The bid is on!

Okay..... Finally making the big move to be closer to my work... Last night, we put a bid on a house three blocks away from my office. We're putting our current house on the market this week. Life is gonna get crazy for a little while.

On a more relaxing note, I made stuffed grapeleaves and pasta for us Sunday night and I'm eating the leftovers for lunch today. I'm posting the awesome Najjar family recipe, handed down from generation to generation, although I must say I think it's been americanized along the way. I think when you get down to my version - they're kind of like "McGrapeleaves", which isn't necessarily a bad thing. I consider myself a middle eastern cuisine enabler... you eat my fatty, greasy, americanized grapeleaves, and before you know it you'll be "shawarming" in Lebanese and Greek cooking!

Stuffed Grapeleaves – Meat filled

• Approx. 3 lbs ground lamb – this can be from packages of ground lamb, lamb patties or by requesting that the fat be trimmed from either a shoulder roast of lamb or perhaps ½ a leg roast – If you have access to a good butcher, have him or her put the meat through the grinder twice and take the bone, too. **Lean ground beef can be added to the mix to cut down on total cost – this works best if you actually use a roast with bone.
• Rice – Uncle Ben’s Conv. works well – use approx. 1C for each 1 1/2-2 lbs of meat.
• Cinnamon – Approx 1T per pound of meat
• Garlic salt or powder if desired – to taste.
• Salt, lemons – lemon juice

In a large mixing bowl (or split in two for larger batches) combine meat, rice, cinnamon, and garlic powder, kneading mixture by hand until all ingredients are well combined.

If you have one, place bone in bottom of large kettle.

Roll mixture (amount will depend upon size of leaf) in grapeleaf.Place leaf underside-up with stem point facing you.Place meat mixture horizontally at widest part of leaf.Pull stem end up and over mixture, tuck sides of leaf inward while continuing to roll to end.Makes a cigar-shaped package.Don’t pack leaf too tightly, leave some room for rice to expand.

Place rolled leaves in circular fashion on bottom of kettle.Rolled leaves should be layered with a sprinkling of salt on top of each layer.Rest a plate or glass pie pan on top of all leaves to hold them down while cooking.

Add water to kettle to be just level with plate/pie pan. Bring to rolling boil over med-high heat, reduce to simmer, cover and cook for at least one hour. Drain liquid from leaves, discard bone.Add fresh lemon juice to taste.

Serve with lemon wedges, salt (and perhaps some spaghetti??)

Quantity varies with amount of meat/size of leaves.

Backyard Burgers in Erie

A Backyard Burgers franchise just opened yesterday on Peninsula Drive... Since Tiffany burned the hot dogs last night on the grill so she offered to take me there for dinner.

(Our joke normally is if I try something adventurous when cooking and it turns out terrible, I have to get us Burger King, so since Tiff was cooking this time, the tables were turned...)

The verdict?

Eh.... It's higher quality, higher priced fast food, but it's still fast food. Our burgers both tasted overdone and oversalted. (The burgers were actually thick enough to notice what temperature they were cooked at. Unlike most fast food where you kind of wonder what you're really eating - you could recognize these burgers as former cow.) Tiffany liked the waffle fries - I thought the seasoned fries were passible.

They had some different varieties of burgers, hot dogs, and chicken sandwiches, so we may give them another try after they get a chance to straighten things out.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki

60 years ago, World War II was concluding with two of the largest single explosions known to man at that time - nuclear devastation in densely populatated Hiroshima and Nagasaki Japan.

I've studied a great deal about the topic, and there are arguments to be made that:

1. The bombings shortened the length of the war, saving countless lives.
2. The Soviet Union could have had a greater influence in postwar Japan, which could have created a N. Korea scenario or worse.
3. The decision makers in the United States did not fully comprehend the true horror of nuclear war.

There are also arguments to be made that:

1. The bombings were murderous and barbaric, not just killing thousands instantly, but inflicting death and disease for years to come.
2. The bombings weren't just a demonstration to Japan, but to the Soviet Union as part of post-war posturing.
3. The decision makers in the United States may have been able to avert the use of at least the second bomb, if not both and still obtain the surrender of the Empire of Japan.

Regardless of any of this, just like any war, destruction or death that is inflicted on civilians on any scale, we should all be sad and be thoughtful as we think back to those terrible days in August. What was done to the Japanese people, and that America had to do it. The unique historical circumstances that brought this tragedy to the island of Japan. Did Japan deserve it? Is America guilty? The greatest memorial to the entire war is the great friendship between the two countries. We are like two adversaries that have become too weary to fight and have come to know and appreciate each other through the conflict, and become friends through mutual familiarity and above all, respect.

I respect the decision makers in 1945 that made the decisions they had to make. I also respect the right of a nation to remember and grieve a terrible price that was paid.

NHL on what station????

Outdoor Life Network? I guess I'll have to "un-channel block" OLN and all of the top-notch bull fighting, bull riding, bow hunting and duck calling i've expunged from my TiVo.

Perhaps the NHL is planning on more "Heritage Classic" events, because the last time I checked 99.9% of NHL games were played indoors...

ICE - In Case of Emergency

Read an interesting article about putting an "ICE" entry into your cellphone's phone book so that if someone finds you incapacitated in an emergency situation, they might have immediate access to call loved ones or relatives.

Thought I'd post it to spread the word. Not a bad idea.

Crude oil

It now costs me $6.75/day in gas to drive to work, close to $150/month. But because I chose intelligently in 2000 and got myself a Ford Focus, this is only about $2/day more than I was paying.

If I drove a SUV that gets 10mpg - I'd be paying double that a day! In other words, just with the money I save, I can pretty much purchase another new car every six years while the poor Hummer driver is stuck making $500 car payments in and around visits to traffic school.

Only love a mother if she supports President Bush and war

The American Spectator is quite an interesting little rag. Recently, they posted this article about a grieving mother's challenge to meet with President Bush about the war her son gave his life for. In a moment of blindly misguided loyalty to some weird notion that you must support war to support troops and country, they actually have the gall to say...exact quote here:

"Despite what the headlines say, Sheehan, 48, is more anti-war protester than grieving mother."

A childless male questioning a mother on her grief for a dead son. Classy, but typical for supporters of an administration with little positive to talk about.

Oh, how I miss Montreal

Is it possible to fall in love with a city? I fell hard for Montreal when I didn't think I would. Really fell - not just in sense that people say "I love Montreal", but obsessing over it, pining for it, daydreaming about it....

Here's a rundown of my trip, but before I start let me tell you that I posted a photo gallery on Flickr here.

Saturday 7/30/05:

Left Erie at 9:30AM, picked up my sister at the Buffalo airport at 11:45. Took the thruway to the 1000 islands border crossing and got to Montreal at around 7:30pm

Surprises:

• The crowded hotel parking lot ended up being crowded for the most magnificent fireworks display (set to music and narration) that I have ever seen in my entire life. My sister and I sat on the lawn until 10 and even an old smoking, farting Quebecois lady in front of us couldn't spoil the evening.
• Montreal's signage is very francophone, but the staff in tourist areas are very bilingual.
• Montreal is a beautiful city from across the Saint Laurent.

Sunday 7/31/05:

Got up early on a beautiful sunny day, hopped on the metro (Longueuil terminus was next door) and arrived downtown about 9:30am. (Funny thing - I asked the bus ticket girl where the metro was, really just to find out where I could get tickets, and she let loose with such a laugh - I still can't figure out why it was so funny, but when she laughed, I knew I was going to feel welcome in this town. She didn't laugh in a mean way, I still can't explain it.)

When we got to town, we found a Tim Hortons on Rue Sherbrooke near McGill University and walked up into Parc du Mont Royal, a large city park on the hill in the middle of the city. After getting lost in the park a few times, we ended up back on Rue Peel for lunch at a French cafe, but the goat cheese was not good to me. After a couple of visits to the Chapters Bookstore restrooms, and I was good as new to stroll up and down Rue St. Catherine and a quick sneak down to Old Town. We had a taste of Montreal's finest smoked meat at Reuben's and then headed back to the hotel.

Surprises:

• Tim Hortons is still more special north of the border
• Mont Royal is taller and bigger than it looks - having a map would have been nice
  
• Smoked meat isn't terrible - my suspicion is that it's corned beef
• Travelling any other way than the metro is stupid (not a surprise to me...)
• That my feet could hurt so much after a day of walking
• Montreal is even more beautiful up close.
  

Monday 8/1/05:

Metro (with Timmy's in hand) to Parc Olympique to see the stark concrete forms of the Biodome and Olympic Stadium from 1976. Biodome is basically an indoor zoo, while Olympic Stadium is really only interesting for the large tower overhead, now that the Expos were stolen by MLB and folks with deeper pockets. We headed back into town mid-afternoon, specifically to the Plateau Mont Royal region along Rue St. Denis for a Tintin store and some Moroccan food. We found neither but after much walking and a little shopping, we found an awesome French/Italian restaurant called "La Petit Marche". It was so worth it.

Surprises:

• The Olympic grounds look awful. Concrete architecture does not age well. It was still quite a sight to behold - there is beauty in the decay of modern buildings.
  
• The ride up to the tower summit was actually quite fun for an acrophobic like me.
  
• Francophone Plateau district ended up being the most memorable spot of the whole trip, and having the BEST food.
• When a menu is all in french, you learn french quickly.
• Guidebooks checked out of the library from 1996 are not good for actual travel use. (not a surprise to me...)

Tuesday 8/2/05:

We slept in because La Ronde (Six Flags) was not open until 10am. After a long walk around Parc Jean Drapeau drinking our Tim Hortons, I was unable to convince my sister to ride roller coasters, so instead we went in to Old Town for some amazing crepes and a ride on the Amphibus. I had a ham and swiss crepe with real maple syrup that was just fantastic. We took a detour into the underground city, which is really mall after mall after mall connected directly to the metro. I was a tad overwhelmed because it gets really claustrophobic if you don't have a good map. After more walking (up in the real world this time), we searched for another moroccan restaurant that ended up being part of a Concordia University food court. (doh!) After a strong downpour, we pressed on to very anglophone Westmount for some decent Indian food instead.

Surprises:

• I like crepes.
• The amphibus is stupid, no matter how much you try to convince yourself that as a tourist, it's okay to ride it. On the other hand, you have to do it once.
  
• Montreal is even prettier after a rainstorm.
• Goat meat is actually not that bad with enough curry on it.
• Planning to "not walk" in Montreal is a dumb idea. Just accept that your feet are going to hate you for the duration of the vacation.

Wednesday 8/3/05:

Ah.... The best laid plans... We planned to drive north to the Laurentides to bike on the Petit Train du Nord bike trail - 200km of rail to trail goodness. It started well when after some Tim Hortons we found our way to the town of Saint Jerome, start of the bike trail. It took a drastic turn for the worse though. When I found parking right next to the bike shop, I got so excited I sideswiped against another car that was in the lane next to mine.

No one was hurt, but the sideswipe seemed to have done more damage to my car than to the other one. My car limped (flashers on) to a promised Ford dealership up the road that had one salesman who could speak English. They were booked and referred us to the other Ford dealership 7km and a hundred annoyed Quebecois drivers the other way. Luckily, this dealership had a sort-of-english speaking repairman and a plucky french speaking service rep who had our car ready after we spent 4 carless hours wandering a small isolated french speaking town, eating bad food and getting entertainment out of watching squirrels argue.

The fact my car was in working order by 3pm was one of the happiest moments of my recent memory. When we got back to Montreal, we decided to spend our last night their celebrating at the Winston Churchill pub, eating Poutine and drinking our first alcohol of the trip, which gets me to the big surprises for the day:

• Poutine (french fries, curds, gravy) is AMAZING. I think poutine, translated from the original Quebecois is "heart attack on a plate that you will be unable to resist scraping clean"
• Once you get out of Montreal, the countryside is very very francophone.
• Apparently, the Quebecois don't like it when you hit each others cars on the road.
  
• Everyone, from the other driver in the accident, to her mother, to the police, to the mechanic and other employees at Laurentides Ford were just the nicest people, and we needed them to be. (Our mechanic's classic line: "You're from Pennsylvania. Oh no! Bad vacation!) We were so fortunate to have people who knew more English than we knew French.
  
• The rail trail up there is really great - I'm coming back some day.
• Our feet were beginning not to believe us when we said we wouldn't walk this time...

Thursday 8/4/05:

We got up very early and drove to Ottawa after stopping at Tim Hortons... (We tried to find a Dunkin Donuts for my sister. It was closed, honest!) On the way, we stopped at Oka - a public beach and national park. Afterwards, we headed north and west along the Ottawa, stopped in Hawkesbury for some poutine at a greasy spoon, and then arrived at Hull Quebec mid-afternoon. Before checking in, we took an hour hike in at Gatineau Park (my favorite park anywhere...) After we got our hotel room, we walked over to Byward Market for some good scottish food (Shepherd's Pie + Bangers and Mashed)

Surprises:

• Oka had a very quiet and serene beach
• I can eat Poutine every day and not get sick of it
• Gatineau Park was just as lovely as the last time I was there, in 2000.
• My sister had a hair in her pie, not a head hair, and definitely not hers....

Friday 8/5/05:

After another failed Dunkin Donuts search on our day of Ottawa, we stopped for a muffin at some crappy non-Tim Hortons coffee shop. (Full disclosure - I did not, in fact, eat, said muffin. My sister actually remarked that it and the coffee was better than Tim Hortons, but she was clearly delusional.) We checked out the National Archives, Byward Market, and Parliament Hill, as well as shopping at Rideau Centre. Dinner was at a Moroccan restaurant (finally!!!) that had excellent food, but a strange quirk in service. Apparently, once they get you in the front of the restaurant as advertising to passersby that they are indeed open, they won't give you the check for 20 minutes, or until some other unlucky soul gets stuck by the window and they can let you off the hook. After escaping our "window display" entrapment, we were still able to make it to the light show at Parliament Hill, concluding our vacation just as it started, a free light show in a relaxed canadian crowd, on a crystal clear night.

Surprises:

• Ottawa is a lot smaller than I remember it. It's like Montreal or Toronto's baby brother.
• I still liked Ottawa as much as last time. Montreal was just that much better.
• My feet found new ways to be in pain by the end of the day.

Saturday 8/6/05:

After failing again at finding a Dunkin Donuts, we stopped at Tim Hortons for a last donut/bagel and coffee. A long drive and some traffic on the 401 and QEW, and we were back home.

• The 401 is booooorring.
• Toronto still looks cool. I shall have to go there some day. I'll just feel like I'm cheating on Montreal.
  
• Driving all day is worse than having your feet hurt from walking all day.

So my trip was great, eventful, but great. I missed Montreal even before I left - Ottawa is a great town, but no consolation. Now where are those "Learn to Speak French" tapes I packed away?