I have often thought that cultivation of our land here dates back centuries, with wonderful terracing and water well which possibly might be pretty ancient. Now I need to find an expert who might date a few shards of pot. There is also a stone I found which isn't like our local stone, and I think could possibly be an ancient axe head - my husband thinks it's a ...stone.
Here are my prized finds. Any positive helpful comments please send to rachel@rachelbarker.com
Somos abençoados com uma família encantadora ao lado da nossa casa. Estou sempre interessada em ver como eles estão a cultivar as coisas, e aprendemos muito ao olhar para as suas vinhas. Este ano cultivaram abóboras enormes que se tornaram cada vez maiores a cada semana. Hoje, elas desapareceram! Queria tanto tirar uma foto de Sónia e Andreia, as suas filhas com os legumes. Aqui estão elas e não tenham um ar tão angelical! Tiveram a amabilidade de me deixar tirar-lhes uma foto e interromper as suas vindimas.
We are blessed with a lovely family next door to our house. I am always interested to see how they are growing things, and we learn lots from looking at their vines. This year they grew huge pumpkins that became ever bigger every week. Today they were gone! I so wanted to take a photo of Sónia and Andreia, their daughters with the vegetables. Here they are and don't they look so angelic! They were so kind to let me take their photo and interrupt their grape harvest.
After months of absolute drought I awoke in the night to hear rain on the tiles - and over the course of the day rain cells have been passing over with sometimes heavy showers. The trees and plants breath a sigh of relief!
Here is a departing storm over Alvaiazere Hill down from our valley towards the coast.
Despite the ferocious heat and total absence of rain some things miraculously just keep going. The grapes are starting to turn and we are wondering if my trip to England in September is going to coincide with the ideal time for the harvest. Another case of careful planning coming unstuck? We will see.
This is a shot of our entrance walkway, the vines making a perfect, enticing dappled shady path to welcome us home.
Just been to our favourite pastelaria in Cernache do Bomjardim, not far from us. All the cakes are made on the premises and super fresh, and the ingredients are lovingly prepared to make delicious treats. It is run by a team of very nice people who patiently listen to us stumbling through our portuguese!
With temperatures like these make sure you keep your favoured vehicle somewhere cool.
Here is a picture guide to our growing prickly pears. We "gathered" our paddles from Pedrogao Pequeno on 17th Feb 2020. Now in June 2022 we have our first prickly pear fruit, with flower just starting to develop.
This brave woman confronts Russian soldiers, addressing them as enemies and telling them in no uncertain terms to leave, pressing upon them sunflower seeds to flower when they are dead.
In the meantime our arum lilies have just started to flower.
You know what it's like when you hear a teeny clip of music that reminds you of something from way back, well I just had one of those moments and after an evening of searching Youtube I finally found it. Crazy Balkan guys playing frenetic music to make you feel happy. Try this...
This is from a garden in Coimbra.
We inherited 30 or so neglected olive trees, many very ancient ones with huge boles, but they were badly in need of serious pruning, if they aren't pruned they are not viable fruit producers and old wood is a source of disease to the point of tree destruction. So pruning is not only done with secateurs but also with chain saws.
It seems as though this might be the end of summer, we have weather coming in from the Atlantic bringing lots of rain for the next 3 days. Fortunately yesterday we managed to have a trip to the far eastern frontier of Portugal, very different from our neck of the woods.
 |
| Marvão an amazing hilltop walled town in the Alentejo. The sun was hot and we even saw a Black Vulture soaring overhead in the clear blue sky. |
I have tried this recipe using goat or beef, both worked well. I always use meat that I have previously casseroled. The texture is good and you need some sauce with it.
3 or 4 long aubergines
1 small onion
2 cloves garlic
thyme, mint, coriander as preferred
150ml milk
150 ml fresh homemade yoghurt
1 egg
2 dessertspoons flour
some cheese grated (sml amount)
I also added home made lecsõ maybe half a cup
Cook gently to meld flavours and textures.
line deep bowl with aubergine slices, add 1/2 the meat sauce, add another layer of aubergines, and another layer of meat, then cover with one last layer of aubergines, and pour over sauce topping -
which is made by ;-
mix a little cold milk into the flour, when smooth add the rest of the 150 ml, add to this one egg and beat till well mixed, then add the youghurt and some salt. Heat gently, when thickened and heated through pour over top aubergines and sprinkle on a litttle cheese.
Bake 30-40 mins in hot ish oven.
The top layer of yoghurt, sauce is essential for giving a lightly set slightly sharp accent offsetting the rich meat. Serve with a green salad.
24 September, we celebrated the last stage of our grape harvest. We have about 80 or so vines and make both red and white wine in a very mini micro production. Now we have 15 containers fizzing away and by mid November we can finally taste the resulting wine.
Have just submitted our last design plan to Zen Hankook in Korea - we are never very sure how many of our ideas are taken up till we go out to visit, which given Covid, is not likely for a while.
My mum's birthday would have been last month, and it is with her in mind that this design came to fruition.
Old family recipes read like poetry, calming and soothing
words - words to welcome a child home from school, phrases with evoke warm
kitchens on cold winter afternoons and the joy of returning to the family.
The phrases - so familiar, delicious in themselves - Sifting
and scattering, whisking, melting and stirring, cooling. Ingredients of intense
flavours, lemon zest and cinnamon, honey, cocoa, vanilla.
Even the writing - faded and uneven from years of use and
reference, holds memories within its familiar scrawl, recollections of motherly
affection.
With this design I celebrate the preciousness of our mothers,
whose love for us throughout our childhood was constant and ever present in
their daily acts of kindness and attention.
Afternoon spent swimming at one of our favourite river beaches, For a while we had it all to ourselves (other than a turtle - or terapin? who sat on a rock on the far side).
This huge passionfruit vine started out as a small wizzened fruit bought in Aldi in Ludlow in 2018. I kept it in the fridge over some months till it was even more dried out. Then brought it with me to Portugal where I finally cut it open and sowed the seeds. 2 years later we are eating its fragrant fruit and have just made some jam.
This has become a firm favourite with us and is definitely worth doing, I was very impressed with watching Feride Buyuran's recipe, here below is my version, I have added a few variations of my own.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJOEBF5XI-4
She can show you how it's really done! If you would like my version ...
Temperatures here are in the mid-30s and so perversely I decided that our next design suggestion for Zen in Korea should be for Christmas. We work well in advance to get manufacturing deadlines right for the season.
I wanted to buck the trend of the normal, Christmas themed
scarlet /green/ holly/ baubles motifs. Instead I wanted to evoke a winter’s
night in a forest. The wind blows
between the trees and mist swirls in the chilled air casting a hazy diffuse
aura in the night sky.
I chose 2 simple shapes – here shown is the elongated oblong
(just right for a generous handing round of mince pies) and a tall mug.
We're well into the preserving season now. The garden is producing more than we can manage to eat so I'm busily bottling our tomatoes, pickling chillies and cucumbers and have just purchased a food dehydrator.
I make a light vinegar-
1 cup vinegar (6%)
3 cups water
1 tsp salt
4 tsp sugar
dill, coriander seed - whatever is growing handy. Boil all this up for 1 min and cool. In the meantime, chop gherkins into fingers or chunks as you like. Put in a capacious bowl. Sprinkle on 1 tsp course sea salt and leave to drain. After 30mins, pack into sterile jars and pour over pickling brine. Seal and put in fridge. Will keep safely for 1 month - but one's loved ones will steal them well before that date.
Now all of our designs are sold in South Korea I have been taking a breather from showing what I am up to on my blog, but a suddenly thought I should put a toe back in the water. Here is "Painted Olive" a detail from a mug.
