I have witnessed the festivities in Mondragón for several years. There is a parade through town with the jolly old Olentzero tossing hard candy into the crowd. The parade ends in the main town square, where children dance, songs are sung, and the Olentzero continues giving out candy to the crowds. Young people who have carried torches during the parade then light a big bonfire in the middle of the square. In some parts of the Basque Country, they actually burn an effigy of the Olentzero. From what I can tell, the bonfire is an old pagan solstice practice of rebirth.

A little complimentary plate of beans, with blood sausage, to go with my Rioja.

Nora and her Tía Marga serve a champagne sorbet that Tía Marga makes.

It looks like the party’s gotten out of hand, but really it was just me demonstrating the proper amount of brandy to put in a snifter. It should just reach the lip of the glass when it’s set on its side. Nora said, “Poppy’s wine fell over!”

Chocolates after dinner.

Nora was delighted to receive a toy ironing board and iron from the Olentzero for Christmas.

While I an generally against gender stereotyping and am 100% sure that there’s no way this would’ve been the present if she were a boy, I cannot deny that she really and truly loves her ironing board.

She kept asking people to give her some item of clothing that needed ironing.

She also got a sleeping bag and some mittens.

After going to bed at 2 AM on Christmas Eve and having an exciting Christmas morning of presents, Nora was exhausted.

Later we met up with the rest of the family for even more presents! Here she is opening a Hello Kitty dollhouse.

Playing with her Hello Kitty dollhouse.

Life is not peaceful for Hello Kitty in her house, as it is rocked by furniture-rearranging earthquakes every few minutes.

We had a great time eating, drinking and playing with our family in Mondragón.

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The full brochure.

The first pincho we tried was at La Marina Company. It was by far the most elaborate and special in a “you’re not going to ever make this at home” sort of way.

La Marina Company: Panacota de frambuesa con anchoas – That’s a cooked cream of raspberries with anchovies.

The presentation was gorgeous, but the combination of flavors was a little too bizarre for our philistine tastes. It came with a little dropper of Modena olive oil. There were too many flavors for my wife’s expertise in anchovy quality to gain any purchase.

A close-up of La Marina Company’s pincho. In general we were pretty displeased not only with the pincho, but also by the service. It took about ten minutes for the pincho to make its way down from the upstairs kitchen. By that time, we’d almost finished our wines.

La Casona: Suprema de buey – This “Ox Supreme” was described in the brochure as “Hamburger of ox meat with onion, egg and cheese”. After La Marina Company, our eyes were immensely disappointed when the tiny little burger rolls were plopped down before us. But wow, had hour eyes deceived us! The first bite had us both moaning with pleasure. The grainy bread, the tender meat, the sweet caramelized onions and the cheese made an excellent combination. Supreme, indeed!

It’s really not much to look at, but I could happily eat a dozen of these little treats.

Cafetería Colón: Hamburguesa de potro a la barbacoa – “What’s potro?”, I asked my wife. “Baby horse”, she replied. Whoa! Well, this is the place that had kangaroo meat in 2009. The ingredients listed were: sweet roll, colt meat, tomato, onion, garlic, pepper, parsley and barbecue sauce.

Like most foods with barbecue sauce, the sauce completely overwhelmed any other flavors, making this a very boring pincho to eat. The potato chips on the side did little to make it any more special. I’d certainly never have guessed that it was foal meat. It was a big let down after the previous hamburger in La Casona.

La Abadía: Destinos Pejinos – Apparently pejino is a local word meaning “a humble resident of coastal Cantabria”, so the title translates to “humble Cantabrian destinations”. Indeed, the primary ingredient was respigos, a local winter delicacy. The ingredients were listed as: pastry toast with cumin and respigos.

Visually, it looks like something your sick cat might leave on the carpet, but it was quite tasty in a humble, healthy sort of way. I didn’t care much for the “pastry toast” on the bottom; it reminded me of a bland granola bar.

The second night, we went to El Concept, but they were out of pinchos, and had enough business so that they didn’t really give a damn. Boo!

El Somera: Guiso de jabalí al chocolate – The name means “wild boar stew with chocolate”, and sure enough, that’s what it was. Unfortunately, for cost saving motives, there were a lot of potatoes, and very few chunks of boar meat. I must say, however, that I was impressed.

The little bowls were lovely. It definitely took second place away from La Albadía’s respigos.

A bore eating boar.

El Guti: Hamburguesita de ternera con salsa de queso y su guarnición – The title means “Little beef hamburger with cheese sauce and garnish”. The meat was fantastic, and the potatoes were fresh out of the frying pan.

The little burger looks insignificant, but the taste was powerful. I think it just barely edged out El Somera for second place.

Conclusion

Of the six pinchos we tried, I would rank them as follows:

1. La Casona – Definitely the best tasting pincho of all, despite presentation.
2. El Guti – Excellent flavor, though simple presentation.
3. El Somera – Wonderfully warm stew, with a slightly sweet chocolate tone.
4. La Albadía – Very hearty and healthy, but nothing spectacular.
5. Cafetería Colón – Too much sauce, but a decent snack.
6. La Marina Company – A lot of work put into preparation, but a very eccentric taste.

So concludes this year’s Pincho Week. I hope to do much better than a 33.3% sample size next year. ¡Hasta entonces! Until then!

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Another difference between the two cultures is that Spaniards don’t put presents under the tree. The presents are all saved, hidden, until either Epiphany on January 6, or Christmas Day for families that have been influenced by foreign cultures. Personally, I think one of the best parts of Christmas is the anticipation and mystery involved in having to look at your gift for weeks before you get to open it. If that’s not the whole point of wrapping paper, I don’t know what is.

My two-year-old daughter, Nora, doesn’t quite understand Christmas yet. The idea of waiting to receive and open presents, and certainly any threats of them being dependent on behavior don’t sink in. But she did enjoy the novelty of setting up a plastic tree in the living room and decorating it with ornaments.

Every tree needs a good base. Wow, that’s profound.

Separating every sprig is the secret to making an artificial tree appear full.

My apprentice observed my work very closely.

Every year I’m surprised at just how tall our tree is. I always remember it as being tiny.

First the lights!

All this tree preparation is exhausting!

My little tree decorator.

It occurred to me the other day that families with toddlers who don’t yet understand the lust of consumerism should just pair up and exchange toys between households rather than buy new plastic crap. In the face of novel toys, the kids probably won’t even notice some of the old toys are missing.

May your solstice celebrations be jolly.

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We started the morning with Erik’s Homemade Thanksgiving Apple Harvest™ scones.

Castro Urdiales is the eastern most town of any interest in Cantabria, close to the border with the Basque Country. The town dates back to Roman times, mainly as a port and fishing village. The French destroyed the town in 1813, but many of the residents were able to escape to sea with English ships.

My parents and daughter in Castro Urdiales.

The town is nothing if not photogenic. The fact that I accidentally left my good camera at home was very painful.

See that taller white building on the left? That’s where we had lunch.

The medieval Santa Maria church is a gorgeous bit of gothic architecture.

In the shade of an olive tree.

I loved these stairs that go nowhere.

Yes, I was in short sleeves. It was chilly, but more comfortable than with my sweater on.

Enough walking, let’s have some tapas!!

Goat cheese on ham and a tomato, sprinkled with balsamic vinegar.

Bacon and quail eggs.

This place, La Marinera, was quite nice.

My mother switched to coffee for a few of the wine rounds. Nora was happy to finish the last bit for her.

My parents love going bar to bar almost as much as their granddaughter does. Those are glasses of vegetable broth they gave us with our wines.

God, I love Spain!

Oh, yeah!

After lunch we continued our long walk back to the car, having fun along the way, of course.

And resting some.

The beach was very finely raked, but also had these bizarre footprints walking in parallel lines away from the water. WTF?

Nora, Poppy and Grandma.

Cool tiles!

We had a good time in Castro Urdiales. This is a very rare well-framed photo by a stranger.

In the evening, after yet more walking around Colindres, I did make my famous turkey pizza to celebrate the American holiday of being thankful for what we have.

My Thanksgiving was far from typical, but I ate too much and had a wonderful time with my family, so I guess I did pretty well.

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Most pumpkins in the local market look like this long phallic gourd on the left. The small commercial one is seen here on the right in its packaging, witch included a helpful “You can also eat me!” sticker.

As you’re about to see, Nora and Carmen were incredibly cute playing with the pumpkin innards, cleaning out the seeds and fibers. About halfway through the carving party, Nora’s face started to swell up and she complained of an itchy eye, so she had to drop out of the pumpkin cleaning. What a shame if her allergic reaction persists and she is unable to partake of this wonderful autumnal bite of americana.

Happy pumpkin cleaners.

Yuck!

This is my favorite shot.

Here you can see Nora’s reddened face.

Marga set to work on her masterpiece, with apprentice paying close attention.

Concentration. Marga said, “Everybody make a scary face, so I know how to draw it!”

Yikes!!

My effort. His name is Droopy Brow. Marga put it nicely when she said, “He doesn’t look like a very clever pumpkin”.

Marga’s effort, Isosceles Brow. She drew the face, and I carved, since the pumpkin skin was very thick (that’s why Droopy Brow’s feelings weren’t very hurt). I rarely eschew the bottom teeth, but I like her design. It’s a bit ironic, though, given her scary face above.

Iso, and his slower brother, Droops.

Happy Halloween, everybody!!

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At twelve noon, a firecracker sounded, just like in Pamplona, to notify everyone that the gate to the bullpen was open, then another to signify that all the bulls were out. Unlike in Pamplona, the Ampuero bull run is a circuit rather than a straight run, so they run out of the bullring, run through town, and then back into the bullring. I wasn’t prepared for the rush of people, including one quintagenarian, trying to scoot under the foot-high gate clearance. This is a problem in San Fermin as well, where people will “safely” enter the bull run area just to get into the bullring without paying the entrance fee. Just before the bulls returned, a noticeable tension rose in the crowd, I ducked low on my now aching knees, my camera in rapid fire mode, and held down the shutter. Click-click-click-click! And then it was over…faster than a bicycle race.

Marga and Nora stayed back, able to see over the gate to the bulls running on the slightly elevated street behind it.

Yikes!

It turns out that these aren’t even “real bulls”. Well, they are called novillos, not toros, because they are less than three years old. Bull calves. Either way, I was happy to be on my side of the steal barrier.

They used to use full grown bulls, but then five years ago, the year before we first went, one of them escaped the barriers and killed three people. It’s one thing if a runner gets hurt, but spectators have a higher expectation of safety. Truly tragic.

After the firecracker sounds letting everyone know that all the bulls are safely back in their pen, the people flood the streets. There was one goring; a 44-year-old veteran runner got a horn to the bum (photo here). It was on the outgoing run, and he got pulled under a barrier before the bulls came back. He was treated at the scene and then taken to the ICU. In the four bull runs during the festival this year, six people got ambulance rides.

Nora had a great time seeing all the people and dancing to the music.

She particularly loved these dancing giants, which she improperly calls cabezudos (this is a real cabezudo). They are really well done, made of very lightweight materials, and controlled by an operator between their legs. If you stop thinking “This is really a puppet!” for a second or two, you really do start to perceive them as enormous dancing giants, making eye contact with them, etc. Nora enjoys them at a distance of between five and twenty meters. If they’re too far, she begs to “Go see the cabezudos!” and if they get too close, she cries and buries her head in a parent’s chest.

At one point, I went into a bar to order some drinks, and this group of gentlemen came in and one of them asked the bartender for a Bordón, an excellent crianza red wine from Rioja. The bartender said he didn’t have any, so the customer begrudgingly settled for an Añares. The barkeep pulled out a glass, and the customer said, “No, we want the whole bottle.” I smiled. They did have six or seven men in their group, and a bottle of wine falls fast with six glasses. We went outside to the street to drink our drinks. A few minutes later, the singing began.

What a glorious way to spend your time, entertaining yourself and others in bars drinking wine. From what I can tell, these are traditional Cantabrian songs. The lyrics to the last bit are:

No sueño ricos tesoros,
ni sueño barcos guerreros,
sueño con las velas blancas,
sueño con ser marinero.
Tener en noche de calma,
la luna por compañera,
una guitarra en los brazos
y en mi boca una habanera.

I dream not of rich treasures,
nor of war ships,
I dream of white sails,
I dream of being a sailor.
To have a calm night,
the moon as my companion,
a guitar in my arms
and, in my mouth, a habanera.

This lovely lady was cooking a paella to serve in small rations to partygoers.

I opted to try eating goose barnacles for the second time. They were very good, but impossible to eat standing up while holding a beer, and the shells were too bulky to feel comfortable dumping on the street like sunflower seed husks, so I found a bar to eat them at.

They were so fresh, they still had seaweed and tiny baby mussels on them.

Nora demonstrates the proper way to wear your red scarf. We bought three. They are pricy, but good for many years.

We had a great time.

¡Viva Ampuero!

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• Presentation: relative to the size of the float, the combination of diverse pieces and parts, and complexity of the float
• Art: the general beauty, composition, design, originality and “wow factor”
• Flowers: how well the flowers are nailed to the float, and the general quality of the floral craftsmanship
• Quantity of flowers: the percentage of the float covered in flowers

There is also a separate prize for the best dressed human ornaments. During the video you’re about to see, the announcer mentions that this year, there were floats that had more than 100,000 flowers on them. Wow!

Having lived in the area longer than anywhere besides our parents’ houses, my wife and I are pretty much like locals, and we know the tricks involved with each festivity. Like how there are absolutely zero parking spaces available in Laredo around the start of the Batalla de Flores. Literally zero. Since we were invited to a dinner with friends after the parade, we needed to have a car to drive home. So, like last year, we parked our car in Laredo the day before! Nora and I took the car to Laredo on Thursday, with Nora screaming the whole way since she can’t stand to be in the car for more than, well, zero seconds. Even on Thursday, after the four minute drive to Laredo, it took me twenty minutes of driving around before I got lucky and found someone leaving a space. We then took a bus back to Colindres, and when it came time to go to the parade, we walked the 40 minutes it takes to get there.

Our dinner companions are even more local, and they knew that if they came right after the parade was over, that all the streets the parade used would be cleaned and reopened for parking. But they don’t have two-year-olds that love flowers and music…

The forecast had predicted rain, but we got lucky…sort of. Towards the end of the parade, it got really windy, and soon after it stopped, it got very cold. I had on a denim jacket and long trousers and I was quite cold. “They really should have this festival in the summer,” I quipped. After the parade, we struggled to push our stroller through the throngs of people and eventually decided to sit down for a beer. Just then, a local marching band took shelter from the wind near where we were seated, and we were treated to live marching and pop-to-band-converted music for about an hour.

This is a frame from the video. Can you imagine a float like this in a parade in the United States of America? A bare breast, and pubic hair! Cover your child’s eyes! The horror!!! I distinctly remember not only watching The Wardrobe Malfuction live at 4 AM from my home in England, but later listening to a radio report in which an American said that it was “the most disgusting thing [he'd] ever seen on television.” What a sad, sad state of human affairs. Rant over.

The video below shows almost all of the floats. We got there a little late, so they were on their final of two (three?) laps around the circuit. There was a lot of stoppages and boring waiting periods that you have been spared through the magic of video editing, so be grateful for the succinctness of the video. At the end, you can see Nora dancing to the music at the café, and the other people in a general state of joy. The Spanish do love to have their festivals, as does Nora. The following day, when listening to another marching band when it was time to go home, Nora said, “I don’t want to go home; I want to stay here with the music all night!”

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The beer festival this year had a selection of three beers: rubia, tostada, and de trigo. That’s blond (lager), toasted (brown ale), and wheat beer. Over the course of the three days, I tried them all. The lager was very watery and not very good. It later became clear to me why, when I saw them pouring it from a tap of Fosters. Blech! Fosters sucks. Ask an Australian, they don’t actually drink it in Australia; they just export it. The brown ale was Affigem Dubbel, a decent Belgian brand, and the wheat beer as Paulaner, a Munich-based German brewery. After tasting my wife’s lager and having a half-liter of the other two, it quickly became clear that the Paulaner wheat beer was my favorite, and I stuck with that for the remainder of the festival, especially since wheat beer on tap is very rare in Spain.

A half liter of beer cost 3.50€, plus a 2€ deposit on the mug, which was returned to you when you returned the mug. A 0.25L glass of lager in any local bar is between 1.20€ and 1.30€, so the festival beer was a little bit more pricy, but it was fun drinking from a big mug, and they had some pretty good live music, which was so loud that it could only be reasonably enjoyed from outside the tent. One of the bands was an excellent Beatles tribute band.

The decoration was nice, with scenes from Oktoberfest on the wall and some faux clouds overhead in the tent. I’ve seen the Oktoberfest hangings in other festivals. The tent was packed on all but the last night, when this photo was taken. This year seems to have had much more success than last year. It’s nice to have a beer festival you can walk to from home. It sure beats shopping for last minute cheap holidays to Munich for Oktoberfest. Especially since our friends in Munich, who will eventually have to deal with us crashing at their place during Oktoberfest, were inconsiderate enough to have a baby due in the middle of the festival this year.

Drinking with friends.

This beer maid looks positively German!

Cheers!

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The wedding was held at Crestwood Inn in Boone, North Carolina. It was a lovely location, with a great lawn overlooking the rolling blue ridge mountains, an ideal spot for a wedding. My parents, wife, daughter and I stayed there two nights. We had a nice little cottage with two double bedrooms and they provided us with a crib for my daughter. They weren’t exactly Tuscany villas, but they were perfect for our needs. Marga got a massage at the local spa that was so relaxing, she had to lie down for four hours. I’m not sure massages are supposed to incapacitate you like that, but she enjoyed it.

A couple weeks before the wedding we got a call from Crestwood Inn telling us that the bride had requested that someone else be placed in our cabin and that we should find lodging elsewhere. It was a little annoying, but we respected the bride’s power in organizing her wedding. When we told our friend Tom, the father of the groom, he investigated and discovered that it had not been “the bride”, but “a bride”, a bride from another wedding!! Tom called Crestwood and gave them an earful and got our room back. It was a good lesson in the important distinction between definite and indefinite articles.

All of my photos can be found on Flickr, but I’ll share a select few with you below.

The three most important women in my life, my mother, wife and daughter, all spiffed up in formal wedding attire.

My lifelong friends Jacob and Charley were born the same week in the same maternity ward. I was born in an adjacent state a month and a half later, but started preschool with them at age three. We’ve been best friends ever since. Even though I don’t get to see them very often, it’s nice to know they’re out there.

Nora – and all the youngsters – got a gift bag from Geneva, Charley’s mother.

We told her to “hold up the crayons to show Daddy”, and she took us a little too literally.

Nora drew a picture for Charley and Christanne. It mainly consisted of squiggly vertical lines of various colors.

The venue was gorgeous. The wedding was scheduled for 6:00 PM. At about 5:30 PM, it started pouring down rain. Luckily, the bar was open and began serving free beer and wine at 6:00 PM, so the guests were mollified until the storm could blow over. In the photo above you can see the Crestwood staff drying the seats with towels. When we did eventually file into our seats, each guest was given a spa towel to put on our chair. The ceremony actually took place closer to 7:00 PM, and the weather at that point was absolutely gorgeous. The rest of the night was a lovely temperature and we were treated to flashes from distant thunderheads.

Waiting for the wedding to begin. Nora ate at least a dozen martini olives.

Geneva and Tom, the parents of the groom. They feel like family to me.

The bride makes her appearance.

The groom can’t hold back his emotions.

Mid-ceremony.

Nora got a little noisy and had to be removed.

Nora’s dress was beautiful, but somehow this is the best photograph I got of it. Luckily we had a professional photo session with the same dress the following week.

“You may kiss the bride!”

Charley and Christanne begin walking down the path of married life.

Congratulations, you two! Thank you for inviting us to your wedding. We had a wonderful time.

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Once home, I turned the oven on for my pre-prepared Erik’s Hamburger Pie dish, which might require a recipe post some time. As usual, when you have guests over and are trying to impress, the pie turned to mush and ended up more like soup. But it was damn tasty soup! When your guest asks for seconds and the recipe, you have to be fairly pleased as a chef.

The conversation was absolutely delightful. It was such a rare treat to be around five other people that shared our two languages, and the conversation darted between languages without thought or planning. Seeing Theresa’s daughters is a little like seeing into Nora’s future. They are perfectly bilingual, but choose almost exclusively to speak in Spanish. I got a few “yes” and “no” responses out of Catgirl, almost nothing but smiles at my jokes out of Ultraviolet, and a few score English words out of SAM. But it was clear that they followed every word spoken. Theresa’s husband, known as The Professor, was exceedingly interesting, complimentary, and engaging…positively delightful to talk to.

Have you ever seen eight more photogenic people? That was rhetorical.

At one point, I brought out Nora’s iPad and the theory that “the iPad causes family tension because everyone fights over who gets to use it” was totally confirmed. The Professor, who is actually a professor, immediately realized that it was lighter than the paper equivalents of the PDFs he normally carries around. I showed off a few features, and then let the girls play with Gravilux, a game-ish app that is way more fun than it looks at first.

The other nice thing about having bilingual guests was that they could completely appreciate every word out of Nora’s mouth. Nora was the center of attention for a fair amount of the time, but also managed to go off and play by herself for some of the lunch conversation, which was very nice. Of the girls, Catgirl did best with Nora because she made the most effort, but no one got much further than holding Nora’s hand, except for Theresa, when they were departing, who got a kiss on the cheek from Nora, which made her feel deservedly special.

The worst thing about their visit was realizing that they live so far away (2.25 hours, according to Google) and that these wonderful visits can’t be more frequent. It’s fun having such engaging conversations, especially about parenting with experienced veterans, and especially in both languages, with the ability to switch fluidly from one to the other.

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