When Tomiko and I went to the November Annex Flea, we found Stephanie Ibbitson’s St. Lawrence Luggage to be amazingly beautiful and useful. Crafted from Alberta buffalo hide, the barrel messenger bags we saw were buttery soft and supple yet made from extremely thick leather. The backpack was also made from Alberta buffalo hide, and the […]
Author: Meinhilde
Our New Year’s in Pretty River Valley
Every year for the past seven years, we have been spending our New Year’s Eves in Pretty River Valley in rural Ontario. As you can see, it’s in what’s called the ‘snow belt’ of Ontario. We snowshoe and visit the reindeer, horses and chickens, help make the appetizers, spend the evening playing Balderdash, and then […]
Easy Creamy Vanilla Custard
When our mom was a little girl in rural Germany, one of her chores was to make her older brother vanilla pudding after school. He was three years older so I don’t know why he couldn’t make it himself – it was so easy since the custard she made was from a powdered mix […]
The Year in Books: January with My Paris Kitchen by David Lebovitz
My Paris Kitchen: Recipes and Stories by David Lebovitz, 2014. David Lebovitz says himself that he likes reading the stories behind the recipes, and this is how his new cookbook is formatted. I can read through this cookbook like a novel, and the tales about friends, food vendors, provinces in France, and treasured ingredients are even […]
Happy Hour: Ponche de Creme
Ponche de Creme, or Ponche Creme, is a Trinidadian Christmas drink that is similar to eggnog. Before last Christmas, Ryan told me about a creamy drink made with sweetened condensed milk and rum – sounds pretty good to me! Then we visited his parents and his dad whipped this up. It is rummy, creamy, spicy, a […]