A discussion of Travel and Adventure in Parts Foreign.
posted by Jesse on Apr 21
Following up on the beginning of our most recent podcast:
The liquor store we mentioned, which appears to be your basic dirt-merchant dive on El Cajon Blvd, but which has a phenomenal selection of obscure beers, is called Pacific Liquor. I stopped there for a six pack of Leffe recently, and noticed that the gueuze that had for sale was in fact produced by the Cantillon brewery, which Lee and I visited when we were in Brussels. Small world.
posted by Andy on Apr 6
Andy in Yemen posing with a guide and a soldier who was there to scare off potential kidnappers
“It’s such an adventure — that’s the only way to cope with it.” Now that is how to deal with being kidnapped! These were the words of Heleen Janszen, who, along with her husband, was surrounded by Yemeni tribesmen bearing Kalashnikov rifles last week and taken to the mountains east of the capital.
Fortunately for this adventure-minded couple, Yemen is actually one of the better countries of the world in which to be taken hostage. When I was there, locals and foreigners alike regaled me with stories of local kidnappings, which don’t involve the rather unpleasant techniques seen elsewhere in the world (removal of ears, fingers, heads, and so forth) and only rarely end in violence (only 5 of the over 200 foreigners kidnapped in Yemen in the past 15 years have been killed).
posted by Jesse on Mar 30
After reading Lee’s post about Adventure Provisioning, with its mention of Calvados apple brandy as the ideal invigorating spirit, I began to reminisce a bit about Lee and my trip around Europe and North Africa in 2006, and our discovery there of the joys of Calvados and cider in Normandy. So I began reading a bit more on the history of Calvados brandy, and chanced on a description of Cafe Calva.
Cafe Calva (photo by Paul Terhorst)
Cafe Calva, which is apparently available off-menu in most French cafes, consists of a cup of coffee (espresso, to us Americans), with a teaspoon of Calvados poured on top, accompanied by a small, shot-glass size snifter of the brandy to sip. Paul Terhorst has a nice description of discovering and ordering the drink on his blog. Had Lee and I only known of the existence of this supremely civilized combination, we certainly would have enjoyed more than a few of them. Ah, well. There are always future trips.
Lee and Jesse in Caen (photo by Jesse’s camera, with a timer)
The most king-hell awesome picnic ever (photo by Jesse)
