Camping

In a very similar way to with my passion for animals, I grew up camping with my family and both sides of grand parents, but largely lost touch with camping through university and early adulthood in favour of international travel.  As a kid, we used to camp at least once a year, usually several times, and every other year we would spend around a month camping our way from Vancouver to a destination and back.

As a family we camped our way to Alaska, the Yukon, Montreal, Yellowstone, Alberta and Saskatchewan and back, not to mention all over BC and Washington state.  Some of my fondest memories growing up were the weekend trips camping to Rolley Lake or Cultus Lake with my grand parents.  I used to love going fishing with my Grandpa, if I was unsuccessful we would stop off at a trout farm on the way home so I could catch a fish. Some of my best childhood memories are being given a pocket knife and told to go have fun in the bush behind the campsite.  

Our last family camping trip was to the Yukon and Alaska and back during the summer between grade 10 and 11.  We saw so many black bears on that trip.  On the way back we stopped off at Stewart BC and went over the Hyder Alaska.  There we visited fish creek and the Grizzly viewing platform to watch the bears catch salmon right out of the river.  It was something right out of national geographic.  

After that trip, I largely didn't camp anymore.  It wasn't cool.  None of my friends were into it and with school and a new job it wasn't a priority.  I used to love camping, but like my love of animals, it felt like a historic artifact of my childhood which was no longer important.  Honestly, I felt like BC was too boring and that I would rather see the world.  What a typical young adult thought.  I have learned since then how special BC and Canada really is.  I was so wrong in thinking BC was boring.

Fascination with animals

A cheetah on the S-28 at Lower Sabie, Kruger National Park (South Africa): Credit: Mukul2u

I have always had a fascination with animals.  As a small kid everyone thought I would do something with animals when I grew up.  I read as much as I could.  I had subscriptions to Zoo Books and other publications in order to learn all that I could about animals.  As you may be able to tell from the image for this post, my favourite animal was the Cheetah.   It is still a dream of mine to see one in the wild.

Contrary to what everyone was expecting of me, I didn't go into biology or end up doing anything with animals.  Cellular biology killed that for me so I went to what I was more talented in and became an engineer. Growing up, my second major passion was lego, so it was an obvious choice given that I did well in math and physics.  

As I grew into teenage-hood and then adulthood, university and my career really took the forefront of my focus, and I largely forgot my passion about animals.  It was like that friend you had growing up that you were inseparable from, but suddenly circumstances made you lose touch.  I always remembered my passion for animals, but largely didn't see it as an adult pursuit.  It was more of an artifact of my childhood to reminisce about. 

Falling in Love with Food

Dutch Meatballs

The first food that I fell in love with was dutch meat balls.  They were a staple in my house growing up.  I now make them out of game meat, but when was a kid my parents and Oma (grandmother) used beef.  It was the meal I would request on my birthday and I just adored it.

Generally, we had straight forward meals growing up.  Both my parents worked hard and we always had good food to eat.  

As I grew up, I found myself always looking for new and interesting food experiences.  I remember the first time I really enjoyed sushi and the all you can eat Chinese buffets that have pretty much all since disappeared.  I learned quickly that food is one of the great passions in my life and that I will forever be looking to the food as the gateway to experiencing new cultures and places.  

I travel on my stomach and I judge a place by its food.  I will never turn down something new to eat as long as I don't seriously fear for my safety.  As an adult the drive to try new food has brought me to amazing food experiences.  Highlights have been yogurt in Greece, boeuf bourguignon in France, Kobe beef in Japan, dim sum in Hong Kong, poffertjes kroketten and in Holland, this one perfect steak in San Francisco, and the list goes on.  

Asia has been responsible for some of the best meals I have ever had and some of the strangest.  In China I had amazing mutton and mantis shrimp.  If you ever get the chance to try mantis shrimp, holy shit, try it.  I also tried dog... yeah it was tough and nothing to write home about.  I also had whale in Japan.  When I had the whale though, they didn't tell me what I was having.  This plate of what looked like deep fried chicken tenders arrived and we all dove in for a piece.  Our host asked us what we thought it was.  None of us had any idea, until one person said it tasted like fishy beef.  The response was "Yes! Its whale,".  I'll be honest, it was really good.  Ethically dubious, but good.  On another trip to Japan I had chicken sashimi and I am not dead, so this whole salmonella thing is a bit overblown.  Also had raw horse that same day I had the chicken sashimi.  I'll eat anything, but neither blew me away.  

However, the most ethically dubious but fantastic food I have ever had is Bluefin Tuna.  Yes, it is threatened, but damn it is good.  Japan has a million ways to serve Bluefin Tuna and they are all good.  

I'll rant later about vegans, vegitarians, and pescatarians, but for now I'll say this.  I can't imagine a world without meat or fish.  It would diminish one of my greatest joys and make life hard to live.  I can't for a second empathize with someone who doesn't dream of their next amazing meal or reminisce about that time in that place you ate that thing.  My life is hugely defined by the amazing meals I have had.  

I recently had a business trip with a vegetarian colleague in Japan.  His food needs determined so much of the trip.  Furthermore, Japan is one of the most amazing food destinations and to miss out on that aspect of the culture is such a shame.  

I'll end this post saying that in spite of everything above, I do have ethics, or at least I have evolving ethics about food.  I am not static in my opinions and I love lively debate.   I can be wrong, or at the very least, I can compromise.  Who I am today is largely shaped with my latest ethical opinions about food.  I'm sure that I'll change over time.  Let's see.

Growing Up Guns Are Bad

I want to start by putting it all on the table.  I think it is important to be transparent about where I come from so that no one thinks I have some agenda other than sharing my interests and passions.  To be clear, this is a blog about Food, Hunting, and Firearms in BC.  So lets get down to it...

I grew up in a house where guns were equated with bad.  What's interesting is that it wasn't a hard and fast rule that guns were bad in my house growing up, but just that modern looking military guns were bad.  This meant I could have cap guns that were orange or neon green, cowboy revolver or pirate musket cap guns, and super soakers, but I wasn't allowed to have G.I. Joe.  For that matter, I wasn't even allowed to watch Ninja Turtles because it was too violent.

Generally, what I think is that my parents were, and still are, very worried about violence in society and unnecessary wars.  I know that for both my parents, watching the US go to war in Vietnam was very formative in their young adulthood and that the gun culture in the states is seen as responsible for much of the violence and murders we see south of the border.

Through university I played a lot of World of Warcraft.  I ran a guild of over 100 paladins at one point.  It was a great inexpensive way to pass the time between classes.  Eventually I graduated and decided to start leveling myself rather than my character.  I began running regularly and I took up a martial art called iaido.  It is the ancient Japanese samurai martial art of drawing and using the katana sword.  I love it to this day and practice as much as I can.

Through friends I made in iaido and through a colleague at work, I was slowly introduced to firearms and decided I wanted to learn to shoot and get my gun license.   We'll get into that whole process later.

Next up... why I love food.