Stories

Never paddle a Canadian canoe against the wind. These sage words of advice were ringing in my ears as we inched our way to the turbulent edge of Garadice Lough. The relatively protected stretch of canal we’d covered from Ballinamore to get here had been demoralising enough – a cold easterly wind had slapped us repeatedly in the face, causing the boat to veer from bank to bank. Conor sat in front cursing my inability to steer with paddling technique alone. Momentarily catching me work my paddle like a crude rudder, he shouted in horror, “Hey!

Around the gritty Brooklyn neighbourhood of Red Hook, Steve Tarpin is better known as the ‘pie guy’. I found the Miami native at the end of a trail of hand-painted signs saying ‘key lime pies’ and pointing, more or less, in the direction of a restored Civil War-era warehouse at the foot of Pier 41.

My first exposure to the Spanish national obsession with pork came during an ill-timed August visit to Madrid. Wandering the sun-baked, deserted midday streets I stumbled upon a place called the ‘museo del jamón’, its windows filled with aged pig haunches. Strange, I thought, they have a museum dedicated to ham here. Then, not more than a few hundred scorched metres from the first, I passed a second ‘museo’. I poked my head inside to find a cafeteria specialising in ham. It was air-conditioned.