I actually whipped this up yesterday. Still on my Indian food kick, tough to drop it once you start. I find the flavours are just so full.
Boti Gosht (The Most Delicious Meat Cubes)
3 tbspns olive oil
1 1/2 inch piece fresh ginger, peeled and finely chopped
4 cloves of garlic
15 fresh or dried curry leaves (if available)
1 pound of lamb or pork (I used tenderloin) cut into 1″ cubes
2 tspns garam masala
1 tspn ground cumin
1/4 tspn ground turmeric
1/4 tspn cayenne pepper
1 fresh green chili, finely sliced (I passed on this)
1/2 tspn salt or to taste
Freshly ground black pepper
1 1/2 to 2 tspns fresh lemon juice
Put the oil in your pan set over medium high heat. When the oil is hot put in the garlic, ginger, and curry leaves if you have them. Stir. When the garlic starts to brown put in the meat. Stir once or twice and turn the heat to medium low. Now put in the garam masala, cumin, turmeric, cayenne pepper, green chili and salt. Stir to mix and cook for a few minutes. Add about 3/4 of a cup of water, cover with lid and cook gently for 30 minutes. Increase the heat to high, remove the lid and cook until all the liquid is gone and the meat browns a bit. Stir as you do this. Stir in lots of freshly ground pepper and the lemon juice. I served this with some mashed potatoes (Indian style of course) and just some simple pees and corn with sesame seeds. Check this one out, its good.
Melissa and I have just started a new adventure. Inspired by the Clean Bin Project (and our current finances!) we are attempting to go one month without buying any stuff. Consumables are of course ok (especially with our miniature eating machine) and any other necessities, but nothing more (new clothes, make-up, dvd’s, 52″ flat screen LCD’s, etc). I’ll keep you posted.
Timeshares. Melissa and I have learned that this word is becoming synonymous with Puerto Vallarta. Immediately stepping off of the airplane you are swarmed with people offering free taxi service, free tours of the city, even cash for “just a moment of your time.” You quickly learn that all of these people are a small part of the timeshare market. If you are unfamiliar with this scheme the premise is simple. You are offered your tour/taxi ride/grocery bill completely paid for if you attend a seminar regarding a local resort. There is no obligation to buy however you must stay for a minimum amount of time and listen to the presentation.
Our adventure begins at a local grocery store. Melissa and I went to book some scuba tours at a booth set up in the store. Not surprisingly we were immediately offered “free” scuba ( a value of about 200$). We had talked about these timeshare schemes during our trip since we have been offered them daily, and we were both had a kind of masochistic curiosity to the whole experience. So, we said yes. Since we had groceries they ushered a cab to sweep us off to the resort. Once there, they took our groceries and stored them in a refrigerator until we were done.
We met Ilan, the resort representative. The game was afoot. It all began nicely enough, we were escorted into the main lobby of the resort and to a beach side restaurant for lunch. Ilan explained how the pool was heated and very kid friendly, how the resort was given a five point five diamond rating how buying into the resort is the answer to peace on earth and global warming… or something similar. After our lunch we went to see the 3 types of rooms they offered. They were truly beautiful, and the largest room they showed us was absolutely incredible with a wrap-around deck which housed a huge hot-tub. “Each direction boasts an ocean view” said Ilan. We then worked our way to the sales lobby, a.k.a. the arena. The sales tactics were not super high pressure, but so funny with planted actors and lines. I especially liked when Ilan called over the ‘manager’ to the table to say in a very prearranged, bad acting voice, ‘Jose, I need your help, I’m not sure what to do next, they are the perfect people to invest in this wonderful opportunity, but they are still saying no.” Then the manager said “WHAT??” with an incredulous voice, “but that can’t be? Don’t they understand the equity they would be building? Did you tell them about the blah, and the blah?” It was hard not to laugh at the whole situation. In the end, the whole thing took about two and a half hours. We had a wonderful lunch, champagne and of course our free all inclusive day of scuba diving.
I’ve heard many horror stories about these sorts of campaigns, but Melissa and I had a whole lot of fun. We’re considering doing it again, but this time she’s going to dress up as Mrs. Roper and I’m going to wear a top hat and monocle. It might be a great social experiment to see what kind of tactics people will implement since we are (insert outrageous accent) ’so very wealthy darling!’
Posted some new pics up in the Puerto Vallarta Gallery as well, check them out!
I’m poolside as I type this. Just needed to rub it in a bit. Check out some new photos as well as a new vid of Mel and I completing our scuba certification in Victoria.
Melissa caught a mild case of hypothermia. Nothing serious, but she had some pretty intense shakes for about 10 minutes. It all started when we were in Alert Bay and I was occupying my time with web surfing, mostly directed at Puerto Vallarta. “Mel, we should get certified to do some diving when we go down to Mexico.” And so our journey to dive certification began. We signed up with a local dive shop in Victoria. The pool sessions went smooth enough, both Melissa and I being very comfortable in the water. The last day in the pool we used dry suits in preparation for our open water dives. Mel’s neck seal on her suit fit a bit tight but we decided that we would change the seal for the ocean dive. On Sunday we met our dive instructor at Harrison’s point, a small peninsula close to Butchart Gardens. Melissa and I weren’t too eager to get into the 5 degree water, but after putting on all of the equipment and extra weight we both hurried in to ease the burden. I was surprisingly warm. Only my hands which stayed wet but covered with polypropylene gloves, and my lips which were totally exposed, were cold. The same seemed true with Melissa. We descended. After a few exercises of mask clearing and regulator removal and retrieval we began to explore the depths. I loved it. Giant plumose anemones looked like giant trees sprouting form the rocky terrain. We saw a multitude of starfish and a giant sun starfish nearly a meter across. Everything was going smooth and the instructor checked on our status. I was ok. Mel gave the sign for cold, but ok. So we started to head back. As we rose to 20 feet for our safety stop the water was especially chilly, and at that point my hands started to feel very cold as well as my lips. We surfaced removed our tanks and that’s when I noticed Mel. She was cold. We walked back to the van where we were going to take a break before our second dive. That’s when she started to shiver. We took off her dry suit so she could get the sun on her and that’s when we noticed she was soaked. Her upper body was completely wet. The new neck seal which was installed was too loose and water had seeped into her dry suit during the dive. Needless to say a second dive was out of the question. Mel warmed up in the sun with a coffee while we loaded up the equipment and headed back to the dive shop. We hope to finish up our 3 dives this Saturday so stay tuned.
We did it. It took a couple of months but Melissa and I have successfully watched every bond film made. Our epic adventure came to a grande finale last weekend when we went to see Quantum of Solace. We both agree that Pierce Brosnan is the best bond of the bunch – yes, better than Connery, with Golden Eye being the best film so far. We also agree the new bond (Daniel Craig) is completely different but still maintains all of the essential bond-esque qualities to make him runner up with our rankings, however Melissa feels he did not sleep with enough women this last movie. Roger Moore (especially in the late 80’s) gets the title of worst hair ever. The worst bond ever goes to Timothy Dalton who was, at some points, painful to watch. George Lazenby gets an honourable mention for being the only single film bond, but still doing a great job and having one of the best opening sequences in a movie. On another note, I’ve come up with some great recipes but since I haven’t been able to get pictures of them I’ll post the recipes when I do them up again. I’m also working on a wine ranking list as well which I hope to incorporate on the site. Talk to you all soon.
Just a quick update on the recent Torriero adventures. It’s been an exciting few weeks for our family. We are now in Alert Bay, a small island just off of Vancouver Island. Melissa is here for work while Sophia and I get to explore this new place. Though it’s been quite wet we have still been able to hike the trails around the area. The island is only 4km long and 1km wide, but very beautiful. We return to Victoria an a couple of days but will be coming back to Alert Bay shortly after. I’ll post some images. Talk to you all soon.
