee, ground to the finest powder our grinder could manage. It made enough coffee for two demitasse cups that were filled about 2/3rds of the way. From what I’ve read, that’s somewhere between a “single” and a “double”.

I could totally do this at work by grinding the beans at home and bringing them in with me.

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