A quick rant then business as usual.

Rant begins.

On Sunday afternoon the water supply for the whole of Santa Margarita, the village where we live was cut off. The neighbourhood took to their phones to complain to the water company only to be told that the supply would be restored in a matter of hours or a day or so at the most. I write this post on Friday afternoon and guess what! Still no water. We're now being told that there is a faulty pump in Malaga which won't be repaired until next Tuesday when the enginer returns from his holidays!!!

Firstly, what does a faulty pump in Malaga have to do with a village just over 100km away?

Secondly, should not the fact that during a hot summer thousands of residents are left without running water from which to drink, wash in and flush toilets constitute some kind of emergency? How many diseases spread from toilets backed up with...?!?

While Spain may hold itself up to be a modern sophisticated European society sadly it still displays the traits of a third world country. We may as well be living in a mud hut somewhere in Africa.

Rant ends.

Louise's quick sardine tapa (for when you can't wait for the main).

The Spanish love their sardines and when you return from a hot morning at the market and can't wait for the amazing chicken your husband is cooking up this little tapa idea will just tide you over.

1 tin of sardines in tomato sauce;
Mayonaise;
Garlic; and
Salt & pepper.

Simply mix all the ingredients together in a small bowl until you have a paste then serve with rosquillas (little shaped Spanish breadsticks).

Louise

...on a Harley!

Casemates square in Gibraltar filled with hundreds of Harley Davidsons and other bikes of various shapes and colours today for the annual meet of the Gibraltar Harley Davidson Club. Seeing as one of my great passions (next to stuffing myself with food) is biking, yours truly was there with Louise and Bronte in tow.

Here are some photos of the owners bikes on display.

 

 

 

 

 

The detailing on this one was worth closer inspection.

The classic V-rod; but where's Britney?

 

Ok. Back to cooking for the next one... promise.

Steve

Mojito time

I've neglected the blog a bit recently due to time constraints and such. Besides which I haven't really cooked much lately. I sat here earlier on staring at the keyboard, soaked in sweat (it's a bit hot at the moment) and searching for inspiration. Finding none I felt the urge for alcoholic refreshment. It was at this point that inspiration struck. Why not make a mojito and blog about it?

So here it is!

You will need white rum, lime juice, ice, soda water and fresh mint.

Oh, and a big glass to put it all in.

Put the ice in the glass and cover with a generous out pouring of the spirit (rum), break up the mint and add to the glass. Mix it all around a bit. Next throw in a splash or so of lime juice and then top up with soda water or if you prefer club soda for a sweeter taste.

The result...

There you go. Bob's your uncle and whats'er names you aunt.

Enjoy!!!

Tapas in Madrid

We went to Madrid last weekend. It's about 6 hours drive from where we live (nearer 7 if you count pee pee stops) and well worth the journey. Actually travelling up is part of the adventure however the place itself is fantastic. We stayed on the outskirts in a town named Alcala de Henares and travelled in to Madrid centre on Sunday evening to wander around Plaza Mayor and get something to eat. More on Madrid at another time but for now here is an observation and a piece of advice for the traveller thinking of visiting Spain's capital city.

Tapas in Madrid is free!!!

On the Costa del Sol and Costa de la Luz we get fleeced. You go into a bar, order a drink and then buy tapas at around €2 to €3 each which, considering the size of the dishes takes 3 or 4 tapas to fill you up. Not so in Madrid where you go into the bar, order your drink and then order the tapa of your choice. This is then brought to you along with your drink free of charge. This meant that we were eating out at a fraction of the cost we originally budgeted for. Superb! How do they do it? Who cares? Free food!!!

While there we watched Spain beat Chilli in the World Cup qualifier. I was quite surprised at one point when the team wearing blue kit scored and every one cheered. I had assumed the blue team was Chilli you see while the other team wore red (Spain's usual kit). Someone later explained to me that each team has two kits of different colours and on this occasion Spain wore blue. Anyway they won which was good as I now live in Spain and its not as England has got a team right now is it? But, what do I know, I hate football.

Back to tapas and here, in true spirit of this blog is one quick recipe for a tapa. More will follow soon. Just you try and stop me.

3 eggs
3 rashers of bacon (or 4 depending on how big they are or how much you like bacon)
About 4 good handfuls of green beans (well how else do you measure them)
2 measures of vodka
Half a glass of orange juice
Half a glass of cream soda
1 shot of Grenadine

First, chop up the green beans and put in a pan with salt and water. Bring the water to the boil and simmer for about 15 minutes.

Next, beat the eggs in a jug or bowl then throw them in a frying pan with some olive oil and fry them up until, well... fried I suppose. When fried break up into little pieces and leave in the frying pan.

Then, chop the bacon into little pieces and again throw into the frying pan with the eggs. Fry for about 4 minutes.

Finally, drain the green beans and add them to the frying pan. Cook together for about 5 minutes and then serve with fresh crusty bread as shown below courtesey of our new camera.

The observant of you will have noticed the extra ingredients listed but not used in the above recipe. For those new to 'Burning Down The Kitchen' there is a law first and foremost that must be obeyed as drilled into me by my friend and Executive Chef (who will remain nameless to protect his professional reputation) namely...never cook without alcohol within arms reach.

Get a tall glass and place it in you freezer for 15 minutes. Take it out and immediately fill it with the vodka, orange juice, lemonade and a dash of Grenadine. Throw in a couple of ice cubes and sit back and watch.

The Grenadine is for artistic effect as it sinks to the bottom of the glass and set against the orange juice gives the appearance of a sunrise. Very effective. Just as efective is the result that comes from placing the empty glass in the freezer before filling it, but I'll leave this to you to try.

Anyway, more tapas recipes are to follow and we still need to get around to that Italian feast.

Hasta luego

Steve 

A brief note on Spain

As the more observant of you may have noticed, it has been close to a month since my last post. The reason for this is due to a minor change in our living arrangements, namely a relocation. Before going into the whys and wherefore's (or whatevers) one needs to take into consideration the current economic situation in Spain and in particular our little corner.

The campo (countryside) long the coast from Marbella down to Sotogrande has been desecrated by over development. Greedy developers have built scores of Urbanisations and apartment blocks all along the coast totalling thousands of houses, flats and apartments for which in the current climate there are no buyers. There is estimated to be around 120,000 empty properties in Andalucia. This situation has been compounded by the number of expatriates who, due to the fall of the pound against the Euro have found that their incomes, pensions, savings etc... are no longer sufficient to cover mortgages and living expenses. It is also noteworthy that property prices in Spain have been grossly inflated beyond what the properties are worth.

Since the 'global financial meltdown' property prices have now fallen to more realistic levels which has resulted in property owners having mortgages in negative equity. Mix this with the fall in value of the pound and you can understand why expats are simply handing their house keys back to the banks and moving back to their home countries.

This now brings us back to our current situation. We rented a property on an urbanisation (urbanisacion) in the campo. Our landlord owned five such properties he'd brought off plan for investment purposes at inflated prices. He has since decided not to pay the mortgage for the properties with the result that the banks have re-possessed them and evicted the tenants including us. Fortunately for us we have dropped on a new place and moved in a couple of weeks ago. As you can imagine things have been hectic and its taken a while to get t'internet back up and running but here we are again.

You will be pleased to learn that the olives survived the move and are well. The Italian feast will follow before too long. Please keep popping by.


Oh by the way if you do have some spare cash to invest, re-possessed Spanish property could now be a good buy. Prices have really dropped. There are rumors of two for one sales at property auctions and although Spain's economy is yet to see its worse (likely to have similar problems to Greece) eventually things will come round. Historically these things work in cycles. Boom, bust then boom again.

Sorry for such a serious post but then we did advertise a site with a bit of everything. Next one will be a bit more lighthearted. I might even throw in a few jokes about rudely shaped vegetables... ooh err misses.

Steve

Cooking without the aid of a safety net

We've talked about writing a blog for ages but kept putting it off. One of the reasons was the fact that we found it difficult to agree on a subject. Should we write about our life in Spain, our love of cooking and more importantly eating, drinking wine and cocktails on the terrace during warm summer evenings or plumb the depths of my rather weird sense of humour. Well after much deliberation, discussion, chewing of fat (and pork pies) and drinking of cocktails on the terrace during the warm summer evenings we thought 'hey why not write about everything'.

So here it is; a blog about cooking and eating in Spain.

In practise we're going to find recipies from various sources, cook them and then write about the whole process hopefully without setting fire to the kitchen. Our experimental cooking will be interspersed with little insights into our experiences finding the recipies and ingredients and our adventures in Spain.

So please read on and feel free to comment and submit your ideas for what we should attempt to cook.

Steve.