A souflade of Vegetables

Just another picture of food, what we like to call a "souflade" (pr. soof-lard) of vegetables, cooked alongside the turkey in the oven on Christmas day, a portion of which will be used for our boxing day fry-up and subsequent repeats over the next day or so.

Make Fire, drink, eat..

Goodbye Cable

The blog is a journal about where we are, sure we still have nature stuff (when the weather permits) but just today I will add a technical bit about our media delivery system.

Netflix (Canada) via any of the three boxes shown, left to right, dual Atom based mini-itx PC (eight inches square) running at 2.13GHz with HDMI out, next, Roku 2 XD streaming box and last, but certainly not least, the 3rd Generation Apple TV.

Attached to the PC is a Hauppauge 850 Hybrid ATSC/NTSC stick, for PVR capability and OTA through the Atom if we want it. The Atom is running XBMC as it's primary media centre. That little dongle at the base of the PC is a unifying remote for a wireless Logitech K400r with full size keyboard and trackpad.

Of course, our TV has an ATSC/QAM tuner, so we're grabbing any OTA with that.

More TV than we will ever need in this lifetime, goodbye cable....

Merry Christmas via Skype

Another great first today, a Skype session with mum and dad, probably about forty-five minutes without any technical problems, discussion about all sorts, an appearance from the new cat and ramblings about family, food and cheese.

We drank a sherry or two of course (at this end) and they were drinking what looked like vodka at their end, although they insisted it was water.

Oh no...Rod Stewart

This year we have started a new tradition, Cable TV and Satellite TV have been discarded and we have "cut the cord" on the big companies. Six months ago we thought Satellite would be the answer, but as we discovered, if you're angry with one massive corporation, the next corporation is really not going to be any better. So, we now receive about four useful channels OTA (over the air, digital HD) and use Netflix, Apple TV, Roku and a PC streaming box to fill in the rest.

Today though, the morning Christmas offering from PBS was "Merry Christmas Baby" and by golly, we thought we had a lot of cheese in the house until this delivery...

Was that a year since the last bacon buttie?

Here we are again, Christmas in the workhouse, well, no work as usual except the toil and trouble of planting the turkey in the oven after eating the obligatory Canadian back bacon sandwich and drinking a few cups of excellent Christmas coffee.

Merry Christmas

It's a few days away, but before we forget in a drunken moment, Merry Christmas Everybody!!

Appropriate Weather

A lot of the Christmas booze has been bought, we have the turkey, stuffing and sausage meat. Mincemeat, shortbread and Thorntons Special Toffee.

Today, the Christmas tree will be going up, Karen will be finishing off her shopping and I may be wrapping.

So, it's appropriate that it looks like this outside:

Sea Bus

The sea bus over to the North shore, and the potential for more festivities, allowed us a close up of a couple of huge container ships as we threaded our way across the water to Lonsdale Quay.

Memories of Wigan

It was fitting and quite a coincidence that as we were married in Wigan, Lancashire, a quarter of a century ago, here as we enjoyed beer and food in a pub in downtown Vancouver, Wigan Athletic lost three nothing to Newcastle United.

The match was live, not recorded.

Steamworks

Lunch, a microbrewed IPA (Empress Pale Ale) along with good food, Chili and Butter Chicken with a coconut curry sauce, chips, cheese bread, naan. It was all very yummy, a great way to spend an anniversary lunch at the Steamworks, downtown Vancouver.

Steamed Buns

After the ferry, the bus, the train we wanted some breakfast and headed to the nearest Starbucks, while waiting in line a couple of locals were tucking into these amazing things, we walked outside and next door was a little Chinese bakery that sold these steamed, spicy meat, buns. Like a dumpling with the meat, vegetables and sauce inside.

It was the first time, it certainly won't be the last.

Cheese and Duck thing

This was the small selection of delicious cheese we purchased today, plenty of cash left on the voucher.

The duck thing is a rillette, something we enjoyed with mother at the Fairmont Hotel at YVR when we had a charcutarie board (a selection of cheeses, meats, duck thing, flat breads) so we decided we would have another.

More food of the day to follow.

Cheese Shop

Monday morning, Vancouver.

Benton Brothers on Cambie Street, fine, fine, cheese shop. A wedding anniversary present (not the shop, some of the contents) so we shopped and filled our backpack with some lovely cheeses and a duck thing.

Silver

Today we have our twenty-fifth wedding anniversary, amazing that the events of that day a quarter of a century ago are still fresh in our minds. Waking up early for an instant coffee, making sandwiches in a miniscule kitchen for those coming back to the tiny Barratt House, the registrar office in Wigan, the smiles, the giggles, the Poacher pub in the afternoon and then the evening "do" at the Smithy Pub in Billinge.

Seems like yesterday.

Saturday Night at the Fish

Great night of Blues music at the Blackfish with James "Buddy" Rogers and his friends.