Author Archives: The Old Wolf

Breakfast around the world

Posted on by The Old Wolf

Reblogged from a post at Imgur.

Note: Comments over at Reddit have been a lot of “No, that’s not it you moron” and such like. I’ve experienced a lot of these, and can vouch for a number of them, including the USA, Australia, Germany, Turkey, Full English, Italy, France, Portugal, Canada, and Egypt. Of course, what you may be having in your pensione may be entirely different from what the folks upstairs are having in their apartment, but I can tell you these are pretty representative.

Full English

Full English

Sausages, bacon, eggs, grilled tomato, mushrooms, bread, black pudding and baked beans. Knocked back with a cup of tea.

Cuba

Cuba

Usually consists of sweetened coffee with milk with a pinch of salt thrown in. The unique Cuban bread is toasted and buttered and cut into lengths to dunk in the coffee.

Poland

Poland
Known locally as Jajecznica, consists of scrambled eggs covered with slices of kielbasa and joined by two potato pancakes.

Morocco

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Usually consists of different breads with some chutney, jam, cheese or butter. They have a really delicious crumpet-style bread which they make in huge slabs for you to tear a bit off, and a semolina pancake bread called Baghir.

Portugal

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Delicious and simple, stuffed croissants and plenty of coffee served in the sun.

Australia

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Only one crucial ingredient here, Vegemite. Traveling Aussies are often found with a sneaky pot of the sticky, salty brown stuff in their backpack. Just don’t get in the Vegemite vs Marmite war – everybody knows Marmite is better, but let them have their fun.
Note: The original author is obviously touched in the head. Marmite, and Parwill, but Vegemite is the king of the yeast spreads.

Brazil

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A selection of meats, cheeses and bread is the normal breakfast fare.

Italy

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‘Cappuccino e cornetto’ aka a cappuccino and croissant.

Germany

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Wursts, local cheeses and freshly baked bread, all washed back with a strong coffee.

America

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Home made thick pancakes with bacon, syrup and blueberries.

France

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Le croissant, plain or with crushed almonds, butter, chocolate or cream., and coffee of course.

Argentina

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Usually consists of “mate” (an infusion drink made with leaves of “yerba”) or dulce de leche with “facturas,”a croissant-like typical pastry.

Canada

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Perogies are boiled, baked or fried dumplings made from unleavened dough and traditionally stuffed with potato filling, sauerkraut, ground meat, cheese, or fruit. Then you’ve got some sausages and toast to mop it all up.
Note: That, or they go to Tim Hortons

Mexico

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The delightful plate above consists of beef tips, chilequiles and other assorted goodies eaten in Manzanillo. Nachos, cheese and beans always feature heavily and a delicious, spicy breakfast is the norm.

Thailand

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Usually consists of some meaty treat dropped in a semolina/porridge mixture. What you see above is pork porridge. It features Chinese doughnuts, beansprouts, pork intestine stuffed with peppery pork mince, sliced pork heart, stomach slivers and blood pudding. A bit more interesting than toast and jam anyway.

Bolivia

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Saltenas are a bit like empanadas crossed with Cornish pasties. They’re the traditional option for a Bolivian breakfast and usually filled with meat and vegetables, and slightly sweetened with sugar.

Egypt

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The breakfast of choice here is Foul Muddamas. It’s made from fava beans, chickpeas, garlic and lemon. Above you’ll see the dish topped with olive oil, cayenne, tahini sauce, a hard boiled egg, and some diced green veggies.

Note: it’s pronounced “fool”

Japan

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What do you mean you’ve never had tofu for breakfast? It’s a popular choice in Japan, along with fish and rice. Soak it in soya sauce and you’ve got yourself one delicious, and semi-healthy breakfast.

China

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A lot like lunch and dinner in China. Expect noodles, rice, sticky coated chicken and fried veggies.

Mongolia

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Generally consists of boiled mutton with lots of fat and flour and maybe some dairy products or rice. In western Mongolia they add variety to their diets with horsemeat.

Pakistan

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In Pakistan you’ll get Aloo Paratha for your breakfast. It’ s an Indian unleavened flatbread made by pan frying, wholewheat dough on a tava. The dough contains ghee and the bread is usually stuffed with vegetables. It’s best eaten with butter, chutney or some other spicy sauce. It’s not uncommon to roll it up and dip it in your tea.

Estonia

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Curd cheese on a wheat bloomer – known locally as ‘cheese on toast’. The creamy topping can be supplemented with ricotta or fromage fraiche instead, if you prefer.

Venezuela

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Empenadas are the order of the day. Fill the little pastries with fresh cheese, minced meat or any combination of veggies and beans.

Ghana

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The most popular breakfast item in this African country is waakye. It’s basically rice cooked in beans and is found at all the street stalls in Ghana.

Turkey

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The full Turkish treatment usually consists of a few varieties of cheese, butter, olives, eggs, tomatoes, cucumbers, jam, honey, and spicy meat.
The Old Wolf is now hungry.

Happy Anniversary

Posted on by The Old Wolf

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Three years ago today, in Palmyra, New York, the most wonderful lady in the world became my bride.

The subsequent three years have been “interesting times” in the “Chinese Curse” sense of the word[1], but I would not trade them for anything. Among other things, we worked for the Census, made new friends, fixed up and sold a home, bought a home, had my elderly mother with us for a year until she moved to a nursing home, endured some injuries, got chickens, raised gardens, suffered through underemployment and discouraging job hunts, held yard sales, endured night-time work schedules, traveled around the country (never rent a Budget truck unless you have a death wish), had children come and go and come and go, painted the house (halfway done!), installed a bathroom in our basement, made countless trips to Savers and Deseret Industries to get rid of stuff (and, unfortunately, pick up more), adopted cats, cooked wonderful things to eat, learned new skills, hosted knitting nights…  and done our best to love, honor and build one another up.

I wouldn’t exchange a minute of it.

Both of us were married before, and we’re happy to have “gotten it right” the second time around. (Cue Ol’ Blue Eyes here.)

To the love of my life: Thank you for three wonderful years – may the next forever be even more amazing.

The Old Wolf has spoken.

[1] It is said that an old Chinese curse intones, “May you live in interesting times.” I am fully aware that no such curse exists, but it’s a great way of expressing an idea. Hush.

The Ultimate Portal

Posted on by The Old Wolf

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I can still hear the jingle from one of our local bookstores. It’s cheesy, but it stuck in my head, and I remember it because it’s so true.

♫ When you open a book from Deseret Book,
You open a wonderful door!
It leads beyond the things you see
On a journey of discovery… ♫

Books were my best friends growing up. I was small and introverted as a child, and books were wonderful, thrilling… and safe.

I cut my reading teeth on “Peanuts” at age 5, devoured books by Richard Scarry and Virginia Lee Burton, Gelett Burgess, Munro Leaf and many others; graduated to things by A.A. Milne and E.B. White and Robert Louis Stevenson; read The Hobbit in grade school (actually it was read to us), and stayed up all night for several nights running reading The Lord of the Rings in 1965 when it came out, the first time in my life I was unable to put a book down.

I wept through Saroyan’s The Human Comedy and Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath, and devoured my father’s collection of science fiction anthologies, which I later inherited, and still treasure. In college I became enamored of the realists – Twain, James, and Howells, among others, and although I choked on Thomas Hardy in high school, I shouted with glee on almost every page of The Mayor of Casterbridge when I re-read it (for pleasure!) four years later. Orwell, Huxley, Asimov, Salinger, Clarke, Camus, Sartre, St. Exupéry, Victor Hugo, Proust – oh, those long sentences! – and so many, many others… the list goes on forever.

Reading gave me a love of language, both my own and that of others. Some of my favorite examples of beautiful writing I have shared before. And the journeys I took in my imagination long before I ever set foot outside of my own country took me to the edges of the universe and back. To quote O. Henry again, from the aforementioned “A Municipal Report:”

“On the surface,” said Azalea Adair. “I have traveled many times around the world in a golden airship wafted on two wings – print and dreams. I have seen (on one of my imaginary tours) the Sultan of Turkey bowstring with his own hands one of his wives who had uncovered her face in public. I have seen a man in Nashville tear up his theatre tickets because his wife was going out with her face covered – with rice powder. In San Francisco’s Chinatown I saw the slave girl Sing Yee dipped slowly, inch by inch, in boiling almond oil to make her swear she would never see her American lover again. She gave in when the boiling oil had reached three inches above her knee. At a euchre party in East Nashville the other night I saw Kitty Morgan cut dead by seven of her schoolmates and lifelong friends because she had married a house painter. The boiling oil was sizzling as high as her heart; but I wish you could have seen the fine little smile that she carried from table to table. Oh, yes, it is a humdrum town. Just a few miles of red brick houses and mud and lumber yards.”

Azalea Adair knew: books are the ultimate portals.

Portal Cake 2

 

And there’s so much more than cake to be had.

The Old Wolf has spoken.

Anyone know furniture?

Posted on by The Old Wolf

Anyone know furniture? This old laquered cabinet served as my mom’s bar for decades. The laquer is now chipping away – the left side looks a lot like the front – but I have no idea if it’s salvageable, or worth restoring – or should just be repaired, sanded, stained, and used as a functional antique. Input welcome!

Cabinet1

Cabinet2