Salt Tasting Room

Dagmar's coworker Mia celebrated her farewell from Vancouver at the Salt Tasting Room in Gastown which offers an intriguing concept: You get a selection of three cheese and meat choices and three complements. If you wish, the waiters will also select three wine tastings that match your choice of cheese and meat. It's all set in an stylish urban setting, neat.


















http://www.salttastingroom.com/

Peanut Butter Cookie

Yesterday night, I was going to buy a very cheap but handmade peanut butter cookie from a small shop near Granville Island. When I came to the counter, a crazy old woman, who looked a bit like a witch, asked: "Ohhhhh, that cookie looks good!" Then, with that lurking tremble in her voice: "Is it a peanut butter cookie?"

Unsuspecting, I answered "Yes!" and she hysterically cried: "Did you know that people are dying from peanut butter?! Where does the peanut butter come from? Google it! How do you know it's safe? Shopkeeper, is your peanut butter safe?"

To explain her strange behaviour, I did google peanut butter and found out that she referred to a food scandal one month ago, where American peanut butter contained Salmonella and five people died, 400 getting sick. However, the shopkeeper calmed her down and cleared all my freshly induced fears:

"My cookies are safe, they cannot be poisoned by food scandal in January. For my cookies, I only use very very old peanut butter."

Bon appetit!

Weihnachtsstollen

Today, we were very happy because the delicious handmade Christmas Stollen, which Christof had baked for us, arrived! Yummy in the tummy!

Thank you very much, Marion and Christof!

Manga bakery

Yesterday, we found a wonderful Japanese bakery, which is decorated with lots of love and looks like the manga-version of a French bakery: The apple pie is formed like an apple, some signs are written in French and printed in old-style fonts, and little robots are placed in the show case. And one of them even starts dancing, if you give a tip!

One month Vancouverianer – Feedback welcome

We have been blogging about our life in Vancouver for a month now and we recieved very encouriging feedback from a lot of you! THANKS
We have had or still have a technical problem with the comments. Somehow a few people were able to comment but most of you weren't. Please keep trying and if you have any idea what the problem could be tell us. We would be happy to start discussions with you or you can just keep telling us how great the blog is :-)

Tuesday is Bagel Day (and Heroes Day)

Every Tuesday I go to get one dozen of freshly baked Bagels from Siegel Bagels, probably the Best Bagel place in town. They are only $7.50 on Tuesdays.
A Bagel is a ring of bread first boiled in water and then baked. At Siegel Bagel you can get them topped with sesame seeds, poppy seeds or caraway - with whole wheat flour, blueberrys inside or even pumpernickel bread just to name a few varieties.
I was first introduced to Bagels by my host family in rural Maryville, Missouri in 1991. They were originally from Long Island close to New York which is where the Bagel was brought to by the Jewish immigrants and is until today the most important Bagel City in the world.
P.S. Tuesday is also the day we can watch the full new episode of "Heroes" on the Net!

globalization of schoggi

Noch haben wir hier keine Entzugserscheinungen bezüglich Schweizer Schoggi oder anderen Leckereien. Im Gegenteil. Wir versuchen möglichst keine importierten Waren zu kaufen, sondern die Lokalen Spezialitäten zu probieren und zu fördern. Wenn wir wollten könnten wir hier allerdings Deutsche und Schweizer Produkte ohne Ende kaufen. Das fängt bei Schweizer Käse an und hört bei deutschen Hausschuhen (Birkenstock etc.) auf, es gibt Nutella, Ovomaltine, Lavazza Espresso etc. Allerdigs habe ich gehört dass einige der angeblich europäischen Leckereien mit Vorsicht zu geniessen seien, da einige nicht importiert sondern in Kanada/USA hergestellt werden. Das heisst sie können einige bedenkliche Zutaten enthalten, die in der EU nicht verwendet werden. Zum Beispiel enthalten "made in Canada/USA" Produkte von Lindt und Ferrero oftmals Palmöl, waehrend die europöischen Versionen weniger gesundheitsschädliche Öle verwenden. Und das extrem bedenkliche "High Fructose Coryn Syrup" (HFCS) ist in Nordamerika (insbesondere USA aber auch in Kanada) in vielen Produkten vorzufinden. Guten Appetit!


Display bei London Drug Store, könnte auch irgendwo bei
Denner sein oder?