Above: Various spices used in chai. Photos by Susanna Donato.

In our temperate North American climate, October means crisp blue skies, the sweet dusty smell of leaves piling up beneath trees, and of course, a burning desire for warm, spicy food and drink.

Nothing says “you’re home” in fall like a pot of something to warm you up. I love to draw that warmth from around the world: Fall is for chai masala.

“Chai” means tea in many languages, and “masala” means mixed spices in some Asian languages. In the world’s biggest coffee chain, a place where the littlest drink is “tall” and mixed lingos rule, “chai latte” is the international term for spicy tea with milk.

A warm cup of chai

In India, the person who makes and serves chai masala is known as a chai wallah. In areas where no master of chai is handy, you can do the job yourself.

Of course, you can stop into a café or buy a boxed, condensed version of chai. If you do so, expand your horizons by asking about locally available brews. (In Colorado, where I live, some cafes carry locally microbrewed Bhakti Chai, a fiery, spicy variety.) Or you can save money and gain insight by brewing your own.

Brew in Bulk

For years, my husband has made chai in large batches — about a half-gallon (2L). The recipe is flexible and easy to personalize: add more pepper and ginger if you like it spicy; more cinnamon and vanilla for a smoother, sweeter style. But the basics are:

Put a large pot of water to boil.

Toss in spices (refer to leading image): About 1/4 cup (approximately 30) green cardamom pods, a cinnamon stick or two, 3-4 star anise, about 12 cloves (too many will make it numbing), a few slices from a ginger root or a teaspoon of ginger powder, a teaspoon of black peppercorns, and a piece of nutmeg and/or a vanilla bean if you like.

Boil for 30 minutes to an hour. Your house will be infused with the good smell.

Tea brewing

Turn off the heat, add tea — 1/4 cup of tea powder, or about six black tea bags. Cover and steep 5 minutes.

Strain into a pitcher. Stir in a spoonful of vanilla extract and sweeten to taste.

To serve, heat gently with milk to taste.

The whole process takes about an hour, largely unsupervised, and you can keep the pitcher in your refrigerator for a few days, reheating as you like. Explore local markets to find spices in bulk — you’ll have a travel souvenir or a new local haunt, and you’ll save money, too.

Authentic Style

You can also boil the mixture together with milk for a strong, creamy drink that is much closer to real Indian chai masala. Caveat: India is still on my travel wish list, so feel free to chime in with your own recipes or tips if you know better! But I can guarantee this tastes fantastic.

You can crush or grind the same spices used above. Out of curiosity, I recently picked up a packet of masala chai mix at our local Indian market. The word online is that these pre-packaged spices might be stale, but this shop is well-regarded and busy.

This style is best made to serve immediately. Double or triple the recipe if you’re serving more than one.

Bring 1/2 cup of water to a boil.

Masala chai mix

Add 1/2 teaspoon chai spice mix (or to taste — our mixture’s ingredients begin with black pepper and ginger, so it is very spicy). Boil 1 minute.

Add 2 teaspoons of sugar and 1 teaspoon tea powder (powdered tea reportedly holds up better and produces better flavor than tea leaves when boiled vigorously like this; we had some Ethiopian tea powder on hand). Boil 1 minute.

Add 1 cup of milk. (Some swear by using only half-and-half or whole milk to be really rich and creamy.) Bring close to a boil.

When the mixture is almost boiling, remove it from the heat for a few moments. Then put it back. Repeat this process — a dance of almost boiling, removal, return close to the boil — 5-7 times.

Steep, covered, off the heat for two minutes.

Strain the mixture and enjoy.

Boiled chai masala is richer in taste and more expensive to make, with the milk or cream, not to mention the personal effort. You can make it while doing other kitchen chores — I’ve been known to brew it up while emptying the dishwasher — but it’s also wonderful to be contemplative about it. Mixing up this spicy goodness can be nourishing to the soul, as well as the body. Breathe it in, connect and enjoy. Namaste!

COMMUNITY CONNECTION

Above image by Pedrosimoes7. Feature image by Lucas the Experience

The only thing that separates a real writer from a non-writer is writing. Do you put pen to paper, use a typewriter, on a computer? Then you’re a writer. If you don’t write, then you’re not.

You can tell yourself it’s more complicated, but it’s not. Want to be a writer? Write, even just ten minutes, every day. Done.

Some other tips to get you going.

When You Don’t Have Anything Specific To Say, Freewrite

Sit down and write for ten minutes without stopping. Don’t erase anything. Don’t edit. If you make a mistake, just move onto the next line and keep going. If you can’t think of anything to say, say that. If you feel stupid, write it down. I promise by the end of ten minutes, you will find something you like developing in front of you.

Do Away With Judgment

Good or bad mean nothing. The only purpose putting such labels on your writing serves is to slow you down and separate you from what’s on the page. If you’re having trouble with this, go back to tip one and freewrite.

Keep A Journal.

Photo byStarkos

Mine is a red, unlined Moleskine. In it, you’ll find, photos, drawings, to-do lists and various random thoughts. Your goal is to get things down down on paper.

Journals have two purposes. They become a repository of your ideas, somewhere to turn when you’re looking for something to write about. It also helps you shift from ideas in thought-only to ideas on paper. It’s all about practice.

Finish What You Start

Ok, so you’re writing. Now it’s time to finish something. It can be a short story, a poem, an new article. Just finish. Most writers doubt themselves at some point, and many allow their doubt to leave half-written works strewn about behind them. Truth is, it’s far worse to never finish then to write something awful. At least something awful is real, it has weight and meaning. The unfinished short story means nothing at all.

If you find yourself not-finishing, stop writing new things. Sure, put your notes in your journal, you can return to them later. But don’t sit down to work on anything new until you have finished something old.

Then you’re ready to publish, which is an entirely different game from the writing, and that, too, is much easier than you think.

COMMUNITY CONNECTION:

Spend some time at Matador’s Traveler’s Notebook to read tips, narrative and ideas from other writers, and don’t forget to join in the conversation by leaving your thoughts in comments. For hands-on instruction on how to become a travel writer yourself, check out our own Matador U.

Wedding photos by Philip Chang

I could write about how not to spend money on a wedding — getting married at City Hall or eloping to some far flung place. But this is for those who want to have a more “traditional wedding” without having to take out a second mortgage on their home.

Below are some tips on where and how you can save some cash in planning your wedding, and still make it the beautiful and classy one you always wanted.

Free cherry blossoms

1. Keep the guest count down

Do you really need to invite your third cousin twice removed’s little niece? Stick to those who you keep in touch with on a regular basis. If you haven’t broke bread with someone in over a year, it’s probably not appropriate for them to partake in your day. We kept the guest numbers down by limiting the invitees to immediate family and the closest of friends.

Yes, you may rub some people the wrong way, but this is your day. You have your reasons, and they should be respected.

To take that further, we split the wedding in two parts: ceremony/dinner and par-tay. Half the guests came after dinner to celebrate with us, which also helped keep costs down.

2. Make your own invitations

Another nice thing about keeping the guest count down is you need fewer invitations. This means you should have time to make and send them out yourselves. If you’re crafty like my wife, you can make unique and special cards. We included a blank page in the invitation and requested that the guests make it their page in our guestbook and to bring it to the wedding.

With the time they had we received some really thoughtful and colourful pages to insert into our guestbook. Much more personal than just a couple sentences and a signature, or, worse, drunken words of advice.

3. Use your contacts

If you think about it, you probably know someone who has some handy skills you could take advantage of. Maybe even a friend of a friend. An old high school chum who I occasionally ran into agreed to do our flower arrangements (it just so happened she is a florist). In lieu of payment, we invited her to the wedding.

Friends and family were also more than willing to chip in as they could, some coming to the venue early to help set up decorations and chairs. And speaking of venues…

Barclay Manor in Vancouver’s West End

4. Find a cheap venue

While the big ballroom with floor-to-ceiling glass and a panoramic view over the ocean is ideal, it’s going to be expensive. Find a place that doesn’t normally do weddings.

We scored a beautiful heritage house and struck up a nice little relationship with the events coordinator. We negotiated a great deal and had extra access to the venue for planning purposes and also cleaning up post-wedding.

5. Be your own DJ

Sorry DJs of the world, but you aren’t needed here. We sent out an email to our guests and asked them for song requests. I then mixed everything together myself with MixMeister. It was easy to use and it was fun putting it together, plus it makes a great memento. We still have the original file and dance to it on our anniversary.

At the wedding, you can play this mix from your iPod or laptop. We rented a mixing board and big speakers for party level music. We also got a dancing colour light.

Professional DJ for $1000 or this set-up for $80? You decide.

6. Don’t go pro

It’s not always a case of “you get what you pay for”. We’ve all heard the horror stories of professionals providing less than adequate service. But it also works the other way round. You can get some seriously good service for a discounted price.

Photographer: We found one just starting out in the biz and so was offering a deep discount while he built up his profile. He came with an assistant (with his own camera too) and was with us for eight hours.

Plus, he was willing to give us all the images he (and his assistant) took throughout the day instead of just a set amount of prints.

The “homemade” wedding cake

Videographer: Also a newbie, but as this was his first wedding he offered to do it for free to get his portfolio going. The end result was fantastic and he was extremely professional, polite, and took great care of us.

Caterer: Try a culinary school to keep your catering costs down. If you’re in Vancouver, check out Pacific Institute of Culinary Arts. My mouth is watering just thinking of the food they dished up that night.

We found a cheap and cheerful bartender off Craigslist, where we also found the photographer and videographer. Just make sure you meet with them at least a couple times to make sure you’re comfortable with them.

7. Make your own cake

This is not for the faint hearted, but you can save heaps here. Rather than a sugary, fluffy cake, use one you actually like. We used a tuxedo cake (from Save-On Foods) square base, with a round raspberry and white chocolate cake on top, offset in the corner for artistic purposes. And, of course, decorated it.

8. Find some good, cheap booze

Who says you have to spend over $20 a bottle for some good wine? We tested a bottle or two each week, which was fun in itself, and found a red (Chile) and a white (Germany) for around $10. Same goes for the sparkling stuff, no need for the Dom Perignon.

9. Finally, recoup the costs

I don’t care what people say, I think it’s perfectly fine to ask for cash gifts, especially when the guest knows where it’s going (i.e. travel funds). You can also mix it with a registry of sorts for things you actually need.

Other random things we did to keep the costs down:

We rented a white PT Cruiser — modern, classy AND cheap — and I asked a work colleague to be our chauffeur. We “pruned” the cherry blossom trees around town for some free and beautiful center pieces (do this under the cloak of night).

All unopened bottles of booze and mixers were returned to the liquor store and Safeway, respectively.

Also, Yvonne’s wedding dress was so last year. But it was also so not expensive. And it was so gorgeous.

COMMUNITY CONNECTION

If you’d rather plan a destination wedding than go the traditional route, Matador has the Ultimate Guide to Planning a Destination Wedding.

And we’ll never leave you at the altar– check out 16 Places to Stretch Your Honeymoon Dollar too.

For those of you who have already passed this stage and are on the next phase, you’d best read the Expectant Mom’s Guide to Travel.

How about you? Do you have any wedding money saving tips to share?

Pop them in the comments below!

Photo: JasonTromm

Any member of the parrot (or parakeet) family is your best bet but before you rush out to your nearest pet store, you’ll need both time and money to spare; feathered friends require a huge amount of commitment and investment. Costing anywhere between $20 (a baby budgie) to $5,000 (a mature macaw), birds have a much longer lifespan than the average pet and some larger species will even outlive their owners.

They can also be loud and messy creatures and like a small child, will crave attention.

Photo: M e d a

The only way to be 100% sure that you are getting a bird that will talk is to buy a bird that already talks. However, mature animals may have existing behavioural problems (like an unruly adolescent) and this isn’t a good start for the novice. It’s probably best to look for a hand-fed baby so you can teach it yourself from scratch; this will not only be a great way to bond, but also improve chances that he or she will speak.

As there are several hundred different species of parrot, it’s important you do some research to find out which one suits your personality and lifestyle. Although bigger birds make impressive pets, they can be more stubborn and moody and are not the best choice for a starter bird.

Once you’ve made a decision, look for a reputable breeder or supplier. Parrots are delicate creatures– even a healthy looking specimen might be carrying some sort of disease. Buy from someone you can trust.

Key species that have the ability to ’speak’ include:

African Greys:

Known for their extensive vocabulary and cognitive skills, these are highly esteemed among the parrot family.

Amazons:

Have a good reputation thanks to their outstanding talking ability and make a reliable pet.

Budgies:

Small, affectionate and attractive, budgies are a great budget buy. With an average lifespan of 8 – 10 years, they may take a little more effort to train but can become incredibly proficient talkers.

Cockatiels:

Originally from Australia, cockatiels are the smallest member of the Cockatoo family. Known for their excellent whistling and imitation skills, with love and attention, they’ll take on an extensive vocabulary.

Conures:

What Blackbeard would’ve had, these come in an array of colours and are the joker of the pack. They are prone to the occasional screeching outburst and can nip but they love to play and cuddle and can make very rewarding pets.

Macaws:

One for the more experienced owner, Macaws have an excellent talking ability and form a strong bond with humans. They do require constant training to keep them under control and stop them from being excessively loud.

Quaker Parrots:

Their dull exterior hides a fantastic personality. Quakers can be impressive talkers and are capable of using words within 6 months. Their reasonable price and life expectancy makes them an excellent choice.

Ringneck Parrots:

Ringnecks are also a good option as they speak clearly and have attractive plumage.

Now comes the tricky bit: training.

Photo: Dawn Endico

Using the bird’s name or a few easy words to start (”hello”, “goodbye” and “peek-a-boo” are popular though rather unoriginal), speak enthusiastically in a happy and positive tone. Watch the parrot’s reaction and whichever word gets the most response, make that your first training word.

Birds learn to mimic through repetition so repeat the word as often as possible. Bear in mind that some birds can take months or even years to say their first word.

If you don’t think you are getting anywhere, try whistling as many birds find this easier than speech. Also, listen out for your bird mimicking the environmental sounds around your home, such as the telephone, doorbell, and alarm.

Confidence is also important in encouraging the bird to speak; if it feels unsafe, it won’t want to attract attention. Many parrots are shy and will prefer to talk when humans aren’t present so try moving the cage to a more protected area. On the other hand, another human often stimulates speech as the bird will compete for the owner’s attention.

If the bird is making unpleasant sounds or lots of noise, it may be unhappy. Like a child, pets need a good diet, a clean and safe place to live, toys to play with, and human interaction. Improve the environment and spend time training the bird to use more appropriate sounds.

Once the bird has mastered imitative speech, it’s time to move on to responsive speech, where you teach the bird to answer questions. While this takes a lot of practice and patience, the results are obviously pretty cool. But be warned: this can take years.

Whatever the clerk in the pet store tells you, there is NO guarantee your bird will ever talk. Birds need huge amounts of love, patience, and training. Even if yours never speaks a word (and some never will), don’t be disappointed. With all that time spent together, you’ll have made an intelligent and interesting (albeit silent) companion. At least they’ll agree with everything you say.

Community Connection:

Traveling with your pet? Check out our 10 tips for traveling with pets here.