DAY 11: 'Twas Noche Buena

Shout out to all the babies in baby land.

Especially to the first person to follow me, La Cris!!! Lots of love to you!

And YES, I am talking about the baby, Jesus Christ himself. And you, of course.

To start off, I want to send love to all of my friends and family. I love you guys!

I´ve begun to worry, actually, because I have lost contact with a few VIPs from the inner circle. Please, if you see any of these beautiful girls, please let them know they are loved:

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It's a magical time of year here in Spain as I remain enchanted by the boisterous, pride driven consumerism that says Yes, even though the crisis abounds, I am able to buy this shlocking leg of Iberian ham. It's surprisingly beautiful since anticomsumerism is still viewed as a fringe movement. No shame, except for those who didn't make it quite enough to take advantage of the oferta.

Before I go on, let me please confess that I stupidly left the charger for the amazing camera my dad passed along to me in a box in the US. Thus, all photos you have seen are thanks to the little cell phone I have.

But the cell phone does not capture the night very sleekly. And that is what I wanted to share with you. Watching Carne Tremula, my favorite film by Almodovar and more or less of all time, I noticed that in the sequences taking place at Christmas, the streets were decked with lights.

Now, here I am to confirm it. There are meticulously designed street lights wishing good holidays in about ten different languages, there are crisscross technicolor snowflakes, there are bows and ribbons. But the patterns individually are not as awesome as the whole. Along one street, they stretch across, maybe every 25 yards to create a tunnel-vision effect when you are driving under them in the car. It's pretty cool. The idea that it's also an act of hyper consumerism (as I know of, the lights are not solar powered) adds that much to the ambiance of the wild shopping taking place under the lights. Anyhow, I wanted to photograph it for you but maybe not this year.

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So, it may be a pecado that I also did not photograph our amazing Christmas meal. Any of you who came to the Birthday party of HDP recognize a paella. Well, though the pan was not quite as big, the contents were like no other. La Sirena, the frozen food store had an offer on [Nicole, and maybe Flora, if we ever find you, this is where you might want to stop reading so you don´t gag] cigalas.

Cigalas are basically mini lobsters. They are equally as fierce, with big honking claws and googly eyes but they are about a quarter of the size. Let´s see if I can give you an idea...

This is what they looked like when we bought them:

Then we take them out of the box and they look like they want to have a conversation or perhaps build a temple for me:

And then they band together to take over the world...

We chucked in some red pepper, a handful of spinach and muscles to give the bomba rice a full bodied broth to soak up. As a started, we made some patata frita and an improvisational salsa brava that was actually just yogurt with ketchup. But this time, cooking the potatoes, we used the slick professional approach that takes longer but produces amazing results. Instead of frying the potato directly in the pan, we first steamed them. The result gives you crunch chunks of potato with an inside that is soft and moist. Oh boy!

Anyhow, that´s the news from Christmas.

Actually, one last phenomenal experience was the supermarket on Christmas Eve - Noche Buena. I´ve been nagging HDP about the temporary aisle that is set up in pretty much any super here during the month of December. The aisle, for weeks, held mountains of boxes full of exotic Spanish pastries and sweets.

Turrón was the one I nagged HDP most about since I couldn´t really imagine how people would eat turrón, a brick of almond past mixed with various ingredients from honeyed fruits to coffee and chocolate to the toasted yolk of an egg (which is my favorite kind). Anyhow, he explained that people slice it like bread and then serve it.

But as the days went by, the mountains of confections seemed to stay put and I started to worry about overproduction of candy in Spain (yes, almost every block in this city has a bonbonería or a Sí o Sí [a candy store whose name means Yes or Yes, teehe]).

Alas, Christmas Eve, we decide to meet at the supermarket to complete our shopping for the paella etc. As we round the corner to investigate if the super we were in would have turrón de café (HDP´s favorite) we encountered a scene from I Saving Private Ryan of exquisitely sweet proportions. While left untouched for over a month, the mountains were now empty shelves. The sweet-toothed Spaniards had struck as Papa Noel was setting foot in his sleigh. The only turrón to be found was of the sickly white kind. And as for chocolates, candied fruits, marzipan chipmonks? Not a trace. The entire stock had been systematically wiped out and I was shown what a true Spanish Christmas could never be without turróp and the trimmings.

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And here is the new cut off our our Navid'09 album. Hope you enjoy as you unwrap your new set of curling irons and golf clubs:

Alone with my Baby (Dirty Remaster) by TheFamily

MUAHHHH and huppy hulidays!

MDO