Comfort food should not require a recipe. Especially if you make it for yourself. If comfort food is to nourish your soul and body, then it needs to be easy-peasy to make or buy when you want it, crave for it. Comfort food is what you instinctively turn to when you’re down, tired, alone or …
Don’t get me wrong: I love dragons. A dragon pops up often enough: whenever there is a celebration or poster flogging a Canadian Chinatown event or something involving Chinese-Canadian history or culture. I love the dragon for its aesthetic drawing power –in parades, dance, paintings, textiles, rugs, sculpture and jewellery. Dragons in Canada- Convenient Icon? However, I …
The Blackfoot Indians in the prairies passed on their history and collective memory through storytelling and in pictographs. Painted images on tanned buffalo leather hide are called story robes. Occasionally they painted stories on tipi covers, blankets and rocks too. Blogging is our 21st century painting and wearing our story robe. When I began blogging, …
Do you ever blog, write, paint or photograph something that you saw but know it will disappear forever? That your act of solidifying its image, is to brand it alive in your memory and heart for years to come? I’ve been feeling this way lately. Several weeks ago, a major flood in Calgary destroyed several hundred …
A few weekends ago, we bused up to Lake Louise in Banff National Park, for their annual ice carving competition and some mountain snowshoeing. It is an international competition that’s been slowly gaining an ice crampon foothold with more intricate, arresting sculptures this year. After 14 km. of snowshoeing and straining a groin muscle, we …
For a long time, I’ve always believed that you need to find the right sport or physical activity that matches your personality to feed your motivation forever. This wonderful personality-sport fusion, will keep you cycling, jogging, hiking, walking, golfing or lawn-bowling for many years. Having Different Habits and Social Needs: Finding the Right Fit, Passion …
As a non-gardener, I couldn’t help giggling at a tiny stand of flower pots for sale when we stopped by the University of British Columbia’s Botanical Garden Shop, during a bike ride last month. One of the pots had a garden ceramic sign emblazoned: Grow, damn it! Do expert gardeners lose their patience too? Respect for …
Freiburg is seductive: a well-preserved gem of German medieval and renaissance architecture with cycling embedded into its daily life. We stayed and spent most of our 4 days in the historic downtown core. However we did take 3 cycling side trips for a few hours each except our trip to Basel, Switzerland. Hotel Am Rasthaus …
I got to visit Marble Canyon Provincial Park again, after wondering for the last 15 years if I had only dreamt of it. Marble Canyon Provincial Park in southwestern British Columbia, is now rejuvenating after a forest fire ripped through the area in 2003. I had been there just the year before the fire, when we … Continue reading
Shock of Christmas First Snow for Immigrants Have you ever watched the delight of someone who experiences falling snow for the first time in life? I have –twice. First time, was a cousin’s child who watched snowflakes fall during their first year in Canada after immigrating from southern China. The second time was a few years ago, … Continue reading
I’ve been spinning my journey as a Canadian who has lived in several contrasting regions –Ontario, Pacific British Columbia coast and Alberta. Last time, I blog-galloped across our vast geography and rattled on about living in a place with many time zones and weather tantrums. So let’s talk about food now –what Nature nutures in … Continue reading
My Halloween night was about comic super heroines and feminism. Oddly it made me reflect on what stoked my awareness of feminism –real people and popular culture. Celebration of Friendly Feminist Past Ghosts: Heroines and TV Characters Out of curiosity, I went to fundraising event, Take Back Halloween, hosted by a theatre group. Urban Curvz for a … Continue reading
Sometimes he’s here, on Cycle Write blog. But so far, if he appears, – he’s silent and gentle. That’s Jack — my partner in life , in cycling and at times, even in blogging. Jack has not yet spoken on Cycle Write blog since he’s far too busy over the years, creating and/or feeding his … Continue reading
Cycle Write blog serves as my memoir tablet of things I’ve seen, things I’ve done and things I dream now and later. This mixed media painting, A Shimmer of Watery Flower Dreams, is both art and a memory fragment. It’s art done and gone because I have given away this piece as a gift, to a family member. Yes, this painting … Continue reading
Honest, I’m befuddled that I have 400+ blog followers. I only know and hear from 10% of my followers. So this blog post, isn’t directed to my frequent readers and commenters. Nor is this post for pedestrian visitors who bump into this blog by using a general Google search, but choose not to follow this blog. There are … Continue reading
It’s culture shock when I return from sushi, salmon and ocean in Vancouver, to yeehaw hijinks of the Calgary Stampede. The Stampede is Canada’s annual and biggest bash on bucking rodeo sports, country western music and cowboy culture. Let’s face it, in the 21st century, there aren’t a lot of true cowboys and cowgirls in Calgary. … Continue reading
The more I travel across Canada and after living, in 3 different regions (Ontario, Pacific Coast in British Columbia and Alberta in Prairie heartland), the more I think I’m creeping closer into the heart of Canada’s soul. It’s been an amazing journey. It’s a huge effort to figure out Canada at ground level: it’s myriad … Continue reading
It wasn’t until I lived in Vancouver, BC, I knew of sea asparagus, another vegetable that grows like a thick wild green lawn, along the ocean intertidal shores. It is harvested by hand. Sea asparagus, sea beans, samphire or its biological name, salicorum virginica, bears no resemblance, to asparagus spears that grow in farmers’ fields. Sea asparagus … Continue reading
Vancouver’s Sole Foods: Bringing Back Dignity and Purpose to Emptiness Last year, a large dreary parking lot in downtown Vancouver was transformed with rows of bright green vegetables under the shadow of B.C. Stadium, elevated light rail viaduct and condo towers. It didn’t take long for rich green leaves to unfurl and cover part of the … Continue reading
There’s a bunch of juicy topics I haven’t blogged much in Cycle Write yet –racism, identity and immigration. Yes, there could be personal stories, musings and strong opinions that I could stuff my blog like a bloated fish. Instead for now, I took up the invitation of another blogger, Holistic Wayfarer and answered questions for her … Continue reading
It isn’t just my genes or my lifelong, whole food cooking tendencies (thanks mom), that shapes me: I have always lived in walkable, cycleable neighbourhoods. That’s a long time. Over 55 years in 9 different neighbourhoods across 7 Canadian cities. I’ve previously trumpeted this fact in this blog, as a cyclist living in Toronto, Vancouver … Continue reading
On winter deep freeze days, when -29 C degree temperatures plunges down to -40 C* with winter chill, it’s easier to hunker down indoors and think about cycling. To justify procrastination, but still feed our cycling enthusiasm, I discovered tri-coloured bicycle pasta in a local Italian grocery store and café. We found this wonderful store in an … Continue reading
It’s a special age of symmetry for anyone: it’s 2 open hands that are smacking double high “fives” with hands of other birthday well-wishers. 55 means I’ll just hopefully go for a bike ride around my birthday. No, it won’t be a 55 km. ride since my birthday falls on a winter work day this … Continue reading
The first time I had heard of and even seen snowshoes, was when I was 12 years old. A father of a boy in my class, occasionally took business trips to Frobisher Bay in the Canadian Arctic. Remember, this was in the early 1970’s when the Canadian Arctic was still a whited-out blizzard blank slate … Continue reading
Whenever snow falls near Christmas, any serious thoughts vapourize into child-like dreams of fun, sugar plums, sleigh bells and lovely baked pastries with hot chocolate. I like soft Christmas cookies with different spices, less sugar but more delicate in taste . Gingerbread cookies are cute, but do not stoke my sweet tooth. To me, gingerbread houses and … Continue reading
This blog post will not be a violin whine of apologist on abstract art or non-representational art. No, I just want to show you how to see this art in new light — several different ways. Before I took several art courses on mixed media painting art at mid-life, I didn’t have much appetite for abstract art. … Continue reading
I don’t recall having red beets until I was in my early 20’s even though I’ve lived in Canada all my life. Even after sucking up delicious red borscht soup at a Hungarian restaurant several times in Toronto, I never prepared any red beets at home. Until less than 4 years ago. You won’t find … Continue reading
As a woman, if you cycle several times per week, you may be more feminist than you realize. You are living a feminist life, if you are cyclist. Even if you insist that you aren’t a feminist. Long View Backward: Women’s Right to Travel Independently Let me explain. Take a big step back. You are … Continue reading
