Helen and Peter in Portugal

The humble picnic has come a long way in recent years…gone are the soggy sandwiches of the past, made the night before with bread curling, eaten on the beach with a mouthful of sand which somehow embeds itself in the bread.   I think Nigella and Jamie have ‘sexed up’ the picnic, we are now expected to provide handmade wraps with homemade pork pie and individual deserts served on proper plates.       I can remember my auntie laughing at the memory of my Dad trying to serve open sandwiches on a beach somewhere in the south of England.   Maybe he had high hopes to elevate the traditional soggy picnic to fancy status, or may it was just pretentious– who knows!? The Portuguese seem to have elevated the picnic to epic proportions.    Tables brought out, always laid with a table cloth, cushions and rugs are scattered like an episode of the Barefoot Contessa, wine is chilled and served in glasses (not plastic cups) and full cutlery is r...

Every so often, when walking around the lanes, you come across a little prayer post built into the walls surround a field or the walls of houses.  These prayer posts are called Alminha or Little Soul and are scattered across Portugal where ever you go.   Maintained by the local women, an alminha is a small shrine which traditional represents a soul in purgatory and is filled with a candle and flowers (although these days it is likely to be a  battery operated candle and plastic flowers from the euro shop).   Traditionally, passers-by would pray and offer alms when passing one in the street.   The alminh can depict Jesus or a saint, like the Patron Saint of lost things - St Antony or a Guardian Angel.  In fact there are hundreds of saints to choose from..... take a look. It is a shame to see one not maintained but as the older generation pass away (there has been a spate of this recently with funerals every week in the local c...

As a marketer I like my brands, Colgate, Revlon, Lenor all work for me, I get the brand investment, the brand identity the money it takes to make and maintain a brand.    I also understand that these are multi-national companies, who don’t really care about you or me other than the £s we spend, that no-doubt the amount of washing liquid going into our rivers and seas are polluting the water, that the chemicals used to make my hair soft or the oil to come out of my trousers are probably not the best for me and the environment. With this in mind, and the promise of a really great lunch, I went for a workshop on how to make your own soaps, lip balms, washing liquid and toothpaste at Qunita da Fonte this weekend. Our expert, Emma, took us through the processes, with her box of essential oil goodies. Laundry liquid – easy.    Melt natural soap with water.    Let is set until it looks like jelly.  Soap – who knew it contained causti...

People often ask ‘do you miss London’, the truth is no.    But I do miss my friends, I miss going to the pub, it being busy, I miss the boutique shops and I miss good steak and chips.    That’s why visiting is the very best cure for a little London Saudade (a Portuguese word which they say has no translation into English, but here is an attempt)   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saudade Being a tourist in your old town is great and with the amount of development going in in Old London Town at the moment I felt like a stranger in town (well a stranger that knew the short cut into Covent Garden at least).     When I visited London recently my family decided to do a Big London Bus Tour.  It was a great way to see the sites, to avoid the walk around town in the very warm spring sunshine and spend some time with my family.   The City is changing out of all recognition, the building work has gone off the scale.  It used to be the G...

As a non-surfer I have never quite understood Peter when he drives up to the beach, gets out the car then watches the waves for 20 mins, what is he watching for?  He tells me it's the shape of the wave, where it's breaking, the consistency of the swell....blah blah blah.  Watch a group of surfers watching the waves anywhere, I think they are waiting for someone to make the decision to 'go in', that way they can see how good it is and decide whether or not to bother.   Get a group together and they can talk each other into or out of it, but that seems to take a good 20 mins.....these days, I take a book and stay in the car until the decision is made about staying or driving another 10 mins down the bay to the next spot and doing the standing all over again! But for Garrett McNamara the big wave surfer it is a whole other ball game, well it's still surfing, but you get my drift.   For McNamara it is life and death as he decides to ride one of the biggest waves in th...

Now we all know that olive oil is good for you, but how much olive oil is too much?  Let me start this by saying that we get through a lot of olive oil.  Last year our olive oil consumption topped 40 litres.  I feel the need to justify this use by saying that; it is the only oil we use, I use it as a moisturiser and make olive oil cakes and….well I cannot really justify it further. But as I read online , olive oil is good for you!   Peter and I recently went to the olive oil press to purchase this year’s requirements.   The press that we go to is over an hour away and we choose to go here because it’s been recommended and the price of olive oil is 2 euros cheaper here per litre compared to our local press.    Despite having 15 olive trees we have made the decision not to pick and press our own olive oil.  Our friends as Casa Azul cannot believe we don’t use our own olives, each year they harvest their olives and take th...

When a friend asked Peter to come up with a logo for a new coffee shop recently he took the opportunity to be paid in cakes.   We went to collect last week, as the coffee shop, Dona Chica opened to the public.   Our friends, a family from Oliveira do Bairro, have taken on a cake shop and bakery in a village close to them.    It’s a bold move, there are thousands of cake shops and bakeries across Portugal, every village has one.   It’s also long hours, our local one is open from 6am to 11pm every day of the week, 365 days a year.   Arriving at Dona Chica we stepped into a slight chaos and very mild panic.    So much to do before the doors open the following morning.   Peter tasted the beer, it was fine so he felt he could have another.    I started cleaning tables and decorating the Christmas tree.   We took the tour, saw the bread chef making the bread, watched the pastry chef make Bolo Rei (a great ...