Dressing down, gown, or up?

In which roughseas goes shopping.

Wrapping myself up in my Russian countess coat, because it is freezing here in Gib, something below ten earlier today, and only around 13 degrees now, I skipped off dawdled leisurely to the health food shop for a jar of seitan.

Coping with these extremely cold temperatures means comfort food is called for, ie any sort of casserole and potatoes, invariably mashed. I had run out of tofu and so has Morrisons (nothing new there), so the health food shop beckoned.

There was an old dear in there with an andador/walking frame so I waited patiently in the doorway for her to do whatever she was doing. I know she was old because she was older than me. A bit like an alcoholic is someone who drinks more than me.

‘That’s a very sensible length of coat,’ she said, admiring the Russian countess coat which goes down to my ankles. I preened myself, or my feathers, or my coat. Take your pick.

‘Thank you,’ I replied. ‘It is very warm and hides my scruffy trousers.’ I’d pulled the coat on to conceal the totally faded and worn-out leggings. Yes, I know leggings are the fashion disaster of the last century, but not when you are tall and skinny. Possibly, if you are short and fat, but that is not my problem.

‘Is it a coat or a dressing gown?’ she asked. Innocently. I think. I gulped.

My Marella wool and cashmere coat that I bought for around £400 when I got rid of my lease car for work due to a) sciatica arse b) I wasn’t doing much mileage and c) I figured catching the bus would be cheaper? Not necessarily in that order.

Standing at the bus stop in the north-east of England merited a decent coat. ‘We’ll see how long you last without a car,’ said my secretary sagely. Not that sagely, as I lasted until I left work. Wearing a warm coat and boots, I wasn’t cold standing at the bus stop in freezing weather, chucking it down rain, ice, snow, whatever. A damn sight warmer than standing at school bus stops with a stupid short skirt and silly tights or socks plus feeble leather shoes.

But a dressing gown? It’s hardly pink or blue. I should add that Spaniards, and maybe Gibbos, happily wander around outside in dressing gowns in winter because they are the warmest clothes they own. And they don’t get up very early either. My neighbour goes out to the bread van in his dressing gown. Another wanders up the street in hers to put the rubbish in the bin.

‘It’s a coat, Italian actually, and I bought it 15 years ago,’ I said in my nicest voice which doesn’t happen very often. Patient roughseas. [An extremely rare occurence].

The Russian countess. Seems to have been assassinated in the Revolution. Headless. Turned into a waxwork model.

The shop assistant had arrived at this point. ‘How can I help?’ she asked the old dear.

‘Well last year I had an operation on my anus….’ at which point I thought it was discrete to excuse myself and disappear up the shop. Her anus wasn’t my business. I think I heard her saying she thought calendula would be good for it. Not sure what it would achieve.

I had now found not only the desired jar of seitan, but also some fresh tempeh. An excellent result. This is an extremely good seitan, made by a Dutch firm – Yaks – and is organic, in small pieces, tastes superb in casserole or fried. Cost: £7.15 for 400 gms, and the liquid it is kept in is great for stock/gravy.

Seitan and tempeh

Off I skipped, buoyed with my successful shopping, to the cheapo shop to buy some cleaning liquid for our block which my partner is now cleaning.

Couldn’t find it. Went off to ask the assistant for the fregasuelo and lejía español (Spanish floor cleaner and bleach). Oh yes, she said, in Spanish, we’ve got the bleach, and showed me some extremely expensive bleach which I didn’t buy.

‘What about the floor cleaner, the blue one?’ I asked.

’75 pence,’ she said.

‘Yes, that’s right,’ I replied.

‘No we don’t have that.’ [Although they did have some expensive rip-off Pledge products that I also didn't buy].

So I gets back home to prepare the comfort food casserole, using a mix of organic veg from ghastly Morries and some veg from the local Roccie van.

My Indian neighbour had told me about this Moroccan who comes in a van on Friday evening, parks in a car park and sells cheap veg. Off I went to investigate on Saturday morning.

All veg vans in Spain are white. No white vans in sight. But then I noticed a load of Moroccans hanging around a blue van. I approached. The novelty value for the day. The tall white guiri (foreigner – or to be more accurate – wog).

I waited my turn. ‘Pase,’ I said to a bloke who I thought was in front of me. Turned out he was one of the staff.

I pointed to the potatoes. ‘Papas,’ I said, helpfully, in case he didn’t know what they were called in Spanish.

Oh, English wasn’t on the agenda. At all. Spanish wasn’t doing too well either.

‘Dos,’ I says, as in dos kilos. Everything was pre-bagged so he brought me another bag. Did I end up with dos kilos or quatro kilos? Who knows.

Did they have chicarros (peas)? He ripped open a bag of cabbage and gave it to a Moroccan woman and then asked the younger bloke if they had chicarros. No, none left.

OK, I’ll have some nabos (white turnips). But I want menos (less). This caused a major problem. I can’t eat a huge amount of white turnips, this bag must have held at least a dozen.

He dived into the van and brought out a bag of carrots. ‘Zanahoria?’ he asked. ‘Do you want zanahoria?’ Since when did zanahoria sound like nabos? Just like carrots don’t sound like white turnips.

Luckily a Moroccan woman came to my rescue and offered to split a bag of nabos with me, because after all, we only use them for stews/soups, she said. I wonder if I paid for her nabos?

I don’t know whether I will go back there again. If I do, I need a crash course in Arabic.

Comfort food casserole

Throw chopped onions and garlic in pan. Add tempeh, and then seitan. Add veg – carrots and white turnips. Add dried or fresh mixed herbs at some point, liquid/stock and a couple of tomatoes.

Served with mashed potatoes and some fresh parsley or coriander or whatever you have. Easy and delicious.

Onion, garlic, tempeh and seitan in the casserole

Edited to add A couple of people have asked what tempeh and seitan are, so I have added a new page to the recipe section on the top bar to explain more about them.

The rain in Spain…..

…..stays mainly on the Costa del Sol and along the N340. Or at least it did at the weekend on our journey back there.

Luckily it wasn’t chucking it down, just a few odd light showers. The good thing about grey overcast rainy skies is that you haven’t got brilliant blue skies and dazzing sunlight beating through the glass. So it was a welcome change.

Returning to the finca, there were no neighbours outside, they were clearly hiding from the rain.

Pippa was most disappointed as he wasn’t allowed outside to lie in the wet by his gate.

We left the door slightly ajar for the light and fresh air and he glared at us from underneath his table den.

Preparing the veg for our meal. The Spanish are obsessed with cutting green off veg. The shop woman asked me if I wanted the greens cutting off, and I said no. If I hadn’t wanted the green, I might as well have bought dried onions, and even if I didn’t want them, the chickens would eat it. Waste, waste, waste…….

As you do in Spain, we sat and watched the rain, waited for our food (bean casserole), and considered an early night in order. I’d got the salad prepared for supper – I’ve made that mistake before, going for a quick siesta after lunch and then sleeping through until goodness knows when, and totally missing out on supper.

When the shops re-opened at 5pm we decided to brave the rain, which was bucketing down by now, and go for some olive oil. I put on one of my many leaking Goretexes, and we grabbed our huge Gibtelecom umbrella for the five minute dash down the town.

Our luck was in at the super. Olive oil was on special offer at just over ten euros for five litres. When we first arrived (some ten years ago), the good stuff was around 15-17€ for five litres. Then the price steadily increased each season until it was around a disgraceful 25€ – apparently because of some problems with the olive harvest. Really? It wouldn’t have been because there was lots of money floating around at the time would it?

Now, it’s the cheapest I’ve ever known it. Clearly no problems with the olive harvest now there is no money. Good quality extra virgin olive oil is around 12-14€ for five litres, and if you time it right, it gets brought down to 10€ or so. I think we paid 10.40€ this weekend.

I do think top class olive oil is absolutely essential. Apart from the fact that it is pretty good for you, it’s also less rich and sickly than using butter, for example. I learned from Adelina not to skimp on it, so a healthy amount always gets chucked in whatever I am cooking. I also use it for making any roux-based sauces.

Olive oil duly bought, we ran back up the street, getting totally wet and giggling away like a pair of kids playing in the rain. We ate our meal, fell into bed – and the asparagus and salad greens were still in the fridge the morning after. Note, this turned out to be a bonus in disguise, as the asparagus is now providing salad pots this week.

It was a good thing it rained out on Saturday, because it was bright and clear on Sunday morning for the Romería. Once, in the years we have been here, it has been cancelled due to the rain. They try and leave it as late as possible before they cancel, but given the preparations to deck out the caravans, buy all the food and drink in, cancel work for those who work in the fields – it has to be cancelled on the Saturday. Even worse, then they have to reapply to hold the procession on another Sunday the same month that doesn’t clash with any other procession, festival or cycle race.

One interesting change I noticed this time was the difference in fashions. I thought those frilly frocks were always the same, but no, it seems even they go through changes.

When we first arrived, my neighbour and all her pals would dress up in those frocks with huge spots on them. Awful in design terms to me. There were far less spots in front of my eyes this time though. It seems spots have gone out of fashion. Interestingly there were more skirts as well. They were in the same style, tight over the hips and then flaring out (presumably so women can actually move in them) with the essential frills at the bottom.

My favourite was the one you can just see a glimpse of on the crossing here. An abstract-patterned skirt, with a pale top and a bright gold sash. Worn with a pair of flat brown boots. Very classy. Knocked spots off the spots.

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Two confessions, salad pots, and – skins

Or should that be true confessions??

Confession number one: I’m not really into these blogging awards. Over on blogger the dogblog community used to dish them out endlessly, and like a lot of things it seemed a) competitive and b) somewhat pointless competition. The dog invariably found more interesting things to bark about, and when he did remember to post, he never followed the rules.

Confession number two: It’s still nice to receive them though! Haha. What a hypocrite I am. Not receiving them is a bit like not being picked for team games at school and you wonder why no-one wants you. Now I’ve got two awards I feel like I’ve been picked for rounders and netball teams.

Without further ado, thanks to: EllaDee for the Versatile Blogger award and The Vegan Kat for the Liebster one.

Taking a leaf out of the dog’s book, I shall of course not follow the rules.

For the Versatile one, I’m supposed to tell you seven things about me. I tell you all loads of things about me every time I write. I’m sure you don’t want to know any more. I’m meant to list 20 blogs I follow. I don’t think so. Most people don’t click on links anyway. The Liebster one suggests listing five blogs that are your personal favourites. That’s a bit more like it.

I do like the fact that an award gives you an excuse to list a few decent blogs though, and I’m going to write why I like the ones I’m going to list. For a later post however. If I remember.

But if you do want to visit a couple of blogs, both Elladee’s and The Vegan Kat’s are great. Elladee has more than one blog (who doesn’t?) so you can flit between places, words, images and more. Kat’s is a food blog with some excellent recipes. You don’t need to be vegetarian or vegan to enjoy browsing around there.

As one of the awards was passed on to me by The Vegan Kat, it gives me another good excuse to sneak in a food post. Do I need an excuse, you may ask?

I used to loathe taking sandwiches to work for lunch. The availability of food at work was appalling and in the end, depending on commitments or whether there was a lunchtime meeting, I went home for something whenever I could.

Here in Gib Working Partner only gets half an hour for lunch and hasn’t got a chance of coming home, so it’s the sandwich run for him. I open the sandwich bar just after seven to start the prep. I figure if he is working nearly ten hours, the least I can do is make some decent food for him. (I used to get paid for making sandwiches in Sydney!)

The Spaniards he is working with take a full three course meal – olives, tortilla, casserole, fish, yoghurts, dessert etc etc etc half of which gets offered around or thrown away.

One day Partner was offered some olives and tortilla so naturally he accepted (he refused the fish). The next day I was ordered to include olives in a pot so he could reciprocate. I chucked in a bit of tomato, cucumber, and some cheese so he wouldn’t be too ashamed of my food prep abilities. In fact he didn’t have lunch with the same guy so to this day, I don’t think he’s got around to sharing his olives back.

But what has happened is, that every morning now needs a fancy salad pot, sometimes involving food prep the day before. The salad pot has become the focus, the sandwiches the mere accompaniments.

So, salad pot staples:

Black olives
Green olives
Capers
Dressing

*Tomato – cherry or normal size
*Cucumber
(*when organic ones are available)
any herbs or greens that I have kicking around – but not too many

The trick is finding ingredients that are easy enough to eat, and suitably tasty. Egg is a no-no because it falls apart. Beetroot stains everything a disgusting red (so it goes in the sandwiches instead, along with onions in red wine vinegar)

Salad pot extras:

Rice
Tofu
Pasta
Potatoes
Broad beans
Cauliflower
Roasted red pepper
Chick peas/haricot beans/butter beans etc

These don’t ALL go in together, needless to add. Or maybe I do need to add that!

So a tofu and rice dish in the evening provides enough left over to join the salad pot staples. Similarly pasta. Or the veg.

Last night I grilled a red pepper and peeled it, added garlic dressing, (oil, salt, garlic) and left it in the fridge overnight to absorb the flavours. This morning it was chopped up, and with some cauliflower from the evening meal, added to the olive and caper mix. There was also a tiny bit of rice left so that got used up too.

Roasted pepper, cauliflower, olives, capers and dressing

Still on the food theme, here is a bar in the midst of the New Harbours Industrial Estate that I forgot to include on my pub crawl. Don’t know what it is called. It’s only open when the estate is open, a bit like the bar next to the Coviran supermarket.

An oasis in the industrial desert?

It’s a nice leafy looking spot in the midst of trade centres and stores. A good contrast no less – contrast being The Daily Post photo challenge word this week. Spot the glimpse of the sea between the large building and the trees.

Busy busy busy

Finally, and only very vaguely related, I see sausage skin tights are back in fashion.

Back in my NHS days, I noticed one of my colleagues had some rather nice glossy tights. As she was tall, with long dark glossy hair, and long (glossy) shapely legs, I decided I must buy some of those tights.

All went well, I too had long glossy shapely legs from thenceforward, until one day I read a description that said they resembled sausage skins. I still have some stashed away in the drawer now, never worn after reading that horrid unkind article.

I watched these young women wandering up the street in front of me today with glossy legs, and horrors ! in American Tan too – what a vile combination. And they still looked like sausage skins. Luckily I didn’t take pix of them.