things we eat and drink, at home and out and about
As I said in my Fogassa d’Ontinyent post, I have been trying to locate the “proper” recipe for this for a few years already.
I think I started searching for a recipe in 2018, as November approached and I desperately wanted to eat a fogassa but could not visit Spain for multiple reasons. And I thought: Well, it is “only” a sweet bun, so it can’t be that hard to find a recipe for it, right?
Well, turns out that it can!
Continue reading “The quest for the perfect fogassa d’Ontinyent”
I’ve been made “custodian” of my late grandmother’s recipe notebook.
Since it’s in such a frail condition (it’s probably about 80 years old) I transcribed it, to test the recipes without handling the actual booklet.
It’s been quite an interesting, enlightening, and at times truly bemusing experience.
Continue reading “An unexpected custodianship”Note: this post was written almost a year ago, in July 2020! It had been sitting on my drafts for some reason, and it’s a pity because it has some cool stuff we did last year! So out it goes!
Feel free to imagine it is preceded by a whiff of naphtalene or something đ
This week we went to two (!) restaurants and a pub and it was all weird and quiet. We also ran out of milk but made porridge anyway. And Devvers made Spanish sweets following a Valencian recipe again!
We still can’t walk without the persistent feeling that everyone is going to give us the virus, and many things are still closed, although at least the supermarkets around us are relatively well stocked nowadays.
Continue reading “[VERY BELATED POST] Pseudo-isolation, week 17: everything is weird (and quiet)”
This is the type of low-key sweet that you would get on a visit to the bakeryâgo to buy a bread loaf, and come back with that but also half a quarter of these for your mid-morning coffee.
Unfortunately, someone in my family has developed a nut allergy so they’re not casually acquired anymore, and they’re also quite regional so I haven’t had the chance to find them in my most recent visits to Valencia. And then, there’s lockdown and no travelling, so… time to bake some, as I’ve been craving these for a while!
They’re quite easy to make, so if you are tired of baking cookies and shortbreads and feel like attempting something more exotic, try this. (I mean, at this point going to a different supermarket a few blocks away already feels super “exotic”, so imagine baking something typical from two countries away!)
Continue reading “Carquinyols (Vall d’Albaida style)”
While the Fallas festival in Valencia is quite well-known, the Sant Antoni (Saint Anthony)’s celebrations are less flamboyant, more inward looking. A domestic affair, say, for the locals and by the locals.
Happening around the 17th of January, it is a very unassuming celebration: there is a parade where people bring their animals to church to get a blessing, there will be a small market called “porrat” with stalls selling, amongst other yummy things, delicious nuts, figs and confectionery based on those (which are also called “porrat”), and finally one or more bonfires will burn and light up the dark January night, spreading the aroma of pine wood all around the neighbourhood.
All good things!
Continue reading “Pa de Sant Antoni (Saint Anthony’s bread)”