January went by in a blur

As we recovered from the COLD December vacation in Paris, York, and Dublin, we found new things to do and see around town. And I did a lot of cooking and baking!  (What else do you do when it's cold outside?) 

In Catholic tradition, Christmas isn't over until Epiphany (Jan 6), when the three kings come to town. In Barcelona, that means a huge parade! I looked at the parade route through town and found that the spot where the parade turned left was only a few blocks from our house, and was supposed to come by around 7:30pm. We were only half-heartedly thinking of going, since it was still cold out, but my friend Randall was in town and invited us to join him to watch the festivities. What the heck, why not? There was even a web page that tracked the parade's progress in real time, so we could stay warm in the bar on the corner while we waited. Unfortunately, by the time the parade got close to us, there were so many people between us and the floats that we barely saw any of it. Next year, we need to find people who live in an apartment along the route so we can look down from above!  (Sharing this photo un-cropped so you can see how far we were from the kings on the floats, even though we were right at the corner.) 

We had the day off for Epiphany, so I decided to make cookies. I even grated fresh ginger to make ginger snaps. The gluten-free flour I get here is a little different from what I could get in the States, so my gingerbread cookies didn't quite hold together... But they were still super delicious crispy things! I immediately ordered some xanthan gum to add to the next batch. Between John, me, and the ladies at work, the cookies disappeared in record time. Then I had to work for two days... and then I took all of the Fridays in January off, to use up the last of my 2025 vacation. Wheeee! 

On Jan 7, we went back to the Palau de Musica Catalana for more movie music - this time, pieces by Hans Zimmer and John Williams. I picked different seats so our knees wouldn't be crushed, and I think we're going to be regulars in this other spot. We ended up right over the front edge of the stage to the conductor's right, above the cellos. Same goofy conductor, same excellent musicians. The music included: E.T., The Last of the Mohicans, Jurassic Park, How to Train Your Dragon, Pearl Harbor, Gladiator, Jaws, Harry Potter, LOTR, The Lion King, Indiana Jones, Star Wars, and others.  We're really enjoying the Royal Film Concert Orchestra. We're going back in March for their Video Game themes, and maybe the Beatles, Queen, and ABBA in June. 

Since it's still a little chilly out, and I've always been highly suggestible, I was captivated by the NYT Cooking recipe for avgolemono, the Greek soup. Especially since this creamy, lemony chicken soup has NO CREAM in it! The miracle of richness is achieved with egg yolks. (Which left me with 5 egg whites and wonderful ideas for what to do with them.) The recipe called for gnocchi, but I was able to find brown rice pasta at ALDI, and that fit the bill quite nicely. I also added some spinach for color (and vitamins). It was delicious! I would totally make this again. (I am really missing the packets of rotisserie chicken meat from Costco... sigh.)

What did I do with those leftover egg whites? Meringues, of course! I made tons of tiny little chocolate meringues - 'meringuitos' in Spanish. I used organic cocoa powder and a little lemon juice in place of the cream of tartar. The five egg whites made so much cookie batter that I saved half of it and made more cookies the next day! And yes, they look a little bit like the poop emoji 💩, but they were delicious! Super light and crispy - I put them on the scale, and it took 4 cookies to get up to 1 gram. The ladies at work are starting to complain that I bake too much. Sorry! Having too much fun in our tiny kitchen! 

The next weekend, I signed up for an international Book Club (mostly expats) that has an interesting twist - instead of everyone reading the same book, you read whatever you want, then bring it to the group (with the cover hidden) and read a passage. The rest of the folks have to try to guess what you're reading - author, time period, etc. It was super fun, and you come away with lots of book recommendations. I thought the scheduled 2.5 hours would be way too long, but the discussion was so interesting that it really filled the time. Of course, the best part for me was sitting on the sofa with 'Chocolat', (see pic) who used my lap as his personal cushion for most of the evening. 😍

This weekend, we had a few errands to run, so I mapped out a big circle around the Gracia neighborhood to take care of them. We just kind of meandered from one place to the next, checking out different shops, including "Browneria" - a completely gluten-free brownie bakery. OMG. It's a really good thing that this place is a 20+ minute walk from our apartment.  It's a tiny little storefront with a delicious selection of treats (see pic). We got one cappuccino (John) and one salted caramel (me) and took them with us. Then we found a place with Mexican groceries, like salsa! REAL salsa! We had to buy some of that, and some mole sauce, and some tortillas... I never thought about how much I used salsa when we lived in Texas, until I couldn't find it anywhere here. 

To start the new month, Sunday's big excitement was the gathering of the classic cars for the start of the Monte-Carlo Historical Rally, one of the world’s most famous classic car events. John knows that I love cars (he gave me his ticket to ride in a Ferrari at SC18, after all...) so we got ourselves out of the house a little earlier than usual (noon! haha) to go down to the Avenida de la Catedral to check them out. What an iconic place to park these sporty roadsters! There was a little of everything - Porsches, VWs, Minis, Volvos... all decked out for the race. It was really crowded, so we didn't hang out long enough to see them start. Instead, we took a different route home and wandered through the narrow streets of the old city. We found an open-air market -- the Food Artisans Collective --  at Plaça del Pi, with cheeses, honey, chocolate, and other locally made goods. John got a big hunk of cheese and some honey, and we got some tasters of chorizo and nuts. Apparently, it's a bi-weekly thing on Fri/Sat/Sun, so we'll go back!   

Happy February!