Kip Visit

So, Kip has already written a lovely description of his trip here...and I was lazy and wouldn't be able to write anything this good anyway. Here's an excerpt from his blog, hope he doesn't mind. Enjoy...



Well, basic outline: I found Kip eating in my kitchen Saturday morning looking a bit worse for wear. He apparently had gotten semi-mugged in Porto. And honestly I think he might have gotten the wrong idea of Porto, it is probably as safe or unsafe as any big city. (comments by Caroline in green)







"After my lovely post-arrival nap, Caroline and I talked a little bit with her host-padre about my cooking and apparantly Caroline had been setting high expectations that I would be cooking there. Hehe, well I am not one to disappoint with food so I agreed one of the days to make an American meal and afterwards we headed out to Porto where Caroline was supposed to meet one of her friends.



After a long metro ride and some catching up Caroline and I arrived to find a tall thin blonde-streaked guy looking just a little younger than me (actually Kip, he's 17, so not much older than I am) dressed in a nice European style. This apparantly was Johannes from the Ferro Islands, which come to find out is a territory of the Dutch, with its own language and mythology and songbooks! We fascinated ourselves by taking a little tour of Porto complete with a trip to a coffee shop where I tried a Mokachok - served in layers, I think it included whipped cream (chantilly in Portuguese), thick thick chocolate and something else. It tasted like chocolate gravy, outrageously thick and chocolatey with a light and ever so slightly spicy flavor. I personally got a mixture of this chocolate drink with coffee, since I needed a good waking up.After enjoying this refreshment, we toured around a bit.



Porto I would describe as similar to the London of the movie Sweeney Todd just with more monuments - same sketchy people all over and really dark and dank with stone streets and buildings. Several times I asked the two of them where we were and very nonchalantly they would say 'eh, I have no idea... where does that alleyway go?' (hey, it wasn't that bad! We knew our general area...maybe). I was not feeling good about this. But we stayed out of trouble and spent a good amount of time hanging out by the riverside, which was pretty wide open and nice (hah, and you guys sat in birdpoop and Johannes FREAKED OUT). I liked having open space with good lightinig and not-sketchy looking people around. Across the river we could see the buildings of different Porto wine producers, and as well there were some boats in the river and as we crossed to the other side, we amused each other with international swear words and the various translations thereof. I think Johannes won out with his Ferroese phrase meaning something like 'damn you to the flames of hell' (I'm so learning that language someday). It had a nice ring to it. But we circled around a couple of times, found some Spanish speaking girls from Catalunya to take pictures of us, got some Portuguese pastries (Johannes wanted chocolate cake... and he wanted it right then. It was very out of the blue... C: '...yeah, so I told him I wasn´t interested...' J: 'I want chocolate cake.' K:'What?' J: 'I want chocolate cake, is there a cafe around here?' ) (so true...he was after that chocolate cake all day). We had a nice time walking around Porto and Caroline and Johannes even bought tickets to the Nightwish show in Porto for mid April (hellz yes).



I had told Caroline that I wanted Chinese food for dinner, but her host Padre had told us we needed to be back home by 9pm which in Spanish time is dinner time, so we just went home and discussed food options. Her host Padre of course was very friendly and pointed out some nice places we could visit along the seashore. Well we went out looking and toured around the beautiful plazas and seashore and eventually settled on a café reasonably close to her house that had pizzas. (yay random pizza) I got a pizza wth egg on it while Caroline got a tropical pizza.The whole time we were walking and talking, we discussed what we missed from home, who we missed from home and crazy things for the future - for instance Micajah, he is the first child to kind of enter into our group at home, the 'View Crew' if you will (or VC for short... not VietCong, none of us is named Charlie... or Asian for that matter). In as short as 5 or 6 years, some of us in the VC may be getting married or even begin having children! That´s just too soon! We discussed it at length and heck I couldn´t even decide who my best man would be at a wedding. The point is, we´re getting older and even though we still get together as much as we can, the dynamics will continue to change and I don´t know if I´m ready to be called Uncle Kip, you know? We talked also about what it will be like when we got back to the US, and as we talked about it, there aren´t any hangout places or cafés in Forest. So Caroline and I talked at great length about a café that we would like to make in Forest, a place with enough space for a dance floor and a band, good tapas and snack foods for students and people on a hurry, good generally inexpensive coffee for people on the go (there is no such thing as a to go cup here, we miss that). My thought for the name was Iberia, but who knows. We could have pastries and scones and good bread and tapas and snack foods (not junk, real food), it would be an awesome meeting place and hangout place, especially if it were out by Sonic or Carol´s or something.



We entertained ourselves a great deal talking about that until we finally got home late and got some rest before the next day.I was a little bit lazy after all my travels and so I got up about 11am to shower and be ready for the day. We resolved to be cooking lunch which could be ready about 2:30 and so we went out to tour the Vilha do Conde area. We went out to the seashore where we hungout on a pier above some rocks. We watched the waves and admired the shells, it was a beautiful and peaceful place, not to mention the pretty awesome weather. I commented that sometime we should come out for a little cookout of all the mussels hanging out on the shore. There were also tons of little gastropods such as limpets and tiny conch-like snails with curled shells. It was beautiful and peaceful, and we also went out to see a 16th century high seas exploration ship called the Nau. It had realistic mannequins inside that were for lack of better words creepy, but all in all it was an interesting boat with lots of robe and barrels and rocks in the bottom (supposedly for road paving in the 'New World').



When we got back, it was time to decide what lunch would be! We had already told them that we wanted chicken, spinach and a couple of other things, but we finalized the menu to: grilled barbeque chicken, roasted potatoes with onions, spinach salad and my fruit parfait dessert. There were two interesting things about this meal. First was my invention of a barbeque sauce, the second was their complete revulsion to the idea of eating spinach raw. To create a barbeque sauce, I pretty much rounded up everything in the kitchen that looked like it could fit and cooked it together for a little while. I think I used apple cider vinegar, ketchup, sugar, salt, black pepper, hot chile powder, oregano, and some other stuff I couldn´t name. But you know what, it actually turned out pretty good! I was very surprised and pleased with myself, it could have maybe used some mustard or brown sugar or molasses or cumin, but it worked! Then the host madre had already very nicely cut up the chicken for me, so I just let the sauce marinade with the chicken for a little bit while we prepped the potatoes. Caroline, of course was my very deft and helpful assistant every step of the way. I quite enjoyed being able to cook again and have my own dominion of flavors and construction of something delicious and beautiful. It was a very freeing and lovely feeling to be creative with what I know best. Caroline even added to the atmosphere by bringing down her laptop and playing some musical songs that we could sing along to. It was just like being back at home cooking :-). We cut the potatoes into cubes about an inch wide, along with semi-circle thin slices of onion and a dressing of olive oil, salt and this pesto that the family had (it could have used more salt all in all I think). That we just tossed together and put into the oven at 400ºF, which as it turns out is 205ºC. Then I made a little vinagrette for the spinach salad. The spinach, I should note, was much tougher and darker in flavor than American spinach. By itself I could understand why they were not very pelased with the idea of raw spinach, but I think with my dressing it was going to turn out just fine, and I was excited to have them try something completely new to them. I whisked together some apple cider vinegar with olive oil and honey to emulsify it, then I added some slices of tomato meat to give it some body and texture. Then it was time to face the chicken. Some of the pieces that were cut off the whole chicken were definitely not what we would be interested in eating grilled in the US - chicken ribs, the keel bone, the neck and several other things I could not even recognize. I asked the host dad if I could give the neck to the dog, and he very vehemently (though friendly) insisted that he would eat it himself.



I must point out that this family has a dog in their little back yard, he´s a very friendly golden retriever that generally seems to not be treated with love (I must say...it's true). The family hardly ever pets the dog, much less lets him in the house and never gives him treats and the host padre at least handles him very roughly, by the collar and with harsh words and always dismisses the dog from anything. Meanwhile, Caroline and I are generally hoping the dog can come over so we can pet him and give him little snacks and stuff. It was very different treatment from what I´ve even seen in Spain. All across Spain, dogs I´ve seen were treated very nicely, usually even without a collar, just running around free. All the while Spanish dogs are generally really really well trained to voice and signals to stay and come and get down and all that. Caroline´s host family seemed to really enjoy the trick of having the dog shake their hands... but other than that he only had commands to go away or get back in his little area of the yard or to be pulled over and chained to a tree. I did not really agree with the handling of the dog, but he is under their care and seemed to still like people and very healthy, so it´s not a great violation of anything I guess.



Anyways, after sifting through a couple of methods, the host padre showed me that they do have something similar to a grill - it´s very much like a cooling rack set right on top of a heating element, set overtop a pan to catch the runoff juices. Having the heating element set right underneath the rack on which the food was set made for lots of charring, but in general it looked very good and cooked nicely through. The smell of it and the music and the company of Caroline brought both of us back to our summer tradition of fourth of July festivities at the Ballard house (gotta love it, eh?), which we tried to describe to the host Padre who was most curious about our yankee culinary creations.



So there it was! We had a nice salad dressing for the spinach, which they seemed most curious about, as well as beautiful grilled barbeque chicken and roasted potatoes and onions. It made me miss my mother´s home cooking but at the same time I was satisfied to be there with this beautiful home food with Caroline to enjoy and also the wonderfully pleasant and welcoming company of Caroline´s host family. The entire family was very very receptive to the meal and even rather enjoyed the spinach salad, despite their preoccupations! (they have cooked spinach here ALL THE TIME. I must say I will be happy to get home and never have to see that mushy crap ever again. Please mom, if you read this, I am never eating mushing warm spinach when I get home) Then it was time for dessert!



The night before they had brought out some frozen raspberries which were by this time thawed with some liquid. They then had some fresh strawberried which we sliced up. All of this we macerated in the liquid with a good deal of sugar and a little salt to taste, to let thicken and marinade (I guess) in the fridge. We then crushed up some portuguese cookies (hey I did this!) (important note here... the Iberian peninsula does not have soft gooey cookies. They do not exist. There is no such thing as a hot soft chocolate chip cookie to eat with hot chocolate or milk or whatever. It is a sad state of affairs, and something that everyone mentions from time to time missing from home. I think some day I may simply make a lot of soft chocolate chip cookies to bring to the JMU office. They will be gone in a flash, but it would be nice I think.) and we set the cookies in the bottom of single serving bowls. Then we whipped up some Portuguese natas (it went everywhere with that blender...), which I guess is like heavy cream into chantilly, or whipped cream. This was laced with sugar and a little bit of vanilla, then set on top of the crushed cookies. Then we brought out the macerated fruit and spooned that on top of the whipped cream, then topped it all off with a swirl of honey, just for that extra touch of home. If I do say so myself, it was my favorite part of the meal, and very well received by the family. In response, they told me that 'next time I come' I should bake some bread, too! I can definitely do that. I think they liked it, and I do dearly miss my bread.



The rest of the day we just spent walking around and discussing our future café for Forest and relationship stuff. It was just nice to have a friend to talk to who knows me well enough to finish sentences and knows exactly who I´m talking about and what I mean, not to mention what I miss. Then again Caroline is kind of a special case in any way since she´s my little sister (aw yay...), eu ermão (btw- it's spelled irmã) or mi hermana.It was sad to go since Vilha do Conde was such a beautiful and open place, not to mention friendly. I hope to go back sometime and actually I might be dropping by at the end of my spring break to Santiago de Compostela and then maybe later again on my last weekend free, the first weekend of April.

It´s nice to see your friends."

OK- this week has been good so far. Today two of my teachers didn't show up to class so yea, menos muitas aulas...I had lunch with Johannes near Casa da Musica and then we just hung out, talking and such on a bench in the Rotunda park thing. Hanging out is a precious thing...a lot of the time it's like you always have to be doing something to have fun, it's nice to be comfortable with someone to "just hang". He's really fun to talk with, I'm glad we both go to school in Porto. Anywho, yea. We went to a McDonalds for lunch, got some Sundays, and talked about Family, Politics, Friends, Activites, Exchange...it was good.

Once I got back to school I went to the bibliotecha with these girls from my class Raffa and Mariana. They were really nice and we showed each other pictures and talked about stuff. Then there was English...very easy.

When I got home I went to the gym stressout and I think I'm going to start taking a latin dance class there or something - que fixe! I feel like I'm starting to fit into the family a bit more and this weekend is the 6 week orientation which I'm pretty excited about. Here's to a good rest of the week! Don't forget to check my photobucket - worldtravelercaro - for pictures!