The Festival of Saint Catalina AKA the Day I Got Drunk and Ate Horse Meat

So yesterday was a holiday, which as in true Spanish tradition, celebrates some saint or virgin.  Every town has a patron saint and once a year a celebration is held to honor the town's saint.  Back in September, Jonathan and I celebrated Raxo's patron saint, Saint Saleta (you can check out some pics on Jonathan's blog).  Yesterday in Portonovo, which is two towns over, there was a celebration for their patron saint, Saint Catalina.  Portonovo, as all towns in Galicia, is a fishing town, though a more notable fishing town that some others because of its larger port.  So during mass yesterday (which we didn't have the pleasure of attending, darn!) they honored Saint Catalina (the saint of the sea) and then began a procession to the port.  They carried the monument of Saint Catalina along with other important monuments (i.e. the Virgin Carmen, who is the saint of fisherman).  They then arrived at the port, where Jonathan and I were waiting for them.  They placed each monument at the front of a boat and continued the procession out to sea!  Jonathan and I rode on Gonzalito's brother in law's boat, along with about 20 other people.  We had Saint Lucia, the saint of vision, on the front of our boat.

We then followed along with about 25 other boats in a procession out of the port and then about 1/2 way to the Isla de Ons (about a 20 minute boat ride).  There were huge crowds standing along the port watching the procession. The procession dropped a large bouquet into the sea for good luck.

Here's Saint Catalina's boat, which came with a bagpipe band!

Jonathan and I really enjoyed our boat ride.  We got to fully indulge in way to many references to these: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avaSdC0QOUM and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTTUKejngiw&feature=related.  Here is a picture of us and Martin, one of Gonzalito's sons.

 Here are some more pictures from the procession. 

We then returned to the port and the monuments finished their procession back to the church with a marching band in tow.

We then all met up with Rosa, Jorge, and Gonzalito's other son Angel and went to a cafe for a drink before returning to Gonzalito's house to eat.  Gonzalito and his wife had 25 people over to eat!  Here's a classic Grandma Lundberg style table shot:

I sat next to Gonzalito's father in law, Luis, who had brought some lovely Riojas.  Much of the wine I have been drinking here, including what we drink in our home here, is house wine - wine made privately here in Galicia by farmers.  Many people make their own wine and a bit extra to sell to neighbors and friends of friends.  I love the idea of drinking this wine, how the grapes are grown, picked, and juiced by one single person.  I also love it's grapey and foxy flavors.  But I do definitely miss a big strong wine; It's impossible to find wine produced outside of Spain here (Bordeaux has become something of a distant memory).  So naturally I asked Luis if I could "try some" of his Rioja and we officially became best friends.  He poured me a glass (not a standard serving of wine mind you, he filled it to the rim of my wine glass).  This continued throughout the entire meal, him pouring me.  Dietitians speak about the psychology of eating, how one has been trained to "finish their plate"...this is exactly what I fell victim to during this dinner.  I had to finish my glass of wine!  Except I just couldn't seem to finish it as he kept pouring me.  When we were seated the table was full of crab and a crab dip, made of bits of crab and crab brain (it was served in the crab shell, very cool).  While we ate the crab Luis proceeded to tell me about how Galicia has the best seafood in the world.  Despite being an old Gallego, who are normally harder for me to understand because of their thick regional accents, I was able to understand Luis (this probably had to do with the fact that he repeated the same things over and over).  So then we were served Callo, which has quickly become one of my favorite things in Galicia.  It is a soup made from chorizo, garbanzo beans, and different beef and pig parts (stomach, bones, fat hunks, etc).  I usually give my stomach hunks to the closest Gallego sitting next to me and just eat the beans and a few small pieces of chorizo.  The soup has this wonderful smokey flavor. We then began eating beef pot roast which was served with potatoes and some mixed veggies.  I was really enjoying my meat and excited that it even came with vegetables, something they don't really put a premium on here.  Somewhere in between my 4th glass of wine and my second helping of beef Gonzalito turns to me from the other end of the table and asked how I was enjoying my "caballo".  I smiled, not quite understanding what Caballo was, assuming it was some sort of recipe, and said "mmm que rico" in a drunken slur.  He then laughed and asked me if I knew what it was and I answered "the beef, right?".  The entire room went into laughter and Jonathan leaned over and explained that caballo is horse meat.  I quickly panicked and covered my mouth in horror.  Then I thought about how delicious it was, figured when in Rome, and finished my plate.  Luis then served me anise liquor and I proceeded to tell Marianeves she makes the best dessert in all the world.  Horse meat is probably not something that I will seek out again but oh baby it sure was delicious.

Thanksgiving

Jonathan and I decided to host a Thanksgiving dinner for the family here.  Today was special for us not only because it was in Spain, but also because it was the first time we have ever served a Thanksgiving together <3.  Everything went swimmingly and was really special, which was important to us as we missed our families a lot today.

On Monday we went to the local grocer store here to inquire about purchasing a whole turkey (the only turkey I have seen here thus far is lunch meat turkey, so I'm sure that our request was no doubt a little out of the ordinary).  We were told that we could pick it up after 1pm on Wednesday.

Wednesday morning we went to pick up our glorious bird.  It was absolutely fresh.  There were still some remnants of feathers around the feet and wings.  It was 6.5 kilos (a little more than 13 pounds).  When we picked it up I was actually surprised at how big the bird was in size.  In the US the birds are bread to have huge breasts.  For a bird to grow large enough to have a good amount of meat it needs to actually grow.  When allowed to do this normally, that is without genetic engineering, the bird actually has to grow.  They threw some paper in the bottom of a plastic shopping bag, put the bird in, and then handed it to us.  We picked up some of our other groceries and were on our way.  Once we got home I got cracking on my apple pie.  I had made one before, so I wasn't very nervous about it.  The only problem I had was that I don't have a pie pan here, so I had to make my pie in a 8" cake pan.  The sides fell in a little, but it was still a pie to be proud of.

I then prepped broccoli au gratin, which I have made several times before.  I also prepped stuffing, something I have never made.  I was really nervous about making stuffing and spent a long time online looking at recipes.  There were so many different variations in how people make them (with or without egg, with or without meat, with fruits, nuts, etc.).  I hoped that the abundance in different recipes signified that it was pretty hard to mess up, but was still kind of anxious about it.  I opted for one that seemed pretty standard.  It used white bread (I like my moms with the mixed white, rye, and pumpernickel.  Although the bread here is always fresh, there isn't much variance.  I get excited when I come across wheat bread), celery, apples, onion, parsley, pepper, and sausage (I found some nice mild chorizo).


We then eye balled the turkey and quickly discovered that we didn't have a pan large enough to fit the whole bird.  We went up to Manolo and Margarita's house to borrow a pan and a thermometer.  We got then pan, but didn't have any luck with the thermometer.  Manolo seemed confused as to why we would need one and indicated that you can just poke at meat and cut into it to know that it's done.  Jonathan explained that if you want it cooked perfectly, you need a thermometer.  Manolo seemed to understand, though just kind of looked at Jon like he had read too much and had become impractical. 

I went to bed feeling confident about the next day.  Everything seemed to be in place.  All I needed to do was heat up some corn, throw my stuffing and broccoli in the oven, and do the mashed potatoes.  Very manageable.  Jonathan was assigned to the turkey.

As we have become accustomed to, we had the meal at 2:30pm.  So we were up by 9am to get the turkey in the oven.  Here's a picture of Jonathan in his PJ's (I call them his "jam-jams") putting the turkey in.  Good thing it fit in our tiny little oven!!

I then sat on the couch, drank coffee, facebooked, and read the news for a few hours until I had to get moving.  Everything basically went as planned today.  All of my dishes heated up perfectly and the timing seemed to go really well (something we had difficulty when we hosted Christmas last year).  The kitchen was even relatively clean up until like 20 minutes before we were supposed to eat.  We feared that we were running a little bit behind schedule so Jonathan suggested that we put some olives and chorizo out for them to pick at (people here always show up right when the food is supposed to be served.  There isn't that like 2 hour window of chatting that goes on like back at home.  You can add this to my list of things I dislike about Spain).  In opening a big glass jar of olives I dropped it and spilled olive juice all over the front of me (ew.  I hate olives).  By the time I finished cleaning up all of the glass and mopping up all of the olive juice it was almost time to eat and we found ourselves to be running perfectly on schedule.  I cleaned myself up a little bit while Jonathan went to make us champagne cocktails (champagne, bitters, and sugar.  yummy).  So we toasted to our very first of what will hopefully be many Thanksgivings served together.

The family showed up and the eating commenced. The turkey was nice and juicy (well done Booey) and all the food turned out perfectly. 

Thanksgiving food Spaniards love:
Stuffing (Margarita had like 4 servings.  Truly a hit)
Broccoli au Gratin
Turkey

Thanksgiving food Spainards are just not that into:
Gravy (everyone tried it but they all seemed to very wary.  Nobody went back for seconds.  Please note that this has nothing to do with my gravy skill.  I make the good stuff from the pan drippings.)
Mashed potatoes (this was a major shocker for me as french fries are served at every meal here).

I then served my pie a la mode with coffee and some macaroons that Jonathan made.  I explained that apple pie is a very traditional American dessert.  I tried to explain the phrase that something is as American as apple pie, but didn't do very well.  Jonathan then attempted to explain it better, using baseball as an example, stating "baseball is as American as apple pie".  Everyone seemed to get it..but then Manolo said "Emily is as beautiful as apple pie".  Jonathan then explained the phrase again, but Manolo just reiterated again how beautiful I was.  haha.  We then partook in some whiskey and aguardiente (equivalent to Italy's Grappa) and video chatted with Jonathan's family in Westchester.  This was really nice, especially since Jonathan's grandmother had not "seen" the family here in 9 years, since Jonathan's grandfather died.

All and all it was a great success.  Jonathan and I are officially compatible Thanksgiving cooks.

Raxo Rainbow

mmmm, Homemade Chorizo

These were made from Chirrichin, Chelo and Gonzalo's pig.  They smoked them in their backyard for 3-4 days. 

Lisboa, Eu Te Amo

Jonathan and I headed out Tuesday morning for our brief, but wonderful stay in Lisbon.  We initially decided to go to Lisbon to see Arcade Fire.  Unfortunately, the concert was canceled due to a NATO conference being held in Lisbon, which was a major disappointment for us.  We already had our bus tickets and hotel reservations so we quickly decided to continue on with our trip! We took an 8 hour bus ride from Pontevedra to Lisbon.  It was long, though nice to be able to see other parts of Portugal.  From what we saw, it appears as though much of Portugal seems very economically depressed.  Though Lisbon is an absolutely enchanting city. 

We arrived around 8pm on Tuesday evening.  We quickly found out hotel, changed and then headed out to dinner.  We went to Bico do Sapato, a Japanese Infusion Restaurant on the water, which is partly owned by John Malkovich (insert "Being John Malkovich" restautant joke here).  The bottom level of the restaurant is more formal, while the top level hosts a sushi bar.  Jonathan loves sushi and wanted to take advantage of being able to eat something other than Gallego style food (going into Pontevedra for Chinese is a major outing for us).  I have tried sushi before, though never sashimi (for those of you who know me well, I'm very particular about the textures of the food I eat - raw fish doesn't seem like a sensation I'd like in my mouth), but I decided to go for it and actually, I liked it!  With our bellies full and happy we hit the hay.

The next day we woke up and headed to a cafe for some coffee and pastries (FYI Spanish coffee > Portuguese coffee).  After that we went to the Lisbon Botanical Gardens. 

We then headed over to Belem, the port area of the city, which also holds all of these monuments to exploration.  Here's a picture of Jonathan being thrilled to be there in front of an homage to Vasco Da Gama.  I can't wait to have 12 year old children who make this same face on family vacations:

We then headed to the Monument of Discoveries, a gift to Portugal from South Africa, thanking Mr. Da Gama for rounding the Cape of Good Hope (hopefully they have buyers remorse - there are probably better things S. Africa could have spent their money on).  Hey!  Here's me at the Cape of Good Hope from summer of 2006! 

But anyways, here's the monument.  We went to the top, which gave us an awesome view of the city.

We also checked out the Mosteiro dos Jeronimos, a monastery. 

Here's Jonathan, being an asshole while I'm trying to take nice pictures.

We then went to the Oceanarium, the most amazing aquarium I have ever been to.  It is designed with one main tank in the center with smaller tanks around the outside.  You travel through the building in circles around the main tank, checking out the smaller tanks.  Awesome.  I took way too many pictures of blurry sharks, but here's the highlight reel:

We then quickly rested our feet, changed, and headed out for dinner.  We went to Cafe de Sao Bento, this steakhouse Jonathan found in the NY Times (we obviously have to take advantage of the abundance of beef eaten in Lisbon - a warm up to our glorious two months of Malbec and meat this coming February when we go to Argentina).  It was absolutely delicious.  We both had the Sao Bento Prime Ribs - epic (Gallego iron deficiency no more :).  We then took a cab (note that this cab driver pretended to be lost and took us for a 10 euro cab ride.  damn him.  We used the subway the whole time we were there.  We were unable to find this club on our maps, so we took a cab.  Just our luck) to a fado club, Sr. Fado.  We sat, listened to live music and had some drinks.  Fado is a Portuguese folk style, characterized by mournful songs about the sea.  Here's a link of a more famous singer, if you're interested: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFgctURyGp4&feature=fvst 

Our second day we headed to Alfama, the older district of Lisbon for breakfast and to, ya know, take in the oldness.

We then hopped on a bus to Evora, which is about 1 1/2 hours outside of Lisbon.

We then went to the Church of Saint Francis, our main reason for going to Evora.  This church contains the Chapel of Bones.  This Chapel was built by Franciscan monks during the counter-reformation to denote the transience of life.  The entrance of the chapel reads "we bones, lying here bare, are awaiting yours".  This chapel is made entirely out of human bones, held together by cement.

We then went back into Lisbon and had an awesome dinner at an Indian restaurant and went for a walk through the city.  There was a concert in protest of the NATO conference the next day going on in the middle of Barrio Alto, the area we stayed in.

We then just barely caught our bus back to Galicia this morning.  I wanted to leave a half hour early, get there nice and early and have some breakfast (I get anxious when traveling.  I get worried when I have to catch flights or buses and always like to be there nice and early so I can wait nice and relaxed).  Jonathan wanted to sleep longer.  We ended up leaving when Jonathan wanted.  There were problems with the subway system so we arrived at the bus station 10 minutes later than we had planned, just as our bus pulled up. Needless to say, not only did I get Jonathan to admit that he was wrong, but from now we get to arrive at airports and bus stations nice and early like I want.  This has always been a source of conflict when we travel together and I'm just glad that this experience has allowed us to clear this problem up :).

Sunrise in Raxo

Took this real quick on Tuesday morning, getting ready to catch our bus to Lisbon.

Things I Hate about Spain

I absolutely love Spain and am greatly enjoying my time here.  I think Spain is an incredibly beautiful and rich country.  That being said, when you start to miss home and it's little comforts, those things here that you are forced to "deal with" become more of a nuisance.  So this blog post was written in tribute to missing home by identifying those things here that just aren't quite right.


Disclaimer: I recognize that I am about to make horrible, sweeping generalizations and I may come off as a spoiled, American brat (ala "Super Sweet Sixteen").  But I'm going to do it anyways.  Enjoy!!

1. Humidity.  Now that summer has ended and the rainy season has officially begun, everything is wet -all the time.  When I get into bed at night, my sheets feel wet.  My pistachios that I bought just a week ago went soft due to just the damn wetness in the air!  When Jonathan turns the space heater on, it feels like I'm literally in a jungle.  We are going to invest in a dehumidifier on our next trip into Pontevedra.

2. Nobody has garbage cans in their bathrooms.  This may seem like not a big deal, but when a woman's got her period, it is.  I don't know if they flush tampons here or what the deal is.

3.  I miss my friends and family.  I have been able to maintain contact with some people via the internet, but it's just not the same.

4. Nobody drinks water (they only drink wine, beer, and coffee).  I feel as though I walk around dehydrated at all times.  As with everything here, the glasses we have in our apartment are small and I have to either sit in our living room with a huge jug of tap water or get up about every 15 minutes to refill my glass in the kitchen.

5. Spaniards are very proud people.  They like to consume Spanish foods and drinks; they're not into imports.  Something I had never really thought about before was how accustomed I am to eating a large diversity of flavors.  Trying to find food that is not native to Spain (i.e. curry and coconut milk) has proven to be a challenge and when we can find them, they are often very expensive.  I understand the benefits of consuming food produced locally and seasonally, and not importing everything, but seasoning everything with parsley, garlic and paprika gets old at a certain point.  I literally jumped for joy the other day when we found ginger in the grocery store.

6. I miss peanut butter.

7.  Vegetables aren't important enough.  The most popular dishes here are fish/shellfish and potatoes (either boiled or french fried - but always, always peeled which is another thing that drives me nuts!  I love potato skins!).  Vegetables usually aren't served when we go to family dinners and when they are, they are a small side dish (i.e. every one can serve themselves 2-3 peppers or a slice of tomato).  Vegetables aren't incorporated enough into dishes; they are generally an afterthought.

8. Epically horrible dubbing.  A tradition that was enforced by Franco an has remained a cultural norm. Absolutely everything is dubbed.  They don't do subtitles here.  The soft core porn that comes on public tv every night around 11pm is dubbed (yes, the grunting).  We watched dubbed Jackass 2 this afternoon; they dubbed the laughing.  Why?!What is actually interesting though, is that every major star has a specific dubber assigned to them.  So for example, Bruce Willis has a specific dubber and Spanish speaking voice associated with him.  The family has said that if someone else were to dub Bruce it would be strange because Bruce wouldn't sound like he normally does (which is stupid because it's not Bruce's real voice anyways!)

9.  Spanish television is horrendous.  And it's not just because I can't understand half of it!  It's like horrible day time television, all the time.

10.  Seemingly simple things are surprisingly difficult to find.  I went out the other day in search for a set of plastic mixing bowls to make Christmas cookies with.  This is something that you can find at almost any dollar store.  I scoured the entire city of Pontevedra and couldn't find any!  Do they not mix here?!

11.  Galicia in the winter is super rainy.  I hate rain (although, I'm going shopping for rain boots tomorrow - my Christmas present from Jonathan:).  Sometimes the rain seems to go on for like 72 hours without ceasing.  I know I no longer live in the frigidness that is Buffalo, but I think I actually prefer snow over rain.  You can walk outside without getting completely wet, everything isn't always so freakin moist (see #1). 

Pope-Mobile

The Pope was here yesterday.  We live about an hour bus ride from Santiago De Compestela, a major catholic pilgrimage.  There are several different routes to take to this church, but the most famous originates in France.  Here's a picture I took of the church during my last trip to Spain 3 years ago:

The Pope arrived here yesterday, greeted by the Spanish royal family.  His message to Spain: that there is an "aggressively secular movement" in Spain, which saddens his heart (i.e. gay marriage and abortions are legal in Spain).  Needless to say, an unpopular pope has quickly become increasingly loathed in Spain.

Two weeks ago, when I found out that the Pope would be coming to Galicia I asked the family over lunch whether anyone would be going to see him.  The family laughed hysterically at me and then spent about 30 minutes chastising him (his politics, his looks, etc.).  They then made jokes about the Pope giving last rights to the pig, who they butchered the same day he was here in Galicia (even Emilia, the 85 year old matriarch of the family, who usually sits silently in a chair by the window, was laughing).  Spain is an overwhelmingly Catholic country, yet there is a growing movement away from the Catholic church.  Spain is a very liberal country and the church, particularly under Benedict XVI, do not perceive social problems similarly.  The family here believes that his perception of the world is centuries old and that he is not in touch with the church's followers. The family also heavily criticized his response to the sexual abuse occurring within the Catholic church and its subsequent response.

When we went to mass on the Day of the Dead the older, more traditional of the priests at the local church here in Raxo performed the service.  During the sermon he asked us to forgive those priests that have abused children as they are humans and they make mistakes.  Luckily for me, there were microphone problems the day of the service and I couldn't understand a word (the last time we went to mass it was perfect for me-a fledgling Spanish speaker-as the priest spoke nice and slow, enunciating everything).  When we got out of the service and were standing outside mingling, Rosa and Begonia were talking about this statement - they were furious.  Similarly, this past Sunday the pope was in Barcelona at La Sagrada Familia.  This is a church designed by Gaudi.  There is a bunch of his architecture all over Barcelona and it's really beautiful.  Here's a picture I took of this church during my last trip to Spain:

We watched the CNN coverage of the mass over coffee with Rosa in Vigo.  As the pope was being presented with jewel encrusted bibles and cups Rosa and Jonathan agreed, if Jesus saw this, he would be infuriated and deeply saddened.  Rosa then spoke of the church's lack of action in combating against poverty.  Later that afternoon we went to a soccer game with Vicente and heard the crowd chant "the pope is a pedophile". 

It was very interesting to me, a non-religious, American to experience Spain's reaction to the Pope coming.  There were some statements and jokes that were done in jest, and probably not the most mature ways of handling the situation.  But I very much admire their separation of faith and this cancer that is the current administration of the church.

Butchering the Pig

After killing and gutting the pig, they hung it overnight to dry it out a little.  We went back the next morning to watch them butcher it.  In the barn they removed the tenderloins and then broke the pig into several large pieces to take into their basement to cut up. 

Here is Chelo removing the tenderloin:

 Here they are splitting up the pig into big pieces to make it easier to move:

Once in the basement Marichelo and Chelo cut the skin of of the pieces and gave it to Jonathan and Marinieves' boyfriend, to remove any large hunks of fat or meat (they use the pieces  of fat for chorizo).  Chelo and Marichelo also removed large pieces of meat, which the boys cut up into fillets.  Gonzalo worked solo, using an axe to break up large bone pieces (they use pieces like this to make stock).  Marinieves labeled bags for the freezer (this was always my job when my dad got a deer - I had a star system and everything).

Here is Marichelo butchering a big ole ham:

 
Here's Gonzalo, collecting some stock parts:

Here's everyone working away, trimming the meat:

Here's Gonzalo cutting bone with n axe - he had impeccable aim.

They then salted bone pieces and pieces of skin (including ears, feet, etc.), which they use to make chicken stock.  After salting them they placed the pieces in a wooden box in their basement to cure.  I asked why they did this, as opposed to just freezing the pieces, and they said that the salt brings out different flavors. 


Here they are, salting away:

We all then went inside and made a delicious pork cutlet lunch.  So fresh and delicious!!