Fiddlehead

Living in North America gives you this opportunity to try things that you have never come across in your life. We were in a supermarket a few months ago and saw this strange but nice looking vegetable which later learnt is called Fiddlehead. Apparently this vegetable is grown in Atlantic Canada not the province that we have visited but Nova Scotia and also captivated in parts of Asia. We got a handful of them and simply cooked it or better to say steamed cooked it and served it as a side item with chicken breast. The result was satisfactory. It tastes a bit similar to another popular, easily accessible and less expensive vegetable that I have forgotten now because I tasted it early in summer or late spring and it was just a little amount. Price vise it is expensive mainly because of the distance it travels to reach us here in Alberta and also the limited amount and season it is cultivated. I never saw that in the supermarket after that maybe because of its limited customers or limited supply. Worth trying and like every other vegetable it has health benefits but I mostly prefer to have raw vegetable and I'm not sure whether this could be eaten raw. It certainly is not as had as Asparagus that we tried few of them raw on the field. I don't know the origin of this kind of vegetable but know as fact that Asparagus had not been cultivated in Alberta until a certain time. 

(Photo: A handful of cooked Fiddleheads waiting to cool off and added to the main dish)

The Pants

I bought a pair of pants from one of the Hacoupian's retailers more than, at least, 14 years ago and wore it probably not more than 5 or 6 times after purchased and then stored it in the wardrobe. A few months ago I tried it on and didn't fit! I had a major issue in the waist area, originated bu love handles! Then I tried it again last Fri. to see how it looks due to my, kind of torn pants and it worked! I means my diet has been working and I have to keep up with that. I have started a low carbohydrate diet which mean no White Rice at all (unless it is whole grain and happily you can not get it here, I hope!), less Bread and only Whole Wheat and very rarely, no Pasta and no Potato and less Cake and Biscuit of any kind. I still have a long journey to completely get rid of ring of fat around my waste but I'm getting better week after another. 

(Photo: Beans are good replacements for rice, bread and even meat but it's hard to make them tasty. East Indian food contains lots of different beans but they destroy it by adding lots of butter and other types of animal fat. As well beans have benefits if consumed raw and in sprout shape. Baked beans has low nutritional values and canned beans have disadvantages. I never touch them but you see different types of them here in the supermarkets mixed with meats, broth and sauce. I don't know how popular they are)

N. L. Road Trip (17): Where Did We Stay?

We stayed in total of four hotels during our week road trip to Newfoundland & Labrador:

a- Night 1 and 2, Capital Hotel, St. John's.
b- Night 3, Bridgeway Hotel, Placentia.
c- Night 4, Harbour Lights Inn, Twillingte.
d- Night 5, 6 and 7, Holiday Inn Express, Deer Lake.

a- Capital Hotel is not to far from the airport. Yet not far from the Downtown, considering the size of the city. Rather than that, it is located on a street with all the restaurants around it. So we had no issue finding something to eat. It has a restaurant on the main floor which serve different meals but we never tried it. The place has nothing to offer in terms of view and it is not very clean. I remember that cigarette buts were everywhere in front of the main entrance. Yet it is an expensive place in my criteria. I find it hard to believe that unless you pay a big chunk of money in Canada, you will not have a nice place to spend your night in.

b- Bridgeway Hotel, as its website indicates, is a new place. Only 2 levels and may be not more than 10 rooms. The owner, I believe, has tried his or her best to bring comfort to the place in this little town. The staff are very friendly and helpful. They helped us to find two places that we had in our plan to visit as well as a local restaurant. The cost of the room comes with a breakfast and you simply go down, open the fridge and get whatever you want. The hotel is basically on the main road in Placentia which could be a bit noisy in the evening but by the time we get to the night, the problem goes away. You have a view of the water and that is not bad. What can you expect in a small town? I guess there is another hotel in the town and that is the one which we had our dinner at. It's bigger but I don't know about their quality. The appliances and furniture there were all new and you have free wireless Internet access.

c- Our forth night stay was a bit of adventure which I have written about it in a separate post. This place was even smaller than the previous one with older furniture and low pressure shower but they had a good breakfast. At least I liked it! They serve you fresh fried egg and they have this magnificent home made muffins and local spreed. I guess I had 4, maybe 5 muffins with my coffee as well as the eggs. The staff are friendly and helpful. They had left the main door open for us so we could get in without a trouble late night. This again must have been an old house turned to the hotel and I guess is open only during summer and early fall.

A nice breakfast is part of what you get in Harbour Light Inn in Twillingate

d- I am generally not comfortable when I have to sleep anywhere rather than my own bed but if I have to with adjustments, I will be able to get a few hours of sleep. Holiday Inn had been always known to me as a high quality hotel, above average, close to luxury but the first experience brought doubts to my mind. This hotel is a new one in the town and many things were still looked like they had been just purchased but there were so many issues: The damn mattresses were both useless. With a big hole on each when lying down you felt that you had slipped and fall into a very small hole, almost the size of your body! The hotel is built on a lot adjacent to Highway No.1 but that is not the main source of noise! The breakfast was just awful! There is precooked egg which is called rolled egg in fast food restaurants and is disgusting. Bread was just average quality in the country which is one of the biggest producer of wheat and other grains. Muffins where the worst I have ever had; even McDonald's muffins are ten times better! Coffee is tolerable and there is nothing else but Kraft jam and so on. Of course the hotel has no restaurant and people are encouraged to go to Deer Lake Motel for a meal as well as the other local food joints, mostly fast food restaurants. The type of tissue available in the room proves the lowest quality available in Canada, I'm saying without  shadow of doubt! You just use the tissue buy rubbing it to your hands and it comes off like foam when you are washing your hands! I wanted to make a local call from my room and when I reached the last four digits, the telephone started beeping! I told the problem to the front desk but she just offered dialing the number for me without sending anyone to investigate! The elevators, made by ThyssenKrupp making unbelievable noise when going up and down, even worst than our residence, although it only has been a few months since they have been installed. The only thing I liked about the hotel, rather than its tidiness was paintings of an N. L. artist named Allan Loder, from Clarenville. He has pictured the fishing communities of the province in such a beautiful way. I saw a few of his work priced around $300. If I had owned a house and plenty of money, I would have bought myself at lest one!
(Photo, top: The Holiday Inn in Deer Lake. The building is new and nice but the mattresses, probably the most important thing for the passengers, were disgusting which prevented us from a good sleep. If I'm in Deer Lake area again, I will make sure to stay away unless they do something to their mattresses and breakfast!) 

N L. Road Trip (16): Robin's Doughnut

One of the places that we stopped at to get something to eat, and unfortunately there was not more than one location seen during the entire trip, was Robin's Doughnuts. This apparently is another franchise which only seen in the east, from Newfoundland & Labrador to Ontario. At least that is what we though because we had not seen it before. But then when we searched in the store location part of the website we realized that there are even locations in British Columbia that we never noticed when we lived there. We got coffee which was very good compare to many other coffees available in the country, in a way that even F. F. who is not a coffee drinker liked it, and a kind of Brownie in a small bowl which was very delicious but too sweet and we limited that to one. If you by any chance go to NL, don't forget to try this brand. In my opinion much better than Tim Horton's, Second Cup and Starbucks, the ones I don't even touch! 

Captain Phillips

Captain Philips was another movie which probably had been waiting to see until last Fri. I was no exempt so we enjoyed it last night and happily it not only was not disappointing but also very exciting and interesting. I would definitely say that it was better than the movie we saw last week, Gravity, although they fall under two complete genre. 

Tom Hanks presents a very good performance but better than him are the African guys who play the role of Somali pirates. They are with no doubt tremendous. I really feel bad for real Somali people and these piracy thing which has been part of the news in the past few years. No one ever points to this fact the real reason why the Somali people turn to piracy is what has happened to them by Europeans and Westerners in generals in the past two decades. Their fishery has been ruined by the industrial garbage dumped in their shores and civil war has tron their country apart, the one that Americans had to run from with shame. 

One interesting thing apart from the movie is the lawsuit which was lunched by half of the crew of Maersk Alabama, the ship that Captain Richard Phillips was navigating shortly before the making of the movie started. The crew allege the captain and the operators of ignoring the warning about the Somali pirates. According the lawsuit the ship must have had kept a 600 miles distance from Somali coast to be sure that no skiff could reach them but most likely because of the distance, time, fuel and wages they could save, the warning was ignored. They got close enough to the dangerous waters and got boarded by the African men armed with AK-47. The rest is shown in the movie. They say unlike the movie Phillips was no hero. Good movie with lots of unpredictable scenes and excitement and a must-see. The only part that I knew what would happen was when the Seals were towing the life-bout and were ready for the green light to shoot the three Somalis. Poor guys! A possible 4 out of 5. 

(Photo: This map shows the route that Maersk Alabama took and put it in the hands of the Somalis and the safe line which is claimed by the complainants should have been considered. The difference is not negligible)

N. L. Road Trip (15): N. L.'s Wild Fruits and Grown Vegetables

One of the things that you may want to try in NL is its wild fruit and it limited to different types of berries. We saw them are being sold on the side of Highway No. 1 in big bags. As well we picked a few ourselves and I bought a jar of spread. A few other types were not available due to the season and also limited amount. I think because of the climate you can not find regular fruits that you see them in supermarkets every time you step in but at the same time we saw many different type of vegetables grown in here and there. We saw that at the sides of the major roads, for example NL 430. There is a small lot which is fenced with ribbons and small wooden sticks and at times there is a scarecrow mounted beside it. Different type of vegetables, both leafy and roots are cultivated and sold in a little huts adjacent to the little field. Why bigger lots are not dedicated to growing vegetables I can see different reasons:

First of all there is not a big population of the consumers in the surrounding towns and neighbourhoods. Second of all the major supermarkets normally get their producer from big growers. It's not economic for them to have 3 or 4 supplier, get into an agreement with each, control them, etc, etc. So until there is not a certain amount, I guess, that a grower can supply, the big supermarkets would not have contract with it. Blueberry and Partrigeberry were the two kind that we picked up, in St. John's and Twillingate and as I said I bout a jar of Partrigeberry spread which was fine. You can find the other type by simply searching them on the net. I believe the vegetables, including big Green Cabbages are used to make a kind of stew which also includes Curd Beef but you can not get them as meal in restaurants. 

(Photo: F. F. is showing a handful of Partrigeberries. Of course the red dark ones are the ripe ones)