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4894. thoughtful - 7/24/2013 2:57:42 PM AC from Passau to Vienna, the bike trail looked fabulous....all along the river so reasonably flat and the scenery is phenomenal...it was definitely a popular thing to do, but not at all crowded as to spoil the effect. I think there are boats that go along with you so you can stay comfortably aboard at night while you bike during the day. Or I'm sure they run land versions too where they truck your stuff to the next hotel. 4895. Trillium - 7/25/2013 12:42:46 AM Recent visitors from Germany describe cleanup work in the little riverside town where they lived in earlier years.
They said that the floods are expected, and so basements and ground floors are tiled for easier cleanup. Things that mustn't get wet were stored on upper floors.
Got me thinking about my damp basement and what it might look like with the right tile work? 4896. judithathome - 7/25/2013 5:46:21 AM Probably very good...and easy to mop whether there's been a flood or not! 4897. judithathome - 7/25/2013 5:48:22 AM I have a little hit, however...we live in a 50s ranch style house and had the kitchen countertops done over from yallow and green tile to white tile...with black grout. That was my idea...the tiler thought it was genius. 4898. thoughtful - 7/29/2013 2:17:44 PM If you're serving dark beer, put it on a red table cloth. Yum!
Bratislava:
 4899. alistairconnor - 7/31/2013 12:39:00 PM Oh ah mmm!
Beer. It seems to be a north/south thing in Europe : no country with a Mediterranean coastline has decent beer (or more accurately, none of the mass-market beers are any good). I will be getting a fix of the good stuff at the end of August in Munich (my nephew who lives there is having a wedding party), on the way through to Croatia (where I won't be expecting much of the beer, but I'm pretty sure the beaches will be better than Germany). 4900. thoughtful - 7/31/2013 2:24:18 PM So, on another forum I'm in a big argument about US food sucks....after having been to E Europe and finding all the produce tasting so fresh and with so much flavor, including delicious tomatoes, I'm finding US produce significantly lacking. And of course getting ridiculous pushback. For instance, people who say they raise their own organic veggies, and chickens and raise their own beef, and their food doesn't "suck". Or saying they take the time to hunt down good farmers at good farmers markets. Well duh! I've tried suggesting several times that they aren't experiencing the food that 98% of America "enjoys" and they should try it some time. Somehow, they aren't getting it that, if they have to go through all that effort to get fresh food, then QED, there's something wrong with the US food supply. They also don't seem aware that there are many areas of the country and inner cities where even supermarkets are not an option, let alone fruit and veggie stands. For the most part, I'm also finding that people who have been to Europe agree, and people who haven't, don't.
What's your experience? 4901. webfeet - 7/31/2013 2:42:08 PM Excellent voyage, thoughtful. Ive worked up quite an appetite reading the posts and appreciate the commentary and neat pictures.
Concerning the food, it is lamentably true. While a handful of people, like my sister and husband, who live in Amherst and Northhampton have a bounty of farmers markets to choose from, most of us who live in cities have to do without. Even our green market with high quality food does mot come close to the flavor of what they have here in France.
I ate a Monoprix cucumber yesterday and was just amazed. It was a 'madeleine' moment ; I forgot what a real, real cucumber tasted like. So, even here, supermarket food is much much better. But now we're in the Alps abd I am almost embarrassed to write how fresh, totally bio all the produce is, because belle mere knows this ailing farmer, Dede, who sells her like a blackmarket stash of potatoes zucchini, blah balh...
We ate sour cherries yesterday from his tree and I almost fainted.
There is such a gross inequality in food! 4902. thoughtful - 7/31/2013 3:39:04 PM Thanks webbie, I was sure it wasn't just me. 4903. alistairconnor - 7/31/2013 4:31:09 PM However it is completely possible to eat sucky produce in France. When I buy fruit and veg from the supermarket it's generally very blah. I prefer to buy from producers, not resellers, at the market, unless I really need something that's out of season locally. My favourite supplier is a guy whose farm is near where I lived for 20 years, and his produce is EXACTLY like what I used to grow myself. He also supplies raw milk, and meat (beef, veal, sometimes lamb, always poultry) when they have sacrificed a beast.
I would really prefer to skip tomatoes completely for 8 or 9 months of the year, rather than eat the tomato-like entities that come out of factories in Holland or Spain.
Oh and I try not to buy anything from Spain (your Monoprix cucumber, Bibiche?) because it's produced in worse than third world conditions, illegal immigrant workers in functional slavery. 4904. alistairconnor - 7/31/2013 4:32:56 PM Current facebook meme :
"The key to healthy eating? Avoid any food that has a TV commercial." 4905. arkymalarky - 7/31/2013 4:59:52 PM Haha!
I'm really lucky to live in a state that can grow pretty much anything, so we have access to a lot of good fresh fruits and vegetables at good prices. But we never buy them at Walmart expecting to get anything that tastes good. We just grab for convenience sometimes. Unfortunately the grocery stores not much better. At our Colorado place we shop at sn organic coop which has really good food, but its expensive. The Kroger / King sooper in Boulder also has excellent produce. 4906. thoughtful - 7/31/2013 6:49:03 PM Love that meme, AC! 4907. webfeet - 8/1/2013 10:46:38 PM Yes, single out the cucumber. I stand by that cucumber. But I can't make every trip to the supermarket politucal!
There is always someone who eats more sustaunably than you. Actually, the one who is eating better than all of us, here in th Alps, is--the fox. He just.broke into the farmer's hen house and devoured eight chickens, the coq, and possibly a duck. All that was left were feathers.
There is a fly in my hair and now I must go to sleep. Ah, la campagne... 4908. alistairconnor - 8/2/2013 12:42:51 PM Well that's political too dear -- my favourite definition of the modern liberal economy is "a free fox in a free henhouse". 4909. vonKreedon - 8/2/2013 4:44:17 PM AC - I suspect that your bar for sucky is set much higher from being in France than ours for being in the US. In 2000 my family and I spent about three months in France and marveled at how much better the produce, meat, cheese, and of course wines, are in French supermarkets than in US supermarkets. Of course, the food at the markets is even better. The quality of taste of French foods is to me a strong argument for French agricultural protectionism. 4910. webfeet - 8/2/2013 8:39:11 PM Saint Emilion Bordeaux grand vin 4 euro 90 centimes. The Alps is heaven.
They are totally protected, von Kreedon. How else can these cherished guardians of french gastronomy survive with hail storms in july, foxes and wolves banquetting on their livestock and storms that ruin their wheat and apple crops. You can't live selling discs of fromage to tourists.
But you can have sucky, even in France. There is a supermarche called Dia here that sells buy the bulk which belle mere says is pretty bad. But who knows who shops there--maybe the ski stations. The marche was crowded today. In Nyc, I can't get parmesan, pecorino and gorgonzola like the kind I ate today (nor fresh ravioli). Face it, french bumpkins eat better than cosmopolitans. Although, none of it was inexpensive, unlike the wine.
But Ill take a french supermarket any day over one in the U.S. 4911. webfeet - 8/2/2013 8:52:29 PM Forget the produce and the little Italian who rolls his van filled with fromage from Turino to france for a moment. Think of the bi-annual sales. Every January and July the markdowns keep the French chic for petit prix. These are state regulated, seasonal markdowns. A totally chic, socialist, fell fed country. 4912. webfeet - 8/2/2013 8:52:59 PM Thats well fed. And non, its not due to the Saint Emilion. 4913. arkymalarky - 8/5/2013 5:35:22 PM Man it's quiet around here.
Can anyone offer some basic instructions/tips on cooking with a wok?
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