На сегодняшний день у меня здесь набралось уже изрядное количество рецептов, а поскольку останавливаться я не собираюсь, то поняла, что пора уже делать список рецептов, абы как-то упростить поиски. Новые рецепты буду сразу добавлять к списку.


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Tags: разное-вкусное

Спровоцировано это одним небольшим инцидентом, произошедшим недавно. Один человек, с которым я виртуально знакома много-много лет, высказал обиду по поводу того, что я его до сих пор не «зафрендила» и отказал мне по этому поводу от своего журнала. Чтобы и впредь не вызывать подобного рода обид, я решила написать здесь о своем отношении к ЖЖ вообще и системе «френдирования» в частности.

Основная цель моего журнала, это задокументировать некоторые рецепты и прочую информацию для себя, родных и друзей. Мой журнал открыт для всех, у меня нет «подзамочных» постов, так что если мои посты будут интересны и полезны кому-то еще, я буду этому только рада.

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Tags: рассуждения о разном

Next day we got up early, had small breakfast in our hotel room and walked to the ferry where our car was already waiting for us. Our hotel was located just 5 minute walk away from the ferry.
Ferry ride was very smooth. In spite of occasional showers, water was practically still and wind was barely there. Usually it is difficult to be outside since wind is so strong that you feel that you are about to be blown away. This time it was very comfortable and I would even say warm outside which felt strange considering that temperature was in low fifties.


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Tags: english, hotels, pacific north-west, Америка, путешествия, рестораны

Next day May 18 we went toward our last stop on Vancouver Island – Victoria, the capital of British Columbia.


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Tags: english, hotels, pacific north-west, Канада, путешествия, рестораны, сад

Finally we reached the Ucluelet. Ucluelet and Tofino are two small (population 1500 and 2000 people) communities on opposite sides of what is known as a Long Beach. During tourist season population swells to several thousands since both places are extremely popular with surfers, whale and bear watchers and fisherman. In addition, some people come here for winter storm watching. Both places have extremely picturesque location that is so beautiful that it almost feels unreal. They are surrounded by riffs, small islands and rocks.

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Tags: english, hotels, pacific north-west, seafood, Канада, звери, путешествия, рестораны

From Stanley Park we drove directly to the Horseshoe Bay where we took a ferry to Nanaimo on Vancouver Island. It was 1.5 hour ride on a ferry crossing gorgeous Georgia Strait that separates Vancouver Island and the mainland coast of British Columbia, Canada.




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Tags: english, hotels, pacific north-west, Канада, водопады, звери, путешествия, рестораны

We were able to make it (barely) to the Fish House in Stanley Park and had a great dinner there. May be it was early Mother Day dinner but maybe we will have another one tomorrow. We had their house soup (tomatoes, coconut milk and halibut) and oysters motoyaki (baked with wasabi mayonnaise, pickled ginger & black sesame) for starters. Then Alex had cedar planked arctic char & pink salmon pink salmon with creamed spinach, roasted onion pudding and fig reduction and I had lamb sirloin with warm quinoa, feta & mint, Moroccan carrot salad and slow roasted tomato. Both dishes were absolutely perfect. While lamb dish was definitely implying Middle Eastern influence, in reality it tasted more Indian than Moroccan which I actually liked. When I mentioned this to our waitress, she said that one of their cooks is Indian so it is quite likely that he used the spices of his region. In any case, I liked this restaurant even more than I did during our previous visits.
http://www.fishhousestanleypark.com/index.html

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Tags: english, hotels, pacific north-west, Канада, путешествия, рестораны, сад

While we were taking Mt. Adams loop, we decided to get some local cheese from very small artisan creamery (Cascadia Creamery) at Trout Lake. We read about the in local magazine and being cheese lovers wanted to buy it. It was said that their cheese is sold in couple local stores. The very first one in Trout Lake’s General Store was out of it. So was second place - Dickies in Bingen. Luckily for us The Farm Stand in Hood River had two varieties of Cascadia’s cheese - the Glacier Blue and the Sleeping Beauty. We already tried the Glasier Blue and it is out of this world. Looking forward to trying the Sleeping Beauty.
http://www.cascadiacreamery.com/about_cascadia_creamery.html
Later we had dinner at Brian's Pourhouse restaurant in Hood River. Food was still decent as during our previous visits but service was pretty poor. Our waitress was totally absent minded and did not ever care enough to apologize for her mishaps which were too many to list here. In addition I was disappointed with my main dish. It was their special steak with red wine sauce, morel mushrooms and asparagus. I never tried morels before and was looking forward `to finally experience their taste. Well, I did not this time. While steak itself was perfect – juicy and tender and sauce was rich and tasty the taste of both morels and asparagus was unrecognizable. They were stewed in the wine sauce and tasted just like the sauce itself. What a pity – to use such delicately tasting ingredients and mask their taste completely!
Next day, May 10th, we headed toward Portland taking our time driving along Historic Columbia River Highway (Hwy 30) visiting several waterfalls. Most of the waterfalls were accessible via very short and easy trails but couple of them required longer hike which we chose not to do this time. So we visited Horse Tail Falls, Multnomah Falls, Wahkeena Falls and Sheppard Dell Falls. Well, ‘we’ was slightly exaggerated since Alex went only to a couple of shortest hikes. His excuse was ‘I’ve seen it before’. Unlike him, I am completely obsessed with a sight of fast running water and cannot get enough of the waterfalls. This is the best time of the year to visit waterfalls. Due to the melting snow in the mountains that feed the creeks that form the waterfalls they are at their fullest and strongest capacity. And yet weather is already warm and sunny enough to enjoy them and to take good pictures.


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Tags: english, hotels, pacific north-west, Америка, водопады, звери, путешествия, рестораны

I am creating these notes specifically for family and friends and not all of them can read Russian. So all these notes that are are published just as they are written in hotels on my laptop will be written in English.
May 9 – It is the end of the third day of our trip and so far we absolutely love it. We made it to all the way to Columbia River Gorge.
We left home early Sunday morning. At the beginning of our trip we visited our friends Pavel and Natasha Tikhomirov in West Sacramento and got chance to see their new work. They keep on getting better and better. What is very interesting that while they work side by side, their styles are diverging more and more. Their website has nice representation of their work:
http://www.tikhomirovp.com/
After spending almost an hour with them, we started driving toward our Sunday destination – Ashland, Oregon. We took Hwy 99 instead of slightly shorter but very boring Hwy 5. This was one of our longest distance days - 382 miles and this was another reason why we wanted to take more interesting route. When we take Hwy 99, we always visit Chico. While it is located ‘in a middle of nowhere’, it is surprisingly lovely and green university town with population over 86000 without counting almost 16000 students at California State University, the second-oldest campus in the twenty-three-campus California State University system.
Our next stop was near Mt. Shasta which was completely covered by snow. It is so very grand that I simply cannot resist photographing it every time we drive by it.


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Tags: english, hotels, pacific north-west, Америка, водопады, звери, путешествия, рестораны

Salsa Cruda в переводе с испанского - это просто «сырой соус», и является в помидорном ее варианте самым простым, но, тем не менее, очень вкусным вариантом классической мексиканской сальсы.
Готовлю я ее достаточно часто, особенно летом, когда у нас изобилие вкусных и ароматных помидоров. Но, тем не менее, даже из не самых вкусных помидоров сальса получается очень даже съедобной. Я бы даже сказала, что это оптимальнй вариант использования пресноватых на вкус парниковых помидоров.

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Tags: Мексика, помидоры, сальса, соус