galicia!
i haven't posted for awhile, mostly focusing on digital images... but last night deserves to be recorded!
my friend manoli invited me to a spanish party she was co-hosting while her friend alex's (that would actually be alejandro) parents were visiting from galicia, spain. i was excited as i love manoli's spanish deviled eggs, tortilla, and mushrooms, less excited when i realized it was all the way in seatac... i couldn't have made it there on my own but i carpooled with my friend shirley and we bravely ventured outside the city limits, despite the construction on I-5 which has had the city abuzz with predictions of doom and hours of commute time.
we were feeling a bit out of place when we arrived, not knowing alex, but he welcomed us with wine and his father in turn with exuberant kisses on each cheek - i should live in the mediterranean! they steered us to an amazing buffet of mostly spanish food, with manoli's treats and other spanish specilties, such as manchego from galicia that alex's parents had brought, special red sauce from the canary islands and a special empanada from galicia. spanish was the language of choice, so i dusted off my limited travel vocabulary, digging out gems such as "me gusta el queso de galicia" and "bueno rojo,", as well as asking someone about their baby 'cuantos anos tiene el nino?' (the answer: tres meses.) i generally understood the gist of what was going on thought the details were often lost (it was not nearly as bad as when i went to a party at my columbian friend luis' condo, in which he answered the door in spanish and when i replied in english, there was a dead silence. "oh.. Reena? do you speak spanish?")
things got interesting when alex and father came down with a birthday cake for patrick, and all started singing a happy birthday song in spanish to the tune of 'auld lang syne.' patrick blew out the candles and started cutting the cake, which immediately collapsed! it turned out to be an ice cream cake which alex had put in the refrigerator instead of the freezer. patrick gamely continued cutting, despite the fact that cake was melting at a greater rate than the glaciers. although full of spanish food, we all somehow managed to eat cake too. it was still melting at an alarming rate, so i volunteered to bring it upstairs, accidentally crushing a plastic cup and spilling wine along the way, where we discovered it was too big to fit in the freezer. alex and his father were undaunted, and immediately started unloading the contents of the freezer onto the floor. i left, thinking they would cut the piece of cardboard that the cake was on and slide it in. when i returned, alex and his father had cut the cake in multiple pieces, put in on several plates (perhaps so it could take up as much space as possible?), leaving frozen pasta and hot dogs strewn abot the kitchen counter.
they shooed me out with alex muttering something about 'time for more alcohol,' so i went back outside where we admired patrick's book of photos from sicily (a very professional looking book he'd had made at mypublisher.com.) we were all chatting when suddenly alex and his father, wearing a giant hat with a scallop shell on it, arrived with a large flaming ceramic bowl. having dealt with the cake, the look on patrick's face was priceless when he turned around to see flames advancing toward him. the bowl contained out to be a traditional galicia drink called quimada, and brandishing a printout from the internet, alex's father began reciting grandly, driving away evil spirits. patrick translated, and we realized we were banishing, in a macbeth-esque way, 'the bad hair of the she-goats' and the 'useless bellies of single women.'. it seemed a very pagan, gaelic tradition, yet the hat came from pilgrams that making their way to santiago - i still haven't quite figured out the connection between the two and why you would put a scallop shell on a hat, but the effect was dramatic!
after the flames receded, we all toasted with the quimada (a mixture of spanish grappa with sugar, lemon peels and espresso beans). it was muy fuerte and it warmed us up as we sat outside on a typical northwest summer evening (meaning we should've been dressed for what passes as winter elsewhere.) patrick's father passioniately extolled the virtues of galicia in spanish - it is in the northwest of spain, just as we were in the northwest of the u.s. - amazing coincidence! and a very nice church which he never went to. or at least that's what i thought he was saying... he was offering us the keys to his house in galicia when there was the sound of an explosion and we looked up to see that the kitchen was smoking. we rushed upstairs to discover that alex had turned on the wrong burner when making some coffee, and the last of the empanadas, formerly in a pyrex dish, were scattered across the ktichen. once again, the men leapt into action, preventing us women from accidentally touching a piece of the former pyrex, which was melting into the carpet.
unsure of how much longer alex's house would be standing at this rate, we all said our good-byes amid many kisses and hugs and new friends, leaving to "siempre galacia!'
i can't wait until alex's next party!!
my friend manoli invited me to a spanish party she was co-hosting while her friend alex's (that would actually be alejandro) parents were visiting from galicia, spain. i was excited as i love manoli's spanish deviled eggs, tortilla, and mushrooms, less excited when i realized it was all the way in seatac... i couldn't have made it there on my own but i carpooled with my friend shirley and we bravely ventured outside the city limits, despite the construction on I-5 which has had the city abuzz with predictions of doom and hours of commute time.
we were feeling a bit out of place when we arrived, not knowing alex, but he welcomed us with wine and his father in turn with exuberant kisses on each cheek - i should live in the mediterranean! they steered us to an amazing buffet of mostly spanish food, with manoli's treats and other spanish specilties, such as manchego from galicia that alex's parents had brought, special red sauce from the canary islands and a special empanada from galicia. spanish was the language of choice, so i dusted off my limited travel vocabulary, digging out gems such as "me gusta el queso de galicia" and "bueno rojo,", as well as asking someone about their baby 'cuantos anos tiene el nino?' (the answer: tres meses.) i generally understood the gist of what was going on thought the details were often lost (it was not nearly as bad as when i went to a party at my columbian friend luis' condo, in which he answered the door in spanish and when i replied in english, there was a dead silence. "oh.. Reena? do you speak spanish?")
things got interesting when alex and father came down with a birthday cake for patrick, and all started singing a happy birthday song in spanish to the tune of 'auld lang syne.' patrick blew out the candles and started cutting the cake, which immediately collapsed! it turned out to be an ice cream cake which alex had put in the refrigerator instead of the freezer. patrick gamely continued cutting, despite the fact that cake was melting at a greater rate than the glaciers. although full of spanish food, we all somehow managed to eat cake too. it was still melting at an alarming rate, so i volunteered to bring it upstairs, accidentally crushing a plastic cup and spilling wine along the way, where we discovered it was too big to fit in the freezer. alex and his father were undaunted, and immediately started unloading the contents of the freezer onto the floor. i left, thinking they would cut the piece of cardboard that the cake was on and slide it in. when i returned, alex and his father had cut the cake in multiple pieces, put in on several plates (perhaps so it could take up as much space as possible?), leaving frozen pasta and hot dogs strewn abot the kitchen counter.
they shooed me out with alex muttering something about 'time for more alcohol,' so i went back outside where we admired patrick's book of photos from sicily (a very professional looking book he'd had made at mypublisher.com.) we were all chatting when suddenly alex and his father, wearing a giant hat with a scallop shell on it, arrived with a large flaming ceramic bowl. having dealt with the cake, the look on patrick's face was priceless when he turned around to see flames advancing toward him. the bowl contained out to be a traditional galicia drink called quimada, and brandishing a printout from the internet, alex's father began reciting grandly, driving away evil spirits. patrick translated, and we realized we were banishing, in a macbeth-esque way, 'the bad hair of the she-goats' and the 'useless bellies of single women.'. it seemed a very pagan, gaelic tradition, yet the hat came from pilgrams that making their way to santiago - i still haven't quite figured out the connection between the two and why you would put a scallop shell on a hat, but the effect was dramatic!
after the flames receded, we all toasted with the quimada (a mixture of spanish grappa with sugar, lemon peels and espresso beans). it was muy fuerte and it warmed us up as we sat outside on a typical northwest summer evening (meaning we should've been dressed for what passes as winter elsewhere.) patrick's father passioniately extolled the virtues of galicia in spanish - it is in the northwest of spain, just as we were in the northwest of the u.s. - amazing coincidence! and a very nice church which he never went to. or at least that's what i thought he was saying... he was offering us the keys to his house in galicia when there was the sound of an explosion and we looked up to see that the kitchen was smoking. we rushed upstairs to discover that alex had turned on the wrong burner when making some coffee, and the last of the empanadas, formerly in a pyrex dish, were scattered across the ktichen. once again, the men leapt into action, preventing us women from accidentally touching a piece of the former pyrex, which was melting into the carpet.
unsure of how much longer alex's house would be standing at this rate, we all said our good-byes amid many kisses and hugs and new friends, leaving to "siempre galacia!'
i can't wait until alex's next party!!
posted by rk at 9:52 AM
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