Travel Turtle

I have been making new international recipes as part of the self-imposed projects associated with my new blog. It’s a lot of fun. So far, I’ve tried Hungarian Goulash, Chicken Paprika, Butter Cookies, Feijoada, and two types of Meat Pies. Quite a feat considering it’s only January 23.

I love trying new recipes, especially international recipes. I was thinking about food and travel (if you knew how often I thought about food and travel you’d wonder how I ever get anything done… the secret? I don’t get anything done!) Then I started thinking about the flavors of a place.

Each place has a distinct flavor. There are cooking methods used in one part of the world, that don’t exist in other parts of the world. There are herbs and spices that are always part of the local chefs repertoire that they can’t imagine making a dish without it, and other parts of the world that have never even heard of those flavors.

This all fascinates me. I’m a culture-geek in that I love to see how language grew and moved through the world. I love to see how flavors and dishes define a place, and how these flavors are now fused together. The internet can only give you so much information about a place. You can read and look at pictures all day long (believe me, I do this), but nothing gives you that sensation of “wow… this is different” like food does. The taste, the smell… the internet can’t give you that. Even dining at a local ethnic restaurant can’t do that for you. Getting down and dirty, finding the ingredients and putting time into creating a dish, it’s about as close to magic as I can imagine. It connects you through time and space the way no book will ever be able to.

So, I’m collecting recipes. If you have any, let me know!

A good cause from anti-:

Today, we are especially happy to bring you “People Got A Lotta Nerve,” the first single from Neko Case’s forthcoming album Middle Cyclone (out March 3), because for every blog that reposts the song and/or iLike user who adds it to their profile, Neko Case and ANTI- will make a cash donation to Best Friends Animal Society.

Here’s the next challenge at Dolce Pics. There really wasn’t an “issue” with the original and so I just had a lot of fun with it. I changed the opacity, darkened the background… that’s pretty much it.

ORIGINAL

My Version

Starting tomorrow (or today if you are reading this tomorrow), my Travel From Home blog will look into Brazil. Lots of fun. I changed the format a little bit. Instead of two weeks of concentration, I’m only doing one per destination. But, it’s one week of pure fun!

Fun, you ask? YES! For example, every TUESDAY I will be exploring a new dish for the destination of the moment. In my last destination, Hungary, I enjoyed the dish I prepared so much that I went on to make two more dishes from Hungary. Part of me thinks the reason I’ve made it one week instead of two is so I can try a new dish every week.

I would love if you’d join me in the dish-making fun. It really is a good way to try new recipes, be international, and it helps me, too. Helps me, you ask? Wow! You’re full of questions today. Yes. It helps me because now I get to read different variations of a dish… without having to make the different variations myself. I’d love to see vegan, or chicken-only, or a healthy adaptation of everything I make. But, I’m just too lazy to do that all myself.

Let’s see. Where else have I added fun?

Art Inspiration. I’ll be doing a round-up of art inspiration weekly and hope to make a project of it, too. That’s happening on Thursdays. And, I’m also going to do a design section. The design section may seem similar to the art inspiration, but it’s not. In fact, it’s completely different. It’s so fun. And I don’t even do the design information on the Travel From Home blog. Nope. I do it over at ofifteen. So, please check it out.

So, that’s it.

If you are interested in contributing a post with a certain perspective (music, a story of a trip you made to the destination…) to travel from home (or join in the Travel From Home Food Challenge (where we have fun chowing down on food from other places)). Let me know in the comments or send me an email!

I’ve been looking for something like this online and I’m glad I found it. Over at Dolce Pics there seems to be a photo challenge. They provide the photo, your process, post the image and send the link to them. It’s great to see what everyone has done. Here’s the before from Dolce Pics:

And here’s my edited version:

I cropped, attempted to remove some of the inside of the car reflection and added some more poles. And I turned it to black and white. I don’t know why.

Anyway, I can’t wait to see the next challenge. If you want to join or see what other’s have done go to the comments section of the original post!

Over at my other blog, I posted a small craft project I did.

Here’s a picture:

There’s more explanation of it on the other site.

What else?

I have started working part-time for a limited time, so posts may not be as frequent as they have been in the past.

I’m still trying to get better at my photography and though there are a million great blogs that I read that talk about photography, I just can’t seem to do it right. I need a book, and would love your recommendation.

I just booked my next trip, which will be in about three weeks and will be to the Chicago and Michigan area. I’m extremely excited… I’ve never been to Chicago.

That’s all. How are you?

When I was in seventh grade I had to do a science project. After much thinking I settled on my hypothesis that was something along the lines of: “Which perfume lasts the longest?” I sprayed different scents in different price points on a cotton ball and then put each ball in it’s own ziploc bag and put the bags in a drawer in my room. When I remembered I would sniff each cotton ball and write down my conclusions. My findings were pretty inconclusive. One did seem to have as strong a scent as it did when I first put it in the bag, but to be honest, I probably just said that about the most expensive perfume anyway. I do remember writing that the results would be different if the perfume was on skin, because it would react differently to skin than it does to cotton balls in bags.

I realized two things about this experiment. One, which I realized as I was giving my presentation to my class, was that I am not a scientist. The second realization came just five minutes ago. Perfume stays on cotton balls for a long time > cotton balls take up very little room > cotton balls aren’t heavy (even when soaked with perfume)> cotton balls don’t break. All these conclusions lead to the result that I would think someone who is as obsessed with packing lightly and doing scientific projects on perfume and cotton balls should have realized years ago. But, I had to go to one of my favorite blogs to find this out. Soak cotton balls in perfume and pack the cotton balls for your trip. So simple (the tip). So clueless (me).

Oh and this post is my 200th.

Do you want to hear a secret? Sure you do.

Fortunately, I have quite a few secrets to share with you today.

First, I recently realized that I don’t like adding pictures to my blog posts. Shhh… don’t tell anyone. This wasn’t a random realization, but more of a pondering of what would make me more happy in life and that led to me acknowledging that I like to be good at things. While I take fine travel photos, I don’t take decent every day photos. Regardless, I don’t like editing, cropping, saving, uploading… it’s too much. And I do prefer to have something to say.

When I post pictures, I spend all my energy on the images that I can’t even think anymore. Sometimes what I want to say doesn’t have a picture that should go with the words and still make sense.

I could post other people’s pics, but I’d rather just link to them or favorite them on flickr. When I see something on Etsy I like, I just favorite it and then it shows up in that little box on the left column of this blog. Pressing a button and having it appear right where I would’ve put it is so much better than going through the adding-a-picture-to-my-blog-motions.

I know it’s so much more fun to have pictures on blogs. That takes me to my next secret.

I have not banned pictures on this blog. I am just not going to stress about it.

Third secret: I was talking to a friend today, a professional photographer friend. We decided it that we hate it when non-professional photographers have professional photography equipment, ie. a pimped out camera.

Fourth secret: I often contradict my own feelings. As much as I hate it when people do this, I (a definite non-professional photographer) want to own America’s Next Top Camera. I also yell at the person behind me running the red-light with me.

Over at my other blog I posted some great Hungarian Art history and inspiration. I’d love it if you checked it out!