Wee update. I forgot to tell about our Christmas eve at Manolis and Benedicte’s place in Cambridge.
Very pleaseant evening. Good food, good drinks, our share of emotions and excellent company.
We had a set of starters composed of salmon and cheese tartines, champagne with a great secret ingredient (I’ll tell you later), raw veggies with a great hot anchovie sauce (excellent if you like them hairy fishes), prawns and, finally, oysters with panic. All followed by a nice chicken dish with some tasty red wine.
Now, two notes:
- Oysters with panic: NEVER EVER EVER open oysters with the wrong tools. A filet knife is not the best idea. Unless you want to carve yourself a pair of stigmatae. Wasn’t that painful Manolis? Additionally, do 
not try to open them from the “wide” part of the shell. Form the back, that were the “entry point” is.
- The champagne’s secret additive: this was brought from France by Benedicte and is littrally translated as “truffle aperitif“. It’s indeed a truffle liqueur that you add in your champagne. Fantrufflestastic!!!! Even on its own. I hope to find a bottle of this somewhere soon.
Anyway, that’s all for now.
See ya!
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http://tinyurl.com/yd36ue7 new post about christmas break (food and drink)
Ah, Christmas dinners! After a few tech problems here’s my comment from Spain:
As usual (for the last 8 years) we all travel to Salamanca, my wife’s homeland. Most of you would know it after its great university plus nightlife in an ancient pedestrian Castilian city.
But it has got its non-touristic traditions and in this Latin country (not the only one, sure) that means food. And Christmas and New Year are about eating and drinking, isn’t it?
Here’s what we have (painful to hit the names in English of unusual nourishing things, thanks Internet)
Starters:
Boiled langoustines (in fact most every dinner across the country consist of sea food, namely barnacles and spider crab)
And of course, in the Land of Pigs (not to mistake with Portugal (real close, indeed, btw), Italy (cariiiiini), Greece (it’s all Greek to me) and Spain (olé), ham. But ham not like Parma one (sorry fede, simply no comparison) or regular ham. This is almost a question of honour here: it must be Salamanca Ham, (Jamón ibérico). Nevertheless you can have Jabugo, Teruel or a few others, but it has to be great and expensive to be tasty and healthy. Fede can say a word on this, I guess.
Main dish:
In Salamanca we tend to opt for the fruit of the land rather than the fruit of the sea. And then you can find both lamb (cordero asado, but this is more for Madrid or Segovia really) or cabrito (kid). This is what we had. Unfortunately I don’t dare entering the kitchen (where I only pick and bother) so I cannot say hoe to cook it, but I can ask. I wish I had a picture, bcs it was delicious, and the meat simply melts in your mouth.
Desserts: as good heirs of the moors in Spain we enjoy a rage of sweets from turrón to mazapán and some fruits. But lately we tend to have tropical fruits (namely pineapple), so we emit too many tons of co2 per dinner, and that ain’t no good, mate.
That’s it so far.
I promise to take a few pics at new year’s eve dinner, 12 grapes included, and how we do it at home. I am enjoying this!!
Hasta la vista! Y feliz año nuevo a todos!!