Weeks 15 & 16/2022

This was already such a long time ago, but mid-April we flew to Portugal for a little over a week at home. We had a very tight schedule, even more than usual. We started off with a few days in Lousã, a little town very near all the Aldeias de Xisto. There are beautiful villages to visit, but our main purpose was to meet my friends, for a reunion that hadn’t taken place in… nearly 10 years?

During this time, we’ve lived in very different time zones, we’ve changed jobs several times, moved home, gone through major life changes, including having kids that hadn’t yet met. So, this was the time to meet up and just be together. We made cat tattoos and just hung out as if such a long time hadn’t passed, because despite the fact that we are all different in many ways, some things still remain the same.

We met baby E. for the first time, and Toddler was fascinated with her (especially when she was eating), as was the case with all the babies we met later in the week. The first few days were difficult for her, with several days of constipation which was challenging to manage. But she also had some highs, like developing a huge curiosity in letters and names, and asking anyone she felt comfortable with to write all sorts of things in her purple notebook.

After these precious days in Lousã, we dropped by at my aunt’s house, who has a fascinating garden, three dogs, three cats and a parakeet. She loves to feed us with our favourite foods and my uncle makes the best grills in the world, so we were spoiled rotten with farófias, very tender and succulent pork ribs that the Toddler devoured as if there was no tomorrow, and packed our bags with pineapple and ginger jam and geleia de marmelo.

Back North, we celebrated Z’s parents’ anniversary, my mother’s birthday, Easter… it was a long weekend full of celebrations, full of family and friends and being spoiled with food and attention. The weather was gorgeous most of the time, so we went to the park several times, we enjoyed the company of several dogs in the family, we had fun in all the gardens that our relatives have. We have always loved being outdoors, but now we appreciate more and more the preciousness of having an outdoor space at home.

I tried to help my mother cook the Easter lamb, but I definitely still need to work on my meat cooking skills. The meat was tender and falling off the bones, the taste was good, but I didn’t time the potatoes well, which means I had to crank up the oven in order to cook them in time, and ended up drying the meat more that I would’ve wanted. Cooking is always a learning process.

One of the highlights of going home is seeing my grandpa, who is well into his nineties. Despite his age, he still preserves a little of his sense of humour. He loves to play pranks with little children, and Toddler has a special admiration for him.

Our holidays at home never feel like real holidays, in the sense that we really do not get to relax and come back home (to the one in Switzerland, I mean – I’ve just realised I have no issues calling two places home) more exhausted than before. But it is the price to pay when being an emigrant, and we try to manage it as best we can, because it is definitely worth it.

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.

running log #23 – in my hometown

Póvoa de Lanhoso is a little town in the North of Portugal, in the heart of the Minho region, a small distance away from Gerês. I moved there when I was 11. Though I wasn’t born there, most of my family comes from there, a significant portion of my friends is there, and I spent my teen and early adult years living there or doing stuff with and for the community. So, in the end, it is mostly this place that I think of when someone asks me where I’m from.

This little run is nothing to write home about in terms of performance (not that any of my runs are, come to think of it). A few days after the Trail das Andorinhas, this was mostly a recovery run. I headed out of my grandparents’ house not really knowing where to go. I felt like avoiding the town centre, so I ran towards one of the outer villages.

I was taking a picture of this field when a tiny dog came furiously barking towards me. I’m not really afraid of tiny dogs that bark, but a lady across the street reassured me that it wouldn’t bite. Then we recognised each other and chatted a little about her daughter, who had been my scout.

I carried on running, and because before I wouldn’t normally walk up to this place for any reason, I ended up randomly running through a few places that I wasn’t familiar with.

It was the end of a sunny afternoon, the light was golden, the shadows were long and the sky was a unique shade of blue. Summer afternoons in Minho.

Then I ran back home, to be greeted by the cat and to quickly have a shower before having dinner with my friends and their dog.

Running wasn’t really my thing when I lived back here. Now, it makes me discover places, some of which I have known forever but rediscover with a new speed and a new perspective, and I quite like it.

running log #21 – Trail das Andorinhas

A couple of days after coming home from Japan, I flew again to Portugal, to visit my home town for a week. I’d heard about this trail race that is on its third edition in one of the villages, organised by a local sports group. It’s called Trail das Andorinhas (andorinhas means swallows in Portuguese) because it runs along Barragem das Andorinhas, a small dam that was built decades ago.

On its 3rd edition, when the event was born I had already moved to Switzerland. So, when a while ago, a family friend had told me about this trail, telling me how it ran past the little lake, the mossy paths, the dry, dusty hills and up to the mountain with an eyeful of the granite reign, I was envious. When I booked my trip home and found that the trail was happening that week, I didn’t even blink.

There were two trail distances: 15 and 25km. I challenged my brother and an old friend who would also be in town to come along. They challenged me back: we had no option but to run 25km. As we say in Portuguese, ou vai ou racha (something along the lines of you either sink or swim).

Fast forward to the start line, when we all meet bleary-eyed on a Sunday morning which promises to be very hot. Me, after my week with two days travelling back 8 time zones, working two days and flying to Portugal only to arrive at 1 a.m. on the night before the trail. My brother, a personal trainer who was in very good shape but had never run past 12km. My friend, a keen triathlete who had been off training for the past year. Finally, his girlfriend, who was the only one of us who was prepared and ready to rock.

When the start gun went off and we started running, I immediately started paying the price of the adventures of the last week. My brother shot off with all his mighty fitness power and I began to worry. Would I be last? Would I run in my home town only to end up not finishing the run or to cut the finish line hours after everyone else? My heart rate started shooting up, my legs feeling heavy and I was having difficulty in gaining any sort of rhythm.

So, I decided what I always decide on a trail (even though I’m not that experienced) – to let it go. If I can’t run, I know how to walk. And I can enjoy the scenery. I swallowed my pride and slowed down, much to the frustration of my little brother, who was able to explode and run up hills and mountains without breaking much of a sweat.

Thus it went for the first 10km. I ran or hiked, managing my own rhythm, enjoying the first views in many months of my “native habitat”. I ran with some people who I’ve known for years and even met a family friend who I’d heard of all my life and didn’t remember meeting.

As it tends to happen a lot in the mountains in Portugal, the markings for the trail were a little confusing, so we ended up catching the wrong route up the mountain. I was lucky, though, because some people were so lost that they ended up running 5km more that intended.

Finally, 2h into the run, I reached the peak.

Knowing it was mostly downhill from there, I took my time in the aid station, where there were all these goodies that you would only find in a Portuguese lanche: croissants, quince cheese, bolacha maria and… Super Bock! I left the Super Bock for the end and wolfed down some quince cheese squares, fruit and lots of water, making sure that I wouldn’t finish with an empty tank as in Montreux-Les Rochers de Naye.

Then, I started running down. Or, should I humbly say, dancing down? Because that is what it felt like. I still had a lot of energy from my management in the uphill section. I was on familiar terrain and running downhill is one of the things I do best. I quickly left my uphill running mates behind, including my brother who started having knee pain, and feeling like a little mountain goat, headed out through the dusty tracks lined with ferns and mato, these very prickly bushes that you find in the mountains in the North of Portugal.

On the way down, I mostly ran. In the uphill sections, I hiked a little. I crossed a guy who overtook me on some sections and who I then overtook. This happened a few times and we finally realised that we were going to be dealing with each other until the end of the race so we’d might as well just know each other’s names. For the following 9km we cruised, chatting a little, one running further at one point, the other one overtaking at another point, motivating each other a little when the other was down.

At the 19th km, there was the last aid station. From there, there was a little downhill run, and a significant portion uphill. I ran through a little village with its café central. In front of it, a few men sitting on the chairs in the porch commented on my running and made some remarks about my legs. This would normally leave me mad and embarrassed, but having been away for so long, and being so much in the spirit of the race, I laughed and said bom dia! and trotted off thinking that all this trail had been a sort of local cliché.

This trotting uphill and past the village had me on my last bits of energy, so I had an energy gel and braced myself for the last 3km, which had some of the nicest spots in the race…

(not the best picture, because… you know, running; but you get an idea)

… and also some obstacles!

The last km was long, around the lake and seeming like it would never finish. In the end, my new friend and I were just relieved to find the sports field and crossed the finish line together.

Then, I stretched, had some water and waited around for my brother and my friend, who came in after me. I’m not really competitive, but I was (not so) secretly pumped that I beat them!

This was my first time running past half-marathon distance and I was quite proud of my achievement. However, what really made me happy was to run with people that I love, in my home town, in the natural setting that I love so much and with all the little quirks that make me chuckle because they are just yelling typical portuguese.