eat, drink and just be!

porec to rovinj

we had a long weekend last week and my husband has also come to visit from san francisco, so it was a perfect time to take a short trip from graz to croatia. we decided to stay in porec and do some sight seeing and seafood- eating from porec to rovinj. porec is a cute little town at mediterranean sea with small streets and tons of cafes and restaurants to hang out at the water or close to water. it's landmark is the euphrasian basilica from 6th century. since we were staying in porec i also went running in the mornings when the sun rises at the harbor and the fishermen are back from fishing. it was beautiful but enjoying all that seafood was even better.

on the way south along the coast, the scenery is gorgeous especially lim fjord. Owing to its geological history, this estuary is one of the most instructive examples of limestone hydrological development. The Lim stream used to flow through the valley but dried up regularly, and was really only present after the heavy rain. The Lim estuary has the appearance of a canyon. The estuary is rich in fish, and high quality oysters and mussels. Because of the special conditions of the sea water in the channel (less salt content, a higher concentration of dissolved oxygen and well-researched temperature gradients) sea flora and fauna are particularly well developed. we went down to the fjord and enjoyed some fantastic fresh mussels and oysters.

then further south is the beautiful city of rovinj. so many cute little streets on this town that end at the water. i could imagine sitting there at the water and reading books for ages. the old church in the middle of town and a beautiful roman theatre are some of the highlights to see there.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

yellow stone and grand teton

it was our anniversary and there's no better way to celebrate it in the wilderness. we hiked a lot, saw tons of wild animals and unique landscapes. we saw beautiful geysers and hot springs in yellowstone. tons of beautiful herds of animals such as bisons and elks in the gorgeous hayden valley and lamar valley. even a couple of grizzly bears; three of them eating a dead bison. we had wonderful hikes to some beautiful scenic mountains at grand tetons and enjoyed being surrounded with cold water lakes on the mountains.

the only thing that was a bit rough while camping in yellow stone and grand teton was finding diverse ingredients for grilling at nights and sandwitches for hiking. so we ended up eating pretty monotone for most of the week. eggs or omlettes in the morning, cheese or other cold cut sandwitches for lunch, and grilled saussages, and vegetables at nights.

having only one mini burner and a very hot fire could be challenging some times. i guess after this trip we mastered the tempretures for grilling on the camp fire and cooking omlettes on our burner. the vegetables we grilled were usually corn, tomatoes, bell pepper, garlic, and potatoes. we even made use of some of them in the omlette of the next morning.:-) 

the only fancy dinner we had was on our anniversary night at Jackson Lake lodge with a fantastic view of a valley with moose, elk, and tons of birds. i totally recommend their huckleberry margarita while you are sitting in the balcony. i should say the quality of fine dining was not comparable with any fine dining experience in the big cities, but at least there was a nice variety of local ingredients such as: elk salami and bison carpaccio as appetizers. elk salami was very lean and enjoyable. the bison carpaccio was a bit bland for me but maybe it was just the way they prepared it and the meat itself might be more flavorful. my main dish also was a nice cut of elk meat but the sides were not very special. what i enjoyed a lot was a chocolate dish as dessert which included a very heavy chocolate mousse (not a moose though) and a very nice cold mocca.

i totally recommend yellow stone and grand teton for the wonderful adventures and volcanic activities in the area. i could bear  the lack of diversity in food since those unique views are totally worth it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

family reunion

although this is my food blog, this post is not only about food. it's mostly about family, which is kind bf related to food as well.:-)  when i get together with family there's always a great amount of fantastic food, but since i get very distracted to catch up with the family i forget to take pictures of good food. my family is in different parts of the world. my sister and her family live in austria, my parents and brother and his family live in vancuver and after living in austria for many years me and my family moved to san francisco. so in order to get together we have to coordinate a lot. it's not very easy to have holidays at the same time and fly all over to get together. last time we all got together was at my wedding five years ago in vienna. other than that our reunion happens only through Skype which is also very complicated with time differences. at least in the recent years since my parents are not in tehran any more, we have only two time zones to match and not three which makes things easier.

this year we were lucky that my sister and brother in law flew to vancouver to see the rest of the family and celebrate my nephew's 17th birthday. since we are only a couple of hours flight away from vancouver, we joined them too and we had a great weekend all together. fortunately the weather was also fantastic and we could celebrate my nephew's birthday by a gigantic grill feast. unfortunately i forgot to take enough pictures of food because it was more important for me to spend time with family but as it was a collaboration you'd see my mom preparing the burgers and my brother grilling them. the only cooking comment i can add to this post is that persian make burger like koubideh kabob, which means we add ground onions to ground meat and some persian spices to the meat to make it more flavorful. if you want to learn how to make persian kabob, check out turmeric and saffron's post on how to make a home made kabob.