Krik's Picks

I quit studying French and Italian. My wife and I were planning a trip to France and Italy for this summer. As of today, we still haven't cancelled our reservations. But it seems highly unlikely that the coronavirus pandemic will subside enough for us to safely embark on that trip. We will still go. Just not this summer. Now I have some extra time on my hands. Hmmm. What to do? Ever since I retired (in 2013) I've thought about retrieving my trumpet from the basement and start playing again. I did play in the school band all through high school and at college in the University of Minnesota Football Marching Band! After the U, I played in an alumni pep band for a few years. But gradually work and family and other things took over my life, and I quit playing. Spoiler Alert: If you came to this post looking for the recipe, it's at the end. If you want to skip all the blather about my trumpet, just scroll down for the Nutty Oat Bar recipe. Playing my trumpet has always bee...

One of my goals for the trip my wife and I took to France last autumn was to learn more about French wine. I've always felt uncertain about ordering French wine. Show me a wine list, and I can be fairly confident about picking a good wine from California or Italy or Argentina. But not so for the wines from France. The irony is, on our past trips to France, we've always liked the wine with our meals. Often we would just order a carafe of house wine, and often it would be a Bordeaux. Then, when we'd return home, if I tried to order a French wine at a restaurant, too often it didn't live up to our expectations. So on this trip, we planned a 4-night stay in Bordeaux specifically to become more knowledgeable about the nuances of wine that's produced there. Saint-Emilion  During our stay, we did 2 wine-oriented day trips. One day we joined a bus tour to the Medoc region, where we visited 2 chateaus and tasted their wine. The first was Chateau D'Arsac and the ...

If I had known how easy it would be, I would have more seriously considered taking the train from Paris to San Sebastian, rather than flying. I had read some reviews online that made me think that the Euskotren from Hendaya to San Sebastián would be unreliable. I recalled the hassles of using the commuter train from Naples to Sorrento and worried that the Euskotren would be like that.  So as I explained in the previous post , we ended up flying from Paris to Biarritz and then took a bus to San Sebastian. Then, after our very enjoyable stay in San Sebastian, we had to figure out how to get back to France and to our next destination - Bordeaux. I was very frustrated and had gotten to the point where I considered renting a car one-way. Fortunately, my wife insisted that we ask for help.  Our very helpful staff person at Lagazpi Doce  reassured us that the best option was to take the Euskotren. She told us that the station was nearby and that since it was a commuter train...