Is It Skiing Time Yet?

by Iva Skoch on

Perhaps the only good thing about the summer ending is that one can start planning a ski vacation. My favorite place to ski is still the Alps. Granted, I have only skied in a handful of places in the US and Canada, but I still prefer Europe.

It’s not that the quality of snow is an order of magnitude better, but it has got two “C’s” going for it: cost and character. Especially in Austria, you can find pleasant chalet accommodations for as little as $30/person, including breakfast. I took this picture in Dachstein, a ski resort in Austria, just a hour away from Salzburg, last December. Sun and powder heaven. The beautiful thing is they still charge only 32euros (about $40) for a day pass. In the US, you can’t even ski the Poconos for that kind of money, sadly enough. If you have ever tried skiing the Poconos, you will understand exactly how sad that is.

Which brings me to my next point: character. Villages in the Alps are just so damn cute. I don’t care how accurately they try to replicate this quaintness in Whistler, it just doesn’t work.

Oxtail Stew

by Adrienne Wilson on

Over the weekend my mother made some delicious oxtail stew. I slurped up the soup/stew base and noshed on the oxtails quietly with an extreme amount of guilt. Normally I’d sling back oxtails like it were broccoli or brussel sprouts, but all my marathon preparation and running has me feeling as if oxtails don’t quite make winning race formula. I should be eating fish, veggies, chicken and avoiding the hard to digest red-meats, pork and oxtail according to training know-it-all’s. And I’ll tell you this – I can’t wait until the race is over so I can fire all the know-it-alls and sit in my mama’s warm kitchen guilt-free.

In the meantime I figured Oxtail Stew isn’t the kind of dish shared by all cultures and people, but anyone wanting to try eating or cooking can start with these two recipes. The first from Jamaicans.com includes an assortment of veggies along with butter beans where this second recipe is accompanied by one man’s tale on how he fell in love with the stew on chilly days in the Alps. Erik, who creates the recipe from memory, suggests having some Pilsner around to wash the oxtail stew down. The photo above comes from Jamaicans.com, but Erik’s descriptions (without pictures) make me want to try his first. Check out the two options and tell us about your first encounter with oxtail stew. Was it in mama’s kitchen or someplace like the Alps?

Yum.