When I visited Beijing in late 2001, I certainly knew more about authentic Chinese food than the average American, but classes in Chinese cooking hadn't prepared me for what turned out to be the food adventure of a lifetime. This was before my food-blogger-with-digital-camera days, so I couldn't photograph my Beijing experiences, but plenty of other food bloggers have shared about food adventures in Beijing.

I have a sad, sad confession to make - I cannot name a single Canadian who is competing at the summer Olympics in Beijing. I know, it's horrible! I just don't have the Olympic spirit this year - it's been dampened by protests, pollution, and censorship debates. It doesn't help that it's the summer Olympics and I'm definitely a winter Olympics kind of fan (hey I live in a country called "The Great White North" what do you expect?). I have no doubt that I'll be plenty excited for Vancouver's 2010 Olympics but I should be more enthusiastic for this batch of athletes.

Grab your remotes, get set, go! The 2008 Summer Olympics begin on Friday with the flag-waving pageantry of the opening ceremony. To mark the occasion, how about cooking up the Kung Pao Chicken from Appetite for China? Just click this post's title for the recipe.

Saturday's New York Times print edition prominently featured an op-ed by Lindsey O'Rourke titled, "Behind the Woman Behind the Bomb." It caught my eye for two reasons. First, the graphic was huge (6.5 inches high and 6 inches wide, which is a lot of space to take up on the op-ed page) and an interesting portrayal of what I construed to be a dangerous vamp.

I had never imagined my first post from India would be about a series of terror attacks in two economically vibrant cities, 1,000-odd miles apart, which claimed over 50 lives and left more than 100 wounded.

In Canada we like to believe that violent crime does not happen but of course it does. Sensationally violent crimes, however, are so infrequent that they are not part of our collective consciousness. When I got up this morning and heard the news that a man had stabbed and decapitated another passenger on a Greyhound bus in Manitoba I was stunned and horrified. This should not happen in Canada. This should not happen anywhere.