There are three things that I’ve learned recently. Vegetarian dishes can be tasty. Haiku is easier than I thought. Today is “Make up your own Holiday” day. These three things have absolutely nothing in common. Except that I didn’t know them three months ago.
For the next two weeks the Friendly Friday Challenge is to post about SOMETHING LEARNED recently or during the last year.
In my case, the revelation on vegetarian dishes came through experimentation. I’ve concluded that the best vegetarian dishes are those celebrating their own flavor and texture. The awful ones are those trying to simulate meat. Especially those using the granulated-soy-mince product which should be labeled “Nothing at all like Meat” and “Shame on You for Thinking So”.
My favorite flavor bomb dish is Cumin Potatoes from the Woks of Life website. It’s a dish which is good as a main, as well as a side. In China, potatoes are treated more like a veg than a starch, so it’s no surprise that Cumin Potatoes are eaten with rice. Packed with flavors from cumin, garlic and onions this is a dish that I highly recommend.
Haiku is literary style that I’ve not dabbled with before. Poetry in general, is not my forte. But I wanted to try it out, resulting in my first ever haiku to accompany the Cheroot Smoker post. The haiku rules are deceptively simple. A haiku consists of three lines with seventeen syllables.
That’s my haiku on haiku rules. It’s the second haiku that I’ve ever written! As I said, it’s easy to write. The syllable rule follows a very natural rhythm. Harder though, is writing good haiku. But that’s not a concern for dabblers like me.
Finally, on my third thing learned recently: Today is “Make up your own Holiday” day. It is also “Wear a Hat” day, “National Nougat Day” and “Spinach Day”. All of this I learned from NationalToday.com which lists remarkably obscure and unknown holidays.
If you’re stuck for inspiration on the Friendly Friday Challenge, feel free to “Make up your own Holiday” and post about it. Assuming of course, that this holiday is one you’ve only recently learned about 🙂
I look forward to seeing your post on SOMETHING LEARNED. Remember that you have two weeks to post your response to this challenge. Full instructions on Friendly Friday can be found here.
Toronto, Canada. March 2021
The Sandy Chronicles 
Yummy potato recipe 😋
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I have been dabbling in haiku this year too, Sandy. Loved your haiku poem to remember the rules!
We have been learning about new places close to home during the pandemic. Here’s a place we visited last week. https://bendbranches.com/2021/03/28/crack-in-the-ground-an-amazing-sight-lapc/
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Fabulous photos. With places like this close to home, who needs to travel?!
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Good on you, Sandy, trying the haiku! Trying new poetic forms is a great starting point if poetry ever becomes an enticing proposition!
Those cumin potatoes look divine! I followed the link to look at the recipe – I will have to get cumin seeds (I wonder if mustard seeds might suffice) as I only have cumin powder in the pantry. But I do like potatoes and I like spice.
Happy Sandy Day!
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Every day is Sandy Day 🙂
The cumin seeds give it the flavor kick, while the cumin powder mellows it out. I think mustard seeds will work too, but it’ll be a different flavor bomb. Why don’t you try both ways and let me know!
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That makes sense. Easy enough to try both – it will be a delicious experiment.
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I love the look of those potatoes, and your haiku is a great mnemonic for those of us, like me, who can never remember the rule! I’m sure I’ve learned things this year but none of them seem to make a good subject for a travel and photography blog so I’ll probably give this theme a pass unless something occurs to me in the next few days 😆
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You have thirteen days to think about it 😉
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Loved this challenge, such a positive outlook to things.
Here are the things I’ve been learning:
https://photographias.wordpress.com/2021/03/27/friendly-friday-something-learned/
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Glad you like it Sofia. There’s enough negatives around the world, isn’t there. Better to focus on the positive 🙂
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Absolutely!
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Learning is possible, even now. 🙂 https://picturesimperfectblog.wordpress.com/2021/03/27/its-never-too-late/
Le
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There’s always something more to learn!
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😊
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I agree 100% with you about vegetarian dishes. My husband was a vegetarian for ten years and we actually had the surprise vegetarian meal served to all guests at our wedding. It was great and I say that as a meat eater. My sister, on the other hand, is also a vegetarian and she had seaweed burgers served at her wedding. These were, well, loved by some and hated by most (including my husband and me).
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Oh boy. I’m trying to imagine what seaweed burgers would taste like. 🥴
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Spinach Day? Popeye must be behind that. And maybe Olive Oyl too.
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🤣🤣🤣
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Cumin Potato looks delicious.
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I was surprisingly good
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Cool challenge this time, Sandy.
Love the Haiku on Haiku rules. Clever you!
Is that you hiding being the, ‘make your own holiday’mask?
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🤣 No, it was not a selfie. But you’ve given me an idea!
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Great!
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Those are cool things to learn, Sandy. I am glad that you enjoyed Haiku writing and found it easier than you expected it to be.
Three new things that I have recently learned are:
1) How to use an SD Card in my Android phone to more easily transport photos to my MacAir computer (otherwise my phone and my computer do not play together nicely).
2) I seldom check my blog stats but did so recently and learned which was my most viewed post ever. Seriously, I would never have guessed that.
3) Many newer models of cars can park themselves without the driver touching the steering wheel- parallel parking and all. That is seriously cool!!
4) Oh, and I also learned how to make Pikelets (just in case one of my above entries is disqualified). 😀
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Pikelets are very Australian, Donna? Where did you find the recipe?
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1) Have you tried using bluetooth to do file transfers? I don’t use Mac but I use Bluetooth to transfer from my Android phone to my Windows computer all the time. It’s easy, particularly if its only a few files at a time. This link seems to say it’ll work with Mac
https://www.groovypost.com/howto/transfer-files-android-mac-os-x-bluetooth-file-exchange/
2) Gotta tell us which post so we can drive your stats even further
3) I want that in my next car. In all my 30+ years of driving, I’ve avoided parallel parking.
4) Pikelets sound like small batter fried fish. I looked it up & saw otherwise. Why did you decide to cook ?
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