Unless you’re Indonesian or Malay, you might think only vegans and health nuts eat tempeh. That would be sad. Tempeh is not supposed to be some overpriced block of hippie meat. It’s a traditional and tasty ingredient used in Malay and Indonesian cooking. Tempeh and tofu are both fermented soybean products but they differ in significant ways: Tofu is made from…
The Secret to Traveling the World (It’s Not What You Think)
When I first considered living nomadically, my vision was to stay in each place for six months or a year. But it just never worked out like that for Josh and me. Visas always seem to come in the way of staying a long time, especially in the Schengen zone. Sometimes we end up not liking…
Travel Bug is Genetic: A Case Study [Happy Mother’s Day!]
This post was inspired in part by this blog post about traveling with mom. My mom has a serious case of travel bug, and she passed on the affliction to her daughter. I believe it was fate. My mom has two brothers and one sister. They all have Parsi names: Piloo, Adi, and Soli. They all…
12 Rules to Live By: My Desiderata
(All rules subject to change without notice) Be Mindful – Pay attention to the air coming in and out of your nostrils. Smile–now! Take responsibility for your thoughts, which create emotions. Learn to control your mind, and you will have a lot more control over other things in your life. Enjoy Your Body – You…
Moldova and Transnistria in 25 Microbrews
I’ve been readingThe Geography of Bliss lately, and was pleased find that the author, Eric Weiner, did something few people do. He flew to Moldova. Very few foreigners visit this little landlocked country. What’s even more remarkable is that Weiner went there to study happiness. Or, rather, unhappiness. Weiner claims that Moldova ranks among the least happy places in the…
Vancouver’s New Micro, Nano, and Pico Breweries Part V: Storm’s A-Brewin’
Today we kicked it old school, first visiting the venerable Vancouver institution that is Storm Brewing, before hitting up two of the new nano breweries in East Van. If you are in the area, you can walk between all three. Visiting Storm Brewing is like watching Igor meet Dr. Frankenstein for the first time: This…
Montevideo: Been There?
Only there for one day, so I believe we only deserve three words of description. My three: mellow, friendly, earthy.
Not Kosher for Passover: What’s Brewing in Israel
This is not the first time I’ve ironically written about beer during Passover. This Passover, I would like to respond to this blog post published about beer in Israel. The author of this post had chosen to visit a culturally diverse cross-section of breweries, but only covers three of them, and therefore does not scratch the surface of…
Orkney: An Archaeological Dreamscape
There’s a little of that breakaway republic feel to Orkney, the alluring archipelago in the north of Scotland. Orcadians have their own dialect, their own flag, their own history, and their own identity. About what Isle of Man is to England, Orkney is to Scotland, proudly preserving a distinct culture. What you see here now is an evolving blend of Viking and Scottish heritages, both…
Vancouver’s New Micro, Nano, and Pico Breweries Part IV: NANOo-NANOo!
Mork and Mindy are behind the times. They might not know that growler laws have changed in BC, allowing a flourishing of small-production breweries that enhance the world of beer in Canada’s sexiest city. Nano- nanobreweries might not have existed on Orc, but they now do in Vancouver, where three of them are just taprooms located in tiny warehouses. Because the atmosphere in…
The Surprise Seduction of the Solomons
We want to be egalitarian travelers who like something about everywhere, but every so often a place stands out as a highlight. The Solomon Islands was one of those places. We divided our Solomon Islands trip into two distinct parts. The first was a visit to Tavenipupu, a private island resort. Tavenipupu was amazing. We slept in the same…
Exploding Volcanos and Cargo Cults on the Islands of Vanuatu
Everything I knew about Vanuatu I learned the week before we arrived. We would fly into the capital, Port Vila, and then visit one another island in the archipelago via an internal flight. There’s lots to do in Vanuatu: perhaps even more so than its Melanesian neighbor Fiji. You can stand at the edge of a live volcano with exploding spitfires and hissing hell-holes….
Love and Barley 