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Richmond Sharing Farm Field Trip

Minoo organized a field trip to the Richmond Sharing Farm for the community kitchens for a change. Three of the community kitchens participated in this field trip, i.e. the Gilmore Park Church Community Kitchen, the South Arm Community Kitchen and the Caring Place Community Kitchen. We met at the South Arm Community Centre and boarded a school bus for the trip.

This field trip is to introduce us to the Richmond Fruit Tree Project located at the end of Gilbert Road and at the Terra Nova Rural Park. The Sharing Farm Project was initiated in 2001 by a group of volunteers. In six years, over 90,000 pounds of food has been harvested and donated to the Richmond Food Bank. Every week, the food bank feed over 800 people in which 40% of them are kids. Volunteers are always welcome to lend a helping hand in the farm. For those interested in volunteering, the farm is opened from Tuesday to Saturday from 9am to 4pm.

The individual plot of land is planted with all sorts of plants including vegetables and flowers. Here are some beautiful garlic chives and …

… lavenders.

While we were there, there were a group of students in the farm. Here is also the location for the Terra Nova School Yard Project, founded by Ian Lai.

Here, Arzeena (in a purple jacket), the outreach coordinator of the Richmond Fruit Tree Project was briefing the group.

Here is a plot of the land with some green vegetables.

A bed of herbs.

A compost bin.

We found a duck nested in between some vegetables.

This is the place where the seedlings are being nurtured in a green house. In Richmond, vegetables can be grown all year round due to the mild climate. In winter, the vegetables were grown in green house which is merely a plot of land covered in heavy plastic.

Some vegetables are grown for their seeds like these swiss chard.

At the end of the trip, we were invited to harvest some pea shoots. The group had lots of fun hands on harvesting the pea shoots.

A mini green house in use.

This is certainly a very knowledgeable trip. Minoo and Arzeena, thank you for organizing this trip.

Popularity: 9% [?]

Vancouver Sun Run 2008

We did the Sun Run last Sunday. We being Arkensen, Nanzaro and myself. Suanne opted out from running because it was too much work for her. LOL! I think she is chicken … she thinks that if she can’t keep up with the Kenyans, she won’t even try. So Suanne became the official Sun Run photographer for the family.

Never having ever ran the Sun Run before, we had no idea how bad the transportation could be. Obviously, driving downtown is out of the question. The other choice for us was to take the B-line from Richmond.

We decided to Skip the B-Line and chose instead to drive to Metrotown and take the Skytrain from there. At least there are lots of parking and there are lots of choices for lunch after the run. Oh yeah … I was thinking of food even before the run started.

I was not too confident that the smallish Skytrain system could even handle the throngs of people converging into the downtown core. So, we started off early … very early … like 2 hours before the official start time of 9AM.

The cars were already quite filled with runners. We could spot them quite easily. Getting downtown by Skytrain was quick.

We could see the BC Place on the way there. The BC Place was the finishing line of the 10K Sun Run.

We wore the timing chip from home. It felt kind of flimsy, the plastic ties they provided. Moreover, it was almost impossible for me to tighten it. It was jiggling all the way and I was so nervous of losing it that I had to take a peak at it every now and then.

Lose that timing chip, you don’t get a time but what is worse is that it will cost you $40 bucks if it is not returned. Yeah, I know … I put it on upside down. Nanzaro told me already. Who cares as long as it captures my time.

Even at slightly past 7AM, there was already a festivity mood. Locating my starting line was easy … there are colored balloons that shows your starting line. Faster runners are placed forward while walkers are located way at the back.

The morning was extremely chilly. As a matter of fact it was the coldest Sun Run in history … 2 Celsius! Brrrrrr …. good thing we remembered to bring our gloves.

Our starting line is just in front of the Vancouver Art Gallery. This is where the 2010 Winter Olympics countdown clock is located. Frankly, to me this thingy is a vandalism and protest magnet. 691 more days to go to the 2010 Olympics … wohoo!

To me the Sun Run must have been one of the most beautiful runs in the world … not that I had been to any runs before! The route is amazing with great views.

By 15 minutes before the start time of 9AM, the entire area is already jam packed with people. Anyone coming after this can’t even get on and had to wait until the road cleared before they can get on.

This year, the Vancouver Sun had managed to get almost 60,000 runners. That was a record and pushed the Sun Run to be the second largest 10K runs in North America (after Atlanta’s Peachtree something, I think) … and like top 5 such runs in the world.

Getting to the starting line from our staging area took an awfully long time. It took us 24 minutes just to move ahead by 150 meters. Once at the starting line, things got a lot more exciting, I must say.

The organizers couldn’t have picked a better place to start the Sun Run. Georgia St is wide and most importantly downhill for quite a distance. So, almost everyone SPRINTED from the get go and many ran out of steam just 1 KM down the street! He he he …. me included! Don’t laugh at me … I am a running newbie OK?

Things went OK until we started going up that brutal slope leading to the Burrard Bridge. I was totally spent by the time I got up the bridge … and … our heart sank (Arkensen and I was keeping at the same pace) when we saw that big sign that says … “5KM”. Are you kidding me? Gosh, there is no giving up now … it will take just as long finishing it as giving up.

I took the time off to take a picture … about the only one I took along the route. It was around here that Arkensen took off ahead of me.

After almost eternity, I finally completed the run … at 74 minutes. Lousy time, I know but hey I made my first 10K run. Arkensen was ahead of me by about 6 minutes or so. I was glad I did the run.

When I started training for the Sun Run, I wanted to complete it in 60 minutes which later revised it to 70 minutes and again later to 75 minutes when it was apparent that I am in no form or shape to do 60 minutes. Maybe the next time. Am I going to stop running? Hmmm … not just yet!

It was amazing being a part of all the humanity in the BC Place Stadium. Oh man … I can just imagine how much more fitter the entire city had become as a whole just because of this one event.

Let’s do some math here. Say, there are 60,000 runners. Each runner on the average burned 800 calories each week training for the run. Say, each runner on the average trained for 3 weeks. That makes it … let me get my calculator … 144,000,000 calories! That must have amounted to a loss of at least a few tons of fat in the entire city.

At the end of run, we get free food. It’s always the same fare … bananas, bagels and oranges. I gobbled down quite a lot of bananas.

So … there you go … my first Sun Run!

“Sun Run … Been There, Done That”

Popularity: 9% [?]

Zen Fine Chinese Cuisine - Best Chinese Food Outside China

Hey … did any of you guys see that headline article in The Vancouver Sun on Friday last week? I mean, this one below?

Well, it is a big deal to be called by a New York Times critic as having the best Chinese food outside of China. Suanne and I knew there is this place called Zen but did not give a second glance at this because it is located in upstairs of a very small strip mall at the end of Alexandra Rd.

The article makes very interesting read … see the entire article called “Could a great review save a dining room on the brink?“.

So, Suanne and I are definitely going to check this place out. According to the article, they have a $35 tasting menu. We are planning on going on Friday this week (14-Mar). It would be great if some of you would care to join us. If you are interested, just pop us an email at ben.and.suanne@gmail.com. If that date does not work for you and you are definitely interested, let us know too … we’ll see what we can do.

Suanne and Ben

Popularity: 7% [?]

Any Tips For Vacation To Seattle?

Hey All:

We’re all set. Spring break vacation this year is going to be a short one to Seattle. We’ll be there for 6 days and we’ll want to do the normal touristy places and especially also check out eating places. Here are some ideas we have shortlisted so far:

• Argosy Cruise
• Museum of Flight
• Pacific Science Center
• Woodland Park Zoo
• Boeing tour
• Microsoft tour
• Pike Place Market
• Pioneer Square

For food, we are a bit lost. So far we can only think of:

• The Crab Pot
• Starbucks

Soooo … any advice, suggestions?

Ben and Suanne

Popularity: 18% [?]

Office Lunches: Blount Lobster Bisque and Mandarin Orange

OK, home run. This is the last of the series on office lunches … and so glad it is over! After a while, everything is just the same thing over and over again. But still I hope you all enjoyed it.

Today, I had the Blount Lobster Bisque and a mandarin orange. The container looked big which later I found out that it was not really meant for 1 person. There is enough to easily serve 2-3 people.

Preparing this is simple. Just pop it into the microwave for 5-6 minutes. It was really hot coming out from the oven. I did not realize how hot it was despite the caution on the lid. I almost drop the entire bowl onto the floor. If it happened it would have been a complete mess and the worse thing is I would have to clean it all up myself … at home, Suanne is in charge of cleaning up spills … he he he.

It was later at home I realized that it was meant for more than 1 person. That whole bowl I finished off contained a whopping 380 x 5 calories … 1900 calories!

Despite that, the Lobster Bisque is absolutely delicious. It is as good as you will find it anywhere. And they have real lobster meat too, or at least it tastes and looked like real lobster. Really nice … you can buy it from Costco (Bellingham for sure but not sure if this is in Canada).

Back to normal programming tomorrow.

Popularity: 9% [?]

Office Lunches: Dried-Mix Noodle, Asian Pear and Kudos Milk Chocolate Granola Bar

I am going to make this short.

For a change, I had dried mix noodles. Soup noddles are more common but of late there are quite a lot of dried mix ones in the market. I believe this one comes from China.

Making this is so simple, I did not even have to read the instructions. I just need to pour in to the container boiling hot water until the noodles softened and then I add the ingredients in the two sachets. This one came thoughtfully with a plastic fork.

This is not too good. It’s a bit too wiry (wire-ly?) for me. I guess I should have left it to soak in in hot water a bit longer. I know it’s just me but I am quite wary about these Chinese products. Maybe I had been reading too much about the safety records of Chinese products and how some of the manufacturers uses unsafe substances. * shrugs*

Popularity: 8% [?]