The Poppi, the Grandson, The Trip - through San Sebastian, Spain. They saw. They conquored.
Saturday, January 19, 2008
The Poppi and the Grandson, the Trip and Conclusion
The Poppi and the Grandson and the Trip
The Best of . . . Donostia - San Sebastian, Spain
Donostia, the Basque name, of San Sebastian is a beautiful city, twelve miles from the French border, that offers its visitors a taste of Basque culture in a modern city. The city was founded around 1180 by King Sancho el Mayor of Navara and was known as Donostia.
San Sebastian began in what is known as the Parte Vieja or Old Quarter (built with great walls for a line of defense)- the oldest buildings of San Sebastian with a district lined with narrow cobble stone walkways, great places to eat and unique and modern shops. The old quarter, however, is not very old because the great fire destroyed much of the district on August 31, 1813, which marked the beginning of the rebuilding of the city as it is today.
One of the highlights of this city is it's beaches. I think the most beautiful and restful beach is the Playa de la Concha - See here for more information.
Work began on this Neo-Gothic cathedral called Buen Pastor in 1889. It's located in the Centro District and it's one of the busiest areas in San Sebastian. When we first visited Spain, Michael and I stayed at a pension, just the other side of this cathedral. My favorite little cafe con leche place was just on the other side too. 
Buen Pastor - See here for more details. 
The Rio Urumea has always been an important part of the city (like any river). Along its banks you'll see amazing (I love the architecture) residental buildings and walkways lined with trees. It's easy to walk along both sides of the river using the Kursaal bridge to go to the Amara district. From one side you can sea the Maria Christina hotel 
Part 2 coming. Post your The Best of . . . here. Join The Best of . . . Blog Carnival here.
The Best Of . . . Your City Blog Carnival!!!! Join the tour here.
I'm just headed out the door with hubs and grandson (on his scooter) and camera to give you. . . The Best of . . . San Sebastian. And for a real treat, later on this afternoon I'm headed to France for some "girl" time with daughter Jenni and her friend Megan. I'll take my camera, of course!
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Click here to see my Part 1 of The Best of . . . San Sebastian
Clikc here to see Part 2 of The Best of . . .
Click here for my The Best of . . . Blog Carnival guidelines and if it's all confusing, I apologize in advance!
Nana and Miriam watching La Tamborrada
Miriam had been sickish this morning, so she wasn't able to participate with her drums. See here for the little ones in her class.
Life in the Basque Country - Tamborrada
Donostia-San Sebastian : Drums by the thousand 01/18/2008 One event which, while difficult to classify, is a must on the festive calendar, is the Tamborrada or Drum Parade held in Donostia-San Sebastián.
For another great post read here.
It cannot be determined with historic rigour in which year the first Tamborrada went out into the San Sebastian streets. Some people attribute its origin to the drumbeat made on buckets by maids and their companions, artisans and soldiers, while waiting for their turn before one of the three fountains that around 1836 supplied San Sebastian with water. It seems to be more correct that the Tamborrada was one of the groups of the San Sebastian Carnival. There were several before, e.g. the Valencian blind people Masquerade and the gardeners group in 1817 and the year after the Coppersmith group and the Tamborrada. The latter probably in 1836 at the height of a Carlist war. Read the rest here.
Friday, January 18, 2008
Basque Country - Summer in the USA
Chris and Megan Probasco at a high school in Bergara, Spain - sharing the Summer in the USA program with these students who will have an opportunity to "experience" American life this summer.
Labels:
The Basque Country
Thursday, January 17, 2008
Small Things in Basque Country
Bread. Small. Long. Good. Fresh. Yum.
Now if this isn't just about Basque Country's cutest, small thing.
I just can't believe how small the washing machine is. 
Oh, cafe con leche is always small. Makes one appreciate it more.
My favorite new car. The foto doesn't do it's fleshy-pinky color justice. It's so small. Just about all the cars are very small.
Mother, Mother, Mother one day. . .
Can you guess what we're waiting for? Umm . . . yup, cafe' con leche.
Labels:
Spain and Food and Life
The View of the Park from the Living Room
I'm in San Sebastian, Spain. Check out the palm tree. Go figure.
Labels:
The Basque Country
The Walk to School
Each morning my grandkiddos start the twenty minute trek to school. It's a delightful trek, great scenery and good cardio - except when it is insanely windy and you feel like Mary Poppins because your umbrella turns inside out. Here's our days return to home pics.
Just a sweet older couple. One thing I've noticed is that couples walk together and no one seems to be in such a hurry. Maybe, it's just us Americans who are always in a hurry? 
Check out the sidewalk tiles.
Amazing architecture.
I don't know what this street is called, but I've renamed it "Cardio Hill."
Santa Teresa
Cafe Con Leche, Mi Marido, and Pintxos
A moment in time with mi marido
enjoying dos cafe con leche and . . .
some pintxos
Basque Country - Sopa de Ajo - Garlic Soup
. . . from Saveur
Heat oven to 250 degrees. Wrap a 3" x 10" baguette in foil and bake until somewhat dried ot, about 2 1/2 hours. Let cool. Cut the baguette into 1" pieces and transfer, with any crumbs, to a bowl.
Bring a pot of water to a boil over medium heat. Add 6 seeded dried choricro peppers or new mexico chilies, cover, and cook at a rapid simmer until soft, about 40-45 minutes; drain.
Scrape pulp from peppers and discard skins; set aside.
Heat 2/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil in pot over medium heat. Add 8 chopped cloves garlic; cook until golden, 2 - 3 minutes. Add bread, with its crumbs, and cook until toasted, 6 - 7 minutes.
Add 2 1/2 quarts chicken stock and reserved pepper pulp and bring to a boil. Redce heat to medium-low and simmer, partially covered, until bread has separated into small pieces and the soup has thickened, about 2 hours. Season with salt to taste. Serves 4 - 6.
Sopa de Ajo
Basque - Style Garlic Soup
Garlic soup is made all over Spain, but the Basque version is unique in that it uses a special dried bread called zopako, which is unavailable in the U.S. An oven-dried baguette makes a good substitute.Heat oven to 250 degrees. Wrap a 3" x 10" baguette in foil and bake until somewhat dried ot, about 2 1/2 hours. Let cool. Cut the baguette into 1" pieces and transfer, with any crumbs, to a bowl.
Bring a pot of water to a boil over medium heat. Add 6 seeded dried choricro peppers or new mexico chilies, cover, and cook at a rapid simmer until soft, about 40-45 minutes; drain.
Scrape pulp from peppers and discard skins; set aside.
Heat 2/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil in pot over medium heat. Add 8 chopped cloves garlic; cook until golden, 2 - 3 minutes. Add bread, with its crumbs, and cook until toasted, 6 - 7 minutes.
Add 2 1/2 quarts chicken stock and reserved pepper pulp and bring to a boil. Redce heat to medium-low and simmer, partially covered, until bread has separated into small pieces and the soup has thickened, about 2 hours. Season with salt to taste. Serves 4 - 6.
Labels:
Soup,
Spain and Food and Life
Life in Spain - Understanding Basque Country - The People, The Life and The Food - A Land Apart
Perusing Jenni's old food magazines, what caught my eye in Saveur was a little front cover caption: A Basque Country Feast. After reading the piece, I am drawn to quote the majority of the article in hopes to give my Lylah Blog readers some in site into what I am learning the heart of Basque Country is about.
Sophia Perez writes:
A Land Apart ~ for centuries, the language and culture of Spain's Basque region have distinguished its people - and food has bound them together.
Borroka da bide bakarra. The words, spray-painted in bright red on a white wall near the docks in Bermeo, a fishing village in northern Spain, are indecipherable tome, so I turn to my friend Mikel Zeberio, in whose car I am riding, for the translation. Mikel, a 54-year old food journalist, former restaurant owner and cook, and general polymath, decodes the message: "The struggle is the only path." We are in Basque Country, where the graffiti are written in Euskera, the Basque language, and are hardly ever of the "Joe was here" variety.
Technically, this part of the world is in Spain, but it's definitely not of Spain. In some towns, you could pick a fight in under a minute simply by referring to the locals as Spaniards. Until the debut, ten years ago, of Frank Gehyr's Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, the architectural marvel that initiated the transformation of that city from industrial center to tourist destination, it was rare to see an international news report covering the Basque Country that wasn't about Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (Basque Homeland and Liberty) - the Basque separatists group commonly known by its acronym ETA - and its violent battles with Spanish authorities.
But Euskadi (the Basque people's name for their homeland), a place that the locals often refer to in Spanish as their pequeno pais (little country), has much more to offer than troubles, not least of all its food. I could not have asked for a better guide to the region and its cuisine than Mikel, whom I met a few years ago through a mutual friend who is a chef in San Sebastian.
Although the three Basque provinces of Bizkaia, Gipuzkoa, and Araba (as Vizcaya, Guipu'zcoa, and A'lva are rendered locally) have been part of the Spanish state for more than five hundred years, people who consider themselves Basque have been living in the mountainous, northeastern corner of the Ibe Peninsula for more than two thousand years. The Basque homeland - an area not much larger than Delaware, with a population of roughly 2 million people - had one of the earliest democratic law codes, known as fueros, and people here pay all their taxes to the provincial government, which forwards a portion of the revenue to Madrid. Further distinguishing the Basque Country is the fact that the Euskera language bears no resemblance to any of the Romance tongues spoken in neighboring countries; philologists are still arguing about its origins. "Our langugage is the connective thread that has helped this little country survive," says Mikel.
When it comes to conversation, whether it's in Euskera or in Spanish (in which all Basques are fluent), people here address a holy trinity of topics: politics, soccer, and food, though not necessarily in that order. The region is home to a plethora of Michelin-starred restaurants specializing in haute, ultramodern cuisnes, but the most common debates center on how to prepare traditional Basque dishes. Seemingly everyone has an opinon because just about everyone here cooks, including-and especially men, in sharp contrast with the rest of Spain. Basque women still rule the home, but the men have established their own enclaves, places where they are the ones in charge of the flames.
Sophia Perez writes:
A Land Apart ~ for centuries, the language and culture of Spain's Basque region have distinguished its people - and food has bound them together.
Borroka da bide bakarra. The words, spray-painted in bright red on a white wall near the docks in Bermeo, a fishing village in northern Spain, are indecipherable tome, so I turn to my friend Mikel Zeberio, in whose car I am riding, for the translation. Mikel, a 54-year old food journalist, former restaurant owner and cook, and general polymath, decodes the message: "The struggle is the only path." We are in Basque Country, where the graffiti are written in Euskera, the Basque language, and are hardly ever of the "Joe was here" variety.
Technically, this part of the world is in Spain, but it's definitely not of Spain. In some towns, you could pick a fight in under a minute simply by referring to the locals as Spaniards. Until the debut, ten years ago, of Frank Gehyr's Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, the architectural marvel that initiated the transformation of that city from industrial center to tourist destination, it was rare to see an international news report covering the Basque Country that wasn't about Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (Basque Homeland and Liberty) - the Basque separatists group commonly known by its acronym ETA - and its violent battles with Spanish authorities.
But Euskadi (the Basque people's name for their homeland), a place that the locals often refer to in Spanish as their pequeno pais (little country), has much more to offer than troubles, not least of all its food. I could not have asked for a better guide to the region and its cuisine than Mikel, whom I met a few years ago through a mutual friend who is a chef in San Sebastian.
Although the three Basque provinces of Bizkaia, Gipuzkoa, and Araba (as Vizcaya, Guipu'zcoa, and A'lva are rendered locally) have been part of the Spanish state for more than five hundred years, people who consider themselves Basque have been living in the mountainous, northeastern corner of the Ibe Peninsula for more than two thousand years. The Basque homeland - an area not much larger than Delaware, with a population of roughly 2 million people - had one of the earliest democratic law codes, known as fueros, and people here pay all their taxes to the provincial government, which forwards a portion of the revenue to Madrid. Further distinguishing the Basque Country is the fact that the Euskera language bears no resemblance to any of the Romance tongues spoken in neighboring countries; philologists are still arguing about its origins. "Our langugage is the connective thread that has helped this little country survive," says Mikel.
When it comes to conversation, whether it's in Euskera or in Spanish (in which all Basques are fluent), people here address a holy trinity of topics: politics, soccer, and food, though not necessarily in that order. The region is home to a plethora of Michelin-starred restaurants specializing in haute, ultramodern cuisnes, but the most common debates center on how to prepare traditional Basque dishes. Seemingly everyone has an opinon because just about everyone here cooks, including-and especially men, in sharp contrast with the rest of Spain. Basque women still rule the home, but the men have established their own enclaves, places where they are the ones in charge of the flames.
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Life in Spain - Chistora & Basque Salad- YUM
Chistora- Not hot dogs. So good. Really good!
Basque salad: corn, lettuce, olives, tomatoes, onons, tuna, olive oil and vinegar
Labels:
Spain and Food and Life
Hubs Brings a Big Duffle Bag of Goodies
When people come from the states, a 'list' is always given. It's like another Christmas. Hubs brought fun stuff that daughter packed.
Labels:
Spain and Food and Life
Tuesday - Spain 2008
Yesterday Jenni, Megan (team mates with Jenni & Gerald and Summer in the USA)visited the Super Amara - the local grocery store. My brain shut down.
Labels:
The Simple Home - Spain
Monday, January 14, 2008
The Simple Home - Hospitality in France
Patricia's collection of pill boxes.
Cafe con leche (in Spanish).
Frank, Maurice, Marie and Patricia.
The Simple Home - Hospitality in France
The Simple Home - Hospitality in France. Lingering around the table, listening, engaging, learning, sharing, eating, eating some more - are all part of the wonderful way of French (and Spanish) hospitality. Nothing is rushed. Nothing is so important, except the moment with good people and good food. Everything is savored - food, people and life.
More French Hospitality here.
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