This started out as trip log web pages. And I keep meaning for this bog to return to that, I really do. I mean, I have all these trips that I never did write about. I don't even know why I'm so lazy about writing, even. I used the excuse that it was all the same stuff over and over again, and I can use that excuse for the skiing and paddling in Ontario. But it doesn't really work when I also don't tell you about trips to Greenland and Iceland and parts of the Andes where I've never been before, now, does it? And - sigh - I'm as narcissistic as ever! I'm still the person who would like nothing better than to bore you with her holiday snaps! I even uploaded some of them and everything! So if you want to see, go here.
What I really want to tell you about, though, is my current DIY obsession with beverages. Well DsomeofIY. It's not like I'm drilling wells, I get my water out of the tap. And then I carbonate it myself! And then, if I'm really feeling treaty, I use the fancy French fruity syrups (the sirops!) that I picked up in the hoity toity eatery in Collingwood last winter. The limon makes my bubbly water taste just like Sprite! The framboise makes a fruity pop! Of course, I would never *buy* Sprite or fruity pop, because, you know... I'm not the sort of person who drinks pop! Sugary carbonated beverages mixed in my own house are all charmingly DIY. Bought in a can or a PET bottle, that is so ... I don't know what it is. Somehow, it appeals to my sensibilities to drink my faux-pop but swan by the soft drink aisle in the supermarket. Eeet eees french, my faux-pop. That makes it all better, non?
Ah, the supermarket. How I loathe it. The number of items I regularly purchase there is ever dwindling. As of this week, we can take one more off the list: coffee! I am done buying little bags of happy and either cussing at my el cheapo so-called burr grinder which has 15 adjustment settings which all produce french press grind or using the stupid whirly grinder that trashes the beans. Oh no, like Clare I am now aspiring to be highly selective about my coffee. I have a long way to go, but I am roasting it in my popcorn popper and grinding it in the *sixty* adjusting steps burr grinder which really does do an espresso grind. I'm also bouncing off the ceiling in this initial phase of experimentation with roasts and coffees, but I have 40lbs of green coffee to play with.
I'm not going to brew my own beer. I am far too sloppy for that. Though I am very very impressed with the quality of some of the homebrews I have tasted. By "some" I mean "the ones Kevin makes". And I will never ever - ever! - go the homemade wine route. And I likely won't be baking my own bread, not because I can't (I can, and I have) but because I don't eat enough bread. At least, I don't intend to eat that much bread. Not that this stops me from wishing I had a wood-fired backyard bread oven. Oh, and that reminds me. I need to order some pig! DIY can also be PSETDI (pay someone else to do it).
In other news, I really miss beer gardens (and the weather that goes with them). It is surprising me a great deal, this increase in affection I've had for Germany in the last couple of years. I *like* touristing in Germany. At least when the touristing is cycling from beer garden to beer garden... but I also like paddling. I shall now go stare at my kayak, which has yet to be taken out this summer. Because it is not summer! And because I have been hanging out in beer gardens. All in good time.
Posted by Johanna at June 11, 2009 03:56 PM