Archive | October, 2024

Wander Lust: Culinary Escapes, The Curious Traveler, Wild Travels, and Word Travels

30 Oct

I love to travel, but right now a trip abroad is not in our budget till then a perfect way to feed my desire to explore the world is through the many interesting travel shows featured on Hoopla.

Culinary Escapes
Culinary Escapes will feed the need for those who like to travel (or dream about traveling) first class. Two bffs Kerri Zane and Christina Cindrich stay at five star hotels while sampling and even in some cases learning to prepare some of the local delicacies. I devoured the episodes on France (delicious macrons), New Orleans (beignets and jambalaya) and London (fish & chips and fresh game). In London they even got to see where royalty gets measured for their hats and in France design a signature perfume. If you love luxury trips with your favorite gal pal then this will be a treat.

Curious Traveler
In Curious Traveler, journalist Christine van Blokland channels her inner child and asks all the Why?, What?, Where? How? questions and helps unravel mysteries of each destination’s art, architecture and hidden histories. I enjoyed the episode about Quebec City; even though I had visited and stayed at the iconic Château Frontenac, I hadn’t been aware of all the interesting history surrounding the hotel and the city. The series will give you deeper insight into your favorite travel destinations. There are three seasons of Curious Traveler available to stream. If you enjoy trivia and taking guided tours to learn all you can about a region than this will be your ticket.

Wild Travels
Looking for something a little less fancy or educational and a little more off the beaten path, than check out Wild Travels. The series promises to deliver the quirkiest places and people in the United States. The first episode from season 2 that I watched included the first cog railway in the world, Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream Factory, the Weeki Wachee Mermaid Show, bug art at the Fairbanks Museum, and Sneaker Con. You can borrow seasons 1 and 2 of Wild Travels from Hoopla. This would be a fun one for the whole family to watch to get ideas for exciting trips with the kids.

Word Travels – the Truth Behind the Byline
Finally if you are thinking of taking your love of travel to the next level and becoming a travel writer than check out Word Travels. Robin Esrock and Julia Dimon travel to a variety of destination and give insight into how they use their experience to write articles about the location that give not only interesting facts but insight into the lives of the people living there. I enjoyed watching their visits to the countries of Georgia, where they learned about the Heavy Metal Scene and vineyards and Lithuania where Robin found out about genealogical travel while tracing his grandfather’s tragic past.

Whether you are traveling this summer and looking to learn a few key phrases quickly or want to gain greater mastery for a future trip you are likely to find the perfect course for you with our new language learning offering, Pronunciator. Plus we also have Mango which you can read more about in a previous post.

Written by:
Aimee Harris
Information and Digital Services Manager

Tags: , , ,

Get Cooking this Fall!: Start Here and Home Style Cookery

23 Oct

Start Here
By Sohla El-Waylly
Our library has pulled a great selection of Fall cookbooks to put on display, and this book Start Here starts with teaching the basics through extraordinary recipes and flavors. The chef Sohla El-Waylly displays how to perfectly make any style of egg, how to carmelize, brown-butter anything, working with dough, and much more. Although she can run through the basics, her recipes have much more depth to them then the simple 1-2-3. For a wonderful Fall recipe, I picked her Walnut Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies that are just filled with warmth and brown-buttery goodness. Did you know leaving the cookie dough in the fridge overnight or even 24-hours before baking helps to hone in on that strong chocolate and butter flavor? Her voice, in the book and on her YouTube cooking videos, is so professional, yet she has done so much cooking that she is used to failing, and wants the readers to learn from it and also expect that not everything comes out perfect the first time. She goes on to say that this book was made just for that; all the hours put into school just to still mess up -it happens, but this is why she put a book together with all the basics covered, so we don’t have to fail as much. You’ve probably seen her on New York Times Cooking YouTube channel where she does cooking 101, and a mystery menu with her partner Ham El-Waylly. She even has a segment with The History Channel YouTube where she makes ancient recipes; for more historic recipe suggestions check out our review of Tasting History.

Home Style Cookery
by Matty Matheson
When talking about Fall recipes, we have to include some soups and broths -it’s the best time to consume them! In one of his many cookbooks, Home Style Cookery another YouTuber Matty Matheson goes over how to make just about every broth for the base of any perfect soup.  This book covers almost everything from breads to any style of vegetable imaginable, dips and desserts, and grilled and fried yumminess. As a vegetarian I’m always looking for a delicious veggie stock, and his mushroom stock is just what I was looking for. He uses the word “beefy” to describe the umami flavor taken from the use of cremini mushrooms. A secret he uses for this recipe is to roast the onion before adding it to the stock, which really brought a silky richness to the stock. I ended up using it for my start-of-Fall veggie soup, and it was gone in an instant! These recipes are super easy to follow and require low-effort to get it all done. He’s another one of my favorite YouTube chefs, and always makes me laugh with his videos. I also enjoy his personality, because his family is where my family originated -Newfoundland, Canada -so I love his Canadian references. You can also read a previous review of Matty Matheson: A Cookbook, his first recipe book/memoir.

October is National Cookbook month; you can also read lots of other cookbook and foodie focused book reviews written by our staff.

Written by:
Samantha Meyers
Information and Digital Services Assistant

Tags: ,

← Older Entries