The Long Road

Hmmmm, I just noticed on my sitemeter that The Long Road pages have been viewed 10 000 times since I started this thing. That’s pretty cool. Thanks for checking in folks!

Though I think this would be better to a Run DMC track…

Texas Beef Brisket Chili

Quick Corn Bread

Tonight, a few new recipes. We’re embracing the chilly weather with Texas Beef Brisket Chili from Bon Appetit, and Quick Corn Bread. They are both cooking away right now so I don’t know how tasty they are, but both look and smell promising!

Also recently we tried a few tasty numbers from my new book (Christmas from Mich), Flatbreads and Flavors: A Baker’s Atlas, by my favorite cookbook duo Jeffery Alford and Naomi Dugius. It’s cool in that it not only has flatbread recipes from around the world, but tasty dishes that go well with the breads. We tried Mushu Pork and Four Thread Salad, both wrapped in Beijing Pancakes as well as Georgian Cheese-Filled Quick Bread. Yum.

Georgian Cheese filled Quick Bread with Spicy Twice Cooked Eggplant and Bean Salad

The National Film Board has recently launched a new website that offers a big part of their catalog up for free home viewing in their new “screening room” (basically an embedded player much like YouTube). This includes shorts, trailers and full length features. Of course, in Canada, we all grew up watching many of these films in school and TV. It’s kinda cool now to go in and search for these old gems from our childhood. Of course I began with “The Sweater”…

Click for the NFB Screening Room.

One of the cool things we did over the holidays in Nicaragua was hike Volcans Maderas on Isla de Ometepe. That hike had a lot of cool things about it, but one of the standouts for me was the hoards of leaf cutter ants we saw on the way down (they weren’t out while we climbed the same trail).

Leaf cutter ants are a curious bunch who harvest the foliage from deciduous plants, sometimes defoliating an entire plant in a matter of hours. They proudly carry their cuttings back home in a long parade. However, this action is not about food storage. Well, that is, not food storage for themselves. Instead these little fellas are basically farmers, using the leaf material as a kind of compost that is eaten by a fungus, parts of which are, in turn, eaten by the ants. Cool eh? Even cooler is that the ants will tend to the fungus, feeding it only leaf material that it responds favorably to. And in a further twist, the ants also secrete the products of a bacteria that lives on their bodies, helping keep their crops free of molds and pests.

Of course we didn’t see all that underground action, but it was fascinating to watch them march back to the nest with their little flags waving!

Well we just had our annual Sun Peaks family weekend. Unfortunately, it was a bit of a scaled down weekend as not everyone was able to make it this year. That was disappointing, and those not in attendance were fully missed, but… we pressed on.

Now traditionally Sun Peaks gets a fair shake of snow in January. In past years we’ve made the mistake of doing this later, in February say, when much less snow falls. So this year it was all about January snow!!… except there wasn’t any for over a week before we met Mich and Kev at the hill. Doh!

While this could have been a huge problem, we made the best of it by enjoying three jaw dropping bluebird days in a row! We’re talking +8 degrees here folks.

I tried not to think about what the underlying cause of this ridiculous weather might be as we enjoyed turn after turn in the best “spring” snow I’ve ever skied on at Sun Peaks.

Until next year…

From Sun Peaks Weekend '09

Another fun thing we did on our trip, this time on the Isla de Ometepe, was a zipline. Pure fun!

So Cool!

Jen, with pure joy all over her face!

Trev, the natural.

Just like Tarzan?

And finally, here is some action video of Michelle, zipping through the canopy!

One of the great experiences of the Nica trip was deep sea fishing. It was an interesting day to say the least. Trev and I went sans Jen and Michelle as they opted for a dawn surf followed by a morning yoga session and then beach time.

Fellow surf camp guests Joe and Rachelle joined Trev and I for the early morning departure in our 25 foot open topped fiberglass boat captained by a local fisherman who brought us and Gerry, from the surf camp to all the hot spots.

On the way out we saw the surface of the water boiling with schools of bait fish. Unfortunately, they weren’t biting so we continued out to the first site.

Things began quickly, no more than 10 minutes in, when I heard that beautiful zinging sound of line peeling quickly off the reel and felt the pull on the rod that means…. fish on! I got it reeled in, letting it fight, deftly playing it, knowing its minutes to live are few. As I got it close, the call came out…. “Mackerel! ” (not “Holy Mackerel!”). I worked it closer, the gaff went in and our first fish was in the boat. Awesome - a great start to the day.

Things got pretty quiet after that. And for a long, long time we didn’t get a bite. The decision was made to head for much deeper waters and the voyage was great as we saw four manta rays just under the surface as well as sea turtles, glowing bright green in the bright sunlight. By the time we got there, we were 45 km off the coast of Nicaragua, in what now seemed like a tiny little boat in the middle of nowhere! We were going for mahimahi, also known as dorado. Well, the sun was hot, the swells were big and the fish were not to be found. After a few beers (it was hot, no shade on the boat), it was time for a quick dip in the water to “cool off” (empty the badder) in probably the deepest water I’ve even swum in. After we got back in, someone thought to ask where in Nica you could find sharks. “Here.” was the rather direct answer.

The day began to get a little long in the tooth and both Trev and I were pumped to get back for the late afternoon surf session so we abandoned the quest for mahi and made our way back toward the first “hot” spot. On the way back, in addition to several more sea turtle sightings, we were lucky enough to spot a community of dolphins coming right at us! I say community because there were easily 50 or more of them. We stopped and watched ‘em swim on by, some doing Sea Worldesque aerobatics as they went. Wow. A little further along we spotted a whale. And though Gerry assured us it was a Killer whale, both Trev and I know it was something else - Grey perhaps. It was a ways off.

We spent some more time trolling along the submerged “rocks”, deposited there by the most explosive volcanic eruption in Central America’s history over 100 years ago. You know, the one that left the mountaintop out in the ocean as a new island. Yeah, that one. It was a fruitful move as Rachelle was able to hook another Mackerel. Trev did too, but much to his and our disappointment, it was lost as we tried to gaff it. Doh!

Anyway, it was a grand experience. I dosed up on gravol before we left and though the swells were big, I was totally fine. I got to catch a big fish, we saw some incredible sea life and we capped the day off by surfing until the sun went down. Awesome day.

Oh, and my mackerel? Back at the surf camp Gerry turned it into the most heavenly thing to pass down my gullet the whole trip - ceviche! Mmmmmmm.

From Nicaragua '08

From Nicaragua '08

The last part of our trip to Nicaragua found us at Monty’s Surf Camp in Jiquilillo. It’s a great, small operation, run by Monty, a Canadian and his Nica business partner, Gerry. It was great to be WAY off the tourist path (not that there is much of one in Nicaragua) on this rural, northern beach by a small fishing village. The food was good and we pretty much had the place to ourselves - us and about four other guests. And while we did other things, including meeting some great people, we were there to surf.

From Nicaragua '08

From Nicaragua '08

The water was warm, the sun was always out and the waves came up twice a day with the tides. We got up at dawn for the first waves of the day. By the time they were finished (about 7:30 am), coffee was on. Mich even grabbed a few post-surf Yoga sessions, put on by Sandy, our new friend from Kelowna.

The waves at Jiquilillo are perfect for us beginners, which we and Jen and Trev were. They were big enough to have tons of fun, but be manageable. Think Tofino, but sans wetsuits! We took to it pretty fast, but still didn’t catch EVERY wave. Doh!

However, there is always another good swell coming in from the Pacific ready to break.

From Nicaragua '08

From Nicaragua '08

From Nicaragua '08

There was a lot of sun to be had while the tide went out, not to mention plenty of cold Toña. We did a bunch of other things during low tide that I will discuss soon. Afternoon brought another high tide and with it, more great waves. Each evening we surfed until the sun went down.

From Nicaragua '08

And even now, days later, we’re still seeing the surf break when we close our eyes.

From Nicaragua '08

From Nicaragua '08

From Nicaragua '08

Thanks tons to Jen and Trev and their fabulous waterproof camera that took the action shots!

Here’s some vid of the beach at low tide. Pretty quiet!

**Updated** I guess it was fair for Mich as she had one more day off and enjoyed a great day floating through the powder!!

OK, we had a great holiday the last two weeks (more on that soon), but is it really fair for me to have to get up to go to work today to find that Sun Peaks got 30 cm of snow last night and more is falling now? I don’t think so.

…to the snow. Nice! But before I get to ski, I’m gonna share some Nicaragua stories. Until then, here is a pic of Mich contemplating the waves.

From Nicaragua '08

And here’s me in front of our surf headquarters.

From Nicaragua '08