Matador Network's Blog, page 2136

7 things the Irish take for granted

Photo: Kathleen Patrice

1. The Irish language

Ahhhh, Gaeilge. It may not be evolving, but it’s still there, on ATMs, at bus stops, and in some parts, it’s still thriving. Seeing as every Irish person has to take it for their Leaving Cert, it enables even the least fluent of us to have a solid linguistic back-up when travelling. We can bitch and moan about people in our immediate vicinity without them having a clue what we’re saying. Granted, slurs don’t get much more vulgar than “Póg mo thóin” (Kiss my ass), but regardless, it’s something we’ve got that no one else does. So there.

2. Being friendly

We’re friendly as fuck. The fact that we don’t even hate the English anymore is proof that we can make amends with pretty much anyone. Anyone visiting our fair nation will come back with tales of invitations to dine with the natives, breaking bread, swigging whiskey, and singing songs until the wee hours. The weather may be shit, but we make up for it with our good vibes and open door policy.

3. Neutrality

Ireland’s political neutrality has safeguarded us from war and diplomatic red-flagging. The Irish are natural fence sitters, choosing to keep the peace rather than rock the boat, which leads larger land masses to welcome us with open arms, saying “Come! Tend our bars, heal our sick, pick our apples! We know you mean no harm!”. They say the our army is the fittest in the world, training around the clock for a battle that will never be fought.

4. The rain

The rain in Ireland is practically perpetual. We don’t even really have seasons anymore, you can just tell what time of year it is by the quantity and temperature of the drizzle or downpour. However, the rain bestows on us a particular hardiness, an all-weather resistance that those from more tropical nations lack. Nothing can phase us. No yoga class shall go unattended, no party un-partied, no barbeque un-grilled, and no school missed. We are Irish, and we brave the weather without raincoats or umbrellas, baring our chests and legs to the elements in defiance of Mother Nature’s constant test.

5. Rich cultural history

Our island may be small, but culturally speaking, it is a giant. From literature to music, Ireland has produced some of the greats. Joyce, Yeats, Beckett, Shaw, Wilde, Sinead O’Connor, U2, Brendan Gleeson, Francis Bacon, Neil Jordan…I could go on, but gloating doesn’t become us.

6. Beautiful countryside

Ireland is tiny, so you’d think we would see more of it, but until recently the roads were too crappy to traverse the island that much. The Cliffs of Moher carve a zig-zag out of the Clare coast, The Burren is a vast limestone wonderland filled with bogs housing our ancestors and preserving them perfectly, if a bit leathery. The Giant’s Causeway is a UNESCO World Heritage Site (although technically in Northern Ireland, not the Republic). And I can guarantee you you’ve never seen so many rainbows in your life. That’s because of all the leprechauns. Seriously. (Or the rain, but whatever…)

7. Security

The Emerald Isle is very safe. Since the recession things, like phones have become a hot commodity for thieves, and say goodbye to your bike if you leave it in town overnight, but apart from that, it’s fairly chill in terms of danger. There’s no large-scale drug racket like in Mexico, no sprawling slums like in Brazil, no man-eating bears like in Canada, and no spirit-crushing dictators like in North Korea. The most perilous thing you’ll encounter at night is a drunk stumbling home after a night’s drinking, and he’s too busy worrying about the holy show he made of himself to bother with you.

10 cooking tricks that will change your life

Photo by Risto Kuulasmaa

If you like bringing back spices, funky ingredients, and delicious recipes from your travels, you’ll enjoy the following tricks that will allow you to easily recreate the delicious flavours of your adventures in the kitchen.

1- Peeling garlic

No need to fuss with your pointy knife around the edges of garlic cloves to peel these little suckers. Instead, hit the head of garlic with the heel of your hand to break it into cloves, put the cloves in a bowl, cover the bowl with a similar-sized bowl, and shake the two like your life depends on it. Ten seconds later, your cloves will be perfectly peeled and ready to be chopped!

2- Cutting and dicing a mango

Cutting mangoes can be difficult because of their unusual shape and their large pits. I have tried many techniques before and this one proved to be the most efficient.

Cutting a mango along its “cheeks” by running a sharp knife parallel to the pit, is the key. The closer to the pit, the better, so you don’t waste any of that tasty mango meat. When the two “cheeks” are cut, you can dice the meat easily within the skin of the mango and wow your friend with your incredible presentation skills.

3- Preventing a pot from overflowing

This is a trick from my grandma and I’ll always be grateful for it because it has saved me many hours of cleaning the stove to get rid of large pools of milk.

Just lay a wooden spoon across your pot of boiling water or milk and it will never overflow.

4- Coring a head of iceberg lettuce

This hack is great for those who, like me, hate using large knives (I am very accident-prone). The core of an iceberg lettuce is usually very hard to cut through, but slamming it hard on your kitchen counter or a cutting board will detach the core for the rest of the lettuce. Easy peasy.

5- Peeling potatoes

Peeling potatoes is not a pleasant task; it’s time-consuming and it fills up the compost bucket very quickly. This trick might seem intense and slightly rednecky, but it works and that’s all that matters! Grab a drill and stick a toilet brush where the drill bit goes. Put all the potatoes you need into a bucket and cover them with water. Dip the toilet brush in the water and turn the drill on for about 60 seconds. The potatoes will come out peeled and clean! I promise that this will make your Thanksgiving preparations a lot easier.

6- Cutting bell peppers

The problem with cutting bell peppers is that you have to deal with their seeds. They are tiny and a bit sticky, so you always end up removing them by hand and it’s a lengthy process. A good way to avoid this is to use Gordon Ramsay’s cutting method: cut the stalk of the bell pepper so it stands easily on the cutting board, and cut from the top of the pepper all the way around to avoid the core that contains the seeds.

7- Keeping avocadoes green

Avocadoes are tasty and healthy, but they do not keep well when cut in half and stored in the fridge. To prevent avocadoes from browning, roughly cut a red onion, put the chopped onion in the bottom of a container, lay the halved avocado with its pit inside the container, and it will remain green for up to one week!

8- Deseeding a pomegranate

Pomegranates are delicious, but they’re also very messy. I’ve taken the habit of never wearing any of my favourite clothes when deseeding a pomegranate because they always end up being covered in small, red stains. This trick, however, might just save us all from the great pomegranate threat and make the process fast and pain-free.

Gently cut the pomegranate along its ridges, where the membrane runs inside, to prevent slashing any of the seeds. After that, break the fruit open in half above a bowl of water and plunge each half in the water to remove the seeds from the “shell”. The seeds will sink at the bottom of the bowl and the white membrane will float. Scoop the membrane out with a spoon, drain the water using a strainer, and you have a big bunch of pomegranate goodness, as well as a clean shirt!

9- Makeshift cookbook stand

If you’re an old-fashion cook, you still use cookbooks and keep the tablet and the laptop far away from the kitchen counter. The problems with using cookbooks, magazines, or printed recipes is that they will likely get splashed during the process and remain sticky and/or stained for eternity. Not only that, but their pages keep turning without you agreeing to it and they use valuable counter space. To prevent all of this from happening, get a clip hanger from your wardrobe and use it to hold your recipe at the right page. Hook the hanger on the handle of one of your kitchen cupboards and you’re set to prepare a feast!

10- Peeling a hard-boiled egg

There’s nothing easier to cook than a hard-boiled egg, but the peeling part can be annoying. Luckily there’s a trick for that too! Keep your hard-boiled eggs moist in a bowl of water in the fridge before you decide to peel them. When time has come, grab the egg, hit it, and roll it with the palm of your hand on the counter. When you’ve done one full roll, the egg should peel very easily.

WATCH: Sick ski film from Japan

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Japan’s ski hills ain’t easy to get to for Americans and Europeans. A super-long international flight begins a roughly 30-hour odyssey to the northern islands’ ski mountains. Jet-lagged and delirious, it’s a test of patience and endurance to reach Japan’s fabled skiing.

But as the saying goes, “Good things come to those who wait,” which couldn’t be truer about Japan’s powderlicious playgrounds. How good is it? See for yourself.

You're mispronouncing these places

I GREW UP IN CINCINNATI, and we had a way of telling if someone had been born and raised in the area or if they’d moved to the area from one of the coasts. It was in how they pronounced one of the nearest large cities: Louisville. It’s a tricky one, because it seems like an explicitly French name, so you would imagine that it’s pronounced — if not like the super-French “Loo-ee-veel” — like “Loo-ee-ville,” or possibly “Loo-iss-vill.”

Nope. Not how you say it. Fortunately for non-locals, though, the website Thrillophilia has gone through the world’s cities, found the ones that are commonly mispronounced, and has produced these graphics to help you with your pronunciation.

1. Louisville, Kentucky

2. Bangkok, Thailand

3. Budapest, Hungary

4. Colombia

5. Dubai, UAE

6. Iraq

7. Melbourne, Australia

8. Pakistan

9. Phuket, Thailand

10. Qatar

11. River Thames, England

12. Versailles, France

13. Worcester, England

14. Yosemite, California

You can find more mispronounced place names at Thrillophilia’s website.

These Tajikistan tent views are epic

TAJIKISTAN — a country where 93% of the land is covered by mountains — isn’t a place you hear a lot about. But Russian photographer Oleg Grigoryev’s images might just change all that.

Taken on a hiking trip through the Fann Mountains, the world as viewed through a tent flap at dawn looks seriously good. Titled ‘Morning Views from the Tent’, Grigoryev gives us a glimpse into a country of alpine lakes and snowy peaks that reach nearly 5,500 meters high. And it’s enough to make me want to trade all the espressos in the world for hiking boots and endless mornings in the mountains of Central Asia. How about you?




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Big Allo Lake






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Kulikalon Lake






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Muddy Lake






Intermission


185
12 differences between a normal friend and a Spanish friend
by Ana Bulnes




15 stunning natural features that define Arizona
by Branden Eastwood



45
10 cheapest cities in the world, 2010
by Heather Carreiro













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Near Mirali Peak






5

Lake Alaudin






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Lake Alaudin






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Chimtarga






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Chimtarga






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Fann Mountains






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Fann Mountains

Drink like you're from the Outback

Photo: Aaron Booth

Get creative with your alcohol-sneaking strategies.

No one is more creative than a person from the Outback when it comes to sneaking in alcohol. An inventive example is the Esky Punch, which is simply when you empty an entire bottle of vodka into your esky (cooler) that’s full of ice. That way, if your Esky is searched for some reason, it will be assumed that the ice has just started to melt from the heat — not that it’s floating around in a litre of vodka.

Always have a tactical plan.

Longevity is something to aspire to when drinking in the Outback. Your basic goal is to outlast your mates without spending too much money. Which is why everyone knows that you always order a glass of water in a low voice that no one but the bartender can hear (the outlast part), and start the night on rum which, though costly, will get you inebriated fast. Then switch to beer, which won’t hurt the wallet as much (the cheaper part).

Know your environment and the type of drinking that it requires.

When it comes to drinking like you’re from the Outback, situational awareness is key. Going to the races and want to look classy? Drink wine or champagne. Going to the rodeo and want to appear as if you belong? Drink Bundy Rum. Going out on your boat fishing for the day and don’t want the hassle of mixing your drinks or broken glass? Cans of beer.

More like this 10 signs you learned to drink in Australia


Memorise your drinking slang.

Make sure you know the colloquial term for what you are drinking. Bush Chook, Green Cans, and Gold are all types of beer commonly drunk in the Outback. That way if someone offers you a Bush Chook, you’ll know to be appreciative and not offended.

Appropriate clothing is definitely important.

Girls, you know you should never wear high heels to the R=races. Wedges should be your go-to shoe. Then, if it starts to rain and you’ve had a few drinks too many, you’ll be thanking yourself for not having to dig your stilettos out of the mud.

Remember, more is more.

When you’re going camping for the weekend, always take more alcohol than you think you will need. Even if that means leaving out some of the food. Otherwise you’ll be caught in the dire predicament of looking for your drink, not at it. That’s rough.

Absolutely never refuse a drink someone has bought for you.

Even if you are a typical Aussie bloke that works on an Outback station, if someone buys you wine, champagne, cider, or some other drink you wouldn’t be caught dead ordering, drink it. It would be in poor taste to refuse. Plus, you’ve just saved yourself at least 10 dollars.

And above all, protect your drink.

No matter what happens, save your drink. If you are at the races in a new dress and about to trip face first into a pile of horse manure — keep that drink upright. You can always get the dress dry-cleaned.

Monarch butterflies are in danger

Photo: jmadjedi

NORTH AMERICAN MONARCHS are an amazing keystone species — they’re the only butterfly to travel up to 3,000 miles in mass migrations from Canada and the US to Mexico for winter.

But since 1990, 970 million monarchs have vanished.

That’s a 90% fall in two decades. Only about 30 million remain, with climate change and the depletion of milkweed said to be the main factors in the butterflies’ decline.

The milkweed plant is the main food source of the monarch butterfly — it’s also their home and sole breeding ground across the United States — and it’s decreasing dramatically.

Photo: Luna sin Estrellas

Factors contributing to the destruction of milkweed include the conversion of prairies to cropland, particularly across the crucial Interstate 35 corridor from Minnesota to Texas, home to 50% of monarchs during spring and summer, and the increased use of weed killer-resistant crops that allow farmers to douse fields in milkweed-destroying herbicides.

The imperiled butterflies’ source of food, nursery, and home is being decimated, and put simply, no milkweed means no monarchs. And this isn’t just about a butterfly; it’s about environmental health as a whole.

The good news is, in an attempt to counter twenty years of destruction, the federal Fish and Wildlife Service have just announced that they’ll be putting $3.2 million into restoring monarch habitats. $2 million will go into on-the-ground conservation — milkweed seeds will be planted in refuges and other areas the Fish and Wildlife Service controls, creating 200,000 acres of habitat along the I-35.

Photo: Felix’s Endless Journey

Fish and Wildlife will also encourage other federal and state agencies to do the same on public lands, and farmers and homeowners will be part of the solution, with seeds provided to anyone willing to plant milkweed in open spaces like roadsides, parks, forests, and flower boxes. Another $1.2 million will go toward generating further funds from private organizations.

Which means the next generation might just get to see brilliant skies filled with bright orange and black butterflies after all.

Beneath the most beautiful ice rink

On an outing to Banff National Park, Canada, photographer Paul Zizka got the chance to capture an impressive phenomenon.

While skating on Lake Minnewanka, the Vermillion Lake, and Abraham Lake, Zizka noticed methane gas bubbles trapped under the ice. The photographer had observed them before, but “some years they freeze better than others. This year they seem to have an amazing amount of detail to them”, Zizka explains to the CBC.

The low temperature in this part of Alberta in winter froze the bubbles that usually break when reaching the surface. Although they are filled with fammable methane, the bubbles are not dangerous if not lit.

For more of Zizka’s work, visit his website here.




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Methane bubbles underneath Lake Minnewanka, Banff National Park, Alberta, Canada






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Skating above the bubbles of Lake Minnewanka, Banff National Park, Alberta, Canada






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Bubbles trapped under Vermillion Lakes, Banff National Park, Alberta, Canada






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Bubbles trapped under Vermillion Lakes, Banff National Park, Alberta, Canada






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Bubbles trapped under Vermillion Lakes, Banff National Park, Alberta, Canada

Can you pronounce these place names?

Featured photo by Joe Benjamin

What to do in Maine in your 20s

Photo: All Gash Brewingi

1. Get stuck in the Bar Harbor space time continuum.

When I graduated from the University of Maine, I had no idea what I was going to do after May. “Come to Bar Harbor,” everyone was saying. So I went. Within a week after graduation I was sharing a room with my friend Daniela in a men’s halfway house. Through the wall, we could hear our 58-year-old roommate Chuck Skyping with a Filipino woman he had never met. Every day at 1:45 he ate a raw hamburger on plain wonder bread. One day I went downstairs to do laundry, and there was a Chinese family living in our basement under two tarps. There was a kid from Jacksonville living in a VW bus with two flat tires in our driveway. I was working for a woman who required me to grocery shop for her before coming into the restaurant every day.

Bar Harbor is full of oddballs. Most of those oddballs have spent ten, eleven, twelve seasons trying to get out of the wacky vortex that is Mount Desert Island, but they never do. It’s where anything goes, you can spend a night tripping on LSD in Acadia National Park, wake up on Sand Beach and roll into town just in time to work the sunrise breakfast shift at Two Cat’s. You can skinny dip at Lakewood on your lunch break and start the bar shift with a shot, made for you by your boss. It took me three years to leave that place, and every May, I still consider going back.

2. Get freaky at Chickenfest in a highly planned out, top secret location.

My mom went to Chickenfest. That’s how old this tradition is. “Oh you’ve gotta go to Chicken Fest,” she told me my freshman year. And yeah mom, I did. The first time I went, I thought I was going to a barbecue in a field. This is no barbecue, although there is an exorbitant amount of chicken.

All year long, there’s an underground community of party fairies thinking about Chickenfest. They’re pouring over the gazetteer and scouting every nook and cranny of the Stud Mill Road for possible locations.

It’s always somewhere different, and for that reason, it’s never been shut down. You often have to put up with at least three rounds of decoy locations and 30 miles of dirty, muddy roads before actually making it to the party. By midnight you’ll be tripping and sipping on a PBR, dancing to Frank and the Redhots and telling that girl from your sophomore Spanish class just how much you love her cardigan. Don’t be alarmed when the helicopters fly overhead, the cops always show up just a touch too late to the party.

3. Drive up Chick Hill to howl at the full moon.

Bonus points if your headlights completely die on the way down.

4. Do something, anything, in a gravel pit.

All Maine kids know that gravel pits are gems. If those sandy walls could talk they’d speak of virginities lost on questionable abandoned mattresses, bongs smoked only to be smashed by an off-duty cop, and bonfires raging on plastic and plastic alone.

If you can master a gravel pit on a sled like you’re the next lord of Dogtown, if you can run a full circle on your CRF, if you can scale a sliding dirt wall after five consecutive rounds of flip cup — then you’re doing your 20s in Maine right.

5. Spend an August sweating your ass off on the blueberry barrens for very low pay.

Some of us raked as kids, and there’s no way we’re going back out on those fields. But if you haven’t yet spent an entire August, raking 7 days a week for $2.25 a 23-pound box — learning how to swear in Spanish and taking your morning dumps in a porta-potty that’s located in the bed of a moving truck — then you can’t call yourself real Maine.

This is a tradition that goes right back to our roots — back-breaking, hot and hard work in rural Downeast Maine. Your knees will be permanently blue and you’ll start substituting Coors Lite for water. The pay might seem low, but you can strike it big if you channel your inner machine. Plus, the end-of-season parties are pretty much unbeatable. Two words: mud wrestling.

6. Brave the strip show in Carrabassett Valley.

Or don’t. But what else are you going to do on a Friday night in Western Maine? Enjoy your early bird dinner of fish and chips, then watch as a family-friendly restaurant transforms into a full-on nightclub with poles and cages on wheels. These girls mean business too, just so you’re aware.

7. Help sort compost at the Common Ground Fair.

The Common Ground Fair is not your typical fair — you’re not going to step in vomit while in line for The Zipper and no middle-school chick is going to flash you at the Kenny Chesney concert.

This is a straight-up, old school, county fair with sweet annie flower crowns and ketchup that really tastes like salsa. There’s people on stilts banging homemade tambourines and there’s children sliding down grass hills on pieces of cardboard — screaming in utter glee as if cardboard is something other than cardboard.

If you volunteer, MOFGA will give you a free shirt and you’ll get to see all this in action for three days in a row. Plus at night, you’ll get to sing Kumbaya with volunteers from all over the world as well as Maine’s most progressive and environmentally-conscious minds.

8. Bring your own gallon of milk to a VFW dance.

If there is one tell-all sign that you are at a true Maine shindig, it’s that everyone in attendance has brought their own gallon of milk. Milk: the only appropriate follow-up to a mouthful of Allan’s coffee brandy.

9. Dive into a dumpster for the sole purpose of getting free potato chips.

Holla at me Bangor-area kids. Am I alone here? You’re young, you’re broke, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with these chips. They’re just expired, and all crunched up, and the 24-hour security they’ve recently installed outside of the potato chip factory says that you really aren’t supposed to have them.

10. Get lectured by “Captain Joint” at Harry Brown’s farm.

The first music festival that I ever went to was at Harry Brown’s farm in Starks. I was 16, and a man named “Fred in the big red truck” left a note on my car telling me I was cute and I should take my sunglasses off for him sometime.

Nine years later, this place has changed a lot. You can dance barefoot to a knockoff Dead band, you can slurp up a locally-grown, organic hemp soup, and you can trip somewhat in peace — making knots out of grass in front of the stage while a bare-chested ex-wrestler looking man in American flag shorts lectures you about the importance of marijuana legalization, and you nod at him and think “Duh.”

11. Have a religious experience at Empire’s Clash of the Titans in Portland.

Megadeth vs Metallica. Prince vs Michael Jackson. Stone Temple Pilots vs Pearl Jam. Mars Volta vs Primus. ABBA VS ACE OF MUTHERFUCKING BASE. Go. Go right now.

12. Take the ferry out to Peaks Island so you can drunkenly pretend you’re in Jamaica.

Reggae Sundays: where a massive entourage of bros in fake dreadlock hats remind us that we are still in Maine.

Alternate idea: Make sure you’re in Bar Harbor on August 6th, Jamaican Independence Day. Spend the night sweating it out at Carmen’s to DJ Rasta Rufus, along with the huge and vibrant Jamaican community that keeps Bar Harbor thriving year after year.

13. Tube down the Presumpscot River with a 12-pack floating behind you.

Watch out though — there’s a small area of rapids and you actually have to portage over a waterfall, but this is one of the best day drinking venues you’ll come across.

14. Launch into the Atlantic Ocean off the Bar Harbor pier on a longboard.

Bonus points if you do this at lunchtime in August, during the Fisherman’s Grill takeout window’s rush hour.