Our new life begins .... Peter pouring over cookbooks!
June 27, 2011
June 26, 2011
The weekend
Friday turned out to be a good day for me. I received confirmation that I am officially permanently employed in the job I have held for a year (to the day). That means paid holidays, benefits and a pension! So we decided to celebrate by eating lunch out on Saturday. First we got on the bikes and rode over to Fernwood where there was a large community celebration with music, food, handmade trinkets and lots of activities for kids. Then it was back down the hill, around Craigdarroch Castle to drop by the Moss St Market to check out all the fresh farm goodies. New to the market this year is the Cold Comfort - who make small batch, quality ice cream, curiously-flavoured, and locally made fresh with love, and they will deliver! It was after this discovery we decided to go to lunch at rebar Restaurant. The place was packed so we saddled up to the bar (yes they actually have a bar). We split a roasted veggie quesadilla and warm yam and salmon salad. And we may have split an absolutely huge piece of coconut-carrot cake for dessert. Yummy!
Always curious about 'other' tandems, we saw this unusual set up at the Moss St market. It looked very complicated and we decided we liked out own bike better. Photo coming soon!
Sunday was a fabulously sunny day, so we slathered on the sunscreen and got on the trusty bicycle built for two to see what we could see in Victoria on a Sunday. You can see Peter from my point of view on the back of the bike. He is wearing his famous Heidi Lussi cycling shirt (inside joke from TourBC). The shirt is actually bright yellow and it was a sunny day so am not quite sure why the photo shows up so blue. We started out at the Farmers Market in Market Square, right downtown. Turns out Cold Comfort has a booth there, as does the Salt Spring Cheese Co. who make a wonderful hard cheese.
After taking in the Farmers Market, we rode over to Centennial Square to see the Sunday market and Jazz Fest. It was hoppin'! And, there was a market there too. With some amazing food (there's a theme here, isn't there?) like Camille's Restaurant, a smoothie stand, more farm fresh produce, Tornado Potatoe, etc., etc. Since it was good jazz, we locked up the tandem and plunked our butts on a bench in the sunshine (remember we're already slathered with sunscreen) and started some heavy duty people watching. It was great! No pics though, that would be rude. :)
Then we took off for a zip down Dallas Road before heading home. Life is good.
Always curious about 'other' tandems, we saw this unusual set up at the Moss St market. It looked very complicated and we decided we liked out own bike better. Photo coming soon!
Sunday was a fabulously sunny day, so we slathered on the sunscreen and got on the trusty bicycle built for two to see what we could see in Victoria on a Sunday. You can see Peter from my point of view on the back of the bike. He is wearing his famous Heidi Lussi cycling shirt (inside joke from TourBC). The shirt is actually bright yellow and it was a sunny day so am not quite sure why the photo shows up so blue. We started out at the Farmers Market in Market Square, right downtown. Turns out Cold Comfort has a booth there, as does the Salt Spring Cheese Co. who make a wonderful hard cheese.
After taking in the Farmers Market, we rode over to Centennial Square to see the Sunday market and Jazz Fest. It was hoppin'! And, there was a market there too. With some amazing food (there's a theme here, isn't there?) like Camille's Restaurant, a smoothie stand, more farm fresh produce, Tornado Potatoe, etc., etc. Since it was good jazz, we locked up the tandem and plunked our butts on a bench in the sunshine (remember we're already slathered with sunscreen) and started some heavy duty people watching. It was great! No pics though, that would be rude. :)
Then we took off for a zip down Dallas Road before heading home. Life is good.
Thursday June 23rd
I love this city. It really is a beautiful place with many wonderful little gems to discover. Thursday's weather was absolutely magnificent so I convinced Peter to go for a walk in the evening. One of the highlights of the walk was this handsome building on the edge of Beacon Hill Park. We both really liked the architecture of the place ... and this is only what we saw from the back alley!
After wondering around the side we came to the front entrance. It is a very well taken care of Heritage Building that used to be a school and was converted to an apartment building. Here is Peter trying to get in - he's actually looking at the original built-in wood burning stove in the front hall (presumably not working). Lovely and quiet even though the building sits right on Douglas Street, no doubt due to the surrounding old trees and large hedge out front.On our stroll to/from from this lovely old apartment building - we meandered our way through Beacon Hill Park (aka 'our backyard').
Even though it was a warm sunny evening, it was quiet and we almost had the place to ourselves. Except for the peacocks, of course! This one put on a lovely display for us, spreading his feathers in full show, and then he proceeded to turn around and around. I don't think I'd ever seen the back end of the display before.And then there were the baby ducks! And the heron, the crochet skirted sign post, ... and the scenery. Sigh.
June 18, 2011
Saturday
Today was V.I.C. Fest ... right in our front yard!
Okay, it wasn't really our front yard, but it was out our front window. The Vancouver Island Cultural Festival was held on
the grounds of St. Ann's Academy across the street. We'd been assured it would be over by 10 pm so we were a little curious about the whole thing. The music started about 11 am and the organizers seemed to have it quite well organized. A good part of the grounds was fenced off, there were security guards all over the place, lots of volunteers, portable toilets (top left) at both ends of the venue, a big dumpster for garbage (far left), an ATM for cash (bright green van), and they even set up a 'smoking area' in the parking lot (closest to us) marked off with 'caution' tape.
At about 1 pm we walked around the perimeter just to see what we could see. There was a wine tent in the garden at the far side of the building (where they usually hold weddings), and a 'beer tent' in the orchard area, as well as local artist, clothing and food vendors at the front of the building. On the other side of the front walkway was the stage area. Here is a pic of us standing on the outside of the stone wall listening to one of the first local band to play.
We were a little worried about how attendance would be as t
he forecast for the day was miserable - showers! But it managed to stay dry after raining last night, and the sun even came out after dinner. We had a visit from three young local firefighters in one of their ladder trucks - not sure what they came to see. At one point it looked like they'd have to leave as they came running back to the truck, put on their turnout gear, but as they were about to drive off, it was cancelled at the last minute.
As the day went on we got hear several bands and had a birds eye view of the parking lot. It was quite a well contained and well behaved crowd. Amazingly the smoking room got used as intended and we felt like we felt like we got to know some of the more frequent attendees personally. It is now past 10 pm and sure enough, the bands stopped playing (after the obligatory encore) and the clean up has begun.
Just in case you're wondering, we also did various chores, laundry, grocery shopping, took another load of 'extras' to the donation drop off, and made sushi for dinner. Just another Saturday in Victoria. Life is good.
Okay, it wasn't really our front yard, but it was out our front window. The Vancouver Island Cultural Festival was held on
the grounds of St. Ann's Academy across the street. We'd been assured it would be over by 10 pm so we were a little curious about the whole thing. The music started about 11 am and the organizers seemed to have it quite well organized. A good part of the grounds was fenced off, there were security guards all over the place, lots of volunteers, portable toilets (top left) at both ends of the venue, a big dumpster for garbage (far left), an ATM for cash (bright green van), and they even set up a 'smoking area' in the parking lot (closest to us) marked off with 'caution' tape.At about 1 pm we walked around the perimeter just to see what we could see. There was a wine tent in the garden at the far side of the building (where they usually hold weddings), and a 'beer tent' in the orchard area, as well as local artist, clothing and food vendors at the front of the building. On the other side of the front walkway was the stage area. Here is a pic of us standing on the outside of the stone wall listening to one of the first local band to play.
We were a little worried about how attendance would be as t
he forecast for the day was miserable - showers! But it managed to stay dry after raining last night, and the sun even came out after dinner. We had a visit from three young local firefighters in one of their ladder trucks - not sure what they came to see. At one point it looked like they'd have to leave as they came running back to the truck, put on their turnout gear, but as they were about to drive off, it was cancelled at the last minute.As the day went on we got hear several bands and had a birds eye view of the parking lot. It was quite a well contained and well behaved crowd. Amazingly the smoking room got used as intended and we felt like we felt like we got to know some of the more frequent attendees personally. It is now past 10 pm and sure enough, the bands stopped playing (after the obligatory encore) and the clean up has begun.
Just in case you're wondering, we also did various chores, laundry, grocery shopping, took another load of 'extras' to the donation drop off, and made sushi for dinner. Just another Saturday in Victoria. Life is good.
June 15, 2011
A Couple of Days After Saturday
Leftovers can be sooooo good! Check out the Prawn Tacones Peter made for me at dinner on Tuesday. I came home from work, took a phone call from my Mom and this is what he presented me with ...
As I have said before, life is good.
June 12, 2011
The day after Saturday
We've discovered that everything tastes better housed in a homemade warm corn tortilla, including smoked tuna tacones!
I believe the original tacone creation came from chef Gord Martin of Go Fish Restaurant in Vancouver. Thanks Gord .... basically, special seasoning, seeds, shoots, slaw, fish of your choice and lots of care goes into this delicious creation! So next time you're visiting, you may want to put in your request at the PeJu kitchen for tacones. You won't be disappointed!
June 11, 2011
Saturday
We had another rather stunning day here in Victoria. After the obligatory Saturday morning Lavazza cappuccinos. :) 
We put together a grocery shopping list, put on our bicycle helmets and pedaled our tandem to our favourite green grocer - The Root Cellar. It was the first time we'd ridden the tandem to grocery shop and had to be fairly careful not to purchase too many things just in case they wouldn't fit in the 2 saddle bags we carry. I think we did pretty well, balancing the weight evenly between the 2 bags.
On the way home we decided to drop by the Moss Street Market to see if we could find some fish, pea sprouts and local eggs. Well, this became a little adventure on its own! Downtown was busy, busy with cars, pedestrians and lots and lots of bicycles! We are still a little new navigating the city on a bicycle, so we managed to find a rather roundabout route to the Market. By the time we got there, no one had any eggs left, and there was no fish. But we did get fresh pea sprouts. Yay!
After some lunch at home, we got out the mountain bikes and thought we'd check out the festivities at the waterfront as this weekend is Jump Ship - dirt jumps on a barge in the harbour at
Ship's Point. There were literally tons of people there! Standing, sitting, riding, watching, sunning, music blaring, crowd cheering, more people sitting, sleeping, dancing, eating, wandering, etc., etc. And a lot of bicycles, of all kinds. We stood off to the edge for a while to soak it all up. Wow.
Too bad I don't have a panoramic photo-taking-iPhone cuz you don't really get full impact of all the people at this event. As we rode around the harbour to the left in the above photo, we discovered there was also a Bike Polo Event taking place on Superior Street. It really is quite amazing what these riders can do on bikes, holding on with one hand (for steering, braking), the other hand is for the 'polo stick.' This photo doesn't adequately capture the skills these players have. There are 3 people per team, a net at each end, which is sometimes guarded by a 'goalie' when someone slips back to cover it, but they are by no means stuck there. There is a distinct culture to the whole thing.
From there, we rode on to explore more of the harbour and a quick visit to the Fish Store (no one seems to sell fish from the dock, although you can get live crab). It was amazingly quiet in comparison to the bike culture on the waterfront. Finally!
From there we stopped at Thrifty's Food to fill up the pannier, and back home. We had 2 lovely rides today and used 3 of the 5 bicycles we own. All good. Wonder what tomorrow will bring?
We put together a grocery shopping list, put on our bicycle helmets and pedaled our tandem to our favourite green grocer - The Root Cellar. It was the first time we'd ridden the tandem to grocery shop and had to be fairly careful not to purchase too many things just in case they wouldn't fit in the 2 saddle bags we carry. I think we did pretty well, balancing the weight evenly between the 2 bags.
On the way home we decided to drop by the Moss Street Market to see if we could find some fish, pea sprouts and local eggs. Well, this became a little adventure on its own! Downtown was busy, busy with cars, pedestrians and lots and lots of bicycles! We are still a little new navigating the city on a bicycle, so we managed to find a rather roundabout route to the Market. By the time we got there, no one had any eggs left, and there was no fish. But we did get fresh pea sprouts. Yay!
After some lunch at home, we got out the mountain bikes and thought we'd check out the festivities at the waterfront as this weekend is Jump Ship - dirt jumps on a barge in the harbour at
Ship's Point. There were literally tons of people there! Standing, sitting, riding, watching, sunning, music blaring, crowd cheering, more people sitting, sleeping, dancing, eating, wandering, etc., etc. And a lot of bicycles, of all kinds. We stood off to the edge for a while to soak it all up. Wow.
Too bad I don't have a panoramic photo-taking-iPhone cuz you don't really get full impact of all the people at this event. As we rode around the harbour to the left in the above photo, we discovered there was also a Bike Polo Event taking place on Superior Street. It really is quite amazing what these riders can do on bikes, holding on with one hand (for steering, braking), the other hand is for the 'polo stick.' This photo doesn't adequately capture the skills these players have. There are 3 people per team, a net at each end, which is sometimes guarded by a 'goalie' when someone slips back to cover it, but they are by no means stuck there. There is a distinct culture to the whole thing.From there, we rode on to explore more of the harbour and a quick visit to the Fish Store (no one seems to sell fish from the dock, although you can get live crab). It was amazingly quiet in comparison to the bike culture on the waterfront. Finally!
From there we stopped at Thrifty's Food to fill up the pannier, and back home. We had 2 lovely rides today and used 3 of the 5 bicycles we own. All good. Wonder what tomorrow will bring?
June 4, 2011
Saturday
Doing what we do best - exploring all the possibilities the local Moss Street Market provides.
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