Belgium was the first place we travelled after the pandemic, having cancelled a previous trip in 2020. One of my most vivid memories of that vacation was attending a chocolate making class. Heading into this assignment, I knew one thing for sure: I was going to make chocolates again.
Assignment 140: Faroe Islands
“There aren’t a lot of Faroese food blogs,” Eric remarked, as he trawled through online resources in an effort to build a menu. Many of the recipes he did find were going to be impossible to make — stuffed puffin and fermented pilot whale blubber just wasn’t available at our local…
Assignment 139: Nigeria
Nigeria’s culinary tradition is vast and diverse, a nod to the various peoples that live there. In many ways, it exemplifies West African food — with corn, peanuts, beans, squash, and leafy greens at the heart of many meals. Unlike some its is neighbours, though, Nigeria…
The La Cloche Silhouette Trail: Adventures in Backpacking
The moment I read about the La Cloche Silhouette Trail, I fell in love. The Silhouette is an 80km loop in Killarney Provincial Park that takes hikers along rugged trails that circle the ancient La Cloche Mountains, undulating hills that are all that remain of a range that once rivalled the Rockies. I could picture…
Assignment 138: Bolivia
Eric has visited South America often during our Wooden Spoon Wanderer wanderings — he took on the assignments for Argentina, Uruguay, Venezuela, Peru, and Guyana. Bolivia’s cuisine is comparatively poorly-known compared to its neighbours, and he was eager to dive into…
Assignment 137: Denmark
We’ve never been to Denmark, but we’ve explored several countries nearby, and there were definitely some familiar elements in Danish cuisine that hearkened back to our travels in Germany, Austria, Netherlands, and Estonia. I was excited to try my hand at another rye bread (they so often…
Assignment 136: Zambia
The weather in Ontario was as un-Zambian as it gets when Eric started planning his menu at the end of February. Two meters of snow were on the ground and both of us were exhausted from shovelling and being constantly snowed in. This assignment provided a little brightness in…
Assignment 135: Kazakhstan
I really like assignments that take me on a culinary journey far beyond what is familiar to me, and so when Kazakhstan came up as my next Wooden Spoon Wanderer destination, I was excited to get started. Right off the bat, I realized that sourcing traditional ingredients was going to be…
Assignment 134: Türkiye
From the moment his assignment landed in his lap, Eric knew he wanted to try his hand at Turkish ice cream. The dish is made famous by videos of tricky ice cream vendors flipping cones and scoops back and forth between themselves and waiting customers…
Assignment 133: Nicaragua
For the first couple of weeks after receiving this assignment, I struggled to find resources, despite doing research in both English and Spanish. I just wasn’t finding a lot of genuine Nicaraguan content online, and there was nothing in my local library. Finally, Eric came across a YouTube…
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