Kim & Liane's Blogs

In ancient societies, it was the job of the King to serve as an advocate for their subjects (ie. the regular humans) with the gods who controlled the forces of nature.  Essentially, it was the King’s job to ensure that crops were bountiful and also to manage the generated wealth for the benefit of that [...]

The Wari culture which preceded the Inca in Peru was only recently recognized as a distinct culture in the late 1940s.  They are interesting because they were overlooked for so long.  Their culture extended to the north beyond Lima and to the south all the way to Cerro Baul near lake Titikaka.  Their culture was [...]

Thanksgiving is unique among American holidays.  Unlike any other holiday, it weaves together our whole nation on that special day with a tradition of giving thanks for blessings we might otherwise overlook.  We all come together to be a part of a group on that day.  Somehow we all know that, on that day, no [...]

“Monday’s child is fair of face, Tuesday’s child is full of grace, Wednesday’s child is full of woe, Thursday’s child has far to go, Friday’s child is loving and giving, Saturday’s child works hard for a living, but the child that is born on the Sabbath day is bonny and blithe and good and gay.”  [...]

Imagine being so far ahead of your time that it would take around 2000 years for the rest of mankind to catch up to you.  A Greek doctor named Galen was such a person.
In those days, people thought that the gods made you sick, so they would go to the temples and pray and rest, [...]

I just saw the movie Julie & Julia. A foodie from birth, I relished every minute of watching Julia Child (played by Meryl Streep) transform herself into an American culinary icon from scratch.
She was born in 1912, in the same decade as John F. Kennedy. Hers is oft referred to in America as “The Great [...]

I remember walking to Enchanted Lakes Elementary school with my brother in our “hanabadda” days.  We always walked to school and then ran back home. Mornings were cold back then. When we exhaled, fog would come out of our mouths. We used to practice blowing smoke rings like our dad, who was a smoker back [...]

Thank you Boreas (God of the North Wind) for blowing the trades back. I think this is the hottest summer I have endured since I arrived in Hawaii 17 years ago. All this heat makes me yearn for icy cold beverages. So to combat the heat and quench my thirst at dinner, I often enjoy [...]

Though the shiraz grape is not indigenous to Iran, grapes were first made into wine in the Middle East.
As a matter of fact, the name Shiraz comes from a town in Iran, famed for its wine production. The story goes in an ancient Persian legend that Jamshid, a grape-loving king, stored ripe grapes in a [...]

On our tour through Napa last month we sat and chatted in the midst of Stagecoach vineyard with Dr. Krupp. He said the reason why the vineyard is named Stagecoach is because it was once a bustling stagecoach passage from Sacramento to San Francisco. As I sipped on his very cold and tasty rosé called [...]