Life in the Lower Mainland (BC, Canada)

I honestly don't think I've ever been to a Denny's , which seems odd because it's Canadian Owned and Operated since 1992. Maybe I just had the image it was a boring place for seniors (and they do have Thursday discounts for age 55+ seniors). First things first: ASK ABOUT THE SPECIALS. I honestly don't recall our servers mentioning the current burger offer (apparently ends late May) of buy-one-get-one-at-half-price, even when my friend ordered a burger. I only chanced to find out when the promotion screen at our table (which includes a smartphone charger) flipped to the offer. And it took a too-long time to show that offer. By then we had already put in our orders and it was too late to change. Really temped to outright fail them for this.    Dessert menu looked really overpriced and lame. Many of the menu items look great in photos but are pretty boring. That said, the items we got were mostly nicely prepared. Bourbon Bacon Burger ($19.59) My friend's order. ...

Yesterday I reviewed Sprague Cannery's Minestrone Soup . If you haven't heard of  Sprague Cannery , they are a Canadian company making soups in Canada and extremely worried by Trump's tariffs: Tariffs may still feel abstract to many, so let me share something tangible to help everyone better understand the gravity of the situation. We employ 50 people at our Canadian cannery. A significant portion of our business is with US customers. For decades, we’ve operated under… — Sprague Cannery 🇨🇦🇨🇦🇨🇦 (@SpragueFoods)  March 18, 2025 If you're trying to buy Canadian during these uncertain times, you can use the store locater  to find Sprague's products. You'll want to look carefully at which stores are listed because only some stores of a chain will have them (e.g., not every Save-on-Foods, just some of them). Sprague Cannery's soups are also a "premium product", loaded with limitations such as Plant Based, No Preservatives, Gluten Free, and  BPA -F...

The "buy Canadian" sentiment has surged since the threat of Trump's tariffs and some smaller companies like Sprague Cannery are extremely worried: Tariffs may still feel abstract to many, so let me share something tangible to help everyone better understand the gravity of the situation. We employ 50 people at our Canadian cannery. A significant portion of our business is with US customers. For decades, we’ve operated under… — Sprague Cannery 🇨🇦🇨🇦🇨🇦 (@SpragueFoods) March 18, 2025 They have absorbed some costs but it's not sustainable. Initially I thought they were an eastern Canadian product not really available in BC (I certainly never saw them in Real Canadian Superstore, where I commonly shop), but it turns out they're just somewhat tricky to find here. While the store locater  lists common stores like Save-on-Foods, not every store will stock them. I live near Metrotown and the most convenient one for me turned out to be London Drugs (and happily t...

In this post we'll talk about the best way to reheat pizza. Since a pizza is baked you might think you can just pop it back in the oven. You can, but that just further dries it out and generally makes it taste worse. You could steam it but the crust generally becomes soggy and icky. Instead, use your frying pan and do both: In a large, clean, frying pan, put in your slice of pizza. You'll need some room on the side to have just a little bit of water, maybe a tablespoon or so. Ideally the water shouldn't touch the pizza and be soaked into the crust, but it won't totally ruin things if it does. Cover with a reasonably tight lid because we want to keep the steam under the lid. Doesn't have to be pressure-cooker tight. During reheating, do not open the lid or the steam will escape and you'll lose a lot of heat suddenly. On the stove, turn on high heat and listen for the water to start sizzling. That means it's starting to turn to steam. Turn off the heat and let...

It's been a while since I had any coupons from  SocialNature , but I recently qualified for a promotion of A Vogel brand "Herbamare" herb-flavoured sea salt. According to the ingredients, it is "sea salt with vegetables and herbs". I tasted a pinch and it was salty as salt should be, plus clear herb aroma, though not particularly strong. I compared it with regular table salt (slide 6) and it looks like the salt particles are generally more fine than regular table salt (not sea salt). I tried it on some Pran Plain Paratha I got from Superstore. I sprinkled Herbamare on one half while the paratha was still frozen, then toasted it in my toaster oven for 10 minutes at 400 degrees Farenheit (slides 7-8). I tried the pre-seasoned side as well as the plain side which I seasoned with Herbamare after. I did not put an excessive amount of Herbamare, enough to have mild saltiness. Of course the saltiness was evident, but the vegetables and herbs flavor was basically los...

It sounds like common sense that half a truth is not the whole truth, but in truth most people are probably not aware when they only have half a truth. A little crumb of compelling truth is enough to decide things for them. You may have seen assorted news about the conflict in Gaza, especially about student protests such as this one at UBC . I can't remember when it was that I first learned about the conflict between Israel and Palestine, but I do remember it was about the Hamas "terrorists" acting for Palestine. Just the label "terrorist" decided for me that Hamas were the bad guys and therefore, Israel must be the innocent victims. After all, that's what terrorist groups do: They attack innocents to force governments to recognize their demands. War has erupted again, and this time students in North America were siding with Palestine. Older and more guarded about the various subtle attempts by media and politics to influence the masses, I decided to do more...