Swiss chard is here, my garden teeming with it in rainbow hues. Given my quinoa-centric state of mind, what better pairing can I dream up than the two together? It works!! A gentle saute of sliced chard stalks, plus the chopped leaves and lots of garlic make for an ideal quinoa partner, the grain being a blank canvas to which one can riff in many ways. Swiss chard also speaks to me of raisins and pine nuts, so they make an appearance here too, a warm side dish, a cooled down salad, a leftover to bring to work for lunch.

Let's start by cooking the quinoa. You can boil it like pasta in salted water and drain it when it blooms and softens, a little tail, the germ, emerging from each grain. Place the drained quinoa back into the cooking pot, cover with a clean tea towel and let it sit for 5 minutes. Fluff and serve. Another method for cooking quinoa is to cook one part quinoa to two parts water, covered, for 12 - 15 minutes, until done. Fluff, cover, let sit for 5 minutes, and serve. Both methods work well, so prepare your quinoa according to your preference.

When cooked quinoa is destined for a salad, it is a good idea to dry it out so that the grains remain separate. Thanks to Bob's Red Mill Cookbook for this important pointer. Spread your cooked quinoa onto a baking sheet to cool and dry. You can store cooked quinoa in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 5 days.

Now for the fun, where inspiration, flavour and texture arrive on the scene. Take a large bunch of Swiss chard, rainbow coloured, if possible. Wash the stalks and leaves and pat them dry delicately. It is OK if some water clings to the chard. Snip off the leaves and chop them coarsely. Set aside. Slice the stalks thinly. In a large pan, warm two teaspoons of olive oil and saute the sliced stalks until beginning to soften, about 10 minutes. Add in the chopped chard leaves and 2 - 3 plump cloves of crushed garlic. Cook until softened, tender and fragrant. The Swiss chard will have wilted and cooked down to a mere skeleton of its former, bulky self. Season with salt and pepper and a few gratings of whole nutmeg. Let the chard cool and add it to the cooked quinoa along with a handful of golden raisins and another handful of toasted pine nuts. You may want to dress the salad lightly with a lemony vinaigrette, or just some fruity olive oil and a splash of fresh lemon juice. Finish the salad off with a flourish of fresh herbs, whatever is fresh and abundant in your garden or market. Mint is awfully nice here as is Italian parsley or chives. If you cannot decide on one herb, use a combination. There is no right or wrong here, just the desires of your palate to follow.

Enjoy this delightful creation as a light lunch with a bowl of soup, with some flatbreads and cheese, or as a side to some protein. It keeps very well in the fridge for few days and will nourish your mind and body with its healthful goodness.

Can't get enough of quinoa? Read on:

We have some wonderful new travel books!

Dream Destinations of the World presents the most beautiful regions and destinations on earth in an innovative, contemporary format. (Syndetics)

Discover how to have a great family vacation in London! From Big Ben to Trafalgar Square, Buckingham Palace to the Tower of London, all the major attractions are covered, but the emphasis in this book is on family value: which hotels are kid-friendly, which restaurants are best for families, where are the bargains and discounts for kids, what museums will hold their interest. Includes recommended itineraries, fun sidebars, day trips to surrounding sights like Windsor Castle and Oxford, and tips on saving money, from hotels to dining to sights! (Syndetics)

For more great ideas on visiting London with kids, see the blog, Early Boarding and Other Benefits of Travelling with Kids - Jolly Old England.

Everyone who lives in Bangkok, whether they were born there or have chosen it as their home, has a different view of the city—no two people live in the same place, even if they live on the same block. In this book are images of five different cities through the eyes of five different residents—showing the Bangkok that they have found and hurried to preserve with a camera before it becomes lost. (Syndetics)

Which explorer found the lost site of Jesus' first miracle? Who was first to the top of the highest mountain in Peru? Who was the first Westerner to visit the Ottoman harem in Constantinople? Who held the world record as the only person to fly from Britain to Australia for 44 years? You' ll find the answers to these questions and more in Mick Conefrey' s charming new book. (A hint: none of them had beards.) (Syndetics)

May 26

We had offered to take the American family (travelling by local transport) to Little Petra, but they decided they needed more time to get to Wadi Rum, so we went without them. Little Petra is just a few kms up the road from Petra, and is similar: Nabatean, has the long, winding Siq, and several lovely old stone-carved buildings. It’s free to enter and you are able to wander around more freely than at Petra. Also, there were far fewer visitors!

Next we drove off to find the remains of a Crusader castle, Shobak, a bit in the middle of nowhere, and not well marked, so we drove to a police station and they helpfully pointed us on our way. The castle was perfectly perched on a hill, small but wonderfully preserved, obviously with a great command of the surrounding land. We learned that the Crusader castles were all within a day’s ride of each other, but that seems fairly optimistic since it took us quite a while driving to the ones we saw.

Shobak Castle by Gerry

To find out more about these castles, check out Crusader Castles by T.E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia) who wrote his thesis on crusader castles, which was why he was co-opted into the Middle East Intelligence Service during WW!.

We then drove cross-country to the most famous – and biggest – of the castles – Kerak, which (obviously!) sits atop a huge hill with the booming modern town laid-out at its feet. It’s a great drive through the narrow streets as you wind up (and then down). We were ushered into a small parking space at the top, with the agreement of “coffee/tea afterwards”. As well as buying tickets we went for an audio guide which proved very informative. We walked up and down and explored the lower rooms which including extensive cooking rooms and eating halls. Although the castle was built by the Franks it succumbed to a siege by Saladin and was expanded by the Muslims. You can tell the difference due to different coloured and sized stones.

Kerak Castle by Gerry

We might have spent the night here, but we had time enough to make it down to the Dead Sea and that sounded like fun. The drive down from the top of the Rift Valley was spectacular: sharp winding road overlooking a deep wadi. The drop is from around 1000 meters to -400 meters! We didn’t realize that it was the Independence Day long weekend, so the hotels (there’s a strip of extremely fancy hotels) were full. We tried the Marriott first and they were full but they phoned around and came up with a room at the next-door Movenpick. The prices were extremely high, but as an incentive we were offered a “beach room” at a 30 JD discount of high 200s (multiple by 1.4), so we went with the room offered at a mere 180 JD or so! We checked in and went off to explore. We all wanted at least a mud “bath” and thought we’d have to go to the very fancy spa, but we walked down to the Dead Sea and saw people rubbing mud (clay really) on their bodies. You do this (there are large ceramic urns provided in which to mix the mud and water), leave it on your body till it dries, then swim it off in the sea, and shower well afterwards. There was no time for this, since the life guard calls an end to sea swimming at 6:30. We, however, begged a further 10 minutes so we could have a quick dip. Actually, the high buoyancy isn’t the surprising thing, but the absolutely awful taste of the salt water. It’s truly gagging, and painful as hell if you get any in your (contact lens or otherwise) eyes. There’s a mild current that concerns the life guards and other swimmers, but the only inconvenience are the rocks underfoot that make getting out a little awkward (you’d think the fancy hotel would put down indoor-outdoor carpet!). A shower and then a swim in one of the pools and we were ready for dinner.

The hotel has several restaurants, but the only one with local food was the buffet, which would have been fine if the hotel hadn’t been so full and boy, the locals are pushy – demanding this and that and pushing in line for their food!!! Actually the service in this Movenpick was nowhere like that at Petra, which is a shame because the hotel itself is quite lovely: beautiful winding paths through flowerbeds, with several swimming pools, some private (we discovered the one that would have come with the “beach rooms”), waterfalls and huge koi. We planned our campaign for the following morning and went to bed.

Gerry will be sharing her travels through Egypt and Jordan in a multimedia presentation as part of our 2011 Travel Day on October 29th. Check out this great day of programs on our homepage or through our program guide.

I think of this salsa as Mexico in a bowl, the profound culinary flavours of the country embodied here in bursts of sharp purple onion, sweet vine-ripened tomatoes, the tangy jolt of lime juice, spicy peppers with a big kick and the floral flourish of cilantro. It is the cohabitation of these elements that really speaks deeply of Mexican tastes, the flavours I crave when I think of sun-drenched, colourful foods from that sun-drenched, colourful country.

Some salsas are cooked, deep and dark, smooth and savoury. This is a fresh salsa, chunky and robust, with nothing gentle or delicate about it. It is best eaten soon after it is prepared, where the sparkle of ingredients remains bright and inviting. Think of this salsa as more of a salad, a condiment, than a sauce, though it is intensely wonderful liberally spooned over grilled chicken in a sauce-like manner. I enjoy this salsa as a juicy side to fried eggs or a simmering bowl of hot polenta. It is great with BBQ salmon, stuffed into corn tortillas, on nachos or slathered on a juicy steak. When your mouth needs a journey to somewhere tantalizingly spicy, take it to this tomato-laden condiment for a dose of Mexican fun. You will never want to eat grocery store salsa again after a fling with this flavourful, flirty dish.

Fresh Tomato Salsa

4 ripe tomatoes, diced; 1-2 jalapeno peppers, depending on how hot you like things, seeds and ribs removed, diced; 1/4 cup diced Spanish onion; 2 cloves garlic, crushed; 1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro; juice of 1/2 a lime; pinch of powdered cumin, optional; salt and pepper to taste; pinch of sugar.

In a medium bowl, combine tomatoes, jalapenos and onion. Add in crushed garlic, lime juice, cumin, salt, pepper and sugar. Mix and taste. Adjust seasoning if needed. Best eaten immediately, as the tomatoes start to leech liquid if left too long. If this does happen, simply drain off the water, stir the salsa and serve. It will still taste great for a few hours.

Enjoy the harvest of summer with salsa and more market fresh foods:

I’ve just returned from my second Las Vegas vacation and it was – as its iconic sign promises – fabulous. My original reason for going was to attend the Toastmasters International convention (the Olympics for people who would rather give speeches than do anything athletic). But in addition to the convention, I shopped, took in shows and a concert, ate at great restaurants, and had nearly every square inch of my body massaged. Ahhh...

If you’re brave enough to stand the heat, here are some of my tips:

1) Don’t book too much ahead of time. Upon arrival, I was given a coupon book that allowed me to purchase show tickets at 30% - 50% off, so I would have been pretty upset, had I paid full price over the internet. Vegas is in a bit of an economic slump these days, so there really isn’t much chance that your show will sell out.

2) Wolfgang Puck’s restaurant at MGM. I had one of my best meals there, and the prices were very reasonable. Try the caprese salad (on par with the ones I’ve eaten in Italy) and any of the pasta dishes. I’m a committed vegetarian, but my travelling companion had wonderful things to say about the kobe beef with asparagus and fried potatoes.

3) “Sold Out” doesn’t mean a thing. Imagine my surprise when my hotel was able to find last minute tickets for the Adele concert! All I had to do, evidently, was ask. Hotels are able to contact all sorts of ticket vendors on your behalf, and they’ll even courier tickets to the box office of wherever you’re staying. Adele performed at the Chelsea Room to only about a few hundred people – and I was lucky enough to be one of them.

4) Vegetarian? Rethink the buffets. If you’re hankering for prime rib or roast beef, a buffet might be worth the price, but if you’re not a carnivore, they’re simply too expensive. You’d have to eat a whole lot of bread, salad and mediocre quesadillas, to make the $20 or $25 price tag worthwhile. Opt for an inexpensive café, instead.

If you’re planning a vacation, be sure to check out the resources at your local library. We’ve got maps, guidebooks, phrasebooks and dictionaries, and more! Happy travels!

To read about Katherine's first visit to Vegas, select the tag 'las vegas'.