Calçot Sundays

Joan and I were going to stay in but Albert talked us into going and having one drink with him. That turned into us meeting Jordi, Shabir, Ana and their friend David at Soda as well. It was good fun at first, talking, laughing. I even enjoyed talking with Ana, we planned a trip for me to come to Madrid for the weekend to visit her. A girls weekend, I think that would be a good idea actually, we shall see.

Shabir insisted on "taking Joan and I out" because for the last month we had been acting like, and I quote, "an old married couple". That is a sensitive spot for me because lately I have been telling Joan how I don't want to be like the couples who live together and let things get old and boring. Not that it has been our fault, we just haven't had the money to spend on going out.

ANYWAY Joan let Shabir take us out so after Soda we went to the infamous, Abacco in Blanes.
I remember having a good time, chatting with Ana, dancing, all the guys having fun. Around 3:30 in the morning, Albert brought us home and then he was going to go to another club with the rest of the group. (We found out later it was lame and he wished he would have gone home).

Sunday, Joan and I slept in and went to his parents house for lunch. His sister's boyfriend's parents were there and everyone was in the back grilling hamburgers. This weekend it is normal for Spanish families to have calçots. To better explain what this is, I have below an exerpt from an artcile from the site, http://www.iberianature.com/material/spain_food/garlic_onions_Catalonia.htm#calcots.

"The calçots are cooked on roof tiles over a charcoal vine barbecue, and are cooked when they start to ooze a milky sweat. Hunks of meat, lamb and pork chops, botifarras and other embutidos such as chorizo are roasted after the calçots have been removed from the embers. The calçots are then very messily peeled; the charred outer leaves makes everybody's hands filthy and are discarded in piles on the table or ground, while the long slim white firm fleshy phallic vegetables are dipped by increasingly frenzied revellers in a delicious variety of gooey glutinous orange romesco-style tangy pepper, almond and hazelnut sauce to then be lowered dripping into the mouth in a manner reminiscent of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire at its most decadent and depraved. . .Catalans at a calçotada indulge their famed rauxa , an infectious form of collective madness and hilarity. By the time the cooked meats have been consumed, followed by coca, carajillos and licores , the sated feasters are purring like pussycats. Great fun and highly recommended."

So that explains my Sunday.


I will write another post later, one detailing the events of Monday in Portugal. It will be entertaining but I must contemplate how to go about writing it, it is that kind of story.


Hope all is well in your corners of the world.


C.M.