Bev, Bruce, Lexi Cat in Europe: Enjoying Sevilla and Good and Very Bad Cooking

Here's Lexi, on Bruce's shoulder, something she did on their first meeting and continues.

I made stew, guess it’s good, well I like it, Bruce does too and called it beef bourguignon. Helps that the meat was good from the butcher, I partially used a recipe and then went my own way with it. Bruce has difficulty standing at the stove for lengthy periods of time right now so I’ve taken over the cooking duties. He has always done the cooking so now it’s payback time. I’m actually enjoying it, always have, so does he, but he’s a different kind of cook than I am. I take a recipe, or two, and modify by taste and what’s in the cupboard.

Vegetable from our local shop and a splash of red wine, usually drink it not eat it but made a difference!

I’ve been cooking since about ten years old and using what was in the pantry. We had our own meat, vegetable and fruit off the farm so those were my only available ingredients, good variety and fresh or fresh frozen, nothing “fancy”, but good.

Pepe said we had permission to install ramps in the atrium to ease Bruce’s journey across it so Juan, same carpenter as last year, spent a couple of days making and installing those in wood. They work well until the cleaners move them and don’t put them back. Juan does generate a lot of sawdust and Rocio looked at the staircase last week and shook her head in mock disgust, told her to wait until he’s done. She agreed to iron our shirts for us, yes, we’ve been living wrinkled for a long time now but did appreciate the ironing Gilbert did for us in Amsterdam so asked her, now you’ll only see wrinkles in our faces, lucky you. Small things make me happy these days.

It is getting colder here and if there is a breeze, well you know … so our haunting of cafes has lessened considerably. Although we were at one in the early afternoon and a wedding party went by. What I mean by that is not the bride and groom, but the attendees. Wow, as I’ve said before people really dress for weddings here! Most women wear hats, over their curled and heavily styled hair (bizarre looking hats in my opinion, but that’s just me) high heels, and lovely dresses, they also cling onto their partner’s arms, or women go in two’s or threes, so as not to stumble on the uneven cobblestones.

Heard a strange noise at 7 am outside the window, fellow in a cherry picker crane installing these on our street.

Wednesdays are THE day for appointments, we start with Rocio, cleaning and Angel, Bruce’s massage at 10:00 and it seems we usually have one or two appointments after that, next week it’s hair for me and dentist for Bruce. Other weeks it’s been the carpenter or computer fellow. Well at least we are accomplishing things and a routine is established, not very interesting to tell you about really.

Cooking disaster! Maybe disaster is too strong a word, failure would be better. We’d bought a cauliflower with the idea to pickle it with Ivan’s uncle’s olives, more on that in a bit. Didn’t make it to his Uncles, it was Wednesday, see above. So with it sitting in the fridge for a few days and neither of us wanting to eat it raw, it was time to either pitch it or cook it in some fashion to make it tasty to us both. My attempt at cauliflower soup failed miserably probably due to using Moroccan spice which was too heavy a spice for it and my use of about three recipes, well, all I can say is the twain did not meet. Oh well, I did lighten the load in the fridge and it all got tossed. Bruce was kind and honest, didn’t say it tasted like shite but came close. Guess I need the occasional cooking failure to stay humble.

Today is Immaculate Conception day and a public holiday so many families are out and crowding up cafes and the start of Christmas craziness, as with most of the rest of the world.

Another type of Christmas decoration.

Ivan’s Uncle “makes” his own olives. He takes raw olives and brines them and adds spices.

Ivan's picture see the garlic!

We didn’t get to see the process, it was Wednesday, so Ivan brought us a jar, complete with garlic and I think thyme used for spice. They are large, split, pit still in, and very yummy!