Culture and Customs

Raims (with two little points above the i)

~ Kate Wilson ~ 2 Comments

It is traditional here to eat twelve grapes when midnight strikes on New Years Eve.
You have to swallow all of them before the clock finishes striking the hour.
It’s not easy and especially when they have seeds in them

Lucky me – someone very kind peeled and deseeded my grapes to help me out!

Feliç Any Nou

~ Kate Wilson ~ 7 Comments

Happy New Year!

Soon it will be 2mil12 the year the Mayans have called the end of the world.

I wish everyone a wonderful ‘end of the world as we know it’ year.

I hope this coming year will be full of new experiences, new love, more laughter, stronger connections with all other life on the planet so that we can create the world that we dream of rather than the one we fear.

I hope it is a new world of respect for animals and nature.

I hope we can all find the courage to change our worlds and to follow our hearts.

Today we are going to drive just a little bit north along the coast to a place called Santa Susanna where there is a campsite by the sea. We have hired a bungalow for two people and three dogs!  I hope to prepare for the New Year by walking along beach, watching the dogs enjoy the water and the sand, reading my book while listening to the waves, meditating on the past year and what I have learned and enjoyed as well as what I have resisted and lost.

I want to thank everyone who has helped me through this last year of change – every contact I have with you helps me through my day – and I am incredibly grateful.
I send you all much love and all my best wishes for the coming 2012.

2012 – Let’s imagine the world we want to live in and start to create it NOW!

My third christmas

~ Kate Wilson ~ 1 Comment

Christmas has been and gone and I haven’t written anything.
Nothing about the beating of the Tio, nor the traditional Catalan Christmas dinner of Escudella i carn d’olla.  I haven’t shown you the Christmas market in Barcelona nor the nativity scene in Plaça St Jaume.  No photos of bubbling cava or delicious turrons……nothing!  Res!  Niente!  Nada!
Sorry. I have just been so involved in getting the dogs settled here in their new home and trying to find a rhythm that allows me time for myself between sorties to the plaça with anxious Bonnie, hyperactive Duna or slow Blue or some combination of those three. I haven’t been to Barcelona at all and I didn’t go to  beat the Tio and sing ‘El Noi de la Mare’ this year.
But I did finally make it into Granollers centre to look at the Christmas market. It’s not really very exciting compared to the Santa Lucia one in Barcelona but I did take a good look at the figures for the all important nativity scenes and bought a little set for home

I remember unpacking the nativity scene was one of the lovely parts of Christmas in Troon when I was young. We used to set them up inside a toy garage which must have deeply influenced my idea of the stable in Bethlehem.
If you have been following this blog at all you’ll know that Catalunya has a strong tradition of scatalogical customs. the beating of the Tio is to make it shit presents. and in the nativity scenes, the pessebres, there must be somewhere hidden a caganer, a little man with his trousers down shitting in the bushes

I bought one of these for a friend but couldn’t decide on one for our pessebre so for the moment it has only Josep, Maria, Jesus, a donkey, (by the way did you know the donkey or burro has been adopted as a symbol of Catalunya and many cars have a bumper sticker with one on it?) and a cow, una vaca. Oh and an angel of course!

Christmas dinner was lovely this year and I have to say much easier now that I can speak a little more Catalan. I took my  own nut roast and ate parts of the typical Catalan dinner.

Of course there was Cava – here’s a glass with icecream mixed in
And a tower of turrons to be carefully demolished like an edible pikastix

The other reason I didn’t write too much was because it’s taken me a bit of time to get settled back in here after all the turmoil of the move and three months in Cornwall where of course I feel totally at ease. I have had some days of feeling like this

but now that the stress of Nadal and Sant Esteve is past I seem to be sniffing the air and, like Blue, finding it full of interesting smells

Christmas Menus

~ Kate Wilson ~ 4 Comments

On the way down through France I treated myself to a food processor – a Magimix!  The old Kenwood Chef died before I left Cornwall after about 20 years of service. So it is time for something new!
I wanted one with a two pin plug so decided to buy it in France and when we stopped off in Cahors I found a kitchen shop and indulged. It felt like a big buy but hopefully I will still be using it in 2021!
Today I made my favourite nut roast to eat on Christmas day.

I have special permission to bring my own food as this is my third Christmas here and the meal in Catalunya is a melange of pork, chicken, beef and sometimes lamb. It is called Escodella i Carn D’Ollo and is thought to be one of the most ancient of Catalan dishes.

It actually creates two courses – the first is a clear soup with large pasta shells and the second is the vegetables and meat that were used to make the soup.  I have eaten it in the past (or those parts of it that I could swallow)  and it is very interesting but this year I feel the need of something traditional for me.  I want to actually enjoy the dinner!
The recipe I like is Sarah Browns Layered Cashew Nut and Parsnip Roast.  Usually I use button mushrooms for the middle layer but today we bought some lovely Girgoles in the Thursday market which makes the whole dish feel more exotic

Today I was also doing a roast potato experiment.  You need floury ones and here the choice was between White ones and Red ones – not a Maris Piper in sight!  The stallholder thought the white ones would be best but the Red ones are the floury ones. So I got both and after parboiling, put them in the oven, hoping that I wouldn’t forget which was which.

They did taste totally different and although all were crunchy on the outside, the red ones definitely had a better consistency inside

Now….can I remember……the yellow ones are the red and the white the white?  Or are the yellow the white and the white the red?…..oh dear!
The dinner for Sant Esteve is in our home and the plan is to have a more traditional British Christmas dinner so an ‘ecologic’ chicken has been ordered from the butchers and I will be testing my ability to produce a roast dinner without tears or trauma. Or burnt brussel sprouts and parsnips  and wounded pride!

Granollers today

~ Kate Wilson ~ 2 Comments

Every day there is high humidity and often………a downpour.
Today the rain turned to hailstones and the rain was so fierce it came in through various holes in the roof! And through the door to the terrace which I had left open! There were little pebbles of ice on the carpet.
Is this summer?  I often have to remind myself which month we are in – can it really be July, the time when normally I am seeking out shade and rejecting most of my clothes as they are too hot for comfort. This evening I was thinking I needed a jacket for sitting in the Jijonera to drink an orxata.

I am feeling better after yesterdays outpouring.
Women Who Walk with Wolves also reminded me that for creative energy to mature and grow there must be times when we take on the inner assassin and face those dark questions about who we are and what we are doing.

(I notice here that the book is actually called Women Who RUN with Wolves. How typical of me that I slowed it down a pace!)
The assassin, the predator within us, is that voice which tells us we are no good and periodically it tries to knock us down and destroy what we are making. Then is the time to gather strength, take a breath and fight back.

Today in Granollers I went shopping.  Against a terrible fatigue of body and spirit I walked down to the centre of town and tried on shoes. It is the time of the July sales – called Rebaixes in Catalan. Pronounced  ‘rebashes’
I don’t know what this sign means – how can a sale be %?

While in one shop looking at bags I heard a big kerfuffle in the shop next door – Pull and Bear. A large group of people gathered to enjoy the show. Everyone started to talk and shout and smile – it was like we were waking up from our shopping dream.

After a lot of noise and yelling,  two women came out with pushchairs, arguing with the security guard and eventually walked away up the road. Then someone saw the Mossos (police) arriving from the other end of town. A shout went up – Here, Here, Quickly, Quickly!
The crowd, which now was acting as one, pointed in the direction of the women and the police ran past – three, four, five of them. Later I saw the security guard return with some tee shirts in his hand and also the girls talking with the police in a discreet alleyway.  What was incredible was the crowd energy for the chase – wow, I wouldn’t like to have those people after me. A few moments before they had been barely alive.

Well, that’s enough excitement for today!  A storm and a robbery and two new pairs of shoes.
No bag –  though – look at the price!