Experience #49
Food: Chocolate tasting and wine pairing

I can't remember who suggested this wonderful experience; but whoever it is WOW! It was absolutely one for the books. Thanks!

Simon and I have rented a nice breach house in Deep Bay for the Christmas holidays and our foodie friends (Celeste, Brian, Shirley and Tony) have joined us for the first three days. I thought they would be willing to help me with this one.

I could not find a somalier to organise this for me so I searched the web and found wine suggestions to pair with a variety of chocolates. My friends were each asked to bring one of the bottles and Simon and I went hunting for good chocolate. Cooks Culture on Blanshard is THE place to go. They have chocolate bars from all over the world; very nice selection. To round our tasting, I stopped at the Chocolaterie on Fort for a few flavoured chocolates. Shirley also brought some of her home made truffles.

With our spreadsheets in hand we started... What to do:
Take a small nibble of the chocolate and savour it's texture and discover the flavours as they build on your tongue. Sip a bit of wine and mix the two in your mouth. Good? No?

Our findings:

Riesling with it's fruitiness is good with lighter chocolates such as white, and fruit cremes. Muscadet is bold and pairs better with spicy chocolates such as Ginger, wassabi, peppercorn. Zinfandel was OK with medium dark chocolates, cinnamon spice. Cab-Sauvignon was pretty much a bust, OK with milk chocolate but did not add and new tastes. Madeira and Port was great with the darker chocolates and the spiced chocolates as well. The home made truffles with alcohol fillings did not match up with the wines.

As for the chocolates, we all had our own favourites. The new flavours tried were licorice, saffron and pistachio, olive and lemon, chili spiced, Thai lemongrass, cinnamon, wassabi cashew, ginger, and salt.

Experience #48

Theme adventure planning

Our good friend Garth is turning 50 in 2014. He has a dream of doing a motorbike tour somewhere in the world. Options abound: South America, Eastern Europe, Alaska and Northern territories, Southern States...Sounds very exciting-but first one needs to know how to ride a bike.
Enter new experience! It all starts with a knowledge test.

Most of you may remember the written test for your drivers license. It's about the same; it incorporates basic road skills knowledge with some questions relating to riding a motorcycle. It is a good exercise to do as it reminds us how to look at driving/riding and sharing the road. I already ride a scooter and have increased my skills riding by reading the "manual". Maybe one day I'll be a motorcycle mama...

Next step, next year, we will be to take a course on riding defensively and passing a learners, then a full license. I'm a bit nervous about motorbikes, but I'm confident the instructors will teach us the skills. I will keep my options open as to whether I'll be a rider or a passenger; either way I think it wise to know how to ride.
 
Simon has started working on the Gant chart for the future trip. What we need to do, when; the visas, medical considerations, insurance for travellers, potential locales for the road trip. This planning will keep our brains occupied for a long time.