This week 1/2022

Hello, first week of the New Year!

On the first day of the New Year, we went for a morning walk with my grandfather, who is 91 years old. He walks very slowly, people recognise him on the street, he gets his newspaper, he walks back home and makes comments on things he remembers along the way. It has been the same routine for years and it’s a nice one to join him on. Especially when it’s sunny and it hasn’t been so for two weeks.

Last days of the holidays were spent being with people, doing some last minute baking, eating things we don’t eat all year, such as octopus and arroz de cabidela. It strikes me how much Toddler is a fan of traditional portuguese foods that we don’t especially make at home. There must be something in the genetic code, no? We packed some of the bread I made for the trip back to Switzerland and we might have even taken some of the leftover chicken to eat on the plane. And cheese and olives. Um farnel à tuga. And guess who ate it with delight during the flight?

And then – BAM! Back to work, back to crèche, back to normal life with some sun on the day off to go to the park and a disastrous amount of laundry to deal with, but a very willing toddler to help.

The first week of January in this house is also the time for Galette des Rois and it has been our tradition to eat this for many many years, a little wink to a story of when we first met. We have kept the tradition this year, but with moderate consumption, because of a cholesterol issue that came up during the holidays for one of us. Which means we have been doing some research on how to improve cholesterol levels through changes in diet and, even though we already eat quite healthily (except for cheese, chocolate and butter), we have been trying to include more of these in our menu planning.

The New Year is always a good time to reflect on our goals, but jumping straight back into reality meant no time to make lists or even have time to think about goals. I did order a new agenda (that still hasn’t arrived!), I challenged myself to a few nights a week doing yoga instead of sinking on the couch doing nothing productive, and I’ve been reading a little every day. I got a brand new Kobo reader back from the guarantee, and I am back to reading the book I left half-finished when it broke. Consistency in keeping active and reading might be my only goals, if I manage to keep myself from making a longer list. Maybe this year I need to keep it simple.

This week [17.12-23.12]

Last week started with all the preparations, covid tests, packing and tidying up before leaving for two weeks with a very excited Toddler who had been looking forward all week to catching a plane to see her grandparents, aunts, uncle and cousin. As she is now over 2 years old, she now has a plane seat to herself, which is a huge relief. We just need to keep her busy, which we do with colouring and sticker books, stories, and a few nice passengers who don’t mind playing some rounds of peekaboo.

Coming home for the holidays is all about seeing our family and friends, and making time for Toddler to hang out with them. Watching her interact with them is priceless, but it is also very costly in terms of energy for us. All the changes, the interactions, the to-do lists for Christmas celebrations, the lack of routines had us dealing with some epic toddler meltdowns and, by the end of the week, we were more exhausted than before the holidays. The summit of the toddler meltdowns was definitely when she pulled a 10-minute-shrieker in the middle of the busiest streets in the city and a lady pursued us, worried that we had kidnapped her and stating that I was definitely not her mother because, if I were, she wouldn’t run away from me screaming like that (it didn’t help that she was screaming mamãaaaa)!

Just before coming, I was excited about holiday baking and ordered some flour that arrived just in time for me to… open a bakery at home. As if we didn’t have enough on our plates. Oh well. So, what did I bake?

Sourdough bread: at home, I make the bread as quickly and practically as I can, which means that I skip a few steps (no autolyse, no proofing in the basked or shaping the bread). This time around, I decided to take the time to make it properly, using this recipe. It turned out very good, especially toasted with salted butter, but I wish my bread was taller and had less crusty area. Something to fine tune next year.
Bolo Rainha: using the same recipe I found and tweaked a few years ago and using my sourdough starter, as I have been doing for the last two years, I baked seven of these babies and gave them to family and friends.
Broa de milho: a Portuguese table cannot be missing the broa de milho, a bread made mostly of corn flour, with some rye and wheat mixed in for structure. I made them for Christmas for both our families, and they were used for making migas de grelos (turnip greens sautéed with bread, garlic and olive oil) as well.

The weather was quite rainy for the whole week and so there was no running (or any kind of sport for that matter) and not much time spent outdoors, which was quite hard for me. There was a lot of time spent eating and being by the fireplace. I guess this week was mostly about enjoying the good things we don’t have the rest of the year, despite all the fatigue.

Nostalgia and Grilled Peppers

Last night, I found myself cooking in my grandmother’s kitchen.

I have not prepared many meals in this kitchen, but I spent a very large part of my life there until I moved to Switzerland, and significantly less time since she passed away a few years ago.

While cooking in this kitchen, with my little assistant, I stood back and saw present and past coming together in a bittersweet way, as it tends to be when the past was sweet but many of its conditions can’t be summoned anymore.

One of the last times I was here with my grandmother, she grilled sardines for me, after telling me off for asking the fishmonger to clean the sardines and remove the innards. You never clean sardines! – she told me and I will never, ever repeat this mistake again, because they will dry when you grill them!

So, yesterday we did not clean the sardines, and we grilled them in her garden, while my little assistant ran around playing with the dog and the cats, filling the air with her chatter and laughter, a sound that was very much loved by my grandmother.

Before grilling the sardines, I grilled some peppers to make a grilled pepper salad which has become my specialty in our sardinhadas.

It is very easy. You just char the peppers on the grill while it is still hot. When they are charred, their skins black and blistering, you close them in a plastic bag (traditional way) or in a bowl with a lid (my way, because plastic and heat makes me uncomfortable). The peppers must look tender, even slightly mushy; if their flesh is still firm, they need to cook a little more.

I let the peppers sit for a while in the covered pot, and the steam helps the skin release itself from the flesh. While this is happening, I make the sauce: one small clove of garlic, a few tablespoons of vinegar, a few tablespoons of olive oil, one tablespoon of honey, salt and pepper to taste, whisked with a fork.

When the peppers have cooled off enough, I peel and clean them, and cut the flesh into straight strips.

Wilted peppers loose a lot of volume, so to make enough you have to peel and chop quite a few peppers, which takes a little time. Yesterday, I used six green and red peppers for four people. How many peppers you should use really depends on how much you love the salad.

In our house, we love it a lot. It feels like home, accompanied with some fresh and fleshy sardines, from the fishmonger who lives next door to my grandparents, and with some broa de milho. And, knowing that small children are not especially fond of sardines, it gives me a little extra satisfaction to see little O. wolfing them down and asking for more, mais peissinho.

on becoming a parent

Becoming a parent is difficult to talk and write about, not because the words are hard to find (though they are), but because when you find them, they feel too intimate to share. The smells and sounds and stirrings of the heart are individual and holy. There’s a sense in which the universal experience is yours alone when the opposite is actually true. You hesitate to say anything at all, as if staying quiet better preserves the miracle.
from Rose & Crown

I read this a few days ago in a blog I found when I was going down an internet rabbit hole, working from home on a very rainy and foggy day. It’s pretty accurate.