Grilled, pressed mystery meat. 😊
Doner kebab … is a type of kebab, made of meat cooked on a vertical rotisserie.
Seasoned meat stacked in the shape of an inverted cone is turned slowly on the rotisserie, next to a vertical cooking element. The outer layer is sliced into thin shavings as it cooks.
The vertical rotisserie was invented in the 19th-century Ottoman Empire, and doner kebab inspired similar dishes such as the Arab shawarma, Greek gyros, and Mexican al pastor. …
As I like Nepal in November, I’ve been here for the Diwali festival a number of times. Even Buddhists celebrate a version.
On day 2 dogs are fancied up. Other days it’s crows and holy cows.
Families clean, renovate, and decorate their homes in advance of the holiday.
The main purpose is to invite Lakshmi – the Goddess of Wealth – to visit their homes and bless them for the coming year.
Nepalis illuminate the interior and exterior of their homes with diyas (oil lamps or candles), electric lights, and offer puja (worship).
Family gets together for feasts. Many goats are slaughtered.
Diwali is expensive!
The highest quality goat come from high up in the Himalaya. We felt honoured to have the chance to buy dried, smoked, spicy Mustang goat.
They call it Sukuti. The tastiest thing I’d eaten so far in Nepal.
Groups of children arrive at your door singing and dancing for money. It’s a bit like Halloween.
Adults arrive doing the same, but they will be collecting money for local charitable causes.
Diwali also known as Deepavali and the “festival of lights“, is an ancient Hindu festival celebrated in autumn every year.
The festival spiritually signifies the victory of light over darkness, knowledge over ignorance, good over evil, and hope over despair.
The festival preparations and rituals typically extend over a five day period, but the main festival night of Diwali coincides with the darkest, new moon night of the Hindu Lunisolar month Kartika. …
Tonight. 🙂
Prague is better than Budapest. For the tourist. For me.
That said, it’s a somewhat similar experience. LOTS of walking. And I was happy to finally visit Buda and Pest.
I stayed near the Great Synagogue, largest outside NY City, on the floodplain Pest side. And not far from the NEW Budapest Eye.
Most of my photos are architecture and statuary. Much of this is more modern than Prague as Budapest has been destroyed in so many wars over the centuries.
The highlights are mostly over the Danube river on the hilly Buda side.
Buda Castle is no more. It’s a palace complex today, most built between 1749 and 1769.
Like Prague, Budapest is plagued with tourists, all Instagram influencers. 😀
I hadn’t realized how tourist-swarmed Prague has become. I visited in October, low season, yet everything was packed.
My hostel — Mosaic — was superb. Best breakfast I can recall.
To get oriented I took one of many available free walking tours: Wenceslas Square, Old Town Square, Astronomical Clock, …
Guides on free tours are paid by tip. They only survive if they are very good at the job.
My group had one awkward moment at the Jewish District when a tourist brought up the Palestinian cause … An important issue, but standing on ground where Nazis had murdered 90% of the Jews was wrong time, wrong place. We shut him down.
There are quirky, unusual attractions at every turn.
Wandering Prague at night with a flask of red wine was even better than daytime.
Yep. I hung out around the Charles Bridge every evening.
One attraction I missed was the world’s largest museum dedicated to porkers. 45,000 exhibits.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
I’m swearing off single use plastic Diet Coke.
Drinking sparkling water from a machine instead.
Like Greta on Facebook.
Disclaimer – my boycott ends next international flight
I’m tenting right next door to second largest beer celebration in the world after the Munich Oktoberfest.
It’s called the Cannstatter Volksfest or Stuttgart Beer Festival.
Over 4 million visitors a year.
Everyone but me drinks big steins of beer then tries not to get sick on rides like this.
Instead I sipped some cheap wine. Ate pretzels and soft cheese for dinner at my tent. I was celebrating.
My favourite cookies are most often called Sultana Biscuits.
In Vancouver you can find them in speciality Asian food stores.
Superstore no longer stocks them. Walmart no longer stocks them.
Update. Superstore in Calgary had them in the foreign food speciality aisle December 2018.
You can buy Sultanas online from Amazon.com. But not Amazon.ca.
Waitrose in the U.K. sells exactly the same thing calling them garibaldi biscuits.
Tesco U.K., the third-largest retailer in the world measured by gross revenues, also sells garibaldi biscuits.
Cows belch methane. They are a bigger environmental problem than pigs or chicken for that reason.
Personally I’m trying to eat less beef. When the meatless meat came along, I rushed to try as many of those products as possible. There are two main companies out of the USA, so far.
So far I’m not buying their products in preference to meat. The meatless meats I’ve tried are equally good or worse, are more expensive, and are not much more healthy.
I’ll keep trying. Both companies are still changing their products to better compete. Both are now very well funded. I’d love to switch to plant-based alternatives if it was worth it for me.
If you want to know more, the best source I’ve found is the Freakonomics podcast:
Global demand for beef, chicken, and pork continues to rise. So do concerns about environmental and other costs …
The average American consumes roughly 200 pounds of meat a year. …
The meat industry is massive and complicated — and often heavily subsidized. …
The agricultural historian James McWilliams, in a book called Just Food, argues that “every environmental problem related to contemporary agriculture … ends up having its deepest roots in meat production: monocropping, excessive applications of nitrogen fertilizer, addiction to insecticides, rain-forest depletion, land degradation, topsoil runoff, declining water supplies, even global warming — all these problems would be considerably less severe” if people ate meat “rarely, if ever.” …
The United States Cattlemen’s Association welcomes the competition. More food choices are good for consumers. But they want to be sure that labeling is accurate; that “beef” or “meat” means the product came from a walking, belching cow.
They note that Almond milk is not milk. It should be called Almond beverage.
Yvonne cooked up the full turkey dinner. … Delish.
The bird was brined for 24 hours.
related – the night prior Rockin’ Ronnie the Barbecue king served his guests … hotdogs.
Rick McCharles 