The Thanksgiving's Turkey

One of the advantages of living in North America is that you have access to almost everything from food and education to entertainment and news. While not everything is in quality level that you might have been used to, with a little struggle, you, most of the time are able to find what you are looking for. In the meantime despite this variety of everything, North Americans are somehow stuck to their tradition and customs, I would say. For example look at McDonald's: The fast food giant has not changed its menu since when it was established. All they offer is burgers and a few chicken sandwiches, not to mention that I don't eat anything from McDonald's but their coffee. 

Thanksgiving's turkey is one of the meals that must be eaten as a family feast in Thanksgiving Day in the US and Canada and for that reason we added it to our annual menu a few years go. I celebrate Thanksgiving Day because I am thankful, not to what they call it God though, that I have such a wonderful wife, I am healthy almost and at the moment have a job and I'm thankful to the Canadian Constitution and the Canadian Government to start a life here in this country, not that it is a very easy life. In fact it is full of challenges and that is what I like but challenges become pointless when they have to be taken in an unfair situation. 

Anyway the type of turkey that F. F. makes and she basically spent the entire morning on it, and is wonderful    in taste might not be what you want to show on a Thanksgiving table when every member of family and other guests are sitting because it is not a demonstrative whole turkey but at the same time it is the healthiest and most delicious turkey that I have ever had.

As you can see in the photo, we let the turkey thaw first and then cut it to pieces, then we make the deep mixture, which is mixture of onion, garlic, herbs and vegetables, lemon juice and plain yogurt and let them sit for an hour or longer. Then we cover the plates and put them in the oven. It only takes 20 minutes with a normal broiling temperature and turns out wonderful. It is not dry and needs no butter or gravy or artificial canned cranberry sauce. The turkey could be served with mashed potato or any other regular Thanksgiving dinner side dish. We had it with rice and pickled vegetable and I just could not stop eating. So as you can see it's far from traditional North American turkey but it definitely has more taste in it and is way healthier. If you do not want to cook it for your Thanksgiving, try it as your normal daily cooking once and you will fall in love with it. Let me know if you want to know more about the vegetables and herbs used.

(Photo: This is how the pieces of turkey look like after they are taken out of the oven. To me they are even great for sandwich but some might only like the very thin layered processed turkey meat imitation with added preservatives. They can simply go to supermarkets and sandwich bars to get some. No need to go through all the hassle!)

Flying with Air Canada after 11 Years

I flew to British Columbia yesterday morning and this time via Air Canada. The ticket was booked by the company so I just proceeded. It was a bad start because first there was about half an hour delay and that was because they had to spray the wings to blow the snow and ice away. Then when I sat I realized it was a bit more comfortable compare to Westjet. There was also an entertainment system which looked very interesting. Movies, News, etc. I selected Prometheus and made myself busy with that while I had promised myself to read for my exam. When we landed at Vancouver International Airport, which in fact is located in Richmond, we realized shortly after that, through the pilot that the bridge which connects the fuselage to the terminal is not working! We waited almost half and hour and all those idiots who jump up as soon as the plane lands, had to sit their asses down, embarrassingly! I continued watching the movie until a tow truck came up and towed the plane to another connection point. So I was there at round 08:40 instead of 07:30. I made my my visit with half an hour delay and everything was performed according to the plan. 

The flight back to Calgary had no issue and I watched most of Witness on the way. Unfortunately there was no delay so I could not finish the movie! My drive from Surrey to North Vancouver and then Vancouver and  Richmond was not so bad but it was the Budget map which saved me lots of time and money. After coming off the Ironworkers Memorial Bridge, I took the right lane to East Hastings and went all the way to Main St. Then I made a left to Main and went all the way to Marine Drive SW and just over the Arthur Bridge and Airport!

(Photo: Flying back and forth to British Columbia I never had the chance to see Mount Baker in Washington State from the window. This photos shows it from my seat while we were leaving British Columbia and getting distance from sinking sun)

The APEGA Opportunity

I have been trying to go back to APEGA since early this year. I just got lucky that my file had been inactive a little less than 6 years. Otherwise I would have had to re-start everything from beginning. And by everything, I mean everything. Then it was the decision by the board (I don't know what board but not defiantly a cutting board) that should have been made to see if I need to write F. E. (Fundamentals of Engineering) examination or not. Thanks to the board that just gave me the opportunity to become a Professional Engineer just by writing and passing the N. P. P. E.

I have screwed up this exam two times so far. The first time I knew barely anything and I was completely lost. The last time which was more than 7 years ago, I came out of the exam room pretty confident and I was quite sure that I would pass it but APEGA's result showed a fail! 

So it is up to me to write and pass it this time. I have already started but have to make sure that I am increasing the time I'm spending on it.

(Photo: The new logo of APEGA. They have recently removed one G from the acronym and logo. I'm just hoping that they have not removed anything else. I will write more about this organization later)

Couscous Meals

Couscous is a North African which just has been added to my menu recently. It is normally served with vegetables and meat, most specifically lamb but the three times that I have made it so far I have not served it with meat. Like East Indian and Chinese food it has lots of vegetables in it but of course they are all cooked and we know that cooked vegetable is not as good as raw vegetables  i. e. Salads. My daily vegetable consumption is focused on raw, fresh ones which have been combined in different shapes of salads as well as fresh fruit which very hard to come by in Canada but I also added this meal to my listing because it's healthy, delicious and a variety to Persian food that we rarely. I say rarely because Persian food preparation requires skills, patience and good ingredients. We do have the first two but lack the last one. The issue with Persian food is being fattening and source of Cholesterol, Uric Acid and other harmful substances.

Anyway this one here is the third meal that I have made and the most complicated one(!) and I have to say that it takes longer to be prepared to the other two that I had made and in the picture one ingredient is missing  and that is Feta Cheese. I  guess it is add to complete the nutritional value of them. They probably added it to provide Protein but I believe it could be skipped because Lentil does the same without the harmful parts but because I never intend to alter the recipe I keep it here.

So for Couscous Grilled Vegetable-Lentil Salad you will need:
1- 2 cloves Garlic.
2- 3/4 teaspoon Salt.
3- 1/3 cup Olive Oil.
4- 3 table spoon Lemon Juice.
5- 1/2 teaspoon Ground Cumin.
6- 1/2 teaspoon Ground Coriander.
7- 2 medium size Zucchinis.
8- 2 Portobello Mushrooms.
9- 1 sweet Read Pepper.
10- 1 Yellow Pepper.
11- 1/2 cup Lentil.
12- 1 cup Whole Wheat Couscous.
13- 1/3 cup minced fresh coriander (Cilantro)
14- 1/3 cup crumbled Feta Cheese.

This is how you make it:

Finely mince the garlic and rub it to the salt and make a smooth paste. It requires patience. Use a teaspoon or on a plate for that. Combine Oil, Garlic Paste, Coriander and Cumin with Lemon Juice and let them stand. Cut the vegetables to the desired size and brush them with the oil mixture and grill them or fry them until tender. Cook Lentil separately and then bring 1 cup of water to boil, add couscous and cover, remove from heat and let stand until all the water is absorbed. Mince fresh Coriander (Cilantro) and mix the grilled or fried vegetable with Couscous, Lentil, crumbled Feta Cheese and add it to at the end. This salad could be served cold. That's how mostly salads are served but you might want to warm it up and eat.

(Photo: Top, the salad with missing feta cheese but I added later. You could say they are not seen in the photo! Below, min ingredients. Lentil and cheese are not seen here as well as the herbs)

XL Foods (XL Fools)

There is a long time problem with the beef industry in Canada and most specifically Alberta and apparently it comes from the processors not the producers and this is not the first time but seems now the CFIA is waking up and wants to do something about it. The poor ranchers, I believe, are the ones who suffered the most. Their loss was something around $2 Billion last time. I worked in cattle industry for nearly 4 years and I used to see the  CFIA guys all the time. There were there and they had an office there but I can not tell if they were doing their job! If I refer to my old post, you will see that I have written 1 out of 3000 cattle gets inspected here in Alberta while in France this inspection is 100%. As a Quality expert I know that the smaller the sample, the less trusty the result will be. For a big population of cows in Alberta, for sure the number of inspected ones in every processing plan should be increased in order to obtain the good result. Rather than that sanitation is very important. The main processing plants, as far as I know, including XL Fools and Gargill Fools, use foreign workers, mainly because Caucasians like just to sit back and relax, and those foreigners know nothing about being sanitary and clean. You look around the world and you realize that Africans  and East Indians are the filthiest people and those are the people who form the structure of work force for the food processing plants. And it's obvious that the greedy owners of the plants do not want to hire caring employees who look after the cleanness and sanitation of the plants.

This time, the CFIA wanted to show that they are working and according to the opposition they reacted after 2 weeks and suspended the XL Fools' licence in Brooks, Alberta. This and Cargill are the main producers of beef and as well exporters and both use the majority foreigner workers. Now with XL Fools out of the production circulation, it will be up to Cargill to increase the production to meet the market's demand. What XL Fools is doing at the moment is they are probably doing a major clean up and the CFIA is going to do an audit and let them start the process again. I'm just hoping that they learn this time and take preclusion to prevent this from happening because everyone should know that proactive action works much better and less expensive than the reactive action. It was Mad Cow Disease that cost the industry that much in 2003 and now it is something else which causes E-Coli. 

(Photo: XL Fools plant in Brooks, east of Calgary, Alberta)

Short Trip to Edmonton

I had a short trip to Edmonton yesterday which was very tiring but overall positive. I was there for the Steel Day and visiting one big manufacturing facility in the industrial district of Edmonton.

It was a bit silly because I had to wake up at 05:00 AM and if it was not because of the Hodani's GPS, I would have been lost and never made it on time! I am not going to name the company that was hosting the event but it was well organized and rather than a few small flaws, the people were very friendly and polite. We spent only an hour and a half in there and at the end there was a Pizza truck that we could get two slices of Pizza but I preferred not to stay in the line. Instead I had a short drive around the Downtown area and walked in Queen Elizabeth Park at the south shore of North Saskatchewan River. I had two other short stops and because I had to return the damn stupid car. It was a very hot and sunny that and UV rate was so high. For that I really suffered.

Then when I returned to Calgary, as soon as reached the intersection of Deerfoot and 64 Ave. I realized the traffic of Fri. afternoon and I said Shit! because I looked at the gauge and I realized that I was burning the last drops of the fuel but I managed to return the car on time without refueling.

(Photo: I took this shot form a very beautiful park but because it was too bright and I was not very familiar with the damn camera, it did not turn out good)