So, 5th January, the night before our celebration of Los Reyes or The Three Kings. Big Man and I sit quietly contemplating the last few celebrations that lie ahead over the weekend.
A family get together at our house the next day. Yes, we´re ready for that. Saturday a lunch with 10 friends in a nearby restaurant. Oh yes, we´re definitely ready for that. No cooking, no clearing up, and hopefully a lift there and back so we can kick back and relax. And then Sunday, a meal with 10 other friends in one of their Cortijos in the Campo. Cooking a celebratory goat. It should be fun, the host is a butcher and a grower of grapes and producer of wines. A recipe for a thoroughly good lunch.
Big Man gives our butcher pal a call to finalise the arrangements for Sunday and I can tell by his face and the conversation that something is amiss. He gets off the phone and says “you know we thought we were going to Rafael´s Cortijo…” Mmm, yes I think, where is this going? “Well, it seems everyone thinks they´re coming here”.
Oh dear. Oh well. Here we go again. Big Man does a mad dash on Saturday morning for the extras we need, I crank up the oven and get baking, and it all turned out fine in the end.
No recipes today, more of those in a later post, but I thought you might like to share a little in the celebration…and our exhaustion today.
We enjoyed a lovely ham and cheese board with Spanish curado and semi curado cheeses, tetilla (do click on the link if you share my childish sense of humour), a gorgeous stinky stilton my parents bought over, and an amazing hard cheese (rather like a fresh parmesan) which is rolled in rosemary.
We ate home cured olives which the Spaniards were most impressed with. They thought Big Man had made them as they didn´t think a “guiri” or foreigner could make them taste so good…huh!
A chicory (or endive) salad with walnuts and blue cheese dressing lightened things up a bit.
Our butcher pal, Rafael, got to work in the garden doing his job. He looks fierce, but he´s really a gentle giant.
Look at the size of his hands – he couldn´t have been anything BUT a butcher!
Jointing the meat.
Working on the ribs.
Another pal took charge of frying the goat pieces in olive oil, bay leaves, chillies, peppercorns, garlic and white wine.
We tucked into a plate of Rafael´s “embutidos” – chorizos and morcilla.
Of course we ate desserts too, but more of those another day as I´m feeling full up again just thinking about what we ate.
And drank. A very messy but happy table by the end of the day.
Ok, I think I need another lie down now.
Chica Andaluza 