The trip to the Philippines in early 1997 marked my first overseas venture. I used my then-falling apart, now-defunct Ricoh SLR camera. I originally digitized the pictures with a flatbed scanner (thanks, Jed!), but I’d like to redo it sometime, if I can find a scanner that would handle 35mm film negatives. If anyone has pointers on such a tool, do let me know! (I could also clean out the annoying mirror crack that appears in most of the pictures; can crop only so much.)

Philippines (1997)

In late spring of 2002, we took a trip to France, my first time on the European continent. Most of the time was spent in Paris and Provence. We started and ended the trip with brief stops in England.

France and a bit of the United Kingdom (2002)

A request directed at architecture / city history buffs: Name this building! Seriously, neither of us remember its name or location, other than being in Paris. At first I thought it was the Panthéon or Opéra, but I’m not so sure…

Which famous Parisian building is this?

Ingredients

• 3 cups sweet, glutinous grain rice (sticky rice)
• 3 1/2 cups water, bottled or filtered
• 1/2 teaspoon sea salt
• 5 tablespoons brown sugar
• 1 can (about 13 1/2 ounces) of coconut milk, or 1 can of evaporated milk, or a combination of them
• sliced fresh tropical fruit, about 4 to 6 ounces per person

Method

1. Put the sweet rice, water and salt into a large sauce pan and bring to a boil.
2. Stir in the sugar and coconut and/or evaporated milk. Lower the heat, and allow to simmer covered for 20 to 30 minutes, or until the liquid is absorbed and the rice is tender (and sticky, of course). Stir occaisionally to prevent the rice from sticking to the pan.
3. Allow to cool a bit. To serve, arrange slices of fruit around a mound of rice.