The Gherkin
Posted Nov 15, 2024
Posted Nov 15, 2024
Posted Dec 26, 2023
These are some favorite photos from a recent trip to Kyoto. We arrived at the tail end of October and stayed until mid-November. View this gallery on Flickr to see more from the trip, including Tokyo, Nara, and Miyajima.
Posted Nov 02, 2023
The Kinkaku-ji, a Zen Buddhist temple commonly called the Golden Pavilion, stands serenely against Kyoto’s lush landscape. The top two floors are covered in brilliant gold leaf that glowed warmly in the afternoon sun on my visit. In spite of the crowds, it’s a place of transcendent beauty, and it’s easy to see why it’s one of Japan’s most iconic and historic sites.
Posted Oct 31, 2023
Posted Jan 17, 2023
This view of the Palace of Madrid at sunset was a beautiful moment in a quick, three-day stopover in Madrid before heading on to Seville, Malaga and Granada. Seen from about a mile to the north at the temple of Debod, an ancient Egyptian temple gifted to Spain in the 1960s. The weather was wintry and the spot was crowded – although Madrid has a lot to offer, we were glad to be on our way somewhere warmer.
Posted Dec 20, 2022
Cooking is an investment of your time, effort and ingredients. Unfortunately, if you’re working off a bad recipe, you may be doomed from the start. It only takes one or two truly bad experiences to realize that unless you know and trust the source, all bets are off. Tried and true recipes from trustworthy sources are key.
But finding good recipes online can be surprisingly hard. One of the main problems is the sheer volume of information available. With so many websites, blogs, and recipe databases to choose from, it can be overwhelming.
And then there’s quality control. Anyone can post a recipe online, regardless of their cooking experience or knowledge. You may — scratch that — you will come across recipes that are poorly written, inaccurate, or just don’t work.
I wanted to cut out the garbage and the noise, so I got a little bit nerdy and built a recipe finder using a Google custom search engine. It searches only the trusted sources listed below. (Although I may add to it as I find new sources I like.)
Note that I have no financial interest in anyone using this tool — it’s simply something I made that I found useful, and I’m sharing it in case it’s helpful to anyone else.
Tip: On most of these sites, an author is listed for each recipe. If you make a recipe and you like how it turns out, take note of who the author is! That same person could have recipes listed across several other websites, or they may have published a cookbook or have a YouTube channel, Patreon page or Substack newsletter that you can subscribe to.
Good luck on the hunt!
Posted Oct 08, 2022
Photos from a summer hike on the Sauk Mountain trail, in the Washington state Cascades.
Posted Mar 14, 2022
iPhone photos from a trip to Paris, France in November 2021, with side trips to the Champagne region and Mont-Saint-Michel.
Posted Jun 10, 2021
In March 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic was just taking hold and Seattle was shutting down. I wandered out on a rainy night to snap a few photos of the largely abandoned Pike Place Market and try out a new lens filter (Tiffen 52mm Black Pro-Mist 1⁄4). It gives the photos a moody glow, although I discovered in some cases incoming light bounced off the lens, back to the inside surface of the filter and then back again toward the lens, resulting in an inverted double image (somewhat visible in the first photo). Worth the trouble though; I love the effect.