From the Woodshed: December 2014

OK, Maggie finally shamed me into another post. I have been devoting my time to babies, dogs, daughters, daughters-in-law, learning Spanish, and cafe con leche (with a few workouts at the gym thrown in for good measure. Anyway, lots to talk about and here's just a bit.

A couple of weeks ago, we celebrated a Spanish holiday called La Inmaculada Concepcion (the Feast of the Immaculate Concepcion). It is a family holiday here in Spain celebrating the Virgin Mary. It is celebrated on December 8th. No Wilbanks (or Barkley) will ever pass up an opportunity for a get together with family and friends. Therefore, Viola and Angelinas planned a big get together (and Kim and I got to help!).

They decided we should cook up some Migas. Migas means "bread crumbs" and is a traditional Spanish dish. It originated as a shepherds meal to utilize bread that had gone stale. We used reasonably fresh bread because we eat the stuff so fast there is no way we could accumulate any stale stuff!. The meal is best cooked over an open fire like the shepherds did. There probably isn't any taste difference, but having a bunch of friends standing around the fire, drinking beer, and helping to stir the food, adds something special.

First thing in the morning, I got the fireplace going with a load of olive wood. After it had burned down to a bed of brightly glowing coals, I took a shovel and transported the fire into the big burner out on the patio. After spreading the started coals, I threw on some more chunks of olive limbs to build up a good cooking fire.

Angelinas took Kim and her Mom too the bar to clean up from the night before for the evenings business. Her sister, Antonia, came over to help Viola prepare the meal. We separated a couple of pounds of garlic toes and smashed them leaving them in their dry skins. They cut up the Chorrizo sausage, and bacon that we would cook with the migas. After crushing the garlic, I was standing by to assist, but wasn't to sure how.

Antonia came out to the patio and asked if the fire was ready. I told her "El fuego esta perfecto!" So she brought out a huge cooking pan, and we set it up over the fire. Added oil (olive oil of course) and threw in the prepared bacon and garlic. This was pretty easy I thought (silly me!). Next we took off the bacon and garlic, but left the oil and added chorizzo. This two went pretty quickly, and we picked out the chorizzo leaving the sizzling and seasoned olive oil.

Antonia starts cooking the garlic and bacon. The fire was "perfecto"
(that's Spanish for "way hot!") Notice the beautiful patio?

You can imagine from looking at this picture what this smelled like, yum!
The material on the ground is landscaping fabric the girls put down as a temporary
measure to keep things clean until they can complete the pavers
planned for this section

After removing the garlic and bacon from the oil, we added the chorrizo.

Bela did her part, cleaning up any spilled food. We were a little nervous about
her getting burned, but somehow she came through unscathed.

Last came the migas, lots and lots of cut up chunks of bread that we had dampened with water. There were so many that they were heaped up well above the top of the pan. Antonia started to stir the migas. I could quickly tell that I could be a big help here. The pan was so full, and the fire so hot, that it was a two person job to keep the migas from sticking to the pan and burning. So I jumped in with a wooden spatula. We worked the migas over for at leas twenty minutes together doing our best to keep them in the pan, and avoid serious burns to our hands from the fire. Finally they cooked down enough to add the previously cooked bacon, garlic, and chorrizo. We stirred and stirred, probably close to 45 minutes in all until we took it off the fire. But we weren't done yet.

We let the mixture rest for about an hour as we finished preparations for company and the guests arrived. Once we had more hands available, and plenty of beer and wine on hand, we put the pan back over the fire and started stiring again. Now the meal had become part of our evenings entertainment and celebration. While one person stirred, the others talked and drank, and generally had a great time. Finally it was time to feast together.

As you can see the migas have cooked down quite a bit from when we first started
frying the bread chunks. In this shot, all the meat and garlic is mixed in, and
it has been cooking (stirred constantly) for well over an hour. You can see the
new lawn I put in over the shoulder of the young woman drinking the wine.

Getting ready to take them off now. It was quite a chilly day as you can see the
fingers spread taking in the warmth of the cooking fire.

The eating was also traditional. We had a huge table filled with various tapas (sliced cheeses, jamon, sausage, potatoe chips, olives, etc. The migas was placed in the middle, with a bowl of oranges cut into bite sized chunks. The migas, garlic, bacon, and chorrizo was very dry and crumbly. The oranges moisten it, and give a sweet flavor to blend with the savory taste of the main dish. It was fantastic.

We all stood around the table (rather than sitting down) and dished our plates full of migas, tapas, orange chunks and visited together while eating this delicious traditional Spanish food.

It was a wonderful meal and celebration. Such fun and friendly
folks.

One of the best parts of the evenings festivities for Kim and I was that several of the quests (friends of Viola and Angelinas) were taking classes in English. They wanted to practice with us. I had a great time struggling in my broken Spanish while they corrected me, then I would correct their awkward beginning English. I don't think I have talked that much in a group since we arrived a few months ago. It was very nice to be so socially engaged with people again!

It was a fabulous experience for Kim and I, probably one of the best we have had here. Oh yea, little Emily A was still the bell of the ball so here are some pictures of the little "nina".