Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World

I’ve never been a huge fan of cakes. I’m not sure why. Maybe it’s because cake is harder to carry around in your jacket pocket than say, a cookie. Maybe it’s because baking a cake is as much about creating something pleasant to the eye as it is about something pleasing to the stomach. Maybe the stakes are just too high with cake.

If, like me, you lack in cake confidence it might be best to shoot for the cup variety. Jenni picked up Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World by Isa Chandra Moskowitz, of The Post Punk Kitchen  when she went vegan in January. Jack and I used it to make: chocolate, vanilla, and apple cider cupcakes for his and Harry’s 7th birthday. They turned out fantastic. My niece said they were the best cupcakes she’d ever eaten.

Kurt Wallander Mysteries – Henning Mankell

Ystad in southern Sweden might seem an unlikely setting for a series of murder mysteries. But there seems to be more than enough crime, crumby weather, and personal demons to keep Inspector Kurt Wallander busy. Henning Mankell’s troubled detective has been on the job for nearly 20 years. He’s spawned 13 novels and numerous films and television shows, including the award winning BBC series starring Kenneth Branagh featured below. I was probably as intrigued at reading something set in my family’s home province of Skane as anything. But I’ve enjoyed reading the first three novels in the series: Faceless Killers, The Dogs of Riga, and The White Lioness. Cool stuff, if a little grim.

In a Sun Burned Country / Dark Star Safari

 

I’ve been spending more time at the office than I would like this summer. (Some summers are like that.) So, to while away what little free time I have, I’ve been catching up on my reading. At the moment I’m rereading In a Sunburned Country by Bill Bryson and Dark Star Safari by Paul Theroux. You’ll find both on World Hum’s ‘100 Most Celebrated Travel Books of all Time,’ which is a good list, as lists go, and worth checking out. Theroux and Bryson are both masterful writers and storytellers albeit with decidedly different temperaments. Both find themselves traveling the length and breadth of vast, southern continents, through countries with histories of colonialism but with decidedly different presents. 

It’s hard to look at modern, bustling Sydney and think of the former penal colony  it once was, or the seemingly endless list of life threatening flora and fauna native to the bush. In a Sun Burned Country is entertaining and funny like all Bill Bryson books. It’s erudite, informative, and full of humor like the man himself. Bryson presents Australia as it was on the cusp of the 2000 Summer Olympics, a proud, successful, active and ambitious country in an unlikely place that rose to the challenges placed upon it.

As you might expect Dark Star Safari, also from the early 00’s, is a little more of a serious and complex affair, like the place itself, and its author. Paul Theroux was a Peace Corp volunteer in the early 1960’s, teaching English in Malawi. In Dark Star Safari he returns to Africa, now a celebrated novelist and travel writer of 60, to reflect upon what has changed and what hasn’t in the 40 years since his departure.

Theroux turns his keen and notoriously irascible eye on what he sees at ground level en route from Cairo to Capetown. His novelistic writing style is amazing as always. He provides great descriptions of the places he travels through and the people he meets in what he calls the ‘anti-Europe’ or ‘Dark Star’ that is modern Africa.

Rick Steves spoke with Theroux about his memoir on Travel with Rick Steves.

Tal Ronnen – The Conscious Cook

Jenni went vegan in January of this year and hasn’t looked back. Though I’m our primary cook, I keep bumping into her in the kitchen as she whips up seitan and imitation sausage rolls.

I still place myself firmly in the vegetarian camp. But that doesn’t mean I’m not above expanding my repertoire. Veganism continues to become more prevalent in America and around the world, and new chefs are beginning to show how you can create out of this world vegan cuisine that tastes just as good as the alternative.

The seemingly tireless, Chef Tal is one of those chefs. In this beautiful and informative cookbook Tal shares wonderful, and at times challenging, vegan recipes with the at home chef. Throughout are his recommendations on what ingredients to use and interviews with chefs and others who are creating great, vegan food. As a pitchman for Gardein , you’ll find entrees that incorporate Gardein ‘chicken’ into the recipes, like the one below.

Flavia de Luce Mysteries

Jenni picked up these great little novels last month. They’re not particularly travel related, but they were a fun read, and they might be fun to take along on your summer journeys, especially if you have a young reader along with you.

Set in 1950’s England, these award winning novels by Alan Bradley feature the crime solving skills of Flavia de Luce, an 11 year old chemistry enthusiast who always seems to find herself in the thick of things when bad things happen in the tiny village of Bishop’s Lacey.  

Surprisingly complex and suspenseful, the mysteries are filled with humor and told in Flavia’s singular voice. They have about everything you can imagine in a mystery set in post-war Britain; an aristocratic family living in a crumbling manor house, quirky servants, eccentric, gossipy villagers, bumbling police officers, and the odd dead body popping up under mysterious circumstances every so often.      

You learn a little bit more about the characters with each novel, and the fictional village of Bishop’s Lacey really comes alive. Throughout you have the indefatigable Flavia out to prove she can solve the mystery before the police can.

I believe there will be 5 novels in the series, and I don’t doubt we’ll be picking them up as well.  Great stuff.

Travel as a Political Act

I’ve watched Rick Steves Europe for years on our local public television  station. I’ve listened to his radio shows and his podcasts. I’ve purchased his guide books, his DVD’s, even his Audio Europe 2011 iPhone application. And for the past few weeks I’ve been reading Travel as a Political Act.

In Travel as a Political Act Rick highlights what he’s learned from 30 years of traveling and how it’s shaped his cultural consciousness, his activism, and deepened his appreciation of the United States. On the radio and on TV Rick rarely shares his personal opinions. He’s quick to point out he’s a tour guide, not a commentator. With his ever present smile and earnest, enthusiastic delivery Rick presents the possibilities for Americans traveling to European destinations like London, Paris, Berlin, Rome, etc.

Rick speaking in Peoria, IL I showed up late as usual.

It’s refreshing to read the personal observations of the man, himself. Rick compares American and European drug policy, talks about his eye opening trip to Iran, his impressions of Islam in Turkey and reflects on the separation of church and state. He reflects on his experiences volunteering in El Salvador. Talks about the big government and big expectations of the Danes. He’s quite frank about what he’s learned. Many of the topics are fairly controversial given America’s current political climate, but at this stage of his career I expect Rick can afford to be fairly candid.

In the end, Rick urges us as travelers to get out there, to travel thoughtfully, to learn, meet people from other countries, to participate, make new friends and perhaps most importantly get involved when we come home. It’s a different sort of trip with Rick, but one worth taking.

Thrive – The Vegan Nutrition Guide to Optimal Performance in Sports and Life

People adopt vegetarian or vegan diets for a wide number of reasons. For athlete Brendan Brazier, a plant based diet provided him with the competitive edge he was looking for as a professional Ironman athlete. After developing and applying what he termed the Thrive diet Brazier found that his post workout recovery time decreased and his energy level, strength-to-weight ratio and endurance shot up.

Thrive steps you through the components of Brazier’s diet and the benefits of exercise and eating a clean, vegan diet. Though I expect few of us will find the time to exercise 30 – 40 hours per week, nor compete at his level, there’s plenty of great information for anyone wanting to improve their day to day fitness and well being whether they are an athlete or not.

Included is a 12 week meal plan and a huge selection of recipes. I’m looking forward to trying the energy bars and smoothies. Should I somehow become an Ironman as a result of reading the book, I’ll be sure to pass that along.

Notes from a Small Island

Arriving in England in the early 1970’s, American travel writer Bill Bryson worked as a journalist and editor for a number of British newspapers. In 1994 he made the decision to bring his family back to America. But before doing so he decided to take a trip around the island he’d called home for so long.

I’ve read many of Bill Bryson’s books over the years: ‘A Walk in the Woods, In a Sunburned Country. I’ve always enjoyed his ability to mix humor with the scholarly, and his ability to cast himself as the everyman, Iowan that he once was.

In this homage to Britain, a place where he married and raised his kids, Bryson sounds as much like a Briton as an Iowan. Bryson travels by rail and on foot through the tiny towns and great cities of late 20th century Great Britain. He  reflects on the places he’s been, and what’s changed in Britain and himself as the years have passed. At times he’s laugh out loud funny, at other times, borderline offensive, but nearly 20 years on, it’s still one of the great travelogues, and one of my favorites. When my boys were babies and I’d grown tired of reading, ‘Good Night Moon,’ for the millionth time I would lay on their floor and read chapters aloud from it, laughing at Bryon’s depictions of the people he met as he walked around the island that was once at the heart of the British Empire. When I went to England in 2007 I brought it along with me and wrote notes in the margins about what I saw in the Cotswolds. 

The Girl who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest

I couldn’t resist the temptation to pick up The Girl Who Played With Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest by Stieg Larsson, the second and third books in the Milleneum Trilogy. Like most people I found myself sucked into the surprisingly violent and corrupt world of modern Sweden. Journalist Mikael Blomkvist, hacker Lisbeth Salander and company do battle with corrupt government officials, the secret police, gangsters and spies. Like The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo there’s a high body count, tons of characters, and a lot of surprises along the way. Who knew the streets of Stockholm could be so mean?

Last summer Jenni and I took the boys to Stockholm for our family vacation. It was a great trip and the weather was fantastic. We walked down many of the streets depicted in the novels. Stockholm isn’t a large city, but if you’re unfamiliar with the neighborhoods, the long street names or the numerous islands, finding your way around can get pretty confusing. The same can be said when you’re reading the novels. I kept taking out my Stockholm map to see where the characters actually were. ‘So, Mikael’s in the Tunnelbana station in Gamla Stan….’

The novels have now become such a sensation you can now take Milleneum tours around Stockholm to locations like Mikael Blomkvist’s apartment at Bellmansgatan 1 or to the cafe’s where the characters drank one of their numerous cups of coffee.

Marco Polo Didn’t Go There

I picked up Rolf Potts‘ award winning collection of travel essays, Marco Polo Didn’t Go There after reading an article by him in Afar magazine. Written over the course of the past decade for a variety of travel magazines, each carefully constructed story creates it’s own little world and moment in time. Rolf’s writing is humorous, wistful, thought provoking and informative. He comes across like a really smart and cool friend you hear from every so often who is off in places you wouldn’t dream of going, and doing things you wouldn’t do if someone paid you. Most of the stories take place in southeast Asia and the Middle East, which are very popular in vagabonding and backpacker circles. The ‘characters’ he meets reflect that mixture of past/present everywhereness we’ve become accustomed to in the Information Age where you might be a subsistence farmer with a cell phone or a rapper living in a rainforest. I liked his ‘backpacker’ perspective, as I’m not one, and enjoyed the artistic eye and literary sensibility he brought to his writing. Each story concludes with ‘Endnotes’ explaining what Rolf left in or took out and why: a sort of ‘Behind the Music’ for each story, which seemed oddly appropriate for the 21st century.