According to the Calabria Bakery website, they first opened in 1970 and is now run by the children and grandchildren of the original owners.

Although Calabria has only one location on Victoria Drive in Vancouver, their products can be purchased from dozens of different stores in the lower mainland area.

Of all of the products that Calabria makes, it is the pizza bread that is my favourite. I brought one home yesterday afternoon when I was out for a bike ride and sliced off about half of the bread to enjoy. Unfortunately, as I normally end up doing, I would return to the kitchen 2-3 more times right after that and slice another 2 inches. Pretty soon the whole pizza would be gone!

Needless to say I only had pizza bread for dinner last night.

If you’re in the area around Victoria Drive and 34th, stop in the Calabria Bakery for some pizza bread or some of their other great baked products. Or if you see them at another store, give it a try.

I guarantee you won’t be able to keep just half a pizza bread sitting on the counter.

Baden

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Calabria Bakery
5036 Victoria Drive, Vancouver
604-324-1337

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This recipe has evolved a bit since the original recipe – mostly with the addition of 300% more garlic than the original recipe. With every successive revision of this soup, I kept adding more garlic than the last until I finally stopped when I had reach a full 6 garlic bulbs. After all, you don’t want to go overboard.

A relatively simple soup to make, the original recipe asked to have the final puree stage done in a blender. This method involves moving hot soup back and forth between the pot and the blender in multiple stages – maximizing the opportunity to scald yourself and spill soup all over the kitchen floor. The inclusion of using an immersion blender makes this whole step infinitely easier by being able to puree right inside the pot.

If you haven’t purchased an immersion blender, I highly recommend getting one.

You can find my garlic soup recipe here.

Baden

It goes without saying that I like many of the European chocolates that I’ve had a chance to try while we’ve travelled. Lindt and Ritter Sport are two particular favourites of mine that are widely available here in local stores. Any of these two brands with either hazelnuts or almonds will be finished off within the day. You just can’t stop eating them.

The only unfortunate part if that most of the European chocolate brands come in 100g size bars while the more common brands like Aero and Hershey’s are typically smaller at around 40-45g. Given that I usually eat the whole chocolate bar at once, sometime that big European 100g bar is just a bit too big.

The other thing that’s important is that it’s got to be milk chocolate. No dark chocolate for me, thank you very much.

Yes, I realize that everyone and their brother tells me that the very best chocolate is always dark chocolate but I’ve given it a try and just don’t get it. There’s this unpleasant bitter undertone in dark chocolate that I find unappealing. Milk chocolate on the other hand (good milk chocolate), is all silky smooth and just pure eating pleasure.

Consistently, the very worst chocolates that you can find are those small foil-wrapped chocolate Easter eggs. I realize that they only costs about a dollar for about 500 of them but they don’t even qualify as chocolate. The chocolate that comes in many of the Christmas Advent calendars (with the little cardboard door that you open every day in December behind which you would find a small chocolate hiding). Most of the time the Advent calendar chocolates are in the same league of the Easter egg chocolates but last year we bought one with chocolates made by Rogers’ and they were really top notch.

For all of the brands of chocolate that I have tasted from European countries and everywhere in between, my favourite brand is right here in my back yard. Purdy’s Chocolates has been making chocolates in Vancouver for almost 100 years and as many people here know there are tons of Purdy’s locations in just about every mall in the lower mainland. Despite it’s commercial success, I find that the quality of their product to be top notch and as good as anything that I’ve bought from the European brands.

Not only is Purdy’s a well known local brand, but around Christmas time it’s practically an institution to see the telltale yellow foil wrapped boxes of Purdy’s chocolates being handed out as Christmas gifts. Among the favourites is the triangle shaped box of hedgehogs. Hedgehogs are a hazelnut truffle-filled chocolates which are made in the shape of hedgehogs. To the best of my knowledge, no real hedgehog is used in the making of these chocolates.

Barb and I make a point of sending a box of Purdy’s chocolates to our out of country friends at Christmas time as it seems to be a nice part of Vancouver that we’re sending along. However, I won’t be waiting until December to make my next visit to a Purdy’s store.

Baden

A Disneyland vacation is exciting and entertaining. It is NOT restful. As we were packing up and getting ready to travel home I thought about all the things we had seen and experienced. I present to you our top ten (OK, it’s really eleven) list of things we will always remember about our trip to the happiest place on earth.

10a. Oh my aching feet. Peter and I walked for miles, stood in lines for hours, and then hiked the ten minutes back to the hotel at the end of the day. We tumbled into bed at the same time as the kids because we were too tired to stay up later.

10b. The marketing genius of Disney. Did you know that almost every ride exits into the middle of a store? While the shopping only consists of Disney merchandise, it is nicely displayed and fun to look at. We enjoyed just looking at the mountains of Mickey Mouses, Princess dolls, and Disneyland t-shirts. Our favourite toy store had Mr. Potato head pieces such as Mickey ears, Donald Duck beaks, and princess glass slippers. I found the Mr. Potato Head & “Darth Tater” at the end of Star Tours to be very creative.

9. Fire alarms are never pleasant. When you are awoken in the middle of the night because of a false alarm it is downright miserable. We later found out a small child pulled it. Don’t parents control their children at midnight?

8. Traveling with children is actually not bad if you make sure to pack lots of snacks and leave lots of extra time for unexpected events such as going to the bathroom. We were pleasantly surprised at how well our kids did on the cars, buses and planes during our trips.

7. Our 4 year old son’s love for fast rides and scary things. He was good for any ride that promised a fast ride, a scary moment, or a daring thrill. His favourite rides included Star Tours, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, and the Matterhorn. I don’t know where his thrill seeking ways will take him as he grows up, but he definitely enjoyed a little of the wilder side of Disneyland.

6. Our 7 year old daughter’s pleasure in giving a princess a hug, spinning on a teacup, and seeing something new on It’s A Small World every time of the dozen times she went on it. She and Dad also enjoyed the quality time together they had learning how to draw some of the different Disney characters in an animation workshop.

5. Fastpass: There is nothing like going to the head of the line and bypassing the poor souls that have been standing there for over an hour. We used the Fastpass system extensively and it helped that I had done some reading before hand on how to best use it. It would have cost us a lot of time and frustration if I had not known that fast passes technically do not expire until park closing. Most people did not know this and were constantly trying to return in their designated time slot. Do not go to a theme park uninformed.

4. Soarin’ Over California is a ride that should not be missed. We sat in this chair lift like apparatus which gently lifted up and suspended us in the air in front of an IMAX type screen. While different vistas of California scenery flashed in front of us, the bench moved along with the illusion. When going over a mountain top, the bench actually dipped back and then leaned forward. The wind rushing through your hair had the scent of pine in it and it just seemed so real. Not really scary unless you are really scared of heights. This is a must see ride if you ever get the chance.

3. The Aladdin show in California Adventure Park is presented in a world class theatre and included some amazing special effects. Our favourite was when Aladdin and Princess Jasmine actually flew over our heads on a magic carpet all while singing “A Whole New World”. Disney is truly an entertainment master.

2. The fireworks extravaganza. We spent an evening along with 100,000 others in front of Sleeping Beauty’s castle while the sky exploded with colour all around us. It was all set to classic Disney music, and even included a real life Tinkerbell flying back and forth above the castle. It looked exactly like the opening credits for The Wonderful World of Disney. Yet another childhood fantasy come to life before my eyes.

1. The Parade of Dreams. Wow! What a sight. Our whole family will always remember the magic of that night starting with Tinkerbell and ending with all the princesses and Mickey himself. I don’t even like parades and yet this was definitely the highlight moment of our trip.

On our way home from the Seattle airport we stopped in Bellingham for supper. As we ate we talked about our favourite memories of the trip. At the end our daughter said that her head was full of memories and that it was her best vacation ever.

Just her saying that made it our best vacation as well.

Arlene

We’ve seen lots of characters, ridden exciting rides, and paid exorbitant prices to buy meals with corn chips in the shape of Mickey’s ears. We’ve also stood in lots of lines, walked what I’ve been told is an average of 5-7 miles a day, and each taken turns at having little meltdowns caused by lack of sleep and an over abundance of activity.

We have also seen dreams come true in the hidden gems of Disneyland. Our daughter has especially enjoyed the Princess shop where 3 times a day a different princess comes to tell her story. Each princess is accompanied by a “helper” who plays all the parts besides the princess. The stories are enchanting and funny, and are followed by a meet and greet. Priceless chances to see her favourite stories come alive and get a hug from Cinderella too! We like it for all the reasons she does, and because it doesn’t cost extra.

Our son’s highest moments are a little more varied. He LOVED Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, lives for Buzz Lightyear Astroblasters, and cried when he had to leave the caves on Tom Sawyer’s Island. His eyes were the biggest though, when he got to meet Buzz and get a hug, picture and autograph. Again we liked it for all the reasons he did and it didn’t cost any extra.

There have actually been Disney characters everywhere. Major ones like Mickey and Donald, and minor ones like the mice from Cinderella or the old monkey from the Lion King. As a family our favourite thing so far has been the parade. We saw it at night with the stars shining and the Disney music resounding around us. The floats were extravagant, colourful and larger then life. There were acrobats, dancers, and characters galore. It was enough to make even a hardened cynic clap along with the music. At the end were all the princesses with their beau and at the very top Prince Mickey and Princess Minnie. The sights and sounds were enough to make me feel like a kid again and remember what stuff my little girl dreams were made of.

The Parade of Dreams will definitely be a dream we will always remember.

Arlene

Continue reading the final article in this series

It’s been some time since I’ve flown and obviously things have changed. It took almost an hour to check our luggage because they couldn’t find our tickets. Then there was the insane line up to go through security. Everything was going fine until our son decided that he really did not want to remove his shoes. There is nothing like having a whole airport watch you as you try to convince a four year old to stop screaming. After that we walked what seemed like a mile to our gate. It was at this point that we became sincerely appreciative of the double umbrella stroller we had wondered if we would really need. The answer was a resounding yes.

Luckily the actual flight was smooth and both children slept for part of the way. When we finally collected our luggage in L.A., the kids were thrilled to see that the last portion of our trip involved a ride on a “Mickey Mouse” bus to our hotel. I will admit that the Disney marketing campaign is slick. There was a Mickey plane, a Mickey bus, and then of course the Mickey poster all over our hotel room.

By the time we actually walked in the front gates of Disneyland it was 7:00 pm. While our day had already been full, the Disney magic sucked us in and revitalized our energy. The kids went to bed with the tune of “It’s a Small World” ringing in their ears. We went to bed thankful to have survived a long day of travel and happy to be together as a family.

Arlene

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