Lostman's Journal

Every good explorer needs to keep field notes, and these are mine! Here you’ll find the miscellaneous posts I’ve made about recipes, my garden, and challenges that I’ve set myself. These posts will often have travel inspired origins, and they’re my way of bringing home what I’ve learned elsewhere.

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Recipes

Anyone who knows and is loved by my family knows one thing: they never have to worry about food when they’re with us. Either we will already have some, or we will find some. These recipes are some of the family favourites. Either I’m still learning how to make them properly, or Mom has asked for the recipe, in which case this blog is going to be a bit of petty triumph. She constantly accuses me of never giving my recipes to her, even though I do so multiple times. Each time she comes back to me saying “You never gave it to me!” Try that now, Mom!

A fair warning: Forest will admonish me for this because she measures everything, but the way I was taught to cook was by eyeballing it. My recipes are often unmeasured, and imprecise! It’s all about the taste, and how big the pot I need to fill is. Take any measurements in my recipes with a grain of salt!

Mexican Rice: Packed full of veg and a bit of meat, serve this rice with some homemade guac and a bit of sour cream for an awesome fiesta!

Thai Coconut Lime Chicken: Not only is it good, it’s good for you, and my version of this recipe makes extra of the delicious sauce because my family are a bunch of sauce hounds.

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Garden

I promised myself I would go outside more this year, and tending my garden is going to be part of that. Ultimately, I want to learn how to grow vegetables like cucumbers, and in the fall I want to try my hands at pickling them. I also want to be able to keep my tulips alive, and I intend to harvest a few and give them to some friends as gifts.

Introducing … The Tulips!: Follow the adventure of growing tulips for the first time. I have no idea what I’m doing!

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Miscellaneous Thoughts

A collection of thoughts in the form of essays, responses, poetry, prose, you know, writers’ stuff!

Let’s Get Rid of Pay-Toilets Please!: An avid argument against one of the perhaps too many banes of my existence.

The Heart Attack in Brussels Centraal Train Station: A recounting of a very scary moment in Belgium.

The Burning of Notre-Dame: How one of my favourite places in the world went up in flames. Not by my own hand, I assure you!

Cheeky England: That one time I got thrown to the wolves when it came to planning a trip.

5 Predictions for Post-Covid Changes: We’ll see how this all turns out I suppose, but until then, here are my predictions!

Travel in the Time of Covid 2.0: Borders are open so we’re good to travel right!? Hold your horses, read this first.

Midnight Fondue: A rush to find fondue at the last minute turns into an awesome little adventure!

The Bridge: A metaphor, and an apt one at that.

Overrated Cities: Are the cities overrated or is it something else? I’m thinking it’s something else.