Another leg of lamb

Did another leg of lamb while Misty was here. I love this dish almost as much as I love my family. I also like the fact that it gives me an excuse to cook a massive amount of meat at one time and have leftovers for days. The gift that keeps on giving.

Just after searing and the sauteeing of the veggies and right before

putting it in the oven for 2.5 hours.

After 2.5 hours and the haricot gigantes have been added.

On the plate.

Misty Christmas

(matt again as the picture downloading is bullshite)

Our good friend and Rudy's nanny from Bainbridge, Misty, came out for Christmas this year. Too bad her bags decided not to make it. With all of the bad weather in Europe and Air France being, well, French, Misty was here for a week and never once saw her bag (which included all of Rudy's presents). We did fine, though, and still had a really good week showing her around the city and laughing and eating and everyone getting sick thanks to Rudy.

Here are some shots of the weekend. Misty, it was great having you out here. Thanks for coming and for showing Roo a good time.

The Misty and Roo reunion begins...

Took Misty up to the Christmas Markets and introduced her to Gluvine!!

Rudy insisted on eating every meal on Misty's lap the entire time she was here.

Decorating the tree (yes, it's in a flowerpot).

Huge amounts of snow all week kept us from getting out into the countryside,

but we bundled up and hiked into town about every day.

Oh you're kidding me, man. Really, you're doing this? Really?

Misty of course is able to calm Rudy down and explain to him that his day

is about to get a lot better.

Opening a talking (Grampa's voice) Frosty the Snowman book. A big hit in our house, esp the

part where dad mutters "What a dumbass story this is " as he was turning the page. Yeah, it was recording then, too, Dad.

Gift of the year. Good job mom, i mean Santa.

Hamburg Pt, 2

(Matt blogging under Sara's name in order to download pictures)

The real excitement of the weekend in Hamburg was to celebrate the festival of Santa Lucia. Santa Lucia is a Sicilian saint and martyr from the early 4th century. The festival is widely celebrated in Sweden where our host, Michael, lived for a time. Upon his return to Germany, he brought with him the tradition of celebrating S.L. and he and his family have been holding an annual celebration ever since.

This year we were lucky enough to be staying with them the very weekend of the party. We met many of Michael and Emi's friends and extended family and enjoyed a wonderful feast complete with a number of traditional Swedish (and German) dishes.

Michael and Emi taught me a few things in the kitchen as I watched (and helped a little) them make homemade gravlax, some amazing steelhead, pate, cookies, gluvine, etc, etc. On top of that, most of the guests (about 40 of them) each brought a dish of their own. It was a real treat. As you'd expect, I pulled a "Thanksgiving" and hurt myself with food, but that's the price you pay to party.

Here are some shots of the spread.... check out the steelhead presentation.

Rudy got fat, too. Who's mommy's little piggy?

After eating we had some Chrismas Caroles to sing and some dessert to eat -- Lexi's cake was good enough for us to bring back to Lux.

Hamburg Pt, 1

You know the saying "As happy as a pig in shit," right? Well, next time you want to use that phrase, but may not be in the proper company to drop a four-letter word, try this one, "As happy as Matty in Germany." They are synonymous. I'll explain....

We were in Hamburg a few weeks ago staying with our German relatives, Emi, Michael, Nikki, and Lexi and enjoyed ourselves to the fullest (pun). The eating that weekend was of epic proportions. Sausages? Pfftt, please as Ozzie Guillen would say. Sausages were just the tip of the meat/cheese/fish iceberg that was Hamburg. It went wayyyyy beyond sausages, friends.

But first, let me say that our family in Germany is an absolutely amazing group of people. We felt at home the entire weekend and truly enjoyed being in your company. Really, it felt like we were at home in the States hanging out with our own parents and siblings. You guys are very special to us and we will always remember that trip and the fun we had with you all. See you again soon and thank you from the bottom of our hearts.

Ok, now onto the part about food...

After a short delay due to weather (of course), we got to Hamburg late in the evening. The next day, after a great breakfast we tooled around the house, popped into the farmer's market, made some grocery store runs and waited for Nikki to get in from Berlin. Here are some shots of us at the Farmer's Market.

Picking out some sausages with the help of Michael.

Enjoying sausages with Emi and Michael.

That night, we headed out to see the Christmas markets in downtown Hamburg with Nikki and aunt Lexi. It was a wonderful eating experience and Lexi spoiled us (me). Every food both that my eyes may have lingered upon for more than 3 seconds, Lexi was up at the front of the line getting me some love. The markets in Germany were also my first exposure to gluvine of which I am now addicted -- hot spiced wine.

Also, these Christmas Markets may seem cliche or boring to some Germans, but let me tell you -- if we tried to do something like this in the states it would be train wreck. Yours were tasteful and fun, not overly crowded and trashy, very well-priced, and at least in my eyes, seemed very non-commercial and more about having fun. In the States the Almighty Dollar would turn Christmas Markets into an over-commercialized joke with 8 dollar sausages made from who knows what accompanied by waves of white trash losers and/or wannabe gangstas. There are some things that really work in the States (tailgating, BBQing, etc) and there are some things like outdoor holiday markets and horrendous male facial hair patterns/designs* that simply won't fly back home.

Here are few shots from the markets...

Christmas market or LSD trip? You make the call. 

Shot of Boo and Roo and Nikki and Lexi under the canopy of a carosel
as we watched the Santa and Snowflake Fairy fly thru the sky (and
wonder what was in the gluvine).

Rudy locked on target (french fries).

GLUVINE!

Special sausage: they drop it into a slicer and smother it in a
curry-like BBQ sauce. It did the trick.

*more on eurotrash facial hair later

La Costa Brava (Spain)

I'm so tired about blogging about Spain so this is going to be picture-heavy. Deal.

Next day, we drove up north to La Costa Brava to stay at Hotel Trias in Palamos for four nights. Palamos is a beach town, but since it was off season, we got the entire hotel to ourselves along with one or two other guests. 

The first full day we were there is rained gatos y perros, but as Seattleites we never travel without raincoats and we didn't miss a step. 

We walked across the street to the Fishing Museum and had a good time. Sara and Roo walked back to the hotel after the museum and I tooled around the town and had an awesome 10 euro lunch: a sampler platter, glass of wine and espresso. Pics...

We had dinner that night at La Menta. Very good, but over-priced. Sara had some wonderful shrimp and I had some great monkfish. 

The next couple of days we spent hiking along the Mediterranean. Gorgeous views...

Dali chilled here...

More Spain (Barcelona con't)

(P.S. uploading pics sucks ... haven't figured out an easy way to do it yet...kill)

The next day, Sara and Rudy and I took to Barcelona on our own and saw the Gaudi work of art known as the Sagrada Familia, an amazing cathedral that has been in construction for like a 100 years or something. Very trippy. We also headed to Park Guell which was also designed by Gaudi and was equally as trippy. Here are some shots...

First half of the good Spain

K. Now, let me get to the good stuff re: Spain. (finally)...

Our Barcelona tour guides, shelter, food, and wine providers as i mentioned were our good friends Joost and Marleen. They are friends of ours from Kellogg and took great care of us. Marleen whipped up great meals every night and I need to take a few pages out of her book w/r/t putting together great tasting meals quickly. Here is a shot of Roo and Sara helping Marleen out in the kitchen...

Thank you again Marleen and Joost -- I hope to return the favor. 

We popped down into the city one day with Joost/Marleen and kids and toured around all the cool parts of town. Here's a couple shots from the day...

Overlooking Barcelona

Joost & Sara, Matt and Rudy

Rudy tripping

A Week in Spain, 30 hours in Pain

Took a "real" vacation to Spain last week and it was a love-hate relationship. Fortunately, the love part of the relationship lasted much longer than the hate and our fond memories outweigh the bad (at least mine do; Sara says she's never setting foot back in the country again). As you might expect, the hate part has a little something to do with the air traffic controllers strike. After an awesome few days in Barcelona with great friends Joost and Marleen and their kids Sara and Hugo, we drove up to La Costa Brava for a few days of off-season beach-time.

Our trouble began when we arrived back at the Barcelona airport at the end of our trip. Upon checking in, we were told that the flight had been oversold and only one seat remained. They said they'd put us up in a hotel and fly us back the following day. Problem was, we had a sick 2 year old and really needed to get home. Oddly, they will offer you a hotel and flight voucher, but won't ask other passengers to volunteer to give up seats for doing the same (like they do back home). We said a hotel wouldn't work and that they needed to find us a way home that day. They ended up booking us thru Madrid and then Lux and we wouldn't get home until close to midnight. Sucks, but we had to do it. After waiting in the airport for 3 more hours, we left for Madrid. Upon landing in Madrid I went to an information desk to ask where we needed to go to make our connection and was told you won't be going anywhere. After chuckling I said, "ok really, where do I go?" Information desk person said "Really, the airport is closed -- the air traffic controllers just walked out." I looked over at Sara who had a passed out sick kid strapped to her chest and had to tell her we were stuck. I'll be honest, I was scared shitless to tell her. She had a pseudo-Krakatoa and then we made our way to Terminal 4 by bus to figure out what the F we were gonna do. 

The guy at the check in desk for our next flight was no real help, nor did he try to be. Thanks again for that clown. Lots of resignation among airport workers that evening which really didn't jive with our American sensibilities of  "take care of this shit now dumbasses." Only in a European country with double digit unemployment can people who make a half-mill euros a year walk out on their jobs and strand hundreds of thousands of travelers. Really sours one's viewpoint on the whole idea of workers unions, but I digress...

Fortunately, we had some very kind Spaniards on the flight back to Lux who spoke English and helped us to understand the situation which was basically "no one knows anything." Hung around the airport until about Midnight and then decided to pull the plug and cab it into Madrid to get a hotel for the evening. Luckily for us, there was an open room at the Intercontinental Hotel, which I might add, is a pretty damn nice place to stay if you have to be stuck somewhere. We spent the next day tooling around Madrid and got to go to La Plaza Mayor as well as the amazing Christmas mercado nearby and ate some wonderful tapas -- so not a total loss. 

Went back to the airport at 6pm as signs pointed to us being able to get out of there by 8pm. Though, we did have to lay out cash for one more night in the hotel as we weren't going to take any chances and rooms in the city were at this point non-existent. When it was all said and done, we left closer to 10, got home to Lux by about 1 a.m. The good news re: all of that was I got home just in time to watch the Big XII championship game between Nebraska and Oklahoma. Bad news was that Nebraska choked it away in the second half. 

That's it for this post. Next, post will be about the love part of the trip (with pics) 

Last weeks eats

Got back from London and needed to get in the kitchen. Here is last Wed, Thurs, Fri and Sat morning...

Pork chops with parsley, lemon, garlic and sauteed mushrooms and green beans.

Roasted chicken, gratin potatoes and kale.

Gigot ou epaule de pre-sale braise (Braised leg of lamb with beans).
Sara said she wanted to swim in it. Really

French toast with bacon and shallot omelette.

London and "Wales"

Took a family trip to the UK recently as Sara had some work in London (Slough, actually). We left Lux on a Thursday and came home the following Tuesday afternoon. Thurs, Sun and Mon nights were spent in London and Fri and Sat nights were spent at a B&B in "Wales." Wales is in quotes because it notably was not Wales, although that is where we thought we were going. We had thought we were going to be staying in Wales until about the time the train conductor announced the Wales stop and we still had two more stations to go. "I don't think we're going to Wales" was Sara's oddly very calm response. I think she was so calm because it was she that did the travel booking this time around (translation: she couldn't blame me). Have to give her some leeway as one of the top Google search results in her query for "B&B's in Wales" was not actually in Wales. Coincidentally, that was the very B&B she chose. It was in Kewstoke in Somerset county England.

Good news is that we could see Wales. It was just across the water from us. We're still not sure what the official  name of that body of water was that we were looking across...it was either the Mouth of the Severn River or the Bristol Channel. A cab driver told us it was technically still the Mouth of the Severn and its huge estuary, but wow, was it a big body of water.

Boo pointing out Wales to all the geographically challenged.

The B&B was The Church House and the proprietors, Tony and Jane were great people who welcomed us with open arms, even after we told them we never actually planned to be there. Jane and Sara hit it off very well and were teasing each other all weekend about our American-ness (i.e. not knowing we were still in England; pronouncing herbs with a silent "h," and other little nits).

The town of Kewstoke is about a mile north of Weston Super-Mare which was our final train stop. While we popped into Weston once during the weekend, we mostly hung around Kewstoke and the B&B and wonderful little restaurant called The New Castle. In two-and-a-half days, we ate at The New Castle three times -- twice for dinner and once for lunch and a proper tea time experience. The owners of The New Castle, Ian and Nikki were just as great as Tony and Jane at the B&B and they too gave us a very warm welcome. We chatted up Ian quite a bit, while Nikki took care of us in the kitchen. She is a phenomenal chef. I hope I can be that good someday. The food was really that good and extremely well priced. Just above restaurant is a luxury holiday apartment that Ian and Nikki also rent out. Over the course of the few days were there there, Ian got me set up with a number of traditional English ales like Old Peculiar, Old Speckled Hen, and another few including a local cider ale that was really good, too.

A shot out front of The New Castle.

Boo and Roo doing what they do.

Upon returning to London on Sunday night, we ate a great Indian meal at a place whose name escapes me at the moment. Very good. The next night, Monday we met a dear family friend from Omaha at a trendy pub in Notting Hill called The Prince Bonaparte. It was a really cool place that Maya said gets pretty hopping on the weekends, especially with American expats. Luckily we were there on a Monday night, so we were able to enjoy ourselves with Rudy in tow. Sara and Maya had a good fish entree, I on the other hand didn't fair so well. Got the venison and it frankly sucked. Still ate the whole thing, but not something I'd be proud to serve anyone that is for sure. 

During the two days Rudy and I had to spend in London, we did a lot of walking. The first day we strolled through Hyde Park and made our way to the Natural History Museum and looked at dinosaur fossils and stuffed animals of all kinds -- a very good time for a dad and boy. We headed back to the park again on our second day in the city and were lucky enough to see cannon fire in celebration of the birth day of the Prince of Wales (Henry). That was also perfect dad and son bonding. We made our way through the rest of Hyde Park and then through St. James Green Park all the way to Buckingham palace.

Listening to the Royal Band and waiting for some cannon fire!

Squirrels in Hyde Park love deez nutz.

Rudy outside Buckingham Palace with his "broom and dustpan."

Since I'm not a big city type of person, I didn't have huge expectations for London, but I absolutely loved it. What a great city and great, friendly people. Looking forward to going back.