The Short Month

Just a short one, this month. The month and the post. Short because I'm aware that I've already broken my new year's resolution to post once per month, if you count that I'm an hour and 18 minutes into March already. (OK, for you in the UK it's only 18 - wait, no, 19 minutes in.

Well, what is there to say about February? It came and went, as February is wont to do. I had a week back in London for work. It was more than a little stormy that week, as roof tiles and garden gnomes went flying, and the news was full of politicians wearing waders and wellies and looking pointedly at huge expanses of dirty water. It was the UK's wettest January in more than 100 years, they said. It made me quite glad that we weren't spending another biblical winter in a small, damp basement flat in Vauxhall this year, with the Thames barrier being deployed and the river threatening us a few metres away. I felt quite guilty for our relatively painless winter here. But the nice thing is, we're also a haven for our friends and family now. And boy, do we know it. The mums are booking trips over in March quicker than you can say 'easyjet'. Long-lost family members are suddenly looking us up, they've heard we have a guest house in Barcelona, what's availability like, over the spring?

The truth is we're booked up well into May and June - something we never expected, at under six months of being open. But we're enjoying what we do. We're getting good reviews, so we aren't bad at it. And we genuinely enjoy making people feel at home, comfortable, cared for. We enjoy making someone's holiday - that precious time we know all too well from working long hours ourselves in London -better.

Tomorrow (well, later today), we have a couple arriving who have been referred to us by a friend, and they will be celebrating their 40th wedding anniversary here. We've booked them into the best restaurant in town, will have flowers and cava awaiting them, and will enjoy watching them stroll out each day with some foolproof recommendations under their arms. A year ago, I was packing up our flat. I just mentioned this to the Mister, and he reminded me that we put everything in boxes and held our last dinner parties this time last year. And here we are, a year on, entertaining again. And it makes me happy.

January, Day 8

Feliz Año Nuevo! 

One of my new years' resolutions for 2014 has been to write at least a post a month on here, something I didn't manage last year with the upheaval of moving country. So I'm going to try to get January's post in nice and early. 

So far, 2014, you're all right, you are. It's day 8 and it has only rained once so far here (on the 4th). January days in Barcelona are bright, light until half 5 or so, and the evenings are clear and chilly. We still need duvets and slippers; our tiled floors are unforgiving. We still need a cosy blanket on the sofa. But the temperatures encourage action, so a walk is a good excuse to warm up and see the ocean. The beaches are deserted, except for weekend afternoons when they are teeming with families taking their abuelas out for a stroll, usually accompanied by little white dogs being promenaded in their jumpers or hats (I'm not kidding). It's wonderful to see the sun as high as it is, and skies are generally blue. Having said that, I'm ferreting away with organising visits to schools around the country for work, and so by day 8 I'm already suffering screen burn. The difference here is that when I go out for a walk at lunchtime, I get to go with E, and the sun just happens to be shining. This feels very different to any other January I've known in the UK.

Another new thing has been the feeling that the season of Christmas lasts longer here, largely due to the fact that the 6th January is a national holiday as well (El Día de los Reyes), with a whole set of traditions formerly unknown to me. It has been a beautiful festival to witness, with a fabulous parade around the city on the night of the 5th, incorporating live music, bright costumes and uniquely decorated floats. They transport each of the three Kings (Gaspar, Balthasar & Melchior) and their helpers who throw huge quantities of sweets (12 tons, apparently!) to the crowds as they pass by. The parade offers the opportunity for children to give their wish lists to the Kings, in the hopes that they will receive the gifts they have asked for. If they’ve been good, they might, but if not, they end up with a lump of coal. 

Here are some of the floats, including these mesmerising horse dancers - which were my favourite illumination of the night. They floated gracefully past our window and I felt myself watching openmouthed, so beautiful and ethereal were they. It's a pure kind of magic, that feeling of seeing something new and unexpectedly wonderful for the first time.

Here's wishing you a very happy, healthy, prosperous new year full of childlike wonderment and new things to make you go all slackjawed. Here's to 2014.

Opening Windows

Before I turn 30, I've promised myself, I'm going to see where all four of my grandparents and all four of my great-grandparents came from. 

With 18 months still to go, I'm not far off. I've seen my maternal grandmother's tiny fishing village in the west of Norway, where her mother was raised, in turn, on fresh mackerel, sea air and goat's milk. I've stood on the spot where my paternal grandfather and grandmother built their little raised house with the corrugated iron roof on stilts in the verdant, wild bush of Trinidad (more goats here, too). I've walked many a mean street of Bermondsey, where my mother's dad knew every bus route going in Southwark (apparently this led to a degree of popularity with the young au pairs who happened upon his particular patch in Rotherhithe to go to the Norwegian church). 

But there's one part of my heritage I've never been able to experience first-hand. A part of my great-grandfather and great-grandmother's stories I'd been desperate to see. 

India.

When I was about seven or eight, I remember my father pointing out the northern and southern tips of the vast landmass on the map pinned to my bedroom wall. He marked two asterisks on this; his unmistakeable scrawled capitals marking the top: "MY GREAT-GRANDFATHER WAS BORN IN KASHMIR" and the bottom: "MY GREAT-GRANDMOTHER WAS BORN IN MADRAS." Both places sounded so exotic and so far away from each other, let alone from my childhood home in south Florida. My father had never been to these places either, but his dark face and poker-straight jet black hair belied his roots. He contented himself with Kipling and Naipaul's literary versions of India, and I never knew if he would have liked to visit his diverse family beginnings at the top and the bottom of our map, but the foods of my childhood were certainly squarely tied in with his original ancestry (as for most Trinis): roti, paratha, chana dhal, okra, curried chicken, and plenty of hot pepper sauce on everything.

My first visit to India, at the end of last month, was to neither of the places on our map. I'm not ashamed to say it was to a place set squarely in the middle of the tourist (and hippy) trail; a place that Thomas Cook flies to twice a week and a place many Brits flock to in search of sun, sea, sand, and sex. I was certainly looking for sunshine, but more than anything, I wanted to get the measure of the people, and open a window I hadn't ever been able to look out of before. 

In most of the places we went while we were there, I was asked if I was Indian. And for once (unlike in other European countries this happens to me in - Greece, Italy, Spain), I could say with some conviction that this country was woven somehow into my family history. And I liked that. 

I'm already planning for our return journey. Next time, we'll definitely see more than a holiday resort and I hope to be able to open that window a little wider, look a little deeper, and take the time to try to visit those asterisks on the map of my childhood. I hope, with my return visit, to see a little more of the people who can already see quite a bit of me in them.

I have no more words. Just pictures.

New Year's Bastard Chicken

The end of 2009, and the dawning of a new (very cold) year has seen a few structural changes take place, which may go some way towards explaining a shocking lack of regular posting ettiquette.

Here's a roundup of the major events of the last couple of months in quick-capsule format...

November

• decided to move out of shared house in Clapham and into flat with boyfriend
• began search for new replacement person for my old room and held viewings
• found suitably nice person to take on room; started looking for flats
• saw some horrendous hellholes advertised very unscrupulously by lettings agents (how do they sleep at night?!%@)
• had some crazy dealings with insane neighbour in shared house - had police over on my last morning living there - fun!
• moved out of old house; moved possessions into storage; moved a couple of bags to my mum's in Orpo
• found a perfectly lovely flat on gumtree and arranged to view it
• went to Leeds and Edinburgh for work
• went to see boyfriend's mum in Yorkshire; got heavily rained upon and saw beautiful scenery
• saw flat in SW2 - loved it; wanted it; took it
• Went on a crazy work trip that took in Berlin, Warsaw and Vilnius in 4 days
• came back and flopped with exhaustion; went back to work for 4 days

December

• Spent 4 days in Switzerland for work
• returned from Switzerland and went back to work for a day; attended work Christmas party - a predictably boozy car crash sort of evening that ended up with me hurling a camembert across the room (long story)
• picked up the keys for the new flat; moved in with a hangover
• adored everything about the flat and bought lots of little housey things to put in it
• had a housewarming/Christmas/ farewell party for two good friends leaving to return to Europe; made blinis and quaffed cava
• had nearly 3 weeks off work (but why no posting, you may well ask? - see next point)
• spent maybe two hours of my life that I'll never get back speaking to 4 separate BT call centre workers based in Sheffield, who bless them, tried, but couldn't have plugged in a wireless router between them, let alone place one.bloody.broadband.order. Still, it was Christmas, so I was lovely and patient with each of them and wished them seasonal tidings.
• finally manged to get into a a tight pair of jeans bought in the Barcelona sales in Feb last year and crowed at my reflection
• then ate my own weight in Turkey and sprouts and promptly undid said jeans
• started on the old one-pot soup and chilli routine, post-Christmas overindulgence and overspending
• had a glass of champagne on New Year's Eve, danced to Song 2 in a Smithfields club and went to bed at 6am
• woke up at 3pm, had breakfast (we called it 'tea' to make it less weird) at 5.30pm at Nando's, watched Avatar 3D and had possibly the most perfect New Year's Day in living memory.

Which brings us up to date.

So after the excesses of new year's eve and some fairly rich meals over the past couple of months, I found myself poking around in our fridge for something to inspire me on Monday - the first day back at work. We had chicken thighs, some reduced corn on the cob from the Co-op, some fresh chillies, red and green peppers and plenty of cupboard sundries. I thought about a gumbo type of thing because I figured it would be in one pot, bubbling away for a while and would take minimum effort. I also looked in the Levi Roots cookbook we'd been given for Christmas and looked at some Jamaican stewed chicken recipes, then bastardised them to make my own thing with my ingredients. And so New Year's Bastard Chicken was born. Here's the recipe, should it interest you to try it out.

NEW YEAR'S BASTARD CHICKEN (STEW)

4 chicken thighs

4 cut corn cobs

2 bell peppers, varying colours, chopped

1 sweet potato, chopped

2 carrots, sliced

2 fresh chillies, chopped (the long Thai kind will do)

1 piece of fresh ginger, finely chopped (thumb-sized)

2 large onions, chopped roughly

2 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed

juice of 1 lime

1 tin chopped tomatoes

2 cups chicken or vegetable stock

1 cup basmati rice

a handful of fresh thyme

2 tsp Madras curry powder

pinch of turmeric

pinch of dried chilli or cayenne

salt and pepper to taste

Marinate the chicken in the lime juice, and season with ginger, salt, pepper, turmeric and dried chilli. Leave for as long as possible to soak up the flavours.

After as long a marinade as possible, fry the chicken pieces with one onion until browned on both sides for at least 10 minutes (mine got burnt a bit, but that kind of works). Set aside for later.

In a large saucepan, fry the other onion in a little olive or sunflower oil. Add the garlic and cook until soft. Add the curry powder and fresh chillies. Leave to cook for 1-2 minutes.

Add the tinned tomatoes, sweet potato, carrot, corn cobs and thyme. Pour in half of the stock. Cook for 10 minutes on a high heat to soften the corn, carrots and sweet potato. Add the rice, peppers, the rest of the stock and the pre-sooked chicken pieces. Leave to simmer for 15-20 minutes until rice is cooked through.

Serve heaped in bowls while piping hot. Eat with fingers as necessary. Serves 4 very hungry people or makes 2 main meals and about 3 extra packed lunches (you'll be sick of it in 2 days, though). Beware - it comes out spicy, so ensure your constitution can take a bit of heat...

Happy January, folks.