One of the loveliest benefits of spending time in Portugal was the proximity to some of my fellow Canadian friends. One such friend, Anne, was working in London for the first half of 2015. Before she headed back to Canada, she took a quick jaunt to Alte, where we spent a few days enjoying the sunshine.
Between her travels and my travels, Anne and I don’t get to see each other too often. And yet, we’ve been friends since we were 11, and that means that when do get together, it’s like we were never apart. I was acutely reminded of this when she came to visit us in Portugal. With Kevin laid up in bed, suffering through his recent implants surgery, Anne and I had plenty of time to explore Alte together. Activities included long walks, sitting in the sun, and drinking espressos, going for a trail run, and talking constantly.
Despite being in pain and needing rest, Kevin was also generous enough to drive us for a wonderful sunset/dinner combination. Kevin is an outstanding host, who puts quite a bit of thought into showing guests the very best of the Algarve, so we were lucky that he got out of bed to entertain us. The next day we spent laying out on the beach with several of our Portuguese friends, which is a classic Algarve experience. In retrospect, it was asking way too much of Kevin to take us around like this. Never have I regretted so much my inability to drive standard/manual.
In any case, Anne’s visit was a lot of fun. With Kevin’s injuries/dental work, our time in Portugal was a bizarre combination of amazing and stressful. It was so relaxing for me to have one of my oldest friends check in help me review all the things that were on my mind. Moral of the story? Never underestimate the the goodness your friends can bring to your own mental health. With this experience in mind, I was so stoked when Kevin’s best friend Mark came to visit a couple of months later – and for that, I actually did learn to drive standard. There’ll be much more on that adventure soon 🙂
Anne and I were having too much fun to take many photos, but I’ve snagged a few of Anne’s from Facebook, which you can see below:
Checking out the view of Alte, from above
Enjoying breakfast in the sunshine, in Avo Olimpia’s backyard
It’s American Thanksgiving, so it’s as good a time as any to write about our adventures during the Canadian Thanksgiving weekend.
A couple of years ago, I went to Ottawa and spent Thanksgiving weekend with Kevin. While there, I ate the most delicious Thanksgiving dinner that I’d ever had. Since we’re back in Grimsby, room-mating it up with my parents, we cried “dibs” pretty immediately on preparing Thanksgiving dinner. My mom was away for a wedding that weekend, so we had free reign over the kitchen. Of course, there were some other antics afoot before we got the oven running.
We were making our Thanksgiving dinner on Sunday, so on Friday I set out to buy a turkey. I’d attempted to purchase a turkey on Thursday, to no avail. Apparently everyone buys their turkey at least 2 weeks early, and I had missed the memo. On Friday morning, Kevin told me “go to Lococo’s, they’ll have a 10kg Butterball for sure”. With Thursday’s empty turkey freezers in mind, I drove my parents to the airport on Friday, and proceeded to spend 3 hours driving all around Mississauga and Oakville in search of a 10kg+ Butterball turkey. I could barely find a 7kg turkey, let alone a butterball, so I began to panic. I bought the first 10kg turkey I could find, Butterball be damned.
Then, to stock up on veggies and stuffing and all that other Thanksgiving goodness, I went to Lococo’s. As Kevin had promised, they had multiple Butterballs over 10kg. So what did I do? I bought one. As of today, we still have an extra turkey just waiting it out in our basement freezer.
Double turkey purchases aside, Thanksgiving weekend in Grimsby involves just one tradition: Attending the Balls Falls Craft Show. So before we got to cooking, Kevin agreed to indulge me and attend the craft show. Balls Falls is a conservation area in Vineland, ON, that also happens to be the home of several old/historic buildings. It’s a wedding hotspot these days, which makes sense because it’s quite lovely.
Fortunately, the craft show is not just about crafts. There are several historical displays that showcase 20th century technologies. There was also a “raptor” display, where we saw some really cool birds, most importantly, a Bald Eagle!!!! The next best thing to a Bald Eagle was seeing a genuine Military Band Organ from 1911. Still in full working order, this was a pretty cool site to see. It was restored and maintained by a gentleman named Captain John Leonard, who toured it all around the great lakes regions, in the United States and Canada. Though Captain John has since passed away, his wife and and his friend continue this great tradition, bringing a taste of early 20th century musical technology to the masses.
Here’s a quick video of what the inner workings of the machine, as seen through the back, looks like:
Surprisingly, we got quite into the whole craft scene, and went through to see every vendor there. While I’d planned to check out the festival for 30 minutes, once we saw the food tent, we got sucked in, and ended up spending more than 2 hours crafting about. I’ve been to this festival in some terrible weather, so the bright sunny day was a real treat.
The next day, guided by some tips from Gordon Ramsay, we embarked on our Thanksgiving cooking extravaganza. With Kevin leading, me sous-chefing, and my brothers assisting, it was a pretty big production. I can honestly say that we could not have pulled this off without the help of Tyler and Kristopher, who helped with all the preparation, and made dessert. Tyler also ran point on serving the wine, which is essential for family holidays. We kicked off dinner by toasting with a glass of sparkling wine for everyone at the table, then proceeded to dig in.
The menu included:
A 10 kg turkey, perfectly prepared
Garlic mashed potatoes
Green beans with bacon
3 types of gravy
Stovetop Stuffing (yes, from the box – don’t mess with a classic!)
Wine, wine, and more wine (all from Niagara’s 20 Valley Region, of course)
And that’s it. The secret to a great Thanksgiving weekend? Wine and teamwork. Hopefully Christmas will be similar entertaining! Check out the various photos of our Canadian Thanksgiving weekend, below:
A steam engine display at the craft show!
checking out the natural landscape – that’s “Balls Falls” behind me.
Standing in front the Military Band Organ
classic!
One of the many great vendors we met at the festival
In front of the big barn at Balls Falls
The dessert table. Cookies made by Tyler & Kristopher.
Turkey on the table, “resting”, as per Gordon Ramsay’s instructions
If you know my family at all, you know that my brothers are a bit infamous for being picky eaters. Because they’re picky, it’s rare for them to be forced to try new things. In fact, when they were coming here, the number one question people kept asking me what “oh my gosh, what are they going to EAT???”
They survived 10 days here just fine, and they managed to eat (or at least try eating) a variety of things, including:
Vietnamese Pho
Indian food – butter chicken, palak paneer, chana masala, naan,
Khmer food (including the national dish – Fish Amok)
Khmer fusion food from a local NGO restaurant, Friends
The best pizza and ribs in Phnom Penh, at Brooklyn Pizza
Breakfast (pancakes, eggs, bacon, etc)
Fruit shakes
Western Food, served almost everywhere
Ice cream (and lots of it!)
In particular, we developed a bit of an obsession with Swensen’s ice cream. Swensen’s is an ice cream chain originally founded in San Francisco. It’s really shilling Americana, so much so that we had thought it was a chain from Singapore, but according to Wikipedia, it’s actually owned by a conglomerate headquartered in Markham, ON (apparently Burger King isn’t the only corporation that knows about Canada’s low corporate taxes). In any case, Swensen’s has a sizeable presence in the Asian markets, but sometimes that presents its own challenges, but also leads to hilarity.
In Siem Reap, we’d seen a sign for Swensen’s, but couldn’t find it on Google Maps. Being North American, I thought “hey! I’ll just check the Swensen’s website!”. Ha! On the Swensen’s website, selecting “Cambodia” opens an email window for you to send an email to the Cambodian franchise owner to find out where they have locations. Not exactly the instant information that I was looking for. Anyways, we ended up finding it by accident, around the corner from our hotel.
On our first trip there, Kevin and Kristopher were dismayed to learn that they were unable to make a few choice desserts due to lack of supplies (certain chocolate ice creams, and also maltesers). Of course, Kevin solved the latter issue by going to the grocery story, 10 feet away, and buying a pack of maltesers. Much laughter ensued.
As for our expensive Italian food – after we returned from Siem Reap, I asked (re: instructed) Tyler to choose a place for us to eat dinner the next night. Kevin and I had been doing all the research and making all the decisions, so I figured it would be good for Tyler to get a taste of that. After some research, he recommended we go to Do Forni, an Italian restaurant at Sofitel, a top Phnom Penh hotel. TripAdvisor said it was 2 dollar signs, so away we went. It was very much very fancy. It was maybe 2 dollar signs (out of 5) by Toronto standards, but it was definitely the most expensive restaurant we’ve been to in Phnom Penh (that is, a dish cost between $15 and $30). That said, the food was delicious (we had steak, lobster ravioli, pizza, carpaccio, wine) and the service was also very good. And of course, the restaurant itself was beautiful. Tyler was generous enough to pick up the tab, proving once again that he is the superior sibling in this mix.
the stories that I'm telling. 
