Helen and Peter in Portugal

I've never been grape picking before, not had the wanderlust need to fly to Oz and pick grapes with a lot of gap-year students and a couple of old hippies.  But when the grape harvesting season started recently in Portugal I started to feel the need to snip some grapes and become part of the wine making process. So instead of the lush vineyards of Bordeaux or the stunning landscape of the Douro wine region in Portugal nor the far off general loveliness of Stellenbosch we plumped for Avelar.  Not somewhere (although it pains me to say it) where you would really go for a romantic image of grape picking, complete with wine lodge and Keanu Reeves (if you've never seen A Walk in the Clouds you won't get that).   No, Avelar has a good bakery, a hospital, a car show room and is the home of Jo ão, whose father in laws grapes we were about to pick. Now, I do have to say that my knowledge of grape picking does come from the afore mentioned film - A Walk in the Clouds -...

It was about 9am when our neighbour Alfonso handed Peter a dead, but still warm rabbit.   It might not be how every day starts, but it works for me.       This is the dish Peter created for our dinner by frying off the rabbit and some chorizo then adding everything (except the rice) to a casserole dish and putting in the over for a few hours, adding the rice in the last hour. 1 Rabbit (from the neighbours) 2 peppers (from the garden) Tomatoes (from the garden) Piri Piri (from the garden) Garlic Onions Rice Chorizo He’s also been using up some of our slight excess (is 20 kilos excess?) of tomatoes, by making gazpacho; It’s so simple and really refreshing and surprisingly hearty.    Just wiz the ingredients together in a processor, then chill, chill the bowls you serve it in too.   Just use Tomatoes (from the garden) Onion Garlic Cucumber (from the garden) Olive oil  And as if that was not eno...