Japanese Mayonnaise
Hooray! I have a new illustration on They Draw and Cook!
I developed a real liking for this “Kewpie brand” mayo when I lived in Japan. You can buy it in Barcelona but only at the hefty price of 7 Euros! Those who want to try and make it themselves can use this recipe which was based on a one I found at Chef’s Armoury Blog.
Trilingual
Untitled from Johanna Bailey on Vimeo.
Nico speaking in English, Catalan and Spanish. Pardon the toddler brandishing the butcher knife in the background.
Thanksgiving Aftermath
My co-Thanksgiving dinner producers (their names are Danielle and Matthew) called me crazy but it turns out that the Catalans really love canned cranberry jelly. Who knew? (ME that’s who!). I insisted on buying three cans and although no one thought we’d even get through one, we polished off two.
Preparations. Note the Bimbo bread in the background.
Slicing the cranberry sauce.
I know what you’re thinking. Danielle’s kitchen is kind of crazy. Welcome to Spain circa 1972.
Sadly, the pumpkin pie was greeted with much more suspicion and was left largely untouched. However, we predicted this would happen and because of this, I also made a pumpkin cheesecake which was decidedly more popular. All our guests needed to hear was the word “cheesecake” and they dug right in, more or less oblivious to the fact that we’d just tricked them into eating pumpkin in a dessert. I like to think of that cheesecake as a gateway drug of sorts. Every year we’ll put a bit more pumpkin and a bit less cream cheese and who knows, maybe by 2018, the people of Spain will be gobbling pumpkin pie with the best of us!
We had fascinating guests and scintillating multilingual conversations (note unfinished pumpkin pie- even Paco looks indifferent).
Here is Danielle’s husband Tono with one of our turkeys. He is not a native English speaker. He liked the “stuff” inside the turkey and he especially loved the delicious sauce that we put on the mashed potatoes. You know, that sauce called “grimsby.” “Well,” I told him, “stuff and grimsby are an essential part of any Thankgiving dinner.” Am I right or am I right?
We were very proud. Happy Thanksgiving!
Pipes
After years of struggling to get good photos of my kids, I’ve finally learned that all you need to do is get some large contruction pipes and tell them to go to town.
We found these on the Carretera de las Aigues. For those of you who don’t know of it, it’s a long road that overlooks the city of Barcelona, perfect for riding bikes or taking a walk.
Recently Reading:
-Stalling for Time by Gary Noesner
New illustration “Big Food”
I’ve always loved the Fisher Price Little People!
Also, Nico needs a haircut and I wrote about it this week for Family Matters. Here’s an excerpt but you can read the rest here!
“Unfortunately, despite having lived in Spain for four years, I still haven’t succeeded in finding somebody who can reliably cut his hair without making him look like either Joan of Arc, or else a child who had a bowl stuck on his head in a lop-sided fashion before having the hair that stuck out unceremoniously hacked off with a pair of gardening shears. Granted, there have been successes but for the most part, I haven’t yet figured out a way to explain that I want a simple “bowl hair cut” without having it be wildly misinterpreted. And yes, I do know how to say it in Spanish- corte de tazón or corte de hongo. There is even a Spanish-language Wikipedia entry for this particular haircut (featuring the singer Rihanna of all people).
Now where was I? Oh yes, so what to do? Go in and ask the hairdresser to cut my son’s hair just like Rihanna’s? My husband is actually pretty adept at trimming Nico’s bangs but the kid’s hair is so straight that it really does require a professional to do the rest. Unfortunately, you can only cut the front, but not the sides and back, of a little blond kid’s hair once or twice, before he begins to resemble Brian Jones (Google it, you’ll see exactly what I mean)…”
Camouflage
Much to our dismay, Nico is really into the military these days. He spends hours organizing his Toy Story “Bucket-O-Soldiers” into various formations and I can honestly say that during the past few months, they have been arranged into just about every configuration, in just about every part of our apartment.
This was one of my favorites-
Luca, on the other hand, continues his car obsession which means that it is fairly safe to say that both of our children are obsessed with things that neither Alex nor I, have any interest in whatsoever. I have to say that there are times when this can make for highly tedious conversation.
Nico: Mommy, why do soldiers always have to have their hair cut so short?
Me: I’m not really sure honey.
Luca: Car! Car! Car!
Nico: Maybe because they think it makes them look more serious?
Me: Yes, maybe.
Luca: Car? Car?
Nico: But what happens if they can’t get an appointment for their hair cut.
Me: Um, well, I think that they probably don’t have that problem ever. Luca, your car is right here.
Nico: But what if they do? Then what? Do their bosses get mad at them? Do they have to go to jail?
Me: I’m sure it just never happens.
Nico: But Mommy, you just need to pretend that it does happen and then tell me what will they do.
Me: So you’re asking me a hypothetical question about what would happen to a soldier who couldn’t get a haircut appointment?
Nico: Yes.
Me: Um…
Luca: vroom vroom!
Nico: Mommy? You didn’t answer. Are you thinking about it?
Another issue is that soldiers tend to fall down quite easily and that this can be very frustrating for a six-year old who has spent “nine hundreds of hours” setting them up just so. Of course I wouldn’t understand this at all because I’ve “never been interested in anything that can just fall down like dominoes” and so obviously I “just don’t care.” At least that’s the word on the street.
A good day for a spooky mauve and brown cupcake
So we had a Halloween party and I think overall, it was un exito. This means it was “a success” in Spanish. Which reminds me of a story from long ago in New York City when Alex and I first started dating. We went to a Colombian restaurant in Queens and when I heard a salsa song playing that I liked, I ran over to the jukebox to see what it was. Then I went back to the Colombians I was eating with and told them the song was by this great group called “Los Exitos.” Now imagine yourself dining out with your favorite clueless foreigner in some roadside diner, and the foreigner looks at the jukebox and says “Gee guys, I really love this group The Greatest Hits! Are they pretty famous in your country?”
Anyway, back to Halloween. I made hot spiced wine, rice krispie skull pops, pumpkin chocolate chip cookies and cupcakes. As usual, my Catalan/Spanish guests were a bit perplexed by the food but I’m used to that by now. There was a slight frosting mishap. I was going for orange but due to some miscalculations involving food coloring (too much red plus not enough yellow plus blue does not have a pleasant visual result), but nobody mentioned it and now there just might be a large group of people in Spain who believe that the official colors of Halloween are mauve and brown.
In the end, all I have to say is that you know you’re in Spain when you leave out a big bowl of candy corn and a big bowl of olives stuffed with sardines and at the end of the night, it’s the bowl of candy corn that’s still full.
Since Halloween is over, Nico and I have decided to get a head start on our Christmas lists. So far he has the Playmobil Secret Agent Headquarters, six Smurfs and white chocolate. I have Photoshop plug-ins, an electric toothbrush, colored pencils and earplugs. When I read Nico my list, he just looked at me in horror and said “You’re asking Santa for ear plugs??” It made me realize that getting old was even worse than I’d thought it would be when I was 7 and wondered if being a grownup would mean not only asking for, but actually wanting things such as dish towels for Christmas.
Happy Halloween!
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