Eggplant & Zuchinni bruschetta
Roasted chicken with potatoes & carrots
Stuffing with leeks, red onions, and all those other delicious, yet unhealthy components of stuffing
Again, with our industrial oven on full blast, our kitchen became an inferno and the floor next to the oven became too hot to step on with bare feet. Nonetheless, we had a lovely meal and had leftovers for days, including a chicken broth I made at the end, which I will use for Catherine's dad's famous sopa de ajo.
On Friday we went to the basement of the Armenian Center for dinner. Yes, the basement. Every Friday and Saturday, the center serves dinner in order to raise money for the high school trip to Armenia. The mothers do all the cooking and the kids serve the tables. You walk into this nondescript building, down random stairs, and emerge into this enormous conference room with garish lighting. Then your adorable high school waiter comes and kind of fumbles to take your order, explaining that his mother made the spinach pie that night. The amazing food and said adorable little high schooler totally makes up for the ambience...actually the ambience, if taken for what it is, is fantastic too. We had falafel, a huge plate of hummus, spinach pie (how could we not order it?), and beef & vegetable skewers. We then went to the dessert table and placed our order for various kinds of baklava. I was scared that we hadn't ordered enough so I went up twice.
Afterwards, we went to Olsen, our favorite Scandinavian bar/resto and met one of Lee's friends for drinks. She's fantastic and is working for a non-profit that goes out into the Villas (very very poor neighborhoods on the outskirts of BsAs) every day and works with the kids on their schoolwork. We're hoping to start volunteering there within the next week or so.
On Saturday, I could barely contain my excitement and wanted Pete to open all his presents in the morning. However, we both know from past experience, that I (yes, me) get very disappointed when he has no more presents to open, so we had to space it out over the course of the day.
Some of you may know that from the age of 4-21, Pete's mom made birthday signs that said, Peter is 4, Peter is 5, etc. and took a picture of him. Since Madrid (when he turned 28) I have taken over this tradition and try to do something slightly different every year. This year, I got all his friends to write him messages and then I made a fake New York Times with them. Granted, it looked like something a middle schooler would do, but Pete was overjoyed to get so many messages from his friends (it was only guys, Karen, or I would have asked you!).
That night we went to this Basque pintxos bar that totally reminded me of one of our favorite Madrid spots, Sagaretxe. The pintxos (slice of french bread with various toppings and a toothpick holding it all together) are all served on plates and you just take what you want and pay according to how many toothpicks you have at the end. They also have Basque sidra and pour it in the traditional way, which we were total suckers for.
2 comments:
i feel like Shelley took that pic of us dancing. what a fantastic b-day... let's go back to the Armenian basement now. ok. good.
Oh man Oh man! First of all, I am making a sad face for not being able to contribute an article (hasn't my writing improved in this blog-life we lead?). Second, Amy, you have got to stop being such an incredible wife! I was reading this post thinking, "wow, I wouldn't mind having a wife like that..." Thank god David isn't on the blogosphere or I would be in big trouble! :)You two put the rest of us to shame, keep up the good work!
Post a Comment