Helen and Peter in Portugal

Peter has a new toy.   A video camera.  He wants to share the stunning landscapes and way of life here in Central Portugal through video.    He seems to be pretty good at taking some lovely images, but there is a lot to choose from round here. This video shows the amazing landscape right outside our back door.  The clouds going by at a speedy pace (only one sequence was sped up)... We've had so much rain recently, we must have had about three day's worth of rain in a few hours.  While that has caused problems for the river beaches, with car parks being washed out and whole trees making their way down the river to the river beach, it has made for some lovely tranquil water images complete with some plinky plonky music. Finally, more water.   We took the dog for a walk up to the mountain top the other day.  I walked on my own as Peter was off filming waterfall footage and the dog ended up wanting to chase goats. ...

Having seen Julie and Julia over Christmas we were almost inspired to devote this blog to working through the Piri Piri Starfish book by Tessa Kiros.  One of the best Portuguese cookery books available. Instead I thought I'd pick one of my favorite Portuguese dishes and do a little research,  and by research I mean eating it in lots of places so I can tell you where to buy the best version! Migas is a Portuguese side dish, made with cabbage, fried bread and black eye beans.   It's a simple dish but with the right amount of garlic, salt and pepper it is delicious.  Often made with cabbage shredded very finely by the old ladies in the market (the same cabbage in another favorite - Caldo Verde Soup).    It is fried in the pan with the seasoning and garlic then pre-cooked black eye beans are added along with cubes of fried bread (often corn bread). The other way to make this, and something you find in a lot of traditional restaurant...

With the presents brought by Baby Jesus himself on Christmas Eve, the Portuguese Christmas differs from the traditional turkey in England.   Instead of the blow out meal on the 25 th December where drinking starts at 11am with the annual sherry (boy I miss the traditional Christmas) the Portuguese share dinner on the 24 th with a big dose of Bacalhau, salted cod fish, which looks nothing before it’s soaked for 48 hours.      The Portuguese say that there’s a bacalhau recipe for every day of the week…..they love it here. Before the soaking One of the 365 recipes after the soaking Another of the 365 recipes image from http://www.theydrawandcook.com/recipes/bacalhau-a-bras-by-claudia-salgueiro  After the family meal, everyone will go to church for the 'Missa do Galo' or 'Mass of the Rooster' service. During the service an image of baby Jesus is brought out.   It is then put in the nativity scene (the presépio) which eve...

It all started when I mentioned that it might be nice to have a separate place where I could go and watch TV or read or play on the Wii…I said that I’d also like a second bathroom and I’d like a utility room. I wanted to convert the animal barn on the side of our house (accessed through the kitchen) into a ‘snug’.   After a few months of persuasion Peter was in.    We looked for a builder (traumatic enough, read the blog post ) we found the one we wanted and work was scheduled for January 2014.     In December 2013 I started to take down the old bread oven in the corner of the room.    A mass of stones, red clay, and 50 year old soot.    I’d come out looking like I’d been down a mine.    Our 90 year old neighbour sat on her step and laughed at me.   She was still grinning when finally the oven was dismantled and I carried hundreds of stone down the 14 steps to the stairwell for storage.    It wouldn’...

As France empties for the month of August, Central Portugal swells with the amount of visitors coming home for a month in the ‘mother land’.    (I read that there are more Portuguese in France then there is in Portugal….is this possible?).   The squares are full of French cars, the main language heard in the cafés is French and a cheery ‘Bonjour’ instead of ‘Bon Dia’ will see you right in the morning.      With all these extra people to entertain, we enter party season – or festa season.    Portuguese festas are a funny thing, speakers go up in the villages and the quiet is ruined with pimba music being piped through the speakers from 10am (hear the horror of this below). The   lights go up on the church.      The stage goes up ready for someone to come and sing along to a backing track and the huts go up to serve the beers and pork rolls.      It’s pretty much the same ...