I was born in the year of the Monkey, my father on the Rat’s and we celebrated the Golden Pig with a nice present that “should” bring us fortune and money.
Unfortunately for me, Miffu and now Aurore, Chinese New Year is not very popular in Spain. In a big city like Barcelona there’s not an “official” celebration and even Chinese restaurant do not change their menus on this date.
Fortunately for us, we are ex-pats from Hong Kong but we have very good friends there: The 9j Clan.
They have sent us a complete set of goodies to let us feel like at home. A Mandarin orange tree (tangerine / 柑) , (our preferred Hotel and fruit that match our caps’ colours), several decoration papers with goodwill and fortune words on it, firecrackers (some special ones) and a lot of goodies that made us very happy.
But the party have just started now…
Filed under: Chan family
It looks like if it was yesterday when, in my first visit to one of the nicest cities I have been, I saw her face in a Fortress store. Immediately I knew that I won’t depart from Hong Kong without her.
Now four years after that I feel sorry about not have being able to travel to her home city this year. Soon we will be there with her sister Miffu – who doesn’t like to appear a lot in this blog- and Aurore Marie – Miffa’s twin sister that joined her after and extensive research made by Miffa and the best private eye Bunny from HK (9J)
We missed our friends Chairoko and Kiiroko as well as Nijntje, but this time I decided to buy a nice cake to avoid criticism about my home made one.
If you have an old father that is not getting older in a proper way may be you have the answer or the same problem.
Well, at least this time he was the first one. Eheem!!! The first guy who crossed the finish line dressed in his clerk attire.
What and embarrassment, but soon is going to be my birthday.
We lost some crucial data (including her training log) that after several days of effort was recovered in part. He was so pissed off that have spent several nights sleeping three hours to get things fixed.
And for some reason in his work we can not access blogger, so all our adventures and exciting pictures were waiting in a pen drive.
We tried to convince Father Bunny to buy a new computer (It’s a five years old Asus pundit) but he refused telling us that the crisis will be greater and we will need to adjust our expenses.
Fortunately his company bought a LG X110 for a promotion and he was so impressed about its weight and beauty that he bought one for us. A tiny 10 inches screen laptop for our exclusive use. We were promised a Mac Air a year ago so I wasn’t very happy with the deal.
I said that I did not want nothing running on XP or Linux I wanted my own Leopard.
Finally after two days collecting data and archives, reading different blogs and forums we manage to install Leopard in our LG.
The gilt-head (sea) or golden bream Sparus aurata (Linn.) is a fish of the bream family Sparidae found in the Mediterranean Sea and the eastern coastal regions of the North Atlantic Ocean. It grows to about 60 cm long.
The only problem is that a wild one of 50 centimetres will cost you about 200 euro or more. Fortunately most of those fishes come from fish farms and weight about 600 grams to 1,200 grams. This is enough for one or two persons and to fit inside a normal oven.
You will need.
How to cook. Pre-heat the oven at 200 Celsius. Clean the fish, but keep its head and open it from its head to the tail using a sharpened knife. Wash it gently and let it dry using paper. Slice the onions, tomatoes and lemons and put them inside the fish. Add salt and pepper both inside and outside to your taste. Peel and slice the potatoes and fry them in oil. We will use them as the fish’s “bed” put some onion too if you like a sweeter taste. Put the fish over the potatoes bed. Timing will depend on the fish size but as a general rule expect at least 40 minutes (20 + 20 each side) for a 800 grams “Dorada” About the garlic? Smash it with a mortar and add some water, throw it over the fish when you change its side in the oven.
In the past I used to have a luxury restaurant where we mixed the best from the East and the West but this damn crisis has ruined my – quite expensive restaurant- and I have been forced to convert it in an inexpensive closed menu restaurant that offers traditional Spanish dishes.
Do no tell anyone but we refill the wine bottles and other things that you always suspected but never think restaurants did.
To celebrate the great success of our latest meeting where Draculina J and Aurore Marie were accepted as new members of the Council we ordered something special.
Fresh Gooseneck barnacles (Pollicipes pollicipes) from Galizia and some Veuve Clicquot Champagne.
Of course a delicious chocolate cake for dessert.
