a tradição do pão em portugal

Pedro returned from a 3 week stay in Portugal and brought back a new addition to my small collection:

"A tradição do pão em Portugal" by the French ethnographer Mouette Barboff  is a beautiful must-have book for all those interested in Portuguese bread. It doesn't have any recipes, sadly, but it is a very thorough research of traditional techniques and styles of bread from the various regions, from seed to table. Inevitably, memories of my grandfather making cornbread exactly the same way as described in the book came back to me. And so I decided to make corn bread today. In reading it I also found out that in some regions there is a tradition in couscous making. I did not know that. 

Four floors of furniture

We went to Savannah last weekend for the first time. It's a beautiful old city with "old money", an english like feel to it, where ghosts exist and men hold the doors for woman at all times. Our interest of all things old and dusty made us walk into this ground level antique shop.

We thought this was just another small antique shop until we climbed up this stair case:

What once used to be living rooms, bedrooms and kitchens are now filled with furniture, frames, toys, photos and weird old things: all 4 floors of it. 

The house seemed to have been abandoned for quite some time and in the midst of it someone filled it up with old furniture for sale but didn't repair the cracks on the floor or seal up broken windows. We explored the whole thing all the way up the creaky flight of stairs to the amazing broken down patio on the top floor. 

Atlanta's winter wonderland

They said it was going to snow. And it did. So everyone got off work early to get home. Everyone.

I left work at 2:15 and instead of heading for the highway because it was completely jammed, I called Pedro and he guided me through smaller roads. It went well until I was about 6km from home and then came to a total stop. It took me 2 hours to ride 3km and I was almost out of gas. But I was the lucky one, I got home and it only took me 4 and half hours! Thousands of people were stranded on the highways. As night came so did the ice which just blocked everything even more. Most just left their cars on the streets and walked to shelters, churches and stores that opened their doors. Others slept in their cars. Pedro went out to see how the highway was and brought home a stranded couple that was considering sleeping in their car.

Photo from the AJC

This is what the street in front of our house looks like: all ice!

One side was closed because of ice.

lession learned!

Don't ever go to the Museum of Modern Art on a rainy Sunday afternoon.
But if you are in New York for the first time for only a few days, then by all means go. But don't complain.

This was Christmas

For Christmas we packed our bags and flew to cold and frosted Toronto to spend the holidays with my sister Helena and Gusto. It was wonderful to be back, to spend time with my sister, to see old friends and to show Pedro around town.

It was blistering cold! Two days into our trip we get a phone call at 7 in the morning: it was my mom calling, very worried, that she had just heard on the news (in Portugal) that Toronto had been hit with an ice storm and thousands of people were without power. Fortunately, the area where Helena lives the ice was only about 1cm think so we were okay.

Being with my sister has always had a bad influence... on my hair! She gave me the "let's do it" attitude and it's the shortest I have ever had it.

Christmas eve was spent baking, cooking and on skype with family back in Portugal. This is has become a new Christmas tradition: family, food, presents and skype. It really does make us feel closer to home. Helena's blog has much better photos of this!

Thank you so much Helena and Gusto for a great Christmas!! We really hope to be back soon. 

(Helena, we forgot to do something very important: steal the mailbox!!!)

Feliz Natal!

To all near and far, friends and family, we wish a very happy Christmas full of love! 

Insanity at Burning Man

I'm almost finished editing our Burning Man photo album and thought I might share some Insanity with you. This was taken during one of the amazing sunsets. 

Angel's Landing

There is a place on Earth where angels land. That place could only be in Utah where strong religious beliefs pair up with breathtaking natural landscapes. Everything in Zion National Park is named after figures from the Bible and the Book of Mormon. A couple of weeks back we visited Zion. Deciding that the first thing we would do was hike the ubber famous Angel's Landing was easy! The hard part was finishing the hike! Angel's Landing is a strenuous uphill hike on a well maintained path carved and sculpted out on the sides of a massive monolith about a mile high. 

This part was easy! The hard part was when you sight the very steep cliffs and very narrow path that leads you to the trail's end. Once you start needing anchored chains to hold on to, that's when I decided to sit still and wish Pedro a safe trip up the trail and hope he wouldn't be part of the list of people who have fallen off the cliffs! 

The top of Angel's Landing

I still can't believe that such a dangerous hike is opened to the public! It's "hike at your own risk"!

Special request!

Pedro, my darling, when will you return to being a blogger again?! I miss reading your long, descriptive, carefully laid out and curated blog posts about the amazing things you've done. 

Dahon

Pedro has just got home with this:

This is what happens when you let your husband go to yard sales by himself: he come home with 2 Dahon bikes!